The eCommerce industry is booming, which is a great thing for new and upcoming businesses. But this can be a bad thing, too, because the competition in almost every eCommerce niche is through the roof.
In such a highly competitive space, how do you stand out? SEO and content marketing should be on the top of your list, as studies suggest that 81 percent of shoppers research products online before making a purchase.
SEO-focused content marketing is a long, patient game. But by working on the right strategy and catching up with the latest industry trends, you can move up several places on search engine rankings and get closer to your business goals.
In this guide, we’ll look at the different eCommerce content marketing trends that are focused on driving organic traffic through SEO. Let’s dive right in!
1. Video Content Marketing
As the years pass, content consumption methods are rapidly taking new forms. Videos have been around for a while. But, in 2021, you can expect to see the popularity of videos rise – among both humans and search engines.
This is especially true if you are in the eCommerce space. You can experiment with different types of video formats and drive more traffic to your online store.
To double down on video SEO, start with YouTube. Did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google? Optimizing your videos on YouTube for the right keywords and creating high-quality videos can quickly get you attention from the right people. This way, your videos might show up on the “Videos” tab in Google search results.
You can also embed these videos on your website. This way, you’ll improve your site’s user experience (UX) signals and engage users better. You can also transcribe these videos into the text to help them show up on Google search engine results pages (SERPs).
2. Optimize for Search Intent for Semantic Search
For a while now, Google has been stressing the importance of user search intent. In 2021, you can’t expect to rank for keywords unless you’ve taken into account the right intent. So, how do you go about creating content that matches search intent?
Remember, keywords can have multiple meanings, and it is important to get the meaning right so you can create content based on the right intent of the user. The intent can be the literal meaning of the word used, or can be based on other factors. For example, intent can be informational or commercial. Take a look at the types of intent below.
So, to offer a good user experience to your site visitors and to gain good organic rankings, do take into consideration user intent as a part of your keyword research process.
You can do this by analyzing the results that are currently ranking on the first page and checking the general intent behind most of these. To get it right, you should consider the intent that is common across search results.
3. Voice Search Optimization
With more and more digital assistants making their way into our lives, voice search optimization is another SEO-focused content marketing trend you should look out for. In fact, studies show that nearly 50 percent of users research products through voice search.
Optimizing for voice search can help you show up for both informational and product-related voice searches. Moreover, if you are a local store owner, voice search can have added benefits.
Voice searches primarily involve searches that are more conversational in nature. For example, instead of searching for order fulfillment process (as we would usually do in a simple Google search), voice-based search will usually have a conversational tone like what is the order fulfillment process?
So, ensure that you optimize your content for long-tail, conversational keywords. Also, consider using natural language in your content and more-question based keywords.
Another great tip would be to add more FAQs that have concise and accurate answers to the questions. You can add FAQs on your homepage, product pages, blog posts and even have a dedicated FAQ page on your site.
4. Focus on Improving E-A-T
E-A-T – expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness – is another concept SEO experts are very familiar with. The emphasis on improving E-A-T has increased in the past couple of years, and you can expect it to rise even further in the years to come.
As the name suggests, E-A-T represents the expertise, authoritativness and trustworthiness of your website and its content. If you fail to offer authoritative, original, accurate and expert content, then you will not do very well on E-A-T.
What does E-A-T look like for eCommerce websites? Start by ensuring better E-A-T for both the content and product pages. On the content side, you can ensure the accuracy of your content, rope in experts and authors for producing content and ensure that you offer content that is absolutely trustworthy.
For the product pages, you can ensure better E-A-T by offering highly accurate descriptions and images that match the actual products. Another main factor here is reviews. With high-quality content on your product pages, you can expect better reviews and ratings, thus resulting in better search engine rankings.
5. Long-Form Guides
Search engines like Google prefer long-form, comprehensive content, as it offers every bit of information the user might need, so the user doesn’t have to hop around different pages to find what they are looking for.
Yes, 2000+-word content is helpful for both humans and search engines – but we are talking about longer, ultimate-guide content that is around 5,000 or even 10,000 words. Such content pieces offer in-depth, well-researched information on a topic with different media formats to support the guide.
Such a pillar piece of content can be a game-changer for your search engine rankings, helping you get the right kind of organic traction for your eCommerce products.
Final Thoughts
So, there you have it – a list of SEO-focused content marketing trends that eCommerce businesses must try out in the upcoming months and beyond. SEO is a long, patient ride that yields exceptional results at the end. Using these trends will give you a head start on the road and help you reach your organic search engine goals quicker.