Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is used massively in all business aspects. It helps to increase brands exposure and give the brand more trafficking, so it is important to know the value that SEO can bring to you.
According to Search Engine Land, the definition for SEO is:
The process of getting traffic from the ‘free’, ‘organic’, ‘editorial’ or ‘natural’ search results on search engines.
Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo have primary search results, where web pages and other content (such as videos, images and local listings) are displayed and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to the user. There is no specific payment involved with this, however you can get paid search ads which help to promote your ad further up into the rank listings. These search engines such as Google increasingly pay attention to each user experience and their algorithms take this into consideration.
What can you do to ensure you are making the best use of SEO?
1. Map out your Content Strategy
Think about the key words and topics that you would like to use that relate your brand (for example, if you own a streetwear brand you may want to use hashtags such as #streetstyle #streetwear). Using tools like Ubersuggest and Buzzsumo can help you with this as they all show you what topics are popular and what keywords your competitors are using-you can do this by entering your competitors back-links!
2. Focus on User Experience
It may sound simple, but not many people create a positive user experience, and as a result, they’re not making the best use of SEO and it will decrease trafficking for your site. Improve the user experience by ensuring you use images of high resolution and a good size that can appear crisp and visual across all devices. Any videos you also have (such as promo videos) should be fast and engaging content so that the user actually pays attention to that- the more views you receive the more chance you have of increasing them even further and getting more shares and encourage more visits.
Also use Google Page Speed to track how quick your site loads on all devices- not just a laptop. The time it takes to load up your content is important and you will most likely get more viewings and frequent readers if your site is running smoothly and fast.
3. Sign up to Google ads and Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a web service by Google, providing a free of charge service for webmasters, which allows them to check indexing status and optimise visibility of their websites.
Google Ads is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers can pay to display their brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, video content and generate mobile application installations within the Google ad network to web users.
Both of these services are a great way to promote, track and improve the SEO checks for your business. By having a source of information to tell you how many visits you got compared to several months before is a great way to plan how to make minor improvements. Both the services are also great for promoting your brand and getting the most out of SEO.
4. Use RankBrain
Rank Brain is component of Google’s algorithm which uses learning (the ability of machines to teach themselves from data inputs) to determine the most relevant results to search engine queries. RankBrain is another great source to use to make the most of SEO as it understands search inputs and has the ability to measures how people can interact with results. It then experiments with the result information they gain, to see which combination of algorithms provide the customer with the most relevant and useful results.
5. Link to Other Websites
Many people think that adding links to other sites in your own website content is bad, as it takes the user off your page…wrong! Link building remains a fundamental part of small search engine optimization strategy.
“Linking out sends trackable traffic, it makes your site a more valuable and scalable resource.”
– Rand Fishkin, founder of Moz
6. Ensure your Website is Safe
Customers will look at the legitimacy of your website and analyse whether it is safe to use, especially if it’s a website where they want to shop on, so it involves entering personal details. You can do this by switching to HTTPs. Remember, it is also important to be clear in communicating your security resources to your users. By doing this minor change, you will gain a stronger trust between your business and your customer.
7. Reach out to Humans!
It is very easy to create long and hefty blog content that mainly consists of keywords. And most business owners are guilty of doing this, but you have to remember, the content can’t be full of long and complicated key-words. You need to create content that will appeal to the user, so ensure that you are using the correct language and not primarily just focusing on SEO. Search spiders are just scripts- they do not buy the product, engage with your social media or become a loyal customer- focus on the people!
Post Regularly
Although this comes across as an easy task – it isn’t! When you start up your fashion business, there is no doubt that you will be super quick to post appealing and informative content onto your social channels, however overtime, you will find yourself having to juggle many different tasks within your business and will likely forget to post useful content on your social channels- but this is not something you can forget. It is important to post regularly because this is how you are reaching out to external customers and it is how you will attract new customers – more communication means more business. If a consumer comes across one of your social channels to find you last posted 2 months ago, they are most likely to leave the page and think that your business is not running. Luckily for you, there is now software that can schedule posts for you in due time. You still need to manually enter what post you want posted and when, but you can schedule each post weeks in advance. Platforms such as Hootsuite and apps such as ‘When To’ can help do this, as well as identify when is the ‘peak’ time you can post to engage with the most amount of consumers.
And it is not all about schedule posts. Use Live Stories on Instagram to your advantage. Featuring BTS moments is a great way to interact on a more personal level with your consumers. By enabling your audience to watch what you’re doing on a live stream, you’re inviting them into the world of your fashion business, and as a bonus, you’ll hopefully increase your amount of viewers.
If you own any form of a fashion business, ensure you take notes. Understanding the world of SEO and using it to your advantage is an easy process, but it takes getting the knowledge and learning about how to use it. To find out more about how to promote your fashion business/ brand, check out our article; ‘How to Promote your Fashion Brand.’
