Most businesses look at their competitors’ backlinks.
And in many cases, the common question is “Why doesn’t Google take any action against my competitor’s manipulative links?”
Jim Boykin, CEO of Internet Marketing Ninjas, and Ann Smarty, IMN’s analyst, discuss competitive backlink research and how to interpret it these days.
Whenever you do a competitive backlink research, there’s bound to be some questionable links in their backlink profile.
But the thing is, we don’t know if Google even counts those links. Google is filtering out a lot of spammy links you may find in anyone’s backlink profile.
We don’t know whether those links are added to your competitor’s disavow.
Your competitor may get some short-term links by buying links but those spammy links will ultimately be filtered out, or there may be a manual penalty coming in just a few days.
You never know.
It is not as straightforward as it used to be several years ago when Google encouraged us to report questionable links your competitors are getting.
Is It Worth Looking at Your Competitors’ Backlinks?
Yes
But try to look at a bigger picture rather than trying to identify which of those links you should pursue.
Instead, find their linkable content to understand why that content generated so many links and if there’s a lesson to learn here.
A good backlink is something you cannot easily duplicate. It something you earn by creating great content that people want to link to. So when reviewing your competitors links, try to find those and understand how they got those.
What kind of content (articles, tools, etc.) did they create to get that link?
Answering that question will give you ideas, not the clear path on how to duplicate that link building tactic.
There are an estimated 12 to 24 million e-commerce stores. Online retailers can sell just about anything—from shoes or baked goods to software and coaching sessions.
However, with so much competition, standing out can feel like an impossible task.
Most e-commerce store owners have no idea how to effectively market their business. They either try to use the same strategies they use for their brick and mortar store (which will fail) or use strategies meant for blogs: not e-commerce stores.
Selling products or services online requires a special touch. The same strategies local businesses use just aren’t as effective.
If you’re looking to drive traffic (and sales) for your e-commerce business, this guide is for you.
I’ll walk you through why e-commerce marketing is different, what strategies to use, and we’ll even explore a few e-commerce businesses that are getting marketing right.
What Is E-commerce Marketing?
E-commerce marketing is the act of using marketing strategies to drive awareness and conversions for a business that sells products or services online.
E-commerce marketing can have a variety of goals, from building brand awareness to driving sales, and use a variety of approaches including SEO, paid ads, social media, and affiliate marketing.
E-commerce Marketing Vs. E-commerce Advertising
Aren’t marketing and advertising the same thing? Not quite.
E-commerce marketing covers every aspect of driving engagement and awareness of your brand. You want people to get to know who you are and what you offer. Advertising comes into play once they actually recognize your brand.
E-commerce advertising is the part of e-commerce marketing that focuses on increasing conversions by promoting specific products and driving sales. This can include display ads, banner ads, even dynamic ads.
Types of E-commerce Marketing
It’s easy to get overwhelmed when trying to learn about digital marketing. I get it because I’ve been there.
The next few sections outline the different ways you can market your e-commerce business.
Don’t assume you need to tackle all of these strategies right off the bat. Read through this guide, soak up all the information, then start with one or two strategies.
Here are the main types of e-commerce marketing we’ll cover in the next sections:
paid search
SEO
content marketing
email marketing
social media for ecommerce
influencer marketing
affiliate marketing
It’s a long list, but I promise to keep it simple. I’ll explain what each type is, give a quick rundown of how it works, then mention a few strategies you can use to get real results.
Paid Search Marketing for E-commerce
Paid search marketing, also called paid ads or search engine marketing, leverages paid ads on platforms like Google or Bing to drive awareness (and later sales.)
Here’s how it works:
You choose a platform to market on, such as Google Ads.
Sign up for their platform and create an account.
Create a campaign, which will keep similar ads together.
Upload an image and add a copy to create your ad.
Select your target audience. Targeting varies by platform but can include demographics, location, and user behavior.
Set your budget.
Publish your ad.
Paid search ads can show up at the top of the search results, like this:
They can also show up in banner ads and on other websites (called display ads.)
Paid Search for E-commerce Strategies
Paid search ads are a really effective way to build brand awareness and drive sales for e-commerce businesses. However, they often feel overwhelming when you’re getting started.
Here are a few strategies to help you leverage paid ads:
Use retargeting: Retargeting ads allow you to reach people who have already interacted with you on social media, your website, or even through email. These ads have a much higher conversion rate.
Target your audiences carefully: With paid ads, you’ll generally pay for each click, so use targeting to limit your audience as much as possible. Use negative keywords to keep your ads from showing for unrelated searches.
Search engine marketing for e-commerce is a strategy focused on driving traffic from search engines to your e-commerce site. It includes paid ads, which we covered in the previous section, as well as SEO, (or “search engine optimization”).
Since we’ve already covered paid ads, this section will primarily focus on ranking in search engines organically.
Start by performing keyword research to understand what terms users type into search engines when looking for the products you sell. My tool Ubersuggest can help by showing you search volumes (how many people search for a specific term), competition, and related keywords to consider using.
Additionally, there are a lot of direct e-commerce SEO strategies you can leverage. I have listed a few of them below.
Search Engine Marketing for E-commerce Strategies
Gaining organic traffic isn’t just about keywords, though that is the main component. You also want to ensure your website follows Google (and Bing) best practices so you can enjoy that sweet free organic traffic.
Here are a few search engine marketing strategies to try:
Add original content to product pages: Don’t reuse content from other websites or suppliers. Create new, original content that describes your product or offering in the same language searchers use.
Check your site speed: Slow site speed can impact user experience and your search ranking. Use Google’s PageSpeed insight tool to see where your site stands.
Use unique metas for every page: It might be tempting to use the same or similar meta descriptions on pages for similar products—say a red pair of running shoes and a blue pair. This can show up as duplicate content, which won’t do you any favors with Google. Make sure all your content (including metas) is unique.
Content marketing is the strategic approach to creating, publishing, and promoting content for the purposes of driving traffic, building brand awareness, and increasing e-commerce sales.
Content marketing can refer to publishing content on your own website, guest posting on other blogs, creating videos, hosting webinars, and writing ebooks. Content marketing can be highly effective, but many e-commerce businesses struggle to create high-quality content.
That’s because many e-commerce brands dive straight into pushing for conversions.
Content marketing takes a more roundabout approach. Instead of writing why your product is the best, e-commerce businesses should focus on providing value to their audience.
For example, a fashion company might write an ebook about how to find the right prom dress, while a mattress company might write a blog post about why it’s important to replace your mattress regularly.
By focusing on topics your audiences care about, you build trust and brand awareness.
Content Marketing in E-commerce Marketing Strategies
Content marketing should be centered on providing value. For e-commerce companies, this can be challenging. Here are a few ways to leverage content marketing to grow your e-commerce brand.
Publish gift guides: If you sell consumer products that might be purchased as gifts, consider creating gift guides around the holidays. Don’t just share your products, though. Make sure to share a variety of options to add value!
Create product videos: One of the biggest challenges for e-commerce companies is overcoming hesitation. While online shopping continues to grow, many people prefer to be able to touch an item. Product videos are the next best thing! Show all sides of items, what it looks like on different body types (if you sell clothing), or how specific features work.
Share frequently asked questions: An FAQ page can enhance the user experience by providing information your potential customers need quickly. It can also decrease support requests for your companies. FAQ pages are even great for an SEO boost, making them a win all around.
There are lots of ways you can get started with content marketing for e-commerce. You just need to find the right fit for your brand.
Email Marketing for E-commerce
Email marketing is one of the most effective channels for e-commerce websites. In fact, you can expect an average ROI of around $42 per dollar spent on email.
That’s because nearly everyone uses email—and there are no algorithms to deal with like in social media. Every email you send reaches potential customers (as long as you follow the rules to avoid landing in spam folders.)
Email can build brand awareness, promote sales, launch new products, even host giveaways, or recover abandoned carts.
Start by building your email list. Offering site visitors a small discount or free shipping is a simple way to build your list.
Email Marketing for E-commerce Strategies
Out of all the e-commerce marketing strategies on this list, email may be the most effective. It’s also one of the more versatile strategies. Here’s how to leverage email marketing for e-commerce.
Use personalization to send more relevant emails: Segment your emails or leverage personalization to send users emails that are relevant to their interests or actions.
Send cart reminders to encourage conversions: One study found e-commerce businesses that send cart abandonment emails generate more than $60 million in extra sales.
Make sure your emails are mobile responsive: The majority of email users check their email on their phones. Avoid using too many images and test your emails on mobile devices.
The average internet user spends nearly two and a half hours on social media per day. Even better, one in three consumers use social media specifically to learn about new products and brands.
That makes it an ideal place to promote your e-commerce business.
There are two main ways to market on social media—paid ads and organic posts. Organic posts include posts like this post from an e-commerce clothing brand:
Just keep in mind that organic posts, like the one above, don’t get as much reach as they used to. Unless your brand is very popular or quirky, you might not get much traction with organic.
However, paid ads can be very effective. For a few dollars a day, you can promote posts and reach thousands of potential customers. Like paid search ads, they can be targeted so you can choose to reach people who are interested in a specific show, sports team, live in a certain area, and so on.
Start by finding out where your users hang out. Do they prefer short videos on TikTok or long-form content on YouTube? Are they Facebook users?
The most popular social media platforms include:
Facebook
Instagram
Snapchat
YouTube
TikTok
Look at the demographics for each platform and see where your audience is likely to be. I recommend choosing one or two platforms to get started.
If you use paid social ads, start off with a small budget (less than $10 a day) and test copy, images, and tone. Once you find out what works, you can invest more of your budget.
To promote your e-commerce business organically through social media, share a mix of content. It’s fine to post your own content, of course. However, you may get more traction from posting content from other creators your audience will find interesting.
E-commerce Social Marketing Strategies
Social media can be a gold mine for e-commerce brands. These three strategies will get you started.
Choose the platform where your users hang out: There are dozens of social platforms, don’t try to do them all. Instead, find out where your users hang out and get active on those platforms.
Remember therule of thirds: Social media is about building relationships, so don’t just post your own products. One-third of your content should be about you, one-third about your industry or content your users will find interesting, and one-third about personal interactions and brand building.
Use paid ads to retarget site visitors: Retargeting can be a highly effective way to drive users back to your website.
Influencer marketing is a strategy where brands partner with well-known online creators, called influencers, to promote their products or services. It’s common on social media, with celebrities like Dwayne Johnson raking in millions by promoting products.
