Detailed guideTechnical SEO or new content: what should a beauty brand fix first?
Start with technical SEO if a useful buying page cannot be reached or indexed. Improve the page if shoppers can find it but cannot understand the product. Create new content when a relevant customer question has no good answer. The first project should follow the evidence from your store.
Read the detailed guidePrioritize the obstacle closest to a useful search visit
Brand SEO practiceadidas: combine search and conversion evidence
SearchPilot recap · November 2025, updated February 2026
Morrisey describes a more descriptive product-grid element whose conversion test was flat but whose SEO test showed a traffic gain. The combined evidence supported rollout; no numerical lift is disclosed.
Matthew Morrisey, Organic Search Director for Europe in the interview; Will Critchlow, host
Official interview recap, not raw experiment data. Small catalogs may lack the stable page groups and traffic needed for a comparable controlled SEO test.
Read the source notes and related topicsPlatform educationAlan Kent: the product-discovery foundation
Google Search Central · foundational 2021–2022 video series
The selected resources explain getting product information into Search and improving an ecommerce site’s search presentation. Current Google documentation accompanies the older videos.
Alan Kent, presenter in Google Search Central’s ecommerce videos
Platform education rather than an independent brand-results study. Older videos are learning resources; current documentation governs implementation details.
How to apply it
Choose an important customer query and find the page that should answer it. Can shoppers and search engines reach that page? Does it explain the product well enough to help someone choose? Alan Kent’s ecommerce guidance is a useful starting point for these checks.
If that page is unavailable, incorrectly excluded or missing the product information a shopper needs, another article may leave the main obstacle untouched. If the destination is sound but a buying question is unanswered, a useful guide may be justified. Record the decision and its evidence so technical work and content work compete on customer value rather than on which team has a larger backlog.
A ranked backlog linking each issue to an affected URL, buyer question, evidence, proposed change, owner and expected observation after release.
Service answerCan AI tools handle our SEO, or do we need someone managing it?
AI tools can help organize questions, compare drafts and find inconsistencies. Someone still needs to decide what a buyer needs, verify product facts, choose the right page and check whether the work improves discovery or sales. For a small team, the first question is which part of that process is actually blocking progress.
If the store already explains the product well, a focused repair or content brief may be enough. If nobody owns the decisions, producing more drafts can simply create more review work. Dahna can connect the search plan to the store and marketing team rather than treating article volume as the result.
Bring the pages you want to improve and one concrete SEO task your team cannot finish; decide whether you need a tool, a specialist task or ongoing ownership.
Buy a tool only after defining the work it must improve
Expert discussionAleyda Solís on ecommerce SEO and GEO
Official webinar recap · July 2025
The recap emphasizes agreement between visible product information, structured data and Merchant Center feeds. It also discusses useful product-page reviews and expert context.
Aleyda Solís, SEO consultant; Will Critchlow, SearchPilot host
Expert guidance, not a controlled GEO uplift study. We reviewed the official recap, not the complete video transcript. Inclusion in an AI answer remains outside an agency’s control.
Practitioner educationSam Oh: make videos answerable and findable
Ahrefs AEO course · official companion lessons
The selected lessons cover YouTube discoverability, brand-gap analysis and tracking AI referrals. They provide a practical learning sequence from content opportunities to measurement.
Sam Oh, Ahrefs educator
Educational guidance, not evidence that a featured technique guarantees citations or sales. Publisher lessons and chapter material were reviewed; full playback was not verified.
How to apply it
Test an SEO tool on a product you know well. Does it find a real information gap? Are its suggested corrections accurate? Can your team check its work easily? A convincing demo is less useful than answers to those questions.
Use a small trial set containing a normal product, a variant, an outdated detail and a question your team hears often. Evaluate the outputs manually. A tool that produces many plausible paragraphs may still create expensive review work. Include data access, export, ongoing monitoring and the human owner in the buying decision. Software should reduce a known bottleneck rather than define the content strategy by its available buttons.
