Process Owner: Elizabeth Thomsen
Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XqsxXtLLaQTR5lHVlBmxN7Ejjn0N29C_uWnKUJqdOk8/edit#heading=h.otzyb89g4b8a
Organic Search Strategy PowerKit
Document to serve as a resource center for diagnosing organic search problems, identifying strategy analyses needed to gain a full understanding of root causes, and templates/examples for deliverables around solutions.
If you’re unsure on how to execute any of the strategies below or need a second set of eyes to determine what strategy best fits your client, please sign up for a Strategy Session with the Product Quality team to further brainstorm!
Organic Search Strategy Bank
Deliverable: PPC x SEO Analysis
What is it: Analysis to identify areas of crossover and net-new opportunities between existing SEO rankings and PPC bidding to inform future SEO optimization work where improved or net-new rankings can help increase brand visibility on the SERP and win competitive real estate.
When to Use:
Client invested in Organic Search with the goal of reducing budget on Paid channels
Client has a large enterprise site. Data set will give you an idea of top-converting categories to help you prioritize your SEO efforts
Client is in a complex industry. Data set will give you a starting point for keyword research.
Client is focused on driving revenue. Data set contains high-converting paid keywords that you can target within SEO
You’re stuck & you’re looking for net-new keyword expansion opportunities. Data set may contain keywords that we’re not targeting within SEO.
Resources:
Deliverable: Striking Distance Opportunity Analysis
What is it: The goal of a Striking Distance Opportunity Analysis is to identify keywords that a website currently ranks for, but are not yet ranking on Page 1 top positions. These keywords are within the "striking distance," meaning they are close to ranking on Page 1, but require some optimizations to improve their rankings.
The aim of this analysis is to uncover opportunities for optimization and prioritize SEO efforts. The analysis typically involves identifying keywords that are currently ranking in positions 11 to 20 on SERPs, as these have the potential to move up significantly with strategic SEO improvements.
The specific goals of a striking distance SEO keyword analysis include:
Increase organic traffic: By optimizing keywords within striking distance, website owners can improve their rankings and attract more organic traffic from search engines.
Boost visibility and click-through rates: Moving keywords from the second page of search results to the first page increases visibility and the likelihood of users clicking on the website's link.
Enhance conversions and revenue: Higher rankings for relevant keywords can lead to increased conversions and revenue as more targeted traffic reaches the website.
Prioritize optimization efforts: By identifying the keywords with the highest potential for improvement, website owners can focus their resources on optimizing these specific keywords rather than spreading their efforts too thin across all keywords.
When to Use:
Use within the first few months with a new client as a jumping off point. This is a great opportunity to find strategic quick wins that will move the needle fast.
If the client has a large website or blog. This is a great way to sift through the weeds to pinpoint strategic quick win opportunities for keyword mapping.
If new categories are launching or consolidating, this is a great way to pulse check our coverage and identify quick wins / opportunities already available.
When you need to prioritize your optimization efforts, this allows you to identify the largest gaps for keywords the client already ranks for. stead of spreading resources thin across all keywords, they can focus on those that have the highest potential for improvement. This approach ensures efficient use of time and resources.
Resources:
Example Data Pulls:
PSD Underwear (Pulls in Revenue & Sessions)
Example Slides:
Deliverable: Opportunity Sizing
What is it: Analysis that quantifies the potential impact of an initiative/strategy based on a combination of a client’s first-party data and/or third-party data to calculate estimated traffic and revenue gains
When to Use:
You’re pitching an SEO service expansion for additional ongoing optimizations
You’re pitching the creation and/or optimizations for a number of net-new pages
You need to level set on aggressive organic search traffic and revenue goals
Client is pushing back on prioritization & you need to “justify” opportunity/importance
Client is lacking on implementation
Resources:
Deliverable: Keyword Cannibalization
What is it: Analysis of a site’s current keyword rankings overlap to identify keyword cannibalization for priority terms and inform future SEO optimization work such as redirects, content consolidation, re-optimizations, internal linking updates, etc. to reduce keyword overlap and improve rankings for relevant pages.
