The online jewelry market is on the rise, showing an impressive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.8% from 2023 to 2030. This surge catapults the market value from $40.4 million to a staggering $113 million.

For small business owners, this surge presents an exciting opportunity.

But it isn’t challenge-free.

After all, in a digital landscape shared with industry giants like Tiffany & Co. and Pandora, standing out in search results is no easy feat.

So, how are small businesses navigating this competitive terrain?

In this SEO case study, we’ll look at Baby Gold, a family-owned and operated jeweler based in Los Angeles. They’ve cracked the code, and we’re here to spill the secrets to their 326% year-over-year (YoY) growth.

Let’s find out how they did it.

About Baby Gold

Baby Gold was founded in 2018 by Helen and Michael Ashikian.

All jewelry is solid 14k gold and manufactured at their family-owned factory in Los Angeles.

Baby Gold uses a direct-to-consumer approach, cutting out the middleman in production. This allows them to offer competitive prices for “the everyday woman and her tribe.”

The Baby Gold product line offers traditional items like necklaces, rings, and bracelets. It also includes original items like body chains, anklets, and charms.

Their Personalized Collection is one of their most popular lines, allowing buyers to customize jewelry with names and initials.

Baby Gold has become popular with social media influencers and celebrities. It has been spotted on the Kardashian sisters, Behati Prinsloo, Ashley Graham, and more.

It’s also frequently featured in fashion publications like Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar.

Historical Performance

Babygold.com was launched in the summer of 2018.

Semrush historical data reveals the first organic visits in June. It ended the year with 3.4K total visits.

From there, we can use the chart below to see how the website grew over the following years.

Year	2019	2020	2021	2022	Jan – Nov 2023
Total Organic Traffic	27,228	154,007	369,415	559,292	1,157,006
Average Monthly Traffic	2,269	12,834	30,785	46,608	105,182

This growth is even more impressive when we look at it from this perspective:

2023 has been the website’s most exciting year yet.

August marks the beginning of growth, increasing monthly traffic by 35K visits over July.

At the time of reporting, November 2023 is their highest traffic month. The website received 222,049 organic visits.

So, what exactly occurred in the latter half of 2023 to ignite such dramatic growth?

We’re revealing those answers next.

The Catalyst: How Baby Gold Grew Traffic by 362% YoY

Babygold.com grew its organic traffic by performing the following:

1. Targeting long-tail keywords with new collection landing pages
2. Standing out on the SERP with review snippets
3. Receiving backlinks from credible, relevant websites

Let’s explore each strategy to see how it impacted Baby Gold’s online visibility and traffic.

1. Targeting Long-Tail Keywords With New Collection Landing Pages

Between November 2022 and 2023, Baby Gold added about 400 new pages to its website.

And while it isn’t uncommon for an eCommerce to release new product, it’s their Collection pages that caught our attention.

Over the course of the year, Baby Gold added around 150 new landing pages for Collections.

Here are just a few:

• https://www.babygold.com/collections/14k-gold-hoop-earrings
• https://www.babygold.com/collections/14k-gold-bangle-bracelets
• https://www.babygold.com/collections/14k-gold-kids-bracelets
• https://www.babygold.com/collections/14k-gold-initial-pendants

These new URLs stand out against the website’s preexisting Collections, such as:

• https://www.babygold.com/collections/bracelets
• https://www.babygold.com/collections/rings
• https://www.babygold.com/collections/earrings
• https://www.babygold.com/collections/chains

Can you spot the difference?

The new URLs target longer search queries. These are called long-tail keywords.

Long-tail keywords are search queries when people seek something specific. They typically combine 3 or more words.

Here we see how Baby Gold targets these long-tail queries with keyword optimizations on a landing page for 14k gold hoop earrings:

We can also see these optimizations in the page’s metadata:

Why this matters:

Long-tail keywords drive some of the most valuable traffic to your site.

They have less competition than short-tail keywords (like “bracelets” or “earrings”), meaning they’re easier to rank for.

They also have a higher conversion rate (CR), considering these users want something specific.

If your content, product, or service meets their needs, they’re prime to convert.

This combination of low competition + high CR makes long-tail keywords powerful ranking opportunities.

How to target long-tail keywords on your site:

Before you can target long-tail keywords, you need to know where to find them.

Keyword research allows you to uncover long-tail keywords that you can use in your content.

Here’s a tutorial on 3 ways of finding long-tail keywords.

One quick and free way is by performing a Google search. Start by typing your keyword (don’t hit enter) and see what Google populates for search suggestions.

Here’s an example of long-tail keywords generated from the search “custom necklace”:

Once you have your long-tail keywords, it’s time to optimize your content.

