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Beyond Content: The HubSpot Community's Top SEO Wins for Website Growth

Beyond Content: The HubSpot Community's Top SEO Wins for Website Growth

We all know SEO is a beast with many heads, right? You’re constantly juggling content, keywords, backlinks, and a whole host of technical jargon. But what really moves the needle? What specific changes deliver the biggest bang for your buck?

That’s exactly the question a curious community member posed in a recent HubSpot Community discussion: "What SEO Change Had the Biggest Impact on Your Website’s Growth?" The responses were a goldmine of practical advice, and as experts in helping HubSpot users run their e-commerce operations, we at ESHOPMAN couldn’t wait to dive in and share the key takeaways for you.

The Consensus: Technical Foundation & Smarter Content

The original poster kicked off a fantastic conversation, asking for real experiences beyond the usual SEO checklist. What emerged from the replies wasn’t a surprise to us, but it’s a critical reminder for anyone serious about their online presence, especially those running stores on HubSpot.

Two main themes dominated the discussion:

  1. Technical SEO Optimization: Making sure search engines can actually understand and properly index your site.
  2. Strategic Content Improvement: Refreshing and enhancing what you already have, rather than constantly chasing new content.

1. The Unsung Hero: Technical SEO

It's easy to get caught up in keyword research and blog posts, but as one community member, a self-proclaimed fan of "over-engineering" with HubL, eloquently put it: "You can have the best and newest content, tags, feature image…, but if the search engines (and therefore LLMs) have a hard time interpreting it, it’s more or less worthless."

This sentiment was echoed by others, including a HubSpot Community Manager, who highlighted that "fixing technical issues like broken links or no-index errors tend to produce the most noticeable results, often faster than publishing brand new content." Another respondent agreed, stating that "a great piece of content won’t perform well if Google can’t crawl, index, or properly render the page."

So, what specific technical optimizations were recommended? Here’s a breakdown of the actionable insights:

  • Automated Custom Schema: Go beyond basic blog settings. Implement custom Schema for every page to give search engines rich, structured data about your content. This is crucial for e-commerce product pages!
  • Useful Alt-tags for Images: Not just for SEO, but for accessibility. Describe what’s in the image clearly.
  • Semantic HTML: When building custom themes or modules, use appropriate HTML5 tags like
    ,
    ,
    , . This helps search engines (and screen readers) understand the structure and meaning of your content.
  • Accessibility Features: Implement aria-label and aria-labelledby everywhere. This improves the experience for users with disabilities and signals a high-quality site to search engines. Here’s a HubL example shared in the thread for a custom button module: 
    {% unless module.butt "" %}
   {% set btn_aria = module.button_label %}
{% else %}
   {% set btn_aria = module.button_aria_label %}
{% endunless %}

...

{{ module.button_label }}
  • Image Loading & Optimization: Prioritize image loading (e.g., with fetch-priority), optimize formats (WebP or SVG are preferred), and keep file sizes small (ideally under 150-200kb per image). Page speed is a huge ranking factor, especially for e-commerce.
  • Descriptive Buttons: Ensure your call-to-action buttons are clear and descriptive.

While a basic square free website builder might get you online, achieving these granular technical optimizations often requires the flexibility and power that a platform like HubSpot, combined with custom development, can offer. HubSpot’s built-in SEO recommendations tool is an excellent starting point for identifying many of these issues.

2. The Smart Content Play: Improve, Don't Just Publish

Another powerful takeaway was the emphasis on optimizing existing content over constantly churning out new material. "For me, the biggest gains usually come from improving existing pages rather than constantly publishing new ones," shared one contributor.

This approach involves:

  • Identifying Underperformers: Use Google Search Console to find pages that already get impressions but are stuck in positions 5-20. These pages have potential!
  • Matching Search Intent: Analyze the actual queries bringing users to these pages. Do your existing pages fully answer those questions? Update outdated sections to align more closely with current search intent.
  • Strengthening Internal Links: Improve the internal linking structure to funnel authority to these pages and help users (and search engines) navigate your site more effectively.
  • Optimizing Titles: Craft more compelling and keyword-rich titles that encourage clicks.

Updating and consolidating old content is often less resource-intensive than creating entirely new pieces and can yield surprisingly rapid results.

ESHOPMAN Team Comment

We couldn't agree more with the community's insights. For e-commerce businesses on HubSpot, a robust technical foundation isn't just a best practice; it's non-negotiable for product visibility and conversion. While compelling product descriptions and blog content are vital, they won't perform if search engines can't properly crawl and understand your storefront. Prioritize technical SEO and smart content refreshes – it's where real revenue growth happens.

So, what’s the big takeaway for HubSpot users, RevOps teams, and marketers running stores? Don’t neglect the foundations. Before you invest heavily in your next big content push, take a hard look at your site’s technical health and the performance of your existing pages. Leverage HubSpot’s tools to identify issues, and then dig into those technical optimizations. It might not be the flashiest SEO work, but as the HubSpot Community has shown, it’s often the most impactful.

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