Marketplace Marketing, Management, & SEO Tactics

Marketplace models drive traffic and revenue while enabling businesses to stay flexible and expand their reach. In this episode of the SEJ Show, I talk with Ryan Lee, Founder & CEO of Nautical Commerce, about managing marketplaces, SEO for marketplaces, increasing web traffic with marketplaces, and more, especially as we near the holiday season. Last year, the holiday shopping season was huge, especially with everything that Google Shopping was rolling out. So getting outside of Google a little bit is the topic of this episode about marketplaces. The most successful marketplaces don't act like commerce companies. What they are is they’re exceptional customer service organizations. This is because they deliver such a unique and high-value customer experience. –Ryan Lee, 29:36 This idea is that SEO is transactional versus relational. Lifetime value is the relational component. How do you build that relationship with the customer, so they repeat business? Marketplaces are maniacally focused on that piece, whereas traditional commerce companies optimize only for SEO to get the transactional execution. There needs to be equal emphasis on both. It's got to be transactional to get them in the door. But once you get them in the door, how do you create that emotional connection with the buyer? –Ryan Lee, 34:23 One of the most significant differences is that when we talk about SEO, we're thinking about on-site components and optimizing your listing on a third party. –Loren Baker, 20:30 [00:00] - Ryan Lee's background. [02:19] - What is marketplace commerce? [04:45] - Larger marketplaces besides Amazon. [09:58] - Will you have a higher closing rate on a marketplace vs. Google? [20:18] - Paid & organic opportunities to practice SEO within marketplaces. [36:32] - Where does Ryan see Google shopping going? [41:38] - Advantages to marketplace SEO. [52:36] - Can you lose your loyalty programs by being on marketplaces? Resources mentioned: https://www.nauticalcommerce.com/