Effective Marketplace SEO Is More Like Product Growth

Under, I’ve acquired an replace on my market search engine optimisation problem – and this version is extra strong, making an allowance for learnings from the UX examine of AIOs in addition to the newest shifts within the search panorama.

(Shifts that, I’d argue, have a disproportionate impression on on-line marketplaces.)

I’ll cowl:

• What market search engine optimisation is and why it’s completely different.
• The highest 3 issues market search engine optimisation practitioners want to bear in mind about AI + LLMs.
• How you can do market search engine optimisation from a product development strategy.
• An unimaginable real-world instance from Tripadvisor (they’re killing it over there).

Plus, premium subscribers will get my five-phase framework to make sure you’re approaching market search engine optimisation from an total product development perspective … and my high concerns for marketplaces to remain forward of opponents and LLMs. (That’s all on the finish of this problem. You possibly can subscribe to get full entry right here.)

Additionally, a fast due to Amanda Johnson, who partnered with me to deliver this market search engine optimisation problem into 2025.

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For my part, there are two main kinds of search engine optimisation: product-led and marketing-led.

Market search engine optimisation (as I name it) is a product-led search engine optimisation operate of your group. With out it, firms like Tripadvisor, Zillow, Meta, or Glassdoor wouldn’t be the place they’re as we speak.

The important thing classes about marketplaces from my time at G2 and my work with Nextdoor, Bounce, and others: Good search engine optimisation is the results of product development, not simply web site optimization.

It’s a distinct method to consider and execute search engine optimisation as a result of marketplaces have huge scale benefits over different kinds of companies.

However AI threatens this moat.

And that is mission crucial: 80% of recent customers coming from search engine optimisation will not be unusual for marketplaces. Sure, even within the present search engine optimisation panorama.

In truth, I referred to as this out in March 2025 in CheggMate – that info websites, particularly marketplaces, are being disproportionately affected in search by AIOs and LLMs.

Why understanding market search engine optimisation issues: Most websites on the net usually are not marketplaces. The strategy to market search engine optimisation may be very completely different from non-marketplace websites. Making use of the mistaken strategy severely limits the impression on firm development.

When you’re working a market web site (which I additionally generally name an search engine optimisation aggregator), your aim is to turn into a trusted supply that retrieval layers (RAG), AI Overviews, and chatbots pull from instantly.

This requires opening your web site to AI crawlers, baking in wealthy schema, exposing structured APIs or information feeds for RAG pipelines, and frequently fueling contemporary, authoritative UGC.

In the meantime, AI instruments are churning out optimized titles, descriptions, and wealthy snippets throughout thousands and thousands of pages quicker than any human crew may.

Basically, market search engine optimisation has advanced into a real product-growth partnership, the place UX, neighborhood incentives, and AI visibility all work collectively to maintain up visibility with our audiences.

Let’s speak about how to try this.

However first, we now have to get on the identical web page about what market search engine optimisation entails (as a result of you know the way our business likes to throw round new buzzphrases day by day).

What Is Market search engine optimisation?

Market search engine optimisation is the apply of optimizing a web site based mostly on its stock (provide) in order that potential consumers (demand) land instantly in your market after they’re about to decide, like a software program buy, reserving a flight, scheduling a medical appointment, and many others.

Marketplaces typically depend on user-generated critiques and commentary (plus the precise technical alerts) to construct belief and relevance.

Consider market search engine optimisation because the artwork – and science – of creating two-sided platforms (like G2, Tripadvisor, ZocDoc, or Nextdoor) unimaginable to overlook.

Their distinctive benefit comes from having numerous pages on their web site throughout a couple of completely different templates, which ends up in multiplier results for inner linking, testing, and target market dimension.

Marketplaces orchestrate hundreds (even thousands and thousands) of user-generated listings, critiques, and vendor storefronts in order that search engines like google and yahoo level again to the service you present: connecting shoppers to options they want.

In brief, market search engine optimisation is about optimizing the complete ecosystem – past the homepage or weblog – to turbocharge discoverability for each vendor, each itemizing, each time.

Is Market search engine optimisation Product-Led search engine optimisation?

They positively share DNA, however market search engine optimisation stands by itself.

Like product-led search engine optimisation, we embed optimization into the product expertise itself, utilizing consumer actions (critiques, scores, uploads) as our content material engine.

However on a market web site, we additionally juggle multi-vendor dynamics, stock churn, and community results {that a} standalone SaaS app doesn’t face.

At G2, for instance, we noticed actual search engine optimisation features from optimizing the overview submission course of (by encouraging longer critiques to create extra content material), which wouldn’t essentially fall into product-led search engine optimisation.