That might seem out of reach, but influencer marketing works for brands of any size. If you have a smaller budget, consider partnering with micro-influencers, who have smaller (and often more dedicated) audiences.
Start by searching popular hashtags in your industry on sites like Instagram and TikTok. Follow users who post about your industry often and get to know them. Pay attention to how much engagement they get from followers as low engagement can indicate most of their followers are bots.
You can also use an influencer marketing platform to find influencers in your industry. These platforms also help track the impact of your campaign and handle payments.
Influencer E-commerce Marketing Strategies
Influencer marketing campaigns build trust by leveraging people your audience already interacts with. Here are a few strategies to build an effective influencer marketing campaign.
Establish your social channels before diving into influencer marketing: Before you begin working with an influencer, take the time to build your own followers and create an effective social media posting schedule.
Find influencers who match your brand tone and style: Partner with influencers who already interact with your target audience and make sure they fit your brand.
Pay attention to their current engagement rate: Anyone can buy followers, so don’t assume an influencer will be effective just because they have millions of followers. Pay attention to the number of likes and comments they get.
Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing where a site or influencer promotes a brand in exchange for a small percentage of sales. It’s a common strategy used by bloggers who promote Amazon products or websites that write about software, like hosting services or SEO tools.
It’s extremely effective and affordable for e-commerce sites because you only pay when you get sales.
To get started, you’ll need an affiliate link to track sales from each affiliate partner. G2 has a list of the best affiliate software solutions. There are also several WP plugins that generate codes and track sales.
Affiliate Marketing for E-commerce Strategies
Affiliate marketing is a common strategy used by e-commerce businesses. You can set up a full-fledged program using the tools above, or offer customers a custom coupon code to pass on to their friends and connections.
Here are three strategies for building an effective affiliate marketing campaign:
Research affiliate percentages in your industry: If your incentive is too small, no one will participate. On the other hand, too high of an incentive will cut into your bottom line. See what other affiliate programs offer and calculate your cost-per-acquisition before deciding how much to offer.
Get tracking in place: To know how much affiliates help you sell, you’ll need to track their sales. Coupon codes and UTM codes can help. Most affiliate marketing platforms handle the tracking for you.
Create an affiliate page on your site: Create a landing page with all the information potential affiliates need, including how to become an affiliate, commissions, and any rules or restrictions.
Need some inspiration before launching your e-commerce marketing campaign? Let’s look at a few examples and explore why they work.
Google Shopping Ads Example
Google Shopping ads show up in the search results for high-intent keywords. For example, I searched for an Instant Pot and these are the ads that showed up at the top:
These ads are highly effective because they show up when users are ready to buy and show pricing, images, top features, and reviews.
While you can pay for Google Shopping Ads, they can also be free if you have your site set up correctly.
Paid Social Media E-commerce Example
Paid social ads come in a variety of formats. For example, you can post ads like these in the sidebar on Facebook:
These ads feature images and short, snappy copy that grab users’ attention. The bright colors stand out and the offer is enticing.
Boosted posts on Facebook and Instagram Stories also tend to perform well for e-commerce companies.
Email Marketing E-commerce Example
With email marketing, you’re in control—which makes it highly valuable for e-commerce brands looking to build brand awareness and drive sales.
This email from Osmo uses bright colors, engaging language, and an offer to draw in users who haven’t made a purchase yet.
Email marketing can also help launch new products, educate your audience, and win back those abandoned carts.
Content Marketing for E-commerce Example
This article is from Flexjobs, a platform that helps remote and contractors find jobs in their field. Notice the blog doesn’t promote their platform directly.
Instead, it offers tips and strategies freelancers can use to be more effective at finding work.
Audiences will begin to trust a brand that is providing them with extremely valuable content, and are more likely to look into the services you offer as a result. However, if you are wanting to write about or feature specific products—comparison posts tend to do best.
Affiliate Marketing for E-commerce Example
Here’s a great affiliate marketing example from Good Housekeeping. On the surface, it might seem like it’s content marketing.
It is about a topic their readers are likely to care about and provides in-depth research, including expert interviews.
In fact, it’s actually affiliate marketing. Each slow cooker on the list links to an affiliate link, and Good Housekeeping gets a small percentage of the sales.
All of this is something you can incorporate on your own e-commerce site.
Frequently Asked Questions About E-commerce Marketing
What is the difference between e-commerce and digital marketing?
Digital marketing refers to any marketing that occurs online, rather than in person. E-commerce marketing refers to any type of marketing used by businesses that sell products or services online. E-commerce marketing can include both digital marketing or in-person marketing strategies, such as direct mail, television ads, or billboards.
What is the best type of marketing for e-commerce businesses?
The most effective types of marketing for e-commerce businesses tend to be social media and email marketing. However, the best type of marketing for your business is the one that drives sales.
What is an example of e-commerce marketing?
An example of e-commerce marketing might include a social media post about a new product, an email welcoming campaign, or a paid ad in the search results.
What is the role of digital marketing in e-commerce?
The role of digital marketing is to build brand awareness and drive sales. The specific goal of a digital marketing campaign can vary by business or even campaign. For example, you might use paid ads to drive sales and social media to increase brand awareness.
