Why Fospha’s Ultimate TikTok Playbook is a Must-Read  

TikTok has rapidly become a powerhouse for ecommerce growth, making it essential for digital marketers. Fospha’s Ultimate TikTok Playbook provides actionable insights and proven strategies for brands at any stage of their TikTok journey, from starting out to scaling and maximizing long-term performance.  

“Our playbook demystifies the process, offering clear, data-driven guidance to help brands achieve exceptional results on the platform,” says Jamie Bolton, VP of Growth at Fospha.  

Key highlights of the playbook include:  

• Full Funnel Strategies: Optimize each stage from awareness to conversion.  
• Enhanced Measurement: Achieve clear visibility with multi-touch attribution and marketing mix modeling.  
• Creative Optimization: Best practices for engaging, trend-leveraging content.  
• Peak Period Strategies: Maximize returns during high-traffic periods with tools like Spark Ads and Branded Effect.

Case Studies Highlight Success  

Learn from brands like Underoutfit, Represent, Nutrimuscle, and The Essence Vault who have leveraged Fospha’s insights to achieve remarkable results on TikTok.  

About Fospha  

Fospha is pioneering a new approach to cross-channel digital marketing measurement. With no-code implementation, clients are live in 2 to 3 weeks with a year of full funnel performance modelled, ensuring complete privacy safety.  

For more information, visit www.fospha.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter for the latest updates.  

Contact: Snezhina Kashukeeva: snezhina.kashukeeva@fospha.com 

A recent analysis of 71 brands offers valuable insights into the optimal strategies for startups, scaleups, mature brands, and majority offline businesses. Here’s what we learned. 

Startup Stage: Building the Foundation 

Key Strategy: Startups focus on impressions-driven channels like Paid Social to establish their audience base. This approach is essential for gaining visibility and creating a strong initial footprint in the market. 

Case Study: Pooch & Mutt exemplified this strategy by leveraging Paid Social to achieve significant year-on-year revenue gains while also improving acquisition costs. This foundational step is crucial for setting the stage for future growth and stability. 

Scaleup Stage: Accelerating Conversion 

Key Strategy: For scaleups, having already established an audience, the focus shifts to conversion activities. Increasing spend in impressions-led media helps continue generating demand while maintaining a balance with acquisition costs. 

Case Study: The Essence Vault successfully applied this approach, scaling their Meta presence while minimizing cost increases. This stage emphasizes the importance of efficient spending to maximize conversion rates and sustain growth momentum. 

Mature Stage: Expanding Horizons 

Key Strategy: Mature brands invest in higher funnel activities to avoid market saturation and explore international expansion opportunities. This strategic pivot ensures sustained growth and market diversification. 

Case Study: Represent scaled their efforts on TikTok, enhancing growth and improving Meta efficiency. By expanding their presence in the US, they exemplified how mature brands can navigate saturation and seek new markets for continued success. 

Majority Offline Brands: Embracing Digital Channels 

Key Strategy: Majority offline brands primarily invest in click-based channels like Performance Max. However, the analysis reveals significant opportunities in Paid Social, suggesting a balanced approach for optimal results. 

Nutrimuscle is a fast-growing sports supplement brand that started using Fospha in June 2023. Their goal was to grow by increasing conversions and effectively allocating spend, but like many businesses, one of the primary challenges they faced was the inability to track key metrics (i.e. Cost of Acquiring Customers) and lack of transparency into campaign performance.

Nutrimuscle wanted to understand where to allocate spend, and which channels would be most effective for increasing reach and conversions. Last click and ad platform measurement wasn’t enough- this is where they turned to Fospha.

What’s the problem this partnership is solving?

Measuring the true impact of impressions-led advertising has long been a tough task, especially with new privacy measures, which have made getting the right data even harder.

Fospha has found that basic click-tracking methods (like last-click and MTA) don’t fully recognize the value of upper-funnel activity, with a 2023 study finding that these methods miss about 74% of the sales that come from impression-based media. Across their client base, Fospha also found that brands that aren’t investing in higher-funnel activity like Snapchat have significantly higher acquisition cost and lower return on advertising spend.

