The E-commerce Leader

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[00:00:30] Intro: Hey folks. Welcome back to the e-commerce leader podcast. Today. We are in the middle of a discussion. Well, really, it’s more of a question of Jason revealing his wisdom about Google S E O, which has been doing for years, particularly for Shopify store owners, because that’s, Jason’s. Uber, you know, amazing ninja scale if you like, but also this applies to anyone with their own website.
[00:00:49] And I would say also any Amazon sellers listening really should listen up because as things develop in 2021 and beyond it’s not enough to be able to, just to get. Amazon S E O although that is important, but we want to start being able to bring traffic from outside of Amazon, towards our product listings and Google SEO is a fantastic way to do that.
[00:01:07] And as ad spend gets more expensive all the time on Amazon and Google ads and Facebook everywhere else, really on the internet, then Google SEO is becoming ever more important as a cost effective way of getting traffic. So with no more to do, we’re going to plunge in today. Working on how to get backlinks, why they matter, why you should be using e-commerce.
[00:01:29] I should say I’m Google SEO consultants and experts quite sparingly. And if all else fails how to get to the top of the search engine results Slightly counter-intuitive methods. So stay tuned, keep taking notes as ever, if you want notes, go to the e-commerce leader.com. We actually have the transcripts for every single podcast there.
[00:01:47] So if you hear some things and you want the detail there, that’s where you can get it. The e-commerce leader.com. Enjoy the show.
[00:01:54] Jason: okay. So that was, that was back links and authority links. Let’s move on to number four, number five real quick. Number four is use consultants and experts sparingly. And by that, what I mean is there are many, many services out there that are built to help you.
[00:02:12] Do SEO work and rank. And I would just say this frequently they’re underwhelming in terms of their results. And, frequently what they will produce for you is may be results that are smoke, but no fire, you know, may, maybe they’ll get you traffic, but then you look and you say, am I making any money from this traffic?
[00:02:32] Well, no, but so, you know, the reality is it’s hard work and it takes a long time and you need to be careful not to overindulge in the services tools and, you know, consultants, that will, you know, try to help you with this in my experience, in my view, it just, is one of the things that you need to build into your work and to your content marketing strategies and to your website, you know, work, in such a way that you have a machine that’s.
[00:03:02] Not an expensive service you’re paying for to do it for you. If that makes sense, a machine that’s tuned produces a long-term outcome, like a flywheel where over time it’s becoming more and more successful and it’s manageable for the long-term a short consultancy or service provider gig. We’ll get you maybe a burst if they’re successful, if they’re lucky.
[00:03:27] But usually that’s, illusionary and not long-term, you know, results it’s maybe, it’s maybe not going to serve you for the longterm. So anyway, so that’s my commentary and not to be a downer about it, but it’s just, it’s not really ideal. I don’t think to use, bolted on paid expensive people to help do this work.
[00:03:45] And Kyle and I have done this in the past for people we have found just being completely real that are, Takes longer to show results, then people’s appetite to continue to pay, you know, because we do know what to do to rank the question is how long do you have to do it for to see results that somebody is going to be happy with?
[00:04:07] And when you’re in a vendor, you know, a payer payee relationship that can be tough. It’s much wiser to just say, oh, I’m going to build a system and a team that gets after this long-term goal so that I don’t have. Evaluate the quality of a service provider, in the short term and give a thumbs up, thumbs down to working with them.
[00:04:27] That’s just a, it’s not the ideal way to go in my view. Yeah. Very
[00:04:31] Michael: interesting, experience that you put across there, I guess in a sense, what you’re saying there is, is not necessarily, if you get a really great team, like you guys really do know your business with Shopify and terminally sort of e-commerce site ranking, but that you may not actually have the, the, stomach for the, for the payments for six months or nine months before it actually kicks off.
[00:04:52] The other thing that strikes me is the obvious point that either you, as the business owner need to understand SEO, or if you’re employing an SEO expert, who even if they’re very, very expert at SEO, have to understand you and your products in your marketplace. And it’s really a bit of a toss up, which is a harder to learn, right?
[00:05:08] Because there are so many nuances about your products and your relationship of your brand. To the ideal consumers that, you know, in, in your case from years of being able to over a decade. So, there’s another thing that strikes me. You’ve got to weigh that up and maybe it’s less painful for you to learn SEO than it is an SEO agency to learn your brand.
[00:05:26] Jason: Yeah, that’s right. And so it is about again, building that team and that system, and, and you do have to be responsible if you’re a kitchen table entrepreneur, like most of us are, and you’re just doing work yourself or building a team of virtual assistants, that kind of thing that you do have to have the guidance that the ability to guide this effort, and to get things done in a way that serve and support this longterm goal.
[00:05:47] Yeah. Okay. So, the final, tip here, number five in our, a little battle plan is when all else fails. Use Google ad words, to supersede the organic search results. So I guess I’m saying when all else fails, you fall back and you use the different artillery pieces in this war, then, then just, organic search results.
[00:06:10] And so, so this is, there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s no, there’s no crime in that. It is certainly something that you can do and it will give you an ability to rank above the organic search results, and most of the Google, system. And so a few tips. I think text based ads focused on buying keywords or keyword phrases that are for buying intent are the ideal.
[00:06:37] And, you can also do Google shopping. You can do, Google display ads, which is a whole different animal, because those are image ads that go across the internet on other people’s websites that are using that the AdSense program. But, but just text-based. Focused on the appropriate phrases, and, and spending a, a bit of money on that every month is a good way to go.
[00:06:57] I’ve talked about it before, but, you know, I have a Google ad grant for our charity. That’s $40,000 a month of spending that I get to deploy in support of our charity. And, it’s an honor to be a Google foundation, recipient. And we, you know, we work hard to deploy that money every month I use it or lose it is how that works.
[00:07:17] So, so trust me when I say I spent a lot of time and energy thinking about these, these tools and systems, because, even in that work, just so you know, kind of how that process works, the, the, the ad-words based system. Is still working in supportive content on your website or product or content pages.
[00:07:37] So you still, you still have to have the content or our product pages that then you put an ad out there for. So if you’ve got an item on your website, like a peanut butter, then you can have a ad words ad that talks about the, you know, the peanut butter. So, you know, you’ve got to build your, you still got to do all of this preparatory work and focus your site and have it tuned and, and focused on key phrases.
[00:08:00] And then the ad-words system can work well, in support of it. So, yeah, so that’s my, my final tip here. Shortcuts. Yeah, I
[00:08:08] Michael: like it. What’s very interesting to me is that a lot of companies that are ranking number one for their search result are doing, organic, sorry. They’re bidding on ads. And, I think one of the reasons for that is kind of simple because the competition is as well.
[00:08:21] So you’ll got the first two or three slides, three in the slots now isn’t it, which according to Perry, Marshall is a profound change in how the massive it all works. But basically if you really want to be at the top of the search results, then the researchers don’t necessarily care. Just don’t like the Amazon ads, whether it’s paid or organic, they just click on the top results.
[00:08:40] And, one of the things I’ve seen a lot of companies doing is, they will, this is not necessarily something that’s advisable from the intellectual property perspective, I think, but they will bid on the name of a company is particularly in the Amazon SAS space. For example, naming no particular names.
[00:08:54] And the competition will actually be, bidding on that as an advertising term. So that’ll turn up possibly number one for a different company. But the company itself is bidding sake. Sounds of it. Position number two in the ads and then position number three is some other company. Yeah. And then the, the fourth position from the searches perspective is this organic organic result.
[00:09:15] Right. So it’s becoming a messier business than it used to be. Isn’t it? Yeah.
