Let’s talk about traffic.
Not the kind that makes you late for school drop-off. The kind that determines whether your ecommerce business thrives or remains the world’s best-kept secret.
Because here’s the thing: without eyeballs on your website, nothing else matters. You can have the most beautiful products, the most compelling brand story, the best intentions in the world – but if nobody’s finding you, you’re not making sales.
And while paid advertising gets a lot of attention (because it’s fast and it’s controllable), it’s not the only game in town. To scale and grow a profitable online store, you really need a mix of all three kinds of traffic: owned traffic from your database (hello, Klaviyo), paid traffic from advertising, and earned traffic from organic search.
That last one – organic search – is where SEO comes in. And it’s where a lot of ecommerce brands leave money on the table.
You want to aim for a good 40% of your traffic and sales coming from organic sources. When you do this well, you’ll generally find that your conversion rate from organic traffic is higher than most other channels, probably with the exception of email marketing. These are people actively searching for what you sell. They have intent. They’re ready to buy.
But getting more organic traffic requires working on SEO consistently. And unfortunately, SEO isn’t a set-and-forget activity. It’s evolved significantly over the years as new technologies and platforms have emerged, and as consumer behaviour has changed.
So I sat down with Karen from our team – who I like to call our SEO queen – to talk through the key trends that ecommerce businesses need to know about right now, and how to incorporate them into your marketing strategy.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
Before we dive into the trends, let me share a quick story.
One of our Mastery clients started implementing the SEO and website optimisation strategy we developed for her in January. She already had email flows and ads running, but she focused first on the SEO work before touching anything else.
The result? Revenue up more than 25% compared to the same period last year. In January – which is notoriously slow for ecommerce and certainly not her high season.
That’s the power of getting this right. And it happened faster than most people expect. There’s a perception that SEO is techy, takes forever, and doesn’t shift the needle for ages. The evidence says otherwise.
So let’s get into it.
Trend 1: Podcasts Alongside Blog Content
This might surprise you – podcasts aren’t particularly common for ecommerce businesses yet. But there’s a compelling case for adding them to your content mix.
Think about how people consume content these days. They’re multitasking. Washing dishes, going for a walk, commuting – and simultaneously listening to a podcast. There’s an opportunity to attract and engage customers in moments when they’d never sit down to read a blog.
Here’s a statistic that puts this in perspective: there are over 1 billion blogs on the internet currently. One billion. With only 7.8 billion people in the world (and not all of them reading), that’s almost one blog per person.
In comparison, there are only 4.2 million podcasts globally.
The competition is dramatically lower. And people are more likely to listen to a podcast than read a blog because of how we consume content now.
This doesn’t mean podcasts should replace blogs – there’s still a place for written content. But ideally, you’d have both working together. Write a blog, then record a podcast on the same topic. Some people prefer reading, others prefer listening. You capture both audiences with essentially the same core content.
If you’re going to start a podcast, think about your customer avatar. If your customers are younger, podcasts will likely resonate well. If you’re targeting an older demographic who are used to reading, the uptake might be slower.
And yes, you can optimise podcasts for search. Platforms like Spotify function as search engines – people search for topics, and the algorithm surfaces relevant content. Think about keywords in your podcast titles and descriptions, just as you would for YouTube.
Trend 2: Less Popular Social Media Channels
I know. You’re already stretched thin trying to keep up with Instagram and Facebook. The last thing you want to hear is that you should be learning another platform.
But hear me out.
Facebook and Instagram are the most popular social media channels with the most members – but they also have the most competition. Remember how easy it used to be to get organic reach on Facebook? How you could build a whole business on social media marketing alone?
Those days are gone. Now you post daily (or three times a day) and barely get a like.
The opportunity with less popular channels is that you can recreate what worked on Facebook and Instagram years ago. Less competition means more visibility. You’re one step ahead of competitors who haven’t branched out yet.
The key is to go back to your customer avatar. Which channels do they actually use? What type of content do they prefer? TikTok is popular, but some content styles perform far better than others there. If you’re going to invest time learning a new channel, do the research first rather than just posting and hoping for the best.
And remember the rule of seven: people typically need to see your brand at least seven times before they trust you enough to make a purchase. If you start a new channel like TikTok and drive traffic to your store, don’t be disheartened if the conversion rate is lower than your Facebook ads. See it as generating new customer touchpoints. Those people will convert eventually through your other channels.
Trend 3: Brand Building Is More Important Than Ever
Research shows that brand name search queries are on the rise, which indicates customer loyalty is also increasing. People are actively searching for brands they’ve heard of rather than generic product terms.
This has interesting implications for your metrics. If your organic search traffic is growing but you haven’t been actively working on SEO, it might actually be an indication that your ads or social content are performing well. People see you on Facebook or TikTok, then go to Google to search for you specifically.
It works the other way too. If someone finds you through organic search, they’ll often click through to your social media to check if you’re legitimate. Do you have a following? Do you post regularly? That social proof builds trust.
Interestingly, Google’s algorithm actually looks for these other channels. Spammy websites typically don’t go to the effort of setting up social accounts, so having active profiles helps Google differentiate between quality websites and dodgy ones.
So how do you incorporate brand building into your SEO strategy?
Write blogs that add value and showcase your brand personality. Kip&Co does this brilliantly. Their blogs feature the founder, with beautiful imagery showing her wearing Kip&Co clothes in a home with Kip&Co bedding. They’re not just product promotions – they’re curated content that feels like a magazine. Their customers look forward to reading them.
