SEO for stores and service sites

When we analyze the market and niche in search of growth points, we think not only about the promoted site, but also about the competitors.

It is important to understand their varieties:

• indirect competitors
• direct competitors

It is your key competitors who have a significant impact on your sales that you should focus on. Analyzing and studying their strategies and tactics can be an important step to effectively plan and grow your business.

Sellers of a similar product in the same market and serving the same target audience.

Companies selling different products but targeting your audience (channel displacers).

Structured search engine snippets (prices, ratings, reviews) are the tip of the iceberg.

When competing for top positions, it is important to consider:

• The scale of the business;
• Proximity of resources;
• Age and indexation;

SE understands the size of the business and take these parameters into account in ranking sites. 

Consider the scale of the business. It is not worth comparing large aggregators with startups, as the capabilities and ranking factors are different.

If you are a small online store or aggregator it will be hard to beat companies that have a whole staff of programmers, content managers, etc.

The graph of the average age of documents in the top search engine rendition is growing. This means that, on average, the sites in the top are getting older. The good news is that they age by exactly one year. There have been trends that the rendition has aged faster than a year for a year. In other words – the search engine was bringing up even older documents to the top, and this was a definite problem for the development of new projects.

Age plays an important role. A site with a 15-year history, all other things being equal, is difficult to overtake. Therefore, when analyzing competitors, it is important to take into account their scale in terms of the number of pages, traffic, niche capacity and other factors.

An increase in the age of documents at the Top of the search engine results indicates that established sites have an advantage in search results. This is because older sites usually have more time to accumulate authority, build backlinks and improve their reputation. These factors can contribute to better search engine rankings. Don’t be discouraged if your project is relatively new. It is important to take other factors into consideration when analyzing competitors.

In the case of determining competitors, we pay attention to a group of queries of a particular topic. The most important parameters are analyzed:

• Number of pages in the search engine index;
• The age of the domain;
• Number of links and donors;
• DR.

Often there is no point in looking at the whole topic, only at the competitors. For this purpose, we use visibility tools.

We give ~150 frequency search queries within some narrow topic. This could be “power chairs” or “computer desks” – competitors with maximum visibility in the topic are quickly identified.

Parameters X or DR can be calculated quite well in terms of traffic volume, thus identifying those competitors that are closest in age, total traffic, number of pages. We focus on the competitors who have very good visibility in the topic within this segmentation. We adopt their tricks for the promoted site, because the analysis of a successful competitor and the search for those hypotheses that have been implemented directly on it bring the greatest result.

Sites are defined as competitors if the semantic overlap with them is higher than 25%. If the overlap in semantics is low, there is no need to analyze them, because the promoted site simply does not compete with it. Thus, you can quickly understand which competitors are really competitors for you, and which sites can not be analyzed.

For example, a site that sells household appliances does not compete with Amazon for the reason that there is little overlap in the volume of semantics.

By estimating the current volume of traffic and understanding its sources, regions and behavioral characteristics, you can gain valuable insights into project performance.

What do we evaluate in this item?

• Traffic volume: dynamics and absolute size of the audience;
• Sources: search engines, advertising activity, etc..;
• Regions: cities and countries;
• Behavioral: average visit time, number of visits, etc.

This analysis allows you to identify areas for improvement, capitalize on successful traffic sources, and adapt your strategies to better meet the needs and preferences of your target audience.

Regularly monitoring these metrics and comparing them to competitors’ results helps you stay competitive and adapt your marketing efforts effectively.

Segment key queries into groups to determine the potential for traffic growth. In terms of semantics groups, it is important to analyze the growth potential of each group of keywords.

How do we segment the traffic structure?

• By groups of key queries of the current traffic structure;
• By search engines and GEO to traffic growth potential;
• By groups of key queries to traffic growth potential.

When segmenting groups, you can see their growth potential as a percentage. Understanding this allows you to see the fundamental differences between the growth points of one group and another.

The following factors are taken into account:

• Current structure: regions, sections and segments attracting traffic;
• IP and GEO emphasis: potential by region for potential traffic;
• URL groups’ potential for growth: document sets, sections, cards.

