Out-of-Stock Products: How to Protect Your Ecommerce SEO
When operating an ecommerce website, it is natural that products will go out of stock with some regularity—especially for distributors who source items from multiple suppliers.
Maintaining a positive user experience is one of the biggest concerns among retailers who are navigating inventory issues. Yet retailers are often surprised to learn that SEO should also be among their top priorities when dealing with an out-of-stock product.
Below, we will discuss how ecommerce websites should handle out-of-stock product SEO in order to maintain both their traffic and revenue levels, as well as customer satisfaction.
What NOT to Do With an Out-of-Stock Product
Before diving into what retailers should do when an item goes out-of-stock online, let’s first talk about what you should never do. Here at Whitecap SEO, the single most common mistake we see our clients making is deleting the product page when inventory runs out.
Why is this such a bad idea? When you delete a webpage, you effectively negate any and all SEO value the page generated while it was live on the site, along with any backlinks to the page. This ultimately hurts the overall SEO health of your ecommerce website.
Additionally, customers who may have bookmarked or otherwise saved that product page will no longer be able to locate the product they were interested in (or a potential replacement product). Rather than waiting around for the product to come back in stock on your site, most customers will look elsewhere or simply lose interest.
If and when the product comes back in-stock, creating a new product page won’t generate the same value as the old page for quite some time, as it takes a while for SEO results to kick in.
How to Effectively Handle Out-of-Stock Products
So, how should online retailers handle out-of-stock products to achieve the best results? First, consider whether the product is permanently out-of-stock or temporarily out-of-stock. This will determine the best option for addressing both SEO and user experience.
Permanently Out-of-Stock Products
If the product is permanently out-of-stock, it’s okay to go ahead and delete the product page—but don’t stop there, or you will run into the search optimization issues we outlined above. Instead, recruit an SEO expert to create a 301 redirect (not a 302 redirect) to send users to a representative product or category page.
If no close matches for the out-of-stock product exist, 301 redirect from the product page to the homepage instead. This will prevent shoppers from running into a 404 error message, and ensure that they remain on your site to continue browsing rather than immediately becoming frustrated and clicking away.
Temporarily Out-of-Stock Products
If the product is temporarily out-of-stock and will be returning to your inventory in the near future, you have more options available:
Option #1: Leave the product page as-is, but disable ordering capabilities. This will preserve all on-page SEO value while preventing customers from placing an order, until it comes back into stock and the order can be fulfilled.
Option #2: Leave the product page up with disabled ordering, but add a note explaining that the product is currently out-of-stock. Include a simple email capture form on the page, and let customers know that they can enter their email address and receive a notification when the product comes back in stock. This option retains the page’s SEO value and guides the user to make a future purchase decision.
Option #3: Leave the product page up with disabled ordering, with a note explaining that the product is currently out-of-stock. Link to several suggestions for similar in-stock products that customers might be interested in purchasing instead of the out-of-stock product. This option retains the page’s SEO value and guides the user to make a current purchase decision.
Option #4: Reduce the visibility of the product page by removing it from search and all category pages. This may reduce a bit of the SEO value as the number of internal links pointing to the product page from category pages will decrease. However, it also reduces the risk of users finding the page by browsing the site, then becoming frustrated that they are unable to purchase the product.
Whether your business has developed its own ecommerce system or uses an ecommerce platform like BigCommerce, Magento, Volusion, or Shopify, out-of-stock products need to be handled properly. Checking inventory regularly and enabling your systems to talk to one another to provide accurate data, a positive user experience, and more conversions is one of the main considerations for ecommerce SEO. By being mindful of both SEO and user experience when dealing with out-of-stock products, you are not only preventing future headaches but are also increasing the potential for users to make more purchases both today and in the future.
The SEO experts at Whitecap can evaluate your ecommerce site performance, determine the best method for dealing with out-of-stock products, and implement all redirects. Contact us today to request a free quote and learn more about our ecommerce SEO capabilities.