Generally, digital marketing strategy involves hardwork and knowledge about tools and channels, simply because the digital world is broad so every marketer needs to critically choose the right digital channel to engage specific target consumers.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) seems to be a fundamental channel which brings traffic to the particular website and increase its visibility. Based on that fact, this post will show a short overview of the SEO importance and trends that make this channel effective for fashion businesses. The next blog post will continue to discuss this topic in more details.
Let’s start with some basics.
SEO, as a ‘very technical practice’, is also a marketing tool. So, e-commerce companies pay attention on digital marketing strategy to bring visitors to their websites, and gain a profit from offered services/goods. If the website is properly optimized for search engine, then the ranking of the website will be high. In other words, the website link will be shown on the first page after searching a particular keywords.
-> SEO results can be shown in different ways through specific browser, below is presented an example of GOOGLE search results (adopted from: Enge, Spencer, Stricchiola, Fishkin & Treseler, 2012, p.27).
- horizontal navigation
- search query box
- results information
- PPC advertising
- vertical navigation
- query refinement suggestions
- narural/organic/algorithmic results
SEO should be part of the firm’s digital marketing strategy, some of the reasons are:
- enhance branding (visibility) of the website
- support website traffic
- improving website ROI (see more about ROI linked to SEO here)
SEO includes more then just analyzing the right keywords, it needs a focus also on content and social marketing. But before we will focus on these elements towards fashion websites, there have been published very useful articles about a nature of search engine optimization from which you will certainly benefit. For better understanding, please visit The begginers guide to SEO or What is SEO?
Further, watch the video below, it will give you an overview from different point of view.
So, now we know what is SEO about, but …
… ‘what do I really have to do if I own a small online fashion shop and the number of visitors is very low’?
When it comes to SEO, firms (or hired SEO specialists) should firstly clearly understand their services/products/target market and goals. This step should be applied by all other domains, but fashion SEO components can differ in some ways. Below, I have chosen some tips summarised from practical websites/blogs; also, if you are looking for more details based on SEO in fashion industry, please visit this guide here.
Keywords trends
Analyzing and applying the righ keywords, which are up-to-date lead to a beneficial position. Use Google Trends to identify which topic and words are currently the most popular and use them! Long-tail keywords are better, as there is a lower possibility that other websites are ranking from them (example: organic tshirt -> organic tshirt for women without printing)
Calls-to-action
This is a MUST for fashion website. Further, call-to-action, as BUY NOW or ADD TO CART have also an URL links. When you add UTM tracker to the links, you can then track the number of clicks by web analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, which you should use to evaluate your website situation and gain some information about the consumer behaviour within your website.
Images
Fashion website is mainly based on pictures to show the style you are presenting . While you are choosing the right images, make sure they are optimized in terms of: dimension, format and quality.
Content, structure
Content is the most important point here. Optimized images with relevant, curious, powerful text (description), which tell customers a story of your products, will bring a value to your site! Learn more about why content marketing is an essential part of SEO here.
Backlinks within fashion industry
This is an additional way how to bring a visitors to look at your content (increase ranking) and start to be a part of the wide fashion world. We are back to the content here; to enhance a backlinks, write a relevant, noticeable content (blog post) which other will want to share or link to AND try to get in touch with somebody who is a master in the industry. Find more techniques about link building here.
So, it seems to be clear, that developing your SEO strategy should bring some benefits. BUT think also about the fact, that if you will increase the number of visitors to your fashion website, customers should find there what they expected – it means, the structure and content must be relevant and the links should be easy to follow. These elements (but not only) will have a positive impact on consumer behaviour (Close, 2012) and it is more likely they will come back to your online shop 🙂
Reference and further reading:
Close, A. 2012, Online consumer behavior: theory and research in social media, advertising, and e-tail, Routledge Academic, London.
Enge, E., Spencer, S.M., Stricchiola, J., Fishkin, R. & Treseler, M.E. 2012, The art of SEO, Second edn, O’Reilly, Beijing.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/05/21/what-roi-can-i-expect-from-seo/#473218ba2d67
www.searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo
https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
www.seomaverick.com.au/fashion-ecommerce-seo
https://www.webceo.com/blog/7-tips-seo-in-the-fashion-industry/
https://www.koozai.com/blog/search-marketing/seo-for-fashion-ecommerce-websites/
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/seo-is-content-marketing/
https://www.webceo.com/blog/7-effective-link-building-techniques-that-will-make-your-traffic-explode/