Depart­ment stores depend upon win­ning healthy rev­enues dur­ing the hol­i­day peri­od, and increas­ing­ly search is becom­ing cru­cial to retail oper­a­tions. How vis­i­ble are the major U.S. depart­ment stores and how can they ensure they lever­age their search pres­ence to ensure healthy rev­enues?

Dur­ing the 2014 hol­i­day peri­od, “38.5 per­cent of online trans­ac­tions orig­i­nat­ed in a search query (either free or paid) [and] organ­ic (free) search drove 21 per­cent of orders,” accord­ing to Cus­to­ra.

Search is not just about dri­ving pur­chas­es at the point of trans­ac­tion. The chan­nel is intri­cate­ly involved through­out con­sumer pur­chase cycles; online expe­ri­ences are dri­ven by mul­ti­ple devices, mobile, and “always-on” readi­ness and con­nec­tiv­i­ty, mak­ing search the gate­way to instant con­sumer queries.

Online pur­chase jour­neys revolve around search. Cus­tomers turn to organ­ic search at var­i­ous moments. A key chal­lenge for retail­ers is to win these spe­cif­ic moments.

Under­stand­ing intent as con­sumers make search queries, and devel­op­ing the right con­tent to meet con­sumers at those moments, is crit­i­cal to dri­ving hol­i­day rev­enues.

The impor­tance of search will be a cru­cial mar­ket­ing chan­nel for U.S. depart­ment store retail­ers, which typ­i­cal­ly depend on bumper hol­i­day shop­ping rev­enues.

With top retail­ers such as Macy’s and Kohl’s report­ed­ly strug­gling to attract con­sumers just ahead of the key win­ter retail sea­son, the abil­i­ty to con­vert cus­tomers via search will be cru­cial. Retail­ers must ensure they have high vis­i­bil­i­ty and a strong brand pres­ence in search.

How Visible Are Large U.S. Department Stores Online?

Using data from Linkdex, Momen­tol­ogy’s spon­sor, we ranked the vis­i­bil­i­ty of the major U.S. depart­ment stores based on the num­ber of SERP posi­tions and rank­ing pages. The high­er the over­all vis­i­bil­i­ty of a brand, the more like­ly that con­sumers are to dis­cov­er and engage with brands as they con­sid­er and eval­u­ate their pur­chas­es when using search engines.

U.S. department store visibility:

(Data from Sept 23; pow­ered by Linkdex)

Observations

• Sears has a large lead in the num­ber of win­ning SERP posi­tions (1.93 mil­lion) and rank­ing pages (513,000).
• Kohl’s, Macy’s, and Nord­strom are close­ly matched in terms of online vis­i­bil­i­ty, in sec­ond, third, and fourth place, respec­tive­ly.
• Behind Sears, Nord­strom has the sec­ond high­est num­ber of rank­ing pages, show­ing that they per­form well in their ratio of win­ning SERP posi­tions to rank­ing pages (813,000 / 123,000).
• In con­trast, JCPen­ney has a low­er pro­por­tion of win­ning SERP posi­tions in com­par­i­son to rank­ing pages (628,000 / 58,600).

3 Key Takeaways

1. Understand & Respond To Consumer Intent

What real­ly sets Sears apart is their under­stand­ing and aware­ness of con­sumer intent, informed by a thor­ough com­mand of the organ­ic search chan­nel. The retail­er has respond­ed to what con­sumers are search­ing for, and have devel­oped con­tent that responds to these needs, plac­ing their brand well in con­sumer minds as they move through their pur­chase cycles.

For exam­ple, the brand is cre­at­ing dig­i­tal con­tent for spe­cif­ic nich­es to respond to con­sumer needs. Fit­Stu­dio for exam­ple, a health and fit­ness resource and rewards pro­gram, was a “per­fect solu­tion for Sears to pro­vide – free of charge – expert advice from fit­ness pro­fes­sion­als and nutri­tion­ists,” Julia Fitzger­ald, Sears’ chief dig­i­tal offi­cer, fit­ness, sports goods and toys, told Forbes.

Fit­Stu­dio went beyond super­fi­cial con­tent cre­at­ed for the ben­e­fits of rank­ings, and instead zoned in on what these con­sumers were real­ly look­ing for, accord­ing to Fitzger­ald:

“We real­ized that when shop­pers come to Sears look­ing for a piece of fit­ness equip­ment, what they real­ly are look­ing for is a 15 pounds lighter, fit­ter, or health­i­er ver­sion of them­selves. And while the equip­ment is often a key com­po­nent to their goal, they also need infor­ma­tion and moti­va­tion to keep on track with a health­i­er lifestyle.”

