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Implementing good SEO on e-commerce projects is without a doubt one of the most challenging and time-consuming tasks to complete. Usually, e-commerce sites have a complex, category-based structure and the number of pages can easily reach the 100 marks (I know, I’m feeling tired already).

There Is Light at the End of the Tunnel

A properly implemented SEO strategy will be worth the effort and time in the long run.

From unexpected boosts in traffic, better positions in SERPs, and costs reductions of PPC campaigns, there’s plenty of juice to squeeze from the SEO world. With new e-commerce sites popping left and right, SEO is the buoy that will pull up your online presence and make your business stand out.

The 7 Reasons Why You Should Be Implementing SEO in Your Ecommerce Site

1) SEO is Not a Cost, but an Investment

In the end, all the effort you have put into implementing your SEO strategy for e-commerce will provide you with lasting results. Website rankings and keywords won’t change from one day to the other and if your site is fully optimized for them, organic results will continue to drive traffic and sales to your business.

Let’s say your product pages and paid search campaign rule the organic search results, but the high season made you reach your PPC budget way before expected and the ads stopped running. In this situation, your organic results will still show up and drive users to your site even if the ads are no longer there.

We had a case here at White Shark from one of our PPC strategists, in which the client went from 120 sessions to 713 in 5 days due to the implementation of new social media pages. This increased the way users found the client’s content in the web. See for yourself below:

2) SEO Is Cost-Effective

SEO will increase your sales without reciprocally increasing your marketing costs, thereby growing profits at a better ROI than most other forms of marketing. It’s like a prospect magnet that helps those seeking your products or services discover you.

Let’s say you are currently running an outstanding PPC campaign for the products that generate the most revenue for you. With the proper SEO elements in place, your product pages can also show up in a good organic position, getting to reach those users where your ads don’t.

3) SEO is Not Budget Focused

Stop worrying about how much you need to pay to rank for specific keywords. Unlike paid search, SEO is not based on a bidding system, but on specialized ranking algorithms.

SEO is aligned with the searcher’s intent – a business must meet its audience half-way by creating relevant content they want to click on. That way, instead of paying for a position, you have to earn it.

4) SEO Lowers Your PPC Costs

On-page SEO improves your website content by making it relevant to users’ intended search. In essence, improved content for a specific topic, keyword, and search intent means a higher quality score for your pages, which reduces the cost-per-click of your keywords.

Not to mention that you can test new keyword options for your campaign by looking at your site’s organic numbers without having to allocate more budget for it.

5) SEO Shines a Light on Your Nonstop Salesman

I’m talking about your website!

To succeed in SEO, a fast-loading and intuitive website is essential. This translates into a better experience for your users – starting from the browsing stage all the way to the final shopping cart process.

Assuming your site has all of this covered, it is the face of your company – you want everyone to see it! SEO done right will give your website the proper focus it deserves, placing it front and center.

6) Reach Users That Are Actually Searching For You

Paid advertising is considered more of an aggressive marketing strategy that pushes your products towards users that might not necessarily be interested in them. Let’s say a homeowner is looking for an interior designer to revamp their living room. Since this type of user matches your desired audience, you serve them with product ads featuring your furniture collection even if that’s not what they initially wanted.

Meanwhile, SEO works on the organic side of the search results page which must serve the original intent behind a user’s search.

In that respect, SEO is able to generate relevant traffic with the highest conversion rate of any targeted digital marketing initiative, which is what makes SEO a high return effort.

In this case, if the same person in the previous example now is looking for new furniture to revamp their living room and the SEO for your product pages is on point, your potential client will see your business as one of the results they are expecting to get and therefore more likely to click on your site.

For further information on this, check out our post:
Pull Marketing vs Push Marketing: Definition, Explanation & Benefits

7) Rank for Keyword Variations With No Additional Effort

Search engines use ranking algorithms programmed to sort results based on different factors, as well as consider user’s search intent, synonyms, and alternate spellings. This means that if you are interested in ranking for keywords containing “lawyer” and the content of the page you want to rank lines up with law-related business and concepts, you might receive rankings for queries like “attorney” and ”legal practitioner” as well.

Bottom Line: SEO is a Must

There are plenty of reasons to think that optimizing e-commerce sites for SEO is exhausting but those make no excuse for you not to implement it. There are countless tools online that ease the process of setting up your product pages to hit the SERPs and again, it’s worth it, was worth it.

Do you know any other reasons why SEO is a must for e-commerce sites? Let us know in the comments.