Fospha’s latest report reveals Snapchat to be a key growth channel amongst their brands, with ROAS increasing by 504% from 2022 to 2023, even while spend grew 76% YoY. Fospha states that this demonstrates an opportunity to capitalize on strong performance at higher spend levels.

On Snap’s Q4 2023 earnings call, co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel highlighted the importance of continuing to drive improved performance for advertising partners as a focus for Snap in 2024. Fospha data supports this, showing Snap ROAS has been rising since the company began updating its performance products in late 2022 and early 2023. The Fospha partnership highlights the importance for both companies of empowering brands to improve their attribution capabilities, identify growth opportunities, and maximize returns on their advertising investment.

Why Fospha?

Fospha is pioneering a transformational new approach to cross-channel digital marketing measurement. A no-code implementation means clients are live in 2 to 3 weeks with a year of full funnel performance (impressions, clicks, zero-party data) modelled and it’s completely privacy-safe (no user-level personal data is used).

Sam Carter, Fospha CEO, said, “We’re delighted that Snap is certifying Fospha as a key partner, further validating our mission to help eCommerce brands spend with confidence. Our product allows us to clearly see the massive unrealized opportunity that brands have in paid social media. We’re also particularly bullish on Snap based on the data we see coming in from advertisers. Working with the Snap team to help retailers realize the potential here is really exciting.”

To find out more, reach out to Fospha or your Snapchat account manager for more details.

Top of Funnel Marketing 

Top-of-funnel marketing is about more than just creating buzz; it’s about laying a sustainable foundation for growth. Imagine it as the first chapter of an engaging novel, where the story begins, intrigue is created, and the relationship with the reader—or in this case, the customer—starts to form.  

Historically, due to the difficulty in tracking and measuring the impact of these top-of-funnel activities, brands have gravitated towards bottom-of-funnel advertising, where results are more tangible, like direct sales and conversions. However, this approach often overlooks a critical aspect of customer acquisition and brand building.  

According to a Fospha report, brands that consistently invest in top-of-funnel activities for a minimum of 10 months are likely to see reduced customer acquisition costs and a more robust Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). Specifically, the report reveals that brands prioritizing long-term brand awareness strategies can improve their ROAS by 42% and decrease acquisition costs by 35%, in comparison to brands that concentrate exclusively on conversion-focused activities. 

The Challenges of Current Measurement Practices 

The digital advertising landscape has evolved significantly over the past five years, growing more complex and demanding advanced measurement techniques.  

Traditional pixel- and cookie-based methods, which have been the mainstay of most brands, are losing their effectiveness due to regulatory changes like GDPR, CCPA, and iOS 14.5, which prioritise consumer privacy over technological efficacy. This has led to a significant reduction in visibility, especially in the early stages of the customer journey. Consequently, marketing attribution models that do not account for top-of-funnel activities may overestimate the effectiveness of lower-funnel activities. 

Fospha x TikTok 

On Monday 8 Jan 2024, TikTok introduced Fospha as one of the measurement partners. This partnership represents a significant development in the intricate world of digital marketing, highlighting the importance of not solely relying on bottom-of-funnel metrics for brands aiming to achieve sustainable growth and broad market reach. 

Fospha’s solution empowers brands to measure their paid media spend across platforms like TikTok in a data-driven way that aligns with profitability. This means that brands can now gain insights into the impact of their top-of-funnel activities, optimize their strategies accordingly, and scale their efforts without sacrificing their bottom line. 

Case Study 

Let’s take a closer look at The Essence Vault, a fragrance brand that faced the common dilemma of digital expansion. By embracing TikTok’s dynamic platform and partnering with Fospha, they saw a 20% increase in revenue and a 7% improvement in ROAS, illustrating the power of a data-driven, top-of-funnel approach. 

