SEO for Beauty Industry – What Do You Need to Know?

What does the cosmetics industry actually mean? Well, this broad term incorporates cosmetics producers, laboratories, all types of research companies (including biotechnology and chemistry), and even packaging manufacturers. Moreover, thanks to the improving financial situation, when selecting cosmetics many people care not only about the price but also about the quality, ingredients, and natural origin of the products.

The era of influencers vs. SEO for the Beauty Industry – is it still worth investing in it?

Without a shadow of a doubt, for several years now influencers have been playing a key role in the marketing of all kinds of beauty companies – no matter whether we’re talking about SPA salons, luxury cosmetics, or eco shampoo bars. The huge reach on Instagram and the trust of followers are aspects that translate directly into effective cooperation which equals high conversion. So how can SEO be useful for beauty products?

• building credibility

Imagine a situation when you can’t find a product influencers are talking about simply by entering its name or the brand name into the search engine. You’d probably think that such an advertisement isn’t the most credible, wouldn’t you?

• improving conversion rate

… And maybe one day you’ve seen a great banana powder on one of the Instagram stories but now you can’t find it among the first Google search results? As a potential customer you can not only get distracted or give up your purchase but there is also a chance that you’ll come across a different banana powder of a company with a good SEO strategy for beauty products, at a better price, in a nicer-looking packaging, with faster delivery. In such a situation, all the efforts of the influencers turn out to be pointless.

• increasing organic traffic

The cooperation with influencers can actually increase your traffic from social media thanks to “swipe up” and other functions currently offered by Instagram. However, remember that organic traffic to your site won’t change and in the long run, paid collaboration or advertising may prove to be much less profitable than organic clicks and working on being displayed high in the search engine rankings.

• SEO + social media = even better results

SEO on its own works very well and social media are also a must in the cosmetics industry. So now, imagine how effective it may be to combine these two methods that support each other in order to increase the reach of your website. Let’s have an example of a well-prepared website combined with the work of influencers. Don’t underestimate the power of links placed in the bio on the Instagram profile.

How to Organize Marketing and SEO for the beauty industry?

Beauty Independent, one of the most interesting websites dealing with the cosmetics industry, published an article about SEO in which the owners of beauty brands comment on how individual SEO activities aimed at beauty products affected their businesses. Today, let’s recall their statements to discuss the basic aspects of SEO. After all, there is probably no one who would know better what SEO has to do with the beauty industry and how to start.

• choose keywords appropriate for the beauty industry

Undoubtedly, start from thinking about how customers search for specific products and what phrases they enter into the search engine to find them. Long tail keywords are essential for small businesses – they help to gain customers, to increase traffic to the site or to be displayed higher on specific phrases. Diamond Downs, the founder of Gehati, says the following for Beauty Independent:

“I try to put myself in the seat of a customer who is searching for products that I sell. I don’t worry about creating fantasy terms. I focus on simple and popular terms that describe or would be associated with the product. […] Strategically, think of all the simple words and/or phrases a customer would put in the search engine that’s related to your business.”

• optimize your website – take care of UX and aesthetics

The cosmetics industry equals beauty and aesthetics. Good quality products aren’t enough to draw the customers’ attention for longer. A well-designed interface, a user-friendly option to add products to your shopping cart, or to familiarize yourself with the products or services offered by the salon are essential to keep the visitors on the site and to complete conversion.

Linda Treska, CEO of Pinch of Colour, as an experienced developer says:

“This has been quite a new and challenging experience for me. In June of this year I designed and developed my own website. I worked very hard to ensure that our website is up to date and capable of converting clients into customers.”

• publish quality content

Both content and context are now one of the most important tools of any SEO campaign. A company blog is a true must have for businesses that want to increase traffic to their websites – apart from that, the content on the subpages of products and categories undoubtedly remains one of the key elements of the on-site SEO. Besides, beauty blogs can really attract new visitors: all kinds of tips and shopping hauls appeal not only to Google but also to potential customers. Michelle Ranavat, founder of Ranavat Botanics, says:

“I wish I had the answers to SEO. I believe, instead of optimizing around the variables, you should build SEO through creating really great content across multiple channels.”

Glossier and Fenty are perfect examples proving that content can help building brand recognition – the brands gained the users’ appreciation thanks to the unique content whose eye-catching aesthetics stands out from the competition on the market.

• link!

