Answer
May 29, 2025 - 09:49 AM
Timing of SEO results has always been frustrating, but if you're working with a team that knows what they're doing...they should be able to show you relatively quick results and steps towards results.
Ecommerce SEO Results Within a Week or Two
So, for example....there are visibility issues that most ecommerce merchants have that they're not aware of...that can have dramatic impacts on how visible they are. The great thing about some of these issues is you can see the results of a good SEO expert's adjustments VERY quickly and we can report that back to you. See the visibility of this customer's products jump from 1900 visible products on Google to over 120K visible products.
So....if you have the right person working for you (you can get in touch with us and we'll help)....you can see notable improvements and progress very quickly. The great thing about the above changes is that you can see that within even a week from you making the change...and it can be quite dramatic. We often run into ecommerce merchants who are using an existing agency and paying thousands of dollars a month in retainer....and they haven't done SUPER simple/obvious things that have this kind of impact. Find a good resource (again, you can reach out to us and we'll help)....and get your money's worth.
Ecommerce SEO Results Within a Couple Months
Once the super basic stuff is done....you can then start finding great opportunities where your products are being searched for and through some other relatively simple changes....you can go from driving on traffic to those products to driving VERY targeted traffic to those same products. The great thing about these opportunities is these searches are so close to the bottom of the funnel...you should see a very nice conversion rate on these. See example here after those types of adjustments are implemented:
There are MANY terms that customers are searching for related to your products that are VERY specific and VERY low funnel traffic...and like a light switch...you can effectively get into those results and quickly be in the game as far as driving clicks and sales through that traffic. A good SEO resource can easily and quickly identify these holes in your site and should be able to show you these types of results within a couple months of starting the engagement.
The Longer Term SEO Positioning with Great Content
The above items are some relatively quick and simple things that you can do and scale....that improve traffic visibility and results. Then...once you're visible....then you actually start competing against who else is out there. You'll likely see some quick hits for the low-hanging fruit.....but then you actually need to know what you're talking about related to your products and be servicing the world through great content on your site. This is where Answerbase plays and thrives....as we are able to understand the full demand for information related to the products and product collections that you sell....and then give your team the most efficient manner in order to publish great, original content on your site. When customers talk to us about the results they should see through this....we always say the same thing, you need to be primarily focused on serving your customers through the content...and then Google and other AI search engines will "do their thing" in evaluating your content and look to give the best results/answers in their results. See this example here of a customer's Q&A knowledge base (powered via Answerbase) and what happened after they started an account with us in March 2024:
Now...were they happy in the first 2 months? In the first 4 months? But look at what has happened over a year period...where it goes from 0 organic traffic to over 600K organic visits to their Q&A knowledge base within the first 12 months. The run rate when this chart was pulled...if the last 28 days activity just sustains over the next 12 months....they will reach over 1.4 million organic visitors over the next 12 months. The key here, is you should only be publishing content that you actually think/know is going to be valuable for your visitors....so that needs to be the priority. Then....if you're really doing that and adding value to the planet through that content.....Google and any other AI engine needs that information and they'll reward you through visibility and traffic. How that displays will obviously evolve, and you can see our post on all of the different types of ways Q&A displays within results. But, see this example here and how the content is referenced within Google's AI overviews and featured snippets.
Impact on Product Positions
Now let's talk about what ecommerce merchants are really after....positions of the product searches. As you're publishing and the search engines recognize you as a helpful and authoritative source of information related to that product and product collection....they reward you sharing great information that they need (over 80% of Google's searches are for information)...then they reward you in lifting product positions. See this site that has a domain authority of ZERO....and how it's outranking Amazon, Ebay, and other popular sites as it has 2 of the top 10 ecommerce popular products results here:
Now we've talked to SEO agencies that said that SMB ecommerce businesses can't rank for those types of results...because of the "domain authority" of the larger sites. Again, that site has a domain authority of ZERO...see here how Ahrefs ranks their authority:
To this day we love "stumping" any "SEO Experts" on the calls with this idea.....the fact is, the game has changed and both Google and AI is creating an incentive for the creation of new/great content (which they need to survive and thrive) and they reward businesses to share that great information that's within the heads of the people within their company by respecting their SEO efforts. It's like Google says....when it comes to content....you need to start with "people first content" and then apply SEO to that. The days of gaming search engines with copy-cat "competitor chasing" content is over.
Google and AI needs to create an incentive for the continued creation of great content and experiences so they can feed on that....and they do that through the ranking of your pages.