A tool evaluation sheet with test inputs, factual errors, useful findings, review time, export options, total cost and a clear keep-or-stop decision.
Service answerWhy invest in SEO if paid ads already bring us customers?
SEO gives customers another way to discover and evaluate the brand when they are searching for a product or an answer. It can improve the same pages that paid visitors use. That makes it worth considering alongside ads, but the work still has a cost and should serve a real customer decision.
A brand with a limited budget may first need a functioning purchase path and a clear offer. Once those are in place, prioritize a few valuable search destinations rather than buying a large article package. Paid and organic activity should be reviewed as parts of the same business, without assuming one automatically replaces the other.
Choose one product or category question that matters before purchase and check whether your site answers it well.
Give paid acquisition and organic discovery different jobs
Brand SEO practiceadidas: combine search and conversion evidence
SearchPilot recap · November 2025, updated February 2026
Morrisey describes a more descriptive product-grid element whose conversion test was flat but whose SEO test showed a traffic gain. The combined evidence supported rollout; no numerical lift is disclosed.
Matthew Morrisey, Organic Search Director for Europe in the interview; Will Critchlow, host
Official interview recap, not raw experiment data. Small catalogs may lack the stable page groups and traffic needed for a comparable controlled SEO test.
Read the source notes and related topicsBrand advertisinge.l.f. × Tinuiti: define the conversion
Historical TikTok campaign · account looks ahead to 2022
TikTok reports a 56% reduction in acquisition costs for e.l.f.’s add-to-cart strategy, using an ongoing mix of ad objectives. The named partner was Tinuiti.
Patrick O’Keefe, VP Integrated Marketing Communications in the case
Platform self-report. Add-to-cart cost is not customer acquisition cost; campaign dates, attribution detail and profit are not fully specified. Historical ad product names are not setup instructions.
Read the source notes and related topicsHow to apply it
Give paid and organic work clear roles. Ads can test an offer and bring visitors to it; useful search pages can answer recurring questions beyond a single campaign. Plan their shared product pages and review their costs together.
Use paid-search questions, customer objections and product performance to inform the SEO backlog, while keeping the evidence labels clear. A high-performing ad term is a clue, not proof that an article is the correct organic page. Inspect what the customer needs and which destination should serve it. Review combined economics without crediting the same order independently to every channel that touched it.
A shared acquisition plan showing channel roles, common product destinations, distinct test questions, overlapping attribution and the next investment decision.
Detailed guideEcommerce search intent: product page, collection or guide?
Search intent is the task someone wants to complete when they search. A product page helps them inspect or buy a specific item; a collection helps them choose among items; a guide explains a question that needs more context. Match the task before deciding to publish another page.
Read the detailed guideChoose the page by the decision it needs to support
Brand SEO practiceadidas: combine search and conversion evidence
SearchPilot recap · November 2025, updated February 2026
Morrisey describes a more descriptive product-grid element whose conversion test was flat but whose SEO test showed a traffic gain. The combined evidence supported rollout; no numerical lift is disclosed.
Matthew Morrisey, Organic Search Director for Europe in the interview; Will Critchlow, host
Official interview recap, not raw experiment data. Small catalogs may lack the stable page groups and traffic needed for a comparable controlled SEO test.
Read the source notes and related topicsExpert discussionAleyda Solís on ecommerce SEO and GEO
Official webinar recap · July 2025
The recap emphasizes agreement between visible product information, structured data and Merchant Center feeds. It also discusses useful product-page reviews and expert context.
Aleyda Solís, SEO consultant; Will Critchlow, SearchPilot host
Expert guidance, not a controlled GEO uplift study. We reviewed the official recap, not the complete video transcript. Inclusion in an AI answer remains outside an agency’s control.
How to apply it
Describe what the shopper wants to do before choosing a page format. Someone looking for one exact item needs a different answer from someone comparing a range. Aleyda Solís’ ecommerce guidance is useful when deciding how much of that answer belongs on the product page itself.
