Published on May 22, 2012 Search engine challenges and solutions for ecommerce websites
On top of the usual marketing challenges facing any website marketing initiative, ecommerce websites have an additional hurdle to overcome – how to provide relevant and unique content for the search engines.
The challenge for ecommerce sites comes when the products and services of your site are the same as the ones your competitors offer. Which site will the search engines rank higher? The one that was there first? The one with the most information? The one with the least? The one with more links? Which one? What can you do about it?
The answer to the question is of course up to the search engines, but there are some insights that you can gain to help you shape the strategy for your own ecommerce site. The starting point is to understand that the recent search engine updates by Google have clearly signaled what Google values now and intends to value further in the future: quality content. If your products are your sites content and you have the same products as your competitors then your site may be seen as offering little additional value.
What can you do about this?
There are a number of places you can start. Firstly think about where your content comes from – your product descriptions. Try writing unique product descriptions for your products. If you have tens of thousands of products and this is infeasible for you, then you could write unique descriptions for your best sellers or at a minimum for your category pages.
You could also start a blog on a Google site or on WordPress to tell the world about things that are relevant to your website and industry with links back to your site. Don’t shamelessly sell your products in your blog or your blog will gain no traffic and won’t be perceived as valued. Google watches what people are searching for and if people start searching for you, the search engines do notice – even if you don’t realise it.
Using the content management systems built into your online store’s software can also assist you to build landing pages or deal pages that can draw in extra traffic. You can also use your store’s promotional tools in combination with content pages to promote any specific promotions you are running (like category sales (e.g. 20% off all shirts) or extra hot product deals. If you have the latest product in the world, tell people about it.
Use your social media pages to encourage visitors to interact with your brand. Use Twitter and Facebook to encourage interactions with your business and drive traffic to your site. Advertise promotions and special offers on your social media pages.
One other thing you should not overlook is a strategy that applies in financial management – diversification (not putting your eggs all in one basket). This means that you should not rely on any one source of traffic for your website whether that’s a particular search engine like Google or any other means. If that source is taken away then how can you recover?
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