So, your beauty brand is amazing, and your customers love and rave about your products!
Maybe your beauty brand has a small, but loyal, fan group but are still struggling to break the barrier and attract more new customers to your website.
If this is the case, and SEO hasn’t been a part of your marketing strategy, then your beauty brand needs to incorporate SEO into your marketing strategy.
If you aren’t sure where to start with SEO for your eCommerce beauty brand, then sit back, relax, and let us show you the 7 SEO strategies that your eCommerce beauty brand needs to incorporate to watch your content crawl through the rankings.
1. Understand Your Buyer Persona(s)
Starting with identifying your buyer persona can be a crucial step in beginning the SEO strategy for your beauty brand.
Based on data and research, a buyer persona can help give your brand an idea of who will be buying your product, and you can create a semi-fictional representation, which will in turn aid your brand in generating keywords and creating a strong content strategy.
Start with Beauty Consumer Research
Start to develop a buyer persona by conducting research to generate your ideal target market.
Possible groups that your beauty brand could break your personas into could be:
- Conscientious about price
- Willing to spend more than the average person
- The person who cares more about ingredients than price
- Your ideal younger audience
- Your ideal target for social media
These are just a few ideas of who might be interested in your beauty brand. You can then begin to segment these groups further by age, income level, interests, etc.
Once you create your buyer persona, your beauty brand will have a clear idea of how to approach each group with specific, SEO optimized content they will love.
Perform Competitive Beauty Industry Research & Analysis
If you want to differentiate your beauty brand from the competition, you need to start by researching your competition.
Now that you have defined your buyer persona, your beauty brand needs to start identifying which competitors embody the same buyer persona as your brand.
This is a great opportunity to find out what the competition is doing well, and what opportunities your brand could have to capitalize on their weaknesses.
A quick outline of how your beauty brand could begin to create a competitive analysis and perform competitive research could look like:
- Categorize your competitors into primary, secondary, and tertiary groups.
- Check out their websites and their customer service and see what your brand can do better.
- Learn more about your competitors’ market positioning.
- Understand their pricing structure and see how your brand changes the price.
- Check out their customer reviews and see what your ideal customers want and need.
- Audit their social media and review comments to see how they engage with their community.
- Monitor for long and short term keywords to aid in your SEO strategy.
Now, your brand can complete your competitive analysis and find how your beauty brand can differentiate yourself in the competition.
2. Begin with Beauty Industry Keyword Research
Keywords are essentially the nucleus for your beauty brand’s SEO strategy. Studying which long-term and short-term keywords can boost your beauty brand’s content to the top of SERPs is an absolutely necessary step in your SEO strategy.
Search for Competitive Beauty Industry Keywords
Begin your research by learning what are the competitive keywords used within your industry and noticing what keywords your competition is using as well.
This will boil down to researching what types of products you sell. The beauty industry offers various types of products, from skincare to haircare to makeup.
Regardless of what type of products you sell, there are competitive keywords within your industry.
For the sake of an example, lets say that your brand is an amazing makeup line, so popular competitve keywords could include:
- Natural cosmetics
- Organic foundation
- Best eyeshadow palette
- Best mascara for volume
The list could go on and on, but these keywords will help your beauty brand start to compile keywords that you can later place throughout your content.
Understand Beauty Product-Specific Keywords
Remember to use product-specific keywords when creating product pages. These keywords will be very specific to the types of products your beauty brand sells. Some common, product-specific beauty industry keywords include:
- Natural volume conditioner
- Vegan night face cream
- Under Eye anti-aging cream
- Neutral eyeshadow palette
These product-specific keywords can frequent your product title and in your product description. So brainstorm what makes your product stand out from the rest, or highlight specific benefits of the product and use that to your advantage when creating your product-specific keyword.
Perform Long-Tail Keywords Research
While short tail, high volume keywords should be a part of your SEO plan, for your eCommerce beauty brand, it is even wiser to invest time into finding long-tail keywords that are super-specific to your brand and your target market.
A long-tail keyword is any keyword that is longer than 3-4 words, so think of short sentences a potential buyer might type into the Google search bar
These super specific keywords can help your beauty brand more targeted to the people at the bottom of the marketing and sales funnel, resulting in better conversions.
There are a lot of great benefits to using long-tail keywords for beauty eCommerce, including:
- These keywords are less competitive then short-tail keywords.
- Using long-tail keywords will bring your beauty brand more quality traffic.
- With a combination of less competition and more traffic, naturally, they will yield you more conversions.
