Here’s the Affordable Way to Drive Traffic
Long time SEO expert and Shopify Partner Rhian Beutler returns to the show with updates to tell us...
Plus an update on the global supply chain.
The Unofficial Shopify Podcast
5/31/2022
Kurt Elster: Oh, man. We have a value-packed episode of The Unofficial Shopify Podcast today. We are going to talk to an expert about SEO. We’re going to get a supply chain update. And we’re gonna talk about what do you do when your products run out of stock. You want to talk about a real conversion killer? Try not having anything to sell. That will definitely wreck up your conversion rate.
I’m your host, Kurt Elster.
Ezra Firestone Sound Board Clip: Tech Nasty!
Kurt Elster: And I am joined today by Rhian Beutler from Govalo, from Venntov, from Shopify Partners fame. Rhian, thank you for joining us.
Rhian Beutler: Thank you so much for having me, Tech Nasty. That was hilarious. I forgot that that was part of this. That’s too good.
Ezra Firestone Sound Board Clip: Tech Nasty!
Rhian Beutler: So ridiculous. I love it.
Kurt Elster: And it’s sampled from a whole freestyle rap he did. Let’s start with SEO. SEO is something I don’t think we’ve talked about on this show in a while. Certainly important. Why should I listen to you about SEO? You have quite the pedigree but tell me.
Rhian Beutler: Well, I’ve been researching and speaking about SEO for just about a decade now, so I have been through the animal algorithms. Now we’re into AI-driven algorithms. I know too much. I’m gonna say the word algorithm just one… not for the last time this episode, but for the last time in this sentence, and I have spoken all over the world with Shopify on this topic, and I’ve done a ton of master classes, and all sorts. So, I know a lot.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, certainly if you Google Rhian’s name, you will discover… You know what? I didn’t even put in your last name. I Googled Rhian SEO and immediately just a whole bunch of results and it was all about… It was you teaching SEO. So, certainly you are search engine optimized here. But with Facebook ads not performing as they used to, that’s quite a euphemistic way to say people panicked when they watched the ROAS get cut in half last summer… The thing we want is looking at other sources of traffic.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: And so, when we talk about SEO, I gotta get search engine optimized, we’re really saying, “How do I get found in search engines?”
Rhian Beutler: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: So, what’s the approach here?
Rhian Beutler: That’s a great question and to your point, this is a time right now, everyone’s like, “Oh my God. How are we solving for zero party-first party data?” You know a really great option? SEO. SEO is going to be the play here and will continue to be the play in the future because it’s future proofed as long as you don’t game the system.
So, that’s just… I’ll call that out. If you get an email that’s like, “Hey, for $500 you can have 5,000 backlinks.” Do not pass go. Do not pay $500. That is the best way to get delisted from Google I have ever heard of. I mean, that’s really the best way. There’s other ways to get delisted, but if that has happened to you and you’re sitting at home right now and you’re like, “Oh, that’s me.” What you need to do is to go to Moz.com.
Kurt Elster: M-O-Z. Moz.
Rhian Beutler: Yeah. Moz. M-O-Z dot com. And you can run a back link checker. I believe that part is free to see how many backlinks you have. And this is just a good exercise in general and if you notice a bunch of junky ones, you can then go and disavow those to Google. So, I’m just gonna flag that as a don’t take the easy path. This is a hard thing. This is a marathon, not a sprint. I’ve never done a marathon because in the original one, the guy died at the end. But you know, in this it is you can’t… There’s not an easy way to do this. And you just have to sit with that, and you just have to be okay with it, so I’m predicating everything I’m about to say with that.
Kurt Elster: So, we have to accept number one, there’s no shortcuts here.
Rhian Beutler: Correct.
Kurt Elster: And the shortcuts, when Google inevitably figures it out, results in penalty.
Rhian Beutler: Huge penalties. And it’s like the type of penalty where you’re like you don’t show up in search engines anymore penalty.
Kurt Elster: We had a period of time where we had our search engine ranking dropped and it turned out that someone had engaged in a negative SEO campaign against us in which I had thousands of backlinks all pointed to our agency site that in the anchor text said we were your premier source for erectile dysfunction drugs.
