Advanced Screaming Frog Crawling Techniques for E-Commerce Sites

Effective crawling techniques on e-commerce sites with Screaming Frog! URL exclusions, segments, and more.

E-commerce SEO can be a minefield. But with the right tools, it can be a fun journey. One of the most essential tools for e-commerce professionals is Screaming Frog. It’s a crawling beast that can find issues on your site that you didn’t even know existed. This guide will explore advanced Screaming Frog techniques for e-commerce sites. From finding and fixing crawl errors to site architecture and page speed optimisation, these techniques will help you get more visibility and functionality on your site and more traffic and sales.

Imagine discovering that search engines don’t index a big chunk of your product pages because of tiny, fixable problems. Or, consider the conversion rate increase if your site is user-friendly with no broken links or duplicate content to annoy your customers. You can make these kinds of improvements with Screaming Frog’s advanced features. Whether you’re an SEO pro or a newbie looking to level up, this guide will give you the tips and techniques to take your e-commerce site to the next level.

Some methods that are important in terms of content and efficiency, especially on e-commerce sites, stand out:

1. URL Exclusion:

You can exclude unwanted sections so Screaming Frog can crawl the most critical content. For this, you can reduce the scan size by adding sections that should not be included in the site from the Configuration > Exclude section.

2. Creating Crawl Segments:

Screaming Frog’s “Segments” feature categorizes your site browsing. You can segment your site into different types, such as Product, Category, and Blog. You can start defining your segments from Configuration > Segments > Add. This way, you can see crawling issues specific to certain page templates.

3. Determining Out-of-Stock Products:

Screaming Frog’s “Special Sticker” feature lets you quickly identify out-of-stock products on your site. To add the URL of an out-of-stock product, go to Configure > Custom > Extraction > Add > Globe icon. Then, you can review the HTML of your “Out of Stock” message and create a custom sticker rule.

4. Scraping Category Page Content:

E-commerce sites often include content at the top or bottom of category pages. Screaming Frog can extract this text from each page using the “Custom Extraction” process. You can then transfer these texts to a chart and identify the sections that need to be optimized.

5. Finding Products That Don’t Receive Reviews:

Using unique stickers, you can find products that do not have reviews in scale. Using the web page extraction feature, you can find the star review section on product pages and extract the number of reviews. This way, you can quickly see products with few or no reviews.

Summary

Using Screaming Frog for your e-commerce site is a game changer in online retail. Following the advanced crawling techniques in this guide will keep your site robust, user-friendly, and visible to search engines. Do site audits regularly, and you’ll find and fix issues and prevent problems that could impact your SEO and user experience.

Think of Screaming Frog as your digital dog. It’s always watching your site to keep it healthy and performing. The effort you put into these advanced techniques will pay off in search rankings, organic traffic and sales. As the e-commerce landscape changes, being ahead of the curve with tools like Screaming Frog will keep you competitive. Get into these techniques and watch your e-commerce site thrive in the digital jungle.