SEO For Fashion eCommerce: The Definitive Guide

Ranking in the top organic search results is one of the best ways to drive more traffic to your website and increase sales.

If you are in the fashion eCommerce business, this guide will show you everything you need about SEO for fashion eCommerce.

From the basics of on-page optimization to more advanced techniques, you will learn many things to get your fashion site ranking higher in search results.

If you want to get found easier than your competition, you need to optimize your site for search engines like Google or Bing.

Let’s start.

Why is SEO important for a fashion eCommerce website?
What are the biggest challenges of an SEO strategy for fashion eCommerce sites?
6 SEO Tips For Fashion eCommerce Websites

Why is SEO important for a fashion eCommerce website?

The fashion industry is one of the most competitive industries online.

If you want to succeed in the online space, it is essential to have a strong search engine optimization strategy.

Here are a few reasons why SEO is so crucial for fashion eCommerce websites:

It helps you stand out from the competition.

There are thousands of fashion eCommerce websites out there vying for attention.

Fortunately, it will only be easy to stand out from the crowd with a strong SEO strategy unless you want to pay for ads, which is expensive.

Increases traffic to your website

A good SEO strategy will increase the audience of your website.

Why? Because your website will rank higher in search engine results, making it more likely for people to find it.

The more people on your website, the more chances you can increase your fashion brand’s conversion rates.

It helps you to build trust and credibility.

People need to trust and believe in your brand to buy from it.

A strong SEO presence will build credibility with your audience.

If people find your website in the first search results and get help with their intent, they are more likely to say, “This website is in the top results pages. Therefore, it must be good.”

Make more sales

The goal of any business is to make sales.

SEO can help your company increase traffic and conversions, meaning more sales for your business.

And who doesn’t want more revenue in a new business?

What are the biggest challenges of an SEO strategy for fashion eCommerce sites?

As the eCommerce landscape continues to evolve, so do the strategies for optimizing fashion eCommerce sites for search engines.

One of the biggest challenges faced is keeping up with the constant changes in fashion trends and how these changes impact search engine optimization.

Another challenge is that fashion eCommerce sites often have many SKUs and product pages, making it challenging to maintain a high level of quality control regarding SEO.

A clear and concise SEO strategy is essential from the start and regularly reviewing and updating it as needed.

Another challenge is that competing with other fashion eCommerce sites can take time and effort.

There are a lot of sites out there that sell similar products, so it is vital to make sure that your brand stands out in some way.

How? Offer unique products or provide more information and resources than your competitors.

Put effort into your product descriptions and help the customers understand better your selling offer.

Finally, as with any eCommerce site, tracking and attributing ROI for SEO activities can take time and effort.

You will need to set up well-defined tracking analytics on your website.

Set clear goals and monitor and report on progress continuously.

6 SEO Tips For Fashion eCommerce Websites

Tip #1 Build a user-friendly website to boost session duration and bounce rate

Session duration is the time your visitors spend on your website.

If your fashion website is easy to navigate and does not frustrate the user, the visitor will stay more on your store.

Bounce rate is the percentage of all sessions where users viewed only one page.

Is a high bounce rate a bad thing?

It depends if the success of your eCommerce business depends on the visitors checking many pages.

Visitors who enter more pages are more likely to add several products to the cart.

While session duration and bounce rates are not direct ranking factors for Google or Bing, they are often symptoms of deeper problems like user experience issues or poor targeting.

Let’s see how you can improve your fashion business’s session duration and bounce rate.

Quick Website – Page Speed

Because an eCommerce site tends to have more pages and more frameworks installed than a typical blog or a 2 – 3 pages website, it is usually slower to load.

A quick online store means a visitor can reach any page with just 2-3 clicks from the homepage.

Imagine this: you are on the homepage, you click a category, and then you click on a product; In just three clicks, your user can become a customer if they like your products.

If your site loads fast, visitors are less likely to be annoyed.

Keep these two things in mind:

Check your website speed.
Make the site easy to navigate.