Rhian Beutler: That’s not funny but it is.
Kurt Elster: No, it was kind of funny.
Rhian Beutler: It’s funny now. That’s one of those at the time, you are heated, and now you’re like, “That was hilarious.” So, I think the number one thing to know when it comes to search right now is focus on your content and the amount of people who just do not care about their content is high. So, you have to ensure that there is copy, you’ve got anchor text on your website or your store, rather. You have good product descriptions that make sense, that are relevant, and yes, they are keyword driven, right? The algorithm has to capture onto something, but I have found if you were writing truly good content, especially blog content, the keywords just kind of put themselves in. Because you’re talking. You’re not like, “Hey, look at this black t-shirt. This black t-shirt is organic. You can wear this black t-shirt in Los Angeles.” Don’t do that. Don’t do that.
Kurt Elster: Black t-shirt, shirt for men.
Rhian Beutler: Yeah, like that stuff, no. Stop. It’s okay, it is a black t-shirt. Talk about that bit for like a second. Talk about how you’re gonna style it. Talk about… There’s a million things to talk about. Talk about if it’s sustainable. There’s a lot you can put on a product description page that sells and that’s the thing that people get lost in when they’re trying to stuff keywords in there. It’s like the ultimate part, like the ultimate goal of a product description page is to sell the product. Sell the product.
If you are talking about your product, the keywords come out.
Kurt Elster: And it’s your product and you’re proud of it. This should be easier than one would think. I think oftentimes the resistance to creating this kind of content, to copywriting, is it’s homework. Oh my gosh, I have to sit down and write 500 words? But if you sit down and it’s your thing, and you understand it, and you’re excited about it, and you can sell it in your own words, oftentimes by like… I find dictation can work well to create your first draft. Speak about it naturally.
It's funny, like someone will say, “Oh, I can’t describe it in email. I have to talk to you on the phone and tell you about it.” The only difference there is that you’re typing versus talking.
Rhian Beutler: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: As soon as you talk about it, suddenly life gets much easier. So, I think dictation is an easy hack there. I think 100%, you’re right. Huge missed opportunity in most stores is they have these really anemic product descriptions. They’re short. It’s just like a few bullet points. It’s like 100% cotton, fits. Oh, thank you.
Rhian Beutler: Yeah. Exactly. Sell me.
Kurt Elster: Why? Why should I buy it?
Rhian Beutler: Exactly. I’m here. Sell me. I think this is just a giant disconnect in general is look, we’re still retail led societally, right? Like yes, you and I, we’re in eCom. We’ve been here for a really long time because we’re old and-
Kurt Elster: I’ll be 29 forever.
Rhian Beutler: Oh yeah. Sorry. Kurt’s 29.
Kurt Elster: Yes. As I admire my gray hair. I wish you hadn’t laughed so hard at that.
Rhian Beutler: At the 29 though, because that would mean I met you when you were 19 or so.
Kurt Elster: That makes sense.
Rhian Beutler: Yeah. Yeah, totally. That’s what happened. I remember. I too was 19. But we’re still not in an eCommerce-led world. We don’t have 50% market penetration yet. We will get there, don’t get me wrong, but people still come to your store with a IRL expectation of how things would work. And so, that includes… I’m like going off on a tangent. You’re like, “Here’s a soapbox.” I’m like, “Let me stand on it.”
Kurt Elster: Continue.
Rhian Beutler: This includes when you time your popups, right? Imagine going into Nordstrom and you’re blocked at the perfume zone because someone’s like, “You gotta give me your email.” What? No. You’d be like, “Can you leave?” You’d be trying to find an exit and guess where the exit is? Out the way you came in. So, there’s like a time for that, and then that’s the same when it comes to shopping. It’s like, and I can talk forever about gifts, so I’ve got all these theories about this as well, but there’s like no one ever asked, “Are you shopping for yourself or for somebody else?”
Kurt Elster: Oh. Okay.
Rhian Beutler: Why?
Kurt Elster: We want to know intent.
Rhian Beutler: What is your intent? If I was to go right now, like I’ll use Nordstrom. They will say, “What brings you in today?”
Kurt Elster: I love that line.
Rhian Beutler: Why don’t we do that? And then why don’t we optimize our entire store for that exact question? Because what brings you in today? Oh, I’m looking for apparel. I’m looking for… And no one says apparel, right? I’m looking for a black tee. I’m looking for an outfit because I’m a nightmare to go shopping with. I’d be like, “Okay. Well, what kind of outfit?” And you’re like, “Probably something that’s not too expensive.” So, then at this point they’re filtering you and like how we have filters, or they’re tagging you in their head.
And then, when they go over to pick up the black t-shirt they’re gonna try to sell you for like $120, they’re like, “Let me tell you why this is the black t-shirt.” And then they sell it to you. Sell me the black t-shirt on your product description page.
Kurt Elster: I want to be sold to. I think that part of pricing psychology is no one wants to part with the money, but also they want the stuff, so you need to help me have an excuse to part, to trade the cash for the goods.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: I don’t think that’s unreasonable. We all know what’s going on here. If you’re not gonna put in the effort to sell it, I’m not gonna put in the effort to pay you for it.
Rhian Beutler: Exactly. Exactly. And if we focus on that, because SEO is really holistic. Anyone who’s heard me speak before has probably heard me refer to it as a multidimensional Rubik’s cube. It’s like the big Rubik’s cubes that I definitely can’t-
Kurt Elster: You’re playing 4D chess?
Rhian Beutler: Yeah. You’re playing 4D chess. This is not just a one and done moment, right? You’ve got your meta descriptions, your title tags, your alt tags. You’ve got all that stuff. You got your kind of technical, not really technical, on-page SEO stuff. Then you’ve got your content. Then you’ve got your technical stuff. And then, of course, you have to worry about driving traffic maybe not 100% organically.
And in order to do that you have to have text that Google can latch onto as being relevant. So, Google uses natural language processing. They’re rolling this out. They have a bunch of new… I’m gonna say there’s something called BERT, and MUM, and they’re all like neuro matching AI-
Kurt Elster: You’re just making stuff up now.
Rhian Beutler: … type things. But the thing that I got, I’ve been most interested in, and it’s only rolled out to I believe 7% of the web so far, but Google will do this. They’ll be like, “Yeah, it’s just 7%.” No, it is not. That is a lie. It’s much deeper than that. And so, natural language processing is something they’re really leaning into, and what this means for you is blog-driven content, good PDPs will be crawled and read and served in search engines. High.
Kurt Elster: So, they’re saying we have built a system to identify quality writing?
Rhian Beutler: Yes. About relevant topics.
Kurt Elster: Relevant quality writing.
Rhian Beutler: Yes. So, they match ideas to concepts. So, for instance, if you were to type in how do I make my video into a .GIF versus… I don’t know, something else that says the same thing, it’ll still direct you to that same place because it understands the intent of your question. So-
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Ultimately, that is Google’s sole goal is provide the best answer to someone’s question.
Rhian Beutler: Yes. That’s their job.
Kurt Elster: And so, we want to give it as many tools as possible to do that and then it’s going to figure out what is the best and reward you accordingly. And so, if you don’t put in the effort to create the quality content and put it in a site, and I think at this point if you have like a modern Shopify theme and Shopify store, Google is sophisticated enough to understand Shopify. Shopify is smart enough to send the right signals to Google. I think out of the box technical wise, you start in a decent position. But without that content, so a 200-word product detail description, or longer articles, blog posts that are like buyers guides, essentially, or related educational content, you’re really doing yourself a disservice here.
Rhian Beutler: Absolutely. Another just call out I’m gonna make is there is a pretty big app right now, not in the app store, just in general, web app, that you use GPT3 technology, which is AI, to write copy. It is not better than Google.
Kurt Elster: It produces like a bunch… When I’ve played with that, the results are impressive superficially at first glance, like it makes a coherent sentence, but as soon as you read a few of them it’s very obvious that what it did was a Google search for the topic and then pieced stuff together and was grammatically good at it.
