Small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) make up a staggering amount of the Amazon marketplace. In fact, over half of all items on Amazon come from SMBs, according to a 2019 Amazon report. And every sale starts with a shopper typing in just a few simple keywords.
For any brand in any industry, hitting the upper echelons of the search results can be a challenge — there are many competitors (2.5 million sellers are on Amazon alone). That’s why investing in an ecommerce search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy is so important, brands can enhance product discovery, increase critical market share, and improve conversions and sales.
What Is Ecommerce SEO?
Ecommerce SEO assists brands to rank higher in consumer search results on retailer websites like Amazon. Like traditional SEO, the basis for a strong strategy is reliant on updating every page to optimise discoverability in relevant searches.
Consider this — a shopper is looking for protein supplements on Amazon. In one search for “protein supplements” they will find over 4,000 options, that’s a lot of competition for manufacturers to appear on the first page of search results.
Luckily, the majority of shoppers use more descriptive language when shopping online; language that can be leveraged with ecommerce SEO to optimise chances of ranking higher in the results. Adding in specifying terms like “bars” and “vegan” the results are trimmed down to only 150 options with more curated results.
Launch an Ecommerce SEO Strategy in 4 Steps
Four critical steps are required for a robust ecommerce SEO strategy to both measure and meet success: establish clear goals, gain insights, develop a streamlined update process, and ensure easy access to engaging content experiences.
Step 1: Establish Ecommerce SEO Goals
If you wish to succeed, you must first define what you’re hoping to accomplish. Required for any winning strategy, defining clear goals at the beginning can help ecommerce teams stay focused. For every step from development and publication of product content to review and optimisation, having explicit SEO goals will keep your teams aligned and uncover opportunities for improvement and success.
Conversion and sales are typically the most important metrics for ecommerce teams, but don’t lose sight of other measurement areas that can assist meeting your goals. For example, improving share of search (the percentage of the search results including your specific brand) can help teams increase brand exposure and gain competitive advantage.
Step 2: Take Action With Ecommerce SEO Insights
Clear insights into your ecommerce performance is absolutely crucial for brands to make informed decisions. Otherwise brands are left trying to hit the bullseye with their eyes closed. Brands can gain a holistic perspective on their product performance through an analytics dashboard, such as Salsify Insights, to develop data-based strategies.
The Salsify SEO Report uses machine learning technology to create keyword suggestions for your Amazon product pages. With this, brands can offer a much-needed assist for their products on search pages — without manually performing time-consuming keyword research. Additionally, brands can understand what their competitors are using as keywords within their product pages, offering brands strategic advantages over their competitors.
If a brand was selling men’s athletic apparel, for instance, the Salsify SEO report would likely suggest more specific language, such as “running shoes” or “compression shorts” to amplify that brand’s search ranking and acquire new consumers who might not have found them otherwise.
The Salsify Share of Search Report homes in on all pertinent search terms and calculates a brand’s percentage, “share,” of the results relative to their competitors. Oftentimes, your competitors aren’t beating you in quality or price, but in search results.
For teams with manual processes, keyword research is vital. Rob Gonzalez, co-founder and CMO at Salsify, suggests asking yourself the following questions to identify top-performing ecommerce keywords:
- What terms are buyers using in reviews?
- What are the high-performing keywords in paid campaigns?
- Which keywords drive organic search to product pages currently?
Step 3: Establish a Streamlined Optimisation and Activation Process
Brands are used to managing a vast range of retail content requirements. Each retail site wants their shopping experience to be unique, which requires brands to update and adapt content to fit with every channel. WIthout a streamlined syndication and activation solution, this process eats up valuable time and limits ecommerce teams’ abilities to make the regular updates needed for a successful SEO strategy.
The Salsify Syndication solution helps brands maintain a variety of versions of their product content — each one fitting unique retailer requirements — and easily update product content across these channels. This allows brands to regularly apply SEO updates to ensure continuous optimisation.
Optimisation is the key to success for leading brands. Brands can regularly review and update product pages to improve search rank using a streamlined syndication and activation solution. The frequency and cadence of this process is reliant on your team's bandwidth, but analysing the monthly Salsify Share of Search and SEO reports is an advantageous place to begin.
Step 4: Ensure Engaging Content Experiences
Engaging content is the root of every top-performing SEO strategy, and that goes doubly for ecommerce. Brands’ SEO journeys don’t begin and end with updating product pages with relevant keywords for each retailer site. Shoppers want immersive content experiences, and providing helpful and compelling product content helps them experience — not just see — products.
Salsify Enhanced Content helps brands create high-quality online experiences for consumers. Brands using Salsify Enhanced Content have experienced up to a 10% improvement in conversion across categories, according to 2019 internal Salsify data.
Enhanced Content Features:
- Image galleries
- 360-degree image spins
- Graphics
- Comparison charts
- Videos
- Downloadable PDFs
Using a variety of multimedia elements help to bring your product page alive and provide the information buyers expect to make their final buying decision. This content is vital for a strong SEO strategy, as it helps avoid drop-off and helps you connect better with shoppers.
Find Success at the Top of the Search Results
How many of your products will be part of the 4,000-per-minute purchases on Amazon? With focused goals, a streamlined launch and optimisation process, and a focus on quality content, your brand can reach new heights on the digital shelf.
