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How important is ecommerce SEO?

Ecommerce accounted for 14.8% of retail sales in the third quarter of 2022 within the United States and is expected to reach 1.1 trillion dollars in revenue by 2023.

That said, we also know that over 70% of all consumers search for new products and services using a search engine. If you are not ranking online then you are missing out on sales.

For many businesses, getting relevant search traffic to your storefront and making your ecommerce product pages more SEO-friendly is key to online growth. You need to stand out with SEO to compete with major retailers like Amazon, Costco, and Walmart who pay close attention to everything from product descriptions to social media content.

But how do you compete with big-box ecommerce websites in SERP, especially when there are over 200 ranking factors to consider?

Here's an idea: let's go straight to the source.

Ecommerce SEO Tips From the Experts

If you want to improve your SEO, hearing from the big names in the ecommerce game is helpful. 

Your ecommerce company can only benefit from the tips and tricks of some of the best people in the trade. Understanding SEO guidelines, SEO ranking factors, and organic SEO along with the bonus support from trusted leaders means you can build your online presence, increase site traffic, and optimize customer visits.

And if these tips aren’t enough, ask your peers on The Ecomm Manager for their ecommerce SEO tips and ecommerce best practices.

More people use social media as search engines

Gen Z’s online search habits are very different from their predecessors. It’s important to pay attention to how platforms like Tiktok and Instagram are replacing Google as popular ways to find information and get answers quickly. 

According to Prabhaker Raghavan, senior VP of Google Knowledge and Information, this shift in search habits means ecommerce businesses will need to have a specific SEO strategy for different platforms to be successful.

Almost 40% of young people when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go on Google Maps or Search—they go to Tiktok or Instagram.

New internet users don’t have the same expectations and mindset that we have become accustomed to. The queries they ask are completely different.

Prabhaker Raghavan, senior VP of Google Knowledge and Information

As other platforms drive traffic away from Google, now is a good opportunity to build out a solid social media presence using SEO best practices.

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AI technology will further change online search habits and content creation

With the popularity of AI tools like ChatGPT and Jasper Chat, anyone can now ask chatbot-specific questions and find answers more efficiently, which sounds a lot less tedious than typing in a query into Google and scouring each page for the answer you are looking for.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated:

With the quality of language models we'll see in the coming years, there will be a serious challenge to Google for the first time for a search product.

People are really starting to think about how fundamental things change and that's powerful. A human-level chat bot interface that really works.

SAM ALTMAN, CEO OF OpenAI

AI tools—and their ability to create content and code in seconds—make for disruptive technology that will shake things up in 2023. 

However, while AI tools can help with several use cases, generic content generated by AI may be considered spammy or down-ranked by the Google algorithm.

Emphasize entity-focused SEO

While using keywords in your HTML and copy are still relevant when it comes to SEO content creation, the importance of entity SEO is gaining traction. 

Sometimes keywords alone don't provide Google enough context about your website, especially if the keyword is too broad. For example, if your ecommerce business name is Tangerine, a person searching for your store may also be shown search results of the fruit or a popular online bank with great interest rates. 

Entities are machine-readable concepts that give Google more context about your site's content and how it should be grouped and displayed in search. 

Neil Patel, co-founder of NP Digital, says:

While keywords are still important, SEO experts now also use entity-based SEO to further their ranking efforts.

Context and relevance are becoming increasingly important in search engine results, and entities can help improve these factors.

Neil Patel, co-founder of NP Digital

Changes in your structured data and schema markup can also help provide Google with more contextual clues when it comes to creating your SEO strategy for 2023.

Create helpful content

Brian Dean, the founder of SEO blog Backlinko, predicts that in 2023 Google will prioritize helpful content rather than articles that are full of filler and fluff.

After Google’s helpful content update in 2022, it’s clear that the search engine is prioritizing content written by experts rather than regurgitated or third-party information. Dean predicts another helpful content update will happen in the coming months, so it’s important to keep this in mind when creating your SEO content strategy for this year.

Google is going to hone in more and more on helpful content.

They don’t want content that is all fluff and filler. They want stuff written by experts that give people what they want.

Brian Dean, founder of SEO blog Backlinko

Call to action

Ann Smarty, the owner of myblogguest.com and a highly respected teacher of SEO best practices, says every part of your call to action is important. Your goal is to ensure visitors engage with your site, so everything needs to be optimized.

The color of your buttons and supporting elements, the language you use to describe the action, the place on the page where you locate them, the additional elements that encourage people to act—all these elements should be consistent and support each other getting your visitors one step closer to the objective.

Ann Smarty, owner of myblogguest.com

Optimize your site for mobile

Marcus Tober, founder and CIO of Searchmetrics, is one of the best search engine optimization experts.

He explains that you can not use cookie-cutter content. You need to have a variety to optimize for various platforms. Mobile and desktop are different and need to be treated as such.

Content needs to be different when optimizing for mobile search because attention spans are different on mobile compared to desktop.

The context is also different, for example, you have different needs when searching for a restaurant on mobile compared to searching for one on your desktop computer.

Marcus Tober, founder and CIO of Searchmetrics

With Google prioritizing mobile-first indexing, don’t forget to look at how fast your mobile site loads for the best smartphone viewing experience.

Focus on speed (because it matters)

Pagespeed insights and site speed performance are significant factors in an ecommerce SEO strategy. Microsoft's Director of AI Harry Shum says:

Two hundred fifty milliseconds, either slower or faster, is close to the magic number now for competitive advantage on the Web.

HARRY SHUM, Director of AI at MICROSOFT

Slow load speeds mean a loss of customers. They leave your site before they see any of your content and drop your conversion rate. As of July 2018, Google says page speed is part of mobile search rankings. Good user experience means higher conversion and sales.

Use your influencers

When you are working in the world of ecommerce business, you need to use the influencers in your niche. If you know who the target customer is, find out who is influencing them so you can hit them directly with authentic and fresh content.

Adam Connell, the founder of Blogging Wizard, is big on using the strength of influencers.

Tap into the audience of niche influencers: There’s a growing marketing trend known as ‘influencer marketing.

The idea is that you discover who your target audience is and then figure out who exactly influences them. Then you market your content directly to those influencers.

Adam Connell, founder of Blogging Wizard

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By Finn Bartram

Finn is Editor-in-chief of The Ecomm Manager. He's passionate about ecommerce and the positive impact it can have on organizations, people, and the planet.