The search engine ranking has a significant impact on the traffic and therefore the turnover of an online store. To improve the chances of this, the store should be optimized through SEO work. JTL Shop 5 offers new features that can help increase traffic. These include some hidden SEO potential that you should definitely be aware of.
As part of the digital JTL regulars’ table in March, Solution360 discussed the topic in detail and received a lot of feedback from the participants. Of course, we don’t want to withhold the most important findings from the entire JTL community.
Search engine optimization is based on this
Before looking at the specific potential, it is important to briefly understand the SEO basics. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. If the content of a website is relevant and optimized for a search engine, it will be ranked at the top of the search results. SEO therefore increases the chances that your store pages will rank higher for certain keywords and thus generate more traffic. Basically, the higher you are ranked in the search engine results, the higher the probability that the user will click on the corresponding URL.
When people talk about search engine optimization, they usually start with Google. In order to optimize your ranking, it is therefore important to understand how Google works. The search engine crawls the World Wide Web on a daily basis, using so-called bots to search for new URLs on the one hand and known URLs on the other. Links are mainly used to get from page to page. The second task of the Google bots is to analyze and interpret the websites in order to store them in a categorized form. This process is called indexing.
If the user enters a search query in Google, the Google index is checked for suitable search results in a fraction of a second. Additional factors such as language, location, device and previous search history are used to narrow down and display the best results.
The optimization of these three sub-areas is the main task of SEO work. An improvement in these areas can be achieved, for example, by incorporating internal links, which improves crawlability. In order to optimize the presentation in the search results, structured data can be added, for example.
The SEO case study of Tabakhaus24 shows the positive influence of search engine optimization. Here too, the SEO potential of the JTL store was fully exploited.
The SEO potential of JTL-Shop 5
To improve your Google ranking, you should know and use the hidden SEO potential of JTL-Shop to ultimately increase your online store’s traffic.
1. potential - optimization of the sitemap
The sitemap is a file in which the relationships of a website are displayed. This enables Google bots to find and search through all of your store’s URLs more efficiently.
In JTL-Shop 5, customizing your sitemap is child’s play. The sitemap settings can be found under “Administration -> SEO -> Sitemap”. Here you can configure which pages should be included in the sitemap. Your settings should definitely be adapted to your store. For example, if you do not have a news or blog area, it is not necessary to include this in the sitemap.
It is also advisable to activate the synchronization with JTL-Wawi. This updates the sitemap automatically as soon as you make changes in the merchandise management system and these are transmitted to the online store.
Removing child articles from the sitemap also offers great optimization potential. Child articles are articles that are derived from the parent article and are almost identical in terms of content. By excluding this article group, crawling budget can be saved and the Google bots have more time for other relevant pages of the store.
The sitemap of your JTL store has the following link:
“Your store URL” + “/sitemap_index.xml”
Example www.solution360.de/sitemap_index.xml
You can submit this link free of charge in the Google Search Console and also in the Bing Webmaster Tools. This makes it easier for Google and Bing to crawl your store pages. Bing is the second most used search engine in the world after Google. In addition, the sitemap from Bing Webmaster Tools is also used by Ecosia and DuckDuckGo, the third and fourth most used search engines in the world.
2nd potential - Maintain global settings correctly
There are also various customization options in the global settings that influence the search engine ranking. You can easily find the corresponding options in your store with the help of the setting number (EN).
EN: 1675
With this setting, you can manage whether article pages of sold-out articles should remain accessible. In the case of seasonal products, for example, the corresponding items do not have to be accessible all year round. This allows Google bots to use their limited time for existing pages for longer.
In contrast, products that are currently sold out but are usually permanently available should remain available. This allows the ranking to be preserved for a short time.
EN: 122
This setting can be used to release content for a specific user group. You can choose between three different settings:
EN: 192
With this setting, you can automatically redirect your users to the more secure “https” version of a page. Google has required the use of https since 2014, so this should now be standard for every store.
3. potential - store alt tags
Alt tags are attributes that can be attached to images in order to be displayed as an image alternative. This alternative is always displayed if the corresponding image is no longer available (see example Google Pixel Buds from the Google Store).
In addition, blind people can have the content of the image read out to them with the help of a screen reader if an alt tag has been added. Above all, however, alt tags are important because Google uses this information for interpretation and rankings within the Google image search. For an all-encompassing SEO strategy, it is therefore advisable to maintain alt tags.
Open the “Item master data” area, upload an image, create an img_alt_1(2,3) attribute (Attributes/characteristics -> JTL-Shop) and enter a suitable alt text.
Note: Alt tags can only be created for the first three product images.
4. potential - maintain content
Content is essential in SEO. If you maintain your content correctly, you not only help your users, but also Google to understand the content of a page. For example, to ensure that your category texts provide added value for the user as well as for the ranking, the following points should be taken into account:
If we stay with the example of the category page, it is advisable to set the text length in relation to the number of products. As a rule, this means that the more products there are on a category page, the longer the text can be from an SEO perspective.
You can maintain the content on category pages in three different ways:
JTL makes SEO easy
With the potentials listed, it’s easy to get the most out of your JTL Shop 5. If you are unsure, get help from competent SEO consultants. Many e-commerce agencies, such as Solution360, also have their own SEO department to provide you with help and advice.
Are you using JTL-Shop 4 and want to improve the search engine ranking of your online store? To exploit the full SEO potential of JTL-Shop, we recommend the free upgrade to JTL-Shop 5.
