A lot of business owners hire eCommerce SEO companies without realizing what they’re actually paying for simply because they hear about how important search engine optimization is as a digital marketing channel.
This is both good and bad, because while SEO is a very important digital marketing strategy, not being quite clear about what it produces or how can leave a bitter taste in the mouth.
So, if you’re paying for eCommerce SEO services, here are some key metrics to look out for. With a white hat strategy, they should all increase over the months and years after the campaign gets implemented.
Organic Impressions
Organic impressions are arguably the metric over which an eCommerce SEO company has the most control.
If the eCommerce SEO strategy targets keywords with decent volume and makes appropriate optimizations, your website will get more eyes on it – that’s what an impression is in the first place – as it climbs the ladder of the search engine results pages.
Organic Clicks
As your company gets more impressions (meaning, more people see it) naturally, if the interest is there, you should get more clicks as well.
Now, it’s important to note here that CTR, or click-through rate, might not increase, but as the same proportion of a larger number, overall clicks should.
Time on Page
Part of SEO is targeting based on keyword research and search intent. If the eCommerce SEO agency targets appropriate keywords (that’s on collaboration between you and them) then you should notice that visitors to your online store are, in general, more interested.
That’s a good thing because it means people will spend more time on your eCommerce website consuming your content – which Google also sees as a good thing. It’s a positive feedback loop that should benefit the performance of your campaign.
Pages Per Session
If your eCommerce SEO company can get not only time on page to increase but also pages per session, you’ve got a winning combo. This means that potential customers land on a page and then are so engaged by what they find that they seek out other pages on your website.
This metric won’t always increase, but if the customer journey usually involves a lot of education and research before buying, it’s more likely.
Conversion Rates
This one is tough because SEO experts can’t guarantee that visitors to your website will buy, but if the targeting has been performed accurately, there’s a good chance that a higher proportion of visitors will convert, whether that means downloading something, signing up, or in eCommerce, generally buying – which means the following.
Revenue
If you and your SEO company have worked closely to define your target audience and selected the good, attainable keywords associated with a high intent to purchase, then revenue should increase. It’s a long shot, but SEO often results in increases in revenue over the long-term.
How They Boost These Metrics
There are a few key things that eCommerce SEO companies do to boost these metrics. Two key ones are defining the customer profile accurately and then targeting keywords that are relevant and have high intents to purchase. Optimizing your site in this fashion will help drive qualified leads.
Secondly, they will optimize the copy on a website to make it more attractive and engaging to that target market, resulting in greater visibility and interaction, and thereby increases in impressions, clicks, time on page, and conversion value.
Looking for an eCommerce SEO Company?
SEO is a long term game, unlike PPC, so you will want to make sure you hire a good option right out of the gate. Make sure you do your research, read reviews, and get recommendations if you can. Then buckle up and make sure you’re ready to stick with it for at least a year because results take a while in SEO.