Rhian Beutler: Yes. I was asked in my last master class in LA if… I’ll just say that the app, it’s doing fantastic. Congratulations to the builder of the app. It’s copy.ai. And I was asked point blank, like, “Well, can I use it?” Because there’s a tool in it for… So, you know, of course then I go in and I’m like, “Let me see it. Write for me, AI.” It’s not very good, to your point, and the other thing is that they were… So, people are using this for meta descriptions and title tags and product descriptions. I can tell when someone has used it. If I can tell and I am not a genius robot, Google can definitely tell. And this might work in the short term, but it will not… That’s why Google is rolling out the natural language processor, because it’s smart. It’s smarter than GPT3.
Kurt Elster: So, the NLP, natural language processing, you really think this is an answer to where they want to get ahead of and weed out AI-written content.
Rhian Beutler: Yes. 100 million percent. The roll out, like GPT3, what, came out in summer 2020?
Kurt Elster: I think so.
Rhian Beutler: And natural language processing got rolled by Google I believe at the end of last year. Don’t quote me on that exactly. It feels like a response. A very well-done response. And Google always does this, right? They test a segment and then they just start rolling it and it’ll roll wide. But the good thing for… I also would posit that this is the ultimate equalizer now, is this… You can’t game this. And this takes hard work, but this is how you’re going to be able to go and play in the big playground with the big brands, because they’re going to have to do this too. It also means you can outrank people, especially as this rolls out, so there is also a benefit, right? The longer you have been writing content… You don’t necessarily get better at it, but the more Google trusts you, right? They use EAT. Expertise, authoritativeness… I can never say that word. And trustworthiness. That is from them. I did not make that up. That is from them.
And whenever Google says to do something, let me tell you, you should listen. Because they only tell you like five things a year out of 300, 400, 5,000 changes that they make. They only tell you a little bit. Grasp onto it.
So, yeah. That’s where we’re at there. I obviously get very excited about this topic, but yeah, stay away from GPT3 tools and tooling. It is not smarter than Google. It is a short-term solution to a long-term problem. But start writing copy now knowing where Google is moving because the longer you have been around makes you more trustworthy.
Kurt Elster: Certainly, I have watched with my own eyes this approach absolutely work for my wife’s website that exclusively generates traffic through organic search, and it is because she just writes topical, practical articles, interlinks them through her site so that you have internal linking, and then lo’ and behold, the stuff pops up in Google. And because that’s been happening, now she’s getting links just naturally from other news sources using it as a reference. More backlinks, more traffic, now years into this, 20,000 visits a month generated organically. Not paying for it. And that’s high intent, qualified traffic, too.
Rhian Beutler: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: That system works.
Rhian Beutler: It does work.
Kurt Elster: And as far as keyword research goes, I think that’s where people get tripped up is they try and make it too technical.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: For her, the keyword research has been, “Hey, what’s topical? What are people asking me?” Listen to your audience. And when you do Google a topic, Google gives you, “Hey, here’s related searches. Here’s popular suggestions.” They are handing you what they’re trying to get answered. And so, those are her writing prompts.
Rhian Beutler: I think that’s brilliant.
Kurt Elster: It’s absolutely worked.
Rhian Beutler: It absolutely works. I always tell people if you’re trying to figure out what keywords to target, ask Google the question that you want answered. So, what is the question you want answered? So, it’s like for I’m gonna go to Walt Disney World soon, and it’s like I’ve never been there before, right? And Julie’s stuff, Ms. Elster’s stuff is ranking, which is cool. I’m like, “Hey, I know this person.” But you know, I’m like, “What do I do to do X at Disney World?” Because I don’t know. But think about that. Let’s use the black t-shirt. Go back to it, right?
What is the softest black t-shirt I can get? Or I probably wouldn’t even say black t-shirt. What is the softest t-shirt I can buy? I want a soft t-shirt. And then Google will give you the answers. Then, those are your competitors. Look at what they’ve done. They probably are doing a good job.
Kurt Elster: It sounds to me like I think people want to, in the search for an easy answer, want to overthink it.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: Just trying to find that easy way out. And the reality is the strategy just is not that difficult and there’s just some sweat equity here on you have to be able to write this stuff. But even that, you could jabber all day on the phone. Jabber to your phone using dictation.
