Large online stores conduct search engine promotion using their own models. An SEO expert with over ten years of experience shared the intricacies of the work.
How an in-house SEO team is organized?
In one of the projects, four specialists are engaged in search engine promotion. A kanban board is used to organize work within the department. To set tasks related to other departments and inter-level tasks, the group works through task trackers.
The processing card is also actively used in the work. This is a visual format where the number of directions and works that the SEO team takes within the project are indicated. Directions that are optional or that cannot be covered now are highlighted, as shown below.
This allows you to create a department processing map with resource costs for areas and project work for all employees. Using the processing map, you can prioritize the development of areas. In addition, there is a problem in large e-commerce projects: they give too many tasks. To explain to the management that there are not enough resources, they present a processing map. Based on it, you can argue why you need to expand the staff.
How are communications organized?
Communications play an important role in large esom projects. The department holds monthly meetings where employees discuss results and the direction of movement. Additionally, there is a general marketing communications chat where issues that may spontaneously arise are resolved. There is also a general document with a marketing plan for the year, where all marketing business activities are visible, and one can compare which department does what.
When each department is focused on its own business and does not communicate well with others, issues arise that can impact revenue.
Example 1. Designers did the work without informing the SEO department. In particular, they removed regional addresses on subdomains from the footer. As a result, traffic began to drop in the regions.
Example 2. Traffic from the regions began to move to the main site from subdomains. It turned out that as part of the updated design, cities were removed from the delivery block in product cards.
On large projects, losing traffic means losing money. So, communications are important to avoid such unpleasant situations and reduce business income.
Why is category elaboration important?
In many companies, only basic development is done. In large ECOM projects, the task becomes more complicated.
High-quality development of categories includes two directions.
1. Assortment analysis. When an SEO team receives a task to promote a particular product category, it first collects data. It is necessary to analyze:
- what quantity of goods are present on the market;
- what brands are popular;
- top competitors;
- filters and filter values;
- related products in listings.
The full document is passed on to the category manager, who works with suppliers and adds products to the site. Together with him, we work out which landing pages need to be created and how to expand the range of the category. Then the content department is involved, which will fill in the landing pages.
2. Basic SEO development . This includes all typical work:
- development of structure;
- collection of semantic core;
- external optimization;
- analysis of the completeness of reviews from competitors;
- The visible number of items in the listing.
Correct product names in the listing semantically strongly influence ranking. But this rule does not work with all categories, so you need to analyze each one separately.
Two-stage development gives the best result. Below is a comparison of the two categories by frequency and position. In the first of them, only basic SEO was performed, in the second, a full-fledged development was carried out.
What is the popularity formula?
This is a formula for listing profitable products for your business in your categories. It allows you to show the most profitable, popular, and fast-delivered products on the first screen to get good behavioral factors. Products that are currently unavailable, or are in low demand, or come from unreliable suppliers are pushed to the end. The formula was developed by the company’s mathematician, and the SEO department also conducts ongoing tests.
How to Conduct ABC Analysis?
This is a method that can find growth points for categories. It classifies resources by their importance. Analysis of product groups of different levels reveals problems, difficulties, the elimination of which can lead to growth.
For a basic ABC analysis, it is enough to collect data on three category metrics:
- Demand is the sum of the frequency of requests;
- Positions/Traffic;
- Transactions.
Next, zones A, B, C are highlighted in different colors.
- A – the most valuable, this includes 80% of the most effective;
- B – intermediate, 15% average efficiency;
- C – least valuable, 5% less effective.
It is important to conduct ABC not only across all categories, but also by category.
Next, let’s look at possible options.
1. All metrics fall within the ideal performance zone A
In this case, you should check with the category manager:
- Is it possible to increase the marginality of these products?
- Is it possible to receive additional bonuses from suppliers?
- Will it be possible to turn some of the products from suppliers into exclusives?
- There will also be the following questions for the UX/UI and product teams:
- Is it possible to increase the average bill in these categories?
- How to develop and implement upselling blocks?
- How to develop and implement product selections with components?
Positive responses determine growth points. Even with good sales, it is possible to increase their volume and average sec.
2. Demand and traffic belong to zone A, and transactions belong to B,C.
There is demand and conversions, but sales are low. It is necessary to check:
- How competitive is the category in terms of prices and conditions?
- Are there any top selling products and popular brands in the category?
- What commercial factors are missing for sales of this type of goods?
To answer this question, we need to analyze the top results of competitors: how much cheaper they are, why people buy from them. Perhaps they offer on-time delivery, lift to the floor, additional services, such as installation. In general, they are looking for techniques that bring sales.
