Skincare SEO: Best Practices For Long-Term Success

Welcome, skincare store owners! If you’re here, then we know you are looking for the best practices regarding skincare SEO. So let’s get cracking and begin building the best skincare SEO for your online store.

What Is SEO?

SEO (also known by its longer name, Search Engine Optimization), is basically how visible your site is in search engines. Search Engine Land defines SEO as “the process of improving your site to increase its visibility for relevant searches.” It’s important to any online business because the better your website’s visibility is, “the more likely you are to garner attention and attract prospective and existing customers to your business.”

 Basically, Google, Bing, and Yahoo will “crawl” your website’s pages, collecting their information and indexing it. Then, the search engines’ algorithms analyze the indexed pages and determine the order the pages should appear on search results for any given query. There are many search ranking factors that can affect a website’s SEO, including site architecture, speed, mobile-friendliness, content quality, keyword use, and more. If you want to dive a little deeper into technical SEO and how to implement it in your store, we have a full tutorial here.

The short definition is that SEO is that little magic side of marketing that makes it easy for search engines to find you… which then makes it easier for potential customers to find you and convert!

Why You Need SEO For Your Skincare Store

You know how when you Google something, certain pages appear in the first page of search results? Well, they’re there because they have great SEO! This is very important because 75% of people never move past the first page of search engine results – meaning you could miss out on potential traffic, customers, and sales if your skincare store’s SEO isn’t top notch. Added to that, 61% of internet users research a product online before deciding to make a purchase. 

As you can see, skincare marketing – and particularly skincare SEO – play a huge role in any skincare store’s long-term success. And the best part of it is that it’s a non-paid marketing channel – skincare SEO is absolutely organic!

Skincare SEO Best Practices

These are a few of the best practices you can implement for your online skincare store in order to kickstart your way to amazing SEO results.

Target Good Keywords

Keywords are the bone structure of your skincare store’s SEO. We’ve already covered how to do a successful keyword research in this article, but today we’re going to focus on why you need to find the right keywords. You can only target one keyword per page, which can seem frustrating. But the good news here is that you can rank for multiple pages because of the different keywords! Think of it like this:

To get here, you need to find the right keywords for each page. And there’s plenty to choose from! For example, with SEMrush’s Keyword Magic Tool you can get over 18.3 billion keywords… and that’s only ONE of the tools in the market. Imagine the possibilities! Through keyword research you will be able to find search trends, popular keywords, or maybe even customer pain points on how to use a particular product – pain points you can then address through the right content! That way, when users search for “how to use oil cleanser”, you can help them find an answer through your website’s content and products! 

We know the online skincare market is pretty competitive, so in order to find the best keywords for your store you need to narrow things down. First, figure out what makes your products absolutely unique and use that to your advantage. If you’re selling a body lotion, what makes it special? Is it green? Is it vegan or cruelty-free? Is it lavender or vanilla? Finding these specific characteristics is what will make it easier for you to find the right (meaning, easy) keywords you can rank for and niche down your content.

Write Unique Product Descriptions

If one thing is true, it’s that Google absolutely hates duplicate content. Copycats are its nemesis. And it retaliates and attacks by lowering your website’s SEO performance. So one of the biggest no-no’s when it comes to skincare SEO is copying the product descriptions from another page – even if it’s from the original brand or website.

And when you think about it, unique page descriptions give you a perfect chance to communicate to your customers exactly why this amazing product will absolutely change their lives forever. It’s a chance for you to give them your store’s professional opinion, recommendations, or even instructions on how to use the product itself! So don’t underestimate product descriptions. They can be a great tool to both rank better and to make your customers relate to your product in a way they couldn’t have if you have used a cookie-cutter, copy-paste description.

A great way to build a great product page description is to follow this simple template:

• Tagline: Create a short text that will call out to the customer. This is your chance to grab their attention at a first glance and convince them to keep on reading.
• Lifestyle/Concern Copy: In a short paragraph, quickly run through your customer’s main pain points or concerns and explain how and why this product can help address or treat them. You can also include a short lifestyle paragraph if the product is oriented more towards beauty/lifestyle than a particular skincare concern.
• Images: They can be scattered across the page or in a carousel, depending on how your skincare store is built. But what’s always important is including images that depict the way your product looks, its texture, packaging, and even results on skin once absorbed.
• Tagline 2: If you have the space and your website allows it, you can add a second tagline to push customers to purchase.
• Key Benefits: Why is this product so great? What does it do? Does it deeply hydrate skin? Can it help smooth out skin and reduce fine lines and wrinkles? Is it a proven acne treatment? How exactly does it do it? Here is your chance to show off everything that’s amazing about this product and why your customers will benefit from using it.
• Features/Ingredients: Your product may have particular beneficial features, like being vegan or cruelty free. It may also be formulated with amazing ingredients than can help calm down irritated skin or that can aid in cell reconstruction. Here is where you can point out the specifics and explain why they are so great. Also, don’t forget to include your full ingredient list for transparency!
• Video: It can be a product demo or even a testimonial. Whichever one you choose, these videos are meant to give the customers one extra piece of information regarding the product they are viewing. Here’s where our last skincare SEO best practice, having a YouTube channel, can come it handy! You can embed the video directly into your description box.
• Instructions For Use: If one thing is confusing about skincare, it’s how to use the darn stuff. Be sure to include instructions on how the product is used, step by step. Think of it as telling your girlfriend how she needs to apply her serum for maximum effectiveness – you’re doing her a favor and providing useful information that she wouldn’t have otherwise.  
• Promise/Guarantee: Finish up your page with a small promise or guarantee. If your site provides money-back guarantees, you can add this text here. Or if this particular product promises to get rid of undereye circles or sun spots, this is the place to write it down. You can also end with a small CTA to further try to convince your users to add to cart and purchase.

If we follow the same foam cleanser example, this copy could look something like this:

• Tagline: A gentle tea tree foam cleanser for every skin type.
• Lifestyle/Concern Copy: Do you struggle to find a facial cleanser that is effective and doesn’t irritate your skin? Our tea tree foam cleanser is gentle and safe enough for every skin type – even extremely sensitive skin – to use, while also being extremely effective at removing dirt, pollution, and grime buildup from your face. This tea tree foam cleanser will provide a deep cleansing sensation while it refreshes your face and calms down any redness or irritation.
• Images: Here is where your photoshoots will come in handy to show the product from the front, behind, and even how the product looks out of the jar and on the skin.
• Tagline 2: A fresh, minty sensation that calms and cleanses.
• Key Benefits: This product was created with the latest foaming technology, which means that you will use less product, meaning your bottle will last you longer than any old liquid cleanser would. Because of its gentle nature, it won’t dry out the skin or provide a tight sensation. It can be used by all skin types and is safe to use in skin suffering from conditions like eczema or psoriasis. It can also be combined with any other type of serums, creams, or ampoules.
• Features/Ingredients: The tea tree and centella extracts in this foam cleanser will provide a calming effect on any redness, rashes, or irritations. It also contains aloe vera to aid in the calming and recovery process of the skin, as well as hyaluronic acid to help retain moisture. Check out the full ingredient list here:
• Video: If you don’t have a testimonial, you can create a quick unboxing video showing the product itself, in and out of the bottle. You can also create a quick tutorial on how to use it correctly.
• Instructions For Use: Apply a small amount of product onto the palm of your hands and spread in circular motions on clean, damp skin. Massage for 30-60 seconds and rinse off with lukewarm water. Continue with the rest of your skincare routine. For best results, you can pair it with X and Y products.   
• Promise/Guarantee: This soothing tea tree foam cleanser has everything you need to give a cool rest to irritated skin. Try it for 30 days and if you don’t like it, we’ll give you back your money – no questions asked.
• Button: Add to Cart

Of course, this is just a very quick example. The creativity, copy, style, and wording will be up to you and your skincare store’s brand identity. For more tips and information on how to improve your product pages, check out our SEO product page optimization tutorial.

Remember Meta Titles & Descriptions

In case you didn’t know, your SEO titles and meta descriptions are those tiny little snippets of text you see whenever you search for something on Google. 

According to Moz, meta descriptions can “impact a page’s CTR (click-through-rate) on Google which can positively impact a page’s ability to rank.” So it’s extremely important to have a kick ass title and meta description. Both these tiny little texts can make the difference between a potential customer deciding to click and visit your site or not.

Bear in mind that titles & meta descriptions will also be used for Google Shopping, so you need to make sure that your brand and products stand out.

Brand + Product Name + Unique Feature | YourSkincareStore.com

A unique description of your product that will get potential customers interested enough to click and visit your website.

For example, if your particular keyword was a “foam cleanser”, your title and meta description could look something like this:

Clinique Foam Cleanser For Oily Skin | YourSkincareStore.com”

Tea tree for soothing, foam for sebum reduction. Clinique’s Foam Cleanser for Oily Skin was hand-picked to guarantee radiant, glowing skin. Get yours today. 

You see what we did there? Using plenty of adjectives and the product’s unique features, we managed to form a thorough description, add a promise, and hype up a CTA. Now go try it for your store!