Conclusion 

TikTok has exploded in popularity, emerging as a significant alternative ad channel. The platform has shown strong returns, outperforming other growing platforms like YouTube. Top-of-funnel marketing is more than just an initial handshake with potential customers; it’s an indispensable part of a brand’s growth strategy in today’s complex advertising ecosystem. With strategic tools and partnerships like Fospha and TikTok, brands can confidently navigate this landscape, ensuring that every stage of the marketing funnel is optimised for success. As we look towards the future of digital advertising, it’s clear that understanding and leveraging top-of-funnel marketing is not just a strategy, but a necessity for sustainable growth and success. 

For further information on this partnership, visit Fospha’s blog and TikTok for Business Blog. 

30-second summary:

• Retailers should use a data-driven approach to develop their marketing strategies to succeed in today’s volatile economy
• Current tumultuous economic conditions are disrupting the retail landscape by forcing store closures and forecasting bankruptcies
• Marketing intelligence for pricing, advertising, and promotions is critical in gaining an edge against competitors
• Managing Partner at GrowByData, Prasanna Dhungel, shares ecommerce strategy tips for 2023 to attract, convert and retain customers

The economy in 2020 was in a volatile state, primarily due to the pandemic. In November 2020, despite rising Covid cases, retailers were providing SALE offers on 13% of ads and special promotions on only 7% of ads. On the other hand, consumer spending growth was recorded at 9%.

Fast-forward to 2021 – The economy was recovering from COVID that was evident in consumer spending growth of 13.5%. With a slightly eased supply chain and better economic conditions, November holidays in 2021 saw 14% growth in special offers, which had grown twice as much compared to 2020. Furthermore, SALE offers were seen on 12% of ads which was slightly lower than the previous year.

However, in 2022, the Russia-Ukraine war coupled with unfathomable COVID rise in manufacturing nation like China impacted the economic indicators once again. With rising inflation, consumer spending had fallen drastically to mere growth rate of 6%-8%. For this year’s November Holiday, 60% of consumers mentioned discounts and promotions playing a huge role in their purchasing decisions.

Surprisingly, during November 2022, there was a drop with only 8% focused on special promotion ads.  However, SALE offer was in a rise visible in 15% of ads.

A similar trend was seen in average pricing in Google Shopping ads that is, turbulent economy was reflecting in lower average price in 2020 and 2022 compared to 2021 – when the economy was flourishing.

Heading into a deeper recession in 2023 

As we enter 2023, we expect to continue heading into a recession.

According to a monthly survey conducted by Bloomberg, the likelihood of a US recession in 2023 jumped to a whopping  70% – as a series of Federal Reserve interest hikes drove fears of a stagnant economy. To make matters worse, a rise in US unemployment throughout the year has also been predicted to cause more pain in the labor market.

On the contrary, to remain competitive in the market, gross margin in retail is expected to go down. In this paradigm, pressure will rise on spending like advertising.  Consumers will start scouting for cheaper products causing retailers and advertisers to provide low-priced products to win market share. Therefore, the road ahead for retailers is going to be bumpy.  Per UBS analyst report, 50,000 store closures in the US is expected over the next 5 years. News of mega-stores like Bed Bath & Beyond potentially going to bankruptcy has emerged.

Based on our 2020 and 2022 economic analysis, retailers most likely will have unsold inventories to clear during the 2023 November Holidays. That said, consumers will see more SALE ads over special promotions, alongside noticing a drop in average pricing in shopping ads.

Tips for 2023 ecommerce strategies

Consumer spending, which has been decreasing in the last 3 years, will most likely fall in 2023 as well. Discounts, Promotions, and cheaper prices are the only ways to attract customers to stretch their wallets.

Despite the bleak outlook, retailers utilizing marketing intelligence for their pricing, advertising, and promotions will most likely survive and gain an edge in 2023. Here are a few tips for retailers and advertisers to succeed in 2023 –

1. Optimize ecommerce trustworthiness factors to boost conversion

Trust plays an integral role in converting business. To ensure a high conversion rate, it is imperative to build a customer’s trust in your eCommerce ecosystem. It is fair to say that online shoppers are often reluctant to make a purchase due to uncertainty on an unfamiliar channel or brand or product. For an eCommerce business, gaining trust is crucial as customers are unable to physically see the product. Businesses must focus on optimizing trustworthiness as it will have tremendous impact in the conversion. That being said, trust is a psychological state that can be easily influenced.