How to check your eCommerce website speed?

Use this tool from Google.

It will show you the following:

How fast your site loads on desktop and mobile
What performance issues to solve
SEO score ( If your page follows basic SEO rules )
Accessibility score

What is a good score for all of the above? Ideally, everything should be in green, like in the below image, but remember that Wordlab is not an eCommerce site.

Use high-quality visuals

Invest in high-quality visuals if your business wants customers to perceive its fashion products as high-quality ones.

According to Justuno, 93% of consumers consider visual content to be the critical deciding factor in purchasing.

You are probably a customer too!

If you see professional images, you feel more confident buying products from that site.

Your customers think just like you.

If you don’t know what background to use for your product’s photography, go with a white background.

A white background is easy to remove and edit, and you can reuse the images for social media.

User-friendly product pages

Your website might be beautiful, but your end goal is to sell.

So how will you sell more?

Create persuasive product pages full of valuable and easy-to-understand content.

What should your page contain?

A product title
A product price
A product description
Professional images of the product
Add to cart button
Recommended or complementary products -> Grow sales
Videos ( Optional )
Reviews ( Optional )

As you can see, there is quite a lot of information which you need to add on a single page.

Call-to-action buttons that stand out.

fashion eCommerce call to action example

After a user reads all the information, they will want to add the product to the cart if it satisfies their search intent.

Usually, the best place for an “Add to cart” button is below the product description.

Make sure that both of the below things stand out:

The contrast between the button’s color and the background of the page.
The difference between the text color on the button’s background.

For example, if your button’s background color is blue, you do not want the text’s color to be a darker blue.

This website will help you find contrast issues on your pages. In addition, it is helpful to improve the colors on your pages and the usability of your website for people with visibility disabilities.

a11 color contrast accessibility validator eCommerce

Choose fonts carefully

Font pairs and sizes can make or break your website’s user experience.

People will not have a few minutes to read the content letter by letter.

Therefore, your website text needs to be accessible to eye-scan.

For example, KIA ( yes, the car manufacturer ) recently rebranded and used a weird font pair.

It is an excellent example of seeing why bad fonts affect your brand.

If you need to learn more about fonts and want to play with font pairs, check Font pair.

Let’s talk about the font sizes

What font sizes should a product page have?

I suggest using a mix between 16 and 20 px for font sizes.

Let me show you an example from Asos.

The title represents an h1 HTML tag which has a size of 18px.

If you are not technical enough to understand the HTML tags, do not worry. The developer or the designer should be familiar with it.

h1 HTML tags are essential for SEO purposes. Do not abuse them. One on the product page is enough.

The price text is 18px but is in bold.

The product description has a font size of 16px, and there are other h2 tags with 14px.

The text size of the font is 14px, but the contrast, white on green, looks very nice.

In this example, the font sizes are between 14 and 18px. An alternative would be to use fonts between 16px and 20px.

While Asos’s product pages might not have the best font sizes, it has reported a $3.9 billion revenue in 2021, making them a fantastic example to follow.

I’m sure their user interface went through many design tests to find the ones that convert the best.

Mobile-friendly website

A mobile-friendly site in 2023 is a must.

According to Contentsquare, 58% of all online visits came from smartphones in 2021.

While people might browse eCommerce sites from their phones, they still use their desktop browsers to finish the purchase.

Below you can find the average conversion rate per device across all eCommerce industries.

Desktop.- 3.7 %
Mobile – 2.2 %

Focus on the web, but pay attention to the mobile version of your website.

What is an excellent tool to check how your website looks on several mobile phones simultaneously?

Use this tool from Browserstack to preview your website on several mobile devices.

Remember, and make sure that your eCommerce site is mobile-friendly.

Install a good eCommerce search engine on the website

Keep in mind that I’m talking about your website’s search engine.

It is an input where people type some words, and it returns some results.

How is this helpful?

It will help users quickly find their desired products without searching through the categories and products menu.

How does a good search engine impact your users?