Conclusion: E-commerce Marketing
Building a successful e-commerce website isn’t easy, but these e-commerce marketing strategies will guide you to reach a wider audience and drive sales. While every business is different, I suggest starting with email marketing or social media. These strategies have the greatest reach and are easier to get started.
Once you start driving traffic, choose a few other strategies and focus on increasing your sales.
Which e-commerce marketing strategy will you try first?
We analyzed more than 7,000 company websites across 22 industries to answer one question: what was their approach to SEO and paid advertising to help them do so well?
In this analysis, we only looked at companies that ranked well and had at least a 4-star review or higher. These businesses aren’t just liked by Google, they’re also liked by customers.
Through Ubersuggest, we learned more about their approach to SEO, traffic factors, backlinks, and more which you will see in the visualizations below.
What Industries Did We Look At?
The 22 industries analyzed in this report were:
Education and Training
Public & Local Services
Home Services
Animal & Pets
Vehicles & Transportation
Media & Publishing
Sports
Hobbies & Crafts
Events & Entertainment
Restaurants & Bars
Travel & Vacation
Shopping & Fashion
Electronics & Technology
Food, Beverages & Tobacco
Home & Garden
Business Services
Money & Insurance
Legal Services & Government
Health & Medical
Construction and Manufacturing
Beauty & Well-being
Utilities
Key Findings
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to digital marketing. Black and white advice doesn’t work for every company.
You will need to take a different approach depending on the audience in your industry. That is why we included a wide range of industries in our analysis instead of just making blanket statements.
Here are a few key insights we found:
Companies in all industries get more organic traffic than paid traffic. However, Restaurants & Bars and Travel & Vacation received more paid traffic compared to other industries.
The average website authority score was between 30 and 40 for the companies in each industry analyzed. Some industries, such as Utilities and Animals & Pets,were lower than average.
Public & Local Services face the highest average keyword difficulty for target terms. Beauty & Well-Being faced the lowest average difficulty for target keywords.
More than 75% of total backlinks across all industries were text backlinks.
Companies in all industries targeted more informational intent keywords, however traffic volume was driven by a mix of different intent keywords.
Does most of your traffic come from paid ads or organic search? We looked at the difference in volume between organic search traffic (traffic driven from search engines like Google) and paid traffic (traffic driven to your site via paid ads.)
These trends highlight where industry leaders are focusing their marketing efforts—and whether those results are paying off. We found several interesting trends in this data.
NOTE: the numbers below represent the average organic and paid traffic per company website, not a total of all traffic in that industry.
Public & Local Services received 216,861 visits from organic search and only 16,931 from paid search, less than 10 percent of total traffic. Public services, like a power company, are unlikely to use paid ads since people will generally just choose one of the few services offered in their area.
Focusing on SEO can benefit these companies more. That said, the low competition for paid ads could represent an opportunity to boost their presence.
Companies focused on Education and Training received the most organic searches at 230,075 visits per month. These companies should focus more on SEO and content marketing but also keep an eye on how to leverage paid ads since competition is low.
Restaurant & Bars sites, on the other hand, rely more heavily on paid traffic compared to all industries with almost 50% coming from paid ads.
People searching in this category are probably looking for somewhere to go soon so using paid ads to increase conversions makes sense.
Travel & Vacation sites also rely on paid ads that results in close to 30 percent of their traffic. Organic traffic is still higher but it looks like companies also boost their offerings through paid ads.
If you are new to the sector, focus on increasing organic traffic right away as it will take longer to see results. Paid ads are effective as well, but they can be expensive.
Shopping & Fashion only got a bit less than 10 percent of traffic from paid ads. This could mean companies focus more on social sharing and social media ads since a lot of content is visual.
The Sports industry received the least traffic from paid ads at under 4 percent. This was interesting since the industry includes a lot of ecommerce brands that sell sports gear, outdoor apparel, sports drinks, and team apparel.
This could indicate a trend towards more social sharing and social media ads as well. It could also mean impulse purchases are less common since customers are more likely do their research. Therefore, creating educational content might be the way to go.
Analysis #2 – Trends Related To Authority Score, Keyword Difficulty, and Average CPC
How does domain authority vary across industries? Does it correlate with how much you’ll pay for ads? Does keyword difficulty have an effect? We dug into this data to see trends for each industry.
Authority Score measures your website’s Domain Authority which also influences rankings. It grades the overall website quality based on the number of backlinks, referring domains, outbound links, etc.
Authority Score is also relative to your industry.
Average Authority Scores Across All Industries
This first chart shows the average website authority score for businesses in each industry.
Hundreds of business sites were looked at in each industry with a mix of higher and lower authority scores, resulting in the numbers above.
Media & Publishing had the highest average authority score of 44.62 followed very closely by Public & Local Services at 44.61. Business sites in each sector are usually more trusted sources so this makes sense.
On the flip side, the lowest authority score industries were Utilities at 28.09 and Animals & Pets at 27.08. A lot of factors could have led to this such as many new sites created in each industry.
There was close to a 20 point variation in authority scores across all industries in this analysis with the median score being 38.06.
Websites between 40-50 are considered average
Websites between 50-60 are considered good
Websites above 60 are considered excellent
What does this mean for business websites and marketers?
