GoldenWeb

The 3 biggest contributors that helped me generate over $29.6M in organic Shopify revenue over the past 24 months…

1. Implementing technical/on-page SEO Quick-Wins

There’s a reason why I spent 6 months creating a Shopify SEO Checklist, that allows you to easily identify and implement all the quick-wins.

Performing a full audit with the checklist, and implementing all of the quick-win opportunities is the highest ROI activity any Shopify store owner can work on, when it comes to SEO.

Not just because it positively impacts your organic revenue and ranking positions, but because it lifts up all the other channels alongside it.

When you have a Shopify store that’s fully optimized and dialed in, your UX improves, your conversion rate goes up, and with that, so does the performance of all your other channels such as paid ads and email.

2. Build EVERY project based on demand/keyword data

After we have all the quick-wins implemented, we’ll compile a massive list of keywords from Ahrefs with EVERY single keyword that’s in any way relevant to the products we offer on our Shopify store.

This process takes time, up to 4 weeks to be exact, but you literally end up with EVERY single collection, product page and blog article you need to create to maximize your organic rankings and revenue.

Another benefit of doing this is the fact that NO OTHER competitor of yours will ever think of doing this, as it’s quite an intense process to go through…

But once you’re on the other side, by having all these pages published and organized based on the exact keywords people type into Google, you’ll not only see a big jump in organic traffic, but also a LOT more opportunities with your paid advertising.

(Because you’ll have a lot more perfectly optimized landing pages, you can test and send traffic to - works especially well with Google Ads.)

3. Realizing that SEO is a piece of the puzzle, and not the puzzle itself
This one may sound a bit strange, but it’s one of the most important points on the list.

You HAVE TO understand that in today’s day and age of Google, SEO can no longer be considered as the main traffic/sales acquisition channel for any business.

Google simply just won’t let it happen, unless you’ve got enough brand signals… and brand signals obviously come from paid media and people searching for your brand.

That’s why you need to shift your thinking from seeing SEO as a standalone channel, to seeing SEO as an amplifier.

By ensuring all of your channels such as paid ads, email marketing, influencers, etc. are dialed in, you can then bring SEO in on top of that, and LIFT UP the performance of all those other channels.

How?

There are tons of examples, but a simple one would be just recapturing all of the abandoned carts/sales, by answering all the questions people have about your store/products, that they search for in Google.

And this is just one example…

If you’re a brand doing 6-figs a month in sales, DO NOT sleep on SEO - it’s what allows you to create a MOAT around your business, and makes it incredibly difficult for competitors to actually have a chance at taking you down.

When should I switch my exact match domain Shopify projects from dropshipping model to private labelling our own products?

It’s difficult to give you guys a general answer that fits all projects, but here’s my thought process behind it.

I’d ONLY consider private labelling our own products, if there were enough pros/advantaeges of doing so, here are some that I’d consider.

1. Can we dramatically increase the profit margins by switching to private label?
2. Can we dramatically improve the customer experience/quality of products, while keeping the same costs?

3. How much more hassle will it be managing stock/cashflow with private labelling, and is that worth it?

4. How much of an impact would switching to private labelling have on the store’s valuation and “sellability”?

I think if you go through all these questions, and answer them while having a clear vision in your mind for your Shopify store/brand, you’ll naturally make the right decision.

It just comes down to what you want…

Do you want a high cashflowing lifestyle business that prints money and doesn’t require you to invest tons of hours?

OR…

Do you want to build a massive brand, and go for a big exit one day?

I really respect both options, mainly because I have both lifestyle Shopify projects that are just there for cashflow, as well as projects that I plan on exiting on one day and collecting a big check.

Let me know which strategy you prefer! ;)

Why am I building all of my Shopify stores on exact match domains? And why do I spend tens of thousands of dollars on those domains?

A few reasons…

First, as you might know, Google’s been really cracking down on sites without branded search, that’s why so many affiliate sites are getting totally nuked.

With an exact match domain, matching a generic term, Google will never really know if people are looking for your brand, or for a generic term - therefore you’re automatically on the safer side.

Pair that with an omni-channel marketing approach, and you’re SUPER SAFE from getting hit by any kind of Google algo update.

Second, by having an exact match domain, you can trick Google into thinking people searching for the “generic keyword” are actually looking for your brand.

Therefore it becomes EXTREMELY easy to rank in the #1 spot, even if it’s a massive keyword with a ton of competitors.

There’s nothing as powerful as an exact match domain, and using the homepage to try and rank for that keyword (the homepage always holds the most link value).

Third, you don’t have to worry about over-optimizing your anchor texts for the exact match keyword ever again…

At the end of the day, your brand is the keyword, therefore you can use it as many times as you want, and you can never get in trouble for over-optimizing your anchor texts.

Fourth, and my favorite…

Due to all of the reasons listed above, you end up saving a TON of budget on linkbuilding, because you have an exact match keyword and branded links, which also act as exact match anchor links - super strong signals for Google.

One last point I want to make…

The EMD SEO strategy really shines when the main root keyword that you target with the domain, has a bunch of subcategories, that you can try and rank for with your collections and product pages.

In fact, I’d say that having those is an absolute must…

The more of those that you can find, the higher the ROI you’ll able to generate.