By evaluating the current structure, highlighting search engines and geographic regions, and assessing the growth potential of URL groups, you can identify areas with the greatest potential for traffic growth. This analysis allows you to prioritize your optimization efforts, allocate resources efficiently, and focus on those areas that will have the most significant impact on increasing site traffic. Regularly monitoring these factors and adapting strategies accordingly will contribute to sustainable efficiency gains.

What do we evaluate in this item?

• Average optimization performance;
• Optimization for each query/URL;
• Over-spamming, post-filters and sanctions;
• Prioritize semantics.

By assessing the degree of optimization and considering internal, external and behavioral parameters, it is possible to identify areas that require further attention and improvement. This analysis allows you to optimize your project’s performance, increase search engine visibility and improve the overall user experience.

What do we evaluate in this item?

• Crawler, webmaster panel, search output;
• Mobile adaptation;
• Loading speed: response up to – 200 ms, code loading time – up to 700 ms.

Working on technical bugs and customization plays a critical role in maintaining the health and performance of a website. It includes initial assessment and regular monitoring of the technical state of the site using various tools. Regular monitoring and proactive optimization ensure smooth site performance, usability across devices, and fast page loads. This not only increases user satisfaction, but also improves visibility in search engines and contributes to the overall success of the project.

Assessing the type of demand – categories (catalogs) or individual product cards (goods, services) – is very important because it provides insight into user behavior and preferences within specific topics or industries. They may have different levels of dominance in the demand for categories or cards.

The distribution of traffic between categories, tags, and product cards can vary depending on the topic. Analyzing groups of URLs allows you to quickly assess demand and understand the overall structure of traffic on the site.

By assessing the type of demand and analyzing groups of URLs, companies can gain insight into the growth potential of specific categories, cards, and brand pages. 

The structure of organic traffic to a website can vary significantly depending on the topic or area of business.

Organic traffic and order distribution examples for:

• Large e-commerce
• Medium e-commerce
• Small e-commerce

The distribution of traffic between page types can vary depending on a variety of factors. We identify unique traffic patterns and optimize elements to maximize the effectiveness of the strategy.

• Segmentation of categories into subgroups;
• Comparison of category and product potential;
• Determining the completeness of semantics development.

By comparing potential category and product traffic, assessing the completeness of semantic reach, and segmenting categories to optimize points, opportunities for growth can be identified. This analysis allows you to prioritize your efforts and focus on areas with the greatest potential impact.

Understanding the composition of search results helps you identify key players in a particular industry or topic. By analyzing the sites that consistently appear in search results, you can gain insight into their strategy, strengths, and competitive positioning. This information can inform decision-making and inform your own optimization strategies.

The composition of SERPs can change over time, reflecting changes in user behavior and search engine algorithms. Observing changes in the popularity of different types of sites can provide valuable insights into new trends and developments in the digital landscape.

• Aggregators
• Online stores
• Businesses
• Content
• News
• Video
• Services

Understanding SERP performance by site type provides insight into the diverse ecosystem of online resources and the competition for visibility across industries. By being proactive and adapting, companies can capitalize on opportunities, leverage new types of sites, and create unique experiences that capture the attention and engagement of their target audience.

Analyzing user intent is one of the important aspects of understanding the search landscape. By evaluating intents, we gain insight into the needs and desires of searchers.

Variations in user intent:

• Commercial outcomes
• Photos and videos
• Maps and travel
• Dictionaries
• Reviews

Understanding the intent behind users’ search queries allows us to provide relevant and valuable services that meet users’ desires and goals.

Optimizing an online store involves focusing on different areas of the store in order to increase its visibility, relevance and user-friendliness. The key areas of optimization are title and meta tags, headers, breadcrumbs, surrounding text, product titles and descriptions, menu category names, filters, additional information in the sidebar, alt and title attributes of images, and displaying the number of products.

Taking these aspects into account when optimizing store listing areas allows online stores to create a visually appealing, personalized and customer-centric shopping environment. Constantly seeking innovative approaches and incorporating these elements into an optimization strategy helps online stores stay competitive, delight customers and ensure long-term success in the dynamic world of e-commerce.