Inspect representative US search results, current site coverage and actual customer questions. A search phrase alone does not justify a separate article. If a product page can answer the question completely and support the purchase, strengthen it there. If a guide is needed, give it a distinct job and link it to the appropriate commercial destination. Avoid several pages competing to answer the same primary question.
A question-to-page map with search evidence, current pages, proposed changes, internal links and a clear reason for each new page.
Service answerDoes Shopify take care of SEO, or do we still need an agency?
Shopify supplies tools for running a store, but the platform cannot decide which customer to serve or how to explain your product better than the alternatives. Page organization, product facts, useful copy, media and the choice of what to improve still require judgment.
You may not need a large ongoing SEO engagement. A focused review and an implementation scope can be enough when the problem is contained. Ask an agency to show the pages it would change, the reason for each change and how the result will be checked.
Separate platform setup from the specific content, structure or discovery problem you need solved.
Audit the store implementation behind the platform name
Platform educationAlan Kent: the product-discovery foundation
Google Search Central · foundational 2021–2022 video series
The selected resources explain getting product information into Search and improving an ecommerce site’s search presentation. Current Google documentation accompanies the older videos.
Alan Kent, presenter in Google Search Central’s ecommerce videos
Platform education rather than an independent brand-results study. Older videos are learning resources; current documentation governs implementation details.
Brand SEO practiceadidas: combine search and conversion evidence
SearchPilot recap · November 2025, updated February 2026
Morrisey describes a more descriptive product-grid element whose conversion test was flat but whose SEO test showed a traffic gain. The combined evidence supported rollout; no numerical lift is disclosed.
Matthew Morrisey, Organic Search Director for Europe in the interview; Will Critchlow, host
Official interview recap, not raw experiment data. Small catalogs may lack the stable page groups and traffic needed for a comparable controlled SEO test.
Read the source notes and related topicsHow to apply it
Review what your Shopify store actually shows. Check important product and collection pages, their templates and the links leading to them. Themes and apps can change that experience, so the platform name alone cannot tell you whether the setup works well.
Check crawl access, canonical behavior, visible facts, product data and internal navigation on representative pages. Prioritize issues tied to real products and relevant queries rather than chase every warning in an audit tool. Give each change an owner and verify the rendered result. The agency should explain the customer or discovery problem a proposed edit solves.
A prioritized Shopify SEO review with affected examples, severity, business relevance, implementation owner and a verification step for each recommendation.
Service answerHow can our products appear in Google’s product results?
Start with an accessible product page that accurately describes the item, its price and availability. Google recommends product structured data and sharing catalog information through Merchant Center to support richer product appearances. Eligibility is different from guaranteed visibility.
Check that the information shown to shoppers agrees with the information supplied to Google. Then review errors and the relevant account requirements. A product feed cannot make an unclear or unavailable product compelling to a customer.
Pick one priority product and compare its visible page, structured data and Merchant Center record.
Make the same product recognizable across its data sources
Platform educationAlan Kent: the product-discovery foundation
Google Search Central · foundational 2021–2022 video series
The selected resources explain getting product information into Search and improving an ecommerce site’s search presentation. Current Google documentation accompanies the older videos.
Alan Kent, presenter in Google Search Central’s ecommerce videos
Platform education rather than an independent brand-results study. Older videos are learning resources; current documentation governs implementation details.
Expert discussionAleyda Solís on ecommerce SEO and GEO
Official webinar recap · July 2025
The recap emphasizes agreement between visible product information, structured data and Merchant Center feeds. It also discusses useful product-page reviews and expert context.
Aleyda Solís, SEO consultant; Will Critchlow, SearchPilot host
Expert guidance, not a controlled GEO uplift study. We reviewed the official recap, not the complete video transcript. Inclusion in an AI answer remains outside an agency’s control.
How to apply it
Choose one current product and compare its name, price and availability on the page, in structured data and in the merchant feed. Alan Kent’s guidance and Aleyda Solís’ discussion explain why those records need to agree.