When to Use:
Client has large number of similar pages on site (similar blog topics, similar categories, etc)
Client has indexable variant pages (eComm)
Client has linear URL structure or poor parent/child page distinction
Client has seen ranking growth but is unable to gain page 1 ranking despite targeted optimization work
Resources:
Deliverable: Keyword Decline Analysis
What is it: Deep dive analysis to diagnose Page 1 & 2 keyword ranking losses and declines. Helps to identify insights & patterns for keyword types & page types/subfolders contributing to keyword declines as well as recommendations for recouping keyword loss.
When to Use:
Client got hit by an algorithm update causing keywords to decline
Client’s keywords have been on a slow decline & you can’t pinpoint what’s causing the bleeding
Client ranks for a large number of page 1 non-brand keyword rankings
Client’s Organic Search MoM and YoY traffic is down significantly
Deliverable output helps you plan ahead for SEO workflow, giving you at least 3-4 months of strategic deliverables to execute.
Resources:
Deliverable: Internal Linking
What is it: Analysis that helps optimize the website’s internal linking structure to facilitate keyword ranking growth for target keywords and pages. Strategically linking pages internally helps to pass link equity and improve keyword rankings
When to Use:
Client has published new pages on the site and wants to get them crawled, indexed, and ranked asap
You've identified important pages that are "orphaned" and want to help these pages get discovered, indexed, and ranked
You've identified keyword cannibalization issues and/or just want to improve keyword targeting for keyword mapped pages via sending stronger ranking signals by using strategic anchor texts within your internal linking strategy
Resources:
Deliverable Template Explainer - 9/2022, led by Andrea
Deliverable Training - 11/2022, led by Julia
Common Organic Search Challenges & Solutions
Disclaimer: Every client is unique, use these solutions as a starting point to diagnose performance issues.
Common Reporting-Related Questions
Problem: Page 1 keyword rankings increased, but MoM traffic & revenue is down
Solution A: Seasonality: Month-over-month Organic traffic & revenue fluctuations can often be a result of seasonality–especially for businesses that carry seasonally-related products (i.e swimsuits). Here are a few ways to determine if seasonality could be a contributing factor in your traffic performance.
Compare Organic Traffic YoY: Using Google Analytics, compare the same date range to the previous year. If last year saw the same MoM decline, seasonality is likely at play.
Compare Search Demand: Using monthly search volume from Keyword Planner and/or search impressions from Google Search Console, you can determine if there are more or less users searching for topics your site covers for a specified time period.
Solution B: Promos/Sales: Check the client’s promo calendar to see if the client ran a promo/sale the previous month that would have contributed to larger than usual revenue & traffic gains.
Example Slide: FlipSplit [Slide 7]
Problem: How do I determine what keywords are directly impacting organic traffic declines and/or increases?
Solution: Here are a few ways to determine what keywords could be contributing to traffic declines:
Work Backwards: Rather than looking at the keyword landscape, start at the individual page level by placing the URL that’s seeing the biggest decline in SEMRush or AHrefs.
Compare Page 1 Rankings: Using Ahrefs or SEMRush, compare MoM (& YoY) Page 1 keyword rankings for that URL to identify what keywords may have dropped off.
Hot Tip: All you need to note here is lost or declined Page 1 rankings because your Page 2 rankings wouldn’t have driven traffic.
Verify Using Google Search Console: If there are multiple keywords down for that particular URL, use GSC to identify specific keywords or “queries” contributing to the largest session or “click” decline.
Hot Tip: Remember, Google Analytics does not provide keyword-level data insights.
Problem: Branded traffic is declining & dragging down organic search KPIs
Solution A: Ask the client about changes in Paid strategies/budget: When clients are reducing spend, they will typically start reducing spend within prospecting efforts ( i.e. top of funnel) as it's more expensive/difficult to convert. When you aren't doing as much prospecting on paid, you are exposing less people to the brand, which then leads to less people searching for the brand. Less people searching for the brand, leads to lower branded MSV which equals LESS BRANDED CLICKS. Majority of our clients' traffic comes from brand, so when brand is down it translates into less traffic. In addition, branded traffic tends to convert higher so that translates into less revenue.
