eCommerce SEO Agency
Immersion in all things internet related reveals a seismic shift happening to the eCommerce world. In fact, online transactions in a single calendar year (2021) propelled the industry nearly a decade, and that is speaking modestly. The impacts have permanently altered the way entrepreneurship start, run, and grow businesses locally, nationally, and even globally. In turn, the manner in which consumers choose to browse, shop, and ultimately play online changes how marketers approach inbound strategies. For this reason, the best eCommerce SEO agencies are exploring options for building on business that yield more than potential growth, but also build on trust and lasting relationships.
The rapport between businesses and consumers makes eCommerce more than a transactional connection. At its surface, it requires building a brand presence that resonates and stands out among frenzied platforms, flooded with merchandise entering the scene daily. And previously, search engine optimization (or SEO) was – if not informally – thought to be reserved for content-driven operations. Definitely not aligned with SaaS products, subscription boxes, or even t-shirt and soap sales. But is SEO really important for eCommerce marketing?
In a word, yes.
Search engine optimization is one of the best ways to deliver results. For one, it can help create visibility for an online store in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), while also making products more approachable and, ultimately, discoverable through unique content creation that appeals toward consumers’ exact frame of mind. It’s an impression that can be long-lasting.
SEO Organic Results for eCommerce Shops
The reality of the market is that most eCommerce shops dive pocket-deep into paid ads and social media. Strategy includes paying top dollar for large impressions, online real-estate shares, and the maybe-buyers. If you’re looking strictly in terms of ROI, both PPC and social media management require exorbitant amounts of overhead costs. Additionally, the rising costs of advertising–eCommerce shops are quickly realizing–are not suitable for long-term, automated growth. So what is?
It’s easy to overlook Search Engine Optimization (SEO) because it requires building a foundation on content-driven efforts. SEO, after all, is the practice of optimizing a website around specific keywords to achieve organic placement in SERPs.
However, keyword optimization only touches high level aspects of SEO, and for eCommerce, it can require specific strategic insight into product optimization, technical analysis and performance that only well-seasoned eCommerce SEO agencies are equipped to carry out. The results, though, speak for themselves.
“Rising ad costs pushing merchants to focus on long-term strategies for engaging with consumers. . .” Forbes
The fundamentals of SEO for eCommerce are fairly straightforward. When people go to Google in search of products, the idea is that what you sell will rank as highly as possible to win that traffic. PPC, of course, can help achieve the same results, but at a much higher cost. Plus, ad blindness and evolving privacy regulations can reduce the effectiveness of paid search, especially during the learning phase of your brand identity. Learn more about why branding is important to start.
Why Does SEO For eCommerce Matter?
Ask any eCommerce SEO agency and they will explain why SEO matters for product search. Some common questions: Are searchers truly looking for content related to products, or is it the product directly that requires optimization? Isn’t SEO based solely on content creation? How does that translate to product sales? All good questions.
In the typical online landscape, consumers are flooded with options within any specific product or industry category. With an abundance of selection, many opt to do their own research. They’re looking for options, tips, comparisons, reviews and other information to help them make a more informed buying decision.
Having a website that populates in SERPs can help give you access to qualified and interested eCommerce customers. Your product may have space in the larger internet platform, but can people find it?
SEO provides a clear-cut way to help reach targeted audiences, intent on finding products just like those you offer. SEO can help drive solutions to problems that potential customers are searching to resolve. If your product is the answer, it should be discoverable across all search engines. And while SEO requires a concerted and consistent effort, its evergreen standings can help achieve results for long-term growth. So even if SEO takes awhile, its practices build lasting brands.
Developing An eCommerce SEO Strategy
One of the largest struggles of any eCommerce shop is where to begin building out an eCommerce SEO strategy. For existing sites, it may feel cumbersome to approach organizational, and product placement optimization. An SEO strategy using a knowledgeable eCommerce SEO agency can help provide you the correct insight for getting started with optimizing everything and all products onsite.
Content Creation for eCommerce
One of the biggest myths surrounding SEO for eCommerce is that content doesn’t sell products.
Let’s take a step back and think of content marketing as a game plan. Content marketing certainly is the process of creating original, high-quality blogs, pages, or other content geared toward a particular user or key audience member. The point of content marketing is to address pain points and issues that these users are currently facing. It’s definitely not a hard sell.
However, content marketing as it surrounds SEO is aimed to help educate and loop users into your brand, service, and for the eCommerce industry, its products. Once these key members are in the funnel, other marketing work and funnel processes can help drive them to convert.
Building Relationships Through Content
One of the hardest aspects of eCommerce marketing is achieving brand loyalty. With so many different options on the market in any given space, users are hard pressed to find brands they truly connect with. Content is a critical piece for converting searchers into fans, and ultimately into business.