Rhian Beutler: Exactly. I like Otter.ai a lot. It’s not flawless, but it works. I take notes into it when I’m just processing something out loud. And I find it really helpful. And the other thing, too, that I want to point out, is I have a theory that can’t be proven that there is a keyword count that goes into Google’s output. So, on your SERP, which is search engine result page. However, it’s not one to one. So, you don’t necessarily need to worry about putting your keyword in your title, and your description, and your alt text, and your product text. This is too much. Too much, too much, too much, too much.
You should view your title tag as a headline and your meta description as the way to sell your headline. You are selling the click.
Kurt Elster: I have heard that the meta description does not have an impact on the search ranking, but it does have it on clickthrough rate because humans read that.
Rhian Beutler: So, for a very long time I have thought that it has not, besides the clickthrough rate thing, been picked up by Google. However, recently I’m starting to think that it’s at least being crawled, so how many points, right? So, Google uses over 200 ranking signals. It might be a really small ranking signal. I am under the impression that they’re using it again, but I don’t know how weighty it is. Like really, the stuff on your PDP is the most important part.
Kurt Elster: Now, either way, it still needs to be human readable.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: And if it gets too long they truncate it.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: And sometimes they just truncate it on their own for funsies.
Rhian Beutler: Oh yeah, and sometimes they’ll make it up.
Kurt Elster: They’re like, “Here, this just looks better.”
Rhian Beutler: If you don’t give them something, they’ll just put something in.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. So, give me the crash course on optimizing my meta description. You said the title tag is a headline.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: The meta description sells the headline. It serves that headline.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: All right, give me your thoughts on that.
Rhian Beutler: So, I also have another theory here, and it’s that meta descriptions are continually… I’m seeing over, and over, and over truncation at 130 characters, which is not the published amount. So, I have been advising people to use the 130 character mark as… Just sell the product. Just make me want to click it. Don’t overthink this. I probably don’t care that it’s 100% cotton. Not there. That’s what… You get into that part. This is go in with the express intent of selling the click, and the product, but cap it at 130 characters because it probably will get truncated.
Kurt Elster: So, it should be like, “The best black t-shirt you have ever seen. Shop now!”
Rhian Beutler: Yeah, or like if you thought… I don’t know. I’m just making something up. Like if you thought silk was amazing, wait until you try this out.
Kurt Elster: Oh, that one’s really good.
Rhian Beutler: You gotta hook them. This is like this is really marketing. Creative marketing copy is really what a meta description is.
Kurt Elster: I thought I’d never find a shirt that wouldn’t chafe and then I found Rhian’s Tees dot com.
Rhian Beutler: Exactly. It’s like you can use-
Kurt Elster: Stick a testimonial in there?
Rhian Beutler: Yeah. You could do all kinds of cool stuff and people just don’t do it. And I’m like why? That’s just me in general, though. Why is this happening? The other thing I just want to call out too, and I have seen… I’ve taught so many classes. Y’all. Submit your site map. First, make a Google Search Console account. Submit your site map. And then look at your core web vitals. Just do it. Please.
Also-
Kurt Elster: What are my core web vitals?
Rhian Beutler: Your core web vitals are a lot of technical words I’ll jam together which basically talk about load time, and speed, and everything, but it’s contextual. So, it’ll tell you. The best part about Google Search Console, it will tell you if you’re making a mistake. People are like, “How do I figure this out?” I’m like, “Google will tell you if you use their tools.” It will literally be like, “This is out of rank.”
Kurt Elster: So, step one. All right, so I make my Google Search account and then I submit my site map. My site map is a machine-readable listing of here’s all the pages on my Shopify store.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: Shopify does a really good job on its own of making a site map.
Rhian Beutler: Fantastic.
Kurt Elster: You could find anyone’s site map. It’s just you had sitemap.xml to the end of their domain name. What the heck is the… Oh, the Shopify supply.
Rhian Beutler: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: What’s the URL for that one?
Rhian Beutler: Oh, is it Shopify.supply?
Kurt Elster: Shopify.supply. All right, so I’m gonna go to Shopify.supply.
