As buying habits have changed, more people go online to research or buy a particular product or service . While going online, people find that for a product related query, amazon.com maintains the top spot for almost 9 out of 10 times in google . So a question arises in our mind as to why always amazon.com is preferred by Google for a product related query when there are tons of other deserving e-commerce websites. Yes, we all know Amazon is a big brand and google gives a special place to trusted brands in search but then why not other trusted brands
The answer provided by Google for this common doubt is Amazon.com provides the best landing page user experience for a particular product when searched online with a buying intention. Secondly, Google says most product owners or book authors don’t create a website or a landing page dedicated to their products. We all know how much importance Google places for the user experience of a website.
So let’s find out if the explanation provided by google is true or not. Let’s begin our research from the user experience factor:
Amazon.com’s Superior User Experience combined with Great Information Architecture
Let’s go through a buyer’s journey and his user experience when he visits an amazon.com landing page.
Let’s say the user is looking to buy a ‘Life of Pie’ novel so he searches online with a query “life of pie novel cost”. After Googling, he sees the following search results:
Like most online users, he too clicks the first organic search result that appears before him. As he enters the landing page, he sees the book front cover, the title of the book, author’s name, no of customer reviews, user ratings and a brief description of the story. He is also provided with different edition and format for the novel like kindle, hardcover, paperback, audible etc. On the right side of the page, he will be provided with options to add the novel to cart.
On the Left side of the page, he sees advanced options like accessing the inside content of the novel which is similar to opening a novel and going through its inside pages. He can flip the novel to see back cover and or listen to the novel’s story in the audio version.
On the top side of the page, he sees options to choose from, if he is not satisfied with the current novel.
Below the novel, he sees two sections “Frequently Bought Together” and “Customers Who Bought this Item Also Bought” which helps him choose other options if not interested in the present one.
In addition to it, he is provided with the following:
Editorial Reviews
Detail Product (Novel) Details
About the Author
Customer Reviews and Top Customer Reviews
Recent Customer Reviews
What other Items do customers buy after viewing this item?
Users Recently Viewed items and Featured Recommendations which are inspired by the browsing history
From the above explanation, we all can agree with google in terms of landing page user experience is concerned because when we say landing page user experience, amazon.com landing page actually defines what landing page user experience is all about for a product page. Starting from the price of the product to its latest reviews, amozon.com provides all possible thing that a potential buyer might want to know about that particular product and that too from a single landing page.
From a user perspective, if he is getting all the information that he needs from a single landing page, why should he bother going to some other site with limited information . After such landing page user experience, the user will be tempted to convert more often than not. .As we all know the main aim of Google is to provide the best possible user experience to its user and as amazon.com are in line with this objective of Google, they find a top spot in Google search results.
Not Enough Websites or Landing pages Dedicated to products
When we research for the second explanation by google regarding a dedicated website for the products, we find the second explanation also stands true. Most of the authors or product owner don’t create a landing page or a website dedicated to their products. So without many available options to show, google displays the page which best describes a particular product or a book .
Tons of Inbound Links
Other than the user experience and product website or landing page factor, amazon also has tons of inbound links from quality websites which comes from the brand image and trust. These inbound links surely help them rank better than the product competitor website.
High Marketing Spend
Amazon spends a high amount of money in marketing their brand and establishing trust among its users. Amazon gets rewarded for their spend in the form of organic CTR’s by the user. Since the organic CTR of amazon is mostly higher than another website, Google doesn’t think twice before placing them first. In addition to that Google always give a special place to a trusted brand website in their search results.
What can be done by E-commerce websites ?
We all know that as much as 80% of clicks go to the website ranking first in search results. It means if we are being outranked, then we are losing a large chunk of our sales to our competitor. So if we need to stay in race with amazon or any such major sites , we need to at least provide the following in our product landing pages:
- A proper description of the product
- Detail Features of the product
- Pros of the product. (You can even mention the cons, users will appreciate your honesty)
- Reviews or Testimonials of the product
- Pictures of the product from different angles
- A video of the product describing its USP or Advanced features .
Another strategy to outrank Amazon or similar sites is to create a website and a landing page dedicated to your product. If product website seems too difficult proposition then you can even build a website dedicated to your brand and write about your product features there.
Someone has rightly said that “If you pay close attention, you’ll discover numerous lessons to learn from your competitor” and if we want to outrank our competitor, we need to think a step ahead of them. Therefore , Amazon.com will always be a great reference point for e-commerce websites who wish to attain a top spot in google.
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I hope you found your answer to outrank your branded e-commerce competitor on Google. If so then do share your valuable suggestions and experiences with us in our comment section below
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