Visibility across Google Search, generative AI, and other organic channels is increasingly challenging. Some pundits question the feasibility of branded ecommerce sites and suggest selling only on marketplaces.
Those suggestion are short-sighted. Here’s why.
Brands matter
Consumers trust brands and will seek them out, especially when recommended by friends, social media, and reviews.
Shoppers who search for brands are high-intent and ready to buy. Monitoring such searches is key to any marketing strategy.
Google’s organic ranking algorithm still favors merchants’ sites (versus marketplace listings) for branded searches. Moreover, dedicated review platforms such as Trustpilot typically outrank reviews on Amazon and other marketplaces. Engaging with shoppers directly fuels better, more frequent reviews.
Beyond selling, a dedicated site drives trust and loyalty via About pages, return policies, and superior customer service.
Control the narrative
GenAI platforms often crawl a site directly when users ask about a company or its products.
A clear, detailed About page is especially important for becoming the source of information to those platforms.
Long-tail visibility
The opportunity remains strong for long-tail organic search visibility — i.e., queries for specific or local products or services. These are low-competition, high-intent, and detailed, where searchers know exactly what they want and will buy from those providers.
Long-tail keywords are not easily available and thus hard to optimize for. Yet merchants can rank for such queries by (i) including details about each product, especially in the title, and (ii) adopting an internal linking strategy across blog and product detail pages as well as category navigation.
Search Console’s AI assistant can show detailed queries your site ranks for.
First-party data
There’s no substitute for direct relationships with shoppers. Relying solely on marketplaces or any other intermediary to sell products is inherently risky.
First-party data enables retargeting and specialized outreach for product promos and seasonal specials. Search Console, Google Analytics, and third-party tools provide many insights into those opportunities.
Merchants can drive first-party data via email lists, loyalty programs, communities, support, instructional content, reviews, and more.