- These keywords can help your beauty brand plan more tailored content for your target audience.
- Last but not least, long-tail keywords can help increase revenue!
Don’t Cannibalize Your Keywords
While it might seem like a good idea to use the same keyword for products that are similar, (such as if you had the same shirt in various colors), this will actually confuse Google and rank each page for the same keyword.
This is what is called keyword cannibalization, which basically means when a single site (such as imagenmedia.co) and you unintentionally target the same keywords across your website.
This can cause confusion with Google and can be even more difficult to decide which page should rank for a particular keyword, and can ultimately, drag both pages that are targeting the same keyword down in rankings.
3. Improve Your Beauty Website’s Site Architecture
There are quite a few factors that will always affect your site ranking among SERPs, and I have reviewed these various factors in another blog, but of course, these SEO ranking factors deserve some attention.
Ensure You Have a HTTPS Secure Website
A secure website is a high ranking website, so your beauty eCommerce brand needs to be a secure site.
What I mean by a secure website is buying a Secure Sockets Layer certificate, which will provide the lock symbol by your web address, which provides a visual representation and peace of mind to users to know that their secure information, such as address and payment information, so that it does not get into the hands of hackers.
Mobile-Friendly Website for Beauty Searches
For the people in the back – SPEED FOR MOBILE IS ALWAYS AN IMPORTANT RANKING FACTOR!
Almost everyone today has a smartphone, and they will be accessing your website via their smartphone.
In fact, based on a study in 2018, 52.2% of all website traffic worldwide was generated through mobile phones.
Your website has to be optimized for mobile users!
Here are a few ways to check if your site is optimized for mobile:
- Implement schema markup
- Use responsive web design
- Ensure images are compressed to maximize speed
- Eliminate flash
You can check your mobile speed and you want to aim for a score between 90 to 100, and if your score is within that range, you know your site is fully optimized for mobile users.
Some ways to check your mobile speed to improve your score are:
- A/B tests or changes in ads being served
- Internet traffic routing changes
- Testing on different devices, such as a high-performance desktop and a low-performance laptop
- Browser extensions that inject JavaScript and add/modify network requests
- Antivirus software
Improve Your Meta-Descriptions
A meta-description is a short snippet of text, about 155 characters that summarized the content of the pages on SERPs.
Each of your pages needs a strong meta description so that potential site visitors can get a strong idea of what they will be viewing when they visit your site.
Make sure your meta-description is keyword rich but also indicates what type of content visitors will encounter.
Remember that each meta-description should include:
- Focus on specific keywords that are specific to the content on the page
- Use an action voice to get people excited about your content and to visit your site
- Always include a call to action in
Add Alt-Text to Beauty Product Images
Adding alt-text to images on your website will help improve your web accessibility.
Visually impaired users that visit your website and are using screen readers will be read an alt attribute to better understand an on-page image.
Alt-text will help both your audience and bots as they scan the alt-text to gain a deeper understanding of the images you have used for each piece of content really means.
So take each product image and add rich alt-text to help your audience and satisfy search engine crawlers.
Use Redirect Pages for Discontinued Products
301-redirect pages can actually be used to improve your SEO ranking. If you have a product that is discontinued or expired, you can use a 301-redirect page to lead users to your newest products!
Basically, using a 301-redirect page will allow your beauty brand to provide users with your newest products, and if you use a 301-redirect, the SEO value achieved on the previous product page will still be valued.
You can also use 301-redirect pages to combine two pieces of content that are ranking fairly well into one piece of super content.
If you have content that is similar, update and refresh that content into one complete guide, and redirect the old content page using a 301-redirect to your new and improved piece of content.
As stated before, the SEO value will transfer so you receive even more meaningful traffic and have an opportunity for your newest piece of content to outrank the competition.
4. Create a Quality Internal Linking & Backlink Strategy
Gaining backlinks, focusing on an internal linking strategy, and linking to high authority websites are all part of a strong SEO strategy.
Even if you have never received a single backlink or maybe you have linked to a spammy website in the past does not mean your beauty brand can’t clean up your links and start gaining meaningful backlinks ASAP!
What Are Backlinks & Why Are They Important for Your Beauty Brand?
Backlinks are a foolproof way of bringing more meaningful traffic to your website and are a great offline SEO strategy.
Backlinks are links that are placed in a piece of content that directs to another website, like this. Your beauty brand can aim to have more companies in your industry link back to your website by creating the type of content that is work linking to.
The more backlinks your beauty brand’s content receives, the more website visitors you will receive, especially when your content is linked to websites with high domain authority (meaning their business consistently ranks at the top of SERPs.)