Apart from the mentioned optimization areas, online store owners should consider the importance of user-generated content (UGC) and social proof in their optimization strategy. Encouraging customers to leave reviews, ratings and testimonials about their purchases can have a significant impact on the decision-making process of potential customers.

• Title and meta tags;
• H1-H6 headings;
• Breadcrumbs;
• Pre- and post-listing text;
• Product titles and descriptions;
• Menus: category titles;
• Filters: occurrence in elements;
• Additional information in sidebar;
• Alt and title attributes of illustrations;
• Quantity of goods.

These factors play a crucial role in optimization efforts. Taking them into account allows online stores to improve visibility, functionality and user experience, which ultimately contributes to success in the competitive online marketplace.

Checking the site for compliance with ranking factors is carried out by manual and automated methods. A comprehensive audit (on average) contains 50 sheets.

A ranking factor audit is a critical evaluation process to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement in terms of search engine optimization (SEO).

The audit looks at key areas such as on-page optimization, technical SEO, backlink profile, user experience, content evaluation, local SEO factors, etc.

A combination of manual and mechanized analysis provides insight into overall site condition and areas of focus.

Manual analysis involves human expertise and attention to detail, while automated tools help identify potential problems and provide data-driven analysis. In addition, an audit opens up the opportunity to uncover hidden potential and discover untapped optimization opportunities. It allows you to go beyond basic SEO practices and explore innovative strategies to gain competitive advantage.

When dealing with listing or tag pages, the main objective is to entice and engage users by showcasing a product card that piques their interest. The purpose of a listing page is not to make a direct sale, but to direct users to relevant product cards.

The main task of a product card is to convince the user to make a purchase. This emphasizes the importance of building trust in the store, providing transparent information about delivery, payment options, prices and other important details. The roles of these two elements on the user journey and their respective optimization allow online stores to improve the overall shopping experience, increase conversion rates and increase loyalty.

Objectives:

• Retention
• Engagement
• Product comparison

Objectives:

• Conversion to purchase
• Trust in the store
• Price, delivery and payment

Analyzing exit points from a website in terms of conversions is very important to identify areas for improvement. Using automated tools and statistical systems, data can be collected on pages with low engagement and short session duration. These metrics indicate potential problems with traffic retention on these pages, giving you the opportunity to optimize them to improve performance and increase revenue for your company.

Implementing A/B testing or user feedback mechanisms can provide additional insights and validate the effectiveness of optimization activities.

In YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) topics, analyzing and improving EEAT (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) metrics is critical.

Expertise: Evaluates the level of knowledge, expertise and skill demonstrated on a web page or site. Google looks for accurate, well-researched content that contains valuable insights from experts in the field.

Experience: the value of content created from personal experience. By considering the element of experience, search engines can provide more meaningful, interesting and accurate content that reflects real-life experiences.

Authoritativeness: This assesses the reputation and authority of a content author or website. Google considers factors such as the author’s experience, industry recognition, and overall credibility of the site when determining the authority on a particular topic.

Trustworthiness: Reliability and trustworthiness of information. Transparency, indication of source, absence of misleading content or deceptive practices, compliance with legal and ethical norms, have an impact on credibility.

The challenge of listing: user retention

The conversion rate for traffic that is accounted for by listings is usually 2- times lower than the conversion rate of traffic that is accounted for by product cards.

Once you go to an item, it must be purchased

The probabilities of conversion of this product/service card, after the transition. Those goods for which each click on this product is more realistic.

Margin on sale of goods / profit

Those products for which you will make more money as a business with each click.

* depending on how well the ranking is currently set up.

Transforming listings (categories) into a hub:

• Links to categories and subcategories;
• Attractive text and headings;
• Easy sorting and filtering;
• Popular products and brands;
• Guides, reviews, articles;
• Reviews and ratings;
• Navigation.

Converting a category to a hub can significantly increase conversion rates, turning it from a standard page into a comprehensive document that contains all the information you need.

This transformation allows users to not only browse popular products, but also access additional information.

In situations where buyers are having difficulty making a decision, addressing their other needs within the ad can significantly increase conversion rates.

* depending on the site parameters.