if your ecommerce company is like many your competitors fall into two categories amazon
and everybody else unfortunately amazon has become harder and harder to compete with every year
many e-commerce companies have given up on organic traffic altogether knowing the top of those
results are always dominated by amazon instead they dedicate their budgets to paid traffic
many actually join forces with amazon giving up some of their revenues in exchange for not having
to give up altogether that's why this most recent google algorithm update is so interesting to me
whether it was on purpose or not the changes do seem to hurt amazon
in the fight between two online goliaths the victor may finally be smaller ecommerce companies
google's most recent core algorithm change back on december 3rd google confirmed that yet
another core algorithm change was rolling out most website owners weren't thrilled to say the least
it's natural to always be a little nervous when one of these algorithm changes occur but given
that it's 2020 all the site owners i know reacted with a collective come on this was the third
update during a year that was already full of nuts all fun surprises and the one in may came shortly
after it became clear that covet 19 was here to stay which made it especially unpopular so
even though we've come to expect three to four updates from google every year
news that another one was actually happening despite all that 2020 had already put business
owners through and that it was rolling out during the busiest shopping season of the year
well it was a bit aggravating while it's too early to know exactly what the fallout will be
so far it definitely looks like the december core algorithm change is causing much more
volatility than the one in may this chart by rank ranger paints a pretty clear picture
the fun wasn't over after the initial changes either reports of ranking disruption spiked
again on the 10th confirming that the full rollout hadn't completed until the 9th
if you're interested in seeing how this update affected a whole host of individual sites
check out barry schwartz's comprehensive breakdown of this latest google update what i want to do in
this video is review why this update may actually be a golden opportunity for e-commerce sites
especially those who share one very big competitor in google versus amazon are ecommerce companies
going to be the winners so yeah i wasn't exactly thrilled when google announced that their early
christmas present would potentially shake up the rankings my agency and our clients have worked so
hard to earn but as i began looking into what those changes entailed i discovered something
very interesting as charles float reported in a video back on december 10th the biggest loser of
google's latest update seems to have been amazon a brief history of the war between google and amazon
though the two clearly benefit from one another the relationship between these online superpowers
began to fracture when amazon became the most popular site for product searches back in 2018.
that throne had pretty much always belonged to google among other things this meant that amazon
started to generate ad dollars that once went to google in 2019 this was still only 3 billion
compared to google's 30 billion but the point had been made people were beginning to go directly
to amazon for the products they needed sellers were taking note and adjusting their ad budgets
accordingly it should come as no surprise then that google has taken numerous steps to fight back
from improving google shopping to introducing shoppable youtube ads to of course revising their
algorithm to better help them own the funnel still this most recent update seemed like an
especially notable example maybe it's just a happy coincidence that amazon is taking the biggest hit
either way i highly recommend that you take advantage of the situation right now by updating
your site to level the playing field 4 steps you should take right away to get an edge on amazon
again it's still too early to know for sure but if google's newest update really has made things
harder for amazon that's reason to celebrate for e-commerce sites that have gotten used to sitting
in its shadow way down in the rankings that's also a reason to do the following asap number one
bulk up your thin content thin content describes the type of page that offers little to no value
to your customers as such it's a problem that usually goes unfixed because what website owner
believes that they're publishing pages that aren't going to be helpful to their market
here's the fastest and most effective way i know of to check if one of your web pages
qualify as thin check the first page of google for the keyword you want it to rank for and see how it
stacks up against the competition assuming it's not already there if it is then you're
fine are the other pages longer by a lot then consider bulking yours up with useful content
take a page out of their book and see what kind of information they have that yours doesn't
maybe you could improve your product page by going into more detail about how yours works
or what its most compelling benefits are you could create a comparison between your
product and those of your competitors to make it clear why yours is the right choice don't stop
at text either is your product lacking images graphics or videos now is the time to add them
amazon limits how much and what kinds of content companies can add to their pages
so don't take this opportunity lightly create the kinds of pages on your site
that your competitors can't on amazon and show google how much you care about your customers
don't stop at product pages either take this moment to improve your blog posts too if they
haven't been successful at generating traffic check to see if thin content is the culprit
this could be an easy way to bypass competitors who have been relying solely on amazon for
sales and neglecting the need for a blog that drives traffic to their actual sites
number two start making youtube videos youtube was one of the biggest winners of this latest update
i'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that google owns youtube
while amazon allows videos on their product pages there's no limit to how many or what
kind you can upload to youtube and host right on your site show your products in action show
video testimonials that prove how much your customers love them use videos to
show off how much you know and position yourself as the authority in your industry
year after year youtube videos are taking up more and more real estate at the top of google so they
could quickly become your most reliable source of consistent organic traffic number three building
backlinks make link building a priority in 2021 to even the odds amazon isn't lacking for backlinks
but that doesn't mean you should give up this tactic another takeaway from the latest algorithm
update was that backlinks continue to be vital for placing high in google search results this does
not mean practicing broken link building or link insertions across low authority domains the latest
updates seem to target those kinds of practices so they may end up doing more harm than good
if you can use these techniques to build links through high authority domains then by all means
otherwise roll up your sleeves and start guest posting publishing high quality blogs and even
creating the kinds of infographics that other companies will share on their sites and backlink
you in the process number four improve your interlinking google seemed to reward sites
with great interlinking during this update while it wasn't enough to save amazon from
taking a hit interlinking is something the massive site does do really well so don't
let a lack of interlinking keep your site from catching up during this important time
interlinking might be one of the easiest ways you can improve your website's organic traffic
the best way to go about handling this issue is to use an audit tool like semrush that can
quickly identify where your site has orphaned pages or pages with only one incoming link that
said i'd also find time for a bit of a manual review so you can find other opportunities for
interlinking read through your blogs starting with the most popular ones and look for chances to link
to other pages on your site this is a great way to help boost some of those pages that are struggling
don't go crazy and spam your own site with interlinks but the rule of thumb is that
fewer than 100 links on one page is fine so you shouldn't have to worry about that too much
make 2021 the year you go after amazon at the very least the recommendations
i've made above will help your ecommerce site generate more organic traffic in the future
however if google is really putting the squeeze on amazon and will continue to do so this could be
an incredible opportunity to win back some of the traffic it's been taking from your store for years
2020 was tough for most ecommerce sites get busy ensuring 2021 will be much better
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