SEO has been an interesting world to live in.....Answerbase has always been focused on getting answers to the end customer with the most appropriate resource....and then applying SEO best practices to that content. We've always known there was SEO value in the content and the way we create, optimize, and distribute that content....but when we released our AI-Enhanced workflows where we could laser-focus product by product, collection by collection....to optimize for short-tail results....we started getting into a lot more "SEO conversations". This is the same time that Google's Helpful Content Updates, AI Overviews, Google's "AI Mode", Perplexity, ChatGPT, etc. came into the picture.....and the SEO ecosystem that we walked into was similar to that meme where the guy is walking in with a pizza and the entire room is on fire....
That's not a joke...that's actually what the ecommerce ecosystem has looked like for a couple years now (all starting with the Helpful Content Updates)...and it doesn't seem to be improving fast. At the same time...we've seen Q&A content completely explode....and we're pretty sure we know why.
The good news is....that there is good news, it's not all "the world is over" as you may pick up from much of the communication out there. What's been disrupted is the SEO ecosystem's content marketing practices and it doesn't work anymore. The days of creating copy-cat content to chase competitors is over....and the winners are going to be the resources that have the actual knowledge and are fulfilling actual customer demand for information with that knowledge. It's best for the customer, it's best for the searcher...and it's best for the ecommerce merchants. The good news is, if you have it.....Google and AI NEEDS to reward you....because they need that experience/content. Google has patented how they approach this with their "information gain score" in being able to identify and surface any good information on the topic that isn't just rehashing what is already out there.....and any AI will also need to make a similar determination so it can have all the great information about any topic as deep as the searcher wants to go.
The Good News for Marketers and Agencies
The big problem that marketers and agencies have....is they are great writers and great SEO people.....but most times they don't know enough about the products or services or topics they're writing about....so they can't give Google and AI what it needs to establish healthy incentives to create. But, they can still provide value in their expertise....it just needs to flip on it's head. Notice when it comes to content, how Google says SEO fits into the picture again.
So....don't start with keyword research...you start with "Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content" and then when you have that...THEN you apply your great writing and SEO expertise. Answerbase feeds that to marketers and merchants...and we do that in a focused manner. We can feed you with the full demand for content related to every product, product collection, and even topic (any blog post)....and then create the most efficient way to fulfill that and apply the appropriate keywords. We can tap into different channels where we can identify the original questions and original answers from real people and real expertise...and then once you have that great information, you just need to filter/tweak and then publish the stuff that is helpful for a future visitor. We have customers who are optimizing in 5-15 minutes per page (we've had a couple say 2.5 minutes per page).
You can watch a video overview of our AI tools here:
That is the power of AI.....efficiency. Answerbase provides you with the valuable content that is actually "people first" and actually demonstrates original and vetted expertise....and then gives the most efficient manner to distribute it. Listen, AI is amazing...it's going to change the planet...but we need to recognize what it's going to be great at and what it's not going to be great at. What it does is reads/repeats things that it's already seen...but since it's not a human being and hasn't experienced anything, it doesn't necessarily know what it's talking about. We like to equate it to the guy in the movie "Good Will Hunting" who has read a ton of books and speaks SUPER eloquently...but has no idea what he's talking about.
To the average person...seems SUPER smart and that you would clearly listen to what it's saying...but it's not as good as an actual brain that is making all of the current connections with all of the current and up to date variables that need to be taken into account. Not all of that information is available online for AI to get hold of....and there is evidence that suggests that the vast majority of that data is still locked in people's brains (see what Meta's Chief AI Scientist had to say).
What's hilarious is even Google understand that what AI spits out cannot be trusted....it depends on the reliability of the information that's out there already...and garbage in, garbage out. See what they said about getting SEO advice from an LLM....
Quite an interesting world when "AI Mode" just became the first tab in organic search results:)
At the end of the day....Google's focus on finding content and the sources of content that satisfies E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) will survive and be critical for Google or any other AI tool to be trusted and relied upon by consumers. Google needs it, ChatGPT needs it, Perplexity needs it...and any other AI player in the market will need it, it's the foundation of being able to rely on what is produced....and searchers will demand it.
While they're figuring out how to not misinform the world through unreliable information....just focus on publishing that great content on your own site and as Google said...they will always need to optimize towards that. Answerbase can just help you do that notably more efficiently than any other method, both in understanding the "people first" demand for information...and fulfilling that information request with the best source of information within your organization (or your customer's organization if you're an agency).
