Great products but no sales?
Yes, that happens to many eCommerce stores these days. Even the best products in the world wouldn’t help if an eCommerce store is at position #30 in Google results. That’s why entrepreneurs need to follow the latest eCommerce SEO strategies to get a decent position.
In this article, we’re going to cover an unexpected SEO trick: chatbots. These virtual assistants have proven their worth in customer service and marketing, but also have some SEO benefits.
Let’s start with a super quick intro to chatbots. Then we’ll go straight to the ways how they might help to make your store more visible in Google.
Chatbots: a Quick Intro
A chatbot is an app created to converse with humans online through pre-written question and answer options. This technology is quickly becoming popular in eCommerce, as it can help to improve customer service and increase engagement.
Businesses provide chatbots with the ability to help with the most common customer requests, including:
- finding a product
- getting information about a product’s features
- Locating the pricing table
- Getting information about updates and sales
- receive service-related questions.
The choice of functionality of your chatbot, of course, depends on the knowledge you have about your target audience and their needs, preferences, and typical requests.
Let’s consider an example.
Best Buy has a chatbot that can:
- Help with reviewing the company’s policies and processes (return of products, refunds, etc.)
- Connect a customer with a human customer support agent
- Assist with selecting a product by providing the most typical features, manufacturers, OS, and other characteristics
- Provide answers to simple service questions.
As you can see in the image, the chatbot guides a customer through various product filters, so there’s no need to browse the website to find a specific item.
And many customers like that.
According to Forbes, consumers in the U.S. have some of the highest levels of chatbot usage, with more than 60 percent reported interacting with them in 2019. As more people become familiar and comfortable using chatbots, more online businesses try them on their websites.
Why Chatbots Matter for eCommerce SEO?
Customer support is the area that gets most attention when talking about chatbots and eCommerce. However, there are three ways in which they can help with improving your store’s position in search engine results, too.
1. Chatbots can Increase Dwell Time
Dwell time is the time between the moment that a visitor arrives at a website and the moment when they leave by closing the tab or returning to the search results. In other words, it’s the time spent by potential customers at your eCommerce store.
For Google and other search engines, dwell time is an important indicator for defining the rank of a website. They take the “entering and exiting” data into consideration because it shows them whether a website is able to meet the needs of people (which is exactly what Google’s strategy is focused on).
The more time people spend on your website, the better chances it has to appear higher in search engine results.
So how to convince customers to linger on your store?
Chatbots, exactly.
By providing your visitors with fast customer assistance, so you can increase the time they spend on your website. As we already know, people are willing to interact with chatbots, so more and more people are comfortable using them.
2. Chatbots can Improve Website Functionality
Website usability and content optimizations are important factors when it comes to SEO. When you design an eCommerce store, you prioritize user-friendliness that ensures easy access to specific information (a product page, an order page, an answer to support-related request, etc.), which means it guides customers towards the bottom of the sales funnel.
A chatbot is a great way to improve user-friendliness.
As shown in the example of Best Buy’s chatbot, a customer can find a product that meets a number of criteria – price range, OS type, laptop type, etc., – quickly without having to browse through the navigation menu or numerous website pages.
3. Chatbots can Personalize Customer Browsing Experience
Chatbots allow collecting customer data such as email and location, so you can use it to deliver a more personal experience to visitors. For example, you can make relevant recommendations to a specific customer if you collected their information with a chatbot during a previous interaction.
Ultimately, this also works to improve dwell time and customer experience, and Google will definitely notice that.
Improve eCommerce SEO with a Chatbot: Summary
Since the top 3 Google search results typically get 75 percent of all clicks, your eCommerce SEO should be top-notch. This means employing every tool accessible and following the latest trends in optimization.
A chatbot is definitely one of these tools. Having one at your store will definitely help with meeting customers when and where it matters to them. Besides, deploying chatbot software is easy, and you can customize it to match your brand’s style.
Marques Coleman is a copywriter and freelance writer. He found his purpose in writing as it allows him to exchange ideas and share his knowledge with others. Currently, he is working as a content editor at subjecto.com/essay-samples. In his free time, he volunteers at a local animal rescue.
