Our Expert Guide to SEO for Luxury Brands in 2023

What is Organic Traffic?

Organic website traffic originates from search engines, and it accounts for approximately 53% of all internet traffic.

Whenever you enter a search term into a search engine, such as Google, you’ll see a mix of paid and organic links on the results page. Organic traffic consists of users who have arrived at your site by clicking on an organic link on a search engine results page (SERP).

Of course, users can only click on your links if you’re ranking highly for relevant key terms and that’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. With effective SEO, you can increase your rankings for relevant keywords and boost your organic search performance. As a result, you’ll generate more organic traffic and have the opportunity to convert more users into loyal customers.

PPC vs SEO: Which Is Best for Luxury Brands?

An integrated digital marketing campaign consisting of both PPC ads and SEO is the best way to achieve marketing success. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is simply another way to generate website traffic.

By using keywords to ensure that your ads appear to users who are searching for related content and carefully targeted campaigns, PPC ads can boost website traffic and engage users, but you may need a significant budget to achieve meaningful results.

Although you only pay ‘per click’ for PPC ads, popular keywords attract high bidding prices, so a considerable monthly budget may be necessary.

One advantage of PPC ads is that they can provide instant results, whereas SEO generally takes a little longer to make an impact. However, PPC ads only have a positive effect on website traffic while the campaign is running. Once you stop paying for ads, your website traffic will decrease again.

In contrast, SEO can deliver increased returns in the long term. With regular site maintenance to retain high rankings, for example, SEO gives you an opportunity to continually generate targeted website traffic.

Creating a Successful SEO Strategy for a Luxury Brand

There are many aspects to consider when it comes to SEO, but it’s possible to segment them into four broad areas:

• Keyword Targeting 
• On-page SEO
• Off-page SEO
• Technical SEO

Here, we’ll run through some useful tips and guidance to help you improve these areas of your SEO strategy.

Keyword Targeting

If you want to increase conversion rates, it’s important to drive targeted traffic to your website. To achieve this, you’ll need to ensure that you’re ranking highly for keywords that are:

1. Relevant to your brand and products
2. Frequently used as search terms

After all, there’s no point ranking highly for the key term ‘luxury car’ if you’re a luxury watch retailer!

To identify which keywords you want to target, begin by thinking about the words and terms that relate to your brand, products, and/or services. Then, research online to determine their search volume (how often users are searching for the term).

Short-tail keywords, like ‘luxury car’ tend to have a high search volume but they can also have a lot of competition, which will make it harder to secure high rankings. Furthermore, short-tail keywords tend to be rather broad, so users may not have a very high purchasing intent.

In contrast, long-tail keywords like ‘luxury Mazda CX-5 2022’ will have a lower search volume but are far more specific and are employed when users have a higher purchasing intent. 

When creating a list of target keywords, aim to include a combination of short and long-tail keywords so you can increase brand awareness and generate conversions.

On-Page SEO

When you make changes to your website to increase your search engine rankings, this is known as ‘on-page SEO’. It includes various optimization techniques, including:

• Meta titles and descriptions
• Internal links
• External links
• Content (more on this later)
• Headings
• Title Tags
• URLs

To plan your on-page SEO for luxury brands, take a look at our top tips now:

#1 Compress Media Files

Luxury brands are all about aesthetics, so visual content such as images and videos are a key component of your SEO strategy. In fact, video is the most popular form of online content.

However, large video and image files can reduce page loading speeds and have a negative impact on the user experience (UX). To prevent this from happening, be sure to compress media files and reduce their size. Finding a balance between SEO and UX is key!

#2 Add Meta Information and Alt Tags

Meta information is displayed on SERPs, so eye-catching and compelling copy is essential if you want users to click on links to your website. Additionally, meta titles, meta descriptions, and alt tags provide search engines with more information about the content of your web pages, so it can help you rank higher for particular keywords.

Create enticing meta titles and descriptions for every web page and informative add alt tags to all media assets to maximize the impact of your SEO strategy.

#3 Use Internal and External Links

A good internal linking structure helps users navigate your website and it can positively impact SEO rankings too. Similarly, linking to reputable external websites can help to boost your position on SERPs but – remember – it’s important to link to sites with a high domain authority (DA) if you want to use external links to improve SEO performance. 

#4 Create High-Quality Content

Content creation and content marketing are critical elements of SEO for luxury brands. Your website content is what propels users through the search funnel and transforms them into loyal customers and brand ambassadors, so it’s important that everything you publish is top quality. 

