SEO, or search engine optimization, is a key approach for online companies of all kinds. The right SEO strategy can mean the difference between increased visibility and languishing in anonymity.
If you’re selling on Walmart, understanding the tips and tricks can be a critical asset to growth, helping you get ahead of the competition. This post has what you need to know when it comes to SEO on Walmart Marketplace.
Key takeaways
- Ranking high in search engine results pages helps increase visibility, attract customers, and boost sales; however, this isn’t accomplished overnight; you’ll need to remain agile to increase rankings.
- There are many strategies for Walmart SEO, including strong keyword usage, high-quality images, optimized product descriptions, and competitive pricing.
- SEO should positively impact keyword results, click-through rates, and conversion rates. Constantly optimizing your listings can help ensure you stay ahead of the curve, competition, and avoid a lull in sales.
What is Walmart SEO?
Walmart SEO refers to the process of optimizing content for product listings on Walmart Marketplace. This can help achieve optimal placement when customers search for products like yours.
When selling online, visibility is key. You could have the best products in the world, but if your brand is a page or two behind the top-ranking results, few shoppers are going to know you exist. Walmart SEO strategies are designed to stave off this kind of issue, using everything from product descriptions to image quality to ensure your items will be front and center for customers.
With no Walmart Connect fees other than sales commissions, listing products and learning SEO strategies is a low-risk way to forge ahead in a new space.
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The importance of strong Walmart SEO
While SEO is important on nearly every search engine platform, understanding the nuances in online marketplaces can be to your advantage. As such, if you’re selling on Walmart, you need to know what strategies are most effective in order to get a leg up on your competitors. Walmart SEO can help you get there, increasing your reach among shoppers of all kinds. However, sticking to the basics often isn’t enough; other sellers in your niche will be trying to increase their visibility, too, so a strong understanding is required to truly make a mark.
11 Walmart SEO strategies
Not sure where to start when it comes to Walmart SEO? To optimize your approach, understanding how Walmart algorithms work can be a cornerstone of success. Walmart’s search features focus on a few key areas, including:
- Quality of content, like product descriptions and photos.
- The factors that impact Buy Box wins include item and shipping prices, inventory availability, and shipping speeds.
- Performance as a seller, including success in past search rankings.
Below, we’ve compiled 11 of the best Walmart SEO strategies to keep in mind when optimizing your listings. When combined, they can ensure your brand’s visibility amongst Walmart’s unique algorithms.
1. Optimize product information
The details listed on product pages are among the most important information potential customers will see when they search for items. If customers don’t get the right kind of info from these pages, they are far less likely to take a chance on buying what you have for sale.
To make the most of your listing pages, include product information that supports what shoppers and the search engine are looking for. Use keywords that consumers are most likely to search to describe products fully with a focus on clear and engaging writing, good grammar, and proper syntax.
Not sure if a keyword is working? Luckily, there’s an easy way to test. Simply search the keywords you’ve used via the search box on Walmart and see if your product shows up near the top. This can also help you see competing products and what keywords others in your niche are using.
2. Highlight product benefits and features
When you want to attract buyers, it’s vital to show off the benefits and features of what you have to offer. Without highlighting the key aspects of your products, shoppers are unlikely to take a chance on purchasing them.
Walmart allows sellers to create a short bulleted list of product benefits, which is a great way to attract buyers and improve SERP rankings. These descriptions are your best opportunity to showcase what’s so great about your items, so be clear yet specific and incorporate high-performing keywords when possible. Some common product details or benefits that buyers want to know about include material, dimensions like height and weight, and suggestions for ideal usage.
3. Categorize your products
Walmart Marketplace has 24 different categories into which sellers can sort their products. This may seem inconsequential—after all, shoppers can easily find your inventory with a simple keyword search—but categorization can actually make a big difference in SEO.
Customers have the ability to sort search results by category, which can be an excellent way to stand out, especially if the keywords that best fit your product can be applied to multiple kinds of items. Pick the category that’s most appropriate for your inventory based on your understanding of product use and benefits to customers. If nothing else, avoid using the “Other” category, as this is an unlikely choice for shoppers to use to filter products.
4. Add high-resolution photos
If you’ve ever been shopping for a product only to see a single grainy picture, you know how unlikely you are to make a purchase. No matter how great your products are or the value they offer customers, poor-quality photos make a bad first impression.
Detailed images are a great way to improve your listing and cultivate shopper trust. When they have a rich array of photos to click through, shoppers are more likely to buy. This is critical as the more purchases you get, the more likely Walmart’s algorithms are to prioritize your product creating a “snowball effect.”
5. Use rich media
Pictures are a great start, but they’re not the only way to showcase your products. Rich media can improve the strength of listings, especially if they are already in use by your competitors.
