In many market sectors, the traditional retailer is under siege. Take the apparel sector. Discounters such as Overstock.com, flash-sale sites like Gilt Groupe and Rue La La, fast-fashion players including Century 21, massive marketplaces such as Amazon, and fashion blogs like The Style Rookie have created a treacherous landscape for apparel retailers, which can no longer expect offline-branding or retail-footprint alone to adequately secure their online fortunes.

An apparel retailer, or any other type of merchant, that has its marketing and branding efforts siloed and is not evaluating its integrated business is at risk of losing its place in the online discussion.   

Case in Point: “Men’s Fashion”

Before you dismiss this as alarmist, let’s look at a simple example: men’s fashion. This is a good benchmark, as most menswear customers look primarily to retailers to inform their fashion choices. But of all the listings on the first page of Google for “men’s fashion,” only two are retailers.

The threat here is not that content sites such as GQ or About.com are taking control of the men’s fashion discussion, but rather that a straight affiliate play like www.mens-fashion-tips.com could capture more natural-search attention than Armani or Ralph Lauren or even Lands’ End.

These results, of course, are an algorithmic byproduct. Search engines aren’t editorial, so they typically do not favor one site over another for content reasons. They focus on how well the site matches their interpretation of quality and relevance for a particular search query. So why did only two retailers show up on page 1 for this query? Because the apparel merchants let it happen. They have ceded their voice in the search discussion for “men’s fashion.” 

As we dive deeper and narrower with search terms such as “men’s pants,” we see a much more retailer-focused environment, with Kohl’s, Macy’s, Banana Republic, and Gap among the diverse merchants appearing on the first page. And while the term “men’s pants” is still a very broad query, it does express significant intent to deeply engage with pertinent content.  And, at this level of query, the retailer rules the day. Why?

For the top-level query, such as “men’s fashion,” the eventual desired destination of the searcher is unclear. It is hard to tell if that searcher wants to learn more about men’s fashion, see videos about men’s fashion, or shop for men’s fashion. Over times, however, search engines have learned that the average search for “men’s pants” yields a click through to a retailer.

The Four Pillars of Optimization

The question remains: How does the apparel retailer—or any other retailer, really—position itself, from a natural-search perspective, to have a place in the broader discussion, at the edges of expressed intent to engage, in order to create a wide funnel and compel as many users as possible to engage with its brand?

There are four basic pillars of search engine optimization that elevate brands to the very widest end of the funnel or to the very top of a particular category.

Pillar 1: Keywords and Targeting. To properly position yourself to be part of a broad conversation, or even to infiltrate a targeted conversation in the search engines, you must have some degree of relevancy or you won’t have the legitimacy, never mind the natural-search ranking, to even be in that conversation. 

To play in the “men’s fashion” game, your site needs to have the keywords “men’s fashion” as a prominent part of it. To be relevant, you must have a clear relationship with the topic at hand. An association with a subject alone does not make you part of the discussion. “Stylish and affordable men’s pants, $79.99, free shipping” doesn’t put you at the table, in the same way that saying, “I once hit three home runs in a high school baseball game” does not reasonably associate you with Albert Pujols, either.

To be part of the conversation, research and target those keywords that show the widest visibility and greatest point of consumer engagement. Create relevancy on your site by creating content that is appropriate to the target keyword, create pages that are appropriate to the target, and create excitement around that target.

Pillar 2: Controllable Variables—On-site Optimization. In the world of the Internet, the only things that you can totally control are the elements of your own site. By mastering these elements, such as titling and tags, as well as search-optimized navigation and site structures, you can create an environment that is more conducive to search engine visibility for the terms that you target. These elements are crucial to the search engine spiders’ being able to access all of your content. And, of course, in order to play at the widest end of the discussion, you need to have great content around the target. (See Pillar 4.)

Pillar 3: Influenced Variables—Off-site Optimization. Off-site optimization, or more fundamentally, link building, is a core exercise in building overall awareness. A laserlike focus on link building from topically relevant sites with anchor text that targets the target keyword is the key to achieving top visibility for a particular keyword.

While this may seem like a dark art to some, targeted link building drives relevance to your site for your target keywords, and the search engines recognize this as authoritative and highly relevant context. The goal is to find the appropriate link partners and craft the right message to get them engaged enough to give you a link with your target keyword as anchor text. We typically find that these kinds of link-building exercises take enormous time and focus.

Pillar 4: Content. Content, they say, is king. And the single biggest reason that apparel retailers in particular have not seen success in infiltrating the broadest kinds of discussion on the Internet is that they do not create much content outside of product descriptions. To compete with the editorially driven sites and earn your right at the premiere place for the largest search volume query, you must have content that is unique, targeted, well executed, and focused on both the search engines and the users.

As with editorial players, the goal of retailers is to drive visibility through the leveraging of your domain expertise. Further, the quality content helps drive the value of your presentation at the edges of search intent. These kinds of presentations create true value for your consumer, and that, combined with the high quality expressed in your brand promise, will help drive the searcher to click through to your site rather than an affiliate site or an editorial site. Once engaged with this content, the searcher is accelerated into your sales funnel at high velocity.

