Zappos owned by Amazon, Inc. is one of the leading e-commerce companies selling shoes and clothing online. Zappos is considered a small company acquired by Amazon in 2009. Amazon has paved the way for smaller companies to thrive in a huge online market. Zappos is known to have the best customer service. Reps have no limitations on call timing when it comes down to customers and they do not read from scripts. Their customer service has included sending flowers to a customer that returned her husband’s shoes because he was now deceased. The customer received flowers for her loss the next day. They even offer surprise upgrades to overnight shipping for customers while servicing about 5000 calls per month. This is a company that definitely engages in SEO marketing targeting specifically a unique audience while driving traffic to their website and microsites. Using the side by side SEO comparison, evidence displays just what Zappos is doing to reach their targeted audience.
Zappos uses SEO marketing to attract and monitor their customers. They also generate and monitor their backlinks to gain more exposure on search engines. This link building technique will make Zappos a distinctive competitor in appearing as a valuable source and help get indexed in search results faster. Alexa, an Amazon company as well, ranked Zappos, globally, at 1,518. In the U.S alone, Zappos is ranked at 391.
Zappos | MetaTags | Link Building| Keywords
Zappos also included a CTA in the meta description while displaying their key trending products with review status of products.
Zappos, indeed, uses on page SEO to facilitate better data collection. The company uses about 159 keywords to draw attention and rank in SERPs. Zappos also uses linking structures on their url page to capture a total of 281 internal links and 6 external links. The on-page text included 713 total words and 159 non linked text on page words that provided a description of what exactly does Zappos offer (services, products, contact info, etc.). Zappos highlights their exclusive features that make them stand out above the rest with content/descriptions such as FREE Shipping & Returns, Feedback available 24/7 at their toll-free number, their rewards program (points earned system), popular items etc. Zappos does use bold print to emphasize content. They also use meta keywords and descriptions to describe their product and draw in their audiences. In regards to title tags and descriptions, Zappos uses them to define and tell search engines what their web page is about using keywords to draw the viewers’ attention. Zappos does stay within the ideal character usage limits and does not go over the limit. This is important for gaining user click-through from SERPs while monitoring traffic.
Social Media | SEO | Engagement
Zappos is heavily engaged with social media channels and operates a Twitter profile specifically for their employees. Whenever you share a page on social networks like Facebook, Google+, or LinkedIn, each site will pull either the meta description or the first sentence or two of the post as the description to show in the share (Kissmetrics, 2012). The company uses a Twitter microsite to keep employees consistent with their targeted audiences by engaging in casual correspondence with customers instead of using marketing pitches or promotions. They also have a presence on YouTube, Facebook, and blogs. Analytics also revealed that they are popular on Facebook with 2.3+ million “likes”.
Blogs | Climb to The Top of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)
Zappos’ blog, Beyond the Box, delivers a community focus on culture and lifestyle. It displays their global involvement and philanthropic efforts to spread love around the world. Within their philanthropic efforts, Zappos has compiled a number of famous spokespersons to help guide customers in their efforts. For more information on their community efforts and famous celebrity influencers, click here. Zappos’ blog attracts the “right kind” of traffic. This data helps lead the visitor down the sales funnel seamlessly. Zappos’ blog is a creation of SEO driven, keyword focused content that attracts visitors who have displayed interest. Zappos can generate relevant keywords using Google Trends to discover just what popular keywords are trending. Zappos can also use SEMrush to reveal what keywords their competitors are using as well.
Hubspot’s, a blog, believes keyword and natural variations should be regularly interspersed throughout every post. Your primary keywords should appear in these key places:
- Title
- Headings and subheadings
- URL if possible
- Image alt text (search engines can’t read images)
- Meta description
- Throughout the content
And Zappos delivers just that. Take a look…
Zappos also uses internal links to help search engine crawl and create a more accurate sitemap. This technique helps audiences discover more about companies’ content and establishes the company as a trustworthy, credible source of information. Internal links to other valuable content keep users on company sites longer, reduce bounce rate and increase chances for conversion. There are over 11,656 site links to zappos.com. Their website also loads in 1.72 seconds which is 54% faster than other sites.
Zappos |The Last 10 Years | Their Future
The company has grown from almost no sales to more than $1 billion in annual gross merchandise sales, driven primarily by repeat customers and word of mouth (Hsieh, 2016). I believe that if Zappos continues their marketing campaigns along with measuring analytics, they will continue to see tremendous growth. By adding rewards and referral programs, Zappos can deliver more visitors to their sites. According to the Wharton School of Business; The Lifetime Value for new referral customer is 16% higher than non-referrals. With that being said referral and reward marketing programs should be monitored setting the platform for potential lifetime ambassadors for the company. According to The University of Chicago; non-cash incentives are 24% more effective at boosting performance than cash incentives. Participation in their rewards program can deliver value to the sale focusing on expedited shipping for enrolled customers who need immediate delivery. This captured data can play an intricate role in retention marketing and additional remarketing campaigns.
Sources:
Wikipedia. 2018. Zappos. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zappos
Hines, Kristi, 2012. Kissmetrics Blog - A BLOG ABOUT ANALYTICS, MARKETING AND TESTING. Retrieved from https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/launchLink.jsp?course_id=_99069_1&tool_id=_142_1&tool_type=TOOL&mode=view&mode=reset
Courtney Feairheller. 2018. Blogging for SEO: How to Write Blogs that Rank on Page One. Retrieved from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/blogging-for-seo
Harsh Agrawal. Oct 27, 2016. What Is Link Building in SEO & What Are The Benefits Of Building Links? Retrieved from https://www.shoutmeloud.com/what-is-link-building-and-benefit-of-link-building.html
Hsieh, Tony. July 2010. How I Did It: Zappos’s CEO on Going to Extremes for Customers. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2010/07/how-i-did-it-zapposs-ceo-on-going-to-extremes-for-customers
Gains, Brandon. Jan 10, 2017. 17 Surprising Referral Marketing Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.referralsaasquatch.com/17-referral-marketing-statistics/