Here are the ways to optimize your ecommerce trustworthiness.

1. Showcase customer reviews and ratings, use trust badges and seals, offer secure payment options, display contact information prominently, maintain a strong presence on social media – all these attributes gain trust from your customers. Additionally, have good shipping & return policies, and enhance your website’s user experience. This will reassure your company’s transparency and guarantee customer satisfaction. All these should lead to increased customer loyalty and sales. For instance, Google rewards the “trusted store” badge to stores offering fast shipping, good return policies, a high-quality website, and good ratings – all the factors that signify a good customer experience.
2. Shopping ad extensions is another great way to improve the trustworthiness and effectiveness of your shopping ads. Ad extensions allows you to provide additional information about your product/business in your ad, which will help increase the credibility of your ad and the likelihood of users clicking on it. For example, you can use the “product review & ratings” extension to display the average rating your business has received from customers. This can help potential customers feel more secure during their purchase journey.
3. Offer competitive shipping and return policies to add a layer of trust and credibility for your brand. Customers generally prefer to shop with brands that offer free shipping or expedited shipping options. A hassle-free return policy will not only help build trust with customers but also create a good brand image since you have taken that extra step to ensure the customer’s satisfaction. For example: if you offer a 10-day return policy while your competitor is offering a 3-day return, customers are more likely to choose your product vs your competition. Additionally, having a local presence in the market is also a plus point. Customers will know you exist in their market. Offer 24/7 customer helpline and chat for your customers to get feel like they can contact you easily.
4. If you are a brand, you should have a MAP policy in the US and Canada. Having a MAP and channel policy helps ensure your brand’s product’s price and channel consistency across the digital shelves.  You must clearly communicate your MAP policy to your retailers & partners and provide them with the necessary guidelines for selling your products. Setting up a MAP policy and ensuring its enforcement helps brand maintain their value and ultimately improves trust and credibility amongst resellers and ultimately shoppers.

2. Optimize ROAS by lowering advertising cost

Here are six ways to achieve this –

1. Pursue Holistic Search Strategy to mobilize budget across SEO and SEM to dominate Google SERP. In 2022, our top Auto retailer client increased 20% revenue by redirecting ad spending from keywords where they were doing well in Organic.
2. Improve your keyword quality score to boost impressions and CTR with lower CPC. We have noticed retailers not utilizing special offers during this adverse time. We humbly disagree with this strategy as it is imperative to offer discounts through special offers over dropping prices. This simple tactic can improve your ad quality and reduce your CPC.
3. Optimize your product experience by focusing on product title, price, quality, color, description, promotions, reviews, etc. This will not only increase your chance of conversion but also help improve your keyword quality score.
4. Ensure affiliate compliance to reduce revenue churn and better partner with your loyal affiliates.
5. Monitor violations in your brand term that are inflating your CPC.
6. Enforce MAP Compliance to avoid pricing wars reducing your margins and brand value.

3. Dynamic pricing optimization to maximize margin

To be on top of the game, retailers must have insights into current market pricing to ensure optimum pricing to beat competitors. The approach taken for dynamic pricing strategies to penetrate while maximizing margin from the market will be critical for growth.

4. Strategic promotional planning to attract consumers

Consumers will always be gazing for promotions. In this adverse economic situation, a strategic promotion plan will help optimize advertising and conversions.

Conclusion

As the pandemic-riddled period comes to an end, innovation becomes a key factor for survival in the volatile market of today. Furthermore, with a shift in the retail landscape consumer expectations and demands will be a leading force in 2023.

Retailers and advertisers must remain flexible, adaptive, and affordable to get an edge against competitors to maximize their market share. They should use a unified marketing intelligence solution that showcases them versus competition in the eyes of the shoppers on the digital shelves. We recommend retailers use a data-driven approach to developing their marketing strategies to improve their chances of success in 2023.

Prasanna Dhungel co-founded and runs GrowByData, which powers performance marketing for leading brands such as Crocs and top agencies like Merkle. GrowByData offers marketing intelligence for search, marketplace, and product management to win new revenue, boost marketing performance and manage brand compliance.

