Searching for e-commerce keywords is a task that goes far beyond using the best-known keyword research tools. In addition to the volume of searches or the competition, you should also know if the keyword converts and other details.
If you are setting up e-commerce, your number one concern may be choosing the platform, taking great photos of your products or logistic costs.
Objective
The first objective of e-commerce is to sell. For that reason, the general terms will report a few conversions, although they generate a lot of traffic to the website. On the other hand, those more specific terms that reflect an intention of purchase will be the most accurate to generate conversions.
Ex.: “Sneaker store” has a monthly search volume that exceeds 1,000, while “buy Nike sneakers online” does not reach 70 * (according to data from the Google keyword planner). However, the user who performs the second search is one step further in the purchase process, with a clear intention. Therefore the user is more likely to convert than the search “shoe shop”.
If it were a corporate website or a blog, we would probably be more interested in positioning ourselves for the first term, since our goal would be to do branding and obtain the widest possible reach.
However, the first objective of e-commerce keywords is to sell, although the traffic of users who access the website for the term “buy Nike shoes online” will be much more reduced, it will be of higher quality than the one accessed by general searches such as “shoe shop”.
And best of all, the competition for these terms is usually less than general terms, which means that the ROI will be more positive than a conventional positioning strategy.
These are the terms of Long Tail Keywords, which include all those specific keywords where the traffic is less but constant and plentiful as a whole.
Demand
Work positioning for these terms can be profitable because they have less competition than the general ones, which will increase the ROI of your SEO campaign. However, you have to know how to hit the key and the term that really interests your potential audience.
What exactly are users looking for? How do you look for it?
First of all, we will start by identifying which general terms bring the most traffic to our website. Google Search Console is a good ally for this, as it is able to indicate the searches of the users that have the most clicks on our website. Additionally, it shows the position in the SERP that it was in when the click occurred (although only for a 90-day period).
To these general terms, we add other more specific ones such as the brand, the model or the color and analyze their competition and the number of searches with tools such as Synapse Ads Keyword Mixer. It allows you to know the average of monthly searches of several terms that and also suggest some new ones that may be of your interest.
Study and analyze those terms for which you are positioned on the second or third page of Google. Surely they are long tail terms where the positioning is dragged by the pages of larger categories or the home itself, and without much effort, you can place on the first page.
Constant Changes
Even large e-commerce companies stock is constantly being updated. Products that go in, out, updates, etc. Maybe this is the biggest obstacle that requires e-commerce keywords and SEO strategy.
If you have already managed to position one of your products in Google’s top-10 but you are going to remove it from the web, it is essential to redirect. It is likely that the rate bounce of traffic from these searches will rise but at least you will avoid Google penalties for 404 errors and even more important, you will not miss the opportunity to impact the user.
You can redirect to the home page or to a page designed specifically for cases of related products that you think may fit the search of the perfect user. You may invite the user to browse your website in search of another product that might be of interest to you.
Our Synapse Ads blog contains more information regarding this and other related subjects. We also have the amazing Keyword Mixer, which helps to find the right keywords to drive traffic to your website.
