THE E-COMMERCE BUSINESS OWNER'S GUIDE TO SEO MANAGEMENT Lessons from Online Retailers Who Successfully Drive SEO Growth
Table of Contents Introduction Why Top-Performing E-commerce Businesses Invest in SEO Aspects of SEO that Should be Managed In-House Aspects of SEO that Should be Outsourced How to Most Effectively Work with an SEO Agency Final Thoughts 3 6 10 12 15 22
3 Introduction Often considered one of the most unpredictable and opaque aspects of internet marketing, SEO continues to be a hugely impactful part of any e-commerce business. The issue that many e-commerce business owners and marketing teams encounter is that SEO is a complicated and very dynamic concept and it s often difficult to assess the work of third-party resources like consultants and agencies. Derek Preston CEO GrowTeam For this guide, we sat down with Derek Preston, CEO of GrowTeam, a contracting agency that specializes in connecting e-commerce businesses with reputable vendors and partners. And just to be clear, neither CPC Strategy nor GrowTeam manages SEO for clients, so the goal here is to present an unbiased overview of how SEO agencies should be evaluated. Grow Team is a national buyers agency group for ecommerce companies. They represent the ownership of hundreds of companies and assist them in finding the best agency partners and resources to grow their online businesses. https://growteam.com/
4 GrowTeam recently analyzed the performance of 500 ecommerce clients over the course of a year to try and answer the question : How do the top performing small business ecommerce companies handle SEO?" They identified which companies had been most successful in increasing organic sales on their sites and then focused on four key questions. This guide lays out the core findings on these questions: Why Do They Invest What Do They Do What Do They Contract How Do They Get Maximum In SEO? In-House? Out For? Performance From Vendors?
Why Top-Performing E-Commerce Businesses Invest in SEO
6 Why Top-Performing E-Commerce Businesses Invest in SEO There were three consistent answers that came up repeatedly in the interview process: 1 Better Margins While most CEO s agreed that the overall market for organic search engine traffic was declining in relation to Amazon and channel sales, it still accounted for a significant portion of their real profits. Many executives voiced the belief that without the profits from organic sales, they would be unable to sustain their overall business. 2 Ownership of Shopper Data Being able to market to their shoppers on a repeat basis through email and build their own brands directly with buyers was seen as critically important. The ability to ask additional questions and gather valuable feedback through the sales process on-site was also seen as very valuable. Many executives saw a significant portion of their email subscribers were sourced from organic traffic sources. 3 The Ability to be More Competitive By acquiring traffic through organic search they were able to lower their overall blended cost of acquisition for new clients across all channels. This made it possible to be more competitive in other channels.
7 In case it needed to be proved, SEO is a big deal for web retailers regardless of size. Looking at 4 very different businesses, we see similarities in how prominent organic traffic is in their traffic makeup: *All data reflects a 12 month period Sporting Goods Retailer Less than $5 million in annual revenue B2B Office Supplies Retailer Greater than $10 million in annual sales
8 Furniture Manufacturer Greater than $100 million in annual sales Athletic Apparel & Footwear Brand Greater than $500 million in annual sales
Aspects of SEO that Should be Managed In-House
10 Aspects of SEO that Should be Managed In-House This was one of the biggest differences between average performing sites and top performing sites - the best performers did their content work in-house. The majority of CEO s said they believe that social media, blogs, and other product content needed to be developed in-house to maintain the voice of the company and keep control over technical terms, references, and industry knowledge that outside vendors would struggle with. Many of them had unsuccessfully tried to outsource this work in the past and failed. When asked what the critical elements were for successfully managing content production in-house, the following were the most common answers: 1 Create an editorial calendar and make it public within the business A business-wide editorial calendar gives visibility to the process and encourages input from other departments around topics, seasonality, specials, customer feedback, etc. 2 Include non-marketing staff in content creation Give other voices in the company a chance to contribute unique perspectives from production, sales, field reps, etc. This adds authenticity to the work and connects more team members to the outcomes. 3 Have one primary owner for editing, voice, and tone Having consistency with the tone and overall editing style helps keep your brand message on point and ensures that your audience relates well to content throughout the site. If one person has final edit on your content you can keep things consistent.
