The purpose of these Algo updates: To more harshly push eCommerce sites toward PPC and enable normal blogs/forums toward reclaiming organic search positions?

[sanj5050]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post here, and absolutely loving the site and the services.

Just a quick background, I have dabbled in SEO in the past, and have been reading up over the last few months and am amazed at the speed at which things are changing. I currently have a few clients that I am doing some SEO work for 2 of them, and have had an ecommerce site enquire about SEO services. They are a medium sized oak furniture ecommerce site.

From all the major changes..the devaluing of spam links, link networks, penalization of overuse of exact match anchor text and the overall encouraging of earned links (often via content marketing) over built links, adding to this the (not provided) section in Google Analytics, and the increasing screen real estate that PPC is getting over organic search...all points to me thinking on major thing.....

That the search engine is trying to push eCommerce sites and sites that sell stuff harder toward using PPC and paid advertising and allowing the blogs/forums and informational sites to more easily reclaim the organic part of the search results again.

The above is elaborated on a bit more below..

POINT 1

Firstly as built links (article submission, press releases, info graphic submission, web 2.0 link building ect) rapidly lose their effectiveness, and as Google starts to place more emphasis on sites earning links instead - by producing amazing interesting and unique content that people want to link to. The fact remains that surely Google is aware that it is much harder for eCommerce sites to produce a constant stream of interesting link worthy content around their niche (especially if its a niche that not an awful lot could be written about).

Although earning links is not impossible for eCommerce sites, for a lot of them it is more difficult because creating link worthy content is not what eCommerce sites were originally intended for. Whereas standard blogs and forums were built for that exact purpose. Therefore the search engines must know that it is a lot easier for normal blogs/forums to "earn" links through content, therefore leading to them reclaiming more of the organic search ranking for transaction and non transaction terms, and therefore forcing the eCommerce sites to adopt PPC more heavily.

POINT 2

If we add to the mix the fact that for the terms most relevant to eCommerce sites, the search engine results page has a larger allocation of PPC ads than organic results (above the fold), and that Google has limited the amount of data that sites can see in terms of which keywords people are using to arrive on their sites, which effects eCommerce sites more - as it makes it harder for them to see which keywords are resulting in sales. Then this provides further evidence that Google is trying to back eCommerce sites into a corner by making it more difficult for them to make sense of and track sales from organic results in comparison to with PPC, where data is still plentiful.

Conclusion

Are the above just over exaggerations?

Can most eCommerce sites still keep achieving a good percentage of sales from organic search despite the above?

if so, what do the more niche eCommerce sites do to "earn" links when content topics are thin and unique outreach destinations can be exhausted quickly.

Do they accept the fact that the are in the business of selling things, so should be paying for their traffic as opposed to normal blogs/forums which are not. Or is there still a place for them to get even more creative with content and acquire earned links..?

And finally, is the concentration on earned links more overplayed than it actually is?

Id really appreciate your thoughts on this..

[EGOL]

The fact remains that surely Google is aware that it is much harder for eCommerce sites to produce a constant stream of interesting link worthy content around their niche (especially if its a niche that not an awful lot could be written about).

Why is it harder for ecommerce sites?  They should know their products, and if they know their products then they should have something to say about them.    If they are in a niche that not a lot can be written about then the job should be easier to say everything that anybody anywhere needs or wants to know.

Although earning links is not impossible for eCommerce sites, for a lot of them it is more difficult because creating link worthy content is not what eCommerce sites were originally intended for.

Google wants to show information.  If that is what google wants and you want to play the game then that is what you must do.  Your choices are simple: a) defeat the content of your competitors, b) bid higher in PPC, c) die.    The choice is clear.  How you respond to it will make all of the difference.

Whereas standard blogs and forums were built for that exact purpose. Therefore the search engines must know that it is a lot easier for normal blogs/forums to "earn" links through content, therefore leading to them reclaiming more of the organic search ranking for transaction and non transaction terms

This is why every retail site should have a blog and the bigger the retail site the bigger the blog.  If you don't know how to blog then find the best bloggers in your niche and hire them.  Buy their blogs.

Content has become a cost of doing business.

, and therefore forcing the eCommerce sites to adopt PPC more heavily.

They have many choices beyond PPC.   When I hear someone say that there is no choice, then my conclusion is that they choose "not to compete".

[sanj5050]

You raise some very strong points there.

I especially liked the point on if the eCommerce site is in a niche area that not that much can be written about, then it should be easier to dominate that niche by producing all that content the niche requires.

I guess Google has finally caught up with the manual link tactics many eCommerce sites have been deploying for a long time. And by manual link tactics, I mean them actively going out there and building links on free properties (web 2.0 profiles ect) and so on.

And I agree with you on the fact that content has become the cost of doing business.

A final point one your last comment above, I feel the reason why many eCommerce sites feel they have no real other choice other than PPC, is due to the fact that although PPC costs, it provides them with the predictable traffic they need and is more metrics driven  - which I suppose appeals to eCommerce site owners whos primary goal is conversions, whereas producing content plays on the need to be more creative and strategic, so may not appeal to many of them quite so much.

But you also addressed this issue , by saying that they could very much hire the best bloggers they can, assuming they are an eCommerce site with the financial resources to do so. For the eCommerce sites that do not have the financial resources to have link worthy content produced, to them the companies/individuals that are offering hands off manual automatic link building campaigns, are still very attractive.

[EGOL]

Content has been my primary method of attack for a long time.  I have tried PPC and still do it occasionally.  The problem with PPC is that the competition is fierce.  So, I attack all possible keywords with substantive content - usually having more content than all of my competitors combined.  That earns me great organic positions for a majority of the long tail keywords.

I place ads on those content pages that divert traffic to my sales pages.  After building up a site I get a significant part of my sales from traffic that landed on content pages.  I know how many visitors enter through those pages, their conversion rates and the average value of a sale, plus my profit margin.  That allows me to know the average value of an ad click.  I then compete those ads with adsense using Google's DFP ad server and am glad to take payment for a visitor instead of sending them to my store - because I know that the potential profit is sometimes higher.