This analysis looked at companies with high review ratings which means they placed a lot of emphasis on reputation management, maybe more so than SEO factors.
We can see that a business’s authority score didn’t really impact whether or not they got a high review rating. People-focused more on reviewing products and services than the business itself.
Average SEO Keyword Difficulty Across All Industries
Next, we looked at the average keyword difficulty for terms in each industry. Most content creators target keywords with low difficulty and high volume which is easier for some industries than others.
Industries with the highest difficulty were Public & Local Services at 49.02, Money & Insurance at 47.72, and Education and Training at 47.62.
To improve their search rankings, these industries will likely need to spend more time on their SEO strategy or invest more heavily in paid ads.
Industries with the lowest difficulty were Shopping & Fashion at 36.26, Sports at 35.12, and Beauty & Well-being at 33.75. It will be easier for these industries to find keywords to rank for.
Across all industries, the average keyword difficulty for SEO is 41.
What does this mean in practice? Relativity matters when looking for low-difficulty keywords.
For example, say you’re a business in the Money & Insurance industry and find two terms you’re not ranking for. One has a keyword difficulty of 45 with a search volume of 12,000, the other has a keyword difficulty of 40 with a search volume of just 6,000.
Understanding that 45 is below the average difficulty in your industry, targeting the higher volume term might not be a bad idea. You could also target related keywords as well and use paid ads to boost some of the more difficult ones to expand your reach.
For industries with low average keyword difficulty like Beauty & Well-being, target easy-to-rank-for terms to increase traffic, then use CRO strategies to leverage that traffic.
Average CPC (Cost-Per-Click) Across All Industries
The final graph of this section looks at the average CPC for each industry. We were curious to see if any correlation existed with the average authority score of company websites. Here’s what we found:
Very little correlation between the industry’s average authority score and their average CPC was found.
For example, a site selling $20 t-shirts won’t spend $10 per customer but an investment site whose average purchase price is more than $100 might.
In this analysis, Money & Insurance has the highest average CPC at $4.12.
Businesses in this industry might be willing to spend more on average for each click since the lifetime value (LTV) of each customer is much higher.
Hobbies & Crafts has the lowest average CPC of $1.12 across all industries.
They only receive about 5 percent of traffic from paid ads which could indicate that businesses focus more on social channels where many craft/hobbyist groups and influencers exist.
Home Services has a higher average CPC at $3.17. Business sites in this industry include plumbers, lawn care work, etc. Increased competition for local customers has likely led to the higher average CPC.
Shopping & Fashion had one of the lowest average CPC’s at $1.40.
This could be another indication that businesses promote their visual content more on social media. However, the low average CPC could represent an opportunity to get creative with paid ads.
Analysis #3 – Average Number of Backlinks Per Industry and Their Most Popular Formats
Backlinks matter—that’s nothing new. What about the format of those backlinks? Is a text backlink better than an image backlink? How many backlinks is enough?
That’s what we aimed to find out.
Average Number of Backlinks Per Industry
The average number of backlinks varies quite a bit by industry with the most belonging to:
Public & Local Services at just over 6.5 million per site
Media & Publishing at just over 6 million per site
Education and Training at just over 4 million per site
These industries include more trustworthy business sites such as essential local services, news outlets, media publications, universities, certification platforms, and more.
The lowest average backlinks belonged to Beauty & Well-being, Animals & Pets, and Utilities. This could indicate each sector focuses more on social media or they have a lot of new business sites.
Money & Insurance coming in very low was surprising to me. I would have expected the industry to average at least as many backlinks as Shopping & Fashion at just under 1 million per site.
Distribution of Backlinks by Format
We also looked at the distribution of backlink types across each industry to see which performed best. The two backlink types that stood out were:
text backlinks
image backlinks
NOTE: the graphs below represent the total number of backlinks for each industry, not the average for each company website.
Text backlinks were the most popular across all industries:
Public & Local Services received the most at just over 1.6 billion
Education and Training was next at just over 1.5 billion
Business Services followed at just over 1.3 billion
Media & Publishing was the last with just over 1 billion
Image backlinks were the second most popular type. The two industries that used them the most were:
Electronics & Technology at close to 180 million
Media & Publishing at just over 100 million
The two other types of backlinks used were form and frame backlinks. However, both combined made up less than 5 percent of total backlinks across all business sites in this analysis.
What does this mean?
Text backlinks are the most popular for driving traffic across all industries but some industries will also rely just as much on image backlinks.
You should mix up your approach, leveraging different backlink types to reach different audiences.
Analysis #4 – Target Keyword Intent and the Intent That Led to the Most Traffic
Lastly, we looked at target keyword SEO intent in each industry based on the following categories:
Commercial intent keywords: related to specific brands or services (“find a Starbucks near me”)
Informational intent keywords: searching for answers to questions (“How to unclog a tub”)
Navigational intent keywords: users looking for specific pages (“Comcast login page”)
Transactional intent keywords: users are ready to buy (“buy converse shoes”)
Looking at different keyword intents when choosing target terms can highlight trends and opportunities in your industry.
So, what did we learn?
NOTE: The first chart indicates the keyword intent of target terms in each industry. The bottom chart shows which intent type resulted in traffic to each business site.
The most popular keyword intent was informational at more than 40 percent of target terms in all industries.
These are generally top-of-the-funnel keywords, meaning users are still early on in their journey.