Rhian Beutler: I don’t know if that’s true. Is that true?
Kurt Elster: It is.
Rhian Beutler: Oh, okay.
Kurt Elster: And if I just stick sitemap.xml on the end of it, boom. It spits out here’s a listing of all the products. Yeah, it totally works.
Rhian Beutler: And it’s dynamic, so you only have to submit your site map once. So, in the olden days of the internet, this was not a thing.
Kurt Elster: The olden days. Back in my day, in 1997-
Rhian Beutler: Back in my day, it was not auto. It was not dynamically changed. Now it is. Also, please, I know Google Analytics is having a moment, it’s changing to the new one. I get it. I too don’t like the new one. But you know what? Google’s providing us these free tools so we should use them. Make sure you link your Analytics account to your Google Search Console account. They link. If you did not know that, everybody, now you do. There is a way to link them. Please link them. Use the free tools Google gives you.
Kurt Elster: Search Console, Google Analytics. Google Optimize, another wonderful free tool.
Rhian Beutler: Google Optimize. Yes, absolutely.
Kurt Elster: So, we’ve got the quick crash course on SEO from you, and it sounds like the answer-
Rhian Beutler: You got a rant.
Kurt Elster: Don’t cheat at it. Use the free tools given to you by Google and follow their guidance. The Shopify platform, themes, et cetera out of the box are probably pretty good technical wise, but it’s still up to you to provide legitimate content to it and that really is… We’re looking for that natural language and sell me. Whether that’s educational or conversion-focused copywriting.
Rhian Beutler: Yes. Ooh, another thing to just call out is make sure you have JSON-LD in your theme somewhere. There’s apps that do it. SEO Manager does it. There’s other apps that do it. Make sure it’s done. Make sure it’s there.
Kurt Elster: And this is a system that describes the content of a page to Google in a way where the machine cannot get confused.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: And like there’s test tools for it, but it’s cool. It’ll be like, “This is a product. This is the brand. This is the price. The availability.” It has everything in there. It’s very nice.
Rhian Beutler: It does. And that’s really how you get to a really good place. If you look up MVMT, the amount of knowledge graphs associated with that brand is bonkers. And that’s because they’ve been around for a long time, and they’ve done a good job. And they got acquired by Movado.
Kurt Elster: Oh, really?
Rhian Beutler: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Years ago.
Kurt Elster: Good for them.
Rhian Beutler: I know, right? I was like, “Hell yeah, boys.”
Kurt Elster: I will link to MVMT. M-V-M-T dot com in the show notes.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: So, the last time you were on this show we talked about supply chain, and that was in Q4, in which we were basically running around with our hair on fire as there were over 100 ships at the Port of Long Beach outside LA. Was not a pretty situation. How are things now?
Rhian Beutler: It’s better on the States side, the U.S. side. The global supply chain is not in a great place. China’s still pursuing near COVID-zero policies. Shanghai is basically shut down. They just shut down another city I think yesterday or the day before. There’s a ton of boats outside of Shanghai right now, outside like in ready, but they can’t do anything, right? They can’t go into the city, and they can’t take anything in the city, and all of the factories are shut down.
So, part of me is like, “Okay, it’s really good that we don’t have as many people or as many boats coming into…” Or it doesn’t appear on the outside looking in that there’s a huge wait. But is that because all this stuff hasn’t come yet? I’m not actually sure where the problem is here. And I think it’s that, right? And that’s the whole part of a supply chain is that it’s a chain, so we still have weak links, and we’re going to see… And then, of course, Russia controls the Black Sea, so that’s just shutting down that entire port area. And they are now holding Mariupol as of fairly recently.
So, if you look at it geographically, the States is in a pretty good place. Europe is not in a good place, and it will get pretty gnarly again. I don’t see supply chain right siding for years, if ever.
Kurt Elster: It is a unique economy we’re living through where it is supply strain constrained in a way we’ve not seen. I don’t know that we’ve ever seen anything quite like this before.
