6 Fashion SEO Tips: Costs, Benefits + Checklist

Fashion SEO helps ecommerce websites improve search engine rankings and attract more customers. Here are expert tips to create a winning SEO campaign with a downloadable checklist.

If you’re looking to stand out in the fashion industry, search engine optimization (SEO) is the first step.

Fashion SEO is the process of improving your website to boost rankings, increase online visibility, and drive organic traffic.

This guide will show you how to optimize your fashion website, with expert tips from HawkSEM Co-founder and President Rambod Yadegar.

Fashion SEO: 6 expert tips

If you want to see results with your fashion SEO campaigns, use these 6 expert SEO tips as part of your digital marketing plan:

1. Research fashion-specific keywords
2. Optimize product pages
3. Create shareable content
4. Leverage influencers and UGC
5. Optimize for mobile
6. Create seasonal SEO campaigns

1. Research fashion-specific keywords

Keyword research is the process of identifying the queries people use to search for related topics to your brand. You can use free tools, like Google search, as well as keyword research tools like Moz or Semrush.

First, make a list of words that describe your products. For example, a company that sells leather bags and purses may have a list that looks like this:

• Designer bag
• Luxury leather bags
• Women’s designer bags
• Handmade leather bags

Then, use Google’s related searches to expand your list further.

You can also use the autocomplete feature on Google for additional keyword options.

Once you have a preliminary list of keywords, expand and refine this list with a focus on customer intent.

Target keywords across the buyer journey — from those who are doing preliminary research to those who are ready to buy.

When you map your keywords, keep in mind that informational keywords are best suited for blog posts, guides, and other educational content. For product pages, focus on keywords used by those ready to purchase.

With this refined keyword list, use keyword research tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to discover new keywords to target and analyze the search volume and keyword difficulty.

Your ecommerce store will have the best chance of ranking for keywords with a balance of higher search volume and lower keyword difficulty.

Don’t forget to include long-tail keywords. These keyword phrases are more specific and less competitive, so they’ll attract more aligned buyers.

For example, someone searching “red vegan leather crossbody computer bags” is more likely ready to buy than someone searching “leather bags.”

2. Optimize product pages

After building your keyword list, optimize your product pages’ descriptions and images.

Product descriptions

Write detailed descriptions that naturally incorporate relevant keywords. Tell a story that connects with the customer’s desires and lifestyle, incorporating keywords potential buyers will likely use when searching for this product type.

For example, instead of describing the materials used to create a dress, a more engaging description would detail the fabric, the type of fit, and the occasion it’s suited for.

Images

Images are often the first thing potential customers notice, so use high-quality lifestyle visuals that showcase the product’s features from every angle.

High-res photos can slow site speed and hurt SEO, so compress them while keeping quality. To rank your images on the search engine results page, use your keywords in the image’s file name and alt-text.

(Image: Nike screenshot)

Here’s a great example of an optimized product page from Nike. The description and the images give the customer everything they need to know to determine if this shoe is for them.

3. Create shareable content

A strong SEO strategy involves content marketing: the process of creating compelling, shareable content that incorporates the right keywords to drive more traffic to your site.

(Image: Who What Wear screenshot)

Follow the lead of successful fashion blogs by creating content around the latest trends, style guides, or quizzes.

When done right, high-quality content can earn backlinks from reputable websites related to your industry. Also called link building, this SEO strategy leads to better search rankings and credibility in the eyes of search engines like Google.

Pro tip: Don’t forget to include a call to action (CTA) in your blog posts to drive customers to specific products they may be interested in based on the topic. This helps boost product sales from those who click through to your product pages.

4. Leverage influencers and UGC

Influencer collaborations and user-generated content (UGC) can support your SEO efforts by providing backlinks to your site and higher engagement.

Sharing influencer and UGC content on your brand’s social channels also helps with social media SEO, increasing your visibility on social media platforms.

To leverage influencer marketing, look for micro-influencers in your fashion niche who you’d like to partner with on a campaign.

Athleticwear company Lululemon regularly partners with fashion influencers and influential athletes as part of its influencer marketing campaigns.

The influencers create content for their own social platforms, exposing their audience to the brand. Then, Lululemon shares the content on its social media platforms as social proof.

(Image: Lululemon Instagram screenshot)

Similarly, UGC involves using authentic videos, photos, reviews, or testimonials from customers or creators to promote your brand. Unlike influencer content, brands own UGC content and post it to their own social media pages.

