Recently, SEO expert Lily Ray wrote an article discussing some
observations in the ecommerce SEO landscape over the past year. The insights highlight a growing trend: Google is now prioritizing results from ecommerce, user-generated content (UGC), and social media sites over traditional product review websites for many commercial and comparison queries (think about the queries like "What is the best xyz product?"). This is an interesting shift because it's rewarding ecommerce merchants with new relevant traffic which should drive more sales to their site.
See the shift that she saw for the search phrase "Best eye mask" which you can see what has happened here:
She provides 2 more examples in her post for similar searches (you can click on the link at the top of this article to see all of them).
Lily's study sheds some light on some of the many things that have been happening in search results lately, which there is a lot going on and we'll try to note our own observations and notes on her observations in this article. It's not just product searches that are getting impacted, the "Helpful Content" related to products has also seen a lift. See the lift in organic positions that Answerbase's customers have seen a lift in traffic after the Google March Core Updates where the positions of their product-associated Q&A landing pages have notably lifted across the board. See that data here which shows the data across many Answerbase customers and reflects the activity of their Q&A landing pages for product-related question and answer pairs that have enough search demand to warrant their own landing page to address that search intent:
Through Lily's research, you can see that ecommerce sites are seeing better visibility for searches closer to the products as well. For example, keywords that once returned top-ranking results from well-known informational and product review sites are now dominated by ecommerce stores, she shared screenshots of searches for "best eye mask," "best serums for face," and "best jewelry cleaner" illustrate this shift. In these examples, ecommerce sites are taking precedence, with product review sites seeing a noticeable decline. This transition has profound implications for certain types of publishers, many of whom have relied on affiliate content for additional revenue. The shift seems to be a response to feedback from Google searchers who felt that top-ranking articles often lacked authenticity and were overly focused on SEO rather than providing genuine value.
Silvia's data is certainly interesting...and will be interesting to see how those "best [product]" queries evolve over time...and if Google will eventually surface those Merchant Listing Experience rich snippets for those. For example, if you just get rid of "best" and do a search for "serums for face" you'll see this (in the USA) and these types of
"Merchant Listing Experiences" results have been taking over the #1 spots for many ecommerce related searches since January 2024:
We wouldn't be surprised if the "best" over time may just be a table of products that have a certain quality threshold based off of actual review feedback....which would satisfy the search intent. But...when it comes to "best".....there are deeper considerations that the customer has which will satisfy their need when finding the appropriate product. When it comes to product....a query of "best" really begs the following question:
"best for what purpose or compatibility consideration?"
Answering this question and leading the searcher to products that satisfy that compability match is important for ecommerce merchants, because it leads to (1) higher conversions and (2) lower return rates. For example, one of our customers RVupgrades sees that when the Q&A pair confirms that the product is a compatibility match...they see a conversion 75% of the time.
Answerbase satisfies this content through AI-proposed content that satisfies this considerations when considering a purchase of a specific type of product. Answerbase generates content that educates/leads visitors to the "best" products when it comes to xyz features/attributes/specifications related to their actual need. We can recognize within the ecommerce merchants current/available inventory....and points out the "best" options within their inventory for those specific attributes and the value of those attributes for certain situations/environments. For example, when looking at RV air conditioners....see these examples we generate:
So....this manages "best" considerations as we lead visitors and searchers to the "best" product for their specific need, which is important for
ecommerce category page conversion and SEO. Of course, you get the link building to those appropriate/relevant products in the same breath...and those products that are represented are prioritized by the ones that have proven to convert in that category. Answerbase also suggests keyword optimizations when that makes sense....you can see a diagram of what it's doing here:
This allows marketing managers, who don't necessarily have the expertise about the products/categories they're optimizing for.....they don't need to know much about the products because we're generating all of these recommendations off of existing/published/vetted product information that is great information...it's just not in a format that is useful on the category level. We do also do this on the product level as well based off vetted/good product information...see an overview/diagram/screenshot of that here:
So....we're working to enable marketers to have content that has great/quality/useful information baked into it.....and then they can apply their SEO strategy/expertise to that quality content to ensure it services both visitors and searchers....and achieves higher level SEO goals with keyword optimization, link building, etc. This is a method where you can appropriately use
AI for ecommerce product page SEO and ensure it's helpful information for both visitors and those searching on Google.
We'd love to
schedule a call with your team to talk about what Answerbase can do for your ecommerce store.
