2016-08-01

Buying luxury fashion on the Internet has become more and more popular over the last decade. Mario Einmuth, CEO of the luxury online-retailer STYLEBOP.com had the right intuition when he founded his online-shop in 2003. The latest designer collections are only a click away, and it’s never been easier to get fashion wherever and whenever you want.

STYLEBOP.com is today one of the world’s leading online retailer for luxury fashion. In this highly competitive environment, it is of uttermost importance to remain competitive and to keep up with your challengers in all relevant online channels, especially SEO & social media. Therefore this case study provides strong improvements for the backlink-, content- and social media marketing strategy. Its competitors make up leeway. Nevertheless, there are opportunities to boost traffic for each big player in the market.

First Overview of the Competitive Situation

Introduction: Diving into Competitive Situation

Economic Situation

STYLEBOP.com

NET-A-PORTER.com

mytheresa.com

yoox.com

1.Social Media

STYLEBOP.com and Social Media

STYLEBOP.com

mytheresa.com

NET-A-PORTER.com

yoox.com

Impactana Results

Todos for STYLEBOP.com

2. Linkbuilding

The Right Protection Against Penalties

Examination and Comparison of the Backlink Profiles - Where Can STYLEBOP.com Score?

Digression: Overview of the Most Popular Blogs

Find Relevant Blogs with Impactana

How Can STYLEBOP.com take Advantage of the Competitor’s Best Practices?

Guaranteed Excellent Link Building

Backlink check with LJR

3. Photos, Big Data and more

More Traffic Through Photos

Big Data

The Competition

New Markets

Keyword Strategy

Next on the Road to Success

Author Bio

Bonus: Download the full version of this case study as PDF for easy print or offline reading!

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First Overview of the Competitive Situation

It is obvious that there is a strong competition between the single retailers and that they are involved in an exciting head-to-head race for the best position within the Google search results, for the best links with the highest traffic potential and the highest number of social signals. This examination is aimed to provide a strengths and weaknesses analysis of STYLEBOP.com and to suggest improvements for its marketing strategy.

STYLEBOP.com is located in a highly competitive market. A study by the consulting firm McKinsey shows that an increasing turnover is expected in e-commerce for luxury fashion. In 2014 a total turnover of 319 million euros was generated. This is an incentive for more and more established players to enter the market (e.g. Zalando-Lounge, the Ludwig Beck beauty online shop). Even with consumers, online luxury shopping is becoming increasingly popular: The majority appreciates the exclusive offers that are only available online. The study "Digital Luxury Experience 2013” found that 52 % of the consumers who regularly buy luxury goods do that entirely online.



Turnover E-Commerce Luxury Fashion in Germany in 2014

Source: http://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/459802/umfrage/e-commerce-umsatz-im-bereich-luxusmode-in-deutschland/

Already established online stores and therefore direct competitors to STYLEBOP.com are NET-A-PORTER.com, mytheresa.com, and yoox.com. The subsequent investigation will focus primarily on the first three competitors. Yoox.com embarks, as you will learn in more detail later, a slightly different strategy than the three other online retailers.

Diving into Competitive Analysis

A good starting point for a competition analysis is the comparison of the Sistrix Visibility Index of individual websites. Thereby, a first impression can be obtained on the balance of power. To get a better overview, we also look at the search metrics visibility index below. To get a significant comparison, it is advisable to look at more than one index; that’s why we also look at the search metrics visibility indexes.

Sistrix Visibility index Germany

Sistrix visibility index USA

Visibility Curve Germany

Visibility Curve the USA

Extracts from the findings of sistrix.com and searchmetrics.com show how the current visibility curve looks like and how it has developed over the last two years. STYLEBOP.com ranks in Germany with a Sistrix visibility index of 1.826. After a peak period in 2014, the company is now fighting to hold its position against the competitors mytheresa.com (1.405) and yoox.com (3.003). The development of NET-A-PORTER.com seems to lag behind constantly. The Sistrix Visibility index in Germany is only 0.384.

Sistrix Visibility Index in comparison in April 2014 and April 2016 (Germany and USA)

However, the picture is quite different in the United States: In the USA NET-A-PORTER.com had clearly the highest visibility (3.291) in April 2014. But the index has decreased by about  50% to 1.660 in April 2016, and NET-A-PORTER.com has now a real competitor with yoox.com and its growing Sistrix visibility index of 0,9833.

STYLEBOP.com and mytheresa.com seem to develop hardly and are assuming an outsider position in that market in the USA.

At yoox.com we can see an upward trend in Germany until October 2015. That was when yoox.com and NET-A-PORTER.com merged. However, this trend decreases again by the end of October. The visibility index (by Searchmetrics) of NET-A-PORTER.com seems unaffected by the merger. It is slightly decreasing.

Visibility Curve after the merger Germany

NET-A-PORTER.com experienced a small downward trend in the United States from mid-September until January 2016. At yoox.com a weak, but the continuous downward trend can be revealed up to now.

Visibility Curve after the merger the USA

Similarweb collects its traffic data using browser plug-ins that allow a comprehensive evaluation. The Traffic Share of similarweb.com shows a similar picture: NET-A-PORTER.com wins the most visits worldwide. Overall, the company owns a share of 67 %. Mytheresa.com has a traffic share of at least 25 % whereas STYLEBOP.com owns only 7.75 % and thus lags far behind its competitors.

Traffic Share among the competitors

Results Bulk URL Analyzer (Juice Tool)

Results Bulk URL Analyzer (Juice Tool)

The results of the Bulk URL Analyzer (Juice Tool) show a good summary of the current situation. It turns out that the website of STYLEBOP.com has the fewest number of backlinks (43,821). Nevertheless, it has with a Power*Trust value of 30 very good quality metrics compared to its competitors. The Power measure is based on the force and the number of links and the overall strength of a URL, whereas the Trust measure provides information of how much Google trusts the links. Combined, the strength, quality and potential impact of a URL can be assessed quickly.

If we recall searchmetrics.com’s visibility curve, it is obvious that a high number of backlinks does not necessarily lead to better visibility. Also, regarding backlinks Trust and Power play a major role, as well as content, content relevance, on page optimization and link sources.

Additionally, one does not know which links are valued and which are not. Since the introduction of the Disavow Tool, only Google and webmasters know which links are integrated. Webmasters use the opportunity to distance themselves from some links. Practically, that means that Links could be labelled as invalid for Google. A possible punishment by Google could be removed or prevented.

The results of the Bulk URL Analyzer (Juice Tool) also show the social metrics, the buzz, and the impact metrics. The buzz metric measures the Social Media signals and is divided into signals from shares and likes. The buzz metric includes the data of Social Media channels Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Slideshare and LinkedIn. This metric summarize the immediate success of your content in Social Media channels.

The results of the Bulk URL Analyzer (Juice Tool) shows a relatively small rate of the buzz metric for STYLEBOP.com with 5k compared with NET-A-PORTER.com (845k) and yoox.com (187k), but quite similar compared with mytheresa.com.

The Impact data measures user engagement and includes the metrics of comments, clicks, views, downloads, and links. Here you can again compare the metrics of STYLEBOP.com and mytheresa.com (92k and 111k). In comparison with the other two competitors, this number is very trivial: NET-A-PORTER.com with 5M and yoox.com with 1M.

Economic Situation

STYLEBOP.com

Founded in 2004, the luxury online store STYLEBOP.com is growing. Nevertheless it faces tough competition. After the merger of mytheresa.com with the American luxury department store Neiman Marcus and NET-A-PORTER.com with yoox.com, many analysts ask themselves, whether STYLEBOP.com can also remain permanently independent and family-owned. The figures speak for the online retailer: The store made approximately 70 million euro net sales in 2013, trend: upwards. "In continental Europe, no one is bigger than us," states the CEO to the business magazine brand eins. Currently, STYLEBOP.com sends designer fashion to about 100 countries and CEO Einmuth wants to offer more regional websites. In 2014, suited for the tenth anniversary, the revenue mark of 100 million euros has been exceeded. STYLEBOP.com has set itself the task, to pass promptly on designer fashion to its customers with its slogan "From Catwalk to Sidewalk".

NET-A-PORTER.com

In October 2015 it got official: the merger of NET-A-PORTER.com and yoox.com has been completed. The common goal was to be the world's leading online retailer for luxury fashion. The estimated annual turnover of the two giants was 1.3 billion euros. About 24 million people from around the world visit the website each month. That corresponds to a conversion rate of 8.33 %.

After the merger, the company transferred its seat to Italy and lost its founder and creative mind, Natalie Massenet. This decision led the fashion industry to a turmoil: Massenet is considered a revolutionary of the fashion industry and was the flagship of the company. It remains to be seen how NET-A-PORTER.com and yoox.com will develope without Massenet in the future. At the moment the company relies on exclusivity.

mytheresa.com

It is striking that both STYLEBOP.com and myteheresa.com were founded in Munich and that within just two years. In contrast to the pioneer STYLEBOP.com, mytheresa.com was bought out by the American luxury department store chain Neiman Marcus in 2014, when its annual sales amounted to about 130 million euros. The retailer expects an advancing internationalization from this merger.

The Head of Operations Carsten Rosenberger reports an annual business growth of 50 % to the Süddeutsche Zeitung (German Newspaper). Mytheresa.com aims exclusively at women. The store carries only about 180 brands. The clear target audience is reflected in the design of the website: delicate pastel colors in contrast to the cool clean-chic of the competition.

yoox.com

So far the Italian online retailer yoox.com pursues a different strategy: Instead of quickly making available designer fashion, it sends luxury-outlet goods at a bargain price and thus meets a broad customer base. In 2014 the shop had a net turnover of more than 524 million euros.

Despite its global focus, Yoox.com promises its customers to find the right offer for every customer no matter what particular local conditions such as language, currency or clothes size is given. With approximately 14 million customers who visit the shop every month, the concept seems to work. You can choose from about three dozen designers and so secure popular outlet clothes or reduced designer pieces.

1.         Social Media

STYLEBOP.com and Social Media

The study "Digital Luxury Experience 2013” found that 52 % of consumers who regularly buy luxury goods do so entirely online. This online - oriented target group is also very active on the social media platforms. How these customers can be addressed best and where there is still potential for improvement is shown here.

But let us have a look at the Buzz and Impact Report of our four luxury fashion sites. As already mentioned the Buzz metric measures the Social Media Signals and is divided in signals from shares and likes. Following channels are included in the buzz metric: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Slideshare and LinkedIn. The Buzz metric summarize the immediate success of the content in Social Media channels and afterward to identify the content that works best for the audience.

If we look at the screenshot below, we can see that NET-A-PORTER.com has the highest BUZZ rank with 845.000, while mytheresa.com and STYLEBOP.com just reach 4.000 and 5.000.

The results of the Impact metrics are similar, with 5M for NET-A-PORTER.com and a relatively low number for STYLEBOP.com (92.000) and myhteresa.com(111.000). The Impact data measures long-term user engagement and includes the metrics of comments, clicks, views, downloads, and links.

Results BUZZ and Impact metrics of the four online retailers

Social Media Data of the four online retailers

STYLEBOP.com

STYLEBOP.com attempts to be very active on Facebook. Two posts per day seem to be the rule: Most of the time the look of a famous fashionist/a is presented. In addition, you can see the best street styles, a catwalk outfit or trendy accessories and how to wear tips. Although the page is liked by more than 370,000 people, there is not much feedback. On average there are hardly more than three likes per post.

STYLEBOP.com on Facebook same cover

STYLEBOP.com on Facebook different posts

A similar picture emerges on Twitter: The contents much more, though: 3 up to 10 tweets a day are virtually identical to those on Facebook, the follower’s response is even lower.

STYLEBOP.com on Twitter same cover

There are two posts on Google+; there is no response. That might be because only 242 people are following the account. Here STYLEBOP.com focuses a bit more on the prominent examples, which can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.  This situation is reflected in the low numbers of Buzz and Impact metrics for Google+, in comparison to NET-A-PORTER.com and yoox.com (see below).

STYLEBOP.com on Google+

STYLEBOP.com is also representing on Pinterest. And here can be some success seen. The most popular topic on the platform besides cooking, living, and family is of course fashion because the percentage of female users is much higher than of men.

Most Pins of STYLEBOP.com get between 3 and five re-pins and about 100 repins per pin board. The profile has a strongly growing number of followers: There were 1,500 Followers 6 month ago. The number grew to meanwhile 3,700 Followers. Now Stylebop has 42 Pinterest pinboards and more diversified Content than on Facebook, Twitter & Google+.

