Skincare SEO Essentials: Costs, Strategies + Checklist

Good skincare SEO makes your web pages more visible in Google, meaning more organic traffic and sales for your business. Cleanse your skincare SEO strategy with our ten expert tips, and check out our handy checklist.

Here, you’ll find:

1. Why use SEO for skincare?
2. What is the cost of skincare SEO?
3. 10 expert tips to transform how you do SEO for skincare
4. Your SEO for skincare checklist

Want to promote your latest cleanser, serum, or body lotion to potential customers? It’s no longer enough to add a few photos to your website, write a generic product description, and hope for the best.

A high-quality SEO skincare strategy is the best way to enhance your online presence and stand out amongst the other beauty brands on the market.

Not sure how to get started with your skincare SEO? In this comprehensive guide, we’ll talk about how much good SEO costs, the benefits of getting your SEO right, and how to use SEO to gain a competitive advantage.

(Plus, read to the end to get your free SEO for skincare checklist.)

Why use SEO for skincare?

Here are some reasons to implement search engine optimization (SEO) into your skincare marketing strategy.

• Increases your brand visibility: Good SEO increases the chances of your web pages appearing on the first page of the search engine results pages (SERPs). The first organic result in Google gets nearly 40% of all clicks.
• Drives organic traffic to your website: High search engine rankings lead to more website traffic. If the user experience (UX) of your site is good, this results in high conversion rates.
• Helps you target the right customers: SEO allows you to focus on keywords your target audience uses. This means you can prioritize the customers who are most likely to buy your skincare products.
• Builds trust: Beauty products can significantly affect people’s health and well-being, so potential customers must have confidence that your products are safe. Search engines prioritize reliable and credible content, giving shoppers peace of mind. We’ll talk about this later.

What is the cost of skincare SEO?

The average cost of SEO for skincare brands is between $500 to $30,000 per month. The cost depends on:

• The scope of the work: A smaller skincare company that sells locally will have less complex SEO demands than a large international brand
• The needs of the customer: A skincare brand that wants keyword research will pay less than a brand that wants keyword research but also content creation and link-building
• The experience of the agency: An agency with specific expertise in the beauty industry may charge more

10 expert tips to transform how you do SEO for skincare

Want to increase the chances of your skincare brand ranking on the first page of Google? Here are 10 expert tips to boost your search engine presence and entice potential customers to your site.

1. Target the right keywords
2. Start a blog
3. Establish trust
4. Write unique product descriptions
5. Launch a YouTube channel
6. Look at how you can make your site more engaging
7. Generate backlinks
8. Focus on your technical SEO
9. Aim for rich results
10. Review and monitor your results

1. Target the right keywords

Keyword research is an essential part of the skincare SEO process. By optimizing your articles, product pages, and landing pages for the words your target audience uses, you can stand out in the SERPs.

“One major challenge when finding the right keywords is the high levels of competition in the skincare industry, both from established brands and up-and-comers,” says Kate Ross, SEO Specialist at Irresistible Me. “Niche targeting is the key —find specific segments that may be underserved or have unique needs.”

Long-tail keywords are ideal for targeting unique SEO keywords with high-purchase intent. These are keywords over four words long. For example, instead of “best skincare products,” try “best organic skincare products for older skin”.

Another thing to remember about skincare SEO is that searchers may use alternative keywords to find products. For example, your night-time moisturizer may contain tocopherol, but potential customers are more likely to refer to it as “vitamin E.” While it’s important to showcase your scientific credentials, it’s also important to relate to your target audience.

Here’s a top tip for skincare SEO keywords. Once you have your keywords, use keyword mapping to determine which pages to include them. This ensures you use your keywords across all your pages and that they work well together.

2. Start a blog

A marketing blog on your beauty website is a fantastic way to enhance your beauty SEO:

• Your articles can target additional keywords
• High-quality content can attract backlinks from other websites
• You can internally link to other articles and product pages, helping search engines understand the structure of your site
• Search engines favor websites that are regularly updated, providing a small SEO boost
• You can use articles to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, establishing trust and experience

One of the skincare blogs we love is Sunday Riley. The skincare brand posts regularly, focuses on topical content, and uses the blog homepage to promote relevant skincare products customers may be interested in.

The articles themselves are great examples of skincare SEO too. There are links to relevant articles and quotes from relevant experts to boost authoritativeness — in this case, from a dermatologist.

3. Establish trust

Earlier, we mentioned that trust is vital in the skincare industry. Google deems skincare a “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) topic, meaning the wrong information can negatively impact people’s health and safety. The search engine demotes pages containing inaccurate and dangerous information in search engine results.

Google also uses E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) to determine the quality of your content. The more credible it is, the better your online visibility.

We’ve already mentioned that adding expert quotes is a great way to boost trust on your skincare website. Other ways you can use trust to enhance your SEO include:

• Citing research and studies quoted in reputable medical journals
• Partnering with credible organizations and showcasing mentions of your brand in trusted publications
• Creating author biographies for content creators. For example, how many years of experience do your article writers have in the skincare industry?

4. Write unique product descriptions

When you sell multiple skincare products online, writing unique product descriptions for them can feel like a chore. However, creating relevant and targeted product copy is integral to your skincare SEO strategy.
It lets you:

• Add relevant keywords to your content, boosting your SEO
• Showcase the unique benefits and features of each product
• Avoid duplicate content penalties in the search engine results

Here’s a tip for writing good product descriptions: Look at your product reviews and see what customers like most about your skincare items. Then, weave these words and phrases into your content.

5. Launch a YouTube channel

Did you know YouTube videos can rank in Google Search? If you have a well-optimized YouTube channel, you can increase your online visibility even more.

