How an Australian Fashion Brand Grew US Traffic by 266% in 3 Months
https://petalandpup.com/
Stats
225.8K to 826.4K Monthly Visits
Industry
Ecommerce & Retail
Niche
Apparel
Reporting Date
January 2024
Tapping into a new market is a significant milestone for any business.
For Australian brand Petal & Pup, breaking into the digital landscape of the United States wasn't immediate, but rather a steady climb.
However, in 2024, nearly five years after their initial U.S. debut, Petal & Pup reached a pivotal moment. Within just 3 months, they achieved an astounding 266% growth in organic traffic.
Join us as we delve into the key strategies that propelled Petal & Pup to this new level of visibility, placing their designs in closets across the U.S.
We’ll also share tips for replicating their success on your eCommerce site.
In This Article
About Petal & Pup
Petal & Pup was founded in 2014 in Australia.
It caters to fashion-minded women who enjoy a mix of on-trend styles and timeless wardrobe essentials. They also offer shoes and accessories to complement their designs.
Fashion enthusiasts can shop Petal & Pup worldwide via their two websites (we'll tell you more about these shortly) and mobile apps. They ship to over 80 countries, catering to style-conscious shoppers across the globe.
Today, Petal & Pup has two offices: Brisbane, Australia, and Los Angeles, California.
And while Petal & Pup is currently online only, customers can shop for their designs at retailers like Nordstrom, Target, and Macy's.
Historical Performance
Petal & Pup debuted in 2014 with the domain https://petalandpup.com.au/. This website caters to Australian customers.
Then, in 2019, they launched an international site at https://petalandpup.com/. This domain targets the U.S. market and is where we'll focus our attention.
Early worldwide traffic for the international site was modest, as depicted in the chart below.
Like any new website, Petal & Pup's international platform required time to gain traction in the new market.
This table illustrates the steady growth of their worldwide traffic in subsequent years, with January 2024 marking a record high.
| Year | Monthly Traffic Average | Annual Total Traffic |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 18,680 | 224,162 |
| 2021 | 52,725 | 632,701 |
| 2022 | 107,060 | 1,284,719 |
| 2023 | 200,584 | 2,407,006 |
| January 2024 | 851,964 | N/A |
This recent growth is even more impressive in the last 3 months of 2023.
Finally, it’s important to note that the U.S. accounts for 97% of all site traffic.
Because of this, we’ll focus our findings on U.S. traffic, which reached 826.4K organic visits in January 2024.
With this in mind, let's delve into what transpired in Q4 of 2023 to propel January's traffic to unprecedented levels.
The Catalyst: How Petal & Pup Achieved 266% Growth in 3 Months
Petalandpup.com grew its organic traffic by performing the following:
- Releasing new products with strategic naming conventions
- Adding product schema markup behind the scenes
- Growing their backlink profile
We’ll explore each strategy in detail to understand how it contributed to Petal & Pup’s recent organic success.
Let’s get started.
1. Releasing New Product With Strategic Naming Conventions
Between October 2023 and January 2024, Petal & Pup added over 1,000 new products to its website.
And while it's normal to see product turnover at an apparel eCommerce, the rate at which they released these new products was higher than ever.
These additions brought the site page count to around 3.4K URLs.
Two key elements stood out during our analysis of these pages: the product naming conventions and the overall on-page SEO.
Let's delve into the former.
Product names can be tricky for brands.
On one hand, a unique name can help a product stand out, as exemplified by Apple's iconic iPhone and MacBook.
On the other hand, the product must remain easily discoverable by potential customers through search engines. (And let's face it, most brands don't have the same level of brand awareness as Apple.)
Petal & Pup tackled this challenge by striking a balance between creativity and searchability in their product names.
Instead of relying solely on catchy or imaginative names, they incorporated relevant keywords and descriptive phrases into each product title.
Check out the product below for an example.
The name “Selma” adds a personal touch, while descriptors like “off shoulder,” “maxi dress,” and “olive” enhance search visibility. These terms also provide customers with essential information about the dress' style, length, and color at a glance.
Moreover, these optimizations extend to on-page elements such as meta titles, meta descriptions, and URLs. This holistic approach maximizes their chances of ranking for relevant search queries.