We encourage you to schedule a demo and we'll make sure that you're taken care of.
Ecommerce SEO Results Within a Week or Two
So, for example....there are visibility issues that most ecommerce merchants have that they're not aware of...that can have dramatic impacts on how visible they are. The great thing about some of these issues is you can see the results of a good SEO expert's adjustments VERY quickly and we can report that back to you. See the visibility of this customer's products jump from 1900 visible products on Google to over 120K visible products.
So....if you have the right person working for you (you can get in touch with us and we'll help)....you can see notable improvements and progress very quickly. The great thing about the above changes is that you can see that within even a week from you making the change...and it can be quite dramatic. We often run into ecommerce merchants who are using an existing agency and paying thousands of dollars a month in retainer....and they haven't done SUPER simple/obvious things that have this kind of impact. Find a good resource (again, you can reach out to us and we'll help)....and get your money's worth.
Ecommerce SEO Results Within a Couple Months
Once the super basic stuff is done....you can then start finding great opportunities where your products are being searched for and through some other relatively simple changes....you can go from driving on traffic to those products to driving VERY targeted traffic to those same products. The great thing about these opportunities is these searches are so close to the bottom of the funnel...you should see a very nice conversion rate on these. See example here after those types of adjustments are implemented:
There are MANY terms that customers are searching for related to your products that are VERY specific and VERY low funnel traffic...and like a light switch...you can effectively get into those results and quickly be in the game as far as driving clicks and sales through that traffic. A good SEO resource can easily and quickly identify these holes in your site and should be able to show you these types of results within a couple months of starting the engagement.
The Longer Term SEO Positioning with Great Content
The above items are some relatively quick and simple things that you can do and scale....that improve traffic visibility and results. Then...once you're visible....then you actually start competing against who else is out there. You'll likely see some quick hits for the low-hanging fruit.....but then you actually need to know what you're talking about related to your products and be servicing the world through great content on your site. This is where Answerbase plays and thrives....as we are able to understand the full demand for information related to the products and product collections that you sell....and then give your team the most efficient manner in order to publish great, original content on your site. When customers talk to us about the results they should see through this....we always say the same thing, you need to be primarily focused on serving your customers through the content...and then Google and other AI search engines will "do their thing" in evaluating your content and look to give the best results/answers in their results. See this example here of a customer's Q&A knowledge base (powered via Answerbase) and what happened after they started an account with us in March 2024:
Now...were they happy in the first 2 months? In the first 4 months? But look at what has happened over a year period...where it goes from 0 organic traffic to over 600K organic visits to their Q&A knowledge base within the first 12 months. The run rate when this chart was pulled...if the last 28 days activity just sustains over the next 12 months....they will reach over 1.4 million organic visitors over the next 12 months. The key here, is you should only be publishing content that you actually think/know is going to be valuable for your visitors....so that needs to be the priority. Then....if you're really doing that and adding value to the planet through that content.....Google and any other AI engine needs that information and they'll reward you through visibility and traffic. How that displays will obviously evolve, and you can see our post on all of the different types of ways Q&A displays within results. But, see this example here and how the content is referenced within Google's AI overviews and featured snippets.
Impact on Product Positions
Now let's talk about what ecommerce merchants are really after....positions of the product searches. As you're publishing and the search engines recognize you as a helpful and authoritative source of information related to that product and product collection....they reward you sharing great information that they need (over 80% of Google's searches are for information)...then they reward you in lifting product positions. See this site that has a domain authority of ZERO....and how it's outranking Amazon, Ebay, and other popular sites as it has 2 of the top 10 ecommerce popular products results here:
Now we've talked to SEO agencies that said that SMB ecommerce businesses can't rank for those types of results...because of the "domain authority" of the larger sites. Again, that site has a domain authority of ZERO...see here how Ahrefs ranks their authority:
To this day we love "stumping" any "SEO Experts" on the calls with this idea.....the fact is, the game has changed and both Google and AI is creating an incentive for the creation of new/great content (which they need to survive and thrive) and they reward businesses to share that great information that's within the heads of the people within their company by respecting their SEO efforts. It's like Google says....when it comes to content....you need to start with "people first content" and then apply SEO to that. The days of gaming search engines with copy-cat "competitor chasing" content is over.
Google and AI needs to create an incentive for the continued creation of great content and experiences so they can feed on that....and they do that through the ranking of your pages.