The next highest intent type was transactional at between 15-20 percent of terms per industry.
These users are ready to buy so creating content that targets these terms or using paid ads is a good idea.
Next, we looked at which intent keywords drove the most traffic to company sites in each industry.
Like most industries, Utilities sites mostly target informational keywords. However, most of their traffic comes from navigational terms which relate more to specific pages and their brand name.
This is likely due to search behavior, rather than incorrect targeting practices.
For example, if someone wanted to pay a power bill, they might type “pay bill X” in Google to find the right page. You wouldn’t target this term directly but it does bring traffic to your site. Focusing on informational keywords that establish trust is still the right approach.
Similarly, Money & Insurance websites focus on informational terms but get most of their traffic from navigational terms.
This could be a combination of good branding as well as similar user search behavior patterns. Usually, for your navigational terms to be successful, users will have read your informational content before deciding you were the right fit for them.
On a different note, Construction & Manufacturing businesses target informational keywords but also target transactional keywords at a higher rate than other industries. Clearly, this strategy works as most of their traffic comes from transactional terms.
Lastly, Home Services target more commercial intent keywords than other industries. These are likely terms more focused on a particular location using phrases such as “near me” or “in [city]”.
However, we can see that just under 50 percent of their traffic comes from transactional terms. This means they might want to adjust their focus to include those terms along with their commercial approach.
Keep in mind that just because your website receives traffic doesn’t mean it is all converting. Make sure your traffic is directed right pages on your site and each page is optimized for conversions.
Conclusion: Summary of Findings
There were a few surprises in this data—and a few things that turned out exactly as we expected.
For example, backlinks matter. Google has been telling us that for years, so I wasn’t surprised to see the highest-reviewed business websites tend to have a pretty high volume of links.
What was surprising was the variation in the types of backlinks between different industries. This data can be incredibly valuable for sites looking to build a more effective backlink profile.
I was also interested in the differences between the types of keyword intent most sites target for SEO (primarily informational) versus where they are getting their traffic from. Depending on your industry, this data could highlight incredible marketing opportunities or gaps in your current strategy.
Which finding was most interesting or useful to you?
Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines had been discussed by an SEO community for ages, way before Google made them public.
It has always been an insight into how Google may interpret “quality”.
But just SEOs should use the guidelines? Jim Boykin, CEO of Internet Marketing Ninjas, and Ann Smarty, IMN’s analyst, are discussing Google’s Search Quality Raters guidelines and how SEOs should use the document as part of their SEO strategy.
What are Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines?
Google has a team of people whose job is to search Google and rate top results based on their perceived quality and relevance of the page.
Quality raters have no direct impact on search results:
We use responses from Raters to evaluate changes, but they don’t directly impact how our search results are ranked.
Source: Google
When Google engineers see a huge discrepancy between what the algorithm found relevant and quality and how their human raters reacted to those sets of results, they adjust their algorithm to return better results.
Human raters also help Google understand if any of their multiple experiments might be a good idea or how to improve them.
In other words, the human input helps Google create a search engine that better fits human needs.
Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines do not have a direct impact on search results, so optimizing your site using these guidelines doesn’t make any sense.
Yet, the document inspires some optimization ideas that will help both human visitors and search crawlers to trust your site and engage with it.
These ideas may include:
Using more detailed and better linked author profiles
Creating a better About us page
Connecting your on-site authorship with off-site mentions, etc.
Ever since the introduction of Google’s Disavow tool, it has always been a matter of endless discussions within an SEO community?
Which pages or sites should we disavow? Which backlink sources to use to find link to disavow? When should we actually need to use the tool?
Jim Boykin, CEO of Internet Marketing Ninjas, and Ann Smarty, IMN’s analyst, discuss disavowing links, when to use the Disavow tool, and which criteria to use when deciding whether any specific backlink should be disavowed.
Does DA (Domain Authority) Matter when Analyzing Links for a Disavow?
Domain authority has never been part of our disavowing process.
If a link is natural, we don’t care if it has come from a high- or low-DA site.
If a backlink if paid and/or comes from a network, it should be disavowed regardless of a DA.
The better question is, what is a DA and how do you measure it.
It is never a good idea to rely on some made up numbers that have nothing to do with Google or its algorithm.
Should I disavow anything?
This is another key question here.
In most cases most website owners don’t even need to use disavow. Even Google reps discourage from using Disavow because it can do more harm than good.
Instead of relying on artificial numbers, we use our internal backlink mapping tool to identify paid links. Those are always good candidates to disavow.
If you think you have a lot of questionable links and you think you may receive a Google penalty, let us review your links.
Google search engine optimization is no longer only about ranking higher. It is also about getting the most of your current positions.
As Google’s search result pages are becoming richer and more diverse, there are ways to yield more clicks from lower rankings without investing in increasing them.
One of those low-hanging-fruit opportunities is Google’s FAQ rich snippets. Jim Boykin, CEO of Internet Marketing Ninjas, and Ann Smarty, IMN’s analyst discuss what FAQ rich snippets are and how to use them to generate more Google search traffic:
What are FAQ rich snippets?
FAQ rich snippets are enhanced snippets that include related questions and answers from the page.
You can generate them by using FAQ schema to point Google to where you answer two or more related questions on the page.
