ASOS: The SEO Fall (and Slow Rise)

In 2019, ASOS, a British online fashion and cosmetic retailer, made headlines for a few major search engine optimization (SEO) mistakes the company made, resulting in the company's pre-tax profit to drastically fall 87 percent – from $29.9 million in August 2018 to $4 million February 2019 (G2, 2019). However, ASOS's SEO downfall can be a good reminder of the importance of paying attention and equipping strong SEO tactics for other e-commerce brands, and as Coleby (2019) says, "It's not often SEO makes front-page news." 

What went wrong? 

One of ASOS's downfalls is reaching new consumers, and in 2019, they hoped to address this problem by launching 200 versions of its website – each copy featuring slight variations depending on the country the website visitor was located to match specific user-search queries (G2, 2019). However, these microsites created duplicate content causing link issues and doorway pages – something that Google explicitly condemns (G2, 2019). 

Additionally, with this many websites to keep track of, it's safe to say there were errors in the website's SEO tactics. For example, the redesign of their new main website, which the microsites duplicated, had lots of interactive content which lead to longer loading times (G2, 2019). 

How did they fix it? 

It's safe to say ASOS learned their lesson, and many people in the industry are writing and talking about the company's mistakes because it would be really easy for other e-commerce brands to find themselves in a similar predicament. And considering the pandemic the world has been grappling with this year, it's critical for brands to have a good understanding of the right SEO tactics to use in order to not only reach their current audiences but also attract new ones through organic and paid searches.  

Since their mishap, ASOS has reverted their microsites and have since seen an increase in their placement in the top three SERP keywords, according to SEMrush. Instead of trying to attract the current audience as well as new audiences, ASOS has now decided to focus its attention on its current consumer base, which are predominantly teen to young adult women. To do this, the company is looking at "non-technical, customer-service centric strategies," including new warehouse hubs in the United States and an extended return policy, according to G2 (2019). 

What tactics are they using now? 

While ASOS is still feeling the effects of the 2019 errors they made, there are a few tactics the company has employed that seem to be working well. 

Considering that I am part of ASOS's target market, I looked up a few common keywords, including "ASOS," "women's clothing" and "women's dresses." I thought these keywords would be good to see how accessible the website is to ASOS's current market (those who may Google ASOS) and new markets (those just looking for women's clothing or other specific products). Here are screenshots showing the placement of ASOS in Google's search results as well as descriptions, keywords and tags: 

This, understandably, was the first result when searching for "ASOS" on Google. It's interesting to see the mass amount of descriptions and keywords used here. 

When searching for "women's dresses," ASOS's website was seventh on Google search results. They use the keyword multiple times in the description and detail that ASOS not only has thousands of dresses for the consumer to choose from, but also has a large variety of trendy styles. 

Multiple companies, including Macy's, Kohl's, Bloomingdales and Express, resulted before ASOS, however, other than Express, most of the higher-ranked companies used very generic descriptions. I personally liked ASOS's better. I thought it gave a much better idea of what the consumer will see when the click through, however, the other company's 'generic' descriptions were full of keywords, which makes sense. I would like to know if this was why they ranked higher or if it were because of the tactics used on their websites. ASOS still has a variety of SEO problems to fix, so it's not surprising that the company was not ranked in the top five results. 

When searching for "women's clothes," ASOS was also seventh in the Google search results. Again, the keywords are used a few times (although not as many times as dresses was used in the example before), and ASOS details what the consumer can find from them: trendy clothes. I do like that this description details the variety of women's clothes available, including plus size, women's clothing and tall women's clothing. I've never noticed other similar e-commerce sites do that before (probably because I overlooked it), but it's a nice touch and attracts niche markets. 

Kohl's and Maurice's resulted before ASOS, however, I could tell from the Google result why they would be placed higher. Their descriptions were pretty similar and keywords used almost the same, which tells me that the two company's are probably using specific tactics on their websites resulting in a higher rank. 

According to SEMrush's site audit, 80 percent of 100 pages on ASOS's website had some form of issue, most of which were hreflang conflicts. However, it does look like the website is set up well to be audited. For example, all 100 pages were able to be crawled and 98 percent of the pages had a quick load speed – something that has been drastically improved since 2019. 

As most clothing consumers, ASOS uses keywords well. After all, the company is dependent on using keywords to ensure consumers can find the products they are looking for and convert. However, I do think this feature can improve within the company's website. When I was doing random searches for products on ASOS's website, a small fraction of the products would come up through the search function on the website than would come up through the site's menu and filter options. 

For example, if we are looking for a midi, long-sleeve dress, and I search for a "midi long-sleeve dress," nine options will come up (a few that aren't even long-sleeve). 

But, when I go through ASOS's category menu at the top of the page by selecting clothing, then dresses, and filtering by midi length and long-sleeve, 794 styles come up. A lot more than nine options. This can be a make or break situation for ASOS if consumers log on their site solely to use the search function for the clothes they are looking for. 

I couldn't tell for sure, but it doesn't seem that the company uses alt tags, which will need to be addressed quickly. If the pages don't load correctly or if someone who needs to use alt tags to know what is on their screen clicks through to ASOS, it could be the deciding factor for whether the consumer will purchase a product or move on to a competitor. 

It's good to see that ASOS has made critical changes to their website and SEO practices since their 2019 mishap, however, there is still a lot of additions they can make – such as improving the ease of use and amount of keywords on their website and incorporating alt tags – to draw more a broader consumer base and convince more consumers to convert. 

References

Buckingham, A. (2019, April 18). ASOS: A New Strategy for E-Commerce SEO. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://www.polarisagency.com/blog/asos-new-seo-strategy/

Coleby, A. (2019, April 11). ASOS SEO: What Happened and What Can We Learn. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/asos-seo-what-happened-can-we-learn-amelia-coleby/

G2. (2019, May 20). ASOS's SEO Mistakes Sunk Profits By 87%: What Happened? Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://learn.g2.com/asos-seo