Victoria's Secret SEO Efforts Aren't So Secret

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E-commerce’s share of Victoria’s Secret’s sales is inching higher than ever.
In 2016, Victoria’s Secrets’ e-commerce revenue rose 3.4% in one quarter and accounted for 21.3% of the businesses overall revenue, up from 20% a year earlier. Victoria’s Secret e-commerce site also generated $526.1 million of total revenue for the brand (Stambor, 2016).

How they collect and use their data

Victoria’s Secret uses IBM Digital Analytics to collect web analytics data from their website. IBM Digital Analytics, formerly Coremetrics, is part of Customer Experience Analytics, a holistic solution that includes both cross-channel journey analytics and customer behavior analytics. IBM Digital Analytics is a cloud-based, web analytics platform that provides actionable insights on digital customers across multiple channels so that businesses can deliver more targeted, personalized offers (IBM, n.d.). 
Victoria’s Secret uses Digital Analytics to optimize their customers’ online experience and improve online profitability. The company uses the data to “optimize shopping path design, reduce abandonment rates, and improve retention marketing initiatives” (Peters, 2002). A large way they use this information is for their email marketing.
Using activity data, they can determine which customers are more likely to be interested in (and purchase) new, featured items and involve them in separate email campaigns than those who usually purchase items only if there is a sale or clearance promotion. On top of having the ability to send emails for forgotten cart or wish list items.
Beyond this, Victoria’s Secret uses their customer profiles as well as computer cookies to collect personal information from consumers. According to the Victoria’s Secret website, “Examples of the personal information we collect include name, address, phone number, email address, personal preferences, payment card number, purchase and ordering information, demographic information, responses to survey questions, sizing information and any other information you choose to provide.” They then use this information to personalize consumers online experiences through content shown and offers given, provide customer service, find best ways to market their products, improve their overall products and services and tailor online advertising (Victoria’s Secret, n.d.).

Victoria Secret and SEO

Victoria’s Secret has an amazing 32.6 million visitors on its website every month. That’s over 1 million visitors per day, and over 40,000 visitors per hour. An incredible amount of visitors!
And where do they come from? Mostly search.
42.1% of visitors come from search. That’s over 13 million visitors who type a search query every month and land on victoriassecret.com. And how much does that traffic cost? $0. It’s 100% fully organic traffic, directly resulting from high rankings of the website.
Victoria’s Secret has its largest pool of visitors from the United States. As we can see on the following graph, 70% of the website’s total traffic comes from the U.S.


In total, Victoria’s Secrets keywords have a total monthly search volume of over 3.5 million. Their top keywords include pink, lingerie, yoga pants, bra and underwear. The keyword “pink” itself has a search volume of 1 million (Anderson, 2018). Estimations tell us that ranking in position #1 brings roughly 30% of the total search volume of a keyword, meaning that victoriassecret.com has 300,000 monthly visitors coming from this keyword alone (Lee, 2013).

Referrals

16% of the total website traffic comes from referrals. That’s almost 5 million users visiting victoriassecret.com after clicking a link from another website. These referrals have a double effect, as links are also a powerful authority indicator to SEO. They increase keyword rankings in the search engines, as well as bring traffic directly to the website’s pages.
As noted above, Victoria’s Secret uses a lot of promotions to attract customers and use the FOMO (fear of missing out) logic. Coupon websites like Dealsea.com take advantage of these promotions and keep track of any changes to keep its users informed. By informing their readers of new Victoria’s Secret promotions, the website earns money from the brand through affiliate links. Promotions are a very strong way to bring in new customers, and Dealsea brings in almost 300,000 visitors to the Victoria’s Secret website alone every month (Anderson, 2018).

Anchor Text

            Victoriassecret.com has over 39,000 different anchor texts. One reason for this huge variety of anchor texts is language. VS has platforms across many markets and sells its products online all over the world, creating opportunities for backlinks incoming from everywhere (Anderson, 2018).
            To show Google that links are not built artificially, these percentages are to be followed (Gotch, 2018):
·      70% Branded Anchor Text
·      20% Naked Links
·      5% Generic Anchors
·      1% Exact Match Anchors
Victoriassecret.com doesn’t really follow this distribution pattern, so balancing this out could increase their on-page SEO even further and avoid any penalties from Google.

Digging Deeper on the Page

Victoriasecret.com on-page SEO utilizes keywords, URLs, titles, reviews and descriptions. To find a tank top, the following title paths are used: Sport, Tops, Tank Tops. From there, the product name has keywords in it. For example, ‘Twist Open-back Tank Top.’ They also utilize lengthy descriptions and on-page product reviews. As well as URLs with keywords embedded in them, such as: https://www.victoriassecret.com/victorias-secret-sport/apparel-all-tops/twist-open-back-tank. All of these work in tandem to place Victoria’s Secret higher in the search engine results.
Overall, Victoria’s Secret has a very powerful SEO. Their keyword rankings are very strong, their on-page SEO efforts check all boxes and their website is built with a top-notch structure.
But what’s so beautiful about SEO is that it’s never perfect. It can always improve. Victoria’s Secret can continue optimizing their website for new sets of keywords, new products and new categories. It can continue growing its referrals and focus on usability to ensure they have the lowest bounce rate possible. The list goes on and on.
SEO is the company’s strongest channel and rightfully so. SEO can, and should be, the strongest channel for any online business. The power that a high-authority website brings in terms of direct cash to the company is far beyond what any other channel can bring.

References
Anderson, M. (2018, January 22). How Victoria’s Secret Generates an Insane $8 Billion Dollars in Sales Per Year. Retrieved from https://kingkong.com.au/how-victorias-secret-generates-an-insane-8-billion-dollars-in-sales-per-year/
Gotch, N. (2018). Anchor Text Guide for 2018. Retrieved from https://www.gotchseo.com/anchor-text/
IBM. (n.d.). Coremetrics is part of IBM. Retrieved from https://www.ibm.com/customer-engagement/coremetrics-software
Lee, J. (2013, June 20). No. 1 Position in Google Gets 33% of Search Traffic. Retrieved from https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/study/2276184/no-1-position-in-google-gets-33-of-search-traffic-study
Peters, K. (2002, July 30). Victoria's Secret Selects Coremetrics to Optimize the Online Customer Experience and Improve Profitability. Retrieved from https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2002/07/30/victoria-s-secret-selects-coremetrics-to-optimize-the-online-c/
Stambor, Z. (2016, August 18). E‑commerce accounts for 21% of Victoria's Secret's revenue in Q2. Retrieved from https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2016/08/18/e-commerce-accounts-21-victorias-secrets-revenue-q2/
Victoria’s Secret. (n.d.). Privacy & Security. Retrieved from https://www.victoriassecret.com/privacy-and-security 

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