Luxury RetailFashion Publisher Strategy
Worth the effort?October 2015
Retailers are becoming publishers and publishers are becoming retailers
And it seems to be working
27% brand growth 2012 vs 2014
Jan 2011 Jan 2012 Jan 2013 Jan 2014
Google Trends data, UK, Jan 2010 - 2015
Our question:Is a publisher approach good for organic performance?
First, some distinctions
A publisher approach is where; a brand leads with content, links to editorial content from main homepage banners and publishes content not directly related to product
Mr Porter publishes lifestyle content & The Edit take primary homepage position
Flannels & The Outnet link to product pages
Farfetch has strong editorial, but always with a fashion focus
Does a publisher approach improve SEO performance?
Farfetch has the most ranking content and
ranking keywords.
Linkdex Visibility Data
Linkdex Visibility Data
Flannels has nearly 8% of all it’s content ranking on the 2nd
page or higher
Ranking content vs indexed pages
Is this driven by a publisher approach improving engagement?
98% of net-a-porter’s social shares are to product/category pages
Linkdex Visibility Data44 magazine editions vs sum social interaction for the top 44 performing product pages
These are some of the favourites
Net-a-Porter don’t make it easy to share product or magazine
Email?!
4% of Net-a-Porter’s referring domains point to /magazine and 2% specifically reference The Edit or Magazine in the anchor text
Mr Porter’s product pages generate 49% more social shares
than journal content
Linkdex Visibility Data270 indexed jourmal pages vs 270 top product pages
An average article on GQ will get 127 Facebook shares, Mr Porter gets 90.
That’s really good.
September content
6% of Mr Porter’s top 10,000 referring domains point to journal content
Linkdex Visibility Data
Our question:Does a publisher approach improve SEO and social performance?
? Perhaps.
I did find something else interesting...
14% of Mr Porter’s ranking pages are journal pages
Linkdex Visibility Data
Ranking Pages
ChinosDinner Jackets Tom Ford
Those journal pages are ranking for transactional queries
6,702 estimated monthly traffic with commercial intent sent to non commercial content
There is some transactional opportunity, but is this really what users want?
Product Page
Users have to either search or navigate
through to product page
Conversion
£££
Keywords
A consumer searches a keyword with commercial
intent
Keywords
A consumer searches a keyword with commercial
intent
Content Page
A Mr Porter long form content page is ranking
Product Page
Users have to either search or navigate
through to product page
Conversion
£££
Things to Consider
○ Could Mr Porter be losing sales through editorial? Or is the traditional Ecom journey dead?
○ Do Net-a-Porter need more digitally focused editorial?
○ Is building a brand enough for SEO performance?