Digital Marketing for Marketplace Companies
Marketplace SEO is complex and the optimal site experience is not like other industries. We help you optimize your site performance and user experience to bring vendors and buyers together in a way that benefits everyone.
People often confuse marketplace optimization with traditional SEO or e-commerce optimization and implement piecemeal efforts on a single product or service.
A more holistic strategy is essential to build brand reputation, increase reach, and create sustainable growth in the competitive marketplace environment.
Here’s how Intrepid will help you focus your marketing for your online Marketplace.
- UX that works for all: The variation and complexity of many vendor-customer interactions means that the UX of the marketing funnel must accommodate a wider variety of preferences and needs—for whatever your visitors are looking for.
- Conveying brand values and trust: Since your vendors do not work directly for your company, we focus on establishing trust with the customer by clearly communicating your vetting process and the credentials of your vendors. Indicators such as certifications, case studies, reviews, and subject matter expertise convey a sense of standardized excellence.
- Site architecture: Marketplaces tend to have large, complex site structures to accommodate the plethora of product or service pages, making it difficult to maintain an optimal site architecture. There are endless categories/pages that could be created (supply) but we’ll help you through difficult decisions regarding which should be created (demand).
- Content quality: Maintaining UGC (user-generated content) from multiple vendors can be challenging. Our Clients often play a digital version of “whack-a-mole,” attempting to mitigate duplicative, low-quality, or thin content on their site. Intrepid can bolster your process for maintaining content quality.
Keyword cannibalization & opportunities: Marketplaces frequently have similar pages which can compete against each other for the same keywords. We can monitor and address this common SEO problem, as well as discover new opportunities for high-value keywords.
Clients
Why is SEO/digital marketing important for this industry?
CRO plays a vital role in digital marketing for marketplaces due to the singular nature of each customer-vendor relationship. Marketplaces differ from other industries in that they are aggregators of many “vendors” who provide a service to the customer, rather than the typical industry where one company is providing a service. The uncertainty, variation, and complexity of so many vendor-customer interactions means that the UX of the marketing funnel must accommodate a wider variety of preferences and needs. This makes CRO essential to properly optimize each touchpoint in the funnel, and to regularly update these touchpoints to reflect the ever-changing nature of both customers and vendors.
From Andrew N.:
The integration of SEO and digital marketing strategies is essential for marketplaces, as the industry is highly competitive. By optimizing for search engines, marketplaces can attract more visitors, leading to increased sales and revenue for both the Marketplace and Vendors.
Also, maintaining prominent rankings in SERPs helps contribute to building long-term credibility and trust.
User Experience: Since marketplace SEO tends to focus on the site as a whole by improving things like site performance (think Web Vitals), page formatting, and navigation, the overall user experience is improved.
An optimized website is generally more accessible and user-friendly, often leading to lower bounce rates, increased engagement, and higher conversion rates.
What are clients’ main pain points specific to this Industry (to show we understand)? And how do we solve for those?
Client’s primary pain points in regard to conversion are:
- The challenge of establishing trust with the customer since the vendors do not work directly for the company. We solve for this by clearly communicating the company’s vetting process and the credentials of vendors.
- Since the vendors do not work directly for the company, we establish trust with the customer by clearly communicating your vetting process and the credentials of vendors.
- Convey a sense of standardized excellence while also allowing for the customized experience based on geographical area and service needs.
- This is solvable by maximizing trust indicators such as certifications, case studies, and subject matter expertise, while also customizing the UX for geo-specific targeting of services and value propositions
- The uncertainty for customers who may understand that each vendor is unique and may offer varying levels of quality. We solve for this by emphasizing the vetting process and providing guidance of typical experiences to set customer expectations.
- The challenge of conveying a wide variety of services while also maintaining a consistent brand voice to build trust. We solve for this by carefully establishing a company’s consistent value propositions that transcend the individual services and promoting those up front.
- Conveying a wide variety of services while also maintaining a consistent brand voice to build trust. Carefully establishing consistent value propositions that transcend the individual services and promoting those up front.
- Marketplaces tend to have large, complex site structures to accommodate the plethora of product or service pages, making it difficult to maintain an optimal site architecture. There are endless categories/pages that could be created (supply) but difficult decisions need to be made on which are created and how products or services are bucketed (demand).
- Content quality control: Maintaining UGC (user-generated content) from multiple vendors can be challenging. Our Clients often play a digital version of wack-a-mole; attempting to mitigate duplicative, low-quality, or thin content on their site.
- Keyword cannibalization: Marketplaces frequently have similar pages which can compete against each other for the same keywords.
- For example, tile-related pages on a home services marketplace. Each page offers a unique service, but they will likely compete against each other for several tile keywords:
- tile installation:
- company.com/ceiling-tile-installation
- company.com/install-bathroom-tile
- company.com/install-ceramic-tile
- company.com/install-tile-floors
- company.com/tile-contractors
- tile cleaning
- company.com/grout-tile-cleaners
- company.com/tile-floor-cleaning
- tile repair
- company.com/repair-tile-roof
- company.com/tile-repair
- Localization: For marketplaces that offer products or services across multiple regions, optimizing for local search can be complex.
- Balancing site structure with supply and demand:
How do we measure SEO/digital marketing success in this industry?
For CRO, we generally measure success via engagement, click-through rate, and conversion, with a carefully eye on the most profitable conversion paths.
From Andrew N.:
If a rising tide raises all boats, attributing traffic and conversions to technical SEO efforts that span an entire site can be challenging, especially in the complex Marketplace environment. However, when a specific enhancement (like improving LCP) is done at scale, benchmarking and tracking the KPIs relevant to the change is paramount to measuring success. At a higher level, these KPIs often center around bounce rate, engagement, SERP features as well as the traditional rankings, CTR, traffic, and conversion metrics.
What is special about how we approach this service? i.e. What might differentiate us from the competition?
For CRO, Intrepid Digital is somewhat unique in that none of our departments operate in a silo. CRO collaborates with SEO, content strategy, paid media, and data science to ensure our optimization strategies leverage the expertise and tactics of our entire company to work toward optimal outcomes in every aspect.
From Andrew N.:
Our team of professionals can analyze and implement Technical SEO at scale. We are able to acquire quality back links for the diverse products and services. We represent a diverse set of technical skills and experience, which we utilize to adapt SEO strategies to align with the frequent updates to search engine algorithms.
What’s the most important takeaway for clients in this vertical? What do they absolutely need to know about Intrepid’s work here?
From Andrew N.:
Marketplace SEO is complex and challenging, requiring specialized expertise to handle issues like a site’s structure, navigation, content intricacies (duplicate, thin, user-generated), keyword cannibalization, internal/external linking, and more.
What might people get wrong or assume incorrectly about this type of work?
From Andrew N.:
People often confuse marketplace optimization with traditional SEO or e-commerce optimization and implement piecemeal optimization efforts on a single product or service. A more holistic strategy is essential to build brand reputation, increase reach, and create sustainable growth in the competitive marketplace environment.
Our Marketplace Digital Marketing Services
SEO for Marketplaces
Performing top-notch SEO services, from technical audits to extensive keyword research.
Paid Media for Marketplaces
Paid search and SEM campaign management focused on ROI.
CRO for Marketplaces
Optimizing for conversion using insightful testing to maximize conversion and lead generation.
Content for Marketplaces
Content strategies that complement SEO & CRO and speak to your customers’ pain points.
Data Science for Marketplaces
Data reporting that provides a comprehensive understanding of your audience behavior and marketing tactics results.
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