Search Engine Promotion for Beauty Salon Gear

Industry: Beauty Salon Gear (e-commerce)
Location: USA
Start Date: August 2023

This established e-commerce site, operating in the beauty salon gear industry on the U.S. market, has been active for years and ranks in the top 10 of Google search results for some keywords. SEO efforts began in August 2023, with the owner aiming to enhance search traffic, as current rankings fall short. The focus is on boosting visibility and improving rankings to secure more top 10 and top 3 positions, especially in key product categories.

The analysis of the competitive landscape revealed that the beauty salon gear sector features a wide range of competitors and is characterized by fierce rivalry. The industry also presents unique challenges that demand a meticulous and comprehensive strategy for effective promotion.

The analysis of competitor websites in the niche provided the following insights:

Metric	Value
Domain Rating (DR)	4.6-40
CMS	Custom-built, Shopify or WordPress
Number of referring domains	20-120
Indexed pages	350-1500
Monthly traffic	1000-3500 users
Number of keywords (USA)	400-2400
Google US Top 10 queries	40-180
Most commonly used social networks	Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest
Blog presence	3 competitor had a blog

Following the niche analysis, I concluded that my semantic research should be guided by a keyword strategy focused on promoting product and brand pages for beauty salon gear. However, I had to take into account that not all brands and products had active search demand – some landing pages had no queries at all, while others were associated with very low-frequency keywords.

For the future, I have prepared the following recommendations for beauty salon gear promotion:

• I suggest expanding the product range by introducing both new categories and additional products and brands. This step would help increase market presence and attract new customers.
• I recommend starting to actively maintain a blog, focusing on incorporating informational queries into the articles. This approach will encourage users to visit the site for explanatory content, boosting organic traffic and improving the website’s visibility in search engines.
• I advise actively leveraging other traffic sources such as social media and advertising. These channels will expand the audience, reach target users, and attract new customers. Additionally, I emphasize the importance of continuing to build brand awareness to strengthen consumer trust and remain competitive in the market.

Commercial factors on a website are the aspects and characteristics that influence its ability to attract and retain an audience, as well as generate revenue. These factors encompass a variety of elements and strategies, such as user-friendly navigation, compelling content, and effective call-to-actions, all of which are critical to the commercial success of the site. Moreover, Google takes these commercial factors into account when ranking websites, as they signal trustworthiness and user satisfaction to search engines.

An analysis of the commercial factors of the beauty salon gear website revealed that certain changes are needed to enhance its performance, specifically:

• In the website header and footer – inclusion of business hours to provide clear accessibility information for potential customers, boosting trust and engagement.
• In the product section – addition of photos in the Before and After block to visually showcase the transformative impact of the salon equipment, which can significantly influence purchase decisions and improve conversion rates by highlighting the equipment’s effectiveness for salon use.
• On the website – an option to add items to Favorites and Saved for Later, allowing users to curate their shopping experience, increasing the likelihood of repeat visits and sales.
• On the website – a dedicated FAQ page or block to address common customer queries, reducing bounce rates and enhancing user experience by providing immediate value.

All recommendations were provided to the client for review and implementation, with the potential to further optimize the site’s commercial appeal and search engine performance over time.

It is recommended to conduct a technical audit of the website regularly. At least once every six months – and especially when implementing major updates, such as a design overhaul, CMS migration, or structural changes. This helps promptly identify and resolve technical issues that could negatively affect the site’s search engine optimization. A technical audit is carried out as soon as the website enters the SEO service phase.

The initial technical audit of the website revealed the following issues:

1. errors in the configuration of robots.txt and sitemap.xml;
2. a large number of redirects due to the absence of the HTTPS protocol;
3. missing noindex tags on certain pages;
4. incorrect use of canonical tags;
5. irrelevant links to external resources;
6. low page loading speed;
7. lack of semantic markup, including Schema.org for product details and contact information on the Homepage and Contact page, to enhance search engine understanding and rich snippet opportunities;
8. absence of properly structured human-readable URLs (clean URLs);
9. errors in URL generation for blog pages;
10. junk and broken pages present both in the index and on the website;
11. incomplete mobile optimization, leading to poor responsiveness on various devices;
12. missing alt text for images, which impacts accessibility and SEO performance.

I assigned a priority level to each issue and passed it on to the developer for implementation. It is worth noting that technical issues on the website are resolved promptly. My recommendations are implemented with minimal delays by the client’s specialists.

As of October 2023, I conducted a follow-up technical audit of the website and am working on fixing the remaining issues.

A usability audit is a detailed analysis of a website that evaluates its user-friendliness and the ease with which visitors can complete conversion actions. The audit reviews structure, buttons, colors, forms, and more.

Recommendations provided following the initial usability audit of the beauty salon gear website in September 2023:

1. Implement a streamlined navigation menu for product categories;
2. Make the phone number and email in the footer clickable;
3. Place the Wishlist in a prominent location, such as the header;
4. Fix display issues with product filters on both mobile and desktop versions;
5. Improve the appearance of product cards on the Homepage;
6. Optimize text descriptions on product and brand pages;
7. Resolve errors on the Shipping and Contact pages.

Users are more likely to return to a website that is easy to use. That’s why it’s essential to address any display issues on the site. A usability audit focuses on improving the user experience, which can also have a positive impact on the website’s SEO performance in search engines.

In October 2023, we implemented eCommerce tracking in Google Analytics 4. This allowed us to collect and monitor data related to visitor events and conversions on the platform. This strategic move enables a deeper understanding of user behavior and transactional actions, ultimately supporting a more data-driven and informed approach to online marketing.

