Sid Tiwatne, Founder & Lead SEO Strategist, Tacticone

This interview is with Sid Tiwatne, Founder & Lead SEO Strategist at Tactic One.

Sid, welcome to Ecommerce News! Could you tell our readers a bit about yourself and your journey to becoming an expert in the ecommerce space?

My journey in the e-commerce space began over a decade ago. Initially, I co-founded Gobiggi, where we built a lead-generation application with built-in SEO for small businesses. This experience laid the foundation for my expertise in SEO and digital marketing.

I later joined Resident as an early member and Head of SEO, where I built the SEO infrastructure and teams from the ground up. Over five years, I helped scale multiple brands within the company, driving significant organic growth and expanding our market presence.

Throughout my career, I’ve had the opportunity to work with numerous e-commerce and DTC brands, helping them navigate the complexities of the digital marketplace. My focus has always been on making data-driven decisions and leveraging AI to enhance operational efficiency.

Your experience with Tacticone, specializing in CRO and SEO marketing for ecommerce, is impressive. What pivotal moments or key decisions led you to establish this agency and focus on these specific areas?

In 2010, I was running a web design agency for small businesses. Back then, many small businesses were paying hefty retainers for website creation and maintenance, but what they really needed were leads.

To address this, I created Gobiggi, a platform designed to build landing pages optimized for local SEO. This allowed small businesses to rank higher in local searches, delivering them high-quality leads at a much lower cost. This experience underscored the importance of focusing on delivering what clients actually need: results and revenue, rather than just technical solutions.

I saw a similar pattern while working at Resident. Many agencies would provide lengthy technical audits filled with jargon, but what brands really needed was straightforward revenue growth. This realization played a big role in shaping my approach.

When I started Tacticone, my main goal was to help brands achieve the highest ROI possible. We focus on practical, results-driven strategies that prioritize revenue generation. By specializing in CRO and SEO, we help our clients drive traffic that converts, and convert traffic into sales more effectively.

You mentioned the untapped potential of long-tail keywords for ecommerce SEO. Can you elaborate on a specific strategy ecommerce businesses can use to effectively identify and target these keywords?

Long-tail keywords are great for bringing targeted traffic and building the top of the funnel by putting your brand in front of potential customers. However, the real hidden gem in e-commerce SEO is optimizing your collection or category pages, which drive the majority of revenue—around 65% of it, to be exact. To effectively identify and target long-tail keywords, start by understanding your audience using first-party data in Google Search Console. Use keyword research tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush to find relevant long-tail keywords with moderate search volume and low competition. Analyze your competitors to uncover overlooked opportunities. Create high-quality content around these keywords and focus on optimizing your collection pages by incorporating long-tail keywords into titles, meta descriptions, headers, and product descriptions. Encourage user-generated content such as reviews and Q&A on these pages to keep adding fresh, relevant keywords. Finally, monitor your performance with tools like Google Search Console and refine your strategy based on the data. By combining the power of long-tail keywords with optimized collection pages, you can significantly boost both traffic and revenue. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or need a free audit of your brand.

You're a proponent of Shopify for its SEO capabilities and user-friendliness. Beyond the platform itself, what are some essential Shopify apps or integrations you recommend for boosting sales and streamlining operations?

Shopify is excellent for its SEO capabilities and user-friendliness, but the right apps and integrations can significantly enhance your store's performance. Depending on your needs, some of my favorites include:

• Klaviyo for email marketing and SMS, helping you create targeted campaigns.

• Privy for pop-ups, email, and SMS, which helps in capturing leads and boosting conversions.

• Gorgias for live chat and helpdesk, providing excellent customer support.

• Starshipit for shipping automation, streamlining your fulfillment process.

• Loop Returns for managing returns and exchanges efficiently.

• Shoppable Instagram & UGC for leveraging user-generated content and enhancing social commerce.

• Wishlist Plus for enabling customers to save their favorite products and encouraging repeat visits.

• Shogun for building custom landing pages that convert well.

These apps can help streamline operations and drive sales, making your Shopify store more effective and user-friendly.

You've emphasized the importance of user experience (UX) in ecommerce. What are some common UX mistakes you see brands making, and how can they be rectified to improve conversions?

It's a complex question, but a crucial one. If a user lands on your site, they are likely interested in your product or service, and it's the user experience (UX) that will determine if they make a purchase. Here are a few tips to enhance UX and improve conversions:

1. Show Clear Pictures: Include high-quality images of your products, and show them being used by real people.

2. Focus on Benefits: Instead of just describing the product, highlight how it can make the user's life easier or better.

3. Value Proposition: Display your key value proposition prominently in the first fold of your site.

4. Leverage Reviews: Customer reviews are crucial for building trust and encouraging purchases.

5. Audit Checkout Flow: Regularly check and optimize your checkout process to ensure it's smooth and user-friendly.

6. Marketing Automation: Use automated tools to send personalized reminders to users who have initiated the checkout process but haven't completed it.

By focusing on these aspects, you can significantly enhance the user experience, making it more likely that visitors will convert into customers.

Your successful UGC campaign for a fashion brand highlights the power of authenticity. How can ecommerce businesses in other niches, perhaps less visual ones, leverage UGC effectively?

UGC has been around for ages; just think of the midnight infomercials—they knew all the timeless secrets of UGC. Create diverse media content where customers or your target audience discuss their problems and challenges, how easy your product is to use, and how it has improved their lives, including before-and-after scenarios. Produce this content across various media platforms. Involving your customers can build loyalty and trust, and this approach works across all channels and industries. Your creativity is the only limit.

Many entrepreneurs struggle with balancing personal finance while launching a startup. What financial advice would you give your younger self based on your experience building Tacticone?

Business, with my experience and having worked with several entrepreneurs, is all about adding value to all stakeholders: employees, partners, and customers. One critical stakeholder, which is usually not captured in many cases, is the business owner himself. It is, therefore, essential to closely monitor the cash flow to ensure the business benefits all stakeholders, including yourself. In addition, there is a need to invest in personal development through courses, books, networking events, and so on. Strike a balance with personal finance—whatever you would want to spend on as an entrepreneur; that is the key to success in the long run.

The ecommerce landscape is constantly evolving. What emerging trends are you most excited about, and how do you see them shaping the future of online business?

Something fascinating in e-commerce's emerging trends is the use of first-party and zero-party data combined with artificial intelligence. This combination can be a game-changer in this space. First-party data is what you collect directly from customers through their interactions with your brand, and zero-party data is what customers willingly share with you. This is an invaluable data resource that, with the help of AI, can be harnessed to make shopping very personal and pleasing for every single customer. For example, such data can be used by AI in analyses such as product recommendations, marketing message tailoring, and even price optimization. It is this degree of personalization that amplifies customer satisfaction and loyalty, turning into higher sales and long-term relationships with customers. At Tacticone, we have quite a lot of exciting projects focusing on the integration of first-party and zero-party data with AI. It's a bit too early to comment on the details, but I think this direction will make quite a difference in the future of online business. More accurately predicting customer needs can put an e-commerce business one step ahead in competition and can mean great added value for its customers.

Finally, what's one actionable piece of advice you'd give to aspiring ecommerce entrepreneurs just starting their journey?

For a budding e-commerce entrepreneur going into business, my advice is to focus on your strengths, whether it be in marketing, procuring, or manufacturing the product. Choose a niche with a low rate of returns, and always look at your business from the perspective of the business model, not just the passion for your product—unless you know how to take care of perishable products. Also, study the legal nuances concerning the products and the industry. Finally, you should talk to the target users or buyers of your products to understand their needs and concerns, because direct interaction will give you brilliant ideas and a fair amount of clarity on how to refine your product and marketing.