5. Optimize for mobile

Optimizing a fashion website for mobile means designing and structuring it so that images, navigation, checkout, and overall user experience work seamlessly on smaller screens and touch devices.

Focusing on mobile responsiveness provides a better user experience for smartphone or tablet users, so they stay and shop on your site.

Here are a few of the elements to consider when optimizing your ecommerce website:

• Mobile responsive design. Your site should be easy to navigate from a smaller device screen. This includes hyperlinks and design elements like buttons.
• Voice search-friendly keywords. Many mobile users use features like Google Voice Search to find things online. Remember this when researching keywords, and include voice search-friendly keywords in your content.
• Optimized images. If your images are too large, it’ll take longer to load on a mobile device, and users will leave. Compress your images to reduce the file size without sacrificing quality.
• Accessible text. A mobile-friendly website isn’t just about the design elements. You must also ensure the text is easily read on a smaller screen. Consider the font, size, and color for text elements.

To determine if your site is currently user-friendly for mobile devices, run a mobile site test to see how your site performs. Use a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights to diagnose any issues that need to be addressed.

From here, you’ll have a list of issues to fix to ensure your site is optimized for mobile. Check your performance regularly, as things may change when you update the site over time.

6. Create seasonal SEO campaigns

If your brand sells products that are popular during certain times of the year, create seasonal SEO campaigns to capitalize on peak shopping periods.

Go through the same process you did to find general SEO keywords, only this time with a focus on seasonal search terms.

Then, create seasonal content around the keywords you find. Use social media and email marketing to amplify your content during the season to drive more website traffic.

Pro tip: Since SEO takes time to work its magic, running PPC ad campaigns in combination with your organic search efforts can amplify your results.

How to measure fashion SEO campaign results

Fashion ecommerce businesses can use tools like Google Analytics to track metrics and monitor performance over time to better understand user behavior and identify successful SEO content.

Before tracking metrics, set clear goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) for your campaigns. Here are a few SEO metrics to track based on your goals:

• Organic traffic: The number of visitors who come to your ecommerce site through unpaid sources.
• Keyword ranking: Where your page appears on the search engine results page (SERP).
• Conversion rate: How many people take the desired action once they are on the page.
• Bounce rate: The percentage of visitors who leave a webpage without taking action.
• Backlinks: Citations from other websites that link back to your site.

“Tracking is an essential part of any SEO campaign, especially for ecommerce brands,” says Sam Yadegar, Co-founder and CEO of HawkSEM. We use ConversionIQ (CIQ) to granularly track every step of the buyer journey so we can understand what’s working and what still needs work. “This allows us to optimize toward a higher ROI, month over month and year over year.”

He says that tracking with CIQ gives Yadegar and his team more insight into a fashion ecommerce company’s target audience. “We can use those data and insights to inform other digital marketing channel strategies to scale while maintaining profitability,” he adds.

Benefits of SEO for fashion brands

There are many benefits of using SEO for fashion brands, including:

• Increased visibility and organic reach in a saturated market
• Higher Google search rankings, leading to more traffic and potential sales
• Building brand authority and credibility through informative content
• More cost-effective than traditional advertising
• Long-term value and sustainable growth through organic search

Cost of fashion SEO

The cost of fashion SEO is typically $3,000 to $10,000 per month for fixed-rate services. For local SEO services, a typical rate is between $500 and $1,000 per month.

These costs depend on a few important factors, including:

• Scope of work (number of pages, technical fixes, content needs)
• Level of experience of the SEO expert or team
• Service model (agency, contractor, or in-house employee)
• Your goals and budget (short-term wins vs. long-term growth)

“When looking to market your fashion ecommerce store, it’s essential to work with a partner who’s an expert in ecommerce marketing and has the proper team, tools, and proven strategies in place to help you succeed,” says Yadegar.

“More importantly, your team should have extensive expertise in ecommerce SEO in competitive spaces like fashion and clothing.”

Checklist for building a successful campaign

Use this checklist to launch your fashion SEO campaign:

The takeaway

Fashion SEO plays a vital role in driving more high-quality organic traffic to your website. If you want to improve your chances of ranking for relevant keywords, there are many different on- and off-page SEO elements to consider.

It takes ongoing research, testing, monitoring, and tweaking to see consistent results. When you hire an SEO agency, you can put all of your campaign tasks in the hands of professionals so you can focus on growing your fashion brand.

Ready to see results with your fashion SEO campaigns? Reach out.

This article has been updated and was originally published in April 2024.