Prasanna also advises executives, board & investors on data strategy, growth, and product. He has advised leading firms such as Melinda & Bill Gates Foundation, Athena Health, and Apellis Pharma.

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30-second summary:

• Has it become nearly impossible to cut through the noise of six million apps in app stores?
• For app marketing to be effective, it has to take into consideration the whole ecosystem that affects your app’s marketing performance
• Whether it is app store optimization (ASO) or combining organic and paid user acquisition, marketers need to look at data holistically and ask the right questions when analyzing app performance
• A successful app marketing strategy understands the correlation between ASO and paid user acquisition efforts
• You need to understand how your paid funnel impacts organic growth and vice versa

Whether you like it or not, apps have become a day-to-day standard for businesses and consumers. There is an app for everything, whether it is shopping, banking, travel, or gaming.  In fact, a recent survey has found that 88 percent of mobile time is spent within apps.

According to Statista’s data from Q2 of 2022, there are more than six million apps across Google Playstore, Apple app store, and Amazon store.

Source: Statista

That’s why marketing your app properly has never been more important and has become an integral part of a business’s marketing strategy. But for it to be effective, app marketing has to take into consideration the whole ecosystem that affects your app’s marketing performance. Whether it is app store optimization (ASO) or combining organic and paid user acquisition (for example, via Google App Campaigns and Apple Search Ads), marketers need to look at data holistically and ask the right questions when analyzing an app’s performance.

Here I will share some of the knowledge I have gained and tricks of the trade I have learned over the past 10 years in the marketing field.

Organic growth on its own won’t take you far

While a few years ago ASO may have been the most important part of your app marketing strategy, to stay competitive in the busy app marketing landscape, you need to power up your User Acquisition (UA) strategy. This does not mean that ASO is no longer important – it sure is – but it has to be combined with your paid user acquisition strategy for an app’s sustainable growth. Both organic and paid UA has the main goal to drive quality conversions while maintaining a low cost per conversion.

To start with, you need a solid ASO foundation to maintain a stream of high-quality users across channels. It is essential as the user will ultimately land in your app store listing. You are literally wasting your money if you haven’t invested time in ASO and optimizing your store listing.

Paid user acquisition can lead to more organic app installs. Ads will bring new attention to your app store listing. The more installs your app generates, the higher your app will be ranked in the app stores. As a result, it increases visibility across search results and browse sections. Due to increased visibility, more and more users will land in your organic store listing and download your app. Hence the growth loop continues!

A successful strategy is about understanding the correlation between ASO and paid user acquisition efforts. You need to understand how your paid funnel impacts organic growth and vice versa. At GAMEE, we have used App Radar’s all-in-one platform which has helped our team work together within one system and understand, as well as maximize, the impact of organic and paid user acquisition for both Google and Apple app stores.

Analyzing app performance

After putting a lot of effort into optimizing your UA, don’t just sit back and hope to see perfect results. Throughout the campaign, you should be analyzing your app’s performance and asking the right questions. You’d probably like to know how much growth your ASO efforts brought. Or was it your paid UA traffic that led to an increase or drop? It can be challenging to answer all these questions, especially considering many factors that can play a significant role. As an example, let’s look at a couple of scenarios.

Scenario one: A drop in app installs

Seeing a drop in installs? It might be concerning at first sight. However, the good news is that there is most probably an explanation for every decrease in installs. And for every problem, there is also a solution.

One crucial impact factor you need to consider is paid user acquisition efforts. When you notice a decrease in downloads, you should first check whether you had ads running during that specific time. Ads can bring a significant amount of traffic to your app, and once you stop or reduce them, this might have a substantial effect on your results. Check the correlation between organic and paid conversions, and then analyze how your paid conversions impact your total growth and understand whether an increase in installs might be due to reduced activity via paid channels.

What should you do now?

First, try to get a better picture of the situation by looking at the last 30 or 90 days timeframe and understanding how significant the impact was. If pausing, for example, your Google App Campaigns greatly decreased your installs, you should consider re-activating the ads.

