Facing Off Against the Big eCommerce Giants
It’s hard not to feel threatened by giants like Amazon, Walmart, and other major online retailers on the internet when you’re a small ecommerce store, trying to make business ends meet. How can you compete with companies that throw millions of dollars into their everyday marketing budgets? They’re all over the internet and television, hiring the world’s most famous influencers, and they’ve got all the brand name recognition they could ever need. You’re trying to grow your Instagram following to at least 5,000 followers and it’s taken you over two years to do just that.
Don’t fret, you’re in luck. And that’s because there’s a little something called S-E-O, that when implemented correctly, can help you compete with these large-scale companies.
Although 47% of internet shopping happens on Amazon, a good 35% of online shopping also starts on Google, which means that if you’re optimizing your website for the right keywords, shoppers could end up on your site instead of Amazon.
How to Get on the First Page of Google
If you think the websites that ended up on the first page of Google got there by chance, they didn’t. Well some of them did, but those who optimize for SEO will soon surpass any of the websites that aren’t utilizing SEO strategies and Google’s best practices.
In order for your online store to get to the first page of Google, it needs three things: high quality content, little to no technical issues, and links to your site – all things that SEO’s handle. Links from high quality sites tell Google that these other trustworthy sites see your site as trustworthy and useful enough to link out to. So if let’s say, a site like HGTV, a website known for its design ideas and innovations, links to your furniture website, this tells Google that your site is useful and recommended by a well-known brand, and will raise your rankings in its search engine accordingly.
SEO is Difficult to Implement on Larger Sites
“SEO is amazing, so can’t I just do it on my own?”
SEO is amazing! But implementing it without the proper knowledge can be difficult and not entirely effective. Even with knowledge of the essential SEO tools and techniques, these are just the basics, and there are a lot of opportunities those who aren’t completely comfortable with SEO will miss out on.
In addition, it can be difficult to determine what technical issues could prevent Google from crawling your site if you aren’t an SEO or web developer. Cases of 404 errors, 301 redirects, slow page speeds, and other technical issues can all impact your SEO rankings.
It can also be difficult to manage SEO while running a full-time business. Many expert business owners recommend sticking to what you do and know best by focusing your full effort and time into that. For these reasons, it can sometimes be better to invest some of your marketing budget into finding an SEO agency that has eCommerce SEO services. These agencies are specialized in what they do, and will help to optimize your website to its fullest potential.