A Comprehensive Guide to Choosing the Right eCommerce SEO Agency for Your Business
Virtually any business that sells goods and services online wants one, two, if not all, of the following: more traffic, more leads, and more sales. And, to achieve that, there are several things a business can do, one of which is to work with an eCommerce SEO agency.
At Embryo we have been helping eCommerce brands and businesses up and down the country from our base here in Manchester. SEO, in the way that we carry it out, ensures their visibility grows as well as their revenue.
Whether you’re a small business with a new eCommerce website looking to make an impact in your local area industry or an established brand looking to grow your international organic presence and boost your sales traffic across search engines, Embryo can help.
Here, we’ll be breaking down why search engine optimisation is so vital for businesses in the world of online commerce and give you a bit of an insight into our approach to this type of SEO service.
To learn more read on or if you want to get in touch with our team call us on 0161 327 2635 or email [email protected].
Get In Touch With Our Team Today.
Interested in a fresh strategy for your online store? Reach out to our team today by phone on 0161 327 2635 or email [email protected].
Embryo were amazing to work with and delivered some incredible results for the brand. The team are so easy to work with and couldn’t do enough for us!
Why Is SEO Important for an eCommerce Store?
Optimising your website for search engines is important because, on a fundamental level, it’s where your audience is. Whether you rent out large pieces of equipment to homeowners carrying out renovation projects or sell the latest fashion trends, people’s purchasing journey, which is getting more and more complex (or ‘Messy’, as Google likes to call it) often begins with typing a query into a search engine on their mobile device or on a desktop.
So the logic stands that if you want people to buy from your eCommerce platform, you need to be able to be found by the audience that is most receptive to purchasing from your website. What’s specific about this type of optimisation is that you’re looking to be found by people with high buying intent.
It’s those with high buying intent that are going to be the quickest to purchase from you. No matter what you’re selling, a good search engine optimisation strategy is the foundation for all your marketing campaigns.
It being a foundation means doing it correctly takes a great deal of work and corners cannot be cut. Keywords need to be placed on product pages strategically, your website needs to load fast, have a logical structure, and be filled with clear, high-quality images.
Organic search marketing will reward you, there’s no doubt about that, but it will only reward you if it does properly. In a congested market full of competitors, be they local or overseas, Google will always reward the brands and businesses that take the time to optimise their websites.
Further, SEO is important because it’s a relative constant in a world of updates and privacy changes. The introduction of 1OS 14.5 and the EU Digital Services Act are both examples of businesses and governments empowering customers to protect their personal data.
While this is great for them, it makes it more challenging for eCommerce businesses to target audiences predisposed to purchasing from them. This makes an organic presence targeting keywords even more important because your audience is coming to you.
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$143.8 billion
The amount the UK is forecast to do in eCommerce sales in 2023 (Source: Statista)
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69%
The percentage of online shopping orders that were made on mobile devices (Source: Statista)
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£2.49k
Was the average revenue a typical user totalled in 2022 (Source: Cybercrew)
What Will the SEO Agency Do for My Company?
With the importance of optimising your eCommerce website for organic traffic and search established let’s take a look at how our organic search experts at Embryo approach this marketing channel.
We have witnessed first-hand the explosion of eCommerce brands investing in organic search and have also seen how profitable it can be for them. To achieve these results we follow several steps which, with regular optimisation and the addition of fresh content, yield great results for businesses looking to attract their target audience to their site via key terms and phrases.
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Define Goals
Your goals are the reasons you’re interested in investing in an eCommerce SEO marketing agency. You’ve seen the power of a well-executed marketing campaign and want to see how it can help you achieve business objectives.
This starts with defining your goals, this will govern everything we do on your behalf. We work to understand what you want out of your online presence and then use that as a framework for our SEO campaign. Knowing your goals allows us to set timelines and expectations too. Once we understand your goals from your eCommerce website we then work backwards to carry out the strategies and procedures that will get you there.
For example, a typical goal we often build our eCommerce SEO services around is more sales. So, to achieve that, we’d typically look to improve conversion rates and attract more users at the top of the funnel who want to educate on a topic before committing to a purchase.
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On-page Product Optimisation
Your product pages are where most, if not all, of your online revenue is going to come from. Because of that our technical SEO team and our writer spend a great deal of time and care ensuring each product page is optimised. We review your existing copy, or if need be create fresh copy, to create content that speaks to users, in that it is sufficiently ‘salesy’, and search engines, by ensuring relevant keywords are present, alike.
Beyond the text, our team creates compelling calls to action that provide that final purchase nudge. Our tech SEO team, featuring the likes of Adam Chapman, someone with years of experience optimising and streamlining websites, then looks at the structured data behind your pages so that search engines understand completely what your products are and why they should be featured on page one for those all-important keywords.
Beyond those product pages, our team also targets informational keywords, which are often longer and more question-based, with longer-form guide content to educate visitors and make them aware of your brand.
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Extensive Keyword Research
Being found for the right keywords is the difference between having a successful eCommerce SEO strategy and not. The terms being searched by your audience are packed with purchasing intent and any good eCommerce SEO agency will put key phrases, terms, and words at the heart of their work.
Once we know your goals, we then pivot to finding the key phrases that are going to drive revenue into your business via these organic marketing methods. We work to find those terms that are being searched by audience members who are ready to purchase your product or invest in your services.