Scenario two: An increase in app installs

This is the result we are all aiming for. Ideally, you’d want this to continue throughout and beyond your marketing campaign. But for that, you need to know what was impacting the increase. Transferring and attributing success from one place to another can be tricky if you do not know where the success is coming from.

Your best bet would be to look at the conversion breakdown to help you find the answer. Is it Google Ads, Apple Search Ads, another paid channel, or ASO? If you run a campaign via a paid channel at the same time as the installs increased then it is most likely that that was what influenced your overall app growth. It is worth also evaluating which ad platform is the most efficient. Do you get a better cost per conversion with a paid channel? To get an idea of whether your app is performing better or worse, you may want to compare the figures with previous campaigns – How did your impressions, conversions, and costs perform compared to the previous period? Taking all of this into account will help you determine whether you should change your focus or make tweaks to your campaign.

Three takeaways from GAMEE’s experience

At GAMEE we have learned that there are three elements every app marketer should never stop working on:

ASO

It is the end-point to all of your app activities. Every dollar and hour invested elsewhere can be multiplied by a good ASO strategy and approach. This is where our use of App Radar’s platform was extremely valuable in maximizing our campaigns.

Testing

Use custom app store listings (where possible), various combinations of paid ad networks, and app store A/B tests to get the best results.

Prioritizing

Pick the audience, markets, regions, and/or demographics you need to win and focus your ASO and paid channels on them.

While analyzing the impact of paid and organic user acquisition is no easy task, the one thing you don’t want to do is put all your eggs in one basket. You can’t rely on just organic UA or just paid UA. For a successful app marketing strategy, both areas have to work in tandem. Your campaign should also allow room for testing. This enables you to tweak and pivot strategy as you go, and tailor it for your target audience. Trust me, if properly managed your app will soon be reaping your strategy’s benefits.

Jan Gemrich is Chief Marketing Officer at GAMEE, a high-engagement play-to-earn gaming platform, that attracts over 30 million users. GAMEE is part of Animoca brands which is a leading blockchain gaming company.  Jan previously worked for 9+ years at Google, based out of Prague, London, and Toronto, where he was responsible for user growth (Google Pay, Android, Search) and the launch of new products (Pixel, Stadia, etc).

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30-second summary:

• Global recession and cost of living crisis will not dampen the gifting spirit and consumer spending
• For the 2022 holiday season, ecommerce retailers forecast $262 billion in revenue which surpasses the $205 billion benchmark from 2021
• If you found yourself Googling “ideas to boost ecommerce holiday season revenue” we have answers for you!
• Our latest guide uncovers the 8 sides of a robust, proven-to-work ecommerce SEO strategy that will help propel your sales

Holiday season brings with it many things. One of them being ecommerce revenue. Despite the global recession and cost of living crisis, the 2022 holiday season will see people spending. Economists at Deloitte forecast ecommerce revenue of around $262 billion which is a 13.5 percent growth.

The question here is, how do you get a share of this $260 billion ecommerce pie? By working on improving your ecommerce SEO.

Source: Axios

Search engines push 37.5 percent of all traffic to ecommerce sites, and a whopping 95 percent of these searchers stick to the first SERP. Having an early enough start to your ecommerce seo strategy helps you earn visibility in top SERPs, measure effectiveness, test, and scale practices as the peak season approaches.

Ecommerce SEO can help your store rank higher and offer a better user experience by making sure your website aligns with search engine ranking factors.

However, Google, the most used search engine, updates its ranking factors several times a year according to its users’ changing behavior. So, you need to upgrade your marketing toolkit with the latest SEO techniques before the holiday season.

In this article, you’ll find some of the latest and proven-to-work ecommerce SEO strategies to hopefully point you in the right direction as you prepare to dip your hands into the holiday season. 

Let’s dive right in!

The eight layers of a powerful ecommerce SEO strategy

Ranking an ecommerce store is critical to winning those holiday sales. Why? Because people turn to Google whenever they are looking to shop for holiday essentials or presents.

In this situation, an ecommerce website that fails to rank higher may miss out on interacting with holiday shoppers out with their money.