Solution B: Validate branded traffic declines: Here are a few ways to determine if branded traffic is being impacted.
Step 1: Dig into branded queries in GSC: Within Google Search Console, pull the most recent quarter’s data for branded clicks & compare to the previous year’s quarter (for example, Q1 2023 vs Q1 2022). If branded clicks are down as well as impressions, then it's likely that less people are searching for the client's brand.Move to the next step
Step 2: Validate that less people are searching for the brand. Within Keyword Planner, search for your client’s brand name & filter for the most recent quarter. Export all branded terms. In the excel, total the MSV for all terms for each month within that quarter. Do the same for the previous year’s quarter. Combine that data into a chart to see if MSV is down YoY.
Step 3: If both branded clicks and branded MSV are down, that typically means that something (i.e. less prospecting) is contributing to branded search interest declines.
Example Slide:
Problem: Traffic is trending down due to outside factors not in Power’s control, how do I show positive results from PDM efforts?
Solution A: Create a regex of all PDM optimized pages to show performance KPIs directly related to our efforts
Using your Internal Organic Search tracking document (which houses all pages optimized) gather all of the URLs you’ve optimized campaign to date & create a regex of all PDM optimized pages.
Place the regex into GSC and/or GA to gather performance metrics (i.e. traffic, conversions, revenue, leads, etc.).
Note: This is also great for communicating the performance of PDM created or optimized blogs.
Solution B: Rule out that traffic declines are out of our control:
Compare Query Clicks YoY: Using GSC, compare the same date range to the previous year. If last year saw the same MoM decline, seasonality is likely at play.
Look at Branded vs Non-branded Clicks: Ask yourself the following questions:
What non-brand queries are seeing declines MoM and YoY?
Check SEMrush to see if rankings changed for those queries
If rankings declined, check the SERPs to see if the SERP intent changed
What branded queries are seeing declines MoM and YoY (Note: fluctuations in branded queries & traffic is typically out of our control) Check SEMrush to see if rankings changed for those queries and to what pages were affected
Check branded monthly search volume: Has branded search interest declined?
What Promos/Sales did the client run last year or the previous month?
Check the client’s promo calendar to see if the client ran a promo/sale the previous month or year that would have contributed to larger than usual revenue & traffic gains that would have had a halo effect on SEO branded.
Example Slide:
Problem: Client has aggressive, unrealistic goals for Organic Search
Solution A: Assess historical traffic & revenue performance:
Pull historical data as far back as possible to get an accurate picture of how performance has been trending.
Use the SEO Traffic Forecast template here
Based on historical data, you should be able to assess how realistic or unrealistic the client’s goals are
If the client won’t budge on goals, show them a more “realistic” goal you feel is achievable and frame their goal as a “stretch” goal
Report on pacing for both the “realistic” and “stretch” goals to in monthly and weekly reports
Solution B: Educate the client & be transparent:
Start by explaining how SEO works and the time it takes to see results. Many clients may not fully understand the complexities of SEO and may have unrealistic expectations as a result.
Communicate regularly with the client and be transparent about the progress being made. This can help build trust and prevent unrealistic expectations from arising.
Leverage your client-facing tracking documents
Continually update how we are pacing to organic goals during weekly and/or monthly reports
Solution C: Provide data-driven recommendations:
Based on the client’s proposed goals ask yourself:
What would it take to hit these monstrous goals?
Would this require an expansion of our current Organic Search scope?
Would we need to produce double the content?
Use data from competitors or industry benchmarks to provide recommendations on what goals are realistic. This can help the client understand what to expect and set goals that are achievable.
Example:
Problem: Organic traffic is up, but Organic revenue is down
Solution A: Traffic is low-intent to purchase:
Cross reference Google Search Console to identify what pages and queries drove click increases. Are these queries and/or pages lower priority and driving low intent traffic. For example, did the blog drive the lion’s share of traffic increases?
