Longtime competitor Alfred Angelo goes belly-up without warning, so what does David’s Bridal do? Make an irresistible offer on an expertly-optimized page that a panicked bride will click on if she sees it in the search results.
In its coverage of Alfred Angelo’s demise The Washington Post mentioned David’s Bridal’s well-timed tweet.
Brides & bridesmaids impacted by #AlfredAngelo store closures, we’re offering special discounts for you: https://t.co/XV5wRU4Utr
— David’s Bridal (@davidsbridal) July 14, 2017
Less-covered has been the quick thinking on the part of their SEO guy or gal.
Just look at that description tag (above). The “wedding of their dreams” is no mistake; that’s what Alfred Angelo promised, and what now only another, solvent company can deliver on. The click-through rate on that page must be insane.
The URL is named relevantly: https://www.davidsbridal.com/Content_Bridal_alfredangelo
The content of the page is clear and on-topic – no gimmicks.
What’s interesting is that the page itself doesn’t have a lot of links (yet?).
(Yet another reason I don’t believe Google’s claim that they “don’t have anything like a website authority score.”)
It just goes to show some of the practices that separate a smart SEO person from a hack:
- Pay attention to the news. “But I’m not a publicist!” Yeah, that’s what the SEO chief at Alfred Angelo, Sports Authority, and Blockbuster probably said.
- Do the basics well, but don’t overdo them. Notice the lack of keyword-stuffing on the page.
- Work all the channels – to get customers onto the page BEFORE it ranks. Remember the early-morning tweet? Google seems to notice that kind of activity. WaPo certainly did.
- Wordsmithing. The David’s Bridal’s search result (particularly their description tag) is sticky, and the page is well-written – for people, not for Google.
The only way (I can think of) that David’s could do even better is if they updated all their store-locator pages (example) to include a banner for the Alfred Angelo special offer.
Your competitors don’t need to be large corporations that fail spectacularly and suddenly for you to make a kill-shot like this one. Next time a competitor screws up enough to make the local rag, see what kind of special offer you can make to help his/her disappointed customers. It’s got to help them out of a bind (as David’s did), or you won’t look much better than the other company.
Any other lessons from David’s Bridal? Similar stories? Leave a comment!
Too bad their SEO/SEM team didn’t think to run some AdWords, and the marketing team as a whole didn’t think to promote this on the homepage. The page you point out is now in position 15 for me.
It’s also a good thing they used underscores instead of hyphens in the URL, and the word “Content” in the URL was stroke of genius. 😉
Good call on the AdWords, Brad. They could have been all over Alfred Angelo’s SERPs like a bad smell, and cornered the now-burgeoning “emergency wedding dresses” market.
Their SEO person’s raise should come out of the PPC guy’s paycheck 🙂
Too funny. 🙂
Yeah, they are showing in position 19 for me. Looks like all the news articles (foxnews.com, fortune.com, npr.org, etc.) are pushing them lower.
Like clockwork. Of course, I doubt David’s Bridal used that as a toehold to climb higher.
Another great example of how much SEO and traditional PR overlap these days!
The ever changing Google. Keeping more things behind closed doors and making it difficult to figure out how to improve. The basics are still there in place though. But a bit more covert they are in regards to information these days. The Google monster always changes. LOL