Fit­Stu­dio is a con­tent resource, but unique­ly also offers users rewards, which they earn by con­nect­ing dig­i­tal fit­ness devices to Fit­Stu­dio, which can then be redeemed at Sears (or affil­i­at­ed brand Kmart).

While Fit­Stu­dio is one notable exam­ple of the kind of con­tent that Sears pro­vides, the brand also pro­vides con­sumers with sus­tained val­ue across a num­ber of queries, focus­ing in on intent, and as a result nur­ture pro­longed engage­ment with their audi­ence.

2. Create Landing Pages For Multiple Consumer Moments

Nord­strom also has a large num­ber of SERP posi­tions, which is served by strong rank­ing pages.

Look­ing at Nord­strom relat­ed search results reveals that one of the retail­er’s strengths is in their high­ly effi­cient land­ing pages. Specif­i­cal­ly, it shows how Nord­strom win a large num­ber of unique keyphras­es and chan­nel these to their ded­i­cat­ed land­ing pages.

A search for “swim­suits”, “bathing suits”, or “biki­ni bathing suits” (although these exam­ples aren’t like­ly relat­ed to hol­i­day shop­ping) returns the same ded­i­cat­ed Nord­strom land­ing page.

Nordstrom’s rank­ing cat­e­go­ry pages, for a num­ber of prod­ucts, cater for a range user search queries. “Biki­ni bathing suits” for instance, is a more spe­cif­ic search query sug­gest­ing a slight­ly more devel­oped moment in the pur­chase cycle, how­ev­er it is still served by con­tent on the same cat­e­go­ry land­ing page.

Using Linkdex’s Vis­i­bil­i­ty tool to look at Nordstrom’s swim­suit land­ing page, and fil­ter­ing for typ­i­cal “con­sid­er­a­tion phase” mod­i­fiers (e.g., “best”, “for”) reveals how the land­ing page caters to mul­ti­ple moments of the pur­chase jour­ney.

In this sense, Nord­strom has built their site to not only cap­ture sim­i­lar search queries, but dif­fer­ent moments of the con­sumer pur­chase cycle.

3. Ensure A Complete, Cohesive User Experience

Macy’s and Kohl’s are the lead­ing depart­ment stores in the U.S. by rev­enue, accord­ing to a 2014 study by Sta­tista. While both of these retail­ers per­form well, Sears’ online vis­i­bil­i­ty illus­trates the poten­tial of the SEO chan­nel when a retail­er com­mits to an inte­grat­ed dig­i­tal strat­e­gy based on a thor­ough under­stand­ing of their audi­ence.

The dif­fer­ence between retail­ers that per­form well, and those that per­form excep­tion­al­ly, is in cre­at­ing excel­lent user expe­ri­ences through­out con­sumer pur­chase jour­neys – from the moment they encounter your brand, to check­out. This could mean cre­at­ing infor­ma­tive dig­i­tal prop­er­ties that reward and edu­cate such as Sears’ Fit­Stu­dio, not just on indi­vid­ual domains, but across a user’s entire online expe­ri­ence.

Ulti­mate­ly, great con­tent rais­es the pro­file of a brand, which in turn leads to bet­ter online vis­i­bil­i­ty.

Final Thoughts: Omnichannel & Offline Integration

Ear­li­er this year, Momen­tol­ogy report­ed on how Nord­strom uses tech­nol­o­gy to align cus­tomer expe­ri­ence goals. The retail­er’s Insta­gram, for exam­ple, allows users to con­nect direct­ly to equiv­a­lent on-site prod­ucts. It’s no won­der that a report by L2, a busi­ness intel­li­gence and advi­so­ry firm, placed Nord­strom at num­ber one in a list of “dig­i­tal­ly savvy retail­ers” (for which only Macy’s and Sears also achieved a top score).

The same report empha­sized how omnichan­nel, and online/offline inte­gra­tion and would be a key focus for depart­ment store retail­ers in the fore­see­able future, stat­ing: “in an effort to remain rel­e­vant and to cap­i­tal­ize on their phys­i­cal pres­ence, Depart­ment Stores are merg­ing clicks and bricks. The largest con­cen­tra­tion of invest­ments is in bridg­ing online and offline expe­ri­ences.”

Organ­ic search will no doubt be a cru­cial chan­nel for retail­ers dur­ing the upcom­ing hol­i­day shop­ping sea­son. One of the most effec­tive ways for retail­ers to lever­age gains in online vis­i­bil­i­ty is to pro­vide an inte­grat­ed cus­tomer-cen­tric expe­ri­ence.

How will you win over con­sumers at key moments through­out the upcom­ing hol­i­day sea­son?