Tip: If traffic increases are being driven by non-conversion focused pages (i.e. the blog). This is a great opportunity to pitch “Shop the Blog” strategy or similar strategy to help better convert traffic on low-intent pages.
Solution B: Macroeconomics Trends/Outside Factors:
Are consumers window-shopping? If consumers' search behaviors are in line with historic trends, but are converting at lower rates–there might be outside factors at play (i.e. a recession). Tap Data Intelligence team to identify industry trends that align with client specific insights.
Solution C: Average Order Value is Down:
Average order value (AOV) is the average dollar amount customers spend each time an order is placed on your ecommerce website. In Google Analytics, look at the AOV. If AOV decreased (due to changes in shipping policies, sales for lower-priced items, etc.) that could be the answer as to why revenue is down.
Solution D: Purchase Lag and/or Long Sales Cycle:
What is the brand’s typical conversion path length? If they are a B2B client or a D2C brand with products at a high price point, ask the client how long a typical sales cycle is? It might be that conversions aren’t realized until 60-90 days later, after initial engagement.
Solution E: Conversion Funnel Friction:
Identify core conversion funnels. If there is any overlap in user dropoff, then this might be a good opportunity to conduct a UX or CRO audit. If the client already has HotJar or LuckyOrange on site, it may be worthwhile to take a peak at that customer data, before looping in the CRO/UX team for a SE.
Problem: Client wants to scale Organic Search Revenue
Solution A: Gather data to inform which products/services are most profitable for their business to inform areas of focus for the organic search deliverables roadmap.
Request LTV data from the client across various product categories / services. Use this to select which URLs / initiatives will be most impactful in driving long-term value.
If the client doesn’t have LTV data, you can request product margin data to gain insights into which products drive the most profit.
Layer in these data points against MSV opportunity to establish & align on Category Prioritization for the SEO deliverables roadmap. Select categories of focus for monthly deliverables (i.e. in April, on-page & content initiatives will focus on #1 LTV category, in May they’ll focus on #2, etc).
Solution B: Faceted Navigation [eCommerce]
Most eCommerce sites allow users to filter down into deep product refinements (i.e color, size, sale, etc.), but many are not leveraging this for Organic performance by configuring valuable filtered URLs to be indexed, crawled and ranked.
Setting up the filtered pages with unique, indexable URLs can be a huge unlock for online retailers as it allows them to capture lower competition, high-intent to purchase, BOTF searches (ex: “white midi dresses”).
Important Things to Keep in Mind w/ Faceted Navigation:
Think strategically about which refinements to unlock to prevent indexation bloat / duplicate URLs. When proposing this strategy to the client, let them know that we’ll conduct opportunity sizing research to identify the most valuable refinements to unlock once they confirm that implementation will be viable.
From there, we’ll need to provide guidance on which to unlock and which to keep non-indexable, as well as how to configure multiple refinement URLs to prevent duplicate URLs. Ex: In Phase 1 for Saks, only the following refinements based on MSV data: Color, Material, Style, ‘on sale’. In Phase 2, we’ll be providing recommendations for combinations of these refinements (i.e. color x style) to unlock, as well as recos on how to structure the order of refinements in URLs to prevent duplicate URLs (i.e. color should always be placed first in the URL when combined with other refinements, regardless of the order in which the user selects them).
[DISCLAIMER] Not every ecomm client is a good fit for faceted navigation. It’s also a very big technical lift. If you’re unsure if your client would be a good fit for this strategy, please reach out to the strategy team before surfacing this opportunity to a client.
Solution C: Site Architecture Expansion [Lead Gen]
Explore untapped opportunities to own long-tail queries via the generation of new URLs. Is there an opp to generate scalable, dynamic landing pages to target long-tail keyword variations? Do competitors have any resource hubs that the client does not (i.e. local landing pages, directories, audience/industry pages)?