So sure, it’s product-led in spirit as a result of we develop by means of the product and enhancements to {the marketplace}, however it calls for marketplace-specific performs to maintain the flywheel spinning.

With market search engine optimisation, you’re taking part in in the identical sandbox as product-led search engine optimisation, however maybe with a couple of additional toys.

Market search engine optimisation Is Inherently Completely different Than Different search engine optimisation Packages – And It Deserves A Deeper Understanding Of The Impression Of AI

If the overwhelming majority of recent customers heading to marketplaces are coming from natural search, understanding the variations between common previous search engine optimisation and market search engine optimisation is totally essential.

• Marketplaces have a low per-user income: Low ARPU, or Common Income Per Consumer, typically makes promoting or outbound gross sales too costly for purchaser/vendor marketplaces.
• Scaling visibility appears completely different for marketplaces by business: Retail marketplaces can scale on promoting however lean on search engine optimisation to diversify development channels and make advertising spend sustainable.
• The vast majority of marketplaces are UGC-based: Within the period of AI-generated consensus content material, UGC-based marketplaces have an edge, particularly ones with excessive belief alerts that cull out faux consumer content material and critiques.

Along with these core variations, marketplaces are aggregators. (You possibly can learn extra about my ideas on search engine optimisation integrators vs. aggregators right here.)

What does that imply precisely?

• Aggregators “acquire and group” the provision facet of a market and supply it to the demand facet by means of a streamlined consumer expertise.
• They’re typically both retail marketplaces or join consumers with sellers in a market:
  • G2 connects software program consumers with sellers.
  • Uber Eats connects hungry individuals with eating places (and drivers).
  • Amazon connects consumers with third-party retailers.
  • Instacart connects consumers with supermarkets.
• What units market aggregators other than integrators is content material era: New content material is generated both by customers or merchandise, however not by the corporate itself.
• Aggregators and integrators scale search engine optimisation otherwise: Aggregator search engine optimisation is nearer to product-led development (PLG), whereas Integrator search engine optimisation is nearer to advertising.

I present examples of various aggregator varieties right here: search engine optimisation Technique Archetypes.

When eager about market search engine optimisation, most entrepreneurs leap straight into fixing technical search engine optimisation issues, like title/content material/inner hyperlink optimization.

Whereas doing these issues will not be mistaken (I imply, they’ve acquired to be performed), focusing solely on these practices will restrict the size of search engine optimisation impression you possibly can have.

Marketplaces And LLMs: Right here’s What Market search engine optimisation Practitioners Want To Maintain In Thoughts About AI

To earn that candy, candy natural visibility, you have to take into consideration architecting your market like an AI-friendly product. This isn’t one thing you possibly can skip.

To compete in an AI-first world, your platform have to be:

1. Quick: Purpose for sub-200 ms load occasions (prompt by Google¹) for each pages and APIs so AI crawlers (like GPTBot or Bingbot) don’t drop you and actual customers stick round.
2. Structured: Ensure that to make use of complete schema markup for Merchandise, Evaluations, FAQs, and Organizations. Use clear heading hierarchies and semantic HTML so retrieval-augmented era (RAG) layers can pull exact Q&A snippets and information factors. Fast callout right here: There are differing opinions on whether or not schema markup and correct hierarchies impression LLM visibility or not. Google advises it of their AI “Options” steerage², however it’s controversial whether or not or not it’s useful for different reply engines. My take? In case your opponents are utilizing it robustly, they usually have higher LLM or Google visibility than you do, you seemingly want to make use of it, too.
3. Intent-rich: Body every itemizing web page as a mini conversational reply – implement bullet-list specs, FAQ accordions, and “compare-to” tables so LLMs discover precisely what they want in a single question. (I’ve acquired a fantastic Tripadvisor instance of this under.)

For marketplaces, search engine optimisation is product design.

While you deal with search as a core function – designing sides, filters, and dynamic touchdown pages round consumer intent – you’re not simply optimizing for discovery, you’re crafting the complete search expertise.

Lastly, what occurs after the clicking is simply as crucial as incomes it:

• Can customers refine outcomes with intuitive sides and AI-powered autocomplete?
• Do your overview widgets, “related listings,” and “ask a query” prompts preserve individuals transferring by means of your funnel?
• Are your core flows – signup, overview creation, checkout – so frictionless that AI-agent pushed site visitors may convert as reliably as human site visitors?

The Development Memo’s UX examine of AIOs confirmed that the “second-click” or “validation click on” is extra vital than ever … in the event you’re lucky sufficient to get that natural click on, your UX and model belief alerts need to be on level.