Would you like to search for “blue v-neck t-shirts” and receive “elegant evening shirts” as a result?

What do you think will happen if your users receive these results? They will bounce!

Their first reaction will be: “This shop is so bad! If their search results are like this, …”

A good search engine on your eCommerce store is an addition to happier potential customers.

Tip #2 Optimize pages with relevant keywords

What are the basic requirements for on-page optimization?

Every page on your website should have a meta title and a meta description.

This information will help search engine robots better understand your website.

Ideally, if your online clothing store sells jeans, you might want to rank on Google for the keywords: jeans.

The “jeans” keyword has millions of searches each month.

Because it is a popular keyword, the competition to rank for this keyword is fierce.

Fortunately, there is an alternative for less popular keywords, but keywords with high intent.

Meet long tail keywords.

Long tail keywords can help users understand better what your website’s page has to offer.

Do you agree that someone who searches for cheap blue jeans with next-day delivery vs jeans is more likely to make a purchase?

You want to avoid fighting for general keywords like jeans and optimize for long-tail keywords.

Let’s discuss a few examples to understand better:

Suppose you have a seasonal eCommerce website which sells evening dresses for Christmas parties.

What is the relevant keyword for your website category?

“evening dresses for Christmas parties”

If you want, you can add more keywords modifiers to the above sentence, like:

“The best evening dresses for Christmas parties“
“The cheapest evening dresses for Christmas parties.”
“evening dresses for Christmas parties – Free next day delivery“

Decide on a meta title and description for your category:

Title – Evening Dresses For Christmas Parties – Free Next Day Delivery.

Description – The perfect evening dress to wear to all your upcoming Christmas parties. 30% off and free next-day delivery on every order.

If you want higher chances of ranking, write an about text on the category page.

If the text is too long, truncate it and then out a button to show more.

asos floral dresses category page example

Not all people will want to read the category “about text”, but search engine robots will do!

If you want to find good long-tail keywords, you might need to do your own keyword research by seeing what are the latest trends or analyze your competition.

Now that we know how to optimize a category page let’s see how we can optimize a product page.

How to optimize the product page with a long tail keyword?

Similar to what you did with the category, the product page requires at least the below three fields:

meta title
meta description
product description

What is the difference between a meta description and a product description?

The meta description is visible only to search engines, while the product description is visible to visitors and search engines.

No matter who reads the product page, it should tell a story.

When you create a product page, try to understand if it has answers to different questions like:

What keywords should that person type in the search input to find my product page and be happy with the result?

Refrain from stuffing keywords in your pages.

Write quality content because everything needs to feel natural.

While it might sound daunting at first, if you follow a few basic requirements, you will have a higher chance of driving organic traffic to your eCommerce website.

Tip: #3 Start a fashion blog to drive organic traffic to your website

How can a blog help your clothing business’s SEO strategy?

When you have an eCommerce store, no matter how well you optimize the categories and the product pages, it takes a lot of work to rank for all the keywords related to what you sell.

So what do you do?

You search for ways to create content and attract new customers.

Nowadays, there are several channels, like social media, where you can promote your content, but the one where you have the most control over your users is a blog.

For example, if Meta decides to close your Instagram page tomorrow and you invested lots and lots of hours, you cannot do much against it.

With a fashion blog, you can gather email addresses from your visitors and create an email list 100% owned by you.

Why an email list rather than just a simple blog which will rank high in the search results?

Remember that even with a blog, you are at the mercy of Google and Bing.

They can always de-rank and never allow users to find your results on the search pages.

So the goal is to create a fashion blog to help you build an email list.

No matter what type of content you create, you always send the users to the blog page so they can subscribe for more quality content.

Tip: #4 Write guest posts for other fashion blogs

Backlinks or external links that come from other websites are one of the biggest ranking factors for search engines.

Other websites linking to your blog or eCommerce store are a signal that your business has important content, which should be found in the search results.

Backlinks are one of the ways to tell search engines that you are an authority in your industry.

