RankBrain for e-commerce websites: How to harness it.

September 22, 2023 | E-Commerce

In today’s era, every other person is an entrepreneur, and e-businesses are emerging daily. As per studies, there are around 24 million eCommerce sites on the internet!

Joey shocked gif

Well, the chances of your e-business getting lost in this vast crowd is possible, meaning you can lose valuable customers. Don’t worry; we are not here to demotivate you.

Instead, we are here to give you tips on how to get RankBrain’s attention toward your website so that traffic, CTR, and conversions increase.

So, put your seatbelts on, as this ride will break all traffic rules!

What is RankBrain?

Whether you are in digital marketing or not, you must be aware of Google’s continuous mood swings, leading to numerous Google algorithm updates timeline

As per studies, Google provides around 600 algorithm updates annually, which means around two daily updates!

say what shocked gif

However, we are here to discuss one of its important updates: RankBrain, the third most essential factor you should consider if you want your website to rank.

Google Hummingbird update icon

Rankbrain is a part of Google’s Hummingbird update. It is an AI-based system that understands the users’ search intent and delivers results in less time so that users don’t have to modify their search query to get the desired results.

How Useful is RankBrain for eCommerce Websites?

RankBrain uses the data gathered from users’ interaction with search results. Like whether they stayed on the website to read the information or returned quickly to other pages. Based on this, the AI-system ranks eCommerce stores and websites on the search engine.

RankWatch Analytics dashboard

To understand your eCommerce site’s dwell time and bounce rate, you need to use RankWatch Analytics. It shows important metrics for all your web pages, like, the number of unique and recurring visitors, change in rankings, traffic percentage, etc., based on which you can optimize your website for RankBrain. 

You can easily integrate your Google Analytics with RankWatch and get detailed insights on your website.

Silhouette of man’s brain with gears

As stated above, RankBrain is considered the 3rd most important ranking factor, meaning you should never ignore it at any cost. 

What are the remaining two ranking factors? Well, they are content and links. 

While you can improve content quality with practice, RankWatch’s online backlink checker will help you with internal linking. 

Our backlink analyzer is specifically designed to help digital commerce websites with their link building game. Enter your domain’s name and the tool will showcase all websites that are linking back to you along with their contact details, link types, URL address, anchor texts, and other metrics.

How to Harness RankBrain for eCommerce Websites?

Three people viewing an eCommerce site

But how can RankBrain help eCommerce businesses get customers, or rank in Google for that matter?

It is well-known that the internet has tons of eCommerce stores present, and getting ignored in this field is quite common.

Even if your services and products are good, you won’t get any sales if your website does not appear on the 1st SERP page. And to make that possible, you need to please RankBrain.

Why? Because RankBrain is responsible for eCommerce site rankings on Google. But, as we know, Google never discloses what factors you should utilize to get good rankings.

That’s why we are here to help your eCommerce store achieve first-page rankings within no time. You just need to follow these tips, and you are good to go.

1. Quality Over Quantity

Quality over quantity

Gone are the days when Google used to rank content based on the number of keywords instead of its quality. But now, Google has become smart, and with advanced AI systems like RankBrain, fooling the search engine by stuffing keywords is a lame move.

Your eCommerce store should have quality content, including detailed product descriptions showcasing their benefits, proper landing pages with important information, and high-quality articles in the blog section.

RankWatch Content Editor dashboard

RankWatch’s Content Editor will mentor you in developing quality content that matches users’ search queries, has all the necessities, and will bring you traffic. 

  1. Visit the SEO IQ section of RankWatch
  2. Select the “Content Editor” option from the bar
  3. Enter the primary keyword, URL address, and location in the dialog boxes
  4. Click on the “Search” option, and the results will appear within seconds

You will see that the content of the entered URL address is present in the Editor’s dialog box, where you can directly edit and save the content.

RankWatch Content Editor bar

Besides, the Content Editor bar contains important metrics, like word count, number of headings, readability score, and optimization status, along with the recommended range for each one. You can edit content as per the recommended range or the suggestions that our Editor provides. 

2. Choose Keywords Wisely

Two people researching keywords

When discussing keyword optimization, we do not mean optimizing your website for one or two popular keywords as they won’t take you far in the race for the top position.

Google has diverted attention from popular to relevant, long-tail, and broad-match keywords.

What does this mean for your eCommerce business? It means that while optimizing a product with a popular keyword, you must also consider relevant or similar keywords that will go with the product.

RankWatch’s keyword researcher dashboard

RankWatch’s keyword researcher will be your knight in shining armor and rescue you from the distress of finding similar keywords with good search volume. Here are the steps to use Keyword Researcher.