The benefits of a well-executed content strategy and SEO for eCommerce include:
- Driving new traffic to an eCommerce shop
- Builds and fosters trust in the brand
- Can create a separate stream of revenue
- Provides an automated resources to help garner new followers
- Long-lasting value
In order to create a sound content marketing strategy, eCommerce brands should emphasize content that drives focus and purpose. The Brandsmen provide a personalized approach to all of our eCommerce clients. We work to identify specific of target audience members to ensure we’re answering and solving bigger picture items such as:
- How can a product solve a buyers problem?
- What is the best avenue to convert incoming content traffic to paying customers?
- What keyword search terms are being used most frequently in this space?
- Is the SEO strategy accounting for product placement and optimization?
The best eCommerce SEO agency professionals will be able to solve numerous issues utilizing tried and true SEO practices that prioritize quality content creation with technical SEO knowledge for sound website practices.
Technical SEO for eCommerce
The lifeline of all eCommerce stores are its products. Focusing energy on optimizing products for search engines is a critical step. Mistakenly, many eCommerce store owners simply create minimal text in product descriptions, use a handful of images and move onto the next.
There are several components to optimizing a product page and most of them require some basic understanding of technical SEO. Technical SEO focuses on improving elements of a site’s website in order to achieve higher rankings. It can address items such as:
- Site speed
- Broken links
- Robots.txt files
- Index-ability
- Security
Security is especially notable for eCommerce shops, as all will be accepting some form of online payment. Therefore, it’s critical that a site is addressing possible malicious virus and/or users from accessing sensitive information.
eCommerce Product Optimization
Since SEO is heavily geared toward content, many eCommerce sites are dubious to approach product optimization. Does it mean writing long-formatted descriptions for every product?
Conventional wisdom for eCommerce SEO agency professionals is that practice for gaining organic standing is largely based on keyword search terms and quality content. However, eCommerce is a different practice altogether. Search engine bots crawl and inspect product pages similar to other content-focused blogs and websites. However, bots are gaining more clarity on how to read certain aspects of products.
Enter schema data markup.
Product schema allows you to add specific product attributes to your product listings that can appear as rich results on the search engine results page (SERP). These properties include data such as:
- Price
- Reviews
- Ratings
- Offers
- Product Descriptions
- Like-Product Recommendations
- And more
Rich snippets draw attention and help break through the noise we see within any given search query. Without the right product schema, an eCommerce website may be losing out on driving clicks and conversions. It’s certainly important to meet Google’s guidelines found here. An experienced eCommerce SEO agency can help format and execute technical optimization efforts.
Conversion Rate Optimization
In conjunction with Search Engine Optimization, the next best path or natural flow for garnering sales is Conversion Rate Optimization, otherwise known as CRO.
What is Conversion Rate Optimization?
As we referred to previously, utilizing content as an avenue to get in front of searchers is only half the battle. How do eCommerce sites then convert website traffic into paying customers? As with most sites, many visitors may enter and browse, but ultimately leave without purchasing. CRO has two critical focus metrics:
- Reducing friction in the funnel
- Enhancing the value of a certain offer
The equation is fairly straightforward:
Total Transactions / Total Site Visits x 100
There are many pieces to solving the CRO problem that nearly all eCommerce shops will experience. Many of the items that should be addressed in your eCommerce SEO strategy include:
- Calls to Action (CTA): how you tell your visitors what to do next
- Conversion funnel: Once someone is onsite, what path should you be taking them toward?
- A/B Testing: making various assumptions about optimization and testing different methodology to confirm how visitors are interacting. Perhaps this means testing different product imagery, or pairing like-products together.
- Site usability: what can make the website more user-friendly?
- Customer development & testing: creating methods for better understanding potential and existing customers. What products do they resonate with more? What types of content are creating more customers?
- Analytics: reviewing site analytics to perform more testing and assess items like usability, site speed, index rates, traffic volumes, geo locations, funnel progression, goals setup, and much more. Every eCommerce SEO agency should be heavily involved in the analytics of a site.
- Reducing friction: writing for the web, or eliminating unnecessary steps at checkout can help make visitors convert more easily.
Ultimately, well-versed SEO experts and knowledgeable eCommerce SEO agency professionals can help guide you the best practices and inform you on how to make the right decisions for your online site.
The Brandsmen: Expert eCommerce SEO Agency
We are ranked among the best and most effective agencies in helping eCommerce stores to improve online visibility, functionality, and conversion rates. We are masters of analyzing data points and assessing buyer performance to make informed and strategic decisions to help boost standings and overall optimization across site pages, content creation, and ultimately product pages.
Contact us today for a free consultation and we can help assess the best next steps for your eCommerce business.
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