To get the most out of your titles and meta descriptions, be sure you are using the same focus keyword you planned to use on that particular page. Also, keep in mind that your meta descriptions should be between 50 and 160 characters, so get used to saying all you need to say in the length of an old-time tweet. Also, adding compelling adjectives and a clear CTA never hurt anyone when optimizing their titles and meta descriptions. Try it and make your skincare SEO absolutely unique!

Enable Rich Snippets

According to Yoast, a snippet is a result Google shows to any user during search results. A rich snippet – or rich result – is when you get a lot more information in the same amount of space. They tend to include ratings, reviews, price, and even if the product is in stock or not.

Rich snippets or rich results are important for skincare SEO because they simply stand out. The pop of color, the extra information at a simple glance, and even the price or images can play a huge role in click-through-rate and conversion rate. So be sure your website is enabled to show rich results in search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo!

Most website platforms already include Product Schema Markup by default – all you have to do is ensure that your product pages are filled out 100% in your backend. To test your site and see if you have everything right, you can use Google’s Rich Results Test. This free tool will tell you i f your site is enabled for rich results, or if there are any errors or warnings preventing them from appearing. If you see the latter, you should contact your developer to fix the issues as soon as possible.

Include Images

This one should be a no-brainer, honestly. If you don’t show your products’ packaging, texture, and consistency, you’re not being smart about your skincare SEO. Images and videos are a huge part of online shopping. Users are used to visiting brick-and-mortar stores where they can try the product on their own skin and see if they are convinced. Without the physicality involved, you need to provide the same experience they would see when shopping in person. So images, videos, and even customer reviews are a huge help for any customer when they are debating whether to make a skincare purchase or not.

 For best results, be sure to have a white background on your images. And the more information you can give through them the better, including packaging, ingredient list, product texture and consistency, the absorption process, or even results once applied. This is the first interaction users will have with your product – make sure it’s one they won’t forget. 

Also, images have this little thing called alt text, which is used within your site’s code and can actually make it easier for users to find you. So when a user searches for a product that you sell, your alt text will enable that image to show up in image search results! For more information on alt text and page optimizations, check out this guide.

Have A Blog

To be perfectly honest, we’ve already written an entire article on why your skincare company needs a blog. But to sum it up, having a blog can help improve your skincare SEO because it can help drive absolutely FREE traffic to your website, it helps increase your E.A.T. (Expertise – Authority – Trust), it’s cost-effective, it’s a cross-selling opportunity, and it can help create a meaningful relationship with your customers.

Also, think of the possibilities! A blog can allow you to feature content like product or brand reviews, trends and news, introduce new brands or products to your website, provide useful information about ingredients or formulas, skincare routines, and all sorts of fun things! The best part is that each new blog page provides a new opportunity to target a new focus keyword, provide rich results content, and even help you get featured in image search results. It’s a guaranteed, low-effort, and cost-effective way to gain new customers that can help increase your skincare SEO. So again, a no-brainer.

Create a YouTube Channel

This one is by no means a priority, but YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. This means that people are actively searching for all types of content on this platform, looking for video or visual information to their problem or query. And according to recent eCommerce beauty industry numbers, beauty and style are the most viewed categories by females on YouTube with a whopping 62%. It’s followed by health and fitness at 6%, which is a 90% difference. So from skincare tutorials, to product reviews, to ingredient breakdowns, and more, your potential clients are already looking for information on this platform. As a long-term strategy, we highly recommend both creating your own content and using influencers to position your brand inside this amazingly visual and highly converting search engine.

There are two ways to reach the YouTube audience market. The first is by uploading your own content as a store/brand, much like SokoGlam, a famous K-beauty store, does. In their channel, you will find content like K-Beauty award-winning products, tutorials on how to use products like sheet masks or essence mists, store product launches, and even testimonials from their clients. The second way to reach an even larger audience is to get skincare influencers to talk about your store or your products. YouTube influencers already have a fanbase built, so you don’t have to worry about reaching new potential customers. Aim for the stars and try to reach channels like Skincare By Hyram, where he lays down the truth about certain skincare brands, reacts to skincare fails, gives skincare 101 advice, and more. Or even Gothamista, a self-proclaimed skin-thusiast who uploads skincare product reviews or her own skincare routines for glowing skin.

And because it’s a search engine owned by Google, your skincare SEO will soar through the roof once Google crawls your site and realizes your videos should be showing up in both Google and YouTube search results. For the best SEO results, try to put both your own content and influencer YouTube marketing together – double the content, double the potential sales! 

To Sum It Up

Skincare SEO is the sum of many different things. But it all boils down to how “findable” your site is, how clickable your titles and meta descriptions are, and how well you are convincing your clients that you are the best place for them to shop. With these 7 skincare SEO best practices, your website will be well on its road to glowing, supple dermatological sales success!