[00:09:19] Jason: So you basically, if you do what you just said, you can be number one in a paid slot, and then you could be number one in the organic slot, that’s the kind of ideal outcome. And so obviously your competitors know that if they bid against your keyword key phrase and your brand name then and pay for it, they can, you know, you search or your organic search result for your own brand name.
[00:09:42] So when somebody literally types your company name, they see your competitor. If your competitors paying, which is sort of, it’s dragging you into that, you know, Against them, you know, I mean, you, you, you basically kind of have to bet against your own brand name and pay for that traffic as a slot or a spot holder.
[00:10:01] It just puts you at the very top of the, of the presentation page. And even if you’re already organically number one, so yeah, there’s most companies do that. And it makes a lot of sense to do that, so that your competitors can’t. And then if you, you know, if you look at it visually you for that keyword or key phrase, you’re pretty much dominating it.
[00:10:19] If you’re the number one organic, but most of the time what happens is you’re not number one, organic, you’re maybe number, best case, you know, on the first page, maybe you’re third or fourth down the page, but then if you pay for the key phrase and through ad-words and you’re, you’re up at the top, and then you’re down at the bottom, you’re on that page a couple of times, and that’s a very, very common outcome.
[00:10:41] World-class workers in this space. I mean, the, the best people in this space that will be a common outcome is they’re on the page twice. And so for many of the, you know, things that we do that, you know, that’s kind of the goal for us. We, we freak, you know, cause you can’t win against eBay. For example, for organic search result for a mini phrases or for Etsy or for, you know, frequently Amazon, you know, so they’re going to be number one, organic search result for a keyword or key phrase frequently.
[00:11:07] It’s, you know, it’s Amazon, it’s eBay, it’s Etsy. And then, you know, so you’re not going to beat them with your Shopify site, but you could be fourth or, you know, you could be on the first page. And then if you’re paying, hopefully you’re not paying an average against Amazon Etsy and eBay, but sometimes you are, and that’s just the reality.
[00:11:28] It’s like, okay, I’m a gladiator, I’m in a ring with a very large monster, right? Bummer for me, but nonetheless, I’m gonna fight. I’m gonna survive. I’m gonna figure out how to do this. And you just have to go at it with that mentality is that you’re going to be in a twin. It, and you have to fight with whoever is there.
[00:11:45] Michael: Yeah, I’m going, I suppose that brings up a slightly broader point, which, just to touch on, I spoke to, my Edmondson British based, Shopify expert. Who’s been doing this stuff for 20 years, I think. And he was saying that the David versus Goliath thing, you actually, you know, need to look at the weaknesses, the chinks in the armor, if you will, of eBay, Amazon Etsy, they have quite a few.
[00:12:04] I mean, Amazon, for example, is, pretty awful at optimizing listings, particularly their own products on Amazon, which is kind of ironic. They’re more mechanical sort of engineering type men site mindset than the non marketers in the end. And I don’t really know eBay very well, but I’m sure they have their weaknesses as well.
[00:12:20] And going head to head with them is often going to be very expensive and very bad for your head. But if you can find ways to sort of sneak around them, then I don’t know how that shows up exactly in the SEO slash advertising space, but I think it’s generally worth looking for those chinks rather than assuming that they’re impregnable.
[00:12:35] Cause I don’t think they are as, as, as, as invulnerable as we think they are.
[00:12:38] Jason: Yeah, totally agree. And that’s where the long tail key phrases and those ideas come into play. And you just have to ask yourself the question, how can we be distinct or unique? What can we offer that’s different? This gets too many, strategies that sort of Pandora’s box, but, you know, some of the ideas associated with, beating the biggies is, having free products, free information products, you know, and you’re not going to find a free product on the Amazon, so that, you know, that.
[00:13:03] Silver bullet right there. And you might find free products on, on other marketplaces or sites, like, you know, on Etsy maybe, but even there, you know, maybe not. So that’s one way to go about it now. How do you, how do you offer a free product? Well, it would be an information product, obviously. And so, you know, you can create information products, it can win longterm key phrases and keywords ranking.
