The ability to drive new customers can make or break an eCommerce business. In the race to outrank competitors and increase revenue, traffic generated from an organic search can be integral. And this is where Search Engine Optimisation plays a pivotal role – getting your eCommerce website to the top search engine rankings and driving brand awareness. With a proven and result-oriented strategy, the revenue generated with SEO can be significant. Read Out this Ecommerce SEO Case Study.
What is Ecommerce SEO?
Search engine optimization for eCommerce is the process of driving organic traffic (free or non-paid) from search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing to your eCommerce store.
When a user searches for anything on Google, they are directed to the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). The search engine result page appears below, showing the products or services one is looking for.
The websites that appear below the section marked “Ads” are organic search results (in red). The organic results always appear below Google paid ads and Google Shopping ads, but garner a high click-through rate. According to BrightEdge, organic search results drive over 53.3% of all website traffic. People consider websites appearing in organic search results to be more credible and trustworthy.
Therefore, eCommerce businesses cannot turn a blind eye to organic SEO if they want to get their online store and products in front of new audiences. Some of the key benefits of eCommerce SEO are:
- Higher rankings in SERPs
- Improved brand awareness
- Drive low-cost traffic at the awareness stage of the marketing funnel
- Reach genuinely interested customers through remarketing and boost conversions
- Understand your shoppers and likewise, optimize the usability of your website for an improved experience
The following image will help you understand the key elements of eCommerce SEO that can help drive improved ROI:
How a Clothing Brand Generated $31K in Sales Using Ecommerce SEO: SEO Success Case Study
In this section, we will discuss an eCommerce SEO case study of a clothing brand that earned $31K in ROI by implementing a result-oriented SEO strategy. Analyzing the case study will help you to implement the strategies for your eCommerce business and drive increased ROI.
Brand Challenges
The brand is a US-based eCommerce business in the field of clothing and gifting. They have an extensive collection of premium-quality products and provide excellent customer service. Despite being equipped with the best quality products and services, the clothing & gifting brand failed to garner good sales and ROI. The marketing strategy was not delivering optimum results and they were facing a tough time meeting their profitability goals.
Initial Analysis of the Brand’s Marketing Strategies
The brand approached an experienced eCommerce SEO agency that thoroughly evaluated its current marketing strategies to find potential loopholes. Upon analysis, the following limitations were identified that clearly indicate why the strategy failed to achieve SEO-proven results.
- The eCommerce website lacked high-quality, engaging, and relevant content
- Poor keyword research and optimization affected the website rankings
- There were no organic backlinks which failed to establish the credibility and search engine authority of the eCommerce website
Thus, CONTENT, KEYWORDS, and BACKLINKS were the two primary issues that the SEO agency needed to work on dedicatedly to deliver effective results.
Restructuring the SEO Strategy
The eCommerce SEO agency took a holistic approach and worked on each element at a time to achieve proven results. Here is an overview of how they restructured the strategy from scratch:
- Keyword Research & Optimisation: The primary focus of the project was to identify the right set of keywords that are most relevant to the brand, have high search potential, and generate clicks. The SEO agency uses powerful keyword research tools that helped identify the top-ranking, most-searched keywords relevant to the clothing & gifting niche.
But not just keyword research – they also ensured that the keywords are strategically positioned in the right places that enable search engine bots to easily crawl the page. Unless the search engine can crawl the page, it will not be indexed or shown in the SERPs. Therefore, the right keywords are used in the landing pages, product description pages, meta tags, alt tags, H1 H2 tags, etc.
Effective keyword optimization helped boost the rankings of the brand in SERPs for relevant keywords – which is a key driver in increasing search engine visibility and getting more organic clicks.
- High-Quality Content Creation: High-quality content is one of the top Google ranking factors as the search engine considers it as a benchmark of user experience. Keeping this in mind, the SEO agency worked on improving the brand’s website content. High-quality, original and engaging content was curated for the home page, landing pages, product description pages, blog section, contact us page, etc.
Regarding the eCommerce SEO case study, the idea was to create SEO-friendly content with all the key elements in it (image below). This helped the search engines better crawl the pages and rank them high for the most relevant search queries.
- Getting Quality Backlinks: The next was one of the biggest challenges for the SEO agency because the eCommerce store had no high-authority websites linking to it. However, links (both internal and external) are an important Google ranking factor. Internal linking helps improve user experience by providing them with more relevant information and ensuring easy navigability.
When high-authority, top-ranking websites link to your site, it indicates to the search engines that your website is a credible source for high-quality products, services, or information. Hence, the search engines are likely to rank your site higher in SERPs. Additionally, backlinks help improve user experience by providing them with more comprehensive information about a topic.
Regarding the eCommerce SEO case study, we are discussing here, the SEO agency adopted both internal and external linking strategies. In addition to internally linking the home page, product pages, etc., they used the following techniques to get high-authority, organic backlinks:
– Guest postings
– Article submissions
– Blog submissions – Article creations
The Results
The results the eCommerce SEO agency generated for the clothing brand were marvelous. Over a period of 8 months, the following results were achieved:
- Top ranking in search engine result pages for popular search engines
- 66% increase in the number of clicks
- 140% increase in impressions
- The organic search became the top source of incoming traffic, increasing by 77% as compared to other sources like paid search, direct, referral, social media, and display
- The number of user visits increased from 600 to 1000 per day
- Generated sales of $31,477.39 within 8 months
Conclusion
SEO success stories are numerous, regardless of the type or size of business you are in. However, it is a “continuous” process that requires a never-ending cycle of optimizing the design, content, and technical aspects of your eCommerce store. SEO may not show immediate results but it delivers long-term value, improving your organic search results for months or years.