Rhian Beutler: We have never seen anything like this before. Look, going into holiday last year we had already seen demand up in a way we have never seen demand up before. So, that inherently puts a strain on supply chain. And it hasn’t gotten much better. Even though consumer spending is down, it’s not down that far. People are just being a little bit more price conscious, a little bit more conscious. They’re still buying. People love to buy things because it makes them feel good. That’s why people shop.
Kurt Elster: It does. It trips that trigger in our brain. Retail therapy.
Rhian Beutler: Yeah. And I don’t know why more people don’t think about… So, in the short term, is supply chain better than it was at holiday? Kind of. It’s just broken in a different way. That’s my theory. I hope I’m wrong. I don’t think I am.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. I mean, there’s… The wait outside the port here has dropped by about a third from where it peaked.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: Or by two thirds. I’m sorry. It’s a third of what it was.
Rhian Beutler: Right.
Kurt Elster: But we still have larger issues, global issues. It’s also because we’ve not seen anything quite like it before, it makes it a really… If you’re an economist, it makes it a tough thing to predict where you’re really working in theory versus things… historical evidence.
Rhian Beutler: Yes. There’s no historical precedent for any of this. And we’re also going to see probably some food supply challenges because a lot of grains we’re produced in Ukraine, and they’ve all been bombed to the ground.
Kurt Elster: That’s the thing that spooks me most.
Rhian Beutler: It should. This is how you know in grad school I studied… Actually, one of my big papers in grad school was about Russia’s invasion and wars in Chechnya. And watching how they’re approaching Ukraine, it’s awfully reminiscent of the Chechnyan invasion. So, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to be a doomsday, because I can get really doom and gloom about this and people are like, “Rhian, you are telling us nothing good.” I always say, “It’s a war. There is nothing good.”
Kurt Elster: Now, I will say… All right, what we can look at is business performance historically during bear markets or recessions, and we know the businesses that spend through it, the ones that can keep showing up recover the fastest. So, if you say, “Whoa, I’m gonna put things on hold till things get better,” it really just sets you behind. Versus if you can make hay while the sun shines and just keep showing up, life ends up being easier for you overall.
Rhian Beutler: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: That’s really simplifying things but that’s… You know, my strategy has never had to be particularly more than that at its most basic.
Rhian Beutler: Yeah. That’s totally fair. That’s totally fair. So, yeah. That’s my overall theory with supply chain. To be determined. Let’s try to get through Q2 and see what happens.
Kurt Elster: The direct impact of a supply chain shortage if I’m an eCommerce seller is where’s my stuff. How am I going to sell inventory, right?
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: We have one client who’s got their premier hero product, they can’t keep it in stock. And so, that doesn’t… Immediately, that really caps your revenue when you just can’t ship the thing that is normally your best seller. So, in those situations, what do you do when you’ve sold out or you are consistently selling out of product?
Rhian Beutler: So, I recommend, so Govalo has this feature that it’s when something’s out of stock, send a gift card instead. And then, and we’ve done this with some of our merchants, what the merchant then does, we have a Klaviyo integration, they segment that specific group out to serve that specific group the new drop first.
Kurt Elster: All right, on the product page my black t-shirt, we both really need this black t-shirt.
Rhian Beutler: We really do.
Kurt Elster: It’s out of stock. And automatically… This is your app, Govalo, that I’ve also invested in. Let’s be clear.
Rhian Beutler: Yeah. Yep.
Kurt Elster: There’s my disclosure. The product form when it’s out of stock, instead of just saying like, “Sold out. See ya. Get lost.” It says, “Send a gift card,” instead?
Rhian Beutler: Yes. Or send as a gift card. You can frame it however you want because there’s total language control in the app, so you can… Whatever your brand voice is that will convey the… Or you could even say, like you could say, “But you can buy it ahead of time,” almost, with this gift card. If you segment properly.
Kurt Elster: Okay. And if I do this, so it offers to let me purchase, prepay with a gift card, or send a gift card as a way of sending this as a gift to someone.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: With the Klaviyo integration this creates a segment of people who have done that. What do I do next?