[00:13:24] And so these are the ideas you want to start to think about. But to your point, yeah, completely agree. You just have to say, what are they doing for the key phrases and associated long tail key phrases that I’m interested in. And are there opportunities for me to Zig when Amazon eBay or the other big players are zagging or just to be in the game and win it and, and you, you know, you’re not going to win number one, you’re going to fight for silver metal.
[00:13:48] You know, anybody who’s been a wrestler, you know, I, I did wrestling when I was a young young guy and, junior high and high school. And. If you lose an early round, you’re in a, the loser’s bracket, you’re not going to get the gold, you know? And so you just have to put reality into your own mind and say, I’m still gonna, I’m still gonna fight.
[00:14:07] I’m still gonna win. But I might end up with the bronze metal here and not the gold. And so that’s just a reality and it’s a part of the deal. And, and sometimes you, you know, sometimes you just have to work and work and work and then, and then success can happen. You know, for example, you know, we have, you know, clients, we work with that, sell on Amazon.
[00:14:27] And dot dash corporation chose to do listicles that feature their products and Kaboom. There they are. Number one, search result is the listicle and the number of room and result is their product and Amazon. And so, you know, I know that some people are listening to this saying, I only sell on Amazon, stop talking about your Shopify stuff, but reality is this can work for Amazon sellers as well.
[00:14:51] And in that format in that way, you know, you can be a resource. Journalists or bloggers or whatever, and your Amazon outcomes can be wildly impacted, by those kinds of, you know, content strategies.
[00:15:04] Michael: Yeah. I mean, we’ve, we count on Amazon ranking a lot, but I just want to say for the Amazon sellers listening, saying, oh, this is all only for Shopify.
[00:15:11] This is absolutely untrue. I mean, two simple things. Number one is, as you said, the other areas that are under the Google umbrella include video and, there are companies like plugable, that’s is huge. I think it’s top 200 Amazon sellers, so millions and millions and millions of dollars a year.
[00:15:26] And they get a lot of traffic from their Google. So that video ads, which is a Google platform, on YouTube, no, they’re not ads. So organic videos is what I’m trying to say, which we had explain how to use their product in a very, very helpful way. So that’s one example of people are very focused on Amazon as a sales channel, but for a traffic channel they’re using Google.
[00:15:44] Assets in this case, YouTube, another example is a much smaller scale that, my friend and colleague Ashley Paris, who’s been in a 10 K collective mastermind probably nearly four years now is working with quite a few people and actually started to work with some aggregators now, to help them with organic ranking keywords, which can then be sent to Amazon is the sales channel.
[00:16:01] But the traffic channel can be your own blog. And that’s super smart because what are we not having Amazon, no contact with the customer. So even, even if you only quotes and quotes, capture their information and can follow up for a review outside of the Amazon sort of bubble, where they control everything, that’s hugely important that in itself could be a massive competitive advantage, not even talking about the traffic that can come from that.
[00:16:25] So I would say to any Amazon sellers out there, SEO is the skill you need to develop. And it’s amazingly good value because Amazon. Absolutely crazy price wise, Facebook ads, a very difficult because the iOS updates, et cetera, whereas SEO is just trucking on. So I would say 20 hours and Saturdays listening actually got to do this thing.
[00:16:45] Jason: Great question from a live listener here on the podcast, which is if you’re selling on both Etsy and Shopify, are you really competing with yourself? You’re trying to be number one for the same keywords. It’s a great insight. The short answer is yes. But no, but so the answer is you can compete with yourself, which would be unwise.
[00:17:04] And so, and what I mean by that is, you want to be number one on Etsy in the marketplace, on Etsy as a search outcome. So when people go to Etsy and they search for that keyword or key phrase, you want to be number one. So there’s a whole body of work there. I don’t think we’ve ever actually podcast, con you know, we’ve not done a conversation about that, but, so, so there you are there, you have it.