Reconcile inconsistencies before expanding to the whole catalog. Check variant selection, currency, availability and links to the correct landing page. Resolve applicable account and data issues in the relevant Google tools, using current requirements rather than an old screenshot. Eligibility does not guarantee a particular placement, and a rich-result appearance is not evidence that the shopper completed an order.
A product-data reconciliation sheet covering page, markup, feed, variant, price, availability, destination and the result of the relevant validation checks.
Service answerPeople find our brand name, but how do we reach shoppers who do not know us yet?
Think about how someone describes the problem or product before they know your brand name. Those searches may call for a collection, a specific product page or an explanation. Use customer conversations and current US search results to choose the right destination, then connect it to the relevant purchase path.
A nonbrand visitor is useful only if the topic fits the product and the next step makes sense. Broad lifestyle traffic can make a report look better without producing serious interest. Start with a few questions close to an actual buying decision.
Write down three nonbrand shopping questions, inspect the current results and choose the most suitable existing page for each.
Find the useful question before the shopper knows your name
Brand SEO practiceadidas: combine search and conversion evidence
SearchPilot recap · November 2025, updated February 2026
Morrisey describes a more descriptive product-grid element whose conversion test was flat but whose SEO test showed a traffic gain. The combined evidence supported rollout; no numerical lift is disclosed.
Matthew Morrisey, Organic Search Director for Europe in the interview; Will Critchlow, host
Official interview recap, not raw experiment data. Small catalogs may lack the stable page groups and traffic needed for a comparable controlled SEO test.
Read the source notes and related topicsPractitioner educationSam Oh: make videos answerable and findable
Ahrefs AEO course · official companion lessons
The selected lessons cover YouTube discoverability, brand-gap analysis and tracking AI referrals. They provide a practical learning sequence from content opportunities to measurement.
Sam Oh, Ahrefs educator
Educational guidance, not evidence that a featured technique guarantees citations or sales. Publisher lessons and chapter material were reviewed; full playback was not verified.
How to apply it
Listen to how customers describe the need before they know your name. Support questions, creator comments and search data can reveal that language. Check whether a page on your site already answers the question before adding it to a writing brief.
Prioritize questions close to an actual choice: how to compare suitable options, what a product includes or what makes it fit a particular use. A large information query can be less useful than a smaller question asked by someone who can buy. Treat proposed keyword demand as a hypothesis until the evidence supports it. Do not create an article simply because a competitor has one.
A nonbrand opportunity list with customer question, evidence source, commercial relevance, existing coverage and the most appropriate destination.
Service answerWe publish blogs but get few sales. Are we writing about the wrong things?
Check whether the article answers a question your likely customer asks before buying. Then inspect the route from that answer to a relevant product. If the topic attracts a different audience, adding more product links will not fix the mismatch.
Separate weak discovery from weak commercial fit. A helpful article with few visits needs a different investigation from a popular article with no plausible product connection. Improve or consolidate around a distinct customer need; do not publish more versions of the same topic simply to increase output.
Choose one article and write the buyer decision, matching product and next useful page in a single sentence.
Check whether the article brings the right person to the right next step
Brand SEO practiceadidas: combine search and conversion evidence
SearchPilot recap · November 2025, updated February 2026
Morrisey describes a more descriptive product-grid element whose conversion test was flat but whose SEO test showed a traffic gain. The combined evidence supported rollout; no numerical lift is disclosed.
Matthew Morrisey, Organic Search Director for Europe in the interview; Will Critchlow, host
Official interview recap, not raw experiment data. Small catalogs may lack the stable page groups and traffic needed for a comparable controlled SEO test.
Read the source notes and related topicsUS audience researchAthena Chapekis and Anna Lieb on AI-summary clicks
900 US adults · March 2025 browsing; search results reconstructed in April
Pew observed traditional-result clicks on 8% of visits with an AI summary versus 15% without one. The analysis was published July 22, 2025.
