by james bailey
release date: May 2, 2024
In the rapidly changing world of wine marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) plays a vital role and digital visibility is critical to a brand's success. Harper's reviewed strategies shared by industry leaders for SEO success.
Wine brands may need to adjust their SEO strategies based on whether the brand is mainstream or niche. This is according to Andy Barr, SEO expert and founder of digital marketing agency 10Yetis.
“You just have to look at the title tags of all the major wine companies. 'Buy wine online' is the holy grail,” he told Harper's.
Mr Barr, who has worked with one of the UK's largest wine clubs, suggests a subtle strategy that incorporates 'long tail' keywords to capture consumers at different stages of the purchase cycle.
“It’s always difficult to go after popular keywords right away, so some people go after so-called ‘long tail’ keywords. These are also long phrases that indicate where the consumer is in the buying cycle. For example, trying to compete with big brands in the short term when it comes to “buying wine online” is very difficult. “It's easier to search for more subtle/niche, longer keyword phrases, such as 'buy southern French red wine online,'” he says.
One such big brand is Virgin Wines. As a leading online wine retailer, Virgin ranks among the top wine-related search results on Google. For large enterprises, having a catalog of in-demand queries and terminology is essential to ensure comprehensive coverage and maximum visibility.
“We've found that the best-performing keywords in our category change frequently, so we need to conduct keyword research regularly to stay up-to-date and cover a wide range of terms. We look at high-demand queries as well as low-volume, niche queries,” said Lucy Hazleton, Virgin Wines SEO Manager.
According to Ben Jayston, head of SEO at Vertical Leap, a customer of Davy's Wine Merchants, thorough keyword analysis and implementation is paramount.
“[For Davy’s] We need to cover semantic relationships between specific wines, types of wine by region and style, and seasons and special occasions (summer barbecues, New Year's champagne, bottle-end sales, etc.),” says Jayston. he said.
Jayston says that in the world of SEO, wine is a “simpler market” with fewer keyword options. “For example, there are very few other ways to say 'red wine,' so the long tail becomes more important, like 'Christmas red wine' or 'barbecue white wine,'” Jayston says.
SEO has been part of Davy's overall marketing strategy since 2019, with advances being made in targeting specific wine types, events such as wine tastings, and the Christmas wine gift market. The use of SEO has helped connect customers in the real world as well.
“Wine tasting events are a recent business offering for Davie wine retailers, and local SEO and on-page optimization to support this has been a focus for the past two years,” said Jayston. I did.
For businesses looking to embrace traditional aspects of wine retail, such as brick-and-mortar sales and in-store recommendations, SEO can be a useful gateway to increasing customer traffic.
For Nick Brewer, owner of vineyard Oastbrook Estate in Kent/Sussex, SEO is a key way to increase brand awareness and drive sales both online and on-site. Looking back on his progress, Brewer points out that organic searches have increased by 300% in the past year, highlighting the tangible benefits of investing in SEO.
“We have our key pages professionally reviewed for SEO, looking for gaps in knowledge that aren't covered, but we also strive to write engaging and interesting copy.” It’s not just a matter of checking off an SEO checklist,” says Brewer.
“We try to make sure we are featured in online publications and get good rankings, and PR helps with this too. Our consultants have Oostbrook wines reviewed in lists and summaries. However, our vineyard accommodations are a selling point in their own right. We have received great travel reviews and have won travel awards as well as wine awards, all of which are back-to-back. It helps with links,” Brewer added.
By embracing innovation and staying on top of consumer trends, wine brands of all sizes can maximize their SEO potential, increase visibility, engage audiences, and grow sales. can be promoted.
For more on SEO wine trends, check out the May issue of Harpers.