eCommerce SEO: How to Raise Your eCommerce Ranks vs. Amazon

(and other marketplaces)

Are there any chances for mid-sized and small online shops to get more traffic from search engines if your competitors are aggregators and marketplaces, and you are not? Yes, there is a strategy for that. We will tell you how to attract more customers to your ecommerce site using Search Space Optimization (SSO).

For whom is this article useful?

● Online store managers, top managers, ecommerce business developers

● Marketers, including online store marketers

● eCommerce optimizers and content managers

First, we need to elaborate on one point. You may see the SSO abbreviation used to describe Social Search Optimization. This version of SSO works exclusively within social media websites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and brings more visibility and more “hits” (or number of visits) to your ecommerce website from social media.

While Search Space Optimization and Social Search Optimization have the same SSO abbreviation and partly overlapping methodology, the first one could provide more visibility sources and includes social media as a part of the strategy.

In 2021, most online stores actively usе search engine optimization (SEO) — and spend a lot of money on it — as one of their customer acquisitionacquisitions channels. At the same time, the search results for the majorityfor majorityof stores havehas a position strictly outside the TOP-5, and more likely within the TOP-15. Above the TOP-15 are contextual ads, Google and Bing services, aggregators, and marketplaces. A few years ago, on average, marketplaces and aggregators occupied the TOP-5 search results; now they have even been moved down in the search results to the TOP-10 and lower positions.

And this trend is growing. Every year, search engine services take up more space at the top of page one, contextual advertising becomes similar to organic, and aggregators are increasingly pushing mid-sized and small online stores out of TOP-10/20/30, etc. search results. It’s time to admit it: The situation will not change for the better; there will be no fewer aggregators on the Internet. All that remains for the ordinary ecommerce business is to adapt, use the remaining opportunities wisely and don’t miss out on its benefits.

However, if the first lines are occupied by search engine services and aggregators, and it is impossible to break through them, this does not mean that your fate lives somewhere at the bottom of TOP-50 search results. It is possible to bring search engine users to you by using the capabilities of the leaders. This methodology turns SEO into Search Space Optimization.

What is the search space? In short, it includes all sites where customers can learn about your brand and products. Check out this list of opportunities for free search traffic (“free” means you didn’t pay for a service but did have to put in the work to get here):

I know the style guide says to lowercase it in text, but it would be inconsistent with initial caps on the rest of the bullets. So I kept it the way it looks in the title.

1. Social media sites. SEO works well for many vertical consumer niches, so this one is mandatory. Regularly post your product news on a company’s social media accounts, even if there is little activity there. Search engines will find this content anyway and increase your site’s rankings.
2. Geo services. Create your company profile on Google My Business and Bing Places for Business to manage a company’s online presence across these platforms, including the Search and Map functionality.
3. The review websites. Don’t miss this opportunity for your business, as reputation drives conversion. Dealing with reviews is, of course, tricky work. Many companies are afraid of getting negative reviews for their products. Get knowledge from search engine reputation management (SERM) before using this method.
4. Information sites. This is a wide category of search-based traffic sources, which includes both YouTube and text content sites such as Medium. Many marketplaces have blogs and online journals where you can post your guest news and articles for free, and this is a good source of traffic.
5. Websites of your business partners. This is the most loyal traffic source to you. Do not limit your presence on partner websites with just a brief description of your company and a single link. Send them guest articles to publish in their blogs and social media accounts. They will be happy to get more content from you.

These five sources of search traffic provide a great way to keep your site as high as possible in search engine results. However, remember that this is a battle that will (usually) not end. As soon as you relax your flow of unique posts about your products and company expertise, competitors can take over your search positions. Don’t let all those hours of work go to waste.

Finally, What Should You Do

Even with limited work resources, pay the most attention to your positions on Google because this search engine has an overwhelming share of the search market. However, in the U.S. and U.K., a noticeable portion of users are looking for goods on Bing.

Worldwide desktop market share of leading search engines from January 2010 to February 2021/ © Statista.

If you notice your competitors are ranking higher but providing the same services, brainstorm on what makes your company different. For example, on social media, bring up unique products that (almost) no one in the world has but your company.

Either way, we at Virto Commerce hope this post has added more breadth to your understanding of SEO trends and will help your ecommerce business better adapt to an evolving search landscape.