Why this matters:
Petal & Pup’s strategic product names allow for visibility in search results without compromising creativity.
And with so many new products added to the site, rankings were quick to follow.
Petal & Pup doubled its keyword rankings from October to January.
Petal & Pup's digital success is a valuable lesson for eCommerce business owners: take the time to research and craft your product names.
It's also important to recognize that while Petal & Pup's approach worked for them, it may not suit every business. When formulating your own product names, consider your unique product offering, brand identity, and overarching goals.
Nevertheless, every business can benefit from on-page SEO.
Let's explore how to do it.
How to do on-page SEO:
On-page SEO is the process of optimizing your web pages for search engines and users. It helps your content rank in search results, driving traffic to your site.
There’s a lot that goes into it, but we’ve got you covered with a beginner-friendly on-page SEO checklist. Follow the link for an in-depth explanation of the essential steps below.
- Start with high-quality content.
- Optimize your search listing.
- Include keywords in strategic areas.
- Check your internal and external links.
- Assess your content’s readability.
- Optimize images.
Tools for on-page SEO:
What if this checklist (and more) was built into a tool that made optimizing your WordPress site easy?
You’re in luck.
TruSEO Analysis was designed to do just that.
This innovative tool comes from All in One SEO (AIOSEO), the leading WordPress SEO plugin.
TruSEO analyzes your optimization efforts and gives you a checklist of actionable items to maximize its reach. And it does this directly in the WordPress editor, streamlining your SEO.
It checks for things like keyword optimizations, content readability, and so much more.
Here’s an example of the Focus Keyphrase Checklist, which lets you know when your primary keyword is missing from critical areas.
In addition to on-page SEO, let’s see how Petal & Pup uses technical SEO to stand out on the SERP.
2. Adding Product Schema Markup Behind the Scenes
Petal & Pup implements schema markup on its website.
Schema markup is specialized code within a web page that communicates important page details to search engines. It can help search engines categorize and more easily understand your content, boosting rankings.
It can also help you win a rich snippet in search results, which displays more information than a non-rich result.
Look at the screenshot below of a product review snippet for an example.
There are several schema types, but product schema is the most important for eCommerce businesses.
Petal & Pup uses this schema type, which helps them win review snippets like we just saw.
In fact, they’re winning a lot of them.
As of January 2024, Petal & Pup ranked for 81.1K keywords with review snippets.
Why this matters:
According to 2024 SEO statistics, rich results have one of the highest clickthrough rates (CTR) at 58%.
This is significantly higher than non-rich results, which have a 41% CTR.
Review snippets are particularly impactful for eCommerce because they testify to the quality of your product or service, increasing trust from new customers.
How to implement product review schema:
This tutorial shows you how to add schema markup without a plugin. It provides three methods, and each requires you to obtain and copy code snippets into the appropriate fields.
Some coding knowledge will be helpful.
When performing this process manually, you’ll also need to locate product schema and rating attributes.
Tools for product review schema:
Product review plugins are the easiest way to implement product schema in WordPress.
AIOSEO’s Schema Generator codes schema markup for you.
Simply navigate to the Schema Catalog and select Product from the list. Then, we’ll walk you through easy-to-fill-in fields for your attributes (like ratings).
For a walk-through of the process, check out this guide on how to add product review schema in WordPress.
Next up, we’ll look at the final contributing factor to Petal & Pup’s organic growth: backlinks.
3. Growing Their Backlink Profile
In June 2023, Petal & Pup experienced a remarkable surge in backlinks, skyrocketing from 46K to 564.2K within a single month.
However, by January 2024, backlinks had decreased slightly, settling at 494.5K.
While insights into how Petal & Pup obtained these backlinks would be purely speculative, a few factors merit consideration when a backlink profile experiences such rapid growth.
Firstly, it's crucial to assess the quality of the backlinks acquired.
High-quality backlinks from authoritative sources can significantly impact a website's credibility and rankings. Conversely, an influx of low-quality or spammy backlinks may harm a site's reputation and diminish its SEO efforts.
Secondly, whether the backlinks are follow or nofollow, warrants attention.