FAQ ruch snippets take up more space in Google’s SERPs, so they are likely to attract more clicks.
One of search studies revealed FAQ rich snippets to be the most clickable (although more studies are needed to confirm this)
Additionally, if you link to your internal (money) pages from inside your answers, Google will pick those up and show in search giving their users more links to click to get to your site:
More links => more clicks!
So far the only requirements for these rich snippets are:
Minimum two questions answered on the page
Those questions and answers should be visible on the page
Of course, not every page is a good candidate for this code. Think about user intent and whether those questions are going to be helpful to the searcher but this is often an easy and free way to increase your organic search visibility!
Ask our team how else you can increase your organic traffic!
Looking to drive more conversions but not sure where to start?
Landing pages are a key component to increasing conversions online—no matter what your goals are.
What exactly is a landing page, and (more importantly) how do you create an effective one?
Below, I’ll cover landing page basics, including tips to create a better landing page design, and tools to streamline the landing page creation and testing process.
What is a Landing Page?
A landing page is a single webpage that serves a single purpose—usually to drive conversions. Unlike your homepage, which might list all the services your business offers, a landing page encourages users to take one, specific action.
The page’s main goal is to encourage users to try out the tool by entering a domain or keyword. I also included a short description of what the tool does.
I’ve decided to keep the navigational buttons at the top, but many landing pages will choose to omit those entirely. I recommend testing both ways to see which drives more conversions for your business.
Why You Need Landing Pages
The main benefit of landing pages is to keep the user’s attention focused on one goal. They block noise and distractions that might pull users away from converting.
Here are a few other reasons why you need landing pages to succeed in digital marketing:
More Data and Insights: By tracking traffic and behavior on your landing page, you get unique insights into acquisition, user behavior, etc.
Improve Paid Ad Performance: Most paid ad platforms use a “quality score” to determine which ad to display. Ads that lead to relevant landing pages tend to have a higher quality score and thus are viewed more often.
More Conversions: Landing pages focus on conversions above all else. This sole focus helps lead users in the right direction without distraction. Use them right, and your conversions will go up. (We’ll talk more about how to do this later!)
Increase Brand Awareness: Landing pages use the same colors, tone, and logos as the rest of your website. This helps solidify your brand in the minds of customers and prospects.
Landing pages are also highly versatile. You can use them to increase email signups, drive sales, improve paid ad campaigns, and much more.
7 Tips for Creating Killer Landing Pages
Ready to create a landing page that drives business growth? These seven tips will help you create the high-conversion landing pages you’ve been dreaming of.
1. Include Clear Calls to Action on Your Landing Page
Call-to-actions (CTAs) are the most important part of your landing page.
Your call to action should be specifically tied to your goal and should be supported by everything else on your page, from the headline and body copy to images and overall layout.
Keep your CTA clear and make sure users know the next step. Here are a few CTA examples to test:
Buy Now
Sign Up
Get My (X)
Start Your Free Trial
Book an Appointment
Avoid bland CTAs like “Submit” that don’t tell users what the next steps are.
2. Keep Forms on Your Landing Page Simple
If your page includes a form, make sure it only asks for the most important information. If you’re trying to get visitors to sign up for an email newsletter, make sure you’re just asking them for their name and email address. Don’t overcomplicate things.
If you’re asking them to buy, then ask for billing and shipping information, and include a confirmation screen before they place their order. Wait until after they’ve placed their order to ask for additional information.
Asking for too much information early on decreases the chances a user will complete the action you want them to take.
3. Ensure Landing Page Copy is Clear and Concise
Leave the creative turns-of-phrase for your blog.
Landing page copy should be clear, easy to read, and make a specific point. Use bullet points, headings, and bold font to make content easier to read.
It’s pretty safe to assume that most people who visit your landing page already have some interest in what you have to say since they’ve clicked through from a PPC ad or email. However, just because they’re interested when they arrive doesn’t mean they’ll stay interested if you don’t get to the point.
Every single sentence and word on your landing page should serve a purpose, and that purpose should be to support your call-to-action. If it doesn’t do that, cut it.
4. Include Vital Information Above the Fold on Your Landing Pages
While there’s a lot of debate as to the importance of “the fold” in web design, landing pages are one area where the fold is crucial.
Your CTA should be located near the top of the page, where someone can click it without having to scroll.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that your visitors won’t scroll down the page to read more information.
Hopefully, at least a small percentage of your visitors will be ready to buy as soon as they arrive on your landing page. Either because the email or link that brought them there already persuaded them, or because it’s not their first time visiting one of your landing pages.
5. Ensure Your Landing Pages Have the Same Look and Design as Your Campaign/Ads
If your page is tied to an email campaign or PPC campaign, make sure the landing page echoes the look and feel of the ad or email.
If the designs of the two are wildly different, your visitors may wonder if they’ve ended up in the right place. The easiest way to do this is to carry over fonts, images, and colors from your campaign to your landing page. This is especially important for paid ads, as it can increase your quality score.
6. A/B Test Your Landing Page
Finding the most effective landing page design is a matter of trial and error.
A/B testing means running two different landing pages and changing just one element to see which performs best.
For example, you might use two different images and see which one drives the most conversions.