Athena Chapekis and Anna Lieb, Pew Research Center
Observational Google-only research across query types. Results were reconstructed later, and shopping intent was not isolated. This is not a causal forecast of lost ecommerce revenue.
Read the source notes and related topicsHow to apply it
Ask what the reader came to do. An article may satisfy curiosity without giving someone a reason to shop. That can still be useful, but a high visit count alone does not show buying interest. The adidas example below connects search findings with conversion checks.
Inspect relevant visits, onward clicks, product engagement and actual orders without forcing every sale into the last article viewed. Add contextual links where they help the reader make a decision, and remove awkward sales interruptions that do not fit the question. If the article targets the wrong audience or duplicates a stronger page, the answer may be to revise the strategy rather than publish more of the same.
An article-to-commerce review showing reader intent, traffic relevance, useful next destination, observed behavior and the decision to improve, retain or stop expanding the topic.
Service answerHow long should we give SEO before deciding whether it is working?
Agree on what should change before deciding how long to wait. A repaired indexing issue, an improved product page and a new topic collection have different dependencies. Check that the work shipped correctly first, then review discovery, relevant visits and business outcomes over comparable periods.
A 28-day and 56-day review can organize learning, but those are review windows, not ranking promises. Small sites may need more data, and seasonality or other campaigns can affect the comparison. Ask for a dated change record and a reasoned next decision instead of a guaranteed month when SEO will pay back.
Set a baseline, a list of shipped changes and two review dates with clear questions for each review.
Set milestones around implemented work and observable response
Brand SEO practiceadidas: combine search and conversion evidence
SearchPilot recap · November 2025, updated February 2026
Morrisey describes a more descriptive product-grid element whose conversion test was flat but whose SEO test showed a traffic gain. The combined evidence supported rollout; no numerical lift is disclosed.
Matthew Morrisey, Organic Search Director for Europe in the interview; Will Critchlow, host
Official interview recap, not raw experiment data. Small catalogs may lack the stable page groups and traffic needed for a comparable controlled SEO test.
Read the source notes and related topicsPlatform educationAlan Kent: the product-discovery foundation
Google Search Central · foundational 2021–2022 video series
The selected resources explain getting product information into Search and improving an ecommerce site’s search presentation. Current Google documentation accompanies the older videos.
Alan Kent, presenter in Google Search Central’s ecommerce videos
Platform education rather than an independent brand-results study. Older videos are learning resources; current documentation governs implementation details.
How to apply it
Separate the time needed to fix a problem from the time needed to see how search responds. A technical repair, a product-page rewrite and a new guide have different dependencies. Agree on visible progress before discussing a ranking timeline.
Agree on early milestones the team controls: priority pages inspected, blockers corrected, product information completed and navigation verified. Then review impressions, relevant queries, visits and customer behavior over an appropriate period. Annotate stock changes, seasonality and other campaigns. A quiet first week does not prove failure, but months of activity without clear implemented work should not be excused as patience.
A milestone plan with deliverables, owners, release dates, observation windows, known confounders and the evidence that would change the next priority.
Service answerWhat are we actually paying an ecommerce SEO agency to do?
You are paying for decisions and implementation: finding the most important discovery problem, improving the appropriate pages, connecting them clearly and checking the result. The scope might include technical repairs, product or collection content, useful guides and reporting, depending on what the store actually needs.
Ask to see the deliverables rather than a list of SEO terms. A useful proposal names the pages, the work, the owners and the evidence used to prioritize it. Dahna can connect that work to product explanation, the website and campaigns within an agreed scope.
Ask for a short first-work list with a reason, deliverable and check for every item.
Ask for an SEO scope that reaches the actual storefront
Brand SEO practiceadidas: combine search and conversion evidence
SearchPilot recap · November 2025, updated February 2026
Morrisey describes a more descriptive product-grid element whose conversion test was flat but whose SEO test showed a traffic gain. The combined evidence supported rollout; no numerical lift is disclosed.