So, here are some key ecommerce SEO techniques to help you to help your website rank higher and possibly interact with holiday shoppers:

1. Focus on keyword research

Holiday shopping begins with keywords. People type in search phrases when they are looking to buy something. And that’s where your opportunity to rank lies. 

44 percent of people start their online shopping journey with a Google search. Keyword research might help you find words to help Google and other search engines connect these shoppers with your web page.

ecommerce keyword research differs slightly from regular keyword research. In this case, your focus is to identify and include search phrases with commercial or transactional intent.

There could be keywords that appear commercial but could have an informational intent and hence may prove detrimental to your SEO.

The phrase “best winter shoes for women US” may seem like a transactional keyword. But as it appears from the top search result, it has a dominant informational intent. 

Let’s talk about finding these keywords.

Your keyword research should start with brainstorming keyword ideas. Make a list of all the products you sell, and then jump in your customer’s shoes to see how they would search for what you are selling.

Say that you have a shoe store and sell running and other types of shoes. Your customers may search for your product with keywords like “running shoes” or “buy best running shoes.”

Think of all such keywords.

Backlinko also recommends diving into amazon and typing these root words into the search bar to find more keyword ideas.

All of the phrases in the image above can be used as root keywords for shoe store SEO. 

You can also check out your competitor’s websites to uncover the keywords that they are ranking for.

From the image above, we can see that “Buy best winter shoes for women” might be a good alternative to the “best winter shoes for women” keyphrase. 

Also, scroll to the end of the SERPs to check out the related searches section for more keyword ideas.

Make a list of keywords during this brainstorming session. 

Make sure to corroborate the search intent before shortlisting a keyword. Sometimes a keyword may appear to have commercial intent, but in reality, it may be informational.

Finally, run your keyword ideas through a keyword research tool like Google Adwords to determine the search volume and competition.

Low search volume and high-competition keywords are usually recommended. But when trying to rank an ecommerce store, you might benefit from long-tail keywords with low search volume and competition. But these keywords are touted to convert better and may help your website rank sooner.

2. Focus on content

Google now prioritizes websites with descriptive and valuable content. You cannot achieve results with your e-commerce SEO campaign while ignoring content.

Find out what’s trending in the holiday season. What are people talking about? And then create content around topics or products that are trending. 

Focus on optimizing all the content present on your website, along with creating new, informational, and valuable content.

Optimize your product descriptions with relevant keywords. Avoid keyword stuffing, though. Instead, create product descriptions that give users all the information they may need before buying a product.

This may include product details and reviews.

Besides product pages, consider creating a separate blog to post top-of-the-funnel content like blogs, case studies, product reviews, etc. Not only will this enrich your website’s content, it may also help rank your site quicker, drive more web traffic, and generate better leads.

Long-form content, especially blogs, gets around 77% more backlinks than short-form content. Therefore, pumping out informative, unique articles may also help build your backlink profile.

Since we have touched on the topic of backlinks…

3. Yes, backlinks are still relevant

Many people believe backlinks have gone down the hierarchy of ranking factors. That’s not true, though.

Backlinks are as important as ever. When determining your website’s authority, Google relies on the number, quality, and relevance of your backlinks. So, don’t slack off on acquiring links from other relevant sites on the internet.

Gaining backlinks for an ecommerce store may not be as straightforward as building some random blog’s backlink profile.

There are many bloggers that create seasonal content and it could be an opportunity in your ecommerce SEO strategy to get backlinks on holiday season offers and discount pages. Consider reaching out to them and asking them if they could write a holiday season piece on your product and link back to your site, or offer to write a guest post for them to earn a backlink.

Additionally, there are many product review websites. You can reach out to them, send your product, and ask them to write a review of the product and link back to the product’s page on your website.

Brand mentions like these may help uplift your SEO scores since 52 percent of marketers believe brand mentions impact organic rankings.

4. Work on improving website user experience (UX)

Website user experience is an important ranking factor. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

There are various ways you can improve your website’s user experience. The first one is through site structure.

