As many as 210 million of those 250 million visits go to the 1000 most visible stores (84%). This means that only slightly more than 1% of online stores derive measurable benefits from SEO.
Our research shows that about 12,000 stores are actively investing in SEO. Unfortunately, only 1,677 stores achieve organic traffic that reaches over 10,000 visits per month, and 86% of SEO campaigns for online stores fail.
Why does this happen??
A study conducted on 293 Polish SEO specialists showed that, according to said specialists, the minimum budget for SEO activities in e-commerce is between 1,000 PLN and 5,000 PLN per month. In most cases, however, this is not an amount that will allow for effective action. Despite this, agencies driven by the desire to win a client often offer low prices, which, unfortunately, also leads to low-quality service.
A simple cost simulation illustrates this problem. In SEO, there are 3 cost items:
- The work of people involved in the project – usually 2-3 people on the agency’s side. Costs are generated by the time they spend preparing technical recommendations and acquiring links.
- Content – you need to develop both the content that will appear in the product categories and other content, such as guides, which we recommend every store do
- Links – it will not be possible to run an effective SEO campaign without obtaining links to the store
The study we conducted among the top 1,000 stores in Google shows how much content and how many links they have.
| Value | Average | Median |
|---|---|---|
| Number of linking domains | 13 592 | 274 |
| Number of articles | 236 | 152 |
Attempting to achieve a position in the TOP 1000 ranking of the most visible stores requires obtaining a minimum of 274 linking domains and 152 articles on the website (this number also depends on the industry).
- The average cost of acquiring one link is PLN 322 (a study on 8,000 websites available on content marketing platforms)
- The average cost of creating one text is PLN 170
So to meet the minimum conditions, you must spend:
- 88,228 PLN on links
- 25,840 PLN on content
Total: 114,068 PLN (does not include working hours)
If you want your store to be in the TOP 1000 stores in Google, it should be assumed that the minimum cost of SEO activities will be approximately 8,000 PLN per month. A smaller budget may be enough in the case of an uncompetitive industry or in a situation where your store already has an established base of links and content.
Below is a chart showing the TOP 1000 online stores broken down by product category. The more stores in a given category, the greater the competition in the industry.
The most competitive categories are Style & Fashion and Home & Garden – simply put, if you’re running a store in one of these categories, you are competing with the largest number of competitors for your position in Google.
E-commerce ranking
At Vestigio, all of our activities are based on data. That’s why we’ve created a ranking of e-commerce sites that we update every week. There, you can check which stores in Poland generate the most traffic and how high your own store ranks.
How do we do it at Vestigio?
At Vestigio, we believe in data. We believe that what can be calculated, can be planned and completed. That is why we carefully plan our work, and use the most cutting-edge technology every step of the way towards improving the visibility of our client’s website.
Our process can be divided into several steps:
- Planning – before we start our work, we establish a detailed action plan. We use machine learning algorithms to analyze the competition and estimate the goals of our work. This way, we minimize the risk of error.
- Collaboration – at Vestigio, SEO is not a service, but a partnership between our specialists and the client. That is why we organize regular meetings to inform you about our activities so we can guide your store through the optimization process.
- Execution – thanks to solid planning, we implement SEO activities on schedule. However, we always remain flexible during the implementation of our strategy and adapt to changes depending on what the data tells us.
- Transparency – we report our work accurately, using hard data as opposed to subjective opinions.
Case Studies
Check out how we took our clients to the TOP 1000 – and even to the TOP 100! – of the best e-commerce sites in Poland.