Matthew Morrisey, Organic Search Director for Europe in the interview; Will Critchlow, host
Official interview recap, not raw experiment data. Small catalogs may lack the stable page groups and traffic needed for a comparable controlled SEO test.
Read the source notes and related topicsExpert discussionAleyda Solís on ecommerce SEO and GEO
Official webinar recap · July 2025
The recap emphasizes agreement between visible product information, structured data and Merchant Center feeds. It also discusses useful product-page reviews and expert context.
Aleyda Solís, SEO consultant; Will Critchlow, SearchPilot host
Expert guidance, not a controlled GEO uplift study. We reviewed the official recap, not the complete video transcript. Inclusion in an AI answer remains outside an agency’s control.
How to apply it
Ask which pages the agency will inspect, what it will change and who will publish those changes. Check which data it needs from your team. A proposal should make the division between advice and implementation easy to understand.
A monthly report should make the work concrete: the issue found, the affected destination, the change shipped and the observation afterward. Distinguish research and recommendations from implementation. If content is included, require a primary customer question and an overlap check before a new page is commissioned. More reports, links or articles are not meaningful deliverables unless they serve an agreed problem.
An SEO statement of work with page priorities, implementation responsibilities, content criteria, evidence standards and a reporting format tied to customer outcomes.
Service answerHow do we attract more US shoppers when our brand is based abroad?
Make the store useful to the US customers you want to reach. Explain the product clearly and provide accurate prices, availability, delivery and returns information. A Korean or European brand can keep its identity while adapting the details a first-time US shopper needs.
Review US search and store results separately from other markets. Create another language or country version when it serves a real difference in the offer or buying experience. Begin with those differences before deciding whether a separate site is needed.
Choose a real US customer question and verify that the destination answers it without relying on home-market knowledge.
Make the US buying experience clear
Brand localizationKASH Beauty’s local purchase experience
Ireland-founded cosmetics brand · international storefront case
Shopify’s case identifies local marketing, copy and currency as connected parts of KASH Beauty’s expansion. Conor Cochrane discusses fitting the storefront to the destination market.
Keilidh Cashell, founder; Conor Cochrane, director in Shopify’s case
This is an international example, not a verified US-only result. No isolated uplift is used. Local implementation needs its own customer evidence.
Read the source notes and related topicsBrand SEO practiceadidas: combine search and conversion evidence
SearchPilot recap · November 2025, updated February 2026
Morrisey describes a more descriptive product-grid element whose conversion test was flat but whose SEO test showed a traffic gain. The combined evidence supported rollout; no numerical lift is disclosed.
Matthew Morrisey, Organic Search Director for Europe in the interview; Will Critchlow, host
Official interview recap, not raw experiment data. Small catalogs may lack the stable page groups and traffic needed for a comparable controlled SEO test.
Read the source notes and related topicsHow to apply it
Focus on the US shopping experience, wherever your company is based. Korean and European brands can keep their identity while explaining the offer, delivery and support clearly to US buyers. KASH Beauty’s international storefront is a useful reference for that work.
Review US search and store results separately from other markets. Check product availability, delivery information, examples and terminology before adding geographic keywords. If visitors arrive from several countries, look at whether they can buy the offer and what they do on the site. Location is useful context, but it cannot establish buying intent on its own.
A US market review covering target customers, product availability, delivery, local explanations, relevant search pages and the buying steps that need improvement.
Service answerIs SEO worth doing if we only sell a few products?
A small catalog can still need strong search pages. The priority is to explain each product, make meaningful differences clear and answer the questions that determine whether it fits the customer. A large blog is not a prerequisite.
Use the catalog size as a constraint on the content plan. If two proposed pages would give the same answer and point to the same product, one better page may be more useful. An agency should be able to recommend a contained project instead of filling a monthly publishing quota.
Map every product to the customer decision it serves; add supporting content only where an important question remains unanswered.