Your website needs to be easy to navigate for the users and crawl for the search engines. And for that, you will have to make sure all your web pages are arranged so that every page within the website is accessible through three or fewer clicks. This is what backlinko calls the golden rule of website structure.

Here’s a representation of what a good website structure may look like:

Source 

And here’s an example:

Once you have improved the site structure, look at the URLs of the web pages you’ve just sorted. Your website URL should tell the user what the page is about with a short but descriptive keyword.

Here’s an example of what good URLs may look like:

shoesforyou.com/athletic/runningshoes

shoesforyou.com/leisure/sneakers

shoesforyou.com/formal

Furthermore, 73 percent of web designers believe a non-responsive web design is one of the top reasons visitors leave a website. I know these are hard words but I should say all your ecommerce SEO efforts could be wasted, if your e-commerce store is not mobile-friendly and responsive web design happens to be a critical ranking factor. So make sure your website is mobile optimized so the design can adjust according to the screen it appears on.

An example of responsive web design:

Source

Another factor that shapes your website’s user experience is its security. Google, too, prioritizes website security and works to make sure the websites it drives its users to are secure.

Make sure you have a TLS certificate, so “HTTPS” and a little lock appear in the URL bar for the users to know your website is safe.

5. Page load speed

Page load speed is a part of the website’s user experience. But because it is so important, especially for an ecommerce store, it deserves its own space. 

A drop in page load speed decreases the conversion rates, with almost 75 percent of people tending to change their mind during the checkout process if the website is too slow or taking time to load during checkout.

Since the holiday season usually adds to the website load, your website can slow down. Be proactive and make sure you have enough website resources to handle the holiday rush. 

Google counts a page’s load speed as an important ranking factor and so make sure to remove unnecessary ad blockers, scripts, or optimize everything that can drag your website down in terms of speed.

6. On-page optimization

On-page optimization includes fine-tuning the relatively smaller website elements contained within the web page.

36 percent of SEO experts believe the title tag is the most important SEO element. Therefore, optimize your title tag so it is descriptive, short, and keyword-optimized.

You can use Moz’s Title Tag checker to see how your title would look on the SERP and optimize it accordingly.

Meta descriptions are critical as well. While they do not influence SEO directly, meta descriptions play a vital role in shaping your CTR. So, take the time to write crips and compelling descriptions.

Also, make sure to include keyword-optimized H2s and H3s wherever possible. And don’t forget to optimize the images on every web page.

7. Make good use of schema markup

Schema Markup is a set of codes you can embed in your web page’s HTML to help Google understand the page. It also enables the search engine to return more informative and descriptive results, otherwise known as snippets.

This is particularly important for an ecommerce site because users want to ensure the website they click on contains what they are looking for. And optimized snippets give them that and hence contribute to improved CTRs.

While Google decides what it wants to display in the snippets section, including what you want to be displayed as a snippet through Schema may increase the chances of Google going with what you have chosen.

8. Optimizing ecommerce stores for RankBrain

RankBrain is one of Google’s most historical updates and is now among the top three ranking factors. This algorithm helps Google rank sites that are contextually relevant to the search queries.

Therefore, prioritize understanding your audience and creating the content THEY need alongside working on the technical aspects of e-commerce SEO.

Additionally, work on increasing your website’s engagement rates since Backlinko believes dwell time is an important ranking factor with RankBrain. And as mentioned above, look for any authoritative backlinking opportunity you get and capitalize on it.

Final words

Finding visibility in the search engine space during the holiday season is critical to help drive business revenue. However, winning with ecommerce SEO is tough but not impossible. You might compete with big sharks like Amazon, who dominate the first page. Therefore, you may have to be smart about your strategies.

Building a content-first SEO strategy can help here as these pages may rank more easily and help channel traffic to product pages that may struggle to rank when Amazon reigns over the SERPs.

So, focus on creating optimized, informative, and user-focused content. Work on the technical aspects of SEO, and continue tracking the latest search engine updates to adapt your SEO tool kit accordingly.

Atul Jindal is a web design and marketing specialist. He has worked on website/app optimization for SEO with a core focus on conversion optimization. He creates web experiences that bring conversations and transform web traffic into paying customers or leads.

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