Include your company name in your meta titles. This is simple but often overlooked. Every page on your website should have a meta title structured as: keyword | Company Name. Research shows click-through rates are higher when the meta title contains a recognisable company name.
Collaborate with complementary brands. If you have business friends with overlapping customer bases, write a feature on their website and have them do one in return. It’s free PR that only costs your time.
Consider gift guides and media placements. There are platforms like Linkby where you can pay for articles in major media publications. Some of our clients have scored amazing coverage this way, and that kind of exposure is invaluable for brand building.
Trend 4: Human-Written Content Still Wins (By a Lot)
Nobody’s going to love this one, but it needs to be said.
With over a billion blogs already out there, we shouldn’t be adding to them just for the sake of it. Most AI writing tools scrape what’s already on the internet and repackage it. When you copy and paste AI content, you’re essentially rehashing what already exists.
Here’s the statistic that should make you pause: 94% of the time, human-written content outranks AI-written content.
Ninety-four percent.
That’s fairly convincing.
If you’re time-poor and can’t commit to regular blog writing, it’s better to write two genuinely valuable blogs a year than to pump out monthly AI-generated content that adds nothing new. Google rewards quality over quantity. Churning out low-quality content that’s already been said a thousand times elsewhere won’t help your rankings – and it won’t help your customers.
Use AI for research. Use it to check grammar. Use it to brainstorm ideas when you’re staring at a blank page. But write the actual content yourself, in your brand voice, with your unique perspective.
There’s another reason for this: readers can tell. The selection of words that comes out of ChatGPT is often repetitive and generic. It doesn’t feel like it was written by a human with opinions and personality. And that matters for brand building.
Before you press publish, always ask: what is the point of this piece of content? What am I trying to achieve? If the answer is just “to please Google and put something new out there,” don’t bother. It’s never going to generate the results you’re hoping for.
Trend 5: Shorter Content Is Outranking Longer Content
Here’s the good news. Those 5,000-word mega blogs that SEO experts used to recommend? You don’t need to write them anymore.
Shorter forms of content are now outperforming longer ones in search rankings.
Why? We’ve all been trained by TikTok and Instagram Reels to consume shorter content. Our attention spans are shorter. We want to be entertained. We’re consuming more content overall, but in smaller pieces – research suggests the average person consumes about 95 pieces of content per day.
Think about that. If each piece was a 3,000-word blog, you’d spend your whole day reading. That’s not how people behave anymore.
When you write content, ask yourself: is this something someone will find useful or entertaining enough that they’ll actually sacrifice other content to consume it? Because we only have a finite amount of time, and there’s always another piece of content a swipe away.
One more piece of good news: repurposing old content counts as new content. If you’re really short on time, incorporate updating existing content into your SEO strategy. One month publish something new; the next month go through your existing blogs, update the information, add new images and links, refresh the meta title and description, then republish and reindex in Google Search Console. Google sees that you keep content current and rewards your whole website accordingly.
12 Quick Tips for Better Blog Writing
Karen shared these tips and they’re too good not to include:
1. Start with purpose. Why are you creating this content? Education? Entertainment? Brand building? Ranking for a specific keyword?
2. Do keyword research. Even for brand-building or value-adding blogs, see if there are relevant keywords you can incorporate.
3. Plan your structure. Map out the headings before you start writing. Headings play a crucial role in SEO.
4. Use keywords in your headings. This is where they have the most impact for search rankings.
5. Write conversationally. Short sentences. Short paragraphs. Even single-sentence paragraphs are fine. Make it easy to read.
6. Include plenty of images. But don’t forget the file names and alt text. Link images to relevant product pages – someone might read your blog, see a product in an image, and click through to purchase.
7. Add video content. Thanks to TikTok and Instagram, video is now the preferred way to consume content.
8. Use lots of anchor links. They help search engines crawl your website, transfer link authority, and make it easier for customers to find products they’re interested in.
9. Optimise your meta titles and descriptions. Include your company name and keywords. Keep descriptions concise. Ask yourself: if I read this in search results, would I click through?
10. Add internal links. When you publish a new blog, go back to old blogs and link to the new one. Add links from collection pages to relevant blog content.
11. Seek backlinks. If your content is genuinely high quality, reach out to collaborators or media sites. Sometimes great content gets featured for free because publications are always looking for good content to share.
12. Leverage your other channels. Post about new blogs on social media and in emails. If a blog converts well, consider sending paid traffic to it – traffic ads are usually cheaper than retargeting ads.
The Bottom Line
SEO isn’t the sexiest part of marketing. It doesn’t give you the instant gratification of a successful ad campaign. But it builds an asset – a consistent source of quality traffic that you don’t have to pay for with every click.
The brands that invest in SEO now, while their competitors are focused solely on paid advertising, are the ones that will have a significant competitive advantage as ad costs continue to rise.
Focus on quality over quantity. Write in your own voice. Think about your customer’s journey and where different content fits. And remember that the fundamentals still matter – good content that adds genuine value will always outperform content that’s just there to fill a space.
Ready to Improve Your SEO Strategy?
If you’d like help developing an SEO strategy that actually drives revenue for your ecommerce business, we’d love to chat.
Book a free Brand Growth Strategy Session with our team and let’s talk about where you are now, where you want to be, and what it’ll take to get there.
Because your brilliant products deserve to be found.
— Catherine