Make a small catalog complete before making it large
Product-page exampleGlossier: identify the exact formula
US Balm Dotcom page · inspected October 12, 2026
The inspected page distinguishes ingredient lists by flavor and includes original-formula wording. A shopper can inspect a specific product’s information rather than relying on a general brand description.
Glossier’s own product documentation
This is a factual product-page example, not an observed AI-error case or a study of ranking effects. Live product information can change.
Read the source notes and related topicsPlatform educationAlan Kent: the product-discovery foundation
Google Search Central · foundational 2021–2022 video series
The selected resources explain getting product information into Search and improving an ecommerce site’s search presentation. Current Google documentation accompanies the older videos.
Alan Kent, presenter in Google Search Central’s ecommerce videos
Platform education rather than an independent brand-results study. Older videos are learning resources; current documentation governs implementation details.
How to apply it
A small range still raises useful questions about versions, use, comparisons and delivery. Answer them on the pages where shoppers make those choices. Glossier’s detailed product information is a useful reference for how much a single product page can explain.
Avoid manufacturing dozens of nearly identical collections or articles to make the site appear larger. Identify which questions need a separate explanation and which belong on a product page. Add supporting guides only where they provide a distinct answer and a natural route back to the item. Quality here means accurate, useful coverage with maintained facts, not a particular page count.
A compact content map showing each product, its unresolved customer questions, the chosen answer location and the evidence needed to complete it.
Service answerCan product images and videos help shoppers find us in search?
Images and video can explain details that are difficult to judge from text: scale, texture, application, packaging or a comparison. Use accurate descriptions and make the media available in a useful page context. Google's video guidance also distinguishes a page focused on watching a video from a product page that includes a supporting clip.
Choose media because it resolves a shopper's uncertainty. A creator demonstration can support a product page even when it does not earn a separate video result. Good media is not a guarantee of indexing, rankings or AI citations.
Choose one product question that a visual demonstration can answer better than another paragraph.
Create visual evidence with enough context to understand it
UX researchChristian Holst on product-size clarity
Original usability research · May 30, 2017
Holst reports that shoppers used product images to judge size and sometimes rejected suitable products after misreading scale. The article recommends an image with a familiar size reference.
Christian Holst, Baymard research director and co-founder
A historical observed usability problem, not proof that a particular image will increase your conversion rate. Validate the task on your own store.
Read the source notes and related topicsPractitioner educationSam Oh: make videos answerable and findable
Ahrefs AEO course · official companion lessons
The selected lessons cover YouTube discoverability, brand-gap analysis and tracking AI referrals. They provide a practical learning sequence from content opportunities to measurement.
Sam Oh, Ahrefs educator
Educational guidance, not evidence that a featured technique guarantees citations or sales. Publisher lessons and chapter material were reviewed; full playback was not verified.
How to apply it
Give each image or video something specific to explain. A photo can show scale; a video can show application or a comparison. Christian Holst’s research addresses product understanding, while Sam Oh’s lessons cover ways to help people discover the video.
Use accurate filenames where practical, descriptive surrounding text, suitable alternative text and captions or transcripts for spoken explanation. Apply current platform guidance for indexing and structured data only where the implementation qualifies. Do not stuff keywords into accessibility text or assume an uploaded video will be discovered. Inspect the actual rendered page and the customer task the asset supports.
An asset plan linking buyer question, visual evidence, text context, accessibility treatment, destination, permission and the discovery checks appropriate to that format.
Published guideDo we need backlinks, and which opportunities are worth pursuing?
Backlinks still help Google discover pages and understand relevance, but the defensible strategy is not to buy the largest link count. Beauty brands should publish material worth citing, earn contextually relevant editorial references, keep genuine business profiles accurate, and qualify every paid, affiliate, advertorial, or product-for-coverage link. Measure authority through useful discovery, referral quality, brand demand, and pages that earn recognition—not a third-party score alone.
Open the full guide for the examples and steps.