A similar case was in the “Tiles” category. The analysis found that there was a lack of an additional listing “Collections”. When this listing was implemented, the conversion rate of sessions to transactions increased.
3. Demand in zone A, traffic B, C, transactions – A, B, C.
This is a fairly popular case – categories with unrealized demand potential. It usually affects new product groups, but sometimes old ones, too. What you need to pay attention to when analyzing:
- how relevant are the products in the listing;
- how correctly the page is optimized;
- are there any similar or duplicate pages;
- are the intent and relevance of the request breakdown correct;
- correctness of product filtering settings;
- quantity of goods relative to competitors;
- availability of top-selling products on the market;
- availability of popular brands;
- are the prices and conditions competitive;
- Is the product naming in the listing correct?
What are the features of technical optimization?
Audit. The in-house SEO team has developed its own technical audit manual, which is regularly updated. According to it, site crawling is performed by the Screaming Frog Seo Spider tool, for which a dedicated server is configured. Error logs are tracked in Grafana, where the necessary dashboards are configured. There, Qore Web Vitals indicators are also monitored — FCP, LCP, TBT, CLS — for different types of pages.
Low-use pages. The latest updates to the Google algorithms focus on assessing low-use pages — excluding them from the index. As a result, there was a real storm in the search results: pages instantly lost positions, were replaced by others, and the other entered the top of the results. This was observed in different niches. In the e-commerce theme, Google began to raise all marketplaces and aggregators, while underestimating ordinary projects at their expense.
In response to this, the SEO team implemented its own tool for managing link blocks depending on frequency on the site. Now the output of links to certain link blocks began to depend on the sum of the frequency of requests for this page. All link blocks have flexible settings and are managed automatically. For example, you can set not to output links to pages with a total or specified frequency of less than 5.
After implementing flexible settings, it was possible to reduce the number of unhelpful pages from 15% to 4%. After that, the site began to grow in search results, which is reflected in the graph.
How to work on projects?
SEO in large ECOM projects is not work on one site, but a multitude of works. In addition to the main tasks, the team monitors trends and looks for new growth points. As a result, the SEO department is the driving force behind some of the decisions and implementations on the site.
SEO specialists evaluate the user’s path from the moment he thought about buying until the order. And they try to capture this entire funnel and attract the client to the site at each stage.
For this purpose, the following projects are being implemented:
- additional sites for private labels;
- ready-made design solutions for customers with store products;
- sections on additional installation and assembly services.
The project “Knowledge Base” is also working – a blog with articles. These are mainly analytical and expert reviews. In three months of work, the blog began to receive 3600 unique visitors per month. The diagram below shows how to create articles that will bring traffic.
How do we build partnerships with marketplaces?
This is another growth point. It will not be possible to fight marketplaces in the search results, so you should work with them and get money from there.
The tasks of in-house SEO on marketplaces are now as follows:
- Optimize product names. For example, after analyzing visibility on product cards, the team realized that names should include search queries. To do this, we implemented smart names with postfixes. In 1C, we added a field in which we display all the characteristics of a specific product. And to the main name from the site on the product card, we additionally add a list of all characteristics. The name is enriched in terms of search queries, and the visibility of the card increases.
- Test fields that affect internal ranking directly on Ozon search. This is the annotation field and the keywords field. The task is to automate the filling of fields so that the data is pulled from the site.
Thus, SEO in a large e-commerce project not only deals with the website but also finds additional growth points within the project and outside of it.
Conclusion
SEO in large e-commerce projects requires a sophisticated and multi-faceted approach to drive success. From structuring an in-house SEO team effectively to managing inter-departmental communications and technical optimizations, every aspect plays a crucial role in enhancing visibility and performance. The use of tools like Kanban boards, task trackers, and detailed processing maps helps prioritize and manage resources efficiently.
Key practices include thorough category analysis, strategic optimization, and ongoing adaptation to search engine algorithms. Implementing comprehensive SEO strategies—such as detailed product name optimization, ABC analysis, and effective technical audits—ensures that the site remains competitive and responsive to market demands.
For businesses looking to excel in the e-commerce sector, investing in Top-notch Ecommerce SEO Services can make a significant difference. Collaborating with experts who understand the intricacies of large-scale projects and can provide tailored strategies will enhance your site’s performance and drive substantial growth. The expertise of a leading SEO agency, such as SEO Discovery, ensures that your e-commerce operations are optimized to achieve the best results in a competitive digital landscape.