How an Americana Menswear eCommerce Grew Traffic by 867% YoY
https://bronsonshop.com/
Stats
7.6K to 73.4K Monthly Visits
Industry
Ecommerce & Retail
Niche
Apparel & Accessories
Reporting Date
September 2024
Bronson Mfg. is a men's clothing brand that offers vintage-inspired American classics. It was founded in 2012 and recently experienced a surge of online traffic in 2024.
In September, Bronson Mfg. had a nearly tenfold increase in organic monthly visits compared to the year prior.
This growth comes down to a few key strategies, which we'll explore in this SEO case study.
You'll also learn how to leverage these growth strategies on your website to improve your SEO.
In This Article
The Catalyst: How Bronson Mfg. Reached 73.4K Monthly Visits
1. Implemented Schema Markup for Rich Snippets
Schema markup is a type of structured data that lives within a web page’s HTML code. It communicates essential details about your page to search engines in a way that's easy for them to understand.
Here's an example of what it looks like in Bronson’s source code:
There are several types of schema markup, each with a unique set of attributes.
For example, Product the first schema type in the above screenshot.
Product schema can communicate the following attributes to search engines:
- Product details
- Ratings and reviews
- Shipping and returns
- Offers
- And more
In return, search engines can use these attributes to generate rich snippets in SERPs.
The rich snippet below shows the aforementioned attributes, helping customers get a quick understanding of the product and brand.
Bronson Mfg. is generous with its implementation of schema markup on its website.
As an eCommerce, Product schema is its most frequent. It’s also important to note that they accompany it with AggregateRating schema, which displays an average customer rating. (This is a 4.8 rating in the above example.)
You can find both schema types on each of Bronson’s product detail pages (PDPs.)
This strategy has been instrumental in their organic rankings, specifically for review snippets.
In September 2024, Bronson Mfg. ranked for 4.8K keywords with review snippets. That’s incredibly impressive, considering they had 0 review snippets just 3 months prior.
Finally, I’d like to mention that Bronson Mfg. also has a Google Merchant Center account, which contributes to their products’ visibility in search results.
In the image below, we see how one of their items appears in the Popular Products section of Google.
Like rich snippets, appearing in these shopping areas of the SERP can drive targeted traffic to your website and increase conversions.
Why this matters:
By implementing schema markup, Bronson Mfg. has significantly boosted its online visibility and user experience.
This strategy has led to:
- Rich, Eye-Catching Snippets: Increased clickthrough rates and organic traffic.
- Improved Search Engine Rankings: Higher visibility for product reviews and related keywords.
- Enhanced User Experience: More relevant search results and quicker access to information.
- Competitive Advantage: A strategic edge over industry competitors.
- Google Shopping Visibility: Increased product exposure and potential sales.
By following their lead, you can improve your eCommerce SEO and drive more traffic and conversions.
How to implement schema markup:
This tutorial demonstrates three methods for adding schema markup to WordPress without a plugin.
Each method uses JSON-LD and requires you to obtain and copy code snippets into the backend of your website. (You can use the Google Structured Data Helper to get the code.)
Or, for an easier, code-free method, follow this WordPress schema markup tutorial. (It uses the tool we recommend next.)
Tools for schema markup:
All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is a leading WordPress plugin for SEO. It has a built-in Schema Generator that allows you to add schema markup with the click of a button.
To get started, select your desired schema type from the Catalog.
(If you want to implement product review schema like Bronson, select Product Review.)
After selecting your schema, AIOSEO will propose user-friendly fields to add more details.
In the example below, we see how the tool asks you for customer review and rating information. Search engines could use these details to generate rich snippets in SERPs.
2. Unlocked Google Image Pack Rankings
In addition to thousands of new product review snippets, Bronson Mfg. also unlocked a new type of rich result for the first time: Google image packs.
Image packs are a bundle of images Google shows related to the user’s query. They typically appear below sponsored posts and above organic listings.
In this example, we see how Bronson ranks twice in the image pack.
What’s interesting about ranking in the image pack is that it also means you’re one of the top results in Google Images.
For example, if we click on the Images tab of Google, we see that Bronson Mfg. is actually ranking first in image results.
Ranking in Google Images can bring significant traffic to your website considering how there are over 1 billion searches on it every day.
