E-commerce is one of those industries where everyone feels like they need SEO.
But… is it really true?
We’ve spent hundreds of hours diving into the marketing practices of e-commerce companies, and there’s a common thread: Most of them don’t rely on SEO.
In fact, most great e-commerce companies don’t create SEO-focused content at all. Here’s why:
It’s a slow channel.
SEO takes time, and startup e-commerce brands usually don’t have 6 months or a year to spend, sitting around and waiting for results.
Budget usually gets allocated into things that can give instant results, like social ads.
It’s too competitive
Most e-commerce brands are in competitive spaces. And, most competitive spaces are hard to break into with organic content.
So most e-commerce brands decide to forget it altogether.
It’s usually higher up in the funnel
Most people finding your site organically won’t be searching for your products.
Which means it will take longer for an SEO-discovered customer to buy than someone who found you via social ads.
The bottom line
If you’re in e-commerce (especially a competitive space), don’t focus on SEO as your primary growth channel.
Scale with ads or otherwise, create a system, and expand to SEO once you’ve built that foundation.