Rich media takes normal images and product information and melds them together in a way that can help buyers best understand your inventory. This can mean images with dimensions, pictures of objects in use, 360-degree images, or even video guides and tutorials.
The longer you can keep people on your listing, and the better you do at converting users – the better your odds in making it to the tops of the SERPs.
6. Add product attributes
Product attributes may seem like a minor detail, but from an SEO perspective, the proper use of attributes can play a big part in ensuring visibility. Customers rely on attributes when filtering through products on the Walmart marketplace, so incorrect or missing information may result in shoppers turning to your competition that includes this data.
Attributes, which include things like department, brand, price, shipping speed, and relevant other category details, are located on the left-hand side of each search engine results page. You may have optimized other aspects of your listing, but if the attribute information isn’t available, customers likely won’t see your products when they check off certain boxes in the attributes section.
7. Use 2-day delivery
Amazon has had a huge impact on the expectations of online order deliveries; with Amazon Prime offering same-day and two-day delivery, buyers are used to speedy services. If there’s a choice between receiving a product in a week and getting a similar item in a day or two, the latter will generally win out, even if the first option seems like a better fit.
By leaning into two-day shipping, you can remain competitive and boost your Listing Quality Score on Walmart. Several factors are considered for the score, and in this case, the “Offers” evaluation takes shipping speeds into account, so prioritizing fast fulfillment can benefit the strength of your overall ranking. Fulfillment can impact your likelihood of winning Buy Box positions, too.
8. Competitive pricing
When there’s a large pricing gap between your products and those of your competitors, you might be driving away buyers and negatively impacting your place in search engine results.
It’s important to review your pricing throughout the year and have a strategy in place to keep up with what customers expect. This requires paying attention to market trends, stocking your inventory levels, and keeping an eye on competitors’ pricing. Doing the most can keep your pricing elastic for maximum visibility.
9. Maintain product inventory
When you sell on Walmart, make maintaining product inventory a priority. Strong SEO is developed over time through continued sales. Running out of inventory can stall this sales velocity, while your competitors truck along at full speed. It’s important to continue this momentum as Walmart is going to value your more recent historical sales data when ranking you.
10. Have great customer service
Sooner or later, your customers will need some help. They might have questions, feedback on product use, issues with things like shipping, or even complaints about experiences. Regardless of the reasoning or the communication methods you have in place, great customer service is a must.
Primarily, this can establish customer trust. Seeking help should be a good experience for shoppers, and a great connection will establish lasting loyalty. Great customer service can also drive positive reviews, and the better the reviews, the higher your products will rank. Furthermore, Walmart might use order and fulfillment data like canceled sales, refund rates, and seller response rates when ranking a seller. Walmart values its customers’ experience and will value sellers that make it a great one. This is a longer-term strategy, but it will pay off by positively impacting your rankings and helping you master Walmart SEO.
11. Monitor and adjust your strategy
Walmart Marketplace SEO doesn’t work with a set-it-and-forget-it approach; it’s something you should always keep an eye on. As the market changes and the sellers in your particular niche grow, what you did last year might not work right now. Regardless of where you are in the SEO process, it’s important to monitor results and prepare to make changes as needed.
For example, keywords or phrases that were once working for your brand might be less effective now. You may also want to consider if your pricing is getting out-paced by the competition. Ask yourself, have your competitors mastered rich media while your listings only have a picture or two? If so, take this time to adapt your approach rather than hope for it to level out in the long run.
Consider advertising
Advertising can be pivotal in kickstarting sales and gaining a competitive edge in the market. It serves as the catalyst that propels a product or service into the spotlight, capturing the attention of potential customers and compelling them to make a purchase. Alongside SEO, consider crafting and deploying advertising campaigns to effectively communicate your value proposition to target audiences, differentiate yourself from competitors, and create a strong brand presence.
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Approaching SEO on Walmart
Now that you know the basics of how to rank on Walmart Marketplace, it’s time to dig into how to apply the above strategies to reap the best results. Consider the following details as you approach your SEO strategy:
How does Walmart’s Search Engine Algorithm work?
While no search engine reveals the comprehensive details behind its algorithm, Walmart’s approach takes into account several different factors. One of the areas is the Walmart optimization triangle. The three points that make up the triangle are:
- Content: The strength of content across product listing pages, like keyword use, product descriptions, titles, image use, key features, and categorization.
- Offer: How competitive a seller’s offering is, including pricing, inventory levels, and shipping speeds.
- Performance: Customer satisfaction and seller adherence to policies, including Seller Order Defect Rate (SODR) and promptness of customer communications.
These aren’t the only metrics used, of course. Walmart’s algorithms also take into account things like product sales history, customer satisfaction, and click-through rates. When conversion rates are low, and keywords are off base, for example, high rankings are unlikely.