Aspects of SEO that Should be Outsourced
12 Aspects of SEO that Should be Outsourced There were 2 main areas where CEO s used outside contractors successfully: 1. Technical On-Page SEO Work This is an area of SEO that is often neglected, yet critical to the success of most ecommerce sites. While most companies and agencies either do this manually or use the defaults in their ecommerce systems, there are a small and growing number of firms that are using sophisticated software to assist them in managing meta data and linking structures across ecommerce sites. While these programs are not in wide use across all client sites that we evaluated, more than 80% of the top performers were using them. Unlike content marketing programs, we found that most technical firms have some requirements in order to take on a site, including a domain authority of at least 20 (using the MOZ scale), no active penalties, and an active paid search campaign. Of the sites surveyed that were active with these programs, the average increase in net new page one organic rankings was 48% by the end of the sixth month and 71% by the end of the 12th month.
13 Technical SEO programs vary in terms of structure and cost. Most programs are priced according to the size of the website and the number of active pages. While many agencies may offer these services, most of them are sub-contracting out the work to one of the few firms that actually have the software needed. Because of this, the same program that costs $2,500 a month for working directly with the servicing agency may be sold for as much as $10,000 a month if you re buying it from a re-seller. It s important to ask detailed questions and make sure you are working with a direct servicing agency. 2. High Quality Link Building (The New Digital PR) Although less used than technical SEO, many site owners said they did engage specialty PR agencies to market their content to high authority sites to create backlinks. Many PR agencies are now focusing on this area as a core deliverable because of its value to the overall domain authority, and you need to ask them specifically about their process. Link building in general can be problematic if done inappropriately and many link building agencies focus on poor quality, high volume links, which can create a lot of problems. Reputable firms in this area will provide you with complete lists of all links that are created, which sites and partners they plan to solicit, and exactly what content they are promoting. You should also track your link profile independently to verify their work and identify any problems early.
How to Most Effectively Work with an SEO Agency
15 How to Most Effectively Work with an SEO Agency While every CEO answered this question slightly differently, they all seemed to focus on two key issues Selection and Integration. Selection If you have contracted for marketing services in the past, then you know that some of the worst companies in this space have the best sales people. They know exactly what to say and are excellent at selling the big brands and major experience of their firm. In the sales process, they will promote that they work with Honda, Nike, IBM, etc. and dazzle you with their experience and white papers, most of which are about companies much bigger than yours, i.e. the ones that they put their really smart account managers on. If you focus on this aspect of their pitch, you ll probably be thinking Wow, these guys must be really good. After all, Honda wouldn t work with schmucks. They build rapport and confidence with you and convince you that everyone on their team will be just as good as they are and care deeply about your account. Now, we re not knocking legitimate salespeople and the work they do, but a lot of companies in the online marketing space have adopted a business model that specifically focuses their resources on sales at the direct expense of service, because they believe it is cheaper to acquire new clients than it is to retain them. This is the churn-and-burn model at its best (or worst).
16 The Importance of Account Manager Selection As part of the build-out of our national network, we have evaluated thousands of agencies and hundreds of individual account managers within those companies. We went into the online marketing companies and actually invested the time to understand the account management structure and its impact on client performance. We found that the overall success of the relationship with an online marketing company was primarily determined by the specific account manager. What often happens is that when the sales manager closes a new account, it goes into a lottery system for account manager assignment based on which of their staff have the most availability. And guess who usually has the most availability? Newer, less experienced account managers who don t already have a full book of clients. This is especially true if you are a small business client in a large agency. It may seem obvious to say that not all account managers are created equal, but our experience has been that most companies have very little formal, ongoing training or fixed procedures related to the communication cycles and work which account managers put into individual accounts. This results in an extremely high correlation between campaign performance and individual project manager assignment. After evaluating the performance of hundreds of campaigns, we found that account managers who consistently ranked at the top end of the scale not only increased the performance of the campaigns they were responsible for, but also retained their clients longer. Communication was more frequent, follow-up was better and clients were generally happier.
17 Integration As the owner of the business, it is ultimately up to you to create integration between internal resources and contractors. How well you do this has a big impact on the leverage you get on the dollars you invest in online marketing services. Here are the most discussed best practices around integration. Communication Loops There are two communication loops you need to establish with an online marketing partner: 1 A regular, scheduled call to review reports and discuss upcoming activity. This call should include your internal marketing staff and your staff should be prepared with questions. 2 Direct, impromptu communication via email and phone directly between your staff and your vendor account manager when new products/services are launched, changes are made to the website or seasonal specials or events take place.
