Several SEO myths and misconceptions are killing enterprise e-commerce and enterprise retail businesses. This article will explore some of them to show how enterprise SEO is unique and not quite the same as traditional search engine optimization.
To be effective, SEO for corporate e-commerce should be strategy oriented. And yet it is rare to find. Why?
The following are business-critical issues and missed opportunities I’ve encountered while consulting on SEO strategy with some of the biggest brands and companies in the world.
Enterprise ecommerce SEO: Let’s face facts
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Reality is often harsh and sobering. Still, it’s important to deal with the facts to solve problems and increase SEO effectiveness.
The litany of misery is long – and painful.
But these are not the biggest obstacles. They lie elsewhere – in strategy and process problems.
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Chaotic SEO strategy
SEO strategy for business e-commerce is essentially a “business strategy.”
Enterprise SEO is not about Google. It doesn’t work in a silo. And it is not obsessed with tasks and deliveries.
On the contrary, a good SEO strategy for e-commerce companies and omnichannel retailers focuses on:
Poor process and workflow
Business processes are often in pretty bad shape.
No one fully expects the business strategy to work. Every department falls short in revenue generation and productivity. Sales and marketing plans are poorly implemented.
A Google-oriented SEO strategy misses business goals and financial KPIs while overlooking lucrative opportunities to dominate the ecosystem.
When processes and workflows support analysis and decision making, an SEO strategist can identify ways to bring in millions in additional revenue. However, due to poor processes, these opportunities largely disappear.
All the while, management behaves like a bus driver in an old American action comedy, speeding madly along the highway and confidently announcing, “Trust me! I know what I’m doing.”
Unfortunately, this is not a movie. The threat is real.
Addressing these issues should be a top priority for business leaders. Brushing things under the rug with a cosmetic re-design or technological makeover only compounds the financial damage.
Enterprise ecommerce SEO: The challenges are real
Next, let’s look at the key challenges unique to enterprise organizations—and see how intelligent SEO can help with them.
Lack of quality data is deadly
To put it bluntly, with many e-commerce companies, data is often not to be trusted at all! Using weak data to determine future plans and strategies is doomed to failure.
The train is derailed… even before it leaves the station!
When SEO consultants suggest changes based on only limited data, their suggestions are viewed as an additional “cost” – rather than as great opportunities to grow the business.
Today’s business strategy requires access to granular data that can be widely mined.
Smart data analysis is rare
Shallow keyword research limited to collecting high search volume phrases thanks to a limited, inflexible budget is a recipe for disaster.
A deep analysis of search data broken down by e-commerce category and subcategory can uncover hidden opportunities and untapped assets.
The future belongs to a company armed with:
The data can intelligently guide content producers to include critical and unique information for each product category and subcategory.
Yet time and resource constraints mean that few companies get it right. Opportunities and strategic intelligence are often unseen. What you don’t measure, you can’t manage.
Missing data is a vexing problem
When data is incomplete, you can only get an inaccurate picture of reality.
Either the data is not rich in detail, or:
All these problems make the data less reliable. You can’t use bad data to make good decisions.
Growth stalls and slows, both in the short and long term. This leads to financial damage to the company, along with its outside owners and shareholders.
There are also three other major issues plaguing ecommerce business SEO:
People, teams and collaboration
Cross-functional teams rarely harmonize in their goals, objectives and projects.
The problem begins with bad data and bad decisions based on it. The lack of analysis affects the implementation. In turn, this detracts from business goals and financial KPIs.
But when information is locked in silos:
To change this, you should improve business processes. But unfortunately there are often problems there too.
Business and sales process
Business processes are often based on technology, systems, functions and IT… rather than business requirements.
To do this effectively, you need:
You will easily uncover gaps that can be fixed quickly if your company’s SEO strategy ensures that all necessary data is:
Enterprise SEO is not centered on Google, but on business performance and financial results.
If you only track search volumes and rankings, but ignore how that translates into sales and profits, you can’t quantify the cost of making changes. But armed with the right data, you can build a strong business case for a higher budget to make profitable tweaks.
When presented with such information, a board or management that fails to act on it will be liable for dereliction of duty. Managers who fail to exercise their judgment, discretion, knowledge and expertise to leverage data risk damaging their reputations. And maybe even incur fines and penalties for behaving irresponsibly.
Sub-optimal workflows
When driven by incomplete data or inaccurate data sets, an SEO strategy will not be maximally productive. So the organization will underperform on its financial KPIs.
Enterprise ecommerce SEO: Solutions, tips and strategies
Now that we’ve discussed the mistakes and problems with SEO for businesses, we’ll address potential solutions.
Let me begin by stating an overriding principle. Many companies try to solve poor business processes with technology, digital transformation or re-platforming. I can’t say this loud and clear enough:
You can’t fix a bad process with technology!