The best part of receiving backlinks is that it keeps the website visitors coming, even when you are home for the evening.
Skyscraper Technique for Backlinks
The skyscraper technique, coined by Brian Dean, is the strategy your beauty brand needs to use to gain more reliable backlinks.
It is an easy, three-step process that your beauty brand can do to find the type of content your audience wants to see, and how you can make it better.
The steps in the process are:
- Scan the internet to find link-worthy content.
- Review the content and make it even better.
- Reach out via email or on social media to the right people to share your new and improved content.
Even if your beauty brand does not currently have many, or even any, reputable backlinks, you can use the skyscraper technique to improve your backlinking strategy.
This strategy can also help your beauty brand understand what type of content is ranking well and that your audience will want to read.
Plan a Strong Internal Linking Strategy for Your Beauty Content
For your eCommerce beauty brand, you can use internal linking to guide users to various pages on your website and promote cross-selling and up-selling.
There are three types of internal linking your eCommerce website can use:
- Navigation links – These can be placed within your header or footer to direct the audience around your website.
- Sidebar and dynamic links – These can be links to best selling or new items either in the sidebar or at the bottom of blog posts.
- Related product links – These can be links on product pages of items that are typically purchased together, such as a face wash and moisturizer.
You want to ensure that the organization of your internal link structure is sound and that the links create an organized web to seamlessly direct traffic throughout your website. Your internal link structure should be created with your users’ journey in mind.
Linking to Other Sites Throughout Your Content
This should go without saying, but when your beauty brand is creating content and you want to link to another site when creating content, such as a blog post, it is absolutely necessary to ensure that the sites are of high authority.
What does a high authority website mean?
- If the website you are linking to has to be trustworthy!
- If the domain authority is high, meaning it is a website that ranks high on SERPs.
- If the pages you are linking to a fresh, up to date, and offers a lot of value when linked.
5. Optimized Beauty Product Page for SEO
You want your product page to be fully optimized and to have just as much love as the content you are posting on your homepage or in your blogs. Make sure these product pages are fully optimized and are delivering your brand tone.
Always Optimize Your Beauty Product Images
A simple smartphone photo won’t illustrate your amazing beauty products justice, and you should want more for these products! (although, I will admit you can take some really amazing iPhone product photos with the right equipment).
Invest into high quality, professional product images for your website, and then optimize them!
Your product images will be everywhere, from product pages, to Facebook and Google Ads, to your blog, so ensuring these product images are truly shining light on what your beauty brand can offer is vital.
Here is what I mean by optimize your product images:
- Ensuring the quality of your photos is as high as the quality of copy your brand produces.
- Optimizing image size so that they fit on both mobile and desktop comfortably, and so that images don’t slow your page loading speed.
- Take product photos on a solid, white, or light color background for consistency.
- Don’t include a waterlog or logo, especially if these photos will be used for Google Shopping Campaigns.
- Make sure you have optimal lighting to really showcase your products in all of their glory.
- Show your products from multiple angles, and if you can, add a 360 video of the product.
Product Descriptions that Are Keyword Rich
A strong product description is an absolute must as this is your chance to inform and persuade potential customers into purchasing your products.
When writing your product description, this is really the chance to answer WHAT and the WHY questions customers have.
Plus, take all of those product keywords you came up with, both long-tail and short-tail, and add them in your description.
When writing a product description, think of doing more than just writing what the product is in a real generic sense. Try to focus on the following:
- What are the benefits of this product and why will it be great for your buyer?
- Who are you selling to, focus in on your buyer persona, and write a description for them?
- Avoid classic filler words, such as ‘wonderful, excellent, great product, etc.’
- Avoid superlatives unless you have facts to back up your claim.
- Use sensory adjectives to entice readers and create a vivid description of your product.
Keyword Rich Product Title
Keywords aren’t only meant for your product description, so when creating product titles, put the product specific keywords in the title!
Some things to keep in mind when writing a strong product title:
- Write for your target customer in a way that resonates well with them.
- Include your brand name, of course. We want beauty brand recognition.
- Provide details about the product, such as if it is a cream, shampoo, lipstick and give detail about color, ingredients, or scent.
- Include keywords that your audience would tip into a search query, such as ‘red matte lipstick’ or ‘healthy hair vitamins.’
Include LSI Keywords in Your SEO Strategy
LSI stands for latent semantic indexing, and that basically means when you go to type something into Google, and it auto-fills the rest of the response for you with related search terms, those are LSI keywords.
