Why SEO is important for New D2C Brand/Website

Why SEO is important for New D2C Brand/Website

Introduction to D2C Brands

D2C stands for direct to the customer. D2C brands refer to those brands that specifically build, market and sell their respective services and products directly to the customer. A D2C brand might adopt any distribution channel such as an e-commerce platform, a retail store or social media. This is an exceptionally burgeoning sector and the D2C sector is estimated to become a 60 billion dollar industry by 2025. (1

Introduction to SEO

SEO is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimisation. It refers to the process of optimising a website’s content and technical details to make it more visible when searched by certain parameters. The goal of SEO is to enhance the traffic that is driven to a website through search engines.

As per research, 93 percent of internet traffic is driven by search engines, therefore, SEO plays a crucial role in routing target customers to your website. (2

Furthermore, SEO can significantly reduce the cost incurred by a brand for customer acquisition.  51 perfect of D2C brands believe that SEO is the best channel for customer acquisition. (3

Why do D2C brands need SEO?

D2C brands need SEO for the following reasons :

  • Almost 35 percent of D2C brands believe that web traffic is a top priority for them. (3) Web traffic is among the most important key performance indicators that a brand sets for itself to improve its performance. 
  • Since D2C brands engage in ad spending, they need to use SEO as it will enable the brand to effectively reach and acquire the desired customer base. 
  • A sound direct-to-consumer marketing strategy can be achieved by the strategic implementation of SEO for D2C brands. 

Important SEO metrics to check for a D2C website

Let us understand some of the important SEO metrics for a D2C website. 

  • Organic search traffic 

Let’s begin with the most obvious. The traffic you receive from search engine results pages (SERPs) without having to pay for ad placement is known as organic traffic.

If your SEO approach is effective, you should see a consistent increase in traffic from search engines.

Overview to measure organic traffic in Google Analytics. Log in to your dashboard and click “Add Segment” in the default Audience. 

Select “Organic Traffic” and click on “Apply”.

Now you can see how much of the total traffic is organic.

  • Click-through rate (CTR)

The percentage of individuals who visit your website after finding it through the SERPs is indicated by your organic click-through rate. Therefore, your page’s CTR is 10% if 1,000 users see it listed in the search results and 100 of them click through to visit your website.

Organic CTR demonstrates how well your listing (including the title, meta description, and URL) appeals to and engages your audience.

If your CTR is poor, your title or meta description may not be compelling, or the content may not be pertinent to the user’s search.

Under the “Performance” tab of Google Search Console, you may directly track CTR.

Browse CTR results by page, search, or device. Monitoring CTR by page in particular offers useful insights into which material isn’t generating enough click-throughs via SERPs.

  • Backlinks and referring domains

One of the most important ranking factors on Google is the number of backlinks. Additionally, a recent analysis of over 11 million Google search results shows that ranks and the quantity of referring domains are strongly correlated.

Referring domains are the number of distinct domains from which you have incoming links, whereas backlinks are the total number of links pointing from outside sources to your website.

The Quality of backlinks is more important than the quantity of backlinks.

Ahrefs is a fantastic SEO tool for monitoring referring domains and backlinks. The list of websites linking to you, the pages they are linking to, and the domain authority of these referring domains are all visible to you.

  • Top Ranking keywords 

It’s a good idea to keep track of how your rankings for those keywords change as you work on improving your website to rank for your target keywords. You may determine whether to concentrate on further optimising for the keywords you’re already ranking for or on other categories you want to rank for but haven’t yet 

Using a position tracking tool like SEMrush or Mangools, you can monitor how your keywords are performing. You can track ranking changes over time and see how your overall search visibility is increasing by using the Organic Search Positions report, which is displayed below.

  • Core Web Vitals

How effectively (and quickly) your page load is at the core of user experience (UX), which Google is increasingly placing greater emphasis on rewarding with higher rankings.

Traditional performance measures like load time on details that are simple to assess but may not accurately reflect user concerns. Therefore, if your only goal is to reduce the average page load time, your website may still provide a subpar user experience.

Thus, Google expanded on the aforementioned speed metric in 2020 by introducing Core Web Vitals. These user-centric performance metrics can be used to measure page load times in a more precise, user-experience-focused manner.

