AI in E-commerce SEO: Applications and Challenges

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has reshaped the landscape of E-commerce SEO. It revolutionizes strategies with its applications, yielding unique benefits and introducing new challenges.

As businesses strive to optimize their online presence, combining AI and E-commerce SEO has emerged as a powerful force. This boosts user experiences, elevates conversion rates, and navigates the intricacies of a dynamic digital marketplace.

According to Gartner, the use of AI in business has increased by 270% over the last five years, and this rise is still occurring. Also, Tractica has revealed that the profit from the direct and indirect use of AI software will rise to $59.8 billion by 2025.

Related: 5 Ways AI Can Increase Ecommerce Sales & Profit

Application of AI in E-commerce SEO 

• Keyword Research and Optimization:

In retail SEO, experts can apply AI to keyword research and optimization. AI tools help them analyze vast amounts of data to identify relevant keywords that potential customers are searching for. The most popular tools are:

1. Google Keyword Planner for researching paid keywords
2. SEMRush for advanced SEO professionals
3. Ahrefs for simple SEO tools
4. Moz Keyword Explorer is the best all-around free SEO keyword research tool

These tools can also help determine the competitiveness of keywords and suggest keyword optimization strategies for product pages, category pages, and blog content.

Find here 25+ free SEO tools.

• Content Generation:

SEO experts can generate content with AI tools like TrendHub, ChatGPT, Jasper.ai, Copy.ai, WriteSonic, and Hypotenuse AI. AI-powered content generators can typically create product descriptions, blog posts, and other SEO-focused content. This helps eCommerce websites maintain a consistent flow of high-quality content that caters to users and search engines.

Related: 4 Unique Content Strategies for eCommerce SEO to Increase ROI

1. TrendHub: ScribbleLive’s TrendHub helps eCommerce marketers identify trending topics and relevant keywords (see below image) to create content that aligns with current search trends, improving the chances of ranking higher in search results.

Source: ScribbleLive

• On-Page SEO Optimization:

AI technology can be applied to help SEO professionals analyze website pages and suggest on-page optimization improvements, such as meta titles, descriptions, header tags, and keyword placement. AI tools can also identify technical issues such as broken links, slow-loading pages, etc. 

• BrightEdge’s AI-Powered SEO Platform: BrightEdge offers an AI-driven platform that helps eCommerce businesses optimize their SEO strategies. Experts can get insights into keyword performance, content recommendations, and competitive analysis, making data-driven decisions to improve search rankings.

Related: E-commerce On-Page SEO Strategies of Performance-Based SEO Companies

• Technical SEO Audits:

SEO specialists can also apply AI tools (Screaming Frog and Semrush) to perform comprehensive technical SEO audits. With these tools, they can dive into all web pages (root domain, subdomain, subfolders, and mobile version) and identify issues with technical SEO, on-page optimization, speed, and internal linking opportunities.

Image: Jasper

• Personalized Product Experience:

E-commerce websites can offer tailored purchasing experiences with AI. The technology shows products based on user behavior, browser history, geographic location, language, and purchasing habits. Depending on size, color, shape, fabric, and brand, AI-powered features like “People also purchased” and “Customers also viewed” might offer related products.

Please view the image below.

1. Image 1 shows the customer’s intention to purchase a Gaming Headset on Amazon.
2. Image 2 shows Amazon’s use of AI to correspond to a “product related to the item,” determined by the user’s prior search.

• Image Optimization:

For better results from your SEO services, AI can be applied to automatically optimize images for faster loading times while maintaining visual quality. This contributes to a better user experience and can positively impact SEO rankings. Popular AI tools are Compress Now, JPEG Optimizer, Tiny PNG, Optimizilla, JPEG.io, ImageRecycle, etc.

• Voice Search Optimization:

With the rise of voice search, AI can help marketers optimize websites for voice-based queries. Artificial intelligence enables devices to understand and respond to natural language queries using NLP algorithms.

Example:

In this example, the text-based query is concise and to the point, while the voice-based search query is more conversational and resembles a natural spoken question.

AI-powered voice assistants leverage natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to interpret user intent, find a restaurant, identify the location, and provide tailored search results based on user reviews, ratings, and distance.

• Link Building

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be used to find reputable websites relevant to your industry that are likely to link to your website. Below are examples of how SEO service companies can use AI for link-building:

1. Finding high-quality websites: AI can assess a website’s quality by examining domain authority, backlink profile, and other elements.

Popular AI tools for Link Building are Semrush, Ahrefs, Serpstat, Majestic, BuzzStream, Hunter.io, Linkody, BuzzSumo, and NinjaOutreach Inc.

• Structured Data Markup:

AI tools can assist in implementing structured data markup on websites. Structured data markup, often written in formats like JSON-LD, RDFa, or Microdata, helps search engines better understand web page content.

• AI tools generate schema data.
• Extract structured data from unstructured content.
• Validate structured data markup
• Dynamically generate structured data for websites
• Perform semantic analysis on web content to identify entities, relationships, and context.

Related: How To Boost Your Ecommerce Site’s Performance With Structured Data

Let’s consider this example of how ChatGPT helps generate product page schema data. I have used the below prompt, followed by giving the product page URL to the ChatGPT.

Prompt: Act as a JSON-LD Expert coder. I’ll give you the product pages. You have to give me product type schema data code in JSON-LD format, which Google accepts.

Challenges of AI in E-Commerce SEO:

• AI depends on diverse, quality data for precise insights. Smaller eCommerce firms face hurdles in gathering data.
• Expertise is needed for AI algorithm implementation and fine-tuning; eCommerce model development is time and resource-intensive.
• Customizing AI for eCommerce clients aligns strategies with unique business goals, a complex but essential task.
• AI-driven choices require human checks to prevent errors; balancing automation and human involvement is vital for accuracy.
• AI choices impact ethics, particularly in eCommerce with user data. Balancing privacy and bias is challenging.
• AI’s opaque choices pose challenges. Clarifying AI’s decision process for client comprehension and trust is vital.
• Adapting AI strategies to evolving search algorithms poses a constant and challenging task for optimization.

Bottom Line:

AI is transforming E-commerce SEO, and this transformative potential shines brightly, offering personalized recommendations, efficient content generation, and predictive insights. But the path is very challenging.

Don’t let your E-commerce website fall behind in the digital race. To unlock AI’s potential, partner with ResultFirst, your most trusted SEO agency in USA, for a personalized consultation and discover how our AI-driven SEO strategies can drive more traffic, increase conversions, and boost your revenue.

Together, we’ll navigate the challenges and seize the opportunities presented by AI in E-commerce SEO services. Take the first step towards SEO excellence by contacting us now! Your success awaits.

Also Read:

Should You Use AI-Generated Content to Boost SEO?

E-commerce SEO AI vs. Traditional SEO