What is Shopify missing from its digital

strategy?Alex Rascanu

alex@alexrascanu.comdigital marketing strategist

A thought experiment from Alex Rascanu

Shopify is a internationally respected brand and an ecommerce powerhouse that’s driving $1.5

billion in sales for its platform users in 2013 alone

Image source: www.ottawaphotographerblairgable.com

… but it could do a lot more to dominate the global ecommerce space

What we’re going to cover:

1. quick thoughts on opportunities in:a. organic searchb. paid searchc. content marketing

d. marketing automation

2. 9 ideas on how to dominate ecommerce globally

- All links in the client site footers should be nofollow and point to various resource pages on the Shopify site, not just the homepage.Shopify is currently at a very high risk of getting penalized by Google. This hasn’t happened yet because of our Domain Authority. The nofollow to dofollow ratio is very small and raises red flags. This should be fixed as soon as possible to avoid a Google penalty.Google sees “widely distributed links in the footers of various sites” as a “link scheme” that can “negatively impact a site’s rankings in search results.”

1 a. Opportunities in organic search

Images source: Ahrefs

- Keywords to place more emphasis on, by key market:a. USA: ecommerce and ecommerce web designb. Canada and Australia: ecommerce, ecommerce hosting, ecommerce platform, ecommerce

software, ecommerce web designc. UK: ecommerce, ecommerce hosting, ecommerce software, ecommerce web design

USA Australia

UK Canada

Image sources: Positionly and Google Keyword Planner

1 a. Opportunities in organic search (continued)

1 b. Opportunities in paid search- Improve the position of our PPC ads for terms such as Magento, website design, how to build a website, and webstore, but also write long-form blog posts on these topics and rank them on the first page of SERPs

Image source: SEM Rush

Note: Landing pages are currently not set up for PPC campaigns, so lots of these visits are leaking out without becoming leads.

1 c. Opportunities in content marketing

- Link to blog from the homepage

- Get guest posts from experts in different niches within the digital marketing space. Feature interviews and event recaps. Aim for at least five articles per week.

- Regularly write guest articles in business media (Globe and Mail, Financial Post, Profit Magazine, etc.)

There is lots of great content on the site, but some of it is not linked to from the homepage and is hard to find. A site architecture redesign, at least in the footer section, would be worthwhile.

- Develop more top and middle of the funnel content (webinars, whitepapers, etc.), require email submissions for resource downloads, then create landing pages and email marketing campaigns.

Image source: digital relevance

1 d. Opportunities in marketing automation

- Add Call to Action buttons at the bottom of each article and use landing pages to collect email addresses

- Also add at least one Call to Action (with a top or middle of the funnel offer) on the every page of the site (incl. the homepage)

1 d. Opportunities in marketing automation (continued)

Image source: HubSpot

2. 9 ideas on how to dominate ecommerce globallyHow Shopify can “own” ecommerce and win against Magento and Bigcommerce:

- Develop a series of annual studies titled “State of eCommerce.” The studies are to be conducted at the global, Canada, USA, UK, Australia, and New Zealand level. (see HubSpot’s 2013 State of Inbound Marketing and Powered by Search’s 2013 Inbound Marketing in Canada Study.) Results: lead generation, increase in organic search rankings, and increased brand equity.

- Develop an annual eCommerce Summit/Conference (see MozCon, Inbound, and InboundCon).

- Conduct more webinars featuring eCommerce best practices and answering questions live. Partner with eCommerce experts on this (here are some examples of such experts, plus see what KISSmetrics does).

- Create Shopify Academy. Give certifications: eCommerce Certified, Shopify Certified, Shopify Partner (see what Magento and HubSpot are doing). Shopify currently has a Shopify Experts section, but how those individuals/companies get selected is not clear. Developing a certification process would boost the site traffic considerably, build lots of natural backlinks as people will put their certifications on their sites, and boost the brand as people will add them to their LinkedIn profiles and sites.

- Develop local user groups in each city where Shopify is popular. Each one of them can have a Meetup page and LinkedIn group. Their owners will be able to add their meetings in a Google Calendar that will be public on the Shopify site (see what HubSpot is doing).

- Have an ‘ideas’ section on the site where customers can post ideas (see what Bigcommerce and Starbucks are doing).

2. How to dominate ecommerce globally (continued)

- Develop a eCommerce Learning section and have a link to it from the homepage. Have all the whitepapers there (see what KISSmetrics and HubSpot are doing).

- Develop an eCommerce store grading tool that can produce a report when a visitor enters their website and email address. See marketing.grader.com. This is another top of the funnel offer that can generate lot of leads. It should be linked to from the footer in the homepage.

- Develop a long-form page on the site that answers the question “What Is eCommerce?” That’s the page that we can focus on ranking for “eCommerce”. It will be linked to from the homepage.

2. How to dominate ecommerce globally (continued)

has aced…• product quality• branding• site design• social media

… now is the time to take full advantage of the digital marketing ideas mentioned in this

presentation and dominate the global ecommerce space Image source: www.ottawaphotographerblairgable.com

Alex Rascanualex@alexrascanu.com

digital marketing strategist

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