Examples:
LTV Category Prioritization: Client-facing Strategy Overview Slide | Monthly Analysis: Page-level Strategy Recommendations
Faceted Nav: INT Training Deck w/ slides that can be repurposed to be client-facing (opportunity slide, case study) | Faceted Nav Opportunity Sizing
Common Strategy-Related Questions
Problem: I’m having trouble finding keyword expansion opportunities
Solution A: Identify closely-related queries via looking at:
GSC Query report: what additional long-tail keywords are relevant to the page and driving clicks?
SEMRUSH ranking report: are there any additional long-tail keywords ranking for the page that are worth adding to our secondary/tertiary keyword lists?
SEMRUSH Keyword Magic tool: are there any additional long-tail keywords and/or question-based keywords within the keyword universe worth targeting?
Competitor Articles ranking well on the SERP: are there any additional keyword targets competitors are ranking well for that or client can capitalize on?
People Also Ask section on the SERP: are there any additional long-tail keywords and/or question-based keywords worth targeting?
PPC Data: are there high converting queries that we’re not targeting via organic? Tip→ this is especially helpful for complex, B2B sites.
Additional tools: https://answerthepublic.com/ and https://alsoasked.com/
Implement keyword expansion opportunities via integrating within:
Metadata changes
Internal & External Linking strategy (diversify anchor texts across keyword variations)
Content Updates (especially through FAQ creation)
Examples:
Talkspace | Conditions "What Is" Keyword Expansion - July 2022: targeted "what is" keyword expansion opportunities across key condition pages
Talkspace - Online Therapy On-Page Optimizations - April 2023: targeted long-tail keywords via FAQ creation on therapy pages
Problem: Client doesn’t want to add new pages to the main navigation
Solution A: Create Parent Page for New Pages: If applicable, create top level page to house links for all newly created pages, and link only the one top level page in main navigation (example)
Solution B: Sub Navigation: If applicable, request pages be added to navigation dropdown or tertiary navigation to leverage link equity from top-down crawling (example)
Solution C: Footer: Request pages be added to site footer to leverage internal linking signals, however note that these will have lower link equity as well as lower CTRs and will limit growth trajectory compared to the main navigation (example)
Problem: Net-new blogs have been live for 3 months & still aren’t gaining traction
Solution A: Check for technical SEO roadblocks utilizing GSC. Follow these steps:
Login to GSC.
Check URLs using the URL inspection tool.
Confirm that the URL is on Google and being indexed, is included in the sitemap, and has no technical errors.
If yes, request indexing again & move to solution B.
If no (i.e. there are technical errors, URL is not being indexed, or blog is not included in the sitemap*), connect with the tech SEO lead to discuss and resolve.
* Important note: Your blogs might be indexed, but if they are not submitted in the sitemap (which ideally should be happening dynamically as we publish blogs), then you're essentially not telling Google those pages are important on your site. This should be discussed with a tech SEO lead first and then shared with the client per next steps with the tech SEO lead.
Solution B: If there are no technical SEO roadblocks or all issues have been resolved and we still are not ranking, conduct the following:
Analyze/elevate content: Thoroughly analyze our net new content to identify areas for improvement. Use the following questions to help you determine if and how we should elevate/rework our content:
Is our content answering or addressing the search query (main target keyword) immediately? Do we have any fluff content before we get to the main topic of the article?
Are we covering too many subtopics in one article, making it difficult for Google to understand what our blog is actually about and rank us as the best answer for a search query we're targeting?
Are we missing an important section or subtopic that's critical to answering the search query well? Are competitors talking about it and we are not?
Is our content well optimized for all of our target keywords and in MarketMuse?
Is there a similar or somewhat similar article topic/angle already that might be cannibalizing our efforts? Conduct a site search to confirm (example: site: talkspace.com/blog [topic])
Conduct internal linking deliverable: To identify opportunities to link to our net new blog blogs from collection page content or other blogs that don't have links to our net new blogs. The goal is to pass link equity and send more ranking signals to Google.
