Balancing Act: How to prioritise KPIs in Ecommerce
Running an Ecommerce business can often feel like spinning plates. With so many valid KPIs and measurable outcomes, it’s hard to figure out the most important KPIs to prioritise – but by following these tips, you’ll come one step closer to finding the sweet spot.
Ecommerce businesses need to juggle multiple priorities to achieve growth and sustainability. However, it’s often hard to decide which KPIs are most important to prioritise. In this article, I’ll be looking into three crucial key performance indicators that often create a positive tension: namely, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO), and brand adherence. While each of these KPIs serves a distinct purpose, finding the right balance between them can lead to truly exceptional outcomes for ambitious Ecommerce teams.
SEO – A priority KPI for Ecommerce
SEO should be an important KPI in any Ecommerce strategy, even in our current Brave New World of AI search. Despite LLM advances, SEO still remains the cornerstone of online visibility: in the final months of 2024, 84% of online searches were made via Google. There’s life in the old dog yet!
Effective website SEO involves keyword optimisation, creating valuable content, and ensuring a technically sound website. The primary goal here is to attract more visitors by appearing at the top of relevant search queries. If you succeed in optimising your ecommerce site, your products should rank higher in search engine results, driving organic traffic and potential customers.
However, focusing solely on SEO can sometimes lead to compromises. Overloading pages with keywords can detract from the user experience, making the content less engaging and potentially reducing conversions. Therefore, while striving for top search rankings, it's essential to maintain a balance that does not sacrifice readability or usability… You’ll want to balance search engine optimisation with other important metrics for maximum conversion uplift.
Combine SEO with CRO for record uplift
The acronym CRO stands for Conversion Rate Optimisation. This important KPI is all about maximising the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action on your website, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. A high conversion rate indicates that your site is effective at turning visitors into customers. A low conversion rate would see a high percentage of customers abandoning their basket, or never even clicking past your homepage. To improve this KPI, you’ll have to refine your website by analysing your users’ journey.
The challenge arises when CRO strategies potentially conflict with SEO efforts. For example, a streamlined landing page optimised for conversions might not have enough content to rank well in search engines. Conversely, a content-rich page designed for SEO might be too cluttered, hindering the user’s ability to find what they’re looking for quickly.
To navigate this, ecommerce businesses should employ a nuanced approach, blending SEO-rich content with clear, compelling calls to action. By focusing on user intent, you can create pages that both rank well and convert effectively.
Don’t overlook the importance of brand adherence
Focusing too heavily on SEO and CRO can lead to a loss of the special something that makes your brand or products unique. With this in mind, brand adherence becomes one of the most important KPIs for ecommerce, ensuring that all aspects of the online shopping experience align with your brand’s identity and values. This includes your website’s visual design, tone of voice, and overall user experience. A strong brand presence builds trust and loyalty, encouraging repeat business and word-of-mouth referrals.
Of course, strict adherence to brand guidelines can sometimes limit flexibility in SEO and CRO. For instance, brand-focused content might prioritise storytelling and aesthetics over keyword optimisation or conversion-centric elements. Similarly, rigid design guidelines might hinder A/B testing, a crucial component of CRO.
The solution lies in integrating brand values with SEO and CRO strategies, creating high-quality content that reflects the brand’s voice while also incorporating relevant keywords naturally. Design elements should enhance usability and conversion without deviating from the brand’s visual identity.
How to prioritise Ecommerce KPIs effectively
The interplay between SEO, CRO, and brand adherence KPIs creates a positive tension that, when managed effectively, can significantly enhance an ecommerce business’s success. Here are a few strategies to find that sweet spot:
1. Holistic Planning
Develop a comprehensive strategy that considers SEO, CRO, and brand adherence from the outset. This integrated approach ensures that all efforts complement rather than conflict with each other rather than clashing. If you skip out on planning holistically, uncoordinated changes can backfire and damage one KPI or the other; in this example, a team removed keyword-rich copy to boost conversions, only to see their organic traffic plummet. It’s better practice to develop a unified plan: set shared goals (e.g. “grow organic traffic by X% and checkout conversions by Y%”), map out a content and UX roadmap, and track complementary KPIs together rather than individually.
2. User-Centric Focus
Prioritise the user experience. Understand your audience’s needs and behaviours, and create content and designs that meet their expectations while aligning with SEO and CRO goals. Tools like Semrush or Google Search Console should be your best friend here! Use them to find out the specific queries that lead people to your site, and make sure your products answer their questions. In other words, if customers tend to google the query “best running shoes,” make sure product pages actually answer that need.
3. Continuous Testing and Iteration
No plan is set-and-forget. Statistically, rigorous testing pays off: surveys show that 1 in every 7.5 tests yields a significant lift, but that those winners tend to have a major impact. With this in mind, it’s best practice to regularly test different elements of your site to find the optimal balance. In practice, that means running many small tests. For example, you might experiment with a “Buy Now” button colour or adding trust badges to see which nudges lift your conversion. When a test wins, roll it out site-wide; when it loses, learn and try something new. Use data-driven insights to make informed adjustments that enhance both conversion rates and search visibility without compromising brand integrity.
4. Collaboration Across Teams
Encourage collaboration between SEO specialists, conversion rate optimisers, and brand managers so that all efforts reinforce each other. This fosters a shared understanding and helps in creating a cohesive strategy that addresses all aspects effectively. For instance, share dashboards and KPIs company-wide: Harvard Business Review notes that organisations aligning teams around common KPIs see about 30% higher productivity!
While the best KPIs for Ecommerce will vary from business to business and use-case to use-case, ensuring a healthy harmony between your KPIs remains vital across the board. As a general rule of thumb, rather than thinking about the single most important KPI for your Ecommerce team, instead start thinking about how your chosen KPIs balance each other and work together to drive conversion.
In our example, by embracing the positive tension between SEO, CRO, and brand adherence, ecommerce businesses can create a robust online presence that drives traffic, engages users, and ultimately boosts conversions, all while staying true to their brand essence.
If you’re looking for support in these areas, Ocula’s AI Copywriter helps ecommerce brands and retailers like Boots and Coty prioritise SEO, CRO and brand adherence to take their PDPs to the top of the search results page. If you've like to find out more about how we could help you increase your conversion rate by 10%+, follow the link below to book a demo.
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