SEO as part of your online marketplace strategy

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is part of your long-term online marketplace strategy. Supplementing and optimising content requires a lot of effort and time, but this investment pays off in the long term. By optimising the product information, the product can more easily be found in the search engine. And hence, you have to spend less budget on advertisements. The content can also be used on multiple online marketplaces; including the webshop and/or as snippets for your social media posts.

Optimising your content

In order to achieve higher conversion, it is important to put out content in which you focus on the visitors of the site. What do they want to know? Make sure that the questions they have about your products is answered in your content. It is thus not advisable to use as many search terms as possible. In that case, more people may land on your product page, but the conversion percentage will be much lower. Search terms will not answer the questions that customers have. Do you want a higher conversion? Then write quality content, focused on the questions and problems of the visitor and, in doing so, optimise your content.

How does the SEO for an online marketplace differ from the SEO for a website?

This has to do with the phase in which the “searcher” finds itself. For example, users of a search engine on a Marketplace usually enter search terms that are aimed at a specific product, houseplant, or Monstera Deliciosa. The search terms used on Google are much broader. There are also search terms aimed at a product, but also informative search terms, such as Monstera Deliciosa care guide.

The search intentions

When people search the search engines or the webshops, they search based on keywords. Within e-commerce (online activities) the words that people type in can be divided into 3 types of keywords.

The 3 types of search terms:

1. Informative keywords
   The visitor is looking for general information.
   Example: ‘Watering Monstera’ or ‘How big does a Monstera grow’.

2. Investigative keywords

   The visitor is looking for additional and/or specific product information and reviews. Example: ‘Monstera reviews’ or ‘shipping time plant store’.

3. Purchase-oriented keywords
   The visitor searches are based on targeted purchase-oriented search terms. Example: ‘Monstera Deliciosa’, ‘hole plant’, ‘houseplant’, ‘air-purifying houseplant’, ‘large houseplant’, ‘small houseplant’, ‘houseplant with pot’ or ‘green plant’.

On online marketplaces, people often search more specifically than within the search engines. It is therefore important to know where you want to be found and what kind of content is most relevant to achieve that.

What is important to know for the consumer? What exactly is the product? What does it do? What problem does it solve? Where can it be used for? What is it made of? What are the measurements? Make sure these questions are all answered in your product information.

General search terms vs specific search terms

Some people who search online are still exploring the possibilities and are probably using more general search terms. For example a houseplant or side table.

Others know exactly what they want. They will therefore type in more exact search terms related to this.Think of: ‘air-purifying houseplant’, ‘large houseplant’ or even very specifically ‘Monstera Deliciosa’, ’round side table’, ‘side table wood’, or a side table from a certain brand. The more specific the search term; the closer the customer is to make a purchase.

SEO strategy Marketplaces

To successfully sell on the marketplaces, it is important to work with an SEO strategy for your products to ensure that the range stands out from other sellers in the market. How do you achieve this? It is important not to write for the algorithms and the search engines, but the target group of the products. It is important that they feel addressed, can empathise with the description, and that they understand how your product solves their problem or meets their existing needs. As we wrote earlier, it is therefore really important to think strategically about who the product is for, which problems you address and what is essential for the target group to know.

Optimising products

When purchasing online, the most important aspect is the product data. What do we mean by this? This includes all information available about the product. Online, it is not possible to experience the product in real life, so the customer has to make do with the available online information (data). That is why you must tailor the information (data) to the needs of the customer and the qualities of the product; because this gives the best possible picture of the product. It is therefore wise to name all Unique Selling Points (USPs), i.e. the unique benefits. They also call these Unique Binding Points (UBPs), these are the properties of your brand and/or product with which you attract and bind customers.

Unique Selling Points (USP’s)

How do you write the texts in which these Unique Selling Points (USPs) are incorporated? Think about the questions potential customers might have about your brand and/or products. What do they really need to know about your brand and products? How does the product solve the customer’s problems or meet their needs? You include these answers in the (product) texts. The chosen search terms are then incorporated strategically. Our MarketPlace Experts can help you with these SEO choices.

SEO performance

In addition to using the right search terms and strategically using them in your texts for the right balance; SEO performance is also important. Performance refers to the online performance; can the visitors of the site or webshop find what they are looking for? By this, we mean how satisfied the visitor is with the information he reads.

Important data for good SEO performance is displaying the following data in the product text:

• Price
• In stock: yes/no
• Delivery times
• Reviews
• Responding to customers on time
• Delivering orders on time

People want to be able to see the most important product data at a glance. Only when this sounds interesting enough will one invest more time and read further and consider a purchase or actually buy the product.