06. Stronger E-commerce SEO for Today and Tomorrow with Barb Davids, Owner of Compass Digital Strategies

Barb Davids joins E-Commerce with Coffee?! to talk about the power of SEO now and how to prepare for the future. Just like Google changes its algorithm all the time, user behavior changes continually. With this growing tech and shifting paradigm, search optimizations are continually changing, too.

To get found and make the most of your content and product data, Barb dives into topics like the different product attributes on different sales channels, SEO advantages small and medium businesses have over the big dogs, tangential content, and more.

The biggest gap in SEO strategy and brands’ desired end results, Barb says, is when product listings don’t have their product data optimized (or even filled out completely). She then talks about this missed opportunity and others like it. Brands listening in can easily avoid these mistakes.

Finally, Barb dives into the last 15 months since the start of the pandemic and what it’s all meant for e-commerce. She even leaves E-Commerce with Coffee?! listeners with special SEO strategy resources on her website!

What to listen for:

• If you sell your products on different platforms including Amazon, Wayfair, and others, your wording probably changes a little platform-to-platform. (Or, at least, it should.) Different platforms will have different product attributes to fill out. That said, the core of SEO strategy is the same across platforms, and Barb explains why.
• Start with each platform’s “Help” information to learn how to best utilize the system. You can also look for online communities of other business owners selling there. This kind of proactive learning is a key strategy, and Barb discusses the benefits.
• With all the product pages, content, social profiles and more your brand has online, learn how to prioritize which pages to rank.
• “Tangential content” is also worth learning about, and Barb gives you a quick 101 of what it is and how it’s beneficial.
• Savvy keyword research is a big part of how small and medium-sized brands compete with the big dogs. After all, there’s a finite number of search terms to compete on. Barb walks through how this is done.
• Barb also talks about the advantages smaller organizations have over the big guys in branding and even SEO.
• Competitors in SEO aren’t just the other brands that sell what you sell. They’re also the other entities that compete with the search terms you want to rank for, whatever their reason. Listen to Barb’s take on how to manage this.
• Email marketing might be the “dinosaur” of the digital marketing world, but it’s still an important piece of the marketing puzzle. It has, however, changed. Barb talks this over.
• Barb then goes into what's changed—and surprised her—the most in e-commerce in the last 12 months.
• The biggest gap in digital marketing for e-commerce is when products don’t have optimized product data, or are missing field data altogether. Barb explains what that means to Google.
• Barb also put together some resources just for the listeners of E-Commerce with Coffee?! Check them out here on the Compass Digital Strategies website.

A love letter from our sponsor:

If you're a brand listening and can relate, don't stop here! Visit the Amber Engine blog for more tips, strategies, and insights to sell more online. We love e-commerce, and our product information software (PIM) and data enrichment strategies simplify and speed up your rollout to Amazon and other marketplaces. Our clients launch in weeks instead of months, eliminate the guesswork, and enable interdepartmental collaboration to drive a winning presence online.

Stay awesome,

Amber Engine