Here’s a brief description of the three Core Web Vitals:

  • First Input Delay (FID) – It assesses the experience users have when attempting to interact with a website for the first time and gauges responsiveness.
  • Cumulative layout shift(CLS) – The degree of unexpected layout change of the visible page content is measured and quantified by cumulative layout shift (CLS), which also assesses visual stability.
  • The largest contentful paint (LCP) – which gauges perceived load speed, indicates when the page’s primary content has most likely loaded.

Organic vs. paid search: The ultimate Differences

Organic SearchPaid Search
Takes time but Sustainable resultsReaches the buyers in no time
Nearly a free channel to get traffic (no advertising costs)Budget is not a constraint (can be started with a very low amount)
Requires consistent efforts but gives compounding resultsprovides helpful data and insights, also keywords
Requires consistent content creation to boost organic visibilityImprovise ad copies to beat the competitors time to time
  • Examples of organic search include content marketing, SEO, guest blogging, and social media marketing whereas paid marketing involves buying web traffic by paying for clicks from Google ads, Facebook ads, and podcast advertising. 
  • In terms of efficacy, both these forms of marketing are effective when used in synergy as per the needs and requirements of the brand. 

Steps of the customer journey

Pointers to explain

  • Brand awareness

If you are able to draw your target audience to your website through relevant content, website intent, speed and technical configuration, you can effectively create brand awareness. (4

  • Conversions

Conversion is an important key performance indicator for the success of any brand. It signifies the conversion of prospective website visitors to customers. SEO can lead to defined and positive conclusions fvor a brand in terms of customer acquisition. Once brand awareness is made, there is a high probability of getting positive customer conversions. 

  • Relationship Building

Relationship building refers to establishing meaningful and advantageous relationships that warrant great references. (5) SEO can be very helpful in augmenting relationship building. With a good conversion rate, a brand can build meaningful customer relationships. 

  • Word-of-mouth stage

Subsequently, customers start taking pride in using a respective brand and become loyal to it. This gives rise to practices such as evangelism marketing which can be very beneficial for a brand. 

Growth of D2C in India

As per reports, consumer interest in D2C brands has risen by 53 per cent in 2021. (6

We have elucidated some brands which have significantly benefited from SEO in their D2C marketing strategy. 

  • Different sectors that Have Invested in SEO

The growth of the D2C sector has left our nation in awe, especially after the COVID-19 outbreak. So many sectors including beauty, wellness, healthcare and pharma have tasted success through D2C marketing. 

  • SEO in Beauty Industry

Mamaearth got its foot in the door through its digital presence. Gradually, the digital

presence became so prevalent and well-established that prospective customers started associating with the products. Relevant content and campaigns that captured the essence of the needs of the target audience further augmented the success of Mamaearth. This company was founded in 2016 and owing to its innovative digital marketing strategies and good-quality products, the brand has carved a niche for itself. 

Just Herbs is a luxury Ayurvedic beauty care brand that has managed to make significant ripples in the beauty industry owing to its bespoke, natural and Ayurvedic product formulations and a very impactful digital presence. It was the first digital brand in its segment and in 2021, consumer goods company Marico limited acquired a 60 percent stake in the parent company of Just Herbs. (7

The brand’s ability to engage with prospective customers effectively proved to be a cornerstone for its success story. This digital organic beauty care retail brand is the perfect example of how SEO can transform the presence of a company and contrive that presence for maximum success. 

  • SEO in Health Industry 

One of the examples is Well Curve. Wellcurve is a digital platform that encourages and assists people to lead healthier lifestyles by bringing together relevant information and products from top brands. This D2C brand engaged in smart digital marketing strategies powered by search engine optimization to present an effective mix of content and e-commerce marketplace. Wellcurve began in 2020 and is currently catering to nearly 500 product orders per day. (1

  • SEO in Gifting Industry

IGP has become a leading online gifting platform and made a special place for itself in the 30 billion-dollar gifting industry. (7

Recently the company has received total funding of 4.35 million dollars over three rounds. (8). The company was founded in 2001 and it has greatly benefited from its appropriate online marketing strategies and a strong digital presence. 