When you bake streamlined post-click moments into your roadmap, you possibly can flip that preliminary model visibility into actual engagement and belief.

Amanda leaping in right here and getting all meta with a first-person be aware: We can’t stress sufficient how vital the on-page expertise after that earned natural click on actually is. I can’t even start to rely what number of occasions I’ve left a market due to the UX hurdles or poor web site search features, solely to return to Google, ChatGPT, or simply go on to vendor web sites and circumvent marketplaces as an entire – regardless of my sturdy want to match choices and skim critiques outdoors of the particular vendor’s platform.

To scale market search engine optimisation efficiently, you might want to optimize throughout the entire vary of product development: web site, product, and community results.

Consider market search engine optimisation as a product-wide system, not a easy guidelines or set of ways.

• Right here’s why: Market search engine optimisation lives and dies with the quantity and high quality of pages. Consequently, search engine optimisation professionals must turn into product managers and work on providing incentives and decreasing friction throughout the consumer journey. Assume funnel optimization, however broader.
• Instance: At G2, we went deep into the overview creation course of to know the place we have to take away or add friction to get the precise steadiness between not solely extra critiques, however higher ones.
• However: Watch out with scaling pages too aggressively and falling under Google’s line for “high quality.” As I clarify in SEOzempic, too many low-quality pages will be extra dangerous than useful.

Right here’s what you might want to contemplate to run your market search engine optimisation program from a product development strategy:

Optimize The Web site

This can be a no-brainer however nonetheless deserves point out right here. Optimizing the web site for natural search and LLM visibility is, after all, a necessary a part of market search engine optimisation.

However an important areas of optimization for marketplaces are:

• Indexing and crawl administration.
• Inner linking.
• Titles & wealthy snippets.
• Strong schema markup.
• Core Internet Vitals.
• On-page content material.
• Key items of data.
• Itemizing optimization.
• Visible and interactive parts like maps and UGC movies.
• New web page varieties.

Every of those areas supplies sufficient depth to fill roadmaps for years.

The important thing to profitable is doing the fundamentals extremely nicely and constructing an experimentation engine that surfaces new wins and levers.

Amanda leaping in right here once more: If attainable, don’t skip video. Sure, even when UGC movies require an inner high quality management program/overview in place. Underestimating the facility of natural and even low-fi movies showcasing the product or consumer’s ultimate determination (i.e., to go on a visit to Rome or join new software program based mostly on a core function) can earn you visibility in AIOs and LLMs. A current consumer of mine earned a big video-embed AIO point out with very clear model visibility for a core focused question … all with a brief, easy video explaining the idea and the way their product helped. It was straightforward to do. You guess we’ll be working checks to see if we are able to accomplish that on repeat.

Let’s have a look at this Tripadvisor instance under, the place each component is intentional and examined.

The positioning didn’t begin like that, however it advanced over time. TripAdvisor has search engine optimisation deeply ingrained in its DNA. You possibly can relaxation assured that each component is there for a motive.

And the interface has been up to date and improved with the incorporation of AI, to incorporate:

• An AI assistant that discreetly follows the consumer (with out interrupting) on the high of the web page.
• AI-assisted, community-guided itineraries.
• A extra strong journey information part with suggestions and FAQs.

For additional studying (and one other market search engine optimisation instance), try Market Deep Dive – Q1 (Case Research: Zillow).

Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig

The product expertise for marketplaces spans the sign-up, content material creation, and admin expertise (generally extra).

It’s important for search engine optimisation to be concerned in product optimizations and enhancements as a result of it instantly impacts the quantity and high quality of pages.

Strategic questions search engine optimisation professionals ought to ask themselves:

• What (incentives) and who (consumer profile) drives new content material? It’s crucial for marketplaces to search out out why customers create content material or purchase merchandise.
• The place do customers get caught when creating new content material? The place is it too straightforward? Too little friction decreases content material high quality; an excessive amount of inhibits content material quantity. Get the steadiness proper.
• What are the core development loops within the enterprise? Each firm has inputs and outputs that perpetuate the enterprise ahead. Inputs are issues you are able to do to incentivize or management consumer habits. (For instance, providing a free month when bringing a buddy.) Outputs are issues that occur on account of managed inputs, which in themselves can drive development. (For instance, the buddy you introduced now additionally brings a buddy.)
• What entities want their very own web page kind? Marketplaces typically set up round key entities – locations, firms, manufacturers, or individuals – as a result of entity-focused templates assist LLMs and search engines like google and yahoo perceive your web site construction. That stated, not each template have to be constructed round an entity; some pages serve practical or task-oriented functions with out centering on a single entity.
• What optimization surfaces can be found? Examples: Google’s new AI Mode, AIOs, SERP snippets, LLM citations, your core touchdown pages, your web site’s sign-up funnel.
• How can the corporate construct a steady testing engine? After optimizing for the fundamentals, most wins come from experiments. Take a look at, observe, and document outcomes, particularly the place Google’s AIOs, AI Mode, and LLMs are involved. (Professional-tip: Assessment the LLM’s reasoning behind the outputs the place your model has visibility.)
• What metrics are crucial? Monitoring the precise metrics that mirror the consumer journey (and core development loops) defines your focus. Be mindful: Impressions and branded search are metrics you have to be being attentive to greater than ever earlier than.