Like Baby Gold, you should include your primary keyword (also called a focus keyword) in the following areas:

• H1
• Meta title
• Meta description
• Body copy
• URL
• And more

For a complete breakdown of how to optimize your content, this article discusses where to use your focus keyword.

Tools for targeting long-tail keywords:

Did you know that you can find long-tail keywords directly in WordPress?

The All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin makes this possible by connecting to your Semrush account.

Once you’ve set a focus keyphrase, you can get additional keyword suggestions from Semrush.

Here are some keyword ideas generated for the focus keyphrase “custom necklace.”

Many of these results are long-tail keywords, which you can include by clicking Add Keyphrase.

Then, the TruSEO Analysis tool will check for your optimizations.

You’ll get an easy-to-understand checklist with actionable insights for making improvements.

Here’s an example:

Now, let’s see how Baby Gold is leveraging schema markup to get more attention on its product.

2. Standing Out on the SERP With Review Snippets

When we compare 2022 vs 2023, Baby Gold is ranking for significantly more keywords this year.

On average, they rank for 102% more keywords per month.

As for how they’re standing out in search results, review snippets dominate the SERP.

A review snippet showcases an average rating of customers’ scores.

In the example below, we see how Baby Gold’s diamond necklace has a 5-star rating based on 22 reviews.

This is a result of product schema.

Product schema is a type of schema markup that lives within the backend of a website. It allows you to give search engines important details about your product, like price, stock availability, rating, and more.

(A review snippet is derived from AggregateRating schema, which is an element of product schema.)

Search engines can use schema markup to create a rich result on the SERP, like the one we saw above.

And while schema markup doesn’t guarantee a rich result, it increases the likelihood.

We highly recommend using it on your website.

As for Baby Gold, their review snippets are up 91.4% YoY for November.

Why this matters:

Search results that look different from the others win more clicks and drive more traffic.

Review snippets take up more space on the SERP and stand out to customers.

They’re particularly impactful for eCommerce because they testify to the quality of your product or service, increasing trust from new users.

How to implement product schema on your site:

This tutorial shows you how to add schema markup without a plugin. It uses three methods, each requiring you to obtain and copy code snippets into the appropriate fields.

You’ll need to select the appropriate product schema and rating attributes when performing this process manually.

Tools for implementing product schema:

If you shiver at the idea of touching your website’s code, you’re not alone. Many website owners dread the thought of tinkling with the backend of their website.

The good news is that you don’t have to—when you have the right tool.

A product review plugin can do the coding for you.

AIOSEO features a Schema Generator that makes implementing schema markup a breeze.

Simply navigate to the Schema Catalog and select Product from the list. Then, we’ll walk you through easy-to-fill-in fields for your attributes (like ratings.)

For a complete walk-through of the process, check out this guide on how to add product review schema in WordPress.

Next up, we’ll look at the final contributing factor to Baby Gold’s organic growth: backlinks.

3. Receiving Backlinks from Credible, Relevant Websites

Baby Gold had under 10K backlinks for most of its online lifetime. They surpassed this milestone in January 2023.

During this year, Baby Gold received an influx of new backlinks from sites like Vogue, Elle, and Forbes.

The latter half of the year delivered the most impressive growth yet.

October 2023 kicked off a new wave of backlinks, increasing them by 11K over the month prior.

We discovered one website that was largely responsible for this new contribution: https://babygold.gorgias.help/.

This is Baby Gold’s Help Center, which lives on the gorgias.help domain. Gorgias is a customer support software for eCommerce.

Since these links are housed on an external domain (gorgias.help), they count as backlinks for babygold.com—even though it looks like any other page on their website.

This is most likely a serendipitous consequence of adding this software in October, but we imagine Baby Gold is happy with the resulting backlinks!

Why this matters:

This increase in backlinks, particularly from reputable sources, enhances Baby Gold’s online credibility.

Backlinks are like votes of confidence, signaling to search engines that your website is a trusted and valuable resource.

The more high-quality backlinks you have, the better.

For Baby Gold, their backlinks are relevant and natural, making them a key factor in their improved organic visibility.

How to do link building for your site:

This tutorial shows you how to get more backlinks.

It’s also important to note that an effective linking strategy goes beyond backlinks. You’ll also want to optimize for the following:

• Internal links (from one page on your site to another page on your site)
• Outbound links (from your site to another external site)

This link-building guide has all the steps you need to optimize for each.

Tools for link building:

Link Assistant removes the manual work that goes into finding internal linking opportunities.

Instead of scouring your site for internal links, Link Assistant does it for you.

You’ll get linking suggestions in the WordPress editor, which you can add with the click of a button.

Talk about easy!

Standout SEO Wins

Before we wrap up, we’d like to share an additional SEO win at babygold.com.