Luxury brands rely on exclusivity to maintain their prestige and status. As such, your SEO strategy should emphasize the exclusivity of your products and services, highlighting their uniqueness and rarity.

Creating a detailed content strategy and content calendar will help to ensure you’re regularly publishing varied and engaging content in a variety of formats, such as:

• Blog posts
• Articles
• Videos
• Images
• Infographics
• Social media posts
• Email newsletters

Off-Page SEO

The main purpose of offsite SEO is to secure links to your web pages from other websites. Known as link building, this enhances your website’s reputation and, in turn, improves your SEO rankings.

If you’re a luxury fashion retailer and a well-known industry site such as vogue.me or Elle Arabia features links to your website, for example, this will improve your site’s trustworthiness in the eyes of search engines (as well as sending an influx of fashionistas directly to your site!)

Of course, securing backlinks from major industry websites can be tricky, but there are a variety of ways to secure high-quality backlinks, including:

#1 Get Listed in Online Directories

Online directories can be a great way to secure good quality backlinks, so make sure your site is listed on reputable industry websites. As well as generating direct traffic, this will improve your backlink profile and positively impact your SEO rankings.

#2 Collaborate with Other Brands

Collaborating with another luxury brand could be a savvy way to maximize your reach within your target audience(s) and secure high-quality backlinks in the process. When you team up with a non-competing brand, for example, you can exchange backlinks and generate brand awareness.

#3 Optimize Your Google Business Profile

This is a “local SEO” consideration. Google encourages companies to promote their brand via its Business Profiles and, in turn, a completed Google Business Profile can help your search engine rankings. In addition to this, a Google Business Profile makes it easy for potential customers to access useful company information, such as your type of services/products, contact details, and location.

#4 Secure Guest Post Opportunities 

When your brand is featured on an external website, you can negotiate a backlink in exchange for participation. If an online publication wants to write a feature about your designers, brand, or products, for example, get involved in the process, promote your company, and secure a valuable backlink too. 

Additional consideration: Social media marketing should be a huge part of your digital strategy as a luxury brand. Influencer marketing can be particularly effective, as influencers can help promote your brand to a wider audience while maintaining the exclusive and aspirational image that luxury brands strive for.

Technical SEO

The functionality of your website also plays a key role in boosting organic performance, so don’t overlook this aspect when you’re creating a custom SEO strategy. Here are a few ways to improve your technical SEO:

#1 Ensure Your Website is ‘Mobile-Friendly’

As mobile internet usage increases, it’s important for websites to be fully functional across mobile devices. In fact, it’s so important that Google now indexes web pages on a mobile-first basis, so you’ll struggle to maintain high SEO rankings if your site isn’t user-friendly on smartphones or tablets.

#2 Increase Page Loading Speed

Today’s internet users expect super-fast speeds and if your website takes more than a couple of seconds to load, you can expect to lose the traffic you’ve worked so hard to gain. What’s more – slow loading times negatively impact your SEO performance too.

Increasing your page loading speed should, therefore, be a top priority if you want to engage users and enhance your rankings on search results pages.

#3 Optimize the UX

Google and other search engines want to deliver the best user experience (UX), which means they will only rank websites highly if they deliver a good UX too. Creating a great user experience will depend on the type of content your site features and the customer journey but you can start to make improvements by drafting a UX review of your site.

Targeted UX research, including on-page surveys and touch point mapping can be effective ways to generate useful data that will enable you to optimize the UX. In the digital age, UX research is the new market research! This data is what UI & UX designers will use to inform how they design a website.

#4 Use Structured Data

Structured data simply means publishing information in a manner that is easily recognizable. A universal structure makes it easier for search engines to ascertain what your web pages are about, which increases the relevancy of its search results. 

Schema markup is one of the most popular forms of structured data and it can be used by luxury brands to improve their SEO rankings. If you’re a luxury retailer, for example, coding product information with Schema markup will ensure that Google and other search engines can use the data when indexing and ranking your web pages. As a result, you’ll find that your web pages rank for more relevant search queries (and rank more highly too!)

#5 Use Robots.txt to Check Indexed Pages

A search engine can only include a web page on its results pages if the page has been indexed. Google and other search engines routinely crawl websites and index fresh content, but you can also submit new pages (or resubmit existing pages that have been updated to accelerate the process).

However, you may not want every page of your website to appear on search engine results pages. A file known as robots.txt contains all the information you need to determine which pages of your site are indexed and which aren’t. When you want a particular page to rank for a target keyword, double-check that it’s been indexed via robots.txt.