Writing guest posts for other fashion websites might be a good strategy to attract backlinks and new visitors.

Pay attention that you should not guest post for backlinks!

For example, if Google feels that you abuse this strategy, they will penalize your website.

Everything needs to be normal in the eyes of Google or Bing. Be Authentic!

How will you attract backlinks if you write for third-party websites?

Most websites will allow one link in the article.

The link can be follow or no-follow.

No-Follow Links

Get visitors to your site. Users will see the link and click on it.
Create a natural link-building profile. You do not want your website to only have follow links as it will look spammy in the eyes of the search engine robots.
Build trust. If readers find your brand on a popular site, they are more likely to buy

Never refuse a no-follow link if it’s from an authoritative site.

If you write for vogue.com and you get a no-follow link, say thank you!

The vogue article will receive more backlinks from other websites, which might mean more SEO juice for your site and more visitors.

Follow Links

Help you improve search rankings
plus all the benefits from the above no-follow bullet points.

No matter if you receive a follow or a no-follow backlink, there will be benefits for your website.

What type of content should you write?

There are two types of content that you can write for your niche:

Direct
Indirect

Direct content means that you only write about your topic.

For example, if your fashion brand sells waterproof sweaters, all your blogs posts might be:

What to Look for When Shopping for a Waterproof Sweater
The Benefits of Wearing a Waterproof Sweater
How to Clean and Care for Your Waterproof Sweater

etc

These posts will target your audience directly.

What is indirect content?

It is content which targets the same audience, but it is not directly related to what you sell.

What Is The Best Waterproof Pair Of Pants?
How To Create A Rain-proof Wardrobe?
Best Waterproof Shoes

How to find interesting content ideas?

Check your competition.

Do not copy, but write better content.

Use Google Trends

Use Social media

What is the best way to find fashion websites that accept guest posts?

There are a few ways to find out places where you can write a guest post.

#1 Google search

What search terms should you use to find websites that accept guest posts?

“keyword” + “guest post guidelines”
“keyword]”+ “contribute”
“keyword” + “write for us”

If I search fashion + “write for us”, Google will retrieve these search results:

Some pages do not have a “guest post” page, so the above search keywords will not retrieve any search results, but you can still find these websites.

According to Semrush, you can use keywords like:

“keyword” + “this is a guest post by”
“keyword” + “this is a guest contribution”
“keyword” + “guest column/post”
“keyword” + “contributing writer/author”

If a website accepted a guest post in the past, they might accept yours too!

#2 HARO – Help A Reporter Out

As the title suggests, HARO is a website that connects journalists seeking expertise to include in their content with sources who have that expertise.

Subscribe to their newsletter.
Every day, three times a day, you receive an email which tells you topics which require reasonable expertise
Respond to the queries and get featured. Not all responses will get a backlink!
You can read HARO rules here.

#3 Competition

Check backlinks from your competition to see who already links to them.

Use SEO tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to verify links to your competitor’s websites.

This guide from Ahrefs will help you replicate competitor’s backlinks.

#4 Find Influencer Websites

Search for influencer’s social media pages, check if they have a website and ask if they accept guest posts.

No matter what strategy you use to find guest post opportunities, make sure that the website where you write yields some results:

Tip: #5 Submit your website to Google Search Console And Bing Webmaster

If your fashion business follows some of the basics on-page and off-page optimization tips, you want to let Google and Bing know that they can index your pages.

Many people submit their website to Google Search Console but forget about Bing, which is the second largest search engine website.

For example, here are some of the things that you can do inside Google Search Console:

Check indexed pages
Submit sitemap
Ask Google to index pages
Find an error on your site
Discover indexed keywords

How to submit your online clothing stores to the Google Search Console?

Step 1

Open https://search.google.com/search-console

Step 2

Add a new property and enter your domain

Step 3

You will need to verify your website. Unfortunately, if you are not technical, you might need some help.

How to submit your online clothing stores to Bing Webmasters?