1. They’re earning more image rich results.

Search results with images are another enticing way to catch users’ attention (and clicks.)

Here’s what one looks like on the SERP:

In November 2023, Baby Gold received 89.5% more image rich results than the year prior.

As we saw with review snippets, rich results are an excellent way to take up more space on the SERP and drive more organic traffic to your website.

Image rich results appeal to users’ visual interests and can easily make you stand out against search results without them.

For Baby Gold, their situation is unique because even though they’re winning more rich results with images, their image SEO is lackluster.

Here’s what they should be doing (and what you can do to improve image SEO on your site):

• Write descriptive image file names
• Craft SEO-friendly alt text
• Use image title tags
• Implement image schema

For a full list of items, this guide shows you how to optimize images for SEO.

Tool: When you’re running a business and its website, image SEO is probably one of the last things on your mind. But it’s critical to growing your online presence!

Luckily, WordPress SEO plugins can help you streamline labor-intensive image optimizations in no time.

AIOSEO’s image SEO tool uses smart tags to automate important elements like title and alt tags.

All you have to do is pick the smart tags you want it to use to generate the text.

That’s it!

Takeaways

In our analysis of babygold.com, we’ve uncovered intentional strategies and possibly unintentional positive results in 2023.

Overall, they’ve experienced remarkable YoY growth, earning more eyes on their gold jewelry than ever.

Now, let’s review which strategies you can replicate on your website and others to reconsider.

Top 3 Strategies to Emulate

1. Target long-tail keywords for easy rankings. Long-tail keywords have less competition and higher conversion rates, making them some of the most valuable ranking opportunities. You can attract more targeted visitors to your site by tailoring content to these queries.
2. Implement product schema for eCommerce businesses. Product schema can be a game-changer for eCommerce owners. Schema markup makes product details more accessible to search engines and, thus, users. This information can be transformed into a rich result on the SERP, boosting clicks and traffic.
3. Seek out high-quality backlinks. Effective linking strategies include the pursuit of high-quality backlinks. These links should come from reputable and relevant websites. Backlinks act like endorsements, signaling to search engines that your site is credible and trustworthy. The result? Improved search rankings, stronger domain authority, and a broader reach for your business.

Bottom 3 Strategies to Reconsider

1. Not fully optimizing images for SEO. Incomplete image optimization hinders SEO performance. Ensure images have descriptive file names, relevant alt text, and title tags. This improves the user experience and helps search engines understand your images. And the better they understand them, the easier it is for them to rank in search results. You can use an image SEO tool to automate these optimizations in WordPress.
2. Missing H1s on certain pages. The H1 is the principal header of your page or post. They help users and search engines understand what your page is about. Baby Gold is missing H1 tags on a handful of high-level pages, but your site should include one on every page. TruSEO Analysis will let you know if your H1 is missing a focus keyphrase, which will also help you optimize the page.
3. There isn’t a meta description for every indexable URL. Meta descriptions play an important role in improving your CTR. Users rely on this information to understand the content behind your search listing and decide to click. Attract users with compelling and descriptive copy of the content that awaits them. You can also use an AI generator to write them for you.

Steal Our SEO Winning Strategy: A Checklist for Your Website

Is your eCommerce website ready to reach its next level of growth?

Get more eyes on your product with the help of this SEO Checklist. Not only will you get a list of the most critical SEO items to get your site on the SERP, but you’ll also get helpful resources to complete many of the tasks.

Grow Your Visibility and Make More Sales With AIOSEO

The first step to making more sales is getting visitors to your site.

AIOSEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin for making your website stand out in a sea of competition.

Trusted by over 3 million website owners and with thousands of 5-star reviews, you’ll be in good company as you take on the digital landscape. You’ll get a comprehensive suite of tools that makes SEO easy and effective. No more guesswork. No more researching for every how-to. Just actionable items and easy-to-follow directives.

Here are some of our favorite features:

• Semrush Keyphrase Suggestions: Find new keywords without having to leave WordPress. AIOSEO pulls keyphrase ideas from Semrush and serves them to you in the editor.
• TruSEO On-Page Analysis: Get an in-depth but easy-to-understand analysis of your optimization efforts. Each page includes an actionable checklist to help you maximize your content’s reach.
• Rich Snippets Schema: AIOSEO offers various schema markup options to help you claim more rich results on the SERP. It’s as simple as choosing the schema you want; then, we’ll format the structured data for Google.
• Link Assistant: Apply internal linking best practices with easy linking suggestions and reports. These tools will help boost content discovery and prevent orphan pages.
• Image SEO: Turn on automatic image alt text and title attributes with just 1 click. You’ll save time from manual entries while helping users and search engines understand your images.
• Social Media Integration: Seamlessly connect your social media platforms and share content with your audience. Available integrations include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and more.