Using Shopify Ecommerce to Rank Higher Than Amazon Sellers

u/rddtllthng

Ecommerce – Ranking Higher Than Amazon Sellers

Hi all, is it actually feasible to rank higher than Amazon/Amazon sellers if we (I'm on Shopify) sell the same product(s)? Assuming mid-low competition for this product/search term. I'm sure if I did a huge amount of research I can find super obscure long tail keywords that I can outrank them on, but is it worth the effort to even try for the return on time spent? Very specific question, I know. But thank you in advance :)
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GrumpLife
It is possible but it does take some work, mainly on-site. I worked on a site last year and they're currently in position 2-3 for the higher competition keyword, 3 positions above the top 2 Amazon results. Etsy is #1 and it's been tough getting above them.

It's their collection that's ranking page 1 above 2 individual Amazon products and they have a number of options on that collection page. They also have a very specific niche that's mid-level competitive.

rddtllthng ✍️
Thank you! I can obviously understand why Etsy, Walmart, Amazon all rank so high, but it just baffles me sometimes how hard it is to beat someone for a specific product when I have almost total control over what I do on my pages/platform while they're so much more constrained than I am by being on a marketplace platform.

GrumpLife
Amazon is extremely powerful in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Not just because of their general ranking power but because they have everything Google wants to see on product pages. Customer reviews, unique product photos, product videos, clean product data (like UPC, Brand, Stock Keeping Unit (SKU)), comprehensive keyword-stuffed titles and descriptions, clean category structure, related products, internal links especially if they run Amazon promotions to a product page, backlinks…they have everything. It's almost as if Google looked at Amazon product pages and built their algorithm based on the content on those pages.

Shopify is great. I've run quite a few sites over the years and working on my next e-commerce project now. Thing is, without a fair amount of customization and apps, you're going to be struggling organically. The absolutely terrible blog functionality that Shopify offers makes it even worse for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Don't get me wrong, it's a great, cheap, usable solution. I would recommend it for any e-commerce brand. It just requires additional effort for organic results.
sg
What is wrong with their blog
GrumpLife
It's just limited in regards to overall functionality and SEO-friendly options, like advanced schema markup. It's gotten better over the last 3-4 years but their system is just not built for blogging. It's an e-commerce platform. Some of that can be rectified with additional apps and code customization. It's just not great for blog content.

I wouldn't let the lack of blog functionality deter you though. Their e-commerce solution is by far the best for smaller self-managed stores. It's just something to keep in mind.

I'm a marketer, not a web developer but my choices are WordPress for blogging/content and local business sites. Shopify for e-commerce, even if you have to struggle with the blog a bit.

You can set up a free Shopify store and test it for 14 days if you wanted to see their blog functionality. Compare that to WordPress and you'll see what I mean.
sg
We actually have a decent sized Shopify eCommerce site right now. Been around since <year>. Over 800 products and 30 post (post started 2 months ago).

Slowing growing as we have our focus in. Hoping the blog can grow our sales. I did download one of the schema JSon apps. It fixed a lot of the Google analytics issues.
GrumpLife
Nice! That's great. Yeah, the blog will work with some tweaking but it's just not great out of the box like other CMSs.

What niche are you in
sg
We are in grocery. Coffee, tea, snack foods. We have two websites. A general retail eCommerce site and than a branded one for the specific brand we own.

So it's double the work.
GrumpLife
Wow. I can imagine. It's tough enough managing 1 store with products, orders, customer service.. 2 stores would be tough. Congrats on your success though.

After 4 years, I can imagine your sites are already ranking well, especially for branded terms. You're just looking to take your SEO to the next level with the addition of blog content
sg
Site is ranking "okay". For several years it acted more as a brand building appearance website as we focused on Amazon sales. So it's older, had a ton of pages, but wasn't ranking all that well due to lack of pushing it.

I think now that we are active on it and adding products every week, posting blog content, running Google shopping ads and emailing our customers it should start to creep up in rankings.

Since Feb 1st when we started working on this site the impression have gone up daily.
rddtllthng ✍️
How many of those products (I imagine this is your general store) rank on page 1? Is it possible to keep up with so many terms/products for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Does Google even like it that you're all over the place? I imagine if they didn't care then that'd be great. I do think that they take only into account individual products/product pages and not your whole website.
sg
We have a ton of products but we are in one select field. I've always heard Google likes sites that are large but also specialized. Meaning we are not a genera store selling coffee, furniture, bicycles and so on.

None rank on page one but mostly due to years of letting the site more or less sit around. We are seeing a slow climb now.

ecommerceoptimizer
It is possible but not very many sites can do it. Domain Age, link profile, the fact that they are a major advertiser, their SEO, etc… However, you need to decide is it worth all of the shared work or is your time and effort better spent elsewhere.

Rather than break your back for position 1, would you feel better if you had 7 of the remaining 9 positions? Part of being good at what you do is learning to pick your battles. Is the exact match URL available? How close is the keyword phrase to your business name? You can tweak your business FB profile, or create other social profiles using that specific kwphrase at the beginning of the business profile name. You could do some parasite SEO and get a couple of articles on the first page. Think outside the box. Without knowing more, I'm shooting from the heip.

I agree with a lot of comments below. We normally recommend using wp for the blog and mating it with Shopify for the ecom. Shopify's blog Sucks for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It has gotten better but can't hold a match to Shopify. I haven't found a theme yet that gets schema right, which is a sick stupid joke. I have a liquid file that pulls everything from the database, you just need to use a review app like judgeme for the review data.

rddtllthng ✍️
Thanks man!! Your last paragraph was what I've been thinking about. Which types of things do Shopify themes mess up when doing schema markup? (I haven't attempted yet, but I was hoping it would get most of the basics, like reviews) As for review apps, I'm guessing not all apps are created equal when doing Shopify SEO. Was judge.me the only/best one you can think of? Or are there others? I typically use AReviews. Thanks a lot in advance again!!

ecommerceoptimizer
The review app needs to have the option of adding review schema. Because it is pulling in the reviews. As long as it has that, we can make the rest work. Judgeme just happens to be the one my clients use

IPSecure
When listing and selling products on the Amazon marketplace, a business has to be careful. There are many bad sellers and counterfeiters out there – and you need to be protected from them. Unfortunately, Amazon cannot stop all of the bad sellers out there. You need to be proactive – and that is exactly what IPSecure is here for.

Read IPSecure's blog to see how we can help you protect your products, and if Amazon's latest seller identification program is working: https://www.ipsecure.com/articles/is-marketplace-seller-identity-verification-working/

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