[00:17:23] So, but then on the Google side, too, the question is if somebody searches on Google for that key phrase and Etsy is number one, And you’re you’re there. You’re on Etsy. I mean, you, you would be a part of that outcome in the same way you would be if you were in a listicle article for the dot dash or the spruce bloggers.
[00:17:42] But you could also then be number two. So you are competing against yourself, in that regard now what you don’t want to do. And here’s why I said you are, but you shouldn’t, or you aren’t, what you don’t want to do is compete against Etsy with paid advertising, because you will lose that battle. And so, and what’s interesting here is what you have to think through is it’s almost like playing chess because, okay.
[00:18:05] Let’s say for example, you’re number one on Etsy for a key phrase in the marketplace on antsy. And then if you go to Google and you use a key phrase, Etsy’s number one in that result for that space, your thumbs up the winner, because Etsy’s number one on the Google search and you’re number one inside the Etsy outcome, what people click into.
[00:18:26] But so, but if you start paying money on Google AdWords to in essence, spend money to be a higher than that organic, result on Google, then your, you’re not wasting money, but you’re, spending money that you maybe don’t need to. But if you want the traffic to go off, not to go to Etsy, you want the traffic to go to your Shopify site.
[00:18:50] That would be why you would do that. Now what’s really doubly weird about this whole scenario is you can be competing with Etsy on the organic ranking side for the organic search and results page. And then obviously you can be competing with. On the paid side and Etsy Institute of policy, Etsy’s our second largest, marketplace for, for us beside our Shopify site, just as context for pixie Faire.
[00:19:15] And so Etsy inserted a policy, year and a half, two years ago of basically spending money to, to, on ads, on ads, on Google ads that they charge you for as a seller, which actually when they started that, I was like, what? Come on. That’s not going to be cool, but actually it is cool. It’s really actually works well.
[00:19:37] So, what you want to think through is if Etsy is paying to promote a keyword or key phrase that then they’re charging you for, and you’re getting a good outcome from that, you don’t want to. Do ad-words directly against those keywords or key phrases, because then you’re competing directly, literally against yourself as he’s managing the one in there in the blue corner, it’s Etsy in the red corner, it’s you.
[00:20:03] And, but it’s both of your products on both sides of it. That would be a mistake. That’s what we’ve avoided trying to avoid. So when, when Etsy is, promoting our content and paying, to promote that content, we don’t bid up the, we don’t compete because the competition is not just ha I’m going to win either way, but I’m spending some money.
[00:20:25] What actually will occur as you will make it less attractive for Etsy because you are bidding against the phrases. And you’re, it’s a Dutch auction at the back end of these ad word systems. There’s a bitter system. And if you win you beat. Eh, but if they beat you, they’re paying more than if you weren’t there.
[00:20:45] Yeah. Is all that really insanely confusing? Sorry.
[00:20:48] Michael: Makes sense to me. I mean, by the way, you’re wanting some show notes, but to go to the e-commerce leader.com and you can, you can even pop in there and, or, you know, if you’re watching this live on Facebook or any other channels and do put in some questions, if you need a bit of clarification from Jason on this, for me, it makes sense.
[00:21:04] I mean, broadly speaking don’t pay twice for ads is one, the simple version. In other words, you’re paying Etsy to run conduit. I just going to have insane domain authority. That’s a very smart move. It strikes me not being an Etsy seller myself, but I’ve helped clients get started on that too. But, it starts with that’s enough paying don’t do it twice.
[00:21:22] And the other question that strikes me again, bit broad for today’s podcast is really, you know, got to think through why you’re selling on two channels and where the plus and minuses of that aren’t ready and competing against yourself. If that’s what you’re ending up doing, it probably means that you haven’t really thought through your channel strategy.