We’ll target a wide range of short and long-tail keywords and create content – be it product descriptions, long-form guide content, or video-based content – that satisfies the intent behind it. By targeting a wide range we not only help you close more sales and generate more leads from your eCommerce store but we also aim to widen your brand’s awareness among new audiences who, while not yet ready to purchase, become familiar with you and thus predisposed to buying from you in the future.
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Technical SEO review
A well-designed website is not only nice to look at but helps users make their purchases. We review your site and make sure it displays all the important signals like reviews and multiple payment options. Our team carries our best practice checks and ensures you have all the essentials on your site while also looking to find bespoke solutions that will help you stand out from the online crowd.
One of our main focuses from a design and tech perspective relates to Google’s Core Web Vitals. In recent years, Google has placed a huge deal of emphasis on site speed and loading times. Websites which can jump from page to page quickly and load on the first instance quickly are rewarded (providing they have other key SEO principles present) with better organic visibility. We run regular Google Core Web Vitals throughout the technical maintenance period to ensure everything we are doing is leading to that north star of a faster website.
‘I’m a Business Owner. What Should I Look Out For When Selecting Which eCommerce SEO Agency to Work With?’
Having worked with several businesses both in Manchester, our home, and further afield, we have heard all the rightful concerns and queries that managing directors and other c-suite level executives have had when they’re in the market for an eCommerce SEO company to work with.
From the promise of fantastic, sometimes immediate results despite a small investment (that never seems to materialise) to a lack of understanding about their brand and the industry in which they sit, we’ve heard it all.
Here are four of the key concerns and challenges that those in marketing and board-level roles have expressed to us since we were founded in 2015.
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Lack of Communication
Too often agencies sell the world to a business, get them on board and then work in a total silo once the contract is signed, only breaking occasionally for an arbitrary catch-up call once a month. At Embryo, we’ve invested in an extensive, nine-person client services department meaning that all new clients are assigned an experienced client services team member whose sole purpose is to ensure communication levels between all relevant stakeholders remain high.
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Stifled Innovation
There are hundreds of SEO tools and software applications out there that any eCommerce agency can use. While these serve a purpose and are effective, in congested markets where buyers have more choice than ever the need for true innovation is more important than ever. We have a dedicated Chief Innovation Officer, James Welch who has created multiple pieces of proprietary software that are exclusive to Embryo. These include Intermingle and Needle, both of which allow us, and our clients, to see their industry from a birds-eye view, within the context of competitors as opposed to just in a silo.
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No Considered Strategy
Too often, an eCommerce SEO company will work on an account with no wider context or broad strategy in mind. A case of doing things because that’s considered the done thing. We have a Head of Strategy and Strategy Director, Lloyd and Jen, who work alongside our delivery team to create in-depth strategy documents and roadmaps, as well as bite-size SOAPs (Strategy on a Page) that c-suite executives can look at and, in an instance, understand what the plan is.
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Not Understanding the Modern Buyer Journey
Often, an eCommerce SEO strategy will fail to take into account the evermore complex buyer journey. Years ago, the buyer journey was broken into four stages 1, Awareness 2, Interest 3, Consideration and 4, Purchase. Now though, as purchase avenues broaden and users spend their days scrolling through their social media channels, the buyer journey has become more complex, and, as Google coined it, ‘messy’. Understanding what is known as ‘The Messy Middle’ is crucial if an online store wants to acquire an edge over a competitor.
Why Choose Embryo for Your eCommerce SEO Services?
Founded in 2015 by our Managing Director Ross Green, Embryo was born out of an awareness that there was not a full-service marketing agency that could assist businesses with a wide range of marketing disciplines under one roof, from an SEO campaign right the way through to website migration and PPC campaigns.
Fast forward 8+ years and Embryo has dozens of eCommerce clients that it helps drive sales and awareness. Much of the work we’ve done with these eCom clients makes up our X award nominations and Y award wins including the ‘Best Use of Search’ award win at the 2022 UK Search Awards for our work with eCommerce brand UR.
The reason we feel that we’re the best SEO agency for eCommerce is because of our ability to help businesses no matter what scenario they’re in. Whether they’re a new brand looking to establish a new online presence or they’re an established firm looking to grow an already solid reputation.
Further, we have a track record of helping businesses use third-party eCommerce platforms such as Shopify and Magento, and help those who want to invest in a brand-new website.
The nature of Embryo being a full-service agency with all departments housed under one roof means we can carry out high-level, multi-channel marketing campaigns for your eCommerce website with ease, and with high levels of communication. Each department knows what the other is doing and is on hand to offer thoughts and insights about how their department can expedite and help achieve desired KPIs.
Looking for an eCommerce Agency? Look No Further.
As an eCommerce SEO agency with years of experience helping brands big and small grow their online presence, we are a team of experts who are ready and waiting to help you.
To learn more, we recommend you reach out to us. You can do this either by phone on 0161 327 2635 or email [email protected].
Paid marketing channels are crucial to The Range’s online success so finding an agency that understood that and would have the tools in place to take it to a new level was critical.
Not only are Embryo incredibly innovative and knowledgeable, but they used all that to tell a story about how their interpretation of PPC and paid social would be ideal for The Range.