The exposure in image packs is also a coveted SERP feature for website owners looking to increase brand awareness.
And in September 2024, Bronson ranked for 1K of them.
So, how did Bronson get these new image rankings?
That’s the power of image SEO.
Image SEO is the practice of optimizing your images for search engines.
It’s critical because search engines can’t see images like you and me. Instead, they rely on text elements to decipher an image’s content.
Here are some image SEO best practices Bronson used to rank in image packs:
- Wrote descriptive alt text
- Included ImageObject schema markup
- Implemented strong on-page SEO signals
Why this matters:
By strategically optimizing their images for search engines, Bronson Mfg. unlocked valuable image packs.
Key Benefits of Image Pack Rankings:
- Increased Visibility: Image packs significantly boost brand visibility and attract more potential customers.
- Direct Traffic to Product Pages: Clicking on an image in the pack leads directly to the relevant product page, driving conversions.
- Enhanced Brand Awareness: Images can increase brand recognition and credibility.
How to do image SEO:
Keyword placement plays an integral role in image optimizations. You’ll want to include your focus keyword in the following areas:
You’ll also want to pay attention to elements like:
- Captions
- File size
- Image dimensions
- Schema markup
For a complete list of items, this tutorial shows you how to optimize your WordPress images.
Tools for image SEO:
Image optimizations can be time-consuming when you don’t have the right tools.
Luckily, with image SEO plugins, you can streamline the process for maximum visibility in search results.
AIOSEO’s Image SEO tool empowers users to automate repetitive tasks like writing image titles or alt text. This translates to labor-free optimizations and easy-to-understand images for search engines.
3. Acquired Backlinks From Relevant, Reputable Sites
The final growth strategy we noticed from Bronson Mfg. is its recent influx of backlinks.
Backlinks are links from other websites to yours. And in September 2024, Bronson had 91.9K of them.
(To put that number into perspective, they only had 5.8K backlinks in September 2023.)
Now, here’s the thing about backlinks: they’re not all created equal.
Quality matters.
Here’s what we mean when referencing “quality” for backlinks:
- The links are relevant to your domain.
- They come from reputable sources.
- Anchor text is natural and descriptive.
Let’s look at some examples of Bronson’s backlinks.
In this first example, we have a link from GQ, a renowned men’s magazine. It’s from an article about staff recommendations, most of which are clothing. This page has an authority score (AS) of 60 and links to one of Bronson’s PDPs.
This is a high-quality link.
In the next two examples, we have a similar story:
Two links come from Primer Magazine, a popular men’s publication. They’re featured in two separate articles highlighting men’s fashion. The AS of each page is 48, which is a respectable score.
These two links are also considered quality backlinks.
Ultimately, quality over quantity matters when it comes to backlinks.
Aim for links that are relevant and come from reputable websites over quantity.
Why this matters:
According to ranking statistics, backlinks are among the top 3 ranking factors.
A strong backlink profile can boost your own website’s authority and promote trust with users and search engines.
Backlinks are also a powerful means of generating more visibility and traffic for your brand.
How to do link building:
Backlinks are one component of an effective linking strategy. This tutorial shows you how to get backlinks, but you should also optimize for the following:
- Internal links: from one page on your site to another page on your site
- Outbound links: from your site to an external website
This link-building guide demonstrates how to optimize for all three types of links.
Tools for link building:
Link Assistant is a user-friendly tool for finding internal linking opportunities. It populates linking suggestions directly in the WordPress editor, so you don't have to scour your site for related content manually. It also provides recommended anchor text.
See a link you want to add?
Just click Add Link and save your changes.
Standout SEO Wins
Before we wrap up, there’s a final technical SEO best practice I’d like to highlight at bronsonshop.com:
They use canonical tags to avoid duplicate content issues.
Canonical tags are like traffic directors for search engines. They tell which URL is the preferred version of the content.
For example, look at the two URLs below. They each go to the same content (a Breton stripe shirt), but one of the URLs displays how the user got there from the best sellers landing page. The other URL does not show this site navigation.
Without a canonical tag, search engines might treat these two URLs as separate pages—even though they lead to the same content.
This can confuse search engines and potentially hurt your rankings.