Problem: Client isn’t sold on the value of the blog & wants to understand the ROI
Solution A: In your next report, include one or all slides (if data supports):
Assisted Conversions: Create a slide that both presents organic blog-assisted conversions and story tells the value of the blog as a TOFU strategy vs. immediate revenue driver.
Utilize this video to find assisted conversion data (recommended that we use partnership-to-date data for stronger impact)
In your talk track, be sure to remind the client that the blog is not meant to be a revenue-driving strategy, however, it helps to drive qualified traffic that can be retargeted and nurtured through other channels to drive a conversion. Then lead into how assisted conversions allows us to see just exactly how this traffic eventually converts for the brand after having the blog as the first touchpoint.
Cluster Impact: Create a slide that shows how the blog cluster strategy has had an impact on improving our revenue-driving pages resulting in increased traffic/revenue.
Direct Conversions Through the Blog (only if applicable): Create a slide that explains though the blog is a TOFU strategy, we have been able to drive very qualified traffic that may be further down the funnel.
Highlight top converting blogs including goal or transaction/revenue data to support.
Include insights around themes/types of converting topics to inform future strategy opps.
Identify areas to further optimize for conversions (i.e. custom intent CTA banners, shop the blog strategy)
Problem: Indexation Issues
Solution A: Check to ensure the best practices below are being followed:
Step 1: Pages are indexable and marked index, follow (Pages should be 200 okay with no 4xx or 5xx errors)
Step 2: Pages are self-canonical and are not referencing a different URL that is being indexed instead
Step 3: Pages are in the sitemap. Whether the main sitemap or separate blog sitemap, new URLs should dynamically be pulled into the sitemap or manually be added
Step 4: Pages are not being blocked by robots.txt. Check to ensure pages are visible to crawlers and are not listed in the disallow list
Solution B: If the best practices above are being followed, but pages are still not indexed, take the following steps:
Step 1: Manually request indexing in GSC to bump page into Google priority list
Step 2: Check internal linking. If the pages are orphaned, it may be difficult for Google to find, crawl and index them. Consider adding internal links to/from related indexed pages on site.
Step 3: Check for index bloat, are all pages being crawled in GSC, or is Google reaching its crawl budget before completing the full crawl? If you suspect index bloat, look into content consolidation/content pruning/redirection protocol opportunities to alleviate bloat from unnecessary/low value/outdated pages.
Step 4: Google might be choosing not to index a page due to thin or low quality content. Thin pages can cause indexing issues because they don’t contain much unique content and don’t meet minimum quality levels compared to your competition. Do you have a large number of almost identical pages that contain boilerplate copy? Consider adding unique content to top priority pages to improve indexation and rankings.
Problem: Orphan Landing Pages
What are orphaned URLs? Orphan pages are pages that are not linked to from any other page or section of your site. This means a user cannot access the page without knowing the direct URL.
More importantly, these pages can't be followed from another page by search engine crawlers such as Google, which means they are rarely indexed or frequently crawled by search engines. This means they are less likely to show up in Google’s search results since we’re not actively linking to these articles elsewhere on the site.
Solution A: Implement pagination
Pagination is the process of breaking up long content into multiple pages vs. creating one very long page. For example, on ecommerce websites, category pages often implement pagination to break up a series of products into multiple pages.
Solution B: Add Categorization or Sub-Navigation
Categories or sub-navigation provides structure to your site by organizing collection pages and/or blogs and sub-topics under several main topics or collections. More importantly, categories and sub-navigation help:
Internal Linking: Provide a scalable way to internally link pages to ensure evenly distributed link equity across pages
Boost Authority: Add hierarchy to your pages. This helps search engines better understand what each page is about and rank accordingly.
Improve UX: Group content under a handful of topics, so people get to where they want to be, fast.
Solution C: Add internal links:
Internal links are important because they can help Google understand and rank your website better. By giving Google links to follow along with descriptive anchor text, you can indicate to Google which pages of your site are important, as well as what they are about. There are various tactics and strategies for implementing internal linking–some of which are more manual than others.