SEO has been an interesting world to live in.....Answerbase has always been focused on getting answers to the end customer with the most appropriate resource....and then applying SEO best practices to that content. We've always known there was SEO value in the content and the way we create, optimize, and distribute that content....but when we released our AI-Enhanced workflows where we could laser-focus product by product, collection by collection....to optimize for short-tail results....we started getting into a lot more "SEO conversations". This is the same time that Google's Helpful Content Updates, AI Overviews, Google's "AI Mode", Perplexity, ChatGPT, etc. came into the picture.....and the SEO ecosystem that we walked into was similar to that meme where the guy is walking in with a pizza and the entire room is on fire....
That's not a joke...that's actually what the ecommerce ecosystem has looked like for a couple years now (all starting with the Helpful Content Updates)...and it doesn't seem to be improving fast. At the same time...we've seen Q&A content completely explode....and we're pretty sure we know why.
The good news is....that there is good news, it's not all "the world is over" as you may pick up from much of the communication out there. What's been disrupted is the SEO ecosystem's content marketing practices and it doesn't work anymore. The days of creating copy-cat content to chase competitors is over....and the winners are going to be the resources that have the actual knowledge and are fulfilling actual customer demand for information with that knowledge. It's best for the customer, it's best for the searcher...and it's best for the ecommerce merchants. The good news is, if you have it.....Google and AI NEEDS to reward you....because they need that experience/content. Google has patented how they approach this with their "information gain score" in being able to identify and surface any good information on the topic that isn't just rehashing what is already out there.....and any AI will also need to make a similar determination so it can have all the great information about any topic as deep as the searcher wants to go.
The Good News for Marketers and Agencies
The big problem that marketers and agencies have....is they are great writers and great SEO people.....but most times they don't know enough about the products or services or topics they're writing about....so they can't give Google and AI what it needs to establish healthy incentives to create. But, they can still provide value in their expertise....it just needs to flip on it's head. Notice when it comes to content, how Google says SEO fits into the picture again.
So....don't start with keyword research...you start with "Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content" and then when you have that...THEN you apply your great writing and SEO expertise. Answerbase feeds that to marketers and merchants...and we do that in a focused manner. We can feed you with the full demand for content related to every product, product collection, and even topic (any blog post)....and then create the most efficient way to fulfill that and apply the appropriate keywords. We can tap into different channels where we can identify the original questions and original answers from real people and real expertise...and then once you have that great information, you just need to filter/tweak and then publish the stuff that is helpful for a future visitor. We have customers who are optimizing in 5-15 minutes per page (we've had a couple say 2.5 minutes per page).
You can watch a video overview of our AI tools here:
That is the power of AI.....efficiency. Answerbase provides you with the valuable content that is actually "people first" and actually demonstrates original and vetted expertise....and then gives the most efficient manner to distribute it. Listen, AI is amazing...it's going to change the planet...but we need to recognize what it's going to be great at and what it's not going to be great at. What it does is reads/repeats things that it's already seen...but since it's not a human being and hasn't experienced anything, it doesn't necessarily know what it's talking about. We like to equate it to the guy in the movie "Good Will Hunting" who has read a ton of books and speaks SUPER eloquently...but has no idea what he's talking about.
To the average person...seems SUPER smart and that you would clearly listen to what it's saying...but it's not as good as an actual brain that is making all of the current connections with all of the current and up to date variables that need to be taken into account. Not all of that information is available online for AI to get hold of....and there is evidence that suggests that the vast majority of that data is still locked in people's brains (see what Meta's Chief AI Scientist had to say).
What's hilarious is even Google understand that what AI spits out cannot be trusted....it depends on the reliability of the information that's out there already...and garbage in, garbage out. See what they said about getting SEO advice from an LLM....
Quite an interesting world when "AI Mode" just became the first tab in organic search results:)
At the end of the day....Google's focus on finding content and the sources of content that satisfies E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) will survive and be critical for Google or any other AI tool to be trusted and relied upon by consumers. Google needs it, ChatGPT needs it, Perplexity needs it...and any other AI player in the market will need it, it's the foundation of being able to rely on what is produced....and searchers will demand it.
While they're figuring out how to not misinform the world through unreliable information....just focus on publishing that great content on your own site and as Google said...they will always need to optimize towards that. Answerbase can just help you do that notably more efficiently than any other method, both in understanding the "people first" demand for information...and fulfilling that information request with the best source of information within your organization (or your customer's organization if you're an agency).
We encourage you to schedule a demo and we'll make sure that you're taken care of.
