How a Women's Fashion Brand Grew Site Traffic by 737% YoY
https://www.sachinandbabi.com/
Stats
26.3K to 220K Monthly Visits
Industry
Ecommerce & Retail
Niche
Apparel
Reporting Date
January 2024
In the competitive world of online fashion, even established brands can struggle to grow their visibility.
Sachin & Babi, a high-end apparel and accessories retailer, faced this very obstacle. Traffic appeared stagnant, barely reaching 20K monthly visits.
But at the end of 2023, they found their breakthrough, bringing January 2024 to an incredible 220K monthly visits.
So, how'd they do it? And what can other eCommerce owners learn from their SEO strategies?
Let's find out.
In This Article
About Sachin & Babi
Sachin & Babi was founded in 2009 by husband and wife Sachin Ahluwalia and Babi Ahluwalia.
Their namesake ready-to-wear brand features women's apparel and accessories.
Gowns and dresses are their most sought-after designs, making them a popular choice for special occasions.
According to its website, “Sachin & Babi believe in celebrating every day and dressing with joy. Collections are designed for the special moments in life…both big and small.”
Today, Sachin & Babi is stocked in some of the most prestigious retailers, like Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bergdorf Goodman.
They also have a flagship store on Madison Avenue in New York City.
Historical Performance
According to the Wayback Machine, Sachin & Babi acquired its domain in 2010.
However, Semrush historical data only goes back to January 2012, so this is where we'll start our traffic analysis.
Like many new businesses, traffic was gradual to start. Between 2012 and 2014, Sachin & Babi averaged 547 monthly organic visits.
They hit the 2K milestone in 2014 and then doubled it in 2016.
Traffic was consistent for the next 4 years, with 2017–2021 averaging 8.5K monthly visits.
Then, 2022 started to show growth, and 2023 blew its performance out of the water.
So, what happened to spark this unforeseen growth at Sachin & Babi? And which strategies unlocked a higher level of organic traffic?
Let’s dive into these answers next.
The Catalyst: How Sachin & Babi Achieved 737% YoY Growth
Sachinandbabi.com grew its organic traffic by performing the following:
- Targeting low-competition keywords with new collections
- Implementing product schema to win rich snippets
- Obtaining backlinks from relevant, credible sources
We’ll explore each strategy in detail and share how to leverage them on your website.
1. Targeting Low-Competition Keywords With New Collections
Between January 2023 and January 2024, Sachin & Babi increased its page count by almost 400 URLs.
This change brought the site to just over 1,000 pages, a 57.7% increase year-over-year (YoY).
Around 130 of these new URLs were product listing pages (PLPs) dedicated to Collections.
Here’s a sampling of these pages and their respective January 2024 metrics:
And while their traffic is doing great, what’s more helpful to you is what they did on these pages to actually get it.
Let’s use the Empire Waist Gowns Collection as an example to see how Sachin & Babi uses strategic keyword targeting to help this page rank.
Here’s the URL slug: /collections/empire-waist-gowns
And what the page looks like on the site:
Right off the bat, we know this page is targeting the keyword “empire waist gowns.”
They’ve included this keyword in the following places:
- URL
- H1
- Body copy
It’s also in the page’s metadata, as shown below, which we revealed using the All in One SEO Analyzer Chrome Extension.
Semrush gives us further insights into this keyword, revealing low keyword difficulty.
Keyword difficulty (KD) measures how hard it is to rank on the first page of Google search results for a keyword.
The lower the KD, the easier it is to rank.
For Sachin & Babi, “empire waist gowns” has a low KD% of 17. And they ranked for it quickly.
This page appeared to debut in February 2023 and had 107 rankings by March.
As of January 2024, the Empire Waist Gowns Collection ranks for 229 keywords, many of which are in the top 3 positions of search results.
In addition to ranking for its primary keyword, this page also ranks for the following low-competition keywords:
Overall, Sachin & Babi does an excellent job targeting low-competition keywords in its content. This strategy highlights an understanding of the value of targeting this type of keyword.
Why this matters:
Low-competition keywords are valuable to websites of all sizes, but particularly for small businesses looking to grow their visibility.