By implementing a canonical tag, Bronson Mfg. explicitly tells search engines which URL to serve in search results. This strategy ensures search engines focus their indexing efforts on the most relevant page.
It also consolidates link equity and improves the page's overall SEO performance.
Tool: With the AIOSEO Robots.txt Editor, you get full control over how search engines crawl and index your website. You can easily customize and manage canonical URLs using the Advanced settings.
Takeaways
In our analysis of Bronson’s website, we’ve discovered the key strategies that led to their nearly tenfold annual growth.
Now, let’s recap which strategies to implement on your website and others to reconsider.
Top 3 Strategies to Emulate
- Implement schema markup on your web pages. Schema markup can enhance your website's visibility in search results. By providing structured data to search engines, you support their understanding of your page. This can potentially boost your rankings and help them generate rich snippets in SERPs. Rich snippets have higher clickthrough rates (CTRs), making them a valuable acquisition for your site.
- Optimize images for search engines. Invest time in image SEO by writing descriptive alt text, file names, and title tags. These optimizations can help you rank in Google Images and in standard search results with image snippets. Both types of results can help you stand out in search results and drive more traffic to your site.
- Build high-quality backlinks. Focus on acquiring backlinks from reputable, relevant websites. This can be achieved through guest posting, outreach, and creating valuable content that naturally attracts links. Backlinks are one of the top Google ranking factors, meaning they can significantly influence your rankings. Aim for quality over quantity to establish your own authority and build trust.
Bottom 3 Strategies to Reconsider
- Page titles duplicate the brand name and exceed character limits. Some of Bronson’s page titles duplicate the brand name at the end. (For example, “Bronson Mfg – Bronson Mfg.) It's likely that the last element is a setting within its content management system (CMS), but it creates an unnecessary addition since they're already writing the brand name in the SEO title. It's easy to fix, but it's also easy to avoid. For your website, run your metadata through a SERP snippet tool before publishing. This will help you catch any mistakes or oversights before going live.
- Some meta description tags are non-descriptive. Overall, Bronson Mfg. does a good job writing descriptive meta descriptions for its web pages. However, every now and then, they'll only include their brand name in the meta description. These are missed opportunities to help search engines and users understand your content. Instead, you should ensure every indexable page has a unique and descriptive meta description. TruSEO will help you with this process by checking for your focus keyword in your meta description. If it's missing, you'll have an alert to correct it.
- Image file names aren’t optimized. Even though Bronson Mfg. is ranking with more image snippets than ever, they have one significant oversight: image file names. They don't optimize them; instead, they use a combination of letters and numbers. While image optimizations can be time-consuming, they're important for SEO. Optimizing your images can help you rank with image snippets in traditional Google Search or Google Images. For your website, an image SEO plugin can streamline your optimizations and save you time.
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Rank Higher & Get More Organic Traffic With AIOSEO
Want to join the winning ranks of websites like Bronson Mfg.?
You, too, can rank higher in search results and drive target traffic to your site.
And All in One SEO can help.
AIOSEO is the best SEO plugin for WordPress. It has thousands of five-star reviews and over 3 million active users. With AIOSEO, you get access to a comprehensive suite of beginner-friendly tools that make SEO easy.
Here are some of our favorites:
- Rich Snippets Schema: Win more rich snippets with AIOSEO’s user-friendly schema generator. Just pick the schema type you want, and we’ll format the structured data properly for Google.
- Image SEO: Turn on automatic image alt text and title attributes with a single click. You’ll save time from manual entries while helping users and search engines understand your images.
- Link Assistant: Apply internal linking best practices with easy linking suggestions and reports. These tools will help boost content discovery and prevent orphan pages.
- Robots.txt Editor: Control how bots crawl your site with the Robots.txt Editor, which allows you to override default WordPress settings. This tool makes it simple to view your robots.txt file and manage rules.
- TruSEO Score: Level up your content and go beyond a simple pass or fail. TruSEO analyzes your on-page SEO, giving you actionable insights to maximize your content's reach.
- Keyword Rank Tracker: Take control of your SEO performance and monitor keyword rankings directly in WordPress. This tool empowers you to have a constant pulse on your most important keywords, allowing you to adjust your strategy as necessary.