An excessive number of follow links within a short period can appear suspicious to search engines, potentially triggering Google penalties. It's essential for websites to maintain a balance between follow and nofollow links to establish credibility and avoid appearing manipulative in their link-building strategies.
To learn more, visit this article on follow vs nofollow links.
Why this matters:
Backlinks are among the top two ranking factors in 2024.
We advise taking a quality-over-quantity approach when it comes to link building.
Aim for backlinks with the following criteria:
- From reputable sources
- Relevant to your industry
- With natural anchor text
How to do link building for your site:
This tutorial shows you how to get more backlinks.
It's also important to note that an effective linking strategy doesn’t stop at backlinks. You should also optimize for the following:
- Internal links (from one page on your site to another page on your site)
- Outbound links (from your site to another external site)
This link-building guide has all the steps you need to optimize for each.
Tools for link building:
Link Assistant eliminates the manual work that goes into finding internal linking opportunities.
Instead of scouring your site for internal links, Link Assistant does it for you.
You'll get linking suggestions in the WordPress editor, which you can add with the click of a button.
Standout SEO Wins
Before we wrap up, there’s an additional technique we’d like to highlight at petalandpup.com.
1. They target buyer intent keywords.
Buyer intent keywords are search queries that users perform when they are close to making a purchase. They feature a mix of commercial and transactional keywords, both of which boast higher conversion rates than informational or navigational keywords.
By targeting these keywords in their on-page SEO, Petal & Pup attracts qualified leads who are likelier to convert. Their rankings reflect these efforts, as shown below.
Overall, this approach aligns Petal & Pup’s SEO content strategy with its business goals, driving growth and success in the competitive eCommerce landscape.
Tool: Did you know you can perform keyword research in WordPress? AIOSEO’s Keyphrase Suggestions tool connects with your Semrush account to serve keyword ideas in the WordPress editor (see example below). Once you locate a keyword that interests you, you can run it through Semrush to get its intent.
Takeaways
In our analysis of petalandpup.com, we uncovered how a few strategic moves catapulted their digital presence in the U.S. market.
Now, let’s recap which strategies can help grow your eCommerce traffic and others to reconsider.
Top 3 Strategies to Emulate
- Consider keywords in your product titles. Incorporating relevant keywords into your product titles helps improve visibility in search results. They can introduce your brand to new potential customers, boosting brand awareness and driving traffic to your site. Keep in mind that this approach doesn't work for every business, but it is something to consider when brainstorming naming conventions.
- Use product schema markup to win review snippets. Product schema markup helps search engines understand and display information about your products on the SERP, including customer ratings. Winning review snippets enhances your visibility, leading to higher clickthrough rates. It also helps build trust with customers, the cornerstone of a successful business.
- Focus on link building to establish authority. Building a strong backlink profile is a core component of a strong linking strategy. Aim for natural, relevant backlinks from reputable sources to earn niche authority. You should also optimize internal and outbound links for a well-rounded linking strategy.
Bottom 3 Strategies to Reconsider
- Neglecting to optimize meta titles. Several of Petal & Pup's collection pages have underwhelming meta titles. For example, the boots page is simply “Boots – Petal & Pup USA.” While this is certainly to the point, it does little to entice users to click. Meta titles are a valuable opportunity to win users' attention and drive traffic to your site. Craft compelling copy to earn more clicks using an SEO title tag generator.
- Missing meta descriptions. Some important pages do not have meta descriptions, like New Arrivals and product categories. Every indexable page should have a unique meta description. An AI meta description generator can even write them for you.
- Not using image title tags. Image SEO best practices call for alt text and title tags. And while Petal & Pup optimizes the former, they miss out on the latter. AIOSEO has an image SEO feature that can populate image alt text and title tags automatically.
Steal Our Winning SEO Strategy: A Checklist for Your Website
Want to join the winning ranks of websites like Petal & Pup?
Get your exclusive SEO Checklist with all the items needed to dominate the SERP.
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Boost Brand Awareness and Win More Traffic With AIOSEO
When you’re trying to grow your sales, the first step is getting more customers to your site.
AIOSEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin for making your website stand out in a sea of competition.
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