A few other features to test include:
CTA
heading
button size and placement
number of form fields
images
right, left, or center column design
colors
Just remember to test each variant one at a time—if you change five different elements, you won’t know which impacted conversions.
7. Use Minimal Images and Large Font on Your Landing Pages
Aim to use one or two images, no more. Visual clutter detracts from the message and CTAs.
Larger font sizes are also a good idea to keep visitors’ eyes focused on what matters and reduce eye strain. Just don’t go overboard and put everything in a headline-size font—no one wants to be yelled at.
The ideal line length for copy readability is 39 characters, so size your font (and column width) accordingly.
Landing Page Creation Tools
You could create your landing pages from scratch, but most of us don’t have the time or the expertise to spend hours coding every time we need something new.
The good news is, there are several tools that make landing creation super simple. Here are a few of my favorite landing page builders and why I like them.
1. Swipe Pages
Swipe Pages is a landing page tool dedicated to creating high-performance landing pages. Where other tools include basic landing page creation in addition to other tools, Swipe Pages focuses specifically on building the best landing pages.
Features include tons of templates, a drag and drop editor, a countdown timer, and the ability to add features like forms, carousels, pricing tables, and more—without any coding.
They also offer A/B testing tools, dynamic text features, and faster loading times to give you an edge over your competition.
2. Hubspot
Hubspot offers a free landing page tool. Features include a library of mobile-optimized templates, drag and drop editors, forms, and plenty of customization options.
It’s worth noting the free version has limited features. You’re also limited to 20 landing pages with Hubspot branding, and can’t use a custom domain.
To get access to features like dynamic content, testing, and optimization features, you’ll have to pay for Hubspot. Paid plans start at $45 per month.
3. MailChimp
MailChimp is best known for their email marketing tools, but they also offer a landing page builder. Features include a wide range of templates, landing page analytics (such as visitors, clicks, and conversions), forms, and testing capabilities.
Mailchimp allows you to create unlimited landing pages for free, which is nice. But to access branding-free pages and additional features, you’ll need a paid plan, which starts at $11 per month.
If you already use Mailchimp for email marketing, it’s worth checking out their landing page tool.
Examples of Great Landing Pages
What makes a good landing page? The truth is, different strategies work for different businesses. Let’s take a look at three successful landing pages and discuss what works to give you some inspiration when creating your own.
We Can Code It
We Can Code It connects people with coding boot camps. This landing page is for an ad that displayed for the search “coding boot camps near me.”
The landing page keeps it simple, with only a few lines of text. The image is a little busy, but the bright pink button stands out. The copy is clear and concise—there’s no question what they are promoting. I also like the pop-up chat box where users can get more information.
I do think the button text could be shorter—it’s a little long and not super clear. However, they might have tested and found this text drives more conversions!
SEMrush
SEMrush is an SEO platform, so I figured they’d have pretty solid landing pages. Here’s one for their tool that showed up as an ad in organic search:
This one has more content than most landing pages, but the size differences make it easy to read. The button is bright (and on-brand) and makes it clear what your next step would be.
The main headline focuses on the benefit—grow your online visibility—and the third line focuses on another key benefit—you only need one platform. That’s appealing to marketers who are juggling a ton of tools.
Bullet Journal App
Here’s an example that breaks some of the rules, but still works well, in my opinion.
Bullet Journals are a popular style of journaling that helps users stay organized using lists. They also have a companion app. Here’s their landing page for the app:
Like other landing pages, the content is limited. They use a heading, CTA, and images to show how the app works. Their CTA is “watch the demo,” which is a bit softer compared with what other brands typically use. I suspect they’ve done the research and realized that people on this landing page aren’t quite ready to buy.
The content is pretty sparse; they don’t describe what the companion is or what it does, really. However, I suspect that’s on purpose—people are pretty obsessed with their bullet journals, so page visitors already know what to expect.
This landing page is a perfect example of why A/B testing is crucial—you might be surprised about what works for your business.
Frequently Asked Questions About Landing Pages
Should you optimize your landing pages for SEO?
Yes, landing pages should be optimized to increase organic traffic. Even if your landing page is for a paid ad campaign, focusing on SEO can increase traffic and trust in your landing page.
What should a landing page include?
The main components of a landing page are a headline, subheadline, and CTA. Depending on your goal and what A/B testing tells you, a landing page might also include images, bullet points, etc.
Does Google like landing pages?
Google doesn’t inherently like or dislike landing pages. Landing pages do tend to have less content and fewer links, which are main search algorithm ranking factors. However, a well-optimized landing page can still rank well in organic search.
How many landing pages should you have?
Landing pages focus on just one goal, which means you should have one landing page for each goal. For example, you’d want a landing page for a free trial, a landing page for webinar sign-ups, a landing page for ebook downloads, etc.
Conclusion: High-Performance Landing Pages
Landing pages are a core component of online marketing. Whether you’re trying to gather email addresses,host webinars to gain leads, or want to sell more products, you need to get familiar with landing pages.
Here’s the thing most people don’t realize—landing pages can be really simple to create. Don’t spend hours debating which heading to use. Instead, use one of the tools listed above, create two versions of your landing page and let your A/B test run.
Get a winner, create a new test, rinse and repeat. Eventually, you’ll have a killer landing page.
Have you created a high-converting landing page? What change had the biggest impact on conversions?
