SEO & SEM – E-Commerce

Introduction:

It is important to understand that an e-commerce site is identical in many ways to a “bricks & mortar” business. We need to attract buyers, encourage repeat visitors, Encourage ad on sales, offer an engaging shopping experience, provide in-depth product knowledge, clearly define product features & benefits, clearly define any guarantees, handle the transaction is an intuitive, efficient and courteous manor. Like so many systems and processes in our modern society, technology has changed the medium but many of the governing factors have remained constant.

B. Factors Affecting E-Commerce

• The volume and quality of traffic & time spent and repeat visits to your site
• The partners you use in building an e-commerce solution
• Your passion and knowledge for and about the product or service you are selling
• Responsiveness to external factors, i.e., economic, suppliers, etc.
• Customer service (the answer is yes now what’s your question)

Technology has certainly changed the purchasing experience, it has created an environment designed to simulate a bricks & mortar shopping experience … but offer improved convenience, speed of delivery, reduced cost and more choice. So our challenge in creating an E-Commerce experience is to deliver the same quality purchasing experience we have traditionally experienced. All too often we focus on the technical infrastructure rather than the shopping experience.

Web Site Traffic

“The Human Computer Interaction Group at Cornell University has provided us with some insights into search habits and preferences through an “eye movement study.” They found that searchers divide the page into sections and focus on the organic results (four out of five searchers ignored the paid listings.) Nearly all users look at the first two or three organic results. Searchers spend less time looking at organic results listed below three and less time scanning results below seventh place. Within each result, searchers spend 43% of the time viewing the description and 30 % of the time viewing the title. “

People are people …and regardless of the technology … we seek responsive, courteous shopping experience and we would also like to benefit from the unique advantages of technology. So, when we are designing an online e-commerce experience make sure you understand how both the technical and personal experience affects the shopper.

Understand & Study Web Stats

• Google Analytics provides a powerful, free online tool for reviewing web site stats
• You can combine both a view of your web stats and PPC campaign
• Study web traffic patterns: country, region, city, duration & frequency, buying habits
• Modify your service and products to respond to customer preferences

Use Google analytics to provide you with a clear understanding of web site traffic. Study in detail traffic patterns on your web site. Unlike a real store, where you can observe shoppers habits, traffic patterns can allow us a glimpse into how shoppers use your site and what their references are.

E-Commerce Building Blocks

• Content & Creative
• Navigation & an intuitive transaction process
• Technical Infrastructure
• Marketing & public relations
• Customer service

Each of these plays an important role in the success of your e-commerce site. Some of these can be learned and managed and others are too complex. Understand what you do best and focus on that component and seek consulting support for other elements and think long term.

A Game of Inches

• Many sales pitches offering to improve online traffic “guaranteed”
• Too many factors/variables to guarantee success
• Costs for improving traffic and ranking is based on a significant investment in labour
• Day to day management of site content, pricing & service
• Study competitors for good ideas & survey your clients to understand their needs

The idea of quick fixes and short term success is a myth. There is no short cut to success in what is a very competitive business, price comparison shopping. Let’s face it, the web has provided you with a quick and efficient means of delivering product but it has also provided customers with an opportunity to compare pricing quickly and easily.

The Boys @ Google

• Committed to ensure the best search results for organic search
• Designing algorithms to overcome any perceived advantage
• Creating a level playing field for organic searches benefits Google and PPC program
• Google currently represents more than 80% of search engine traffic in Canada
• MSN & Yahoo are a distant second making up the majority of the final 20%

Google devotes significant resources to constantly massage its algorithms to ensure that organic and paid searches generate the best possible results.

Factors influencing Organic & Paid Ranking

• Age of site & Strength of content
• Clean URL’s, page descriptions & page titles & Alt tags
• Good “Quality Score”
• Social networking

There is much discussion among e-commerce developers about the need or benefit of achieving the coveted first page organic ranking. It’s always preferred but rarely achieved. Those who do achieve first page status often spend considerable time and money to get there regardless of the category. Often a highly targeted paid program with strong content and a great shopping experience will help grow your organic ranking. Throw in a bit of creative marketing, public relations and social networking and you can get good organic results.

Paul R. Cormier
Ycommunicate.com Inc.
3A King St. South, Unit 3
Cookstown, ON
L0L 1L0
705-458-4289
info@ycommunicate.com