As a manufacturer or distributor, are you hesitating to sell on a B2B marketplace because you're afraid of being penalized by SEO cannibalization and losing the SEO work you've achieved on your website? Although this fear may seem legitimate, isn't the potential gain greater than the potential damage?
When we mention, "SEO cannibalization,” we mean the competition between your website pages and those of a marketplace that displays and sells your products. This rivalry between pages can potentially affect your positioning on the SERP (Search Engine Result Page), the page displayed when a query is entered into a search form. Search engines like Google can then find it difficult to rank these pages correctly, due to this “cannibalization” where one page "eats" the other. This can lead to duplicate content and confusion, both of which can have an impact on SEO.
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Table of Contents
- Duplicate content on marketplaces: Is your SEO really in danger?
- How do marketplaces still manage to get the top rankings?
- Increase your visibility, and multiply your acquisition channels!
- Your Products + Our Marketplaces = Strength in Numbers
Duplicate content on marketplaces: Is your SEO really in danger?
By definition, a marketplace is a content aggregator. All the product data available on marketplaces comes directly from the sellers listed there. Therefore, this is referred to as external duplicate content.
Many sellers share similar or even identical product descriptions with marketplaces. This can raise concerns about the impact on their site's SEO. However, it's important to note that search engines understand how marketplaces work and have developed sophisticated algorithms to deal effectively with duplicate content. Therefore, if you take steps to optimize your product listings, providing detailed information, quality images, and customer reviews, you can still achieve favorable search engine visibility and rankings.
As Google mentions on its Google Search Central site in its article “Demystifying the ‘duplicate content penalty’", it's important to understand that there isn't really a penalty for duplicate external content. What's more, if there's one area in which Google excels, it's content analysis, storage and results historization.
The following extract on how Google deals with duplicate content shows that the presence of duplicate external content does not necessarily compromise a seller's SEO.
"When encountering such duplicate content on different sites, we look at various signals to determine which site is the original one, which usually works very well. This also means that you shouldn't be very concerned about seeing negative effects on your site's presence on Google if you notice someone scraping your content."
How do marketplaces still manage to get the top rankings?
The answer is simple: marketplaces respond to user needs, and Google's No. 1 mission is to meet the needs of internet users. In fact, according to another Google study, 89% of B2B buyers start with a generic search on search engines. What's more, the average user commits to a website after around 12 searches.
Throughout this process, the future buyer needs to:
- Understand the market
- Identify potentially interesting products
- Compare features, prices, etc.
- Read customer reviews, etc.
This is where B2B marketplaces come into play, as they facilitate meeting the needs of supply and demand, and often offer—thanks to their product range—an interesting overview of the market.
In addition, marketplaces enable merchants to increase the number of points of contact between their product catalogs and their audience, thus creating a multi-channel strategy.
Increase your visibility, and multiply your acquisition channels!
A Sistrix study clearly shows the distribution of clicks on the SERP. The study highlights the following results for Google click-through rates by ranking:
- Position No. 1: 28.5%
- Position No. 2: 15.7%
- Position No. 3: 11%
- Position No. 4: 8%
- Position No. 5: 7.2%
- Position No. 6: 5.1%
- Position No. 7: 4%
- Position No. 8: 3.2%
- Position No. 9: 2.8%
- Position No. 10: 2.5%
Let's assume that merchant A occupies the N° 1 position with his own site. This means he'll get around 28.5% of clicks on his keyword. 71.5% of clicks will end up on competing sites.
Now let's assume that merchant A is present on marketplace B, which is in second position. Merchant A mechanically wins 28.5% + 15.7% of clicks, leaving only 55.8% of market share to his competitors.
Marketplaces often benefit from strong domain authority, which can help increase the overall visibility of your products.
To go one step further and maximize your visibility as a seller, search engine advertising (SEA) can be a complementary strategy for occupying the SERP. This is known as paid search. In this case, you'll focus on achieving optimum visibility for your products in search engines, without worrying about SEO techniques aimed at pleasing Google without remuneration.
Your Products + Our Marketplaces = Strength in Numbers
Now that we understand why marketplaces exist and why sellers are interested in them, it's time to find the right business partner.
The B2B e-commerce platforms developed in France by VirtualExpo Group are specialized international marketplaces with consistent commission rates, far removed from the anti-competitive practices of the web giants. Our sales and technical teams are at your service: our mission is to build long-term, win-win partnerships with manufacturers and distributors who choose to exhibit and sell their products on one or more of our six marketplaces (AgriExpo, AeroExpo, ArchiExpo, DirectIndustry, MedicalExpo, NauticExpo).
We believe that SEO is essential to the success of your business development on a marketplace. To maximize your international visibility, we focus on optimizing click-through rates, purchase and re-purchase rates, and product listings.
However, selling online on our marketplaces doesn't just consist of boosting your SEO and therefore your presence on Google, it also includes taking advantage of our marketing strategies on all other acquisition channels (SEA, targeted emails, social media, etc.), because digital marketing is our core business.
Despite the risks of SEO cannibalization, choosing to sell on a marketplace is a great opportunity for manufacturers and distributors. Relying on the power of marketplaces means taking advantage of the traffic they generate and their reach. This can help you reach a wider B2B audience and generate more sales, all without necessarily having to invest in advertising.
The key is to take certain steps to avoid the negative consequences of cannibalization, such as optimizing the marketplace's product pages and your own website, implementing clear pricing and differentiation strategies, and creating unique and relevant content for both channels when its needed. Rather than seeing marketplaces as a potential threat to your SEO, approach them as an opportunity to develop your online business.