According to the approved promotion strategy, I began collecting semantic data with a focus on the client’s priority beauty salon equipment brands and products. The client is committed to continuous growth and meeting the needs of salon professionals, actively expanding their product range. As a result, I receive a new list of equipment and brands from the client each month for semantic research and carry out a full range of tasks – from collecting keyword queries for the products and writing meta tags to creating content recommendations for external promotion. This helps meet user demand for high-quality beauty salon gear in the U.S. market. To support future blog development, I analyze competitors and suggest article topics.

My work focuses on promoting specific high-value products and brands that generate the highest profit margins for the client, so I concentrate on collecting semantic data for individual product and brand pages. The search volume for these pages is typically medium to low frequency, as ultra-high frequency keywords face extremely high competition with search results dominated by major marketplaces and global industry giants. I also work on category pages, but the priority remains on specific expensive equipment and profitable brand pages. Therefore, my SEO approach is centered on promoting individual high-margin products and brands while strategically avoiding oversaturated high-competition keywords where established marketplaces hold dominant positions.

Content Workflow Plan

A specialist on the client’s side handles content writing for the website, while another professional verifies the accuracy of the information. I develop metadata and keyword strategies based on my semantic research for the approved content. Client-side specialists then implement and publish the finalized materials on the website.

This collaborative process results in optimized, accurate content that aligns with user search queries and supports the ongoing SEO promotion of the beauty salon gear website.

Starting in September 2023, I developed a link-building strategy to increase the number of external links to the beauty salon gear e-commerce website, aiming to boost its domain authority and search visibility. A key challenge in this niche is that not all platforms are open to publishing content related to beauty salon equipment. To overcome this, I pre-select a variety of link placement platforms with backup options to ensure consistent publication despite potential rejections from webmasters.

My strategy focuses on gradual link growth, carefully balancing the number of dofollow links, anchor text distribution, and the proportion of links directing to the homepage versus product or category pages. I also adapt content to meet the specific requirements of website owners, such as crafting tailored articles that avoid overly promotional tones. This approach ensures effective link placement and supports the long-term SEO goals for the beauty salon gear website.

Regarding the budget for off-site optimization, I adhere to the agreed-upon plan, and the client consistently follows my recommendations for implementation.

The beauty salon gear (e-commerce) client takes a responsible approach to their online marketing strategy. The company carefully evaluates and implements my expert recommendations to enhance the website’s functionality and overall performance. This collaborative effort enables us to achieve set goals and maximize the return on SEO efforts for website optimization.

Website visibility in search results refers to how prominently a website or its pages appear on search engine results pages (SERPs) when users search for specific keywords or queries. For the beauty salon gear e-commerce website, visibility is a key indicator of how easily and frequently potential customers can find the site while searching for relevant salon equipment, products, or brands online.

Improving rankings for targeted keywords has been a core focus of the SEO strategy since August 2023, aiming to secure higher positions in Google search results, particularly for high-value product and brand pages.

SE Ranking includes only the keywords we track based on established priorities. In reality, the website may rank for a larger number of phrases, but we focus on those that have been collected and agreed upon with the client.

After the first 2-3 months of collaboration, we’ve achieved the following results:

• 261 keywords in the Top 10 – 20% of the priority keywords rank in the first 10 positions on Google;
• 9 – the website’s average position in search results;
• 3,628 – projected traffic growth according to the tool’s forecast;
• 56.7 – website visibility score in the search engine;
• 4 search features – the website appears in rankings, related searches, and other enhanced search result elements.

The SE Ranking platform provides data on keywords in the Top 10. In August 2023, we started with 81 rankings across all priority queries for the beauty salon gear e-commerce website, and the project now holds an average position of 9. The website currently ranks on the first page of Google for 261 out of 1,302 keywords, which accounts for 20%.

Breakdown of keyword Rankings for Beauty Salon gear website

• 56 keywords hold the 1st position, meaning the website appears at the very top for these search queries;
• 140 keywords are in the Top 3 positions, securing high visibility on Google’s first page (positions 1-3);
• 261 keywords rank within the Top 10, placing the website on the first page of Google search results (positions 1-10).

As of October 2023, the website appears in search results for 1,302 priority keywords, with 56 of them achieving the coveted first position.

It’s worth mentioning that these figures represent only the specific queries selected and tracked in the analysis tool.

Detailed analysis of priority keyword performance:

The beauty salon gear website demonstrates strong search performance across priority keywords, with a notable number of queries securing the coveted #1 ranking position on Google.

Let’s examine the changes in traffic and other key metrics for the website during the periods of September/October 2023 compared to September/October 2022, based on data from Google Analytics 4:

Traffic Performance Analysis:

• 357 monthly users accessed the beauty salon gear website during August-September 2022 (before SEO collaboration).
• 7,057 users were tracked in September-October 2023 (after starting SEO work in August 2023).
• +1,270.29% growth in user acquisition;
• +1,456.98% improvement in session engagement metrics.

Over the initial months of our collaboration, starting in August 2023, the beauty salon gear e-commerce website achieved a remarkable increase in organic traffic, reaching 1,270.29 percent by September-October 2023 compared to the pre-SEO period. We also noticed substantial growth in essential metrics, including average engagement duration and conversions per session. These encouraging trends show that the website now better addresses user needs.

As a result, my tailored SEO strategy has significantly enhanced the user experience and boosted online engagement.

Note: It’s important to recognize that achieving such impressive results within just 2 months is not always feasible. In this case, the rapid progress was facilitated by the presence of numerous initial website errors that could be quickly addressed, the client’s prompt execution of all my recommendations, and the efficient implementation by their team following my detailed instructions.