Top D2C Brands / E-Commerce Players Winning the Game with right SEO 

Niche/IndustryD2C Brand with remarkable SEO strategies
GiftingBigsmall, Confetti Gifts, IGP.com, FnP.com, Winnie.in
BeautyMCaffeine, Mama Earth, Just Herbs, Faces Canada, Kama Ayurveda, Pure Sense
Health & FitnessWell Curve, Health Kart, Nutrabay, Saffola Fittify 
Food / Sustainable BrandsI Say Organic, Org Pick, Sweet Karam Coffee
Home & DecorEk By Ektaa Kapoor, Sunday Design, Pepperfry, Urban Ladder, Nestasia, ExclusiveLane
Kids One Friday World, Hopscotch, Masilo 

H2: Role of Right Content Strategy in SEO growth

An ideal content strategy is very important for SEO growth and it can greatly help you reach your target audience. 

  • For transactional keyword

These are the keywords that represent the buying intent of the customer by interpreting their searches. For example, transactional keywords that are usually included in searches include ‘purchase’, ‘buy’, ‘best’ etc. These keywords can also be termed as buyer keywords as they indicate that the user of these keywords is right at the end of the buying funnel. 

  • For informational keywords – problem-solving content.

Informational keywords represent the intent of the customer, that he/she is trying to find an answer to a specific problem or query. Informational keywords indicate the early stages of the buying behaviour of a prospective customer. Examples of informational keywords include ‘guide’, ‘how’, ‘why’ etc. 

The right content strategy can help you in figuring out the intent value of keywords and strategically deploy them to make your content more categorical and rich. 

Role of Brand Mentions and PRs in SEO Growth

Brand mentions and PR refer to a situation when some other website mentions your product or service on their web page and vice versa. Let us understand this concept in some detail. 

  • Backlinks

Backlinks are when a website gets connected to another website through an anchoring text. Backlinks can help in increasing the web traffic to a particular website by increasing visibility and brand awareness. 

Brand mentions are a great way to enhance a company’s reputation and instil trust in customers. 

FAQs

  1. How to use SEO to improve your D2C eCommerce strategy?

You can use SEO to improve your D2C e-commerce strategy by putting together relevant content through the appropriate insertion of keywords which will make your website rank higher. SEO can help a company in getting web page visitors with a high probability of conversation and also help in amplifying a positive brand image. 

  1. What does a d2c marketing agency do?

A D2C marketing agency such as Digi Acai pivots around the idea of enabling brands to grow their online presence which enables them to further diversify and expand their respective businesses. 

  1. Why should direct-to-consumer brands invest in SEO?

D2C brands should invest in SEO because it can help the brands in increasing the impact of their web presence. 

  • SEO’s ROI

The return on investment on SEO is decided by the business value that is created by a SEO activity in addition to the cost incurred for the same. According to studies, the recent ROI on SEO is 2.75 dollars on every dollar you spend. (12

  • Own a Online Platform/Website

SEO enables brands to derive maximum value out of their ad spending. With strategic placement of keywords and categorical client reach, a brand can attain high conversion rate and get their profits soaring through their own website. 

  • Almost free web traffic attraction 

SEO can play a vital role in getting organic traffic to a brand’s website and making it rank higher in searches. This allows the brand to become more visible to prospective customers. 

  • Getting an edge over your competitors 

With SEO, you can optimise and streamline your marketing content to play on your brands’ strength in order to make it resonate with the target audience. When you can effectively direct the web traffic towards your site, you will be able to earn a competitive edge.

  • SEO as an acquisition channel

SEO can enable a brand to complement its content marketing efforts and obtain more leads and conversions for their respective business. 

  1. How can SEO help you get ready for the future of retail with your brand?

The global digital market is expected to touch nearly 65 billion USD this year. (9) These numbers are indicative of the power of the digital market and web presence. According to research, nearly 76 per cent of people in the US shop online. (10) India isn’t too far behind as well. These statistics point out an interesting trend for the future of retail which inclines greatly towards the world of the web. SEO can significantly help a brand in harnessing the power of the internet properly in order to actualise its true potential. 

  1. Is SEO Important for Every Business?

The current nature of consumer buying behaviour and the imposing presence of the internet has made it indispensable for a business to have a web presence. Owing to this fact, it can be rightly said that SEO is important for any business that wants to have a meaningful web presence. 

References- https://www.searchenginejournal.com/51-of-d2c-brands-say-seo-is-a-top-acquisition-channel/307525/#close

https://www.adroll.com/blog/how-to-build-an-seo-strategy-for-a-d2c-brand-template

https://www.freshworks.com/d2c-ecommerce/ecommerce-seo/

https://www.socialbeat.in/blog/how-we-increased-organic-taffic-and-revenue-d2c-case-study/

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