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SEO · 10 min read · By Neven Lovreković

What is SEO and why it is the foundation of webshop success

SEO is not a marketing cost — it is an investment in an asset. Our client Marin paid Google Ads for three years and thought his business was healthy, until a two-week pause showed him the truth. Six months later his cost per order dropped from €13 to €1.50. Here is why.

Marin paid Google Ads for three years. Roughly €500 a month, sometimes more when seasonality picked up. The shop worked, orders came in, everything was "fine".

Then in July 2023 he ran out of budget for two weeks. The shop had zero orders in those two weeks. Not one.

That's when he understood something he should have understood much earlier: his business did not depend on the webshop. It depended on whether Google was running ads.

The next day he called an SEO consultant.

Six months later? The webshop was on page one of Google for 47 keywords. He had reduced ads by 70%. His cost per order had dropped from €13 to €1.50.

Marin didn't become a genius. He simply discovered what most webshop owners still don't understand: SEO is not a marketing cost. SEO is an investment in an asset.

What SEO actually is

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. In plain English: optimisation for search engines.

That definition is so generic it tells you almost nothing. Here is the practical one:

SEO is the process of building your webshop so Google understands what it is about, trusts that you are an authority on the topic, and shows you to people who are actively searching for it.

When someone types "buy olympic recurve bow London" into Google, Google has milliseconds to decide which pages to surface on page one. It makes that decision based on around 200 different factors. Your job with SEO is to satisfy those factors better than your competition.

Why SEO is the foundation, not an add-on

There are four big channels that bring people to your shop:

Each has a role. But only one works while you sleep, while you are on holiday and even when you don't publish for five months.

You can guess which one.

Paid ads stop the moment you stop paying. Social shows your content to 5–10% of your followers (the rest is paid). Email is great but only works with people already on your list.

SEO brings new people. People who don't know you yet. People who are actively searching for exactly what you sell.

And it brings them for free. Continuously. 24/7.

How Google decides who to show first

Most blogs skip this part or oversimplify it. Let's be honest about it.

Google's algorithm evaluates pages on three big groups of factors.

1. Content

Is what you wrote genuinely useful? Does it answer the question the user typed in? Is it written by someone who knows the topic? Does it cover the topic deeply, not just on the surface?

For several years now Google has been steering toward content that meets the E-E-A-T criteria: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. In plain English: does this look like it was written by somebody who actually understands the topic, or somebody who knocked it out in 20 minutes?

2. Technical execution

Does the page load fast? Does it work well on mobile? Does it have a clear structure? Does it use HTTPS? Do the images have alt text?

There are battles here the user never sees. A 1.8-second load time vs. 3.2 seconds can mean a difference of several ranking positions.

3. Authority

How many other quality sites link to you? How often is your domain mentioned across the web? What is the domain's reputation?

If 30 relevant sites in your industry link to you, Google reads that as 30 recommendations.

Three types of SEO every webshop owner must understand

The right approach: technical SEO is set once (and kept tidy), on-page is continuous (every time you publish), off-page is built patiently over years.

The 30-second test: how far you are from good SEO

Try this now. Open an incognito window and type your main business keyword into Google. Anything you would like to be found for.

Who appears on page one?

If your shop is not in the top 10 and you haven't worked seriously to fix that, you are losing roughly 90% of the potential organic traffic. Studies consistently show that the first result gets 27–31% of clicks, the second around 15%, the third around 11%. Everything below position three fights for scraps.

Page two? Less than 1% of clicks.

It means one thing: not being on page one for your main keyword is the marketing equivalent of running a shop down a back alley with no sign.

The most common questions from webshop owners

"How long until SEO starts working?"

Honest answer: 3–9 months for serious first results, 12–18 months for real transformation. Anyone who promises results in a month is either lying or using techniques that will get your site penalised.

SEO is slower than ads, but the results compound and stay. Ads are fast and disappear the second you turn off the tap.

"How much does SEO cost?"

It depends on competition in your niche. A local service in a smaller market can move significantly on €1,500–€3,500/month. Competitive industries (finance, insurance, saturated ecommerce categories) need €3,500–€10,000/month for real results.

Alternative? Learn it yourself, fix the site yourself, write the content yourself. Cost: zero. But the learning curve and time investment is significant.

"Can I do all of this without an agency?"

You can. Many have. You need two things: a realistic view of how much time you can commit, and the willingness to learn something new every week for the first six months.

If you run a webshop with 200+ products, the case is more complex. At that point it is worth at least consulting an expert once.

"What if I write about a niche topic almost nobody searches for?"

You are in an advantage. Less competition means faster results. A keyword specific to a small niche searched by 80 people a month can be gold — if those people buy.

Better to rank #1 for "handmade traditional longbow UK" (40 searches per month, all qualified buyers) than #10 for "bow" (8,000 searches, most irrelevant).

Six mistakes that will undo all your SEO effort

Why now is the right time

Markets always split into early and late movers. Early movers pay less and earn more. Late movers fight thousands of competitors for the same positions.

The English-speaking ecommerce world is large but not equally competitive in every niche. Whoever starts now, in 12 months will hold a position later competitors won't be able to reach without much heavier investment.

The next step

If you run a webshop and have never seriously worked on SEO, here is what we suggest:

Three hours of work that will tell you a lot.

  1. Check your current state on PageSpeed Insights (free, Google).
  2. Open Google Search Console (free) and connect your site. It shows which keywords you already appear for.
  3. Write one quality blog post, 1,000+ words, on a topic your buyers actually search for.

After those three hours you will know exactly where you stand and how much work lies ahead. If it is more than you can take on alone, talk to someone who specialises in Ecommerce SEO.

Need help with your webshop's SEO?

Free 20–30 minute conversation. We walk through your shop, your competition and realistic numbers for your case. No contract, no obligation.

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P.S. If you got to the end of this article, you've already shown more attention to marketing than 87% of your competition shows to their own. That is already an advantage. Now you just have to take the first concrete step. Open Google Search Console today, not tomorrow.