[00:21:39] I was suggested,
[00:21:39] Jason: maybe not, but as the omni-channel coach of people, I would say, the, the reason or the, the use case, the counter counter-argument to what you just expressed is, Because that’s where the people are.
[00:21:52] Michael: I’m not saying, please, I’m not saying you shouldn’t be multi-channel seller. I’m saying you have to think through why and where the possible conflicts are.
[00:22:00] And I’ve seen that in advance such that Google ad words is just part of an overall strategy. You know, where you use Shopify, where you use it. So you say, no, I’m not suggesting for a second. You shouldn’t be multi-channel. I think it’s a smart thing to do, just to be sure. Sure, sure. Okay,
[00:22:14] Jason: great. Yeah. Yeah. So it is, it does get complicated, doesn’t it, especially when an organic and ad based traffic is, as factored into the mix.
[00:22:23] So again, great question. And, this is a, this is why this stuff takes time and energy to think through and, and unpack. So hopefully this conversation has been helpful. I’m happy to summarize, the list of, could you summarize
[00:22:33] Michael: the five steps? I think fantastic information today. Mandatory to say really, really good stuff.
[00:22:38] So, yeah, let’s have those five again.
[00:22:40] Jason: Okay. Here’s how. On Google, organic search organically. Number one, you have a laser beam focused on a keyword or key phrase that is a buying order phrase. Not just an informational word or phrase. Number two, you want to tune your entire website and content to rank for that keyword or key phrase, and then the derivative long tail key phrases on your homepage, your blog pages, your secondary pages, your collections pages everywhere on your website.
[00:23:07] You want to have it thought through to rank. Well, for that, that keyword or key phrase, number three, you want to work to get authority backlinks from high traffic sites that will send signals to Google that you are a trusted, provider in the space in terms of information or products, and really work hard to make that a reality.
[00:23:28] It will shortcut your path to success. Tremendously. If you can make that work, number four is use consultants or experts sparingly, except of course, humble podcasters who want to give you advice and input for free. And then number five is when all else fails, use Google AdWords system to cut the. And go straight to the top with some paid, text-based ads or shopping ads in particular that really get you front and center for the keyword or key phrase that you’re going after.
[00:23:58] That’s the five step path to crushing it on Google organically, or caveat number five with paid, outcomes. And, YouTube can be up there in overtime getting traffic from Google, which of course is a huge, huge boon to every, you know, seller online. If they can get it to work. Absolutely.
[00:24:19] Michael: So any final comments before we give our trusty call to action for subscribers?
[00:24:24] Jason: Well, I just say that we’ve talked about this last year with strategies for SEO. We also have done a lot of conversations on, you know, AdWords work. So we have prior episodes on that you can search in your podcast player for the word, the phrase SEO, or the phrase, you know, Google ad words.
[00:24:40] The other thing I would just say is all of this is covered in detail in my book, nine mountains of traffic. And that book goes over obviously eight other mountains of traffic besides organic search. And it really gives you insight into how best to pull together an overall comprehensive traffic strategy for company.
[00:25:01] And by
[00:25:02] Michael: the way, awesome metaphor and overview. What I think is fantastic is that when we, when we sat down to create the podcast together, we wanted to give the overview of things. But I think particularly in traffic, people get very, very kind of tribal and there’s lots of Facebook ads expertise out there, and there’s lots of Google SEO expertise, but you give the overview and I think that’s incredibly valuable and quite rare.
[00:25:22] So it’s a fantastic book, definitely worth getting. The final thing I would say to anyone, listen to podcasts is simply, don’t forget to subscribe and join the growing tribes. I mean, it’s actually pretty straight lines sort of graph going from left upwards to the right. So there’s lots of people joining us.
[00:25:38] So come and be part of the party. And if you’re on apple podcasts, don’t forget to give us a rating out of five stars. It’s really, really helpful as well.
[00:25:45] Jason: Absolutely.
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