Amanda leaping in right here yet one more time: Please, I encourage of you on behalf of all strategists in every single place – enable your search engine optimisation and content material strategists the room and sources to check … and even fail. Above, Kevin calls out the necessity to construct a steady testing engine, and if you wish to push ahead in constructing natural visibility and authority on this new period of search, whether or not you’re a market or an integrator web site that’s a direct vendor, testing is essential. Groups that check (albeit correctly), fail, study, and develop are going to be those who come out forward throughout this chaotic season in search.

Develop Community Results

Marketplaces are in a position to develop highly effective community results that speed up development and defend themselves from challengers.

Community results = aggressive benefits that develop with the corporate. Community results get higher over time (like manufacturing value) and turn into your group’s edge.

They will turn into protecting moats, however solely after they’re profitable and mature.

Examples of community results can embody elements like:

• Model: recognition and visibility.
• Economies of scale: doing issues extra effectively than your opponents.
• Switching value: rising alternative value of switching to a competitor.
• Deep tech: proprietary expertise that solves particular issues.
• Techniques of intelligence: information, monitoring techniques, and understanding of consumers and the market.

search engine optimisation Integrators don’t have entry to the identical community results that search engine optimisation Aggregators (like marketplaces) do. Economies of scale are an instance of this.

It will be absurd to say search engine optimisation must personal community results – it’s an organization effort.

However search engine optimisation, as the biggest consumer acquisition channel for marketplaces, must be conscious and work towards constructing community results.

G2, for instance, has developed such a outstanding repute that the G2 badge is an indication of credibility for software program consumers.

That, after all, wasn’t the case when G2 (crowd) began. It developed over time and with sustained high quality.

Consequently, firms pay so as to add the badge to their websites and drive new critiques, which provides to the general worth of {the marketplace}.

On this instance, UserGuiding not solely provides them to their web site within the footer, but additionally publishes a chunk of content material annually, noting their annual badge enhance.³

Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig

General, the product development strategy to market search engine optimisation has experimentation and funnel evaluation that results in steady enchancment at its core – that’s not what you’d usually count on in traditional search engine optimisation performs.

So much is altering – and at fast speeds – resulting from LLM search. This impacts aggregator websites that depend on market search engine optimisation practices to remain seen.

Listed here are a couple of concerns that will help you keep forward and grounded in future pondering.

1. Plan content material high quality for each LLMs and precise people:

• What components of your web site would an LLM flag as skinny, redundant, or low-trust?
• What components of your web site do people bypass altogether?
• Audit low-value boilerplates (e.g., duplicate class intros) and enrich with actual consumer insights or information visualizations.

2. Research human utilization patterns:

• Which pages or options have excessive bounce charges or low engagement?
• Why do individuals discover these options, pages, or modules unengaging?
• If customers skip them, AI seemingly will too-identify and rework these weak spots into stronger, intent-aligned experiences.

3. Scrutinize your market’s inner search:

• Is your in-app search engine smarter than Google or an LLM at understanding your stock? (If not, this can be a large drawback.)
• Put money into embeddings-based search, synonym maps, and AI-driven suggestions so consumers discover what they want quicker.

4. Work towards visibility resilience, it doesn’t matter what occurs in search:

• If natural search engine optimisation disappeared tomorrow, what components of your market would nonetheless appeal to certified site visitors?
• What do you might want to do as we speak to mitigate reliance on traditional or outdated search engine optimisation ways and outcomes?
• Look to direct channels – e mail, social communities, partnerships – and fortify them so that you’re not over-reliant on any single supply.

5. Diversify your advertising channels in the event you haven’t already:

• Discover app integrations and in-product ideas to seize audiences the place they already stay.

Experiment with live-commerce, social-commerce, and model collaborations to fill gaps past search.

¹ About PageSpeed Insights 

² AI options and your web site

³ G2 Fall 2024: UserGuiding Doubled the Badges As soon as Once more!

Featured Picture: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal