SEO for an independent fashion brand - the right tool for the job?
-
I have a client that is a small but growing fashion brand in the UK, they make sunglasses, eyewear and swim suits. They are priced as a high-end brand, so around £200 for a pair of sunglasses.
They have asked me about 'sorting out their SEO', but I am struggling to think of viable keywords we could target that don't contain the name of their brand. The SERPS for anything that would be along the lines of 'buy sunglasses / buy swimsuits' etc are dominated by very big players - big department stores etc, so with their small budget I'm sure would be impossible to crack.
My thoughts are that apart from sorting out their on-page SEO (crawlable, sitemap etc) and making sure they rank for their branded terms, that putting money into trying to rank for generic terms around buying swimwear/sunglasses would not be viable. A better route for traffic generation would be through a more content marketing / social media approach to get people sharing their content (e.g. fashion industry commentary) and leading them back to their brand from there.
What do others think? Am I missing a trick on the SEO front?
thanks
-
I think there are some great answers here - the social / content / PR suggestions are all solid.
I think there may be merit in looking to see if there are long tail queries which you can capture, however I'd encourage you think about how relevant those terms might be. For example 'womens designer sunglasses' (arguably not truly long tail, but let's go with it for now) sounds like it's pretty relevant, however it's still pretty competitive and I'd argue that your client's site isn't a great result for that search term given that they only sell their own brand of sunglasses. As such whilst that term might look appealing I'd suggest that even if you did manage to rank for it, it might not convert as well as you'd hope.
In terms of managing your client's expectations I'd look to explain things to them in those terms - their site is a great result for branded searches, and the best way to make more money is likely to be by increasing branded searches. How do you do that? It's a marketing play - likely incorporating PR, social, online and offline marketing activity.
I hope this helps,
Hannah
-
No doubt it is difficult to come up with keywords for a growing fashion brand, it is certainly worth spending some effort to work on long tail keywords. Despite the growth of social media and content marketing, search engines still bring in the bulk of the traffic for most sites and it would not be wise to neglect optimising your site on search engines.
Focus on creating keywords based on your client's USP - what's so special about their products? Is it the design, the material or the quality? You don't have to come up with the most unique keywords, but you can still snatch a portion of the traffic for "branded black sunglasses" or "polka dot cotton dresses" (just examples).
That being said, you should still invest some effort on social media and content marketing. One suggestion I have for a fashion brand is to work on Pinterest. Given the high traffic and the female-dominated user base, it would be a good place to promote your brand and engage with potential customers. Develop a holistic approach by pinning quality photos of a selection of your products, other interesting photos, and perhaps run a contest.
Hope that helps!
-
Mike and Tim have some great suggestions. I wanted to add to it that part of the social campaign you create can include a blog (as Mike suggested). Some content you create for the social campaign may be best put on the blog and then pushed out the social sites. Other content may be best distributed straight to the social sites (image memes, quotes, instagrams, etc.) but can also probably be used for content on the blog as well. Blogging is a great way to put out new, unique content which can help to build authority for the site and you may be able to target keywords on that content as well.
Also, keep in mind that a lot of SEO, especially for smaller or newer sites, is about targeting longtail keywords that are less competitive. Sure, you may not be able to rank for "buy sunglasses" today, but you may be able to rank well for "designer sunglasses for women". It doesn't get as many searches, but it gets some. You build up incrementally.
Kurt Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com -
i would use twitter, use the hash tag about the site and the products, find out if people have used the product and start to get a buz about it. look out for any celebrities who may have used the product and then tweet them, see if they answer.
Talking from a PR background, if you can get a buz about your products and your site then life will become easier.
-
Assuming they're trendy, I agree on the Social Media front. Trendy fashion items should have a good likelihood to be shared via facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest and tumblr.
As for the generic terms to attempt ranking for, I'd say use them in a blog campaign to at least create some content devoted to those terms. Get enough people following and liking via social could lead them to linking your blog content in various places which could eventually boost rankings from having a strong, natural backlink profile. And who knows, something could go viral.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Onsite SEO vs Offsite SEO
Hey I know the importance of both onsite & offsite, primarily with regard to outreach/content/social. One thing I am trying to determine at the moment, is how much do I invest in offsite. My current focus is to improve our onpage content on product pages, which is taking some time as we have a small team. But I also know our backlinks need to improve. I'm just struggling on where to spend my time. Finish the onsite stuff by section first, or try to do a bit of both onsite/offsite at the same time?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
Page Speed Factors For SEO
Hey Guys, I have developed a page and optimised it. I have got a dilemma, I have 2 variants of the optimised page I could use. The page is responsive and uses bootstrap from an external CDN. The 2 variants: External CDN - This is adding an an extra request and is delivering the entire framework (not ideal for mobile) I've looked in the node/grunt.js route (+unCSS) to remove redundant CSS, which led me to my next variant. Inline CSS. After doing some grunt.js work I shaved out the redundant code from the framework then added it inline. I will also point out that all assets are optimised, all CSS/JS/HTML is minifed. In terms for score the 1st variant is less than the second, but I believe that most users of the internet already have bootstrap cached due to it being so common. The ultimate question comes down to ranking, I'm not entirely sure where I draw the line between development and SEO (I will also ask in Stack Overflow). Which one would rank better? all other factors being equal.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AkashMakwana0 -
Website Layout and SEO
Hi All, As a brand new user to Wordpress and having read articles and forum posts I have purchased Studiopress Genesis Enterprise Theme. QuestionWordpress like any traditional bespoke site can be written to incorporate variations of columns structures.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch
What is the best column strategy or page layout strategy for SEO? Thanks Mark0 -
Mobile SEO
Hey, In the following article, Google recommended using a 301 redirect but doesn't specify why. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/making-websites-mobile-friendly.html I assume this is to pass over link equity to the relevant mobile/desktop variation. Can anyone confirm this? Also is there any other reason? Again assuming this would keep the correct URLs in the correct index? Anything else anyone can chip in would be great. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CraigAddyman0 -
Mobile SEO? Do we need it or not?
Hi Guys, I am about to start to redesigning a new mobile website and am curious if mobile SEO is actually having an affect or not. The site I am doing the redesign for, already has a very well optimized desktop site and has an existing mobile website with no optimization. The mobile website is ranking well in Mobile search so I am curious why I I would need to optimize the new mobile website properly, especially when the mobile website has a canonical tag for its desktop counter part? Love to get everyone's thoughts on this & where they see mobile SEO going in the next 12 months.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seekjobs0 -
What should I cover in a SEO proposal ?
What should I cover in a SEO proposal? Is there any sample SEO Proposal template in SEOMoz?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kashyaplakkad1 -
Iframe redirect bad for SEO?
Hi, I have a website (http://www.blowingminds.de) wich I put a spreadshirt shop into via iframe. The thing is I am not sure on how the iframe effects my SEO? Can I just optimise the main domain for search? Well I want the spreadshirt shop to be found under the domain name (www.blowingminds.de) but the only real way to do it is by implementing an iframe because each spreadshirt shop has its own subdomain eg.: blowingminds.spreadshirt.de but the only real way to do it is via iframe, as they do not offer a complete domain redirect. (Or have I overseen some other way?) I hope you guys can help me on this one 🙂 Thanks in advance. Malte
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wellbo1 -
Your Biggest SEO Jobs Explained
What have been your most proudest moments in SEO ? What would you consider as being you best achieved job and in what industry was it achieved it. What are the reasons you have this down as your biggest achievement ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlinemediadirect0