The impact of artificial intelligence on e-commerce SEO strategies

15.3.2023

The e-commerce industry is a competitive and fast-growing market. Setting up your own online store is now easier than ever, but what's different is setting your business apart from others. What's more, the product is often just a small part of a much larger equation.

One of the most important elements of e-commerce success is SEO. Ultimately, if no one can find your store, all the time, energy and money you put into it goes to waste.

But how to make sure that your SEO strategies Are up-to-date and effective? The answer is artificial intelligence (AI).

It's safe to say that AI-based tools already dominate the SEO landscape, and e-commerce companies are no exception.

Let's take a look at the ways in which artificial intelligence is helping e-commerce companies get the most out of their SEO strategies and how it will shape the future of the industry.

Key findings:

  1. AI-based tools help with keyword research, content optimization and predictive analytics.
  2. AI can be used to create personalized marketing campaigns and optimize user experience.
  3. Automated SEO tasks, such as checking backlinks, are possible with the right software.
  4. Combining AI with human expertise is the best way to ensure the timeliness and effectiveness of an e-commerce SEO strategy.
  5. In the future, more specialized chatbot-type tools are likely to emerge to make it easier for non-technical users to use AI-based SEO services.

Improved keyword research and content optimization

The first step in SEO optimization of an e-commerce site is to conduct a comprehensive keyword research.

In the past, the process relied mainly on data exported from Google AdWords and similar search data tracking tools. This was time-consuming and did not guarantee the relevance of the data to the site's content.

With the advent of AI and NLP-based tools, keyword research has become much more efficient and accurate. Tools using AI can analyze page content and identify the most relevant keywords for a target audience, providing valuable information about what words and phrases people use to search for products and services.

Surfer SEO, one of the tools often used by our experts, offers just that.

SurferSEO Content Editor
Source: https://surferseo.com/

It uses natural language processing to analyze the content of your site and those of your competitors, producing a detailed report with practical recommendations for improving content and making it more search engine friendly.

Surfer SEO Editor can also generate headlines and even entire sections. While these are not always the most in-depth texts imaginable, they are usually well optimized for keywords.

Strengthening personalization for targeted marketing

The capabilities of the features included in the Surfer SEO package don't end with analyzing your own site. For example, the audit tool allows you to check your competitors' sites and see what can be improved, giving you a huge advantage over your rivals.

In addition to traditional SEO optimization, AI-based tools can be integrated into marketing strategy to improve campaign relevance and increase ROI. For example, Brandly360 is a comprehensive product and competitive analysis platform that provides massive amounts of competitor data.

On the one hand, it provides insight into your competitors' products, such as pricing, sales performance and customer feedback. On the other hand, it provides detailed analytics of your own products, including their performance and the customer feedback you receive.

While this data is not directly applicable to SEO efforts, it can be used to optimize marketing campaigns. From identifying your target audience to listing your top product competitors and matching them to your site content, you can use the information provided by Brandly360 to create highly personalized and targeted campaigns.

Automation of SEO tasks

Let's say you run an online store with many products and numerous pages, and you want to update your product cards according to the latest SEO standards. How do you go about doing this?

One way to do this would be to hire a team of copywriters and manually update and rewrite these pages. Needless to say, putting each individual page through the optimization process is time-consuming.

SEO writing assistant Semrush
Source: SEMrush

Alternatively, you can use AI tools such as the aforementioned Surfer SEO or SEMrush Rephraser, for faster content creation. While the issue of AI-generated long texts remains debatable, cards and product descriptions are perfect examples of using AI-assisted content optimization.

Ahrefs, another toolkit boasting the use of artificial intelligence, provides some of the best examples of automated SEO tasks.

Ahrefs backlinks profile
Source: Ahrefs

Backlink Checker and Broken Link Checker, both available for free, are automated tools that can analyze your site, check for broken links and measure the strength of your backlink profile.

The entire package offers much more, providing a wealth of data related to the performance and optimization of your site.

Optimize user experience with predictive analytics

Predictive analytics is a powerful tool in e-commerce SEO that enables companies to predict and resolve UX issues before they escalate. Modern artificial intelligence-based predictive analytics tools can identify patterns, trends and potential areas of improvement in a site's UX design.

This, in turn, can help you optimize the user experience on your website, from navigation to loading times and everything in between. Ultimately, this can have a huge impact on your site's SEO.

In general, as an e-commerce store, the better the user experience on your site, the higher the conversion rate and the higher the revenue.

The future of SEO in e-commerce based on artificial intelligence

It's safe to say that today there is no shortage of artificial intelligence-based tools and services that can help with SEO optimization for e-commerce. However, many of these solutions fall short of what average users expect from artificial intelligence. With the boom in ChatGPT and similar tools, we can expect more specialized chatbots to appear in the future.

For example, AI-powered marketing assistants can help companies not only with keyword research and content optimization, but also with other tasks such as creating product descriptions, setting up campaigns or optimizing ad text - all within a single interface.

It's also safe to expect AI-based tools to become more accessible and easier to use for those who are not technically savvy, allowing them to use AI-optimized SEO without having to outsource it to a professional.

For now, however, the best way to use AI and maximize the effectiveness of SEO for e-commerce is to combine it with human experience and expertise. For example, by partnering with an SEO agency like ours.

Concluding thoughts

Artificial intelligence-based tools are becoming increasingly popular in the e-commerce SEO space. From keyword research to personalized marketing campaigns, companies can use artificial intelligence to optimize site content, user experience and marketing efforts.

This immense popularity of artificial intelligence comes with a wealth of current and potential applications that could revolutionize the market.

However, while artificial intelligence is a powerful tool in its own right, it is not yet able to completely replace human expertise. For this reason, working with a professional agency like ours may be the best way to ensure you get the most out of your SEO strategy.

This way you can rest easy knowing that your SEO is in good hands.