SEO Tips Every Fashion Brand Should Follow
As a digital marketer, it pains me to see some awesome fashion brands make some mistakes with their digital efforts that can easily be fixed. When I’m searching for your “one shoulder dress”, I would hope that all the “one shoulder dresses” on your site show up within your site search results, or better yet, within Google. I’m finding as I shop more and more online that this is not the case, and I end up going to affiliate sites such as ShopBop, ShopStyle, etc. to quickly find the items I’m searching for instead of wasting minutes on the retailers site.
Thus, I felt the need to give a few tips so that maybe I could have my dreams come true and make my digital shopping experience as enjoyable as my brick and mortar shopping experience. 
Bloomingdales.com Uses The Popular Phrase "Skinny Jeans" in both product name, and page title where it matters most.
1) Optimized Page Titles. One of the best practices for on-site optimization is choosing relevant popular keyword phrases and incorporating them in your site’s page titles. Generally, whatever the product name is such as “skinny jeans” should be in the page title. Bloomingdales.com does a great job of simply putting the product name, color, wash, and popular keyword “skinny jeans” into the page title, as seen in the browser window. Just a simple naming structure can make it easier for consumers to search within your site and also help show up in organic search results such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
2) Mobile enabled website. ComScore released stats today that over the past 3 months, mobile browser usage increased 2.3% and use of a social networking site or blog increased by 2.6%. With rapidly growing statistics in mobile browser and mobile blogs its vital that each fashion brand either create a mobile version of their website or
A Mobile Site with eCommerce functionality is needed, as Prada's New eCommerce Site Cannot Be Accessed from a Mobile Phone That Does Not Have Flash Capabilites.
use a mobile plug-in on its blog. For me, this is exceptionally crucial. Whenever I have to wait in line or wait for an appointment, I turn to my iPhone and start browsing/shopping on my
DVF iPhone App Makes It Easy To Shop, Access Store Information, and Brand News.
phone. With the recent Prada eCommerce site launched last week, I immediately wanted to check out what I could purchase. However, when I went to the site, I not only found that I did not have access to the eCommerce section, but couldn’t even get to the site at all, since it was built in Flash (which is not supported by my iPhone).
So, as I was super bummed, I turned to my iPhone apps and browsed the shopping section of my DVF app where I could easily navigate through entire looks, catch up on recent brand videos, or news. While another fashion brand’s iPhone app kept me occupied, it still doesn’t solve the fact that Prada could be missing out on mobile shopping purchases. Shopping behavior on a mobile device varies differently than desktop shopping patterns, and should be accommodated with its own unique mobile site such as Ralph Lauren has done. While an iPhone app is a great brand interaction tool, it cant replace your brand’s site not working on a mobile phone when a consumer needs to access your site or store location information.
3) Alt Text for Product Images. While it might not be the first thing on your list, last year some of the top SEO experts claimed that there is a high correlation between keyword-rich alt text and high organic rankings. What does this mean? Name your product photos they way people might search for them. Don’t have your “red stiletto heels” photo named as “2321424Pghio”. Much like choosing popular
Above is an Example of How Google's Shopping Feed Results Show Before The Standard Listings.
keywords phrases for your page titles, the same should follow for product images. This comes in particularly handy when I have a specific item I am looking for such as “metallic blazer”, and instead of doing a search in Google Web, I use Google Images and click on the images that match my search.
4) Use shopping feeds. Often times Google’s shopping feeds results show up before the first organic listing. If you are the original seller of the product its essential that your website show up first. Creating a shopping feed and submitting to Google is a great way for fashion brands to reach qualified shoppers and increase traffic and sales over competitors.
While there are so many more search engine optimization techniques, the above are just some essential tips to get fashion brands on the right track. When I’m looking for your product, especially the latest season’s shoes, I want to be able to find it online (whether it be on my laptop or phone) and have the option to purchase it too!