How to Find the Right Keywords for Your Luxury Brand
While 82% of luxury goods purchases might still happen in-store, 78% of consumers research luxury products online before they buy. As affluent customers increasingly turn to search engines to discover and research high-end brands and products, search engine optimization (SEO) is now one of the most vital elements of luxury goods marketing.
A primary focus of SEO is keyword optimization, which involves the selection and use of the right keywords for your luxury brand to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). As well as positioning your brand as an authority in your sector, a high SERP ranking increases organic search traffic and enhances brand awareness.
While SEO is more important than ever to stand out in the ultra-high net worth (UHNW) sector, SEO for luxury brands is as unique and specialized as the products that luxury brands offer and the customers they target. This is best reflected in the keywords that form an integral part of luxury SEO strategies and the way the right keywords must simultaneously attract customers while maintaining the exclusivity and desirability that sets luxury brands apart.
In this post, we explain more about different types of keywords and how to find the right keywords for your luxury brand.
What Are Keywords?
Keywords are the words and phrases that users type into search engines to find information. Any search engine query—including single words such as “rings” or longer phrases such as “emerald and diamond princess cut engagement ring”—is considered a keyword. As you would expect, more specific keywords offer users fewer but more precise search results.
The Different Types of Keywords
The exact keyword someone uses is an excellent indicator of their search intent. For example, someone looking for inspiration for a high-end gift will likely use different keywords compared to someone who has already decided that they want to purchase a specific luxury perfume.
Search intent usually falls into four categories: informational, commercial, transactional, and navigational.
INFORMATIONAL
Information search queries are those relating to directions, facts, or knowledge without any specific buying intent. Some examples of luxury brand-related informational searches might include:
How to care for my cashmere sweater
What are the four Cs of diamonds?
What is oud?
Although targeting these keywords through advertising wouldn’t give you a good ROI, targeting them with SEO content marketing allows brands to position themselves as a trustworthy, authoritative source for their target customers. This then creates brand awareness and good feeling—both of which are essential for future customer loyalty.
COMMERCIAL
Users search with commercial intent when they research products or brands before shopping. Although they aren’t quite ready to buy, the following types of search queries show that they are likely to make a luxury purchase soon:
Black leather ankle boots
Lambskin tote bag
Luxury throw blanket
Using these kinds of commercial intent keywords can help place your brand in front of customers at the early stages of the buying process. This ensures that your brand will be top of mind when they’re ready to make a purchase.
TRANSACTIONAL
These queries indicate a strong intention to make a luxury purchase very soon, whether in person or online:
Buy Gucci belt near me
Local luxury candle retailers
Designer vintage style sunglasses for sale
Transactional queries include words like ‘buy’, ‘for sale’, or ‘subscribe’, and tend to be more specific. Since customers in the market for luxury goods often search online before heading in-store, they may show their intent to do this with additional keywords such as ‘near me’, ‘local’, or their nearest city’s name.
NAVIGATIONAL
Navigational queries are the most precise of all, indicating an intent to navigate to a specific website or item:
Net-A-Porter new in black dresses
Dior Rouge lipstick 999
GANNI white buckle ballerinas
Ranking for these searches is vital if you happen to be or stock the brand that a user is searching for.
How to Choose Keywords for SEO
Keywords are the foundation of your website. Build your website on the keywords that your target customers use at every step of their journey and you’ll position your website as a must-visit destination for your target customers whatever their current search intent is.
Your website keyword analytics should make it immediately clear what products your brand sells as well as the luxury experience it offers. When approaching the question of how to do keyword research, you’ll also need to consider these four factors:
1. INTENT
It’s vital to align the search intent behind a keyword with the kind of content it appears in. For example, keywords with informational intent work best for blog posts, FAQ pages, and similar website content, while commercial keywords are best suited to product pages.
2. SPECIFITY
The keywords luxury brands use should reflect the unique and refined nature of the products they offer. Instead of common short-tail keywords such as ‘sweater’ or ‘perfume’, high-end brands need to focus on long-tail keywords such as ‘100% cashmere sweater’ or ‘premium designer unisex perfume.’
While long-tail keywords have much smaller search volumes than short-tail keywords, they’re far more likely to target the right customers and bring qualified leads to your luxury brand’s site.
3. SEARCH VOLUME
Choosing the right keywords for your luxury brand doesn’t mean ignoring search volumes altogether. Especially since going too niche can increase the risk of choosing keywords that no one searches for. To avoid this, remember to cross-reference specificity with search volume to find keywords that are popular enough to increase brand awareness but still defined enough to reflect your brand’s exclusivity.
4. COMPETITION
One final element to consider is how competitive a keyword is and whether you have the authority to rank high on SERPs for it. If not, you can increase your authority with effective SEO strategies such as content marketing and link-building for an improved user experience (UX).
Checking out the competition is also an effective form of keyword research. Seeing what they’re doing with their content and blogs and how they rank for their chosen keywords can help inform and inspire your own luxury SEO campaign.
We Can Help Define Your Keyword Strategy
Luxury SEO marketing demands a fine balancing act between maintaining brand exclusivity and promoting brand awareness. It’s not always easy to find the keywords that best represent your brand to your target customers at every stage of their journey.
This is why it helps to work with a specialized luxury-focused agency like Block & Tam. Get in touch with our specialist team today to increase your keyword profile and online visibility to drive sales!
