Jeff Oxford’s first foray into e-commerce was selling beer pong tables via dropship in 2013. The business didn’t survive, he says, but his passion for optimizing organic search traffic did. Thus began his SEO career and the creation of his agency, 180 Marketing.
Fast forward to 2024 and Jeff is an authority on eCommerce SEO. What he was thinking about was link building. appeared He now advises on engagement (getting users to click on organic search listings and consume content on a page) and reminds sellers of the benefits of AI search. helped e-commerce ranking.
He and I discussed those tactics and more in a recent conversation. The entire audio is embedded below. The transcript has been edited for clarity and length.
Eric Bandholz: Please briefly describe yourself.
Jeff Oxford: I’ve been an eCommerce SEO geek for 13 years. I was interested in starting my own dropshipping site, selling things like beer pong tables and 3D printers, but things didn’t go as planned. That’s when I fell in love with search engine optimization, especially optimizing e-commerce websites, and have continued to use it ever since. SEO can be complex, but it’s essentially a few key activities that help improve your site’s ranking.
If you want to rank high in 2025, user engagement is key. Google determines whether a visitor clicks on your site, stays on your site, or immediately presses the “back” button. User engagement is a powerful ranking signal. You can have a perfectly optimized page, but if users don’t stay, it won’t rank well.
Google’s data breach earlier this year confirmed what many SEOs suspected. user engagement It plays an important role in ranking. SEO experts theorize that Google collects data from Android devices and Chrome to evaluate how long users spend on a site and influence rankings.
Bandholz: How do you protect against bots that try to visit and bounce back to competing sites and manipulate your engagement data?
Oxford: Click-through rate on search results pages is a key ranking factor. The more clicks you get, the higher your ranking will be. Rand FishkinA renowned SEO expert, he demonstrated this in a live experiment where people clicked on a site to increase its ranking from #5 to #1 or #2 in real time.
But manipulating click-through rates via bots is not so easy. Google has advanced technology to detect fake clicks, primarily to protect its advertising system. Google monitors patterns, IPs, and behavior. Therefore, if you try to send a lot of bot traffic to your site, Google may detect it. Some people use platforms like Mechanical Turk to pay for manual clicks, but it’s difficult to make patterns look natural. A spike in traffic is a red flag, and Google uses pattern recognition to detect anomalies.
Bandholz: As AI evolves, how can businesses detect if their competitors are using malicious AI strategies?
Oxford: Negative SEO attacks were a more prominent problem before 2014. Back then, bad backlinks could penalize your site and allow your competitors to build spam links and harm your users.
However, in 2014, Google changed approach. Rather than penalizing bad links, the site devalues or ignores them. The same goes for click operations. Google can’t always tell whether a click is coming from the site owner or a competitor. It is important to neutralize the effects rather than punish them.
Bandholz: What are some strategies to increase click-throughs and dwell time?
Oxford: residence time Easy to control as it depends on the user experience. To improve it, focus on: Fast page loads And the usability. Basic conversion rate optimization techniques like A/B testing and usability testing can help you maintain visitor interest.
To increase brand trafficHowever, it’s more about good digital marketing than manipulation. If you have a strong branding and marketing campaign in place, your branded search traffic will increase naturally. We may run Facebook ads, sponsor events, or create content. Branded search is a sign of good digital marketing, not a direct goal.
Bandholz: Is there still a chance for bottom-of-funnel SEO strategies to capture sales from users searching for your products?
Oxford: absolutely. still have backlinks works amazingly well Even though many people think they are dead. Most of the top ranking sites still have backlinks. For e-commerce sites, getting backlinks to category pages can help with rankings. Google acknowledged this in an algorithm leak. Backlinks are still confirmed to be a ranking factor.
Getting backlinks is harder today than it was 10 years ago. Back then, you could send out mass emails to journalists and get backlinks quickly. But now bloggers understand its value. They are more likely to ask for money in exchange for backlinks. However, e-commerce sites can build backlinks through product reviews. You can contact bloggers, offer free products for honest reviews, and earn backlinks.
Bandholz: What else should entrepreneurs and operators consider when improving their SEO?
Oxford: In addition to engagement metrics and link building, optimized content is essential. Many e-commerce sites Miss the category page There is only a product grid and headings. Adding 200 to 300 words of relevant content that describes your product’s benefits, target audience, and usage tips can help these pages rank better. No need for fluffy content. Instead, focus on information that is useful to potential buyers.
Bandholz: How much should brands budget for optimal SEO?
Oxford: It depends on your niche. weight loss supplements CBDyou’re looking at tens of thousands of dollars a month. For less competitive niche markets, $2,000 to $3,000 may be sufficient. For e-commerce sites with 7-8 figures in annual revenue, a budget of $3,000 to $8,000 per month is common. Most of the budget goes to link building, content creation, Technical SEO.
Bandholz: What other trends are you seeing in the e-commerce SEO space?
Oxford: many merchants panicked Beyond artificial intelligenceI’m worried that it will take market share away from Google or have a negative impact on SEO. However, AI has been beneficial for e-commerce sites. Google recently cracked down on low-quality affiliate blogs trying to rank for the “best” keywords, wiping out about 90% of these sites. E-commerce sites now benefit from absorbing much of this traffic.
Google prioritizes brands over general affiliate sites. E-commerce brands with brick-and-mortar stores, verified reviews, and a trusted presence are favored in the rankings. So, if you have an e-commerce site, your blog will have more influence than ever before.
Bandholz: Where can people learn more?
Oxford: our website is 180marketing.com. I’m here linkedin.
