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 and a downloadable checklist.

Here, you’ll find:

• 6 expert tips for fashion SEO
• Cost of fashion SEO
• How to measure fashion SEO campaign results
• Checklist for building a successful campaign
• Benefits of SEO for fashion brands

Fashion SEO is a digital marketing strategy that involves optimizing your fashion website to boost your search rankings and improve your brand’s online visibility. If you do it right, SEO is the gift that keeps on giving, allowing you to show up for relevant keywords long after you publish the piece of content.

Let’s dive into our expert tips for fashion SEO along with its benefits and costs. We’ve also included a helpful checklist you can use to plan your next SEO campaign.

6 expert tips for fashion SEO

If you want to see results with your fashion SEO campaigns, you’ve got to go beyond the basics. Use these 6 expert SEO tips as part of your fashion marketing plan:

1. Conduct keyword research
2. Optimize product pages
3. Create shareable content
4. Leverage influencers and UGC
5. Optimize site for mobile
6. Create seasonal SEO campaigns

1. Conduct keyword research

The first step in your SEO campaign is to conduct thorough keyword research focusing on your products and current related fashion trends.

Start by listing words that describe your products. Here’s an example of preliminary keywords for a company that sells leather bags and purses:

• Leather purse
• Leather bag
• 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.

To get even more keywords, look at the latest trends in your fashion niche by browsing popular publications your audience reads. You can also research social media to see what fashion influencers are talking about.

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

Whether using WordPress, Shopify, or another ecommerce platform to host your shop, one of the first things you’ll do after making your keyword list is optimize your product pages and images.

Detailed product descriptions

Create detailed product descriptions that use relevant SEO keywords naturally throughout the text. These descriptions should go beyond basic information about the product. 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, the occasion it’s suited for, and any fashion trends it may be a part of.

Here’s a great example of a product description that does just that for a Turkish Cotton Spa Dress:

Balancing keywords and connection will increase search engine visibility and help customers make informed purchasing decisions. This increases customer satisfaction and reduces the likelihood of returns.

High-quality images

In addition to a detailed, optimized description, include high-quality product images. Since images are often the first thing people notice on the page, use high-resolution images that showcase the product’s features from every angle.

High-resolution photos can slow down your site speed, which is important in SEO. To optimize, compress images so they’re quick to load while maintaining quality. To rank your images on the search engine results page, use your keywords in the image’s file name and alt-text.

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

When we talk about SEO for ecommerce brands, we aren’t just talking about Google Shopping SEO. High-quality content is at the heart of any ecommerce SEO strategy.

The goal is to create compelling, shareable content using the right keywords to drive more traffic to your site. The quality of your content also impacts link building, which is another essential part of search engine optimization.

Take a cue from popular fashion blogs like Who What Wear, and create content around fashion trends featuring your products. You can also create helpful blog content that helps customers purchase the right product, like this example from watch shop Seköni Original:

Someone searching for keyword phrases like “matching your watch with your suit” would likely find this blog post helpful. It features high-quality photos of the ecommerce brand’s products, which is a great strategy for getting site visitors interested in browsing your shop.

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 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 that you’d like to partner with on a campaign. To make the collaborative process as easy as possible, brainstorm specific campaign ideas for collaboration before reaching out.

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

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

When it comes to user-generated content, the premise is the same. While many of your customers don’t have the same audience numbers as an influencer, they’re more likely to share content featuring your products purely out of their love for your brand.

The Animal Observatory is a children’s clothing company that often uses UGC to show real customers wearing their items. These candid shots of kids in their gear are popular on their social channels.

5. Optimize site for mobile

Optimize your ecommerce site for mobile devices so you can drive traffic from mobile searches. Focusing on mobile responsiveness also 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:

• Ensure your site has a mobile responsive design. Your site should be easy to navigate from a smaller device screen. This includes hyperlinks and design elements like buttons.
• Research and target voice search-friendly SEO 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.
• Optimize images for mobile. 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.
• Make sure text content is accessible. 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.

For example, a swimsuit brand could run summer SEO campaigns to bring more traffic to its site during the busiest swimsuit season. Since SEO takes time to work its magic, running PPC ad campaigns in combination with your organic search efforts can amplify your results.

And that’s exactly what the HawkSEM team did for our client Swimsuits Direct. After partnering with us, the swimsuit company saw a 109% increase in year-over-year revenue and increased its Google Shopping conversion rate by nearly 20%.

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, a typical rate is between $500 to $1,000 per month.

The cost of fashion SEO services will depend on a few important factors. The type of SEO services and project complexity will impact costs. For instance, if you’re looking for a one-time SEO content strategy, you will pay less than you would for ongoing monthly search engine optimization services.

The SEO expert’s experience will also impact the cost. Hiring an SEO agency is often more expensive than hiring one individual. However, there’s the added benefit of having a whole team behind your campaigns.

“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 Rambod Yadegar, HawkSEM President.

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

How to measure fashion SEO campaign results

There’s no way to know if your fashion SEO campaigns are working unless you track your 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 KPIs for your campaigns. Here are a few SEO metrics to track based on your goals:

Organic traffic: Measures the number of visitors who come to your ecommerce site through unpaid sources.

• Keyword ranking: Shows you where your page appears on the search engine results page (SERP).
• Conversion rate: Tells you how many people take the desired action once they are on the page.
• Bounce rate: Shows you the percentage of visitors that leave a webpage without taking action.
• Backlinks: Indicates the value of your content. Both the quantity and quality of backlinks are important for SEO.

“Tracking is an essential part of any SEO campaign, especially for ecommerce brands. 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,” says Sam Yadegar, CEO of HawkSEM. “This allows us to optimize toward a higher ROI, month over month and year over year.”

“Also, tracking with CIQ gives us 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.”

Checklist for building a successful campaign

Buildout your fashion SEO campaign using this checklist to make things easy:

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

SEO also pairs well with other digital marketing strategies like content marketing and PPC advertising. This makes SEO an excellent addition to your omnichannel marketing strategy.

For example, when accessories brand Timbuk2 partnered with HawkSEM for search engine marketing, it increased its average order value by 21% and year-over-year net revenue by more than 56%. See how we did it.

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 you need to consider.

SEO is not a one-and-done marketing strategy. In fact, 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? It’s time to call in the experts. HawkSEM is ready to support your fashion brand with its SEO efforts.

Book a free consult to get started.