Honeymoonshop

The start of the project: 2022

Honeymoonshop.nl and Weddings.nl have relied on our expertise since 2014. After a brief interruption due to the coronavirus pandemic, we resumed our full efforts in 2022 to drive further organic growth for both brands. Weddings and Honeymoon Shop are the leading names in the world of wedding dresses. In the heart of Rotterdam, their vibrant shops offer a dream experience where brides-to-be can not only try on dresses, but also take home a unique, perfectly tailored dress.

However, the journey to that one perfect wedding dress begins online. This is where the ‘bride to be’ finds inspiration and explores her options. Online visibility at this crucial stage is essential.

Although Weddings already held a strong position in the online bridal industry, Honeymoon Shop lagged slightly behind. Despite a stable top 3 ranking for the core keyword ‘wedding dresses’, long-tail search terms, together accounting for an impressive monthly search volume of 65.000, represented missed opportunities. Internal competition limited visibility, and some main categories remained outside the top 10. With our data-driven approach and strategic insight, we are taking Honeymoon Shop where it belongs: visible and indispensable in every online search.

Strategy

We started the project with a thorough technical audit of the domain. We soon discovered that the filters within Honeymoonshop.nl’s wedding dress category were not indexable. This presented an immediate opportunity for improvement. Based on these findings, we conducted extensive keyword research focused on the ‘dressfinder’ filter pages. The result? A wealth of opportunities: the domain barely ranked for search terms relating to specific types of wedding dresses.

Our next step was to make the filters within the ‘wedding dresses’ category indexable. Focusing on search volume, we then populated the filter pages with relevant content and clear on-page signals. This process also provided the perfect opportunity to strengthen the internal linking structure. By adding smart internal links, link equity now flows through the domain more efficiently.

The combination of optimised content and improved internal linking quickly paid off. The filter pages soon began to rise and reached the top 20:

Graph 1: The position progression of the Honeymoonshop domain for the keyword ’classic wedding dress’. It shows that until August 2022, the website was constantly appearing in the search results with a different page. Since a new page was created that perfectly matches the keyword, Honeymoonshop has ranked consistently in position 1 for this keyword.

We then shifted our focus to external optimisation to provide a powerful boost towards the top. Using our extensive publisher network, which includes more than 300.000 publishing opportunities, we strategically targeted relevant platforms to maximise the impact of placements.

The combination of strong content, optimised internal links and high-quality external links proved to be the formula for success. The result? Over the past year, Honeymoon Shop has achieved impressive growth of 104% in online visibility.

Graph 2: Percentage change in the number of keywords in the top-20 between August 2022 and December 2022. The Y-axis shows the change in the total percentage of keywords for which the domain ranks in the top-20, while the X-axis shows the change in positions within the top-20. It shows that Honeymoonshop has achieved significant growth in both respects.

What’s next?

Honeymoon Shop is now among the absolute top players in the wedding dress industry, together with Weddings. With a fully optimised wedding dress category, we have turned our attention to the next growth opportunities.

Honeymoon Shop’s range extends beyond wedding dresses; suits also play an important role. In this category, we saw plenty of opportunities to further accelerate organic growth.

Graph 3: A Share of Voice is a visualisation of market share based on a set of keywords. This Share of Voice shows the difference between competitors in how well they rank for keywords related to suits in the top-20, measured on 11 May 2023. The Y-axis shows the total percentage of keywords for which the domain ranks in the top-20, while the X-axis shows the average position within the top-20. It shows that Honeymoonshop was lagging behind some competitors.

We made the colour pages within the suits category indexable and optimised them technically, in terms of content and internal linking at the same time. Successfully: this led to impressive growth of 506% in visibility and an increase of 50% in average position.

Graph 4: A Share of Voice 10 months later, showing that Honeymoonshop is considerably closer to the market leaders for the same suit-related keywords.

With the commercial search terms firmly positioned, the focus is now shifting to informational search terms. Thorough keyword research into informational intent has revealed new growth opportunities for both Weddings and Honeymoon Shop to further increase their organic discoverability.

That is why Honeymoon Shop regularly publishes valuable blogs that not only address customers’ information needs, but also strengthen the website’s authority. This underlines their expertise in the industry, a factor that Google increasingly values. In short, there is plenty of potential!