  1. Enter your product’s name or any industry-related word that best describes the product
  2. Select the location for which you want the metrics
  3. Select whether you want the keyword’s phrase or broad matches
  4. Click on the “Search” option and wait for the results

The tool will display tons of matching keywords along with their search volume, difficulty level, and PPC value. There’s also a question-based section that shows the keyword-based questions that users search for. You can use them for designing headings and FAQ sections.

3. Understand Users’ Search Intent

Three people pointing at “SEARCH” on webpage

If you want RankBrain to consider your website as a factual and trustworthy one, then you need to understand your users’ search intent.

You need to know what the user is searching for when they click on your store. For this to happen, you must place yourself in the user’s shoes and see what they mean when they type in their search query.

For example, when a user types “best hair dryer,” they aren’t searching for a brand that declares its hair dryer as the best in the market. Here, they are looking for a long-form article or listicle that compares several hair dryers and states the pros and cons of each one.

So, before you optimize your eCommerce store, ensure you understand the user’s search intent, or else the metrics will go down.

4. Clickable Headings

Three clickable headings example

The next thing you need to focus on for RankBrain to pay attention to your website is developing clickable headings. You might think that headings do not matter much, but believe us, headings play a major role in improving your eCommerce site’s rankings.

Studies have shown that users pay attention to headings that contain numbers, emotions, power words and evoke curiosity and interest.

However, for eCommerce businesses, headings that are to the point, and do not have unnecessary characters or information, are considered ultimate.

5. Crisp Meta Tags

Crisp meta tags

Like headings, meta tags also play a major role in the ranking of your website. Meta tags are the basic summary of what the website contains and are displayed just below the headings on the results page.

Based on your meta description, users decide whether viewing the site is worthy or not. Moreover, even RankBrain goes through the meta tags to understand whether it matches the users’ search intent or not.

So, make sure to design meta tags that are relevant to your website and describes it perfectly.

6. High Dwell Rate, Low Bounce Rate

Difference in dwell and bounce rates through graph

RankBrain is an AI system that is still learning new things every day. It observes the users’ search pattern, time spent on each page, and various search queries to understand what exactly the user is looking for.

Based on the data collected, RankBrain rearranges the indexed sites and changes rankings continuously to satisfy users’ search queries. 

If a user stays on your website longer than expected, RankBrain understands that your site delivers information that the user is looking for, thus increasing your dwell rate and rankings.

But, if the user immediately backs out of your website, it increases your bounce rate. RankBrain collects this data and makes it a point not to show your website again in any other similar search query.

RankWatch Analytics dashboard

As stated earlier, you can easily determine your eCommerce site’s dwell and bounce rates with RankWatch Analytics. Simply integrate your Google analytics with RankWatch, and you will get all the details in one place. 

There are several ways through which you can increase your site’s dwell time and decrease the bounce rate.

Website Design:

three people designing a website

Most users back out from a website because of its design. Why? That’s because most websites have bold or inaccurate designs, ads covering the content, and no specific format. 

If the website does not have a user-friendly layout, is difficult to navigate, and makes it impossible for the user to view the information, its bounce rate will increase tenfold. That’s why make sure that your website design is minimalistic, easy to understand, and navigation friendly.

Page Loading Speed:

girl waiting for a website to load

Nobody likes to wait for a long time just to get some information. If your page loading speed is more than 5 seconds, then users will switch to other sites to get information. You can improve your page’s loading speed by optimizing images and video quality, decreasing the page size, and other factors that affect page loading speed. 

You can check your website’s speed and analyze other important factors with our website analyzer. By entering your domain address in our SEO analyzer, you will get details on your eCommerce site’s page speed, sitemaps, major issues, backlinks overview, and much more. Our tool analyzes your website on several factors and then provides the results.

Mobile Friendly:

Two people using eCommerce site on mobile phones

Majority of searchers use mobile phones to conduct search queries. And eCommerce sites that are not mobile-friendly receive low CTR and conversions. 

That’s why, once you have designed a website, you need to check for its mobile friendliness.

RankWatch’s mobile friendly checker dashboard

RankWatch’s mobile-friendly checker is the best tool in the market to test your website’s mobile-friendliness status. All you have to do is enter your website and email address, and you will get the results within seconds.

Summing Up…

RankBrain is an important ranking factor that eCommerce sites or digital commerce stores should never ignore. Basically, RankBrain is the barrier that decides which websites to display and which ones to place at the back. 

Though Google never discloses what factors you should consider to rank your websites, the above tips and tricks will help you in getting desired results. Besides, RankWatch is always here to help you out. 

Whether you want to view your internal linking game, analyze your website, or simply want to get a gist of Google algorithm updates timeline, RankWatch is here to help you. 

I hope this blog was helpful.

See you soon!

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