When the company’s leadership is weak, or when sales plummet because marketing is out of sync with customers and markets, a technology overhaul alone will not solve the problem.
Companies that hire SEO agencies and consultants to perform SEO-oriented tasks are no longer enjoying the results they did back in 2005. That version of Google no longer exists!
Enterprise SEO and traditional SEO services may look similar, but they are not identical. If you measure them according to the same yardstick, without a focus on business strategy, process and workflows, then the impact may seem small.
This post is already quite long. So let’s briefly highlight solutions and opportunities to get a good head start with enterprise ecommerce SEO.
In a future article, we will dive deep into specific elements and discuss case studies of client companies that developed remarkable transformations after simple tweaks to a broken process.
Action steps for ecommerce SEO
Technology and digital transformation alone cannot solve the root of the problem: a bad process.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily those of Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
Trond Lyngbø is the founder of Search Planet and a senior SEO consultant. He has over 20 years of experience in SEO, e-commerce, content strategy and digital analysis. His clients include multinational Fortune 500 companies and large Norwegian companies. Trond has helped grow businesses through more effective search marketing and SEO strategies. He is most passionate about working with e-commerce companies and webshops to develop and expand their omni-channel marketing initiatives.
How do I optimize my FAQ?
Learn how to optimize your FAQ pages for SEO
- Format your questions into selected excerpts. Featured Snippets are the answer fields that appear at the top of search results pages. …
- Use header tags to organize your FAQ categories. …
- Add links to your content. …
- Use the FAQ form. …
- Monitor and maintain your FAQ page.
What should an FAQ contain? An FAQ page (short for Frequently Asked Question page) is a part of your website that provides answers to common questions, allays concerns and overcomes objections. It’s a place where customers can dive into the finer details of your product or service, away from your sales-focused landing pages and homepage.
How does FAQ help you in finding an answer to your question?
A frequently asked questions or frequently asked questions page allows visitors to find answers to all their questions in one place. Not only does it make life easier for your website visitors, it can save your business time and resources because you won’t have as many customers contacting you for answers.
How does the FAQ help? FAQs, or frequently asked questions as they are called, are a great way to improve your customer’s experience of your website. It allows you to answer the most frequently asked questions about your product or service. At the same time, there are also many other advantages to having frequently asked questions on your website.
Does FAQ improve SEO?
Are FAQ pages good for SEO? Yes. When optimized for relevant keywords, well-designed for optimal user experience (UX), and properly marked up with structured data, FAQ pages are valuable for organic performance.
How long should SEO FAQs be? A good rule of thumb is to write short answers to each question – two to three paragraphs would be a good answer. If you go any further, the page will be too long and cluttered.
How effective are FAQ pages?
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) pages (or hubs) help your business respond to your audience’s needs faster and more appropriately. An effective FAQ resource can educate, inform and guide the user in a natural way through your site’s content and towards the goals and end results you have set.
Are FAQs good UX?
The broad benefits of good FAQ UX. A well-written and well-designed FAQ page is a win-win for everyone. For your customers, it improves the overall experience, both on your website and with the product or service you offer.
Do FAQ pages work?
An FAQ page can help users navigate your site. Not only does a FAQ with links to related content give your user a deeper experience of your website, it also boosts your internal link-building, which is an important search ranking factor.
What is the purpose of a FAQ webpage?
It stands for frequently asked questions and is a page on a website that provides quick answers to customers’ questions. The idea is to keep the answers short and direct so that people can quickly find information. We write it as a “Frequently Asked Question…
Is longer content better for SEO?
Longer content results in higher search rankings. In short, studies show that longer content dominates page one of search rankings. SerpIQ ran a study that mapped the top 10 results in search queries by content length.
Does Article Length Matter for SEO? You have a better chance of ranking in Google if you write long, high-quality blog posts of 1000 words or more. We have also experienced that ourselves; we’ve written quite a few articles that are over 2500 words – our Shopify SEO Ultimate Guide nearly reached 9000!
Does more content increase SEO?
Fresh Content Increases Your Authority Potential The prevailing strategy for becoming an authority site is by adhering to the SEO adage, “content is king.” The more informative and valuable content you can publish that relates to your industry, the more authority potential your website will enjoy.
How does content boost SEO?
But how does content help SEO? In marketing, digital or otherwise, content serves as a foundation for information, entertainment, utility and education. And without it, it can be quite difficult to increase brand awareness or generate quality traffic to your website.
Is more content better for SEO?
The SEO benefits of long-form content. Longer content results in higher search rankings. In short, studies show that longer content dominates page one of search rankings. SerpIQ ran a study that mapped the top 10 results in search queries by content length.
Does content help SEO?
The short answer to this question is yes. Content is important for SEO (search engine optimization) and the two go hand in hand. If you want your website to appear in the search results and drive traffic to your website, you must continuously create high-quality and optimized content.