Since there is less competition for these long-tail keywords (a term used to refer to keywords with 3 or more words in them), websites can win rankings more easily and quickly than competitive terms.
And if you refer back to the volume column in the last image, there’s search volume for these keywords. That means there’s significant traffic to be had from ranking for these keywords.
How to find and optimize for low-competition keywords:
This tutorial shows you how to find low-competition keywords, but here’s a brief overview of the process:
- Create an account on a keyword research platform like Semrush. (There’s a free 7-day trial, and you can cancel anytime.)
- Check keyword difficulty and look for keywords with “very easy,” “easy,” or “possible” scores. (In Semrush, these keywords have light green, dark green, and yellow dots next to them.)
- Use the Keyword Magic Tool to get related keywords and sort by ascending difficulty.
- Save your keyword findings.
Once you have a list of keywords, you’ll want to work them into your overall SEO content strategy. This beginner’s guide on focus keywords will also show you how to optimize your content so it ranks in search results.
Tools for low-competition keywords:
You don’t have to be an SEO pro or digital marketer to cash in on these easy ranking wins.
All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is the leading WordPress SEO plugin that can help you find and optimize your site for low-competition keywords that convert.
You can connect to your Semrush account using the Keyphrase Suggestions tool to get keyword ideas directly in the WordPress editor.
The example below shows keywords generated for a “yellow dress” page:
You could then run these keywords through Semrush to get their keyword difficulty.
As for adding them to your content, just click Add Keyphrase and make your optimizations. The TruSEO tool will let you know if you need to make adjustments. TruSEO analyzes your content and gives you actionable checklists for improving its reach.
The example below shows the Focus Keyphrase Checklist and reminds us to include our keyword in the introduction.
Next, let’s look at how Sachin & Babi uses schema markup to make its product stand out in search results.
2. Implementing Product Schema to Win Rich Snippets
Schema markup is a type of structured data that lives in your website’s code. It communicates important details about your page to search engines, making it easier for them to understand your content.
Search engines can then use this information to create a rich snippet on the search engine results page (SERP).
Rich snippets, or rich results, are search listings that display additional information.
Here’s an example from Sachin & Babi:
Sachin & Babi have used different schema markups in the past, but it appears that they started using AggregateRating schema in mid to late 2023.
AggregateRating schema is a subset of product schema, which is a must-have for eCommerce businesses. Here’s how the two schema types relate:
- Product schema allows you to share product details, like its name, description, price, availability, and more.
- AggregateRating schema is one element of product schema (and others) that allows you to share customers’ ratings and reviews.
The two combined can create product review snippets, like the one below.
By implementing both schema types, Sachin & Babi skyrocketed its review snippets.
They went from 15 in September 2023 to 21.7K keyword rankings in January 2024.
This implementation could have also contributed to the site’s recent influx of image rich results, too.
Sachin & Babi went from 1.5K rankings in January 2023 to 10.6K rankings with image rich results in January 2024.
(Product schema allows you to assign ImageObject schema, which can increase the chance of winning this type of search result.)
Why this matters:
According to SEO statistics, rich results have a 58% clickthrough rate (CTR). This is significantly higher than non-rich results, which have a 41% CTR.
By optimizing for rich snippets, businesses can gain a competitive edge in the crowded online landscape.
And while schema markup doesn't guarantee a rich result, it increases the likelihood, making it an integral component of strong SEO.
How to implement product schema on your eCommerce:
This tutorial shows you how to add product schema in WordPress. You can also follow this guide on product review schema to get star ratings, like Sachin & Babi.
For a more general tutorial, this article demonstrates how to add schema markup without a plugin. It shows three different methods, and each requires basic coding knowledge.
Tools for product schema:
Want an easy way to implement product schema without touching code?
AIOSEO’s Schema Generator has you covered.
In this innovative tool, all you have to do is pick your desired schema type (in this case, product) from our catalog.
Just click the + button, fill out a few product details, and add your review information. That’s it. The Schema Generator will implement the structured data for you.
Now, we’ll look at the final contributing factor to Sachin & Babi’s growth: backlinks.
3. Obtaining Backlinks from Relevant, Credible Sources
In January 2024, Sachin & Babi grew its backlinks to an impressive 47.9K.
And what’s even more impressive about these backlinks than their quantity is their quality.
