The marketplace is one of the most competitive industries where bigger players are not ready to leave one inch. With relentless promotion and large investment after marketing, the industry leaders are an unavoidable force.

To be exact, Amazon is targeting new field like India With $4.7 Billion investment. On top of that, they have greater resource compared to any marketplace startup-

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In this crowded jungle and unfair competition, how will you survive?

Make SEO your secret weapon:

SEO or search engine optimization can boost your marketing strategies when it’s done right. Let’s explore the scopes-

Over 82% of internet users use search engines. The number of daily searches on Google – 3.5 billion. Strategic optimization can reach your marketplace to audience from the massive user base
Not practicing SEO narrows down the exposure as 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search engines
More traffic on the website will help to draw more vendors to your marketplace. Remember the sweet marketplace headache called the chicken and egg problem?

Beat the marketplace giants with SEO

With SEO you can give even Amazon a run for their money. Here is an evidence-

We searched for a very common keyword “shoes for men” where Amazon was not ranked on the first page. A proof to drop your jaw-

Pulling our jaw we dig further and find Amazon on the second page-

Got you Amazon!!!

Kickstart your SEO operation

When your mission is to get into an unknown turf and claim the top spot, the smart move will be to assess the performance of your competition and the leaders at there. Know their strength, spot any loophole and make your blueprint as per the assessment. We will show you the paths here in this blog.

Why we want you to pursue this strategy?

Against any search query, search engines flash tons of results. Have a look-

For a better ranking, you have to surge ahead of your competitors with more impactful SEO strategy. Let’s start the game-

Keywords:

Search engine mechanism is pretty straightforward.

Users come to search engines, put search queries and get their result. In search lexicon, these are called keywords. In our mission of understanding and outranking the competitors, these keywords are the vital cog.

To say little, if any of your competitors are not using any specific keyword relevant to your industry/ business, grab those keywords and start analyzing their value–

Let’s understand the process with an example-

When we analyzed the “shoes for men” results where Amazon was knocked out from the first page, we spotted use of different keywords from the marketplace who claimed the top spot, asos.com. Let’s delve deep-

First, we will look at the keywords selected by the asos.com –

They have categorically chosen their keywords on “shoe” theme. They have used brand names “Adidas & Nike”, generic words “footwear” or go for the different variants “canvas”, “boot” or “sports shoes”.

Borrowing this strategy, one can mine important keywords which the competitors have not used.

Make a list of those keywords and start analyzing them with Google Keywords Planner.

This handy tool will help you to take decisions about which keywords are best for your business by evaluating on their average monthly searches and competition.

Let’s see where you can spy on the competitors’ keywords-

Product Pages:

Product pages are must to optimize with keywords. When search queries are broad, e.g- “shoes for men”, “women bridal dress”, the product pages make it to the search results.

Spy around your competitors’ website to know their hacks as we have done with the asos.com and Amazon product pages.

Product Description:

Searches are both broad and specific e.g. “formal shoes for men”. These specific searches, a combination of queries are known as “long-tail keywords”. For better SEO gains, long-tail keywords are valuable.

Here is a sneak peek from Etsy’s keyword enriched product description-

Look how specific their keywords are. For a “cufflink” product, they have used keywords like- “Wedding Cufflinks”, “Date and Initial Cufflinks”, “Engraved Cufflinks”.

A task at your hand. Browse through your competitors’ products. Look at their product descriptions. More you can identify their unused keywords better you will figure out your SEO opportunities.

Title Tag and Meta Description:

The title tag tells Google and users about the page.

It’s not just a ranking factor but very often the click baits too. Searchbots crawl for the useful information and title-tags provide them. Users need information too and the merchants need those users to click the link. So, title-tag asks for a balance between effective keywords and persuasive content.

Spy on your competitors now to know how they are playing the game.

Asos.com has crafted their title tag and meta description with keywords which are valuable for their business.

They have used a long-tail keyword, “Latest clothes and fashion online” in the title tag and their meta description has rich keywords like “women’s fashion and men’s clothing”.

Google ranking factors have evolved into more content-specific over the years. If your competitors are placing valuable search queries/ keywords into their web pages, you have to pull up your socks now.

And do remember, title-tag and meta description are not just for the bots. Keyword placing will not be sufficient here as the content has to be intriguing. Consider them as your conventional sales copy.

Asos.com has given an effort to make it enticing with “Home Delivery & Returns”, “Discover the latest”. What is your strategy?

Landing Page:

Definitely not your day-to-day SEO hack but the landing pages can give you high SEO points. Landing pages are created to promote a single idea offering you enough space to place content what the search bots will look for related queries.

Etsy, Amazon and other big marketplaces often come up with great landing pages over the years. Here is one from Etsy-

As their target audience is one who will shop for the Easter occasion, they are spot on with the keyword selection and optimizing the landing page with it.

What’s their Link Building strategy?

In their initial days, Google had one major algorithm called the PageRank. Named after Google co-founder Lary page, the algorithm, in layman terms evaluates a website by the external links that the website has got. Known as backlinks bots evaluate the quality of links rather than the quantity of them.

If your competitors’ website has backlinks from the quality websites, they will receive more love from the search engines. Start analyzing them with Moz’s handy tool https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/ now-

We put asos.com and amazon.com under the scanner and find both the websites have some quality links in their bag-

asos.com has got links from BuzzFeed and The Guardian.

Whereas the Amazon marketplace has got links from heavyweight website like The Huffington Post-

How to know which one is a quality website? Moz has two metrics, DA and PA to bury your confusion. Do not stop there and click the links to understand what contents are earning those valuable backlinks. Link building is a well planned and executed strategy. More you decipher and understand the process, better are the chances of your website optimization.

Search Engine Optimization is a process and not a spell for an overnight miracle. Your success will depend on the strategy you adopt and a lot on the execution.

We are confident, this blog from our side will help you to discover SEO weakness of your competitors. Will it be enough for you? Definitely not. It’s just a good beginning. To gain the best fruits you have to optimize your website. The data that you have mined with our process will help you in your next stage. We will be there with you as well with more hacks to optimize your own website. Till then, happy spying. Play the goddamn Bond theme music now.