LSI keywords also appear at the bottom of the page on Google, where a list of related searches are listed.
Finding the right LSI keywords to use for your products might take some time, but once generate the right LSI keywords to add to your content, you will receive more meaningful traffic to your website and new, potential customers can stumble upon your brand who might have not found you before.
Using LSI keywords can help your SEO strategy by:
- Appealing to a wider variety of searches since users are not going to type, word for word, your long-tail keywords into Google, so it offers variance.
- Once you start strategically using LSI keywords, Google will be able to tell your content is more relevant, making your placement on SERPs higher.
Not sure where to start by finding LSI keywords? Here are some ideas of where to start:
- Start by looking for related words or phrases instead of single words
- Check out the related words at the bottom of Google for reference
- Find a platform that helps generate LSI keywords, such as LSIGraph
6. Use Strong Schema Markup
Never heard of schema markup? Don’t worry because despite it being an extremely powerful tool in the world of SEO, it is frequently underutilized or not used at all.
So, if you’re new to schema markup, let’s dig deeper into why it can be a powerful component for your eCommerce beauty brand.
What is Schema Markup
First off, schema markup is code that can be added to your website to enhance descriptions that help search engines provide more relevant information to users.
If you have ever heard of a rich snippet, then you are on your way to understanding what schema markup is.
Your eCommerce beauty brand can use schema markup for just about every inch of your website, and these rich snippets can increase your product pages immensely because it will tell Google the meaning of your product, not just provide a chunk of text.
One study determined that websites with markup rank an average of four positions higher in the SERPs than those without schema markup.
Include Your Beauty Product Reviews
You can include reviews when adding rich snippets for each of your beauty brand’s products.
If customers love these products and your product consistently generates 5-star reviews, include it!
You can show the number of stars and how many reviews the product has, this will help build trust and set your product apart from the rest, even before a potential customer clicks on your product page!
Strong URLs for Each Page of Your Website
URL health needs to be taken into consideration for your beauty brand’s SEO strategy. The URLs for each of your website pages need to be organized, offer a clear description of the content on the page, and be full of keywords.
7. Start an Amazing Beuty Content Strategy
Finally, it is time we talk about your content strategy, because, without strong copy, all of your SEO planning will go to waste. Your content is what ranks with Google, so ensuring that it is the cream of the crop is 100% necessary!
Perform a Content Audit
I always suggest beginning the planning stage of your content strategy by performing a content audit. Your brand can go through your pages and see exactly what is working well, what pieces of content are receiving a high level of engagement, and what pieces are undeserving your audience.
Create Specific and On-Brand Content About the Beauty Industry
One strategic way for your beauty brand to begin creating your content strategy is to take the types of questions your beauty brand receives from customers and fans, and then generate content based on these questions.
Do you receive a lot of questions regarding the benefits of certain ingredients in your infamous anti-aging cream?
What about questions regarding the best hair products for the types of hair?
What type of products should I use for combination skin?
These are the types of questions your beauty brand can use to generate educational content for your readers. Your content strategy should place you as a leader and educator in the industry.
Your content can build trust between you and your audience even before they decide to purchase your products.
Optimize Each Piece of Content for SEO
This is really what we came here for!
Each piece of content needs to be fully optimized for SEO so that it can rank high in SERPs.
Here is how to optimize your content for SEO:
- You need a keyword rich and descriptive heading, with the use of long-tail keywords.
- Your content is fresh, up to date, and well researched.
- Content includes keywords in the title tag, meta-description, header and body, and URLs.
- You have linked and cited sources that are high authority and reputable within the industry.
- Images are optimized with alt-text.
- Your pieces of content are mobile-friendly.
- You have done extensive keyword research and strategically placed these keywords through your content.
Wow, isn’t it fun to come full circle and see how the topics we talked about earlier all lead to a fully optimized piece of content?!
Even if your past pieces of content haven’t been written with SEO in mind, it does not mean that they can’t be updated and refreshed. In fact, your audience will love to see that your content is current with the times and industry trends.
In Conclusion
SEO can seem like an endless mountain to climb, but that shouldn’t stop your beauty brand from creating a strong SEO strategy.
In reality, it needs to be part of your marketing strategy because you are offering such great products, the world wants to see them! And without SEO, your beauty products might struggle to reach the national or international audience that they deserve.
If you feel that your SEO strategy is going nowhere or your beauty brand still isn’t living up to its full potential, let us help you! Our SEO strategists can be with you through every step of the way and will help your content rank and get into the hands of the customers that really want it.
