There’s a lot of money to be made in the ecommerce market, but you’ll only claim your slice of it if you can attract people to your ecommerce store—and one way to do this is via search engine optimization.
Business owners pursue an SEO strategy—via an in-house SEO specialist or by enlisting outside SEO agencies—because optimizing for search can mean more money for your business. The calculation is quite simple: Better search optimization equals more impressions, more visitors to your website, and more opportunities for selling services and products. Here’s a rundown of how the SEO industry helps businesses gain organic traffic and start making money.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization is a digital marketing technique aimed at improving your website to make it easier for Google and other search engines to find and display your content. If you appear high up on search engine results pages, users are more likely to click through to your website.
An effective SEO marketing strategy can be labor-intensive in the short term but often pays off in the long run, as well-performing content continues to bring in site traffic without the need to constantly pay for ads. Whether you’re planning to undertake an SEO revamp of your own website yourself or are considering bringing in SEO professionals to help get the job done, you can use SEO to make money for your ecommerce business—and even earn a little extra on the side.
Ways to make money with SEO
Selling goods and services online is a legitimate business model. The key to monetizing your online store is getting the exposure SEO can provide. Here are some ways to practice SEO and boost your search visibility:
Drive sales from optimized product pages
Use SEO tools to optimize product pages with high-quality images, internal linking, and technical SEO. Improving these elements can boost search rankings, driving more potential customers to your online store and leading to an overall rise in sales revenue.
Gain a competitive advantage
Conduct a competitor analysis using SEO software to learn what web development strategies your rivals are using to drive traffic. Analyzing the competition can help you identify the target keywords, site structure, and content strategy you need to establish website authority and rank near the top of SERPs.
Aim for affiliate marketing revenue
If someone clicks an affiliate link on your website, say for another brand you’re partnering with, and makes a purchase with that partner, you can earn a commission from the affiliate sale. Affiliate linking can be a reliable way to generate passive income as long as people discover your site and click on your links.
By improving the SEO of product-related content like tutorials and reviews, you can drive more organic traffic to affiliate links, increase click-through rates (CTR), and earn commissions on sales. Of course, if you’re running an ecommerce store, you mostly want to keep users focused on your own business, buying products from you.
Generate leads from SEO-enhanced testimonials
Populate your testimonial pages with customer reviews—ideally ones that contain relevant keywords. This offers social proof and can help these pages rank higher. You’ll establish authority, and those reviews can convince site visitors who are on the fence to make a purchase.
Sell ad space on high-traffic pages
If your website generates significant organic traffic through SEO, you can sell ad space to earn additional revenue from companies looking to promote their products on your site.
Try website flipping
If you want to delve deeper into SEO online, you might aim to earn income from website flipping. For instance, you can buy underperforming websites and improve their SEO through technical SEO optimizations and revamped content. Then sell or rent websites for profit, similar to how you’d flip a house.
Sell SEO services
In the process of learning SEO for your own website, you may find that you know enough about the topic to start your own SEO business. You can develop a side hustle performing SEO audits and other SEO consulting services, reporting on website analytics and optimizing product pages to rank better on SERPs.
Benefits of SEO for businesses
Search can dramatically expand exposure for your online business, potentially leading to a lot more sales. Here are four key benefits of SEO that can help you make money online:
Increased online visibility
Effective SEO helps your ecommerce store rank higher on SERPs, making it more visible to potential customers. This enables you to capture a larger share of the target market and ensure visibility and presence in the competitive world of ecommerce.
Targeted lead generation
An SEO strategy helps you attract highly relevant and qualified traffic. By conducting keyword research you can find popular keywords people use to find the products, services, or information you provide, and then incorporate those specific keywords into your content and metadata. This can help you hone in on your target audience—the potential customers who are more likely to convert.
Cost-effective form of marketing
In the long run, SEO marketing can be more effective than paid advertising—banner ads, sponsored posts on social media, sponsored blog posts, paid search ads, and the like. The goal is to enjoy a steady stream of organic traffic without the need for contentious ad spending.
Improved user experience
As you learn SEO, you’ll find it often involves improving website structure, navigation, and content quality. These are not only SEO best practices—they also help you enhance the overall user experience on your website. By making it easier for visitors to find the information they’re looking for, you may be able to increase engagement, reduce bounce rates, and encourage longer user sessions.
How to make money with SEO FAQ
What are ways to make money with SEO as a contractor?
If you’ve acquired substantial SEO knowledge, pitch yourself as an SEO specialist and seek out SEO jobs helping people bring organic traffic to their websites. Perhaps you have entrepreneurial skills in addition to SEO skills, in which case you can start your own SEO agency, providing consulting services for SEO monetization strategies. Launch your SEO career by marketing yourself to local businesses and website owners who need to boost their search engine rankings.
How can SEO help businesses generate income?
Companies can generate income using SEO to drive more organic traffic to their websites, increase their visibility, and convert visitors into customers through higher search rankings.
How do you grow a small business with SEO?
Grow a small business with SEO by optimizing your website with relevant keywords, improving its site structure, building quality backlinks, and enhancing local SEO to attract targeted traffic to your physical location or your area-specific goods or services.