Content is difficult to create, but the double benefit of increased presentation and velocity-driven customers is simply unparalleled. To wit, watch what the Gilt Groupe has done to drive natural-search optimization into an ecommerce model.  They cleverly use content, friend-building and in-bound links to drive up their rankings and, most recently, partnering with the television show White Collar, it’s becoming a storyteller rather than a retailer.

Traditional retailers are under attack. From direct brand solicitations to socially savvy shoppers hunting through Polyvore and Shopbop, they have never faced so much competition. But by focusing on the four pillars of search, a retailer can take back its voice, grab hold of the conversation, and drive ahead its editorial voice and shape the market and maximize its unique advantages. 

Search is powerful…but only when you use it.

PM Digital’s latest Rewind report has been released with a look at paid search performance for apparel retailers during the 2010 Spring fashion season.  And the news was very good.  Consumers shopping online for apparel increased their total paid search demand by an impressive 33 percent over the same months in 2009.  Even better, apparel marketers achieved this swell in demand from February through April with a modest increase of 2 percent in year-over-year spend, revealing that search ad dollars went further this year than they did at the same time last year, with CPCs falling by -1 percent.   

Click here for a full copy of the PM Digital 2010 Spring Apparel Rewind Study.

A Slow Recovery

There will be continued slow recovery in US consumer spending, especially for large purchases due to a lack of discretionary cash (not income, per se), increased savings rates and a general adjustment to this new “now”.  2008 changed buying behavior to a “no”-first shopping mindset and 2009 cemented a value-only, thrifty approach.  2010 won’t change this.  Unemployment, under-employment and slow-growth for the private sector are the engines that are choking back substantive improvements in consumer confidence.  While there are certain job sectors re-igniting hiring, most industries will only begin to replace the attrition they forced during the lean 2008 and 2009.

Pent-Up Demand from the Jet-Set

For the super-wealthy demographic, expect that luxury items will be back in vogue as pent-up demand for jewelry, cars, homes, boats, fashion, at today’s reduced costs, increases.  Unfortunately, this is unlikely to offset the dramatic fall-off seen from the much larger affluent group that accounted for much of the demand growth during the run-up to the recession.

Personal Fulfillment for the Rest of Us

The definition of discretionary has changed relative to consumer purchases and buying behavior.  Where, pre-recession, this meant items people didn’t need but wanted, the recession and its epic duration have people focused on their hobbies and passions to relieve stress and to add back pleasure in their lives.  No longer considered discretionary, these hobbies and their related items and services have become part of the indispensable.  I anticipate revenues from home improvement, home-based interests like gardening and exercise, and passion hobbies like crafts, music, fishing, etc. stay in vogue and continue to capture wallet share.

Just the Basics for the Apparel Market

Recovery in this sector will likely take all of 2010, and I remain suspect of any predictions that buyers will return to their pre-recession buying behaviors.  I believe we’ll see minimal increased spending except for wardrobe maintenance and accessories.  In other words, “yes” to blouses, shirts, jackets, slacks and low-cost accessories, but “no” to high-end designer fashion unless it also has a high perceived value.  That said, this recession has instigated new opportunities for designers…Jimmy Choo and its line of clothes for H&M, Norma Kamali and her Walmart business are fascinating experiments.  I do think it’s going to be an exciting time for the fashion industry but certainly not in terms of their business economics.

The Mature Market Will Keep Booming

I expect the mature market — including insurance, financial services, healthcare products and domestic travel — to see revenue growth throughout the year.  The aging baby boomer continues to age and there are ongoing decisions this audience will need to make that younger generations can save for another day.

Paid Content Will Test Its Limits

2010 will be the year of publishers testing paid content business models.  Led by Murdoch and others, lean advertising has forced publishers to develop new revenue streams without significant cash outlays.  Existing readers and registered users are going to have their interests tested.  Where the line between paid and free exists, and whether the fundamental shift in technology and the internet’s jarring redirect of consumer’s reading behavior has made getting paid moot, will be tested.

Newspapers Will Leverage Strong Regional Brands and Databases

The national and large regional newspaper businesses are rallying together to create their own ad networks and will test bypassing Google and other low-cpm advertising outlets to create higher value advertising relationships that result in higher ad rates.  The only way to deliver this and meet the expectation will be to offer refined demographic targeting of their databases.  For their ad clients and agency media buyers to embrace this, advertising performance is all that matters.

Social Media Will Grow Up

2010, and especially Holiday, will be the year that social media loses its innocent charm and crosses over into the demand requirements of traditional ROI-based search, display and email campaigns.  Social media is not a campaign, and that’s the biggest threat to its purity and ability to drive high-quality traffic for retailers.  Particularly for brands with significant recognition, fans are growing at the rate organic search traffic was growing back in 2005.  We expect this level of growth to continue through 2010 especially if brands do not compromise the relationships they’ve built with over-zealous marketing, but that’s unlikely as companies are spending real money on people and talent.  As marketers, we know audience measurement and impact need to be brought into the calculation but figuring out just how to measure it and what we want to measure will require a different set of analytics since there’s a bit of a land grab happening for which department owns it.