SEO for e-Commerce Webstore's is No Longer Optional
Dunn Solutions Group
To be honest, a search engine optimization strategy hasn’t been optional for your e-commerce website for a few years now, but declarative titles have higher CTRs (click through rates) so that’s what we went with. That choice is just one of the facts of the digital market space we have in common. Other businesses may be able to fool themselves into thinking they can survive on existing brand-awareness slash word-ofmouth but we don’t have that luxury and e-commerce companies like yours literally cannot afford to risk it. Your online store’s sales will flourish or perish based on how well you respond to the fact that organic search accounts for 64% of all web traffic, that 89% of consumers will use a search engine at some point during their purchase journey, that organic results have a 25% higher CTR than paid results (AdWords), that 80% of shoppers even depend on search to find information on your bricks-and-mortar retail location. Digital spaces have simply become inextricable from how consumers will find and appraise your products and therefore have to be inextricable from the way you allocate marketing dollars to reach out to them. Having an SEO strategy is critical to the success of an e-commerce website but don’t take my word for it.
How SEO Can Impact Your e-Commerce Website You could argue that the best part of search optimization as a marketing strategy is its transparency. There are comparatively easy ways to get the hard numbers based upon which you can safely access your needs, establish realistic goals and accurately measure your SEO campaign’s results. In other words, we don’t have to be hypothetical about the potential benefits of investing in Search Engine Optimization, I can just walk you through the math, so you can find out for yourself how much you’ll benefit from better rankings. Your formula will be the same, but since I don’t have access to your Keywords, Search Console or Analytics, I’ll use a custom jeweler we’ve worked for the numbers as an example. First, pick one of your products
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then a keyword phrase you’d use to search for it online. If web stores like yours show up in the search results, just scroll down to the bottom of the results page to the “Searches Related to” and grab two similar phrases. (I used “custom engagement rings” to find “designer engagement rings” and “unique engagement rings”) Once you have your options, open Google Keyword Planner, drop your three into the tool and find the highest number average of monthly searches. Next open up Google Analytics, scroll down to Conversions, click in and get your Average Conversion Rate and the $ price of the product you chose.
Now the only other number you need is 37%, which is the average percentage of the available traffic page one rankings are worth. So 37% of 33,100 = 12,247 and 2.33% of 12,247 = 285 and 285 X $189.00 = $53,865. That last number is what successful SEO strategy would be worth to you each month on a single product. SEO is a Cost-Effective Way to Boost Online Sales Obviously there are other and some might say faster ways for you to reach into that stream of potential customers. For all its benefits, organic search is a competitive space and improving your rankings with search engine optimization takes time. By comparison, you could be on top of those results pages tomorrow with an AdWords campaign. Of course AdWords isn’t free so here’s another quick formula for you, but don’t
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worry, you’ll only need one new number 25%.That’s the difference between the average CTR for the top paid search result vs the top organic search result. So 12,247 minus 25% = 9,185 and 2.33% of 9,185 = 214 and 214 x $189.00 = $40,446 or $13,419 less than organic search would earn you and it would cost $2.85 Per Click or $26,177 in total.
None of which means you should never buy Ads, depending on your keywords they can be a cost-effective option. Even more so if you’re also actively engaging in an SEO effort. You see, your CPC (cost per click) is partially determined by the “Quality Score” of the page your Ads are aimed at and Page Quality Scores are calculated by same engine Google uses to rank your site. It works on a scale from 1.0 to 10, a score of 5.0 is neutral, a 2.0 will increase the CPC of your Ads by 150% and a 9 will decrease the CPC of your Ads by 44%. It’s also worth remembering that a search engine optimization campaign isn’t a spigot that shuts tight when you stop paying your consultants. With AdWords PPC (pay per click) ads, the moment you stop paying, you stop getting the traffic. The impact of an SEO effort, by contrast, is like a snowball rolling down a hill. The more you do, the harder it hits. The effectiveness of your SEO efforts will tend to grow as you go. Sure, your competitors may mount a concerted catchup effort or Google may change the rules in a way you have to respond to aggressively, but generally, you can build on work you’ve done to keep rising. So here’s your takeaway: If you’re currently chasing your equivalent of “designer engagement rings” instead of your “unique engagement rings,” you have a problem. If you’re responsible for an e-commerce website, and there were numbers in that first formula that you don’t have access to, you have a bigger problem. Fortunately, getting serious about search engine optimization is a way to solve either one or several between.
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