Is SEO Important for Luxury Brands?
The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on just about every industry. Luxury brands— including those behind high-end fashion, jewelry, and skincare lines—were no exception. While a personalized in-store experience has always been key to luxury brand success, the pandemic’s enforced lockdowns, closed stores, and inability to reach consumers accelerated luxury brands' need to move online.
The growth of a younger audience of luxury goods consumers and their demand for online shopping has also forced brands to prioritize digital marketing. By 2026, Millennials and Gen Zers are predicted to account for 75% of luxury goods buyers. To keep up with such evolutions in the luxury landscape and target these younger, more demanding, and higher-spending consumers, many high-end brands are now devoting one-third of their advertising budget to digital marketing – a key element of which is SEO.
In this post, we explain what SEO is, what its benefits are, and its importance for luxury brands.
What Is SEO?
SEO (search engine optimization) is a marketing process designed to increase the quantity and quality of traffic to a brand’s website from organic search results.
While effective SEO strategies include technical approaches to enhance website usability, a primary focus of SEO is to optimize a website’s most valuable keywords to increase its position on search engine ranking pages (SERPs) and enhance brand awareness by reaching new audiences.
By supporting both website visibility and usability, SEO draws consumers to a brand’s site and offers them a positive user experience that nurtures their interest, builds trust, and encourages their custom.
Why Is SEO Important for Luxury Brands?
Purchasing luxury goods is still very much an in-store experience with 82% of luxury purchases occurring in-store. However, 78% of consumers research products online before they buy — and SEO is an important player in driving the right customers to luxury brands’ websites during this research phase.
What’s more, 59% of global website traffic comes from organic search, in turn building the long-term growth brands need to ensure ongoing success.
Excellent SEO practices also ensure that users enjoy not only a positive online experience but one that represents the brand – visiting a website should be as seamless, immersive, and personalized as an in-store visit. This builds brand trust and increases local visibility, both of which encourage the customer to complete the cycle, either by heading in-store to purchase or by buying directly online.
How Luxury Brands Can Capitalize on SEO
SEO for luxury brands follows many of the same approaches used by other brands, including keyword-optimized content, internal and external links, and a smooth user experience. However, luxury businesses must relate to their customers in ways that align with the subtlety and exclusiveness of their products.
KEYWORD OPTIMIZATION REACHES THE RIGHT AUDIENCE
Luxury brands are refined and exceptional so it follows that the keywords they use should reflect this. Rather than popular short-tail keywords such as “silk scarf” or “skincare”, high-end brands need to focus on using long-tail keywords such as “luxury designer silk scarf” or “premium skincare face serum”.
Although these long-tail keywords have smaller search volumes than their short-tail counterparts, they are more likely to bring qualified leads to a luxury brand’s site. Customers using these longer, more precise keywords already know what they want and choose to refine their search accordingly. By mirroring their search queries, luxury-focused SEO practices achieve a superior ROI.
OPTIMIZED HIGH-QUALITY CONTENT DRIVES CREDIBILITY AND TRUST
Luxury purchases involve extensive online research (remember that 78% of consumers research products online before they buy).
Optimized long-form content—such as blogs, product pages, and FAQs—ensures that brands appear high in SERPs at the preliminary research stages. Provided that this content is also high-quality, informative, and reflects the brand’s voice, it helps build trust and credibility, increasing the likelihood of an in-store visit or an online conversion.
TECHNICAL SEO RECREATES IN-STORE EXPERIENCE
For luxury shoppers, the in-store experience is still paramount. Over three-quarters of frequent luxury customers expect to visit a luxury store more often this year than the last. As such, luxury brands must ensure that their website reflects the in-store experience they present through immersive storytelling, smooth navigation, and high-end visual appeal. This requires brands to provide a seamless user experience by leveraging technical SEO practices.
For example, high-quality images and videos can be used to recreate a multi-sensory in-store experience (though these must be optimized by size and length to avoid affecting page loading times). Similarly, an easy-to-navigate site structure recreates the spacious, minimalist interiors of luxury stores, with products laid out in a way that highlights their premium quality and design. Strong internal linking and clean URLs also make it easier for users to find what they’re looking for, just as a luxury retail assistant does in-store.
These technical adjustments boost a brand’s SERP ranking and provide the exceptional browsing experience that luxury consumers expect.
LOCAL SEO DRIVES PHYSICAL STORE VISITS
Over 76% of smartphone searches for nearby products and services result in an in-store visit later that same day. For luxury brands with a brick-and-mortar location, investing in local SEO can capitalize on this common practice while also reinforcing their online presence.
To do so, luxury brands must set up a Google My Business account. This free tool offers businesses a central profile for listing important information such as their phone number and hours of operation, as well as an external link to the website. Hosting “find a store” and other localized content onsite also boosts local SEO and assists customers, while creating online business listings via websites that are relevant to your industry and/or location helps drive online traffic and in-store visits.
SEO allows you to reach new and existing customers online, nurturing their interest, building their trust, and encouraging their custom — but getting your website optimization right isn’t always easy.
SEO for luxury brands requires the specialized approach of a luxury-focused agency, like Block & Tam. Get in touch with our specialist team today for help with your SEO strategy!
