By Noted international and enterprise SEO Eli Schwartz posted a screenshot from a recent experience he had on Amazon to his Twitter, and it is a perfect example of how platforms like Amazon will always find ways to keep upstart competition at arms length.
The screenshot shows Amazon using what psychologists and behavioral analysts refer to as “prompts”. In applied psychology and marketing prompts are basically small cues, clues, or helpful bits of information to get a user to take a specific action that benefits the business without the consumer noticing they are doing so. A simple trick that in many cases could be a differentiating factor between Amazon winning the ecommerce SEO battle for a specific product query or even category.
In this one simple tweet we are shown a vast chasm between Amazon’s capabilities and those of other ecommerce businesses, especially those hosted by third-party platforms such as Shopify, WordPress, and BigCommerce. It is widely believed among ecommerce SEOs that keywords in reviews of products impact the ability of a product page to rank in search results, similar to how Google and Bing might also use keywords in reviews of local businesses to rank them in local results.
No other ecommerce platform has this capability.
WooCommerce reviews are based on WordPress’ commenting system leaving them feeling bland (out of the box), BigCommerce reviews are basic out of the box, Shopify requires the installation of an app for product reviews (it is free at least), and other ecommerce systems may not even allow product reviews.
It isn’t that this specific feature is difficult to build. It is more that there is little monetary reward for developers to build such applications and even less cooperation between those developers who might wish to build something like this and those with the knowledge that such a function is indeed necessary. The only real competition here then would be other large online shopping platforms that have big teams of talented staff that are focused on solving problems using digital innovation (i.e. Walmart, Etsy, Wayfair, JCPenney, and Target) or ecommerce platforms that exist to service the independent online stores of the world and are hungry for new features that will help customers choose their platform over others.
Even if/when these platforms catchup on understanding such a feature is needed, using resources to develop it, and then educating their users on how to leverage to help them battle with Amazon in the search results, it is far more likely that Amazon may have already found a new tool to help keep the distance or that they can marshall the resources to quickly erase any strategic advantage the smaller, more independent, online shops have.
Amazon has those resources not only because they were an early innovator and not only because of their massive volume of subscribers to Amazon Prime which brings in a hefty sum of predictable revenue each year, but also because they are dedicated to online innovations that help keep them a leader. It is hard to argue that small stores have such a focus or that they would even know to hold their ecommerce hosting platforms or CMSes accountable for not having such a focus, or that if those platforms had such a focus that it would even translate as a value add to their users which are those retailers without such a focus of their own.
Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of great review apps for Shopify / BigCommerce and review plugins for WooCommerce, but not a single one of these third-party tools offers this feature (or at least none that I can find digging through respective catalogs of apps/plugins). It could also be true that right now Shopify, Automattic (WooCommerce), BigCommerce, Wix, or some other platform has an internal person clamoring and pushing for this feature or other similar ones that would help put stores hosted on those platforms on even-footing with Amazon. Both Shopify and Wix did just make some great hires in terms of knowledgeable SEOs that work to help the community in general (Kevin Indig and Mordy Oberstein respectively).
Most ecommerce entrepreneurs make two important hires as they grow: A good social media manager and a good photographer or graphics designer. This allows them to focus on visually selling their wares in online marketplaces and on social platforms which all promise some level of potential massive audience reach. Moving their focus from an initial stage of basic sales, social media, and SEO to a stage of paid social and paid search matched with great visuals to help continue driving sales is often an ideal move with good ROI over a short-term period; however, I would argue that these businesses should also be creating and investing in innovation for their shops. Instead of relying on off-the-shelf products why not invest in custom Shopify and BigCommerce Apps or WooCommerce plugins to either improve the customer experience or improve SEO or social reach of your products or your own site instead. While this won’t make your shop an Amazon competitor overnight, it would allow you to stand out among a growing number of similar online stores.
There’s a lot we can do with ecommmerce SEO today given the tools and capabilities that exist, but having a store owner dedicated and focused on their digital innovation as well as their sales makes it a lot easier (and more fun) to compete.