These backlinks have high page authority scores (AS) and come from credible sources. They’re also relevant to Sachin & Babi.
For example, Who What Wear and Harper’s Bazaar are two well-respected fashion authorities. Having them as sources signals to search engines that Sachin & Babi’s content is also valuable within the fashion industry, which can boost their niche authority.
Why this matters:
Backlinks are like votes of confidence for your website. And, in general, the more you have, the higher you rank.
After all, backlinks are among the top two ranking factors, making them a powerful contributor to your site’s overall success.
However, quality does matter.
High-quality backlinks from credible, relevant sources are “healthier” for your site than thousands of spam links.
How to do link building on your site:
This tutorial shows you how to get backlinks, but we encourage you to develop a holistic linking strategy that goes beyond just 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 shows you how to optimize for all three types of links.
Tools for link building:
Link Assistant is a time-saving tool for internal linking. It populates internal linking suggestions in the WordPress editor, which you can add with the click of a button.
Standout SEO Wins
Before we conclude, there’s an additional SEO technique worth highlighting at sachinandbabi.com.
1. They display an HTML sitemap on their website.
An HTML sitemap is a clickable list of all the pages on your website. It organizes content for users to aid in site navigation.
You'll often find HTML sitemaps in the footer of a web page, displaying the site's main pages and subpages.
Here's what ours looks like at AIOSEO:
Some websites, like Sachin & Babi, prefer to create a designated page for their HTML sitemap.
Sachin & Babi use this page to organize its content for users (and show off one of their designs).
This sort of navigation experience can help users uncover new corners of your site and boost content discovery. It also supports your internal linking strategy because you hyperlink each page.
Tool: AIOSEO makes it easy to create and display an HTML sitemap on your WordPress site. Here’s a beginner-friendly tutorial on how to do HTML sitemaps on WordPress.
Note: HTML sitemaps are not the same as XML sitemaps. HTML sitemaps help people navigate websites, while XML sitemaps help search engines crawl and index a site's web pages. Both types are valuable and can be easily implemented with AIOSEO.
Takeaways
In our analysis of Sachin & Babi, we uncovered the key strategies that grew their online visibility and organic traffic.
Now, let’s see which strategies to replicate on your website and others to reconsider.
Top 3 Strategies to Emulate
- Target low-competition keywords for easy rankings. Sachin & Babi targeted and won over niche markets by focusing on long-tail keywords with low competition. This strategy is transformative for emerging or smaller brands looking to grow their visibility. These keywords are easier to rank for, allowing you to capture more SERP real estate and foster brand awareness.
- Use schema makeup to win rich snippets. Implementing schema markup on its product pages helped Sachin & Babi earn rich snippets in search results. Product review snippets, which include star ratings, price, and availability, make listings more eye-catching, leading to higher clickthrough rates. Schema markup also helps search engines understand your content, potentially boosting rankings.
- Focus on quality over quantity for backlinks. Sachin & Babi recently acquired backlinks from reputable, authoritative sites within the fashion industry. Relevant, high-quality backlinks can help establish your niche authority while influencing rankings. Backlinks are among the top two ranking factors, making them a crucial component of an effective SEO strategy.
Bottom 3 Strategies to Reconsider
- Excluding author bios on your blog posts. Neglecting to include author bios on blog posts can deprive your content of personalization and authority. Author bios show readers that the writer has expertise and credibility on the topic, helping to establish trust. They also send positive Google E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) signals to search engines, which is proving to be a driving force behind rankings in 2024. We recommend using an Author SEO plugin to create and add author bios for your WordPress posts.
- Exceeding metadata character limits. Overloading metadata with characters can lead to truncation on the SERP. These less-than-ideal listings can cut off valuable information, negatively affecting CTR. To ensure your metadata is within character limits, run your copy through a SERP preview tool before publishing. You could also use AI to generate meta titles and descriptions for you.
- Neglecting to include image title tags. Failing to include descriptive image titles can hinder the user experience. Image titles appear when users hover over or click an image, providing additional context. They're a unique opportunity to provide additional value and help search engines more easily understand an image's content. You can use smart tags in the AIOSEO Image SEO tool to add image title tags automatically.
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