18 The account manager you re working with probably has at least a dozen other clients and has a unique point of view about best practices in different areas that are relevant to you. They also work with a team that has even more clients, so they have exposure to a lot of different practices and ideas that could potentially benefit you. That s a lot of information which you could get just by asking. Most people don t ask. Here are some good open-ended questions to ask your vendor partner when you talk with them: Power Questions What are the best practices for this type of work? What are you seeing that is working with your other clients? What trends do you see emerging in the last couple months that are relevant to our business? What do you think we could be doing to increase our conversions? If you were in our shoes, what would you be doing that we aren't yet?
19 Leverage We often see CEOs leaving their vendors on an island. They believe that the vendor is responsible for obtaining certain results, but don t really put effort into using their own resources to increase the level of activity. In the case of online marketing companies, it is very often the case that a client will be paying for a defined amount of work to be done every month - content, page revisions, campaigns created, etc. If you adopt an approach geared towards leveraging your vendor s intelligence and your own resources, you can start asking questions like: Power Questions What can my team be doing to accelerate your work? What would you recommend we do more of if you had access to my team's time? In what way can our team be more involved in the online marketing campaign so this campaign has a higher chance of success? What things can we be doing on a monthly basis to complement your efforts? Working to absorb best practices and industry knowledge from a vendor not only improves the campaigns you re working on with them in the short term, but also helps to retain that knowledge in your organization after the vendor is gone.
20 Create a Team Mentality When you finalize an agreement with a new partner, begin integrating them into your team. Build communication cycles that involve them in your internal planning calls. Treat your account manager at the vendor company like part of your staff and get them invested in the outcomes you re trying to drive. When they commit to doing something with your entire team, you can be sure they will give it a high priority. Remember that people work to make money but they work harder when they feel accountable to people they like. Share Vital Information Help your vendors do their job by sharing critical data with them. Sales, conversions, specials and new product and service data give them material to work with. The act of sharing information breeds trust and common accountability to shared goals. It also helps protect against a vendor hiding bad performance data or covering up mistakes. Practical Tips Learn how to read analytics yourself and ask detailed questions about your traffic and conversions. Get some of your internal people Google certified so they can understand what the vendors are doing and ask better questions. This is not very hard or expensive, but gives you a big edge in the long term. Make sure that big-weekly or monthly calls are happening and that your team comes prepared with specific well-thought questions.
Final Thoughts
22 Final Thoughts Deciding how and when to contract for SEO services for your business can be challenging. While there is no one-size-fits-all formula, building a strong internal team and augmenting their work with focused technical service vendors is a proven model that has produced success for many ecommerce retailers. Focusing your core competencies on brand, messaging, content and social engagement allow you to own the front end and save money by outsourcing for non-core technical work on the back end. Derek Preston CEO GrowTeam In our business we represent hundreds of CEO s in managing this process and advocate for the strategies listed in this article. The market, the algorithms and the competition will all change over time, but if you maintain a commitment to the process, continually evaluate your position and make adjustments when needed, you can outperform the majority. You will be less susceptible to short term fluctuations and well positioned to capitalize on opportunities to grow when markets shift. The last and most important tip for business owners considering purchasing SEO services is that you don t have to figure it all out yourself. While you can spend your time evaluating vendors, creating a scope of work and negotiating contracts if you want to, you don t have to. Like real estate, legal services, merchant services, and many other marketplaces, there are professional agents that specialize in managing this process and don t add any cost to the equation. If you are in the market for these kinds of services, take time to check out a brokering agency as an option. It may save you time, money and frustration. GET THE GUIDEBOOK Download Our 30 Minute Guide To Hiring A Great Online Marketing Company
What Now? Focusing On Paid Traffic? CPC Strategy s Google Shopping Evaluation is a complimentary 60-minute analysis and assessment of a retailer's existing Google Shopping campaign architecture, targeting settings, product feed, product pages, and profitability metrics. SCHEDULE MY EVALUATION We Turn Browsers Into Buyers