The SEO Strategy for High-SKU Stores (and Hear How It 10Xed Sales) with Blink SEO’s Sam Wright (episode 494)
Sam Wright is the Managing Director at specialist eCommerce SEO agency Blink SEO, and at Macaroni Software the new Shopify-specific SEO tool he’s building to solve problems that they’ve found with SEO at Blink SEO, especially productivity-wise. Sam’s been in SEO since 2007, and in eCommerce since 2002.
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Dive in:
[04:11] Customers’ desire critical for SEO and marketing.
[08:57] Analysis reveals 60% organic revenue from Shopify.
[11:18] Rule of thumb for collection pages.
[12:25] Macaroni analyzes Shopify tags to optimize categories.
[14:23] Listen to Sam’s Top Tips!
Prioritize Category Pages Over Blog Content
For eCommerce businesses with many SKUs, category pages are significantly more impactful for driving organic revenue than blog content. Category pages group similar products together, making it easier for customers to browse and find what they want. They also tend to rank higher for specific product searches compared to general blog posts. Optimising these pages with relevant products and content can directly influence sales. This contrasts with blog content, which doesn’t typically show a strong correlation with increased revenue for multi-SKU businesses.
On-Page Optimisation for Category Pages
Building well-optimised category pages is crucial for SEO success. The episode highlights several on-page optimization elements to consider:
- Product selection. Include a good variety of relevant products within the category.
- Content. Incorporate informative and engaging content both above and below the product listings. This could include category descriptions, buying guides, or FAQs.
- Schema markup: Implement proper schema markup to help search engines understand the content and products on your category pages. This can improve search result visibility.
Control and Predictability in SEO Strategies
Focus on SEO strategies that offer more control and predictability, rather than those that are time-consuming and unpredictable. Link-building is often less effective and harder to track compared to optimizing category pages. It can also be time-consuming and require ongoing effort, while on-page optimisation offers more control and potentially faster results. By concentrating on internal SEO tactics, businesses can achieve faster and more measurable results, ensuring their efforts directly contribute to sales growth.
Importance of SKU Count in SEO Strategy
The number of SKUs in a product catalog should influence the SEO strategy used by the business. Sam differentiates between strategies for low-SKU and high-SKU businesses. For high-SKU businesses, taxonomy and category page optimisation are crucial, whereas businesses with fewer SKUs might focus more on positioning and differentiation, often using channels like Facebook ads for acquisition.
Immediate and Long-Term Benefits of SEO
Effective SEO strategies should deliver both immediate and long-term benefits. Sam mentions that the strategies they implement, such as optimising category pages, start delivering results as soon as they are deployed. This, combined with sustainable long-term growth, makes such strategies highly valuable.
eCommerce Book Top Tip
- Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It by April Dunford
eCommerce Traffic Top Tip
- Internal linking
Tool Top Tip
- Macaroni SEO platform
Carbon Top Tip
- At Blink, they measure the carbon output from their software and cloud processing, and use a tree planting project to offset that.
Interview links
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