Independent retailers and boutique stores operate in an extremely challenging online environment. The ecommerce giants like eBay and Amazon are relentless in pursuing ever more convenience and their goal of becoming one-stop shops; whilst online fast-fashion sites like ASOS, Boohoo, and Shein deploy teams of global buyers and sell at prices that are near-impossible to match.
But, post-pandemic, there is a place for independent retailers in the UK —62% of shoppers continue to shop locally and 42% believe boutique stores sell more innovative and unique products.
The challenge for boutique stores is being found online.
This is what makes SEO so powerful: any business can work on their SEO, no matter their size or level of resources. It evens out the online playing field. In this guide to SEO for online boutiques, we explain the SEO best practices that will bring new visitors to your online boutique and give you the best chance of turning them into customers.
Jump to…
- What challenges do boutique stores face?
- SEO for online boutiques
- Get started with help from SEO experts
What challenges do boutique stores face?
Whether your boutique is solely online or you sell through a physical store and an ecommerce platform, you’re likely dealing with some combination of the following challenges.
Competing with larger retailers
Large retailers often have the advantage of substantial financial backing and liquidity to respond to changing market conditions or trends. The big online fashion stores tend to have massive product ranges that are marketed across their many online assets such as websites, social media accounts, and online influencers.
Solution —connect with the types of customers who are looking for unique items or certain styles.
Variable marketing budgets
Boutique fashion stores have much smaller budgets than the larger retailers, and can’t commit the same level of resources to PPC advertising. Furthermore, many independent stores have a variable marketing budget that changes from month to month based on fluctuating gross revenues.
Solution —focus on digital marketing strategies that are cost-effective, like SEO, or those that offer a reliable return on investment, like PPC.
Limited brand awareness
Boutique stores often struggle with brand visibility, especially in the early years, and therefore tend to rely on customer loyalty. Typically, new customers are earned through word of mouth and foot traffic. This lack of brand awareness can make it difficult to attract a steady stream of new customers to your physical or online store.
Solution —use knowledge of your existing customers to target new customers using digital marketing techniques such as SEO, PPC or social media marketing.
Managing ecommerce platforms
Finding a balance between all of the various business operations involved in running a boutique store can be a major challenge. Independent retailers that manage both a physical store and an online store might struggle to get the most out of their ecommerce platform.
Solution —this could be due to a lack of technical know-how or time. There are plenty of free learning resources to help you improve the design of your website. Alternatively, if you’re short on time, it might be worth getting an ecommerce expert to conduct a website audit which can highlight aspects of your SEO and site design that need to be improved.
Finding a balance between online and physical
Boutiques that have a physical store and an online store can struggle to find a balance between optimising the physical location and the online store. The costs of running the physical store are higher and maintaining high standards of customer service is a crucial consideration for boutiques. Many business owners therefore spend more time focusing on getting more foot traffic or investing in in-store displays.
However, a well designed and maintained online store can give a much higher return on investment. Ensuring that your ecommerce website offers a good user experience (UX), including seamless navigation, excellent product images and a seamless checkout process is essential for improving your online conversions.
Solution —identify where your ecommerce website could be improved and invest in making the necessary changes. Those ecommerce websites that focus on good UX convert a higher percentage of visitors into customers.
Of course, every boutique store is seeking to overcome the challenges mentioned above. But, as you implement the improvements it’s important that you don’t lose sight of what makes your boutique store unique.
Each independent brand is different, but in general, boutiques are characterised by their brand identity, their niche offering, carefully curated product collections, and the ability to offer a personalised customer service that the big retailers simply can’t match. Sure, chase improvements and benchmark against the best, but don’t move too far away from what makes your boutique unique and genuine.
Now, let’s delve into SEO for online boutiques.
SEO for online boutiques
You can’t do SEO without a website. A website is the bedrock that all of your SEO efforts are built upon. To hammer the point home, here’s 10 reasons why you need a website.
You’re probably wondering what we mean by ‘functional website’? When we say functional website we mean a website that is able to meet your business objectives, offers a good user experience (UX) and is SEO-friendly.
1. Build an SEO-friendly website
As a boutique you’ll obviously want to build a website that is geared towards ecommerce, but what goes into building a website that has good UX and is SEO-friendly?
1.1 Intuitive navigation
You’ll often hear about user experience (UX) in the context of website design and SEO. Websites with good UX are easy to use and keep users engaged. Another way of thinking about UX is that it helps the user find what they want to find or do what they want to do in the least amount of time.
Intuitive navigation is therefore at the heart of a functional website. Building a website that is easy to navigate involves creating clear menus and categorising your product ranges logically. Essentially, the navigation is about organisation, such as linking between the related pages on your site so that users can easily go from one category page to a product page and then onto another product page.
1.2 Quick page speeds
Page speed is another important aspect of good UX. We’ve all used websites where pages seem to take an age to load —we’ve become accustomed to quick page load speeds and we often leave slow websites. Websites with slow page speeds have higher bounce rates, whilst users of fast sites spend more time on site, report more satisfaction, and are more likely to convert. As well as being a key consideration for users, site or page speed is a key ranking factor in Google’s SEO algorithm.
There are various ways to optimise your site and page speeds, but it can get quite technical. For boutique stores with lots of images, one of the best places to start is by making sure your images are in the right file format and aren’t larger than they need to be. Although this article on optimising images for your website is specifically written for WordPress sites, it’s a good place to learn the fundamentals.
1.3 Build a responsive website
Responsive websites automatically adapt their content to the resolution of the screen it’s being viewed on. In other words, responsive sites display normally on multiple devices including computers and mobile devices like tablets and smartphones.