Keyword optimization
Keyword optimization refers to the process of choosing and selectively using keywords throughout your content to improve organic search results.
A critical part of a successful Walmart SEO strategy, keywords are ultimately what connect your products to customer searches. If a shopper is searching for “black toolbox” and you sell this item, but your page doesn’t have that keyword in use, your listing likely won’t be ranked highly—and that means little to no visibility.
How do I prioritize keywords?
To make keywords work for you, you first need to know how to prioritize the most valuable words and phrases for your products. These are generally the keywords that generate the most high-intent traffic at the lowest cost. Often these benchmarks are a moving target but don’t try to boil the ocean and keep your top-selling keywords top-of-mind.
To implement these keywords accordingly, be as detailed as possible within product descriptions based on the most likely ways a customer would search for your product. Keywords should be integrated into titles, key features, bullet points, and written descriptions.
How do I find Walmart keywords?
Finding the right keywords for Walmart product listings can be overwhelming, especially if you don’t know the specific ways in which customers search for your products.
One aspect of your approach should be considering both general search terms and long-tail keywords, like specific phrases that apply to individual products. For example, “black suitcase” is a short keyword that could apply to any seller with black suitcases for sale. A long-tail keyword, on the other hand, might be “black hard-shell carry-on suitcase,” which will yield more specific results. You’ll need both to generate traffic at the top of the funnel and more specific keywords to speak to your customers’ specific needs.
However, there are ways to do research to ensure you’re going in the right direction. Brands looking for a turnkey solution can explore AI-supported Walmart and Amazon seller tools, like the comprehensive Walmart advertising software from Trellis.
Click-through rate
A high click-through rate means a large percentage of people who see an ad or product link click on it, while a low click-through rate indicates that most people who see a particular product keep on scrolling. The higher the click-through rate, the better, and the best way to achieve this is by ensuring you make a good first impression.
Optimize titles and images
When customers are faced with seemingly countless results from their search, they’re going to prioritize the ones that appear to most closely meet their needs. To do so, many buyers will focus on product titles that list exactly what they’re looking for and images that paint a compelling picture. So, ensure all images on your product pages give the best view of what you have for sale. In addition, add as many product description terms as possible to titles, with a target length of 50 to 75 characters.
Generate reviews
When customers see tons of star ratings and glowing praise, they’re far more likely to click through to learn more about a product. While there’s no way to force customers to leave Walmart reviews, make the following points a part of your strategy:
- Sell high-quality products.
- Provide excellent customer support when needed.
- Respond to bad reviews politely and professionally, and fix the problem.
Conversion rate optimization
While click-through rate evaluates the rate at which ads or product pages are clicked on, conversion rate refers to how many of those clicks turn into sales. Ideally, both percentages will be high; a good click-through rate doesn’t mean much if no one is buying the item.
Evaluate price
One of the best ways to attract customers is to ensure your price is on par with competitors. After all, even the most compelling product will result in a closed tab if a shopper feels there are lower-priced alternatives of similar quality available.
If you’re losing out on buyers due to pricing, evaluate what you can do to offer a better deal without eliminating profits. A bigger customer base is generally more valuable than higher profit margins per product, so plan your strategy accordingly.
Review value propositions
In addition to a great product, what do you provide for customers that they can’t get anywhere else? Value propositions, Key product benefits and fast or free shipping can all support a potentially higher price or sway a buyer when competitors’ price points are on par.
How do I track my Walmart SEO performance?
There are a few different ways to track Walmart SEO performance. A simple option is to set target metrics, like optimal click-through rates or inventory turnover. If you’re able to achieve your targets, your strategies are probably doing what you need them to do. In addition, the Walmart Seller Center contains numerous tools to review performance, including metrics that indicate sales stats and trends.
For a more comprehensive look at listings, Walmart’s Listing Quality Score that sellers can use to evaluate the strength of product listings across three key categories: content, offers, and reviews. Highlighting strengths and indicating pain points, businesses can plan ways to improve SEO by targeting strategy enhancements in the areas where Walmart’s tool indicates the weakest performance.
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In summary: Walmart SEO strategies should be ongoing
On Walmart Marketplace, the right SEO strategies can be the key to big sales and rapid growth. Keep in mind the strength of your product listings, the competitiveness of your pricing, the value propositions you can add for customers, the logic behind your keyword use, and your overall listing quality to master how to rank on Walmart.
If you need a hand in perfecting your SEO strategy or simply a place to get started, Trellis is here to help. Our software is designed to ensure Walmart Marketplace sellers outpace the competition, carving out a spot at the top of SERPs with a calculated and flexible approach. Reach out to us today to learn more.
