Splash Digital Ltd

Something I've been wanting to say out loud for a while:

Most eCommerce brands are already losing AI traffic. They just can't see it in their data yet.

AI systems - Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google's AI Overviews - are now recommending stores, comparing products, and guiding purchase decisions before anyone clicks anything.

The brands showing up in those answers aren't just doing good SEO. They're doing something different. And most of the advice out there still hasn't caught up.

So Max Sartal Sterling and I are running a workshop to fix that.

📅 Thursday 16 April · 10am NZST · Online · Free
🪑 25 seats only

We'll cover:
→ Why AI search behaves nothing like Google
→ Two real eCommerce case studies
→ What your Google Merchant feed is missing for AI shopping agents
→ What to ask your agency or developer on Monday morning to start closing the gap

This isn't a webinar you half-watch while doing emails. It's a small working session — bring your questions and your store URL.

Link to register in the below. Spots will go fast.

https://info.splashdigital.co.nz/webinar/seo-is-becoming-geo

If you’re building or redesigning an ecommerce site, one of the biggest mistakes you can make isn’t always visible.

It’s a messy site structure.

This is something we uncovered recently during an SEO audit and it is reasonably common.

It used to be a massive oversight even with big brands - it’s better these days but it still happens!

The website we audited had strong organic traffic and decent keyword rankings.

Yet many of the important keywords were stuck on positions 4-6 in Google or lower and they weren’t breaking into the top 1-3.

Our analysis was that the issues were being caused by the way in which their website was structured:

⭐️Traffic was flowing inefficiently, creating loops instead of guiding users to conversion pages. Product pages were able to be reached via several gateway pages, with almost similar content.
⭐️Search engines likely couldn’t tell which pages were most important, which diluted rankings.
⭐️Link authority was getting split between pages.

These are the kinds of issues that may not even be noticeable until you start working on your SEO and hit a plateau in rankings.

It is possible to fix this after a site is live. It requires effort and some decent planning.

But if you can, a smarter move is to avoid this altogether with a siloed site structure built from the beginning.

Here’s how a silo works in practice using an example of a Beauty company.

1. Group Content by Themes: Instead of having multiple similar gateway pages, organize everything into clear silos. For example, “Skincare” becomes the main silo, with subcategories like “Cleansers” and “Moisturizers.”
2. Consolidate Overlapping Pages: Merge similar content into a single, stronger page and use redirects to tidy up.
3. Simplify URLs: Create a logical structure like /skincare/cleansers/organic-cleanser.
4. Build Strong Internal Links: Reinforce the silos by linking pages logically within each group via internal links.

This approach can help search engines understand your site more easily, it makes for a more simplified user experience and supports scaling ecommerce efforts in the future.

If you’re planning a new Ecommerce site talk to your designers and developers and include an SEO person in the project.

The best time to get your structure right is before launch and as part of your redesign!

♻️ If this post was helpful - would you drop a comment below or share your thoughts? Thanks!!

Yesterday I went to the EMA workshop for manufacturer's on the impact of Industry 4.0, and how to ensure your business is not falling behind.

New Zealand is lagging behind in productivity and it’s easy to see why with these challenges that people in the room were dealing with:

🔹Skill shortages; younger people simply do not want to do the work that older workers are doing
🔹Skill losses; related to the above as skills are not getting passed down
🔹Maintaining quality and reducing errors
🔹Systems orders and communication between systems
🔹Removing silo’s to get information floiwng between all parts of the business; partly a human problem but also systems
🔹Access to real time data

Each of these challenges impacts productivity and ultimately, the bottom line.

How are manufacturer's solving these?

Industry 4.0 is designed to help improve productivity through things like:
* Cloud computing
* Internet of things IoT
* AI
* Automation; cobots and robots.

One of the fastest paybacks mentioned was cobots. Robots who you work alongside. They do the repetitive work like putting screws in or stripping wires while humans do the more complex work.

While Industry 4.0 covers a lot of the backend operation, it’s impact eventually reaches the front-end - the start of the customer journey.

How is it transforming website customer experiences?

What we’re seeing is businesses taking their digital transformation right through to the customer-facing side —their websites.

Once backend systems are integrated and optimised, e-commerce becomes a natural extension of the transformation. It allows businesses to deliver all those efficiencies, data insights, and customer service improvements directly to customers—while also driving cost savings and competitive advantages.

For example, with a fully integrated system, product data, inventory levels, pricing, and order updates flow seamlessly from internal tech (ERP, OMS, EDI) straight to the e-commerce platform.

And guess what is becoming most important?

🔥Speed
🤸‍♂️Flexibility

More so than just 🛠️Productivity or 👌Quality.

Huge thanks to EMA team and James Leek from Lmarc, and ASB on delivering a very interesting and informative afternoon.

How is your business preparing for Industry 4.0?
Are you already on the journey?

♻️ If this post was helpful - would you drop a comment below or share your thoughts? Thanks!!