We’ve gone into detail on the importance of having a mobile-friendly website, not least because Google considers responsive websites to be more SEO-friendly. As we continue to spend more time and complete more tasks on our phones, including shopping, it makes good sense to build a site that works well on mobile. If you already have a website for your boutique store, you can check how responsive your website is using this automated tool.
1.4 Visual design
Visual design and imagery are key concerns for boutiques. Images and videos need to be high-quality to showcase your product range in the best possible way. Again, it’s important to balance aesthetics against site/page load speed.
Check out our guide that compares 6 popular CMS in terms of their suitability for ecommerce and SEO functionality.
2. Keyword targeting
Now that you’ve got the basics of how to build an SEO-friendly website, it’s time to move on to keyword targeting. Keywords are integral to how search engines work. Google uses keywords to identify what a page is about, and what a user is searching for; the genius of the Google algorithm is in the way that it matches users’ search intent with the most relevant result.
Optimising your website’s keywords revolves around two processes; keyword research and on-page optimisation.
2.1 Keyword research
Broadly speaking, keyword research is all about identifying what your audience is searching for. When done properly, keyword research can be used to identify three things:
- What users are searching for;
- How many users are searching for these phrases;
- How competitive these searches are.
The idea is to identify target keywords that are relevant to your brand and the products that your boutique sells. Although it might be tempting to target the most generic keywords that have a high search volume, you have to ask yourself how relevant these keywords are to your boutique and how likely you are to outrank your competition?
For boutiques that are just getting into SEO, it actually makes more sense to target the long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are more specific and therefore have less search volume but they tend to have a high search intent with less competition. You’re much more likely to rank higher in the Google results for long-tail keywords. Once you’ve identified your target keywords, it’s time to add them to your website content, which brings us to on-page optimisation.
2.2 On-page optimisation
On-page SEO relates to anything you are in control of on your website, such as the keywords you use, the way you structure your content, and the visuals you include on your website. See our website SEO checklist for more on-page SEO best practices, —for now, we’ll focus on optimising your keywords.
When it comes to placing keywords throughout your website content, there are a number of best practices to be aware of. Try to use your target keywords in the:
- Meta title
- Meta description
- URL (be aware of redirects when changing existing URLs)
- H1 headers
- H2 headers
- Naturally throughout product descriptions
- In your image ALT tags
One key point to remember when it comes to keyword placement: write for your customers/humans, not robots!
3. Content creation
Obviously for boutiques that sell clothing and accessories, visual content is a key consideration. However, when it comes to SEO it’s all about the written content.
3.1 Product descriptions
We’ve already mentioned the importance of including your keywords in your content including your product descriptions. It’s important that you focus on creating well-written product descriptions that are unique and informative.
3.2 Blog content
One of the first pieces of advice you’ll get from an SEO expert is to start writing blog articles consistently. Your blog content serves multiple purposes; first, it targets your SEO keywords that you want to rank for; and second, it establishes your boutique as an authority in your niche.
Your blog content should focus on your target keywords whilst offering value to your customers. For boutiques, possible blog topics might include style guides, product reviews, product launches, and stories that relate to your brand identity. A valuable type of blog content to work on is SEO evergreen content —this is content that maintains its relevance and SEO value over time.
Although not necessarily valuable for SEO purposes, boutiques and independent stores can see real benefits by encouraging customers to submit user generated content. This is free content that creates engagement between you and your customers and showcases your products. We’ll talk more about UGC in our sections on local SEO and social media marketing.
4. Social media marketing
Anyone involved with boutique fashion is no doubt very familiar with social media marketing. Many boutiques begin their journey as social media brands on platforms like Instagram, Pinterest or Facebook. Social media is an effective branding tool that can be effective in building brand awareness and connecting with niche audiences.
Social media can also be used to enhance your SEO efforts. Users are more likely to click on a link on Google for a brand they recognise from social media. Boutiques can use platforms like Instagram and Pinterest to engage in visual storytelling. Social media allows you to showcase your products in more creative ways that may not be possible on your website, such as creative video content.
Don’t just add social media links to your website. Integrate your social media platforms by adding sharing buttons or other community-driven features that encourage reviews and other forms of user generated content.
5. Local SEO
Local SEO is a must for boutiques with both a physical store as well as an online presence. Local SEO is a process that involves optimising your website and other digital assets in a way that increases your chances of being found in local search results. Local searches involve geographic or location-specific keywords, for example, ‘SEO services York’.
By optimising for local SEO your boutique will gain more local web traffic and see increases in physical footfall and conversion rates. A good place to start is by listing your boutique store on business directories —here’s a list of the top 70 business directories in the UK. Be sure to include your location alongside your target keywords in any business description you write.
The next step is setting up a Google Business Profile for your boutique store. A Business Profile allows you to manage your online presence across Google local services, including Google Maps and Google Search. Add as much detail as possible to your Business Profile, including location-specific keywords, and try to use as many of the available features such as the Q & A feature. It’s also important that you continue to foster engagement by encouraging and then responding to customer reviews.
Get started with help from SEO experts
The great thing about SEO is that most SEO processes don’t require much technical knowledge. Now that you’ve got the knowledge of what you should do, you can get started optimising your website, doing your keyword research or writing content for your blog.
Of course, if you don’t feel you’re quite ready yet you can keep building your knowledge with our free learning resources. Check out this guide on retail marketing tactics.
At WebHummel, we offer a full range of digital marketing services suitable for businesses of all types, including independent retailers. Whether you need expert assistance with designing your digital marketing strategy or would like to revamp your SEO, social media marketing or PPC management —we can help.
Give us a ‘buzz’ to get started.