Earn a reference by giving someone something useful to cite
Observational researchLouise Linehan’s AI visibility study
Ahrefs · December 12, 2025 · 75,000 brands
The study associates YouTube mentions with AI visibility. Its sample selected domains with DR above 40 and a highest-volume keyword of at least 800 estimated monthly searches.
Louise Linehan, author; Xibeijia Guan, contributor; Ryan Law, reviewer
Correlation cannot establish that buying more videos causes AI recommendations. The dataset is not a US beauty or small-brand sample.
Read the source notes and related topicsBrand campaignCeraVe × Michael Cera
US · 2024 Super Bowl campaign
Ogilvy describes a staged narrative connecting influencer appearances, publicity, a website and a Super Bowl reveal. CeraVe’s own campaign page resolves the premise by explaining that the products were developed with dermatologists.
Michael Cera; Adam Kornblum and Charlotte Tansill, campaign speakers at Cannes 2024
A celebrity-scale campaign, not a budget template. Do not imitate the false-rumor device or infer that attention proves profitable sales. These are external examples, not Dahna clients.
How to apply it
Give a relevant publisher or creator a reason to discuss the product: useful information, a clear demonstration or access to someone who can answer a real question. Fame and link counts are poor substitutes for a contribution their audience values.
Possible material includes original product information, an honest demonstration, a useful comparison method or access to a qualified person who can answer a specific question. Keep commercial relationships transparent. Assess prospective coverage by audience relevance, editorial credibility and factual accuracy. A link count cannot tell you whether the mention helps a customer or misrepresents the brand.
A relevant coverage plan naming the audience, proposed contribution, supporting evidence, disclosure needs and the reason the publication or creator would find it useful.
Service answerHow can we tell whether SEO is bringing customers instead of only traffic?
Review the path from relevant search questions to landing pages, product exploration and orders. Keep brand-name searches separate from the nonbrand questions you are trying to earn. Compare a consistent period and note changes to campaigns, stock and tracking.
Search Console describes search activity; store and analytics records describe different parts of the visit and purchase. Do not divide unrelated totals into an invented conversion rate. Use the available evidence to decide which pages deserve more work, and retain uncertainty when the sample is small.
Choose a small group of priority pages and compare their search visibility, relevant visits and recorded commercial outcomes.
Connect search reporting to net orders with consistent definitions
Brand SEO practiceadidas: combine search and conversion evidence
SearchPilot recap · November 2025, updated February 2026
Morrisey describes a more descriptive product-grid element whose conversion test was flat but whose SEO test showed a traffic gain. The combined evidence supported rollout; no numerical lift is disclosed.
Matthew Morrisey, Organic Search Director for Europe in the interview; Will Critchlow, host
Official interview recap, not raw experiment data. Small catalogs may lack the stable page groups and traffic needed for a comparable controlled SEO test.
Read the source notes and related topicsBrand advertisinge.l.f. × Tinuiti: define the conversion
Historical TikTok campaign · account looks ahead to 2022
TikTok reports a 56% reduction in acquisition costs for e.l.f.’s add-to-cart strategy, using an ongoing mix of ad objectives. The named partner was Tinuiti.
Patrick O’Keefe, VP Integrated Marketing Communications in the case
Platform self-report. Add-to-cart cost is not customer acquisition cost; campaign dates, attribution detail and profit are not fully specified. Historical ad product names are not setup instructions.
Read the source notes and related topicsHow to apply it
Start with actual orders, then look at the organic visits and pages associated with them. Keep attributed sales separate from the store’s total. The e.l.f. example below shows how easy it is to misread a result when the action being measured is unclear.
Check customer status, refunds, canceled orders and reporting windows. Annotate changes to prices, inventory and paid activity that could affect the period. Where volumes are small, explain the uncertainty rather than turn a few orders into a confident trend. For an agency site, apply the same discipline to qualified inquiries: a form event is an observed action, while qualification requires reviewing the actual request.
A search-to-business report with definitions, relevant landing pages, net orders or reviewed inquiries, comparison period, confounders and the next decision.