Not only this, but YouTube is the second most-used search engine after Google, with nearly 2.5 million monthly users.

Fenty Beauty is killing it on YouTube at the moment. The brand posts tutorials regularly, strategically uses keywords in its video titles and descriptions, and creates stunning video thumbnails that entice people to click.

One way the brand could improve its SEO is to upload transcripts to videos rather than relying on the ones YouTube automatically creates. Google crawls and indexes these transcripts, meaning improved search engine rankings for specific keywords.

6. Look at how you can make your site more engaging

Good content marketing can boost your SEO efforts. Engaging, fun, and educational website content is more likely to get backlinks, and shares on social media, which can lead to additional traffic to your site.

Here’s something we love by Olay. The well-known skincare brand has a skin advisor quiz on its website. Answer a few questions, and Olay will recommend a skincare routine and products you might like.

You don’t have to create an interactive quiz — the perfect content for your brand could be an infographic, article, eBook, or a podcast. Understanding your target audience is essential.

It’s also important to regularly update your content to ensure it’s as up-to-date and accurate as possible.

7. Generate backlinks

Getting other websites to link to your pages has the biggest effect on your Google rankings.

Why? Trust is essential to the SEO process. Each high-quality backlink you get is an endorsement of your website. If other sites trust you, then the search engines will too.

Let’s look at Lush, a popular skincare and cosmetics retailer. The brand has over 56 million backlinks from nearly 80,000 referring domains, including highly regarded sites like Wikipedia, the BBC, the New York Times, and CNN.

An effective way to carry out link-building in the skincare industry is through influencer marketing. By working with trusted influencers and bloggers, you can get links back to your website.

8. Focus on your technical SEO

Skincare SEO isn’t just about the keywords you use and the content you create — it’s about how fast and responsive your website is. Technical SEO concerns how you optimize the functional elements of your site. This makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index your site, increasing your website’s visibility.

Technical SEO focuses on:

• Page titles and meta descriptions
• Page load speed
• Mobile responsiveness — 76% of Americans have bought a product using a mobile phone, so it’s vital that your pages work well!
• Internal linking and broken links
• Page redirects
• Duplicate content and canonical tags
• URL structure
• Structured data (schema)

We can carry out a technical SEO audit for your skincare website, providing recommendations that’ll boost your search engine rankings.

9. Aim for rich results

Rich snippets add extra information to your search engine results, making them more appealing and clickable. The example below uses a rich snippet to show the product’s rating and number of reviews.

You can use structured data markup to enhance your search engine results. This is code added to your web page that provides search engines with extra context about your content.

There are different types of structured data. You can use it on product pages, articles, and frequently asked question sections.

You can also use structured data for local SEO. If you run a brick-and-mortar store, use structured data to provide additional information about your business, making you more likely to appear in local searches.

10. Review and monitor your results

Finally, it’s critical to review, assess, and reoptimize your SEO efforts regularly. As skincare SEO is highly competitive, it’s easy to get overtaken by a competitor.

Tools like Semrush, Moz, and Ahrefs can track your keyword rankings, so you can take swift action if your pages drop from the first page of Google to the second. We use ConversionIQ at HawkSEM, our proprietary tool, to track which keywords result in the most conversions.

“It’s vital to stay up to date with SEO trends and algorithm changes,” says Andrew Grella, CEO of Formen Makeup.

“We actively subscribe to SEO news and forums like The Moz Blog to stay on top of what is happening in the industry. We also engage in continuous testing and learning — our SEO team dedicates a lot of their time to experimenting with new trends and strategies.”

Want to know if your skincare SEO is working? Check out our guide to success.

Your SEO for skincare checklist

SEO for skincare products may sound daunting, but it doesn’t have to be!

Check out our free checklist to keep on top of your SEO strategy.

Identify keywords to use

Use keyword research tools to identify words and phrases with low competition

Prioritize long-tail keywords

Use keyword mapping to group relevant keywords on the same page

Use keywords in your page headings, body text, and alt text

Develop engaging and educational content

Understand what your target audience wants to see with a thorough content strategy

Regularly review and revise your content to ensure accuracy

Start a blog

Create a blog-posting schedule

Link to relevant internal and external pages

Ensure your articles are SEO-optimized

Create a detailed bio for each article author

Focus on link-building

Identify high-quality influencers to work with

Create great content people want to link to

Post to your YouTube channel regularly

Add relevant keywords to your title, description, and file name

Create a captivating thumbnail

Upload a transcript to help with SEO and accessibility

Create unique product descriptions

Consider the unique benefits and features of each product

Look at customer reviews to get inspiration

Review your technical SEO

Optimize slow-loading elements on your pages

Audit your page titles and meta descriptions

Make sure your site works well on mobile devices

Implement structured data markup on relevant pages

Give customers a reason to trust you

Link to reputable medical journals

Partner with trusted organizations

Quote industry experts to add credibility

Review and monitor your SEO strategy

Track keyword rankings

Identify which keywords lead to the most conversions

Understand what you need to do if you get outranked by a competitor

The takeaway

Want to become a leading skincare brand? Then it’s time to get your SEO in check

Find the right keywords, establish yourself as a trusted authority, and ensure your website is easy to use — you’ll soon reap the benefits!

If you don’t have the time or skills to focus on your skincare SEO, it pays to call in the experts.

“When marketing your skincare ecommerce store, it’s essential to work with a partner who is an expert in ecommerce marketing and has the proper team, tools, and strategies in place to help you succeed,” says Sam Yadegar, CEO at HawkSEM.

“We have extensive expertise in eCommerce SEO in competitive spaces, like the skincare sector.”

If you want your skincare SEO to be as smooth and flawless as possible — we’re here to help. Get in touch today for your free, no-obligation consultation.