Does content length affect SEO?
Content is king, so having more content than competitors is believed to be better for search rankings. Based on the theory that word count is an indicator of content quality, SEO experts claim that a larger word count can help achieve higher rankings.
What is the best content length for SEO?
According to a 2021 HubSpot study, the ideal blog post length for SEO should be 2,100-2,400 words. It’s much longer than the 200 or 500 word blog posts that most writers or webmasters think are ideal.
How does content affect SEO?
Quality content helps you generate backlinks – One of the best SEO strategies is to get quality backlinks from high authority websites. For Google, high quality backlinks indicate credibility and trust. The more quality backlinks you have, the higher you are likely to rank on Google.
Is content length a ranking factor?
Content length as a ranking factor: Our sentence count is confirmed not to be a ranking factor. What Google cares most about when aggregating search results is satisfying user intent. It can take 50 words, 100 words, or 1,000 words to communicate what a searcher needs to know. This number will vary from inquiry to inquiry.
What is the best content length for SEO?
According to a 2021 HubSpot study, the ideal blog post length for SEO should be 2,100-2,400 words. It’s much longer than the 200 or 500 word blog posts that most writers or webmasters think are ideal.
Does content length matter for SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) experts argue that longer content is better because the higher the content length, the higher the potential ranking on the search engine results page.
How much content is good for SEO?
Forbes states that an average of 600-700 words per page is optimal for SEO. Forbes also states that websites with less than 300 words per page is considered “thin” by Google’s standards and most likely won’t rank as high in searches.
Is 500 words enough for SEO?
Considering the length of your posts is critical to search engine visibility. There is no overall best word count for SEO. However, we recommend aiming for at least 1,000 words for standard blog posts, 2,000 for long-form content, and 300-500 for news posts or product pages.
How long should meta descriptions be?
Optimal Meta Description Length Meta descriptions can technically be any length, but Google generally truncates snippets to ~155-160 characters. It’s best to keep meta descriptions long enough to be sufficiently descriptive, so we recommend descriptions between 50 and 160 characters.
How long is a meta title and description? Keep your title length around 60 characters. For your meta description length, keep it around 160 characters. Although title tags and meta descriptions don’t count as a ranking factor, CTR does. Optimizing your title and description to increase your CTR is critical to your ranking.
How long should your meta title be?
Moz recommends keeping your titles under 60 characters. For the most accurate results, view on a desktop browser. Note: You may also see title tags referred to as “meta titles” or “meta title tags” in some cases.
What is the best title length for SEO?
Many SEOs and SEO websites recommend a title tag length of approximately 50 to 70 characters because that is what Google shows in the SERPs.
What is a good meta title?
Be specific but concise. Make the keyword/key phrase obvious. Incorporate relevant power words. Make it interesting.
Are longer titles better for SEO?
If you are using competitive keywords, a long headline is often more effective. In fact, according to a 2020 Backlinko content study, 14-17 word headlines bring 76.7% more social shares than short headlines. Page titles do not have the strict character limits that prevent a title tag from being cut off in the SERPs.
Can meta descriptions be too short?
If your meta description is too short, meaning it contains too few characters, it cannot effectively communicate what you have to offer and how you can best help the reader. A meta description that is too short may also remain unrecognized by Google as an adequate response to a query and be replaced by an automatically generated one.
What is the minimum character count for meta description?
Length. Use these rules of thumb when it comes to meta description length: Maximum length: 155 characters or 920 pixels. Minimum length: 70 characters or 430 pixels.
What happens if your meta description is too long?
The snippet quality affects the click-through rate and consequently affects the website traffic and indirectly its ranking. If the meta description is too long, it may be treated as spam and ignored. This in turn will result in a loss of opportunities for extract optimization.
Does length of meta description affect SEO?
Well, in theory, meta descriptions don’t affect SEO. This is an official statement by Google, published in 2009. However, since meta descriptions appear in search engine results, Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) are the pages displayed by search engines in response to a query from a user. The main component of SERP is the list of results returned by the search engine in response to a keyword query.https://en.wikipedia.org ⺠wiki ⺠Search_engine_results_pageSearch Engine Results Page – Wikipedia affect CTRs (click through rates) which are linked to SEO & rankings.
How long should a meta description be with spaces?
The ideal meta description length is 155-160 symbols with spaces.
What should be the length of description?
The ideal length for a meta description is 160 characters. Google generally truncates them to ~155-160 characters. It is a good practice to keep meta descriptions long enough to be descriptive, so we recommend writing meta descriptions between 50-160 characters.
Does meta description length include spaces?
Best Practices for a Good Meta Description Length in 2022 Meanwhile, your meta description length should be kept descriptive and between 150 and 160 characters for optimal length, and this includes spaces.