E-Commerce Case Study #2: The SEO Expert
The following is a technique that I have seen put into place before by some SEO experts who have decided to use their skills to promote an e-commerce site of their own creation.
The idea behind the technique is to design an e-commerce site, from the ground up, with SEO in mind. The page would then be optimized, using both on-page and off-page factors to rank at or near the top of the search results for a competitive keyword, preferably one that is generating significant amounts of traffic.
The magic of this technique comes when the major search engines do their periodic algorithm update. These updates happen fairly often, and when they do, they tend to shift search engine rankings. The expert’s strategy here, is to create another version of her site in order to stay on top of the rankings.
This next version of the site will usually be quite similar to the original, with some subtle changes thrown in, so as to prevent the technique from being obvious. For instance the company name will most likely be changed, as might the logo, color scheme, and of course the domain.
In employing such a technique our expert is leveraging two things. First, she is leveraging her highly specialized knowledge of the SEO industry to stay one step ahead of the competition. Secondly she is leveraging all the systems she has developed to run her first business, such as inventory, fulfillment, shipping, site design, etc, on each of her clone businesses.
In terms of the “trust” issue that often comes into play when customers make e-commerce decisions, the expert has several cards she can play to make her site more trust worthy. First, she can split test different design layouts to see which produces the most favorable bounce rate. If the user leaves the site as soon as they land, because they think the site design is shoddy, that of course, is not likely to help business.
Second, she can sign up for different online security services such as VeriSign, Hacker Safe and split test the effect on conversion rate of adding “badges” for some of these sites. Third, she could split test offering different customer service options and once again check the effect these options have on the site’s conversion rate.
As for the decision making process involved in e-commerce decisions, the expert in this case has some factors working in their favor. First off, the traffic to such sites would most likely be highly targeted. Since the visitor searched for a particular term and then landed on the expert’s site, they are most likely interested in whatever niche the site is associated with, even if not all of them are interested in buying anything at the moment.
Secondly even if such a page did not have the benefit of being able to follow up with customers through an RSS feed or an email list, they can still make up for relatively low conversion rates if the traffic from whatever keyword they are targeting his large enough.
This model has seemed to have worked for some in the past, which of course is no guarantee that it will work in the future. I share it because it is an example of an unorthodox strategy for gaining an edge in online business and I hope it inspires others with some good ideas they can apply to their own online businesses.
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