Navigational Links
Main navigation
Top level navigation
Dropdown navigation
Faceted
Breadcrumb
Product Grid Links
Carousel Links
In Content Links
Footer Links
Internal Search Links
Plug-in links
Strategy Overview: Free Product Listing (Organic Shopping)
Strategy Overview: Free Product Listings
What are free product listings?: Free product listings are the organic equivalent of Google Shopping Ads — they provide businesses with the ability to showcase their products directly within relevant search results without spending ad dollars. These listings appear in Google Search and other Google properties, such as the Shopping tab and Google Images. By displaying these listings, Google aims to provide users with more comprehensive and diverse shopping options.
Why are these important for eComm brands?: Shoppable SERP features have been increasingly taking up high-value space on SERPs over the past few years as Google aims to compete with the online retail giants (i.e. Amazon & Walmart). We anticipate that as Google continues to hone this experience, users will become more reliant on it vs. clicking into traditional links. These listings types also provide smaller DTC brands an opportunity to appear prominently on SERPs that are otherwise dominated by high-authority retailers or affiliate results.
What types of clients can benefit from free product listings?: DTC brands, retailers, wholesalers, subscription businesses & digital product businesses can all drive performance via free product listings. If you’re unsure whether your client is a fit, search for a few of their product types - if there are organic shopping results, they’re likely a good fit. Note that some product types are prohibited or restricted [Resource: Free Shopping Listings Policies].
How do merchants become eligible to appear for free product listings?: Until recently, Merchants were required to submit their product data to Google Merchant Center for eligibility. This is usually done when products are submitted to GMC for Paid channels; because of this, many clients will already have this enabled. However, in September 2022, Google expanded eligibility so that products can also be eligible for free product listings by using structured data on their website, without owning or managing a Merchant Center Feed.
How free product listings are generated: Free product listings pull product data from a few core sources: the Merchant Center Feed, structured data (product schema), and crawlable on-page content.
How are products ranked?: Products are ranked using a variety of factors, including the product's title, description, price, and availability. Google also considers the site’s Seller Ratings, quality of the product data and the merchant's performance in Google Ads, such as their click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, and average order value.
Additional Resources:
Strategy Overview: Shop the Blog
Shop the Blog Strategy:
What is Shop the Blog?: STB is a way to increase blog monetization by directly highlighting products mentioned within blog content either for direct add to cart or for deeper PDP/PLP interaction. STB can be implemented as inline ‘shop now/add to cart’ radio buttons, ‘featured blog products’ highlights, or ‘product picks’ visual carousels.
What are the benefits of Shop the Blog?: STB is a fantastic strategy for accounts seeing strong blog traffic but low conversion, as it helps move top of funnel users lower in the funnel towards purchase. STB also has numerous benefits for cross channel performance, as it can help:
Organic Search: increase organic blog revenue, increase blog rankings from improved user interaction & experience on page
Paid Social: build retargeting pools & deeper pixel data for higher intent audiences (based on add to cart)
Email: increase email revenue by including high converting blog content
What types of clients can benefit from Shop the Blog?: DTC brands and retailers are a great fit for STB, however depending on your client you can also utilize this strategy for certain B2B and subscription brands if their services allow.
How can I get client buy-in for Shop the Blog?: Use this template to pitch clients on possible STB opportunities! You can also pull an export of top traffic driving blogs from GA to identify low hanging fruit or proof of concept if a client is seeing strong traffic but low conversion on blogs.
The client is on board! Now what?: Depending on the client CMS and if they have dev support, there are a few different ways to implement STB:
Shopify: Implementation Steps
WordPress: Implementation Steps
How do I report on Shop the Blog performance impacts?: Once STB is implemented, make sure to segment reporting so we can show the value of our work! Consider creating a regex for STB blogs and tracking revenue performance compared to non-STB blogs, as well as assisted conversions from other channels. It may also be worthwhile to monitor any changes in bounce rate on STB blogs and highlight wins to the client.