The apparel industry is highly competitive and your digital presence matters more than ever. When consumers search on Google they look at the first page of results, so you need to be in the top results to be truly competitive. You can focus on improving your ‘organic’ search results, or you can use ‘paid’ search to get your brand noticed, or a combination of both is wise. Because choosing paid advertising or AdWords will get you short term exposure for as long as your budget allows, if you focus on ‘organic’ search you will build long term value into your website.
PureSEO is New Zealand’s largest specialist search engine optimisation firm. General Manager Koshy Mathew has been in the advertising industry in NZ for the past 11 years, and prior to this he was in the apparel industry across Indonesia, Bahrain and India for 10 years.
Mathew looks at the four areas to focus on if you want to start increasing the profile of your website:
1. Set up: Make it easy for your audience and search engines (Google) to find your website.
Google prefers sites that are secure, well-mapped, can be read easily, load quickly and mobile-friendly.Get an expert to audit your site and make sure everything is set up correctly.
2. Content is king: Information and images are the most important elements you can improve.
Google loves fresh, relevant content and customers do too. Make sure you use language and images that will speak to your customers and keep it updated.
3. Create quality links: Google judges how useful your website is by its ‘links’ or ‘hyperlinks’.
Make sure you link to other content that is relevant to your brand -include both internal (your site) and external site links (other websites).
4. Social media: It’s a great way to grow your audience.
The number of ‘comments’, ‘likes’, ‘shares’ or ‘tweets’ is an indicator on how popular your site is. Customer engagement will help a site rank higher. Be strategic and post often but make sure the content is relevant. Listen to your customers and use it as a two-way communication channel.
To get your business to the top of search result you’ll need to get these four tactics right. Spread your investment and most importantly, talk to an expert first to make sure the fundamentals are in place.
