There was a time when ecommerce was an outlier business. Retailers were taking a significant risk by putting their operations online. That is no longer the case. Yet any online retailer who wants his fair share of the market needs to be willing to play the game. A big part of that game is ecommerce SEO.
How big is the market? Global ecommerce is expected to exceed $6.3 trillion in 2024. Indeed, ecommerce is so prolific that it is almost too difficult to wrap your brain around. Even more reason to invest in ecommerce SEO. It matters to every online retailer, whether individual operators know it or not.
Webtek Digital Marketing is a Salt Lake City, UT SEO provider that includes ecommerce SEO on its list of services. They say ecommerce SEO should matter to every online retailer for the following three reasons:
1. Search Engines Drive Traffic
Online shoppers sometimes hit the internet knowing exactly what they want and where to find it. Other times, they know what they want but are not sure from whom to buy. Still other times, shoppers are simply browsing. Yet they all have one thing in common: searches.
Imagine the shopper who needs a particular product but does not know where to find it or how much she should be prepared to pay. Chances are she will start on Google, Bing, or another search engine. Ecommerce operators looking to do well on search engine result pages (SERPs) rely on ecommerce SEO to make that happen.
Now, imagine a shopper who knows exactly what he wants. He also knows that he is going to buy it on Amazon. So what does he do? He goes to the Amazon homepage and enters his preferred product into the on-site search engine. Same deal. Every retailer who hopes to come up in that customer’s search had better be utilizing ecommerce SEO.
2. Shoppers Are Intentional
Online shopping constitutes a type of internet activity different from virtually everything else. Most important is the fact that online shoppers are intentional. They are already intending to buy something when they start the shopping experience. Whether they buy that same day or a week down the road, buying is the whole point of shopping.
Ecommerce SEO not only drives traffic, but it also helps convert browsers into paying customers. Doing so means driving qualified traffic and then sealing the deal when that traffic arrives. Is nearly impossible to do without practicing sound SEO.
3. Results Can Impact Future Traffic
Some ecommerce platforms – here’s looking at you Amazon – reward retailers for both traffic and sales. The more frequently customers view and buy a particular product, the better that product does in on-site searches. The better a retailer does overall, the better his individual product pages will perform on SERPs.
Here is the problem: there is no way to build momentum without driving traffic and making sales. So Amazon sellers need a way to get traffic to their product pages before Amazon’s algorithm can take notice of it. Ecommerce SEO was designed to make that happen.
They Won’t Come by Themselves
If there is one thing ecommerce can guarantee it is this: just building an ecommerce site or listing products on Amazon or eBay doesn’t guarantee sales. Customers will not come just because you put a few products online. You need to go get them. You need to invite them to your product pages.
Ecommerce SEO lays the foundation for driving traffic and attracting business. If you run an ecommerce site but are not practicing sound SEO, you are ignoring an invaluable resource.