Although it may seem that today linking doesn’t really matter to Google, it’s far from the truth. It’s definitely not the most important aspect as it used to be a few years ago, however, backlinks coming from reliable websites will undoubtedly have a positive impact on your page. As a part of cooperation, remember about exchanging links with beauty bloggers and making the website visible on various channels – not only on the brand social media profiles. James H. La, founder of Niucoco, shows how SEO and distribution of links work in the beauty industry:

“Look for platforms that will drive traffic back to your site (press, social media, vloggers, bloggers, affiliates programs, etc.) which also help brand awareness and your page authority.”

• analyze and access

Sometimes, strategies turn out to be wrong and something that you really hoped in fails to work. So what to do in such a situation? Don’t continue a campaign that after a year doesn’t bring any effects – check what’s going wrong, change your social media operating strategy, re-analyze your objectives, define your brand image and make sure whether the SEO campaign is run properly.

Can a small business survive on such a huge market?

Although today the cosmetics market is quite extensive and impressive, paradoxically speaking small businesses are becoming more and more popular and people want to support them. What can be helpful in doing SEO for a small cosmetics company selling handcrafted goods or unique products from abroad?

• SEO for long-tail phrases

If you type “a shampoo bar” into your search engine, first you’ll see the websites of the most popular companies and then some catchy titles of blog entries. So the chance that someone will check the remaining search results is rather low.

See how competitive the phrase is: 156 000 000 search results is a notable number.

Just for the sake of comparison, let’s try to enter a different, more detailed phrase into the search engine. After all, you offer specific shampoo bars of given brands, without SLS, coming from various countries, designed for different hair types… you could list all kinds of keywords and characteristics forever.

Such a long tail phrase automatically generates a smaller number of search results and additionally it displays less obvious websites at the top places. That’s why long tail keywords are one of the most important aspects to be taken into consideration when selecting your key phrases.

• good interaction of SEO, Google Ads campaigns and online marketing

SEO itself may be not satisfactory for small businesses – just like individual social media activities or paid advertising without considering other options.

How doing SEO for a beauty salon is different from doing SEO for an online store?

Do you own an online cosmetics store? Or maybe you run a hairdressing or a beauty salon in your city? Remember to focus on the profile of your business before starting your beauty industry SEO campaign – doing SEO for a local beauty salon will be completely different from running a campaign for an online shop. Let’s take a closer look at the SEO aspects that vary for these two cases.

• keywords

Keywords and key phrases for online stores are often related to products and categories, thus, they focus on long tail phrases describing the product in as much detail as possible. On the other hand, a local beauty salon should use local keywords in its SEO process –  the model formula would contain the name of the service + city.

• Google My Business

Google My Business is an important element of advertising any business and customer feedback often determines whether more people will decide to order something from your store. However, as far as an online shop can operate properly without Google My Business, it’s a must when it comes to a brick and mortar beauty salon. Users need to have the option to quickly see it on the map.

Moreover, available interior photos and customer reviews can often persuade people to visit the place faster and better than any website. Besides, a well designed profile on this site will ensure that the user gets all the necessary information without having to click anything – and such an asset can turn out to be invaluable.

A piece of useful advice: let’s finish with a summary in a nutshell

Starting your adventure with SEO fo beauty industry always means lots of information and you should keep it somewhere so that you can easily come back to it anytime you need. Therefore, especially for you, at the end of our today’s entry we’ve prepared the most important tips in a nutshell so that you can always easily find them and recall the knowledge you’ve gained.

• Don’t forget about users! SEO can’t be unnatural or more important than real visitors to your site – you’re here for them, so remember about them;
• Collect inspirations and inspire others: everyone likes stylish social media profiles that aren’t only about advertising;
• Create valuable and unique content that will really captivate your audience;
• Check out the most effective content marketing campaigns and learn from them;
• Look for experienced co-workers, influencers, bloggers and vloggers to increase the reach and recognition of your brand;
• Combine SEO, paid campaigns and social media activities to achieve satisfactory effects;
• If you’re a local business, focus on those closest to you – don’t make global targets but instead try to reach your local audience;
• Take advantage of useful tools that will make your life easier – inspirations on Pinterest, keyword planners or tools like Answer the Public will help you to create quality content;
• Analyze your campaigns and don’t be afraid to make changes – often Google Analytics or Google Ads can suggest you which path you should take;
• If you run a small business, your SEO campaign needs to incorporate more accurate phrases with less volume and less competition at the same time;
• Take care of UX, UI and on-site SEO to make your website user and search engine friendly;
• Show your best assets!