Rhian Beutler: Well, then when you get the product back, what I would recommend doing is emailing that very keen group of people and saying, “Hey, remember that gift card? You want to buy it. Also, here’s some things that we’re gonna upsell to you,” because most people spend on average with Govalo $75 more in their AOV. So, I would probably upsell at that moment because people… Oftentimes you forget about your gift card or about a gift. You’re like, “What? Oh yeah. Shit, I did that.” So, remind them and then they’re like, “Oh yeah. Free money.” Even though they spent it already. Or it’s a gift, so they didn’t spend it. And then they come back, and they spend more money.
Kurt Elster: I remember reading in the Wall Street Journal years ago that that’s why retailers like Best Buy loved gift cards, because they knew nearly every gift card gets redeemed for more than the face value of the gift card.
Rhian Beutler: Yes. I get asked all the time, because technically a gift card is a liability until it’s not, and people are like, “Well, why don’t people just want it to stay on the books for cash.” I’m like, “Because wouldn’t you want the extra $75?” Or $100, depending on your price point. So, then you sell double?
Kurt Elster: Yeah. I think the trick here is to think in terms of customer lifetime value.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: And what you’re saying is if I can sell gift cards, I am increasing customer lifetime value because they’re gonna spend more.
Rhian Beutler: Absolutely.
Kurt Elster: And it gives them… All right, so I show up. The product’s out of stock. If with a gift card I’m prepaying for it, so now I’ve guaranteed I’m gonna get that item later. You’ve guaranteed the sale and you have the cash as the merchant.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: And then when the item does come back in stock, now the person is going to redeem it and then ideally plus some other accessory or item that goes with it as a cross sell.
Rhian Beutler: Absolutely.
Kurt Elster: Okay. I like this strategy much better than, “This is sold out. Go away.”
Rhian Beutler: Well, that’s just so ridiculous. Because then it’s a dead end. It just kills your conversion. Like why bother?
Kurt Elster: Yeah. You’ve guaranteed no sale with the sold out product.
Rhian Beutler: Exactly. And it’s also, you know, can you make other recommendations there? Yeah, absolutely. And this is also an SEO challenge. If Google finds a dead end on your site, they’re like, “Why?” Why is it broken?
Kurt Elster: They don’t like that?
Rhian Beutler: They think it’s broken. Make it not broke.
Kurt Elster: So, what do I do if it’s an item that I know is never… I’m never gonna restock this item for whatever reason. Do I leave it? Do I take it down? Or do I link to, “Hey, we’re never gonna sell this again. That’s okay, here’s a different similar product.”
Rhian Beutler: I would link it to a collection that sells very similar products. Or you could even graveyard stuff.
Kurt Elster: Should I do a redirect?
Rhian Beutler: You should definitely do a redirect.
Kurt Elster: Okay. I like this plan.
Rhian Beutler: Yes.
Kurt Elster: So, never coming back in stock. Unpublish it, then redirect that URL to a parent collection with similar things. Oh, that’s my running out of time clock’s on that’s going off there. Let me clear that.
So, all right. We’re coming to the end of our time together here. Give me a takeaway. What do you wish every Shopify store owner would do to help themselves?
Rhian Beutler: I want them to do two things. One, focus on your SEO now before Chrome’s cookies go away forever, before we’re truly in zero party data. Right now, we’re not quite there. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Second is I wish more people would look at the opportunities around gift cards and gifting in terms of how they sell and how they position their products. If you’re in a highly giftable category, optimize for that for search, but then also make sure that your product is easily giftable. You have to.
Kurt Elster: Focus on my SEO now because it’s gonna pay dividends later and help people buy your product more often by making it easily giftable. And then I think a thing that achieves both of those goals is sell your stuff, man. Write product descriptions and copy that help sell your stuff.
Rhian Beutler: Sell your stuff.
Kurt Elster: Rhian, where can we go to learn more about you?
Rhian Beutler: You can go to my website, rhianbeutler.com. I’m on Twitter sometimes, @rhiankatie. I’m on LinkedIn, which I hate. And I’m generally all over. I’m pretty easy to find, to be honest.
Kurt Elster: It’s true. I mean, you don’t even have to Google her last name. Her last name’s SEO now. Just Google Rhian SEO. I will link to everything you’ve mentioned in the show notes. Rhian, thank you so much.
Rhian Beutler: Thank you.