How to master SEO for enterprise eCommerce

Our system does generate Smart Links automatically. We have an algorithm that’s been developed over the last ten years. You can imagine that for the clients that launch 40,000+ pages, that’s a lot of Smart Links. It’d be impossible to manage if the process were not automated.

Absolutely. Smart Links sit across the entire client’s site and across all LUX Smart Pages. They’re all optimised, creating this typhoon hurricane of internal linking systems.

What’s excellent about Smart Links is they increase the authority of your entire site, which leads to an increase in traffic. This combination of hyper-relevancy and increased domain authority is what makes our Smart Pages rank high and fast.

In reality, Google doesn’t care all that much about the word order in search terms like “Women’s dress red” or “queen bed sheets cotton”. So you could definitely create pages that target the exact search term, and have all your products that match that search term on one page.

But there won’t be that much volume in misspelt or grammatically incorrect search terms, so it’s probably not something you would need to prioritise.

The first stop should be your paid search term reports because that’s where your first-party dollars and data are. Not only do you have transparency of your impressions and clicks, but you also know the revenue it generates and your conversion rates. Then, of course, there are a lot of third-party tools you can explore, like SEMrush and Surfer SEO.

At Longtail UX, we have our own data tools that look at keyword opportunities. We also have owned tools that look at keyword data competitions across hundreds of thousands of keywords.

This article explains how LUX avoids keyword cannibalisation in all customer campaigns to avoid impinging on site performance.

We’re all about user experience. So our advice would be to never create pages for a short-term SEO strategy. It has to deliver a good user experience. If you can manage that, then you can start to think about ways to make these pages work for SEO.

If you start by focusing on SEO first and UX second, you run the risk of getting traffic, but that traffic not resulting in conversions.

First, run a Google Ads campaign with a test budget. It’s the fastest way to get relevant traffic and kick-start sales and a great way to gather long tail keyword research data for organic search.

Then, set a ROAS/CPA target for these Google Ads campaigns and consider the direct ROI benefit and keyword research benefit for the first few months. Measure the first-click attribution basis rather than the last-click attribution.

As a rule of thumb for search: First-click revenue contribution = 1.5x last click revenue contribution, but check real data in Google Analytics.

And, apply the Customer Lifetime Value factor. Customer Lifetime Value is 2x last click revenue contribution but varies vastly by industry/product type.

Finally, ask your business leaders who should know that number for their business.

It is possible to measure the ROI of your SEO, but it’s very difficult.

The first thing you should do is, at the least, identify what your non-brand split is. Measure what your investments have been over time, including internal resource spend/team costs. Then look at what your non-brand revenue was for the same period. With this information, you’ll be able to identify the increase in your non-brand ROI. The problem with this method is it only gives you a broad overview over a long period. There limited options for ways around this.

The bottom line is that you want to know what your ROI is on your organic spend before you make a significant investment in the channel, the same as you do for paid.

For small site SEO, your best strategy is manual optimisation. That is, manual page and content creation and link building outreach, local SEO like Google business listings and aggregator site listings.

For big site SEO, your best strategy is thinking large-scale and automation. For instance, site structure changes (beware of downsides too, so test by website section or category), page creation and internal automation, consider content enrichment with machine-generated content (if it also creates a user benefit – never for SEO alone).

Ideally, both sides report to the same manager. And management understands that content and web teams have to work together. If not, you have to educate management, too — good luck with that, though.  

In large organisations, 50% of SEO work is communication and change management processes. That means you should meet with them regularly — discuss project plans and timing, have informal, individual catch-ups, and understand their KPIs. Then, see how your work can fit in. If they have completely different KPIs (e.g. content and web teams are not measured on traffic or revenue), then that’s a problem — go back to the education stage.

Explain the benefits of including your recommendations in their content and web changes (more exposure for their work to users; more success). Create internal case studies from past collaborations and review them with these teams.

• If you don’t have success cases from your current role yet, use them from your previous role.
• If you don’t have any from either, find public ones on the web.