STYLEBOP.com on Pinterest

With Instagram, the most important platform for fashion, STYLEBOP.com reaches a much bigger audience: The account has more than 97,500 followers now (which is an Increase by 100% to half a year ago), and every photo gets about 200 to 500 likes.

STYLEBOP.com on Instagram

mytheresa.com

mytheresa.com’s social media activity is comparable to STYLEBOP.com. This online retailer manages to integrate more varied content. This effort especially seems to pay off at G+: With 700 followers mytheresa.com is clearly ahead of STYLEBOP.com. On Instagram a similar picture emerges: About 206,000 user follow the profile and like the photos on average 1,000 times. The competitor also succeeds on Pinterest: It has much more pins per pinboard and over 337,600 followers.

The key to success on Pinterest seems to be the diversified pinboards: Here the topics accessories, special occasions, shoes and key pieces alternate. Within the pinboards, not only mytheresa.com’s clothes are presented, but also inspirations like beautiful pictures of landscapes, home accessories or delicious dishes. The pin boards do not only present mytheresa.com’s products in the best possible way, but they also create an atmosphere and celebrate fashion to wear.

mytheresa.com on Instagram

mytheresa.com on Google+

Let’s have a look at the boards of mytheresa.com in comparison to NET-A-PORTER.com and STYLEBOP.com. The images of mytheresa.com convey feelings and needs, for example, the pinboard with the topic “mytheresa Travels The Globe”. Here you see a mix of pictures of beautiful places in the world and the perfect matched style pieces. NET-A-PORTER.com has changed its strategy in the last months. In the past the pinboards of NET-A-PORTER.com has shown only clothes, it has seemed like another type of an online shop. Now you find pinboards of different topics based on a similar strategy like mytheresa.com to convey feelings and needs.

STYLEBOP.com seems to pass through the same development as NET-A-PORTER.com. You can still find to many pinboards which show just pictures of clothes. But they start new pinboards where they also try to convey feelings, for example, the “Travel Bug”.  But if we look at the metrics of Buzz (4,000) and Impact (111,000) again, we can see that the interactivity on the Social Media platforms has more potential even on Pinterest, because it is not enough to have a high number of likes on your site, if nobody is willing to share your content.

Pinboard mytheresa Travels The Globe

Pinboard festival fever of NET-A-PORTER.com

Pinboard Travel Bug of STYLEBOP.com

NET-A-PORTER.com

On the other social media platforms, the giant competitor applies a strategy similar to mytheresa.com and tries to integrate different content according to the habits of the different platforms. However, this is possible only to a limited extend and much of the content seems to be familiar to us.

Still, the strategy works! Especially the Instagram account is very successful with 1.4 million subscribers. With 5,000 to 10,000 Likes per image and numerous commentaries, NET-A-PORTER.com stands apart from its competitors. Instagram is considered the most popular social media channel for fashion bloggers, who exclusively use this platform. So it is hardly surprising that NET-A-PORTER.com focuses on Instagram.

The news is that NET-A-PORTER.com now has got its social network The Net Set. This "social shopping network" makes it possible to buy clothes directly from the app. At the same time, users can upload their favorite outfits. Based on these images, The Net Set finds new styles for its users. With this new features, NET-A-PORTER.com wants to attract the numerous followers on Instagram to The Net Set. Within the app you can “admire” your favorite designers and similar to the Facebook groups, you can follow so-called “Style Tribes.”

Shopping App/Shopping Network “The Net Set.”The Net Set is promoted by popular trendsetters like Poppy Delevigne, Julia Restoin Roitfeld, Nicole Warne, Chloe Norgaard and Laura Bailey. The young ladies hit the nerve of time and the taste of their numerous fans. These testimonials are role models and give the app emotionality. Testimonial advertising can have many positive aspects like a higher intent to purchase and a higher brand affinity.

Popular Testimonials for „The Net Set“

Shopping App/Shopping Network “The Net Set.”

yoox.com

Yoox.com has the highest BUZZ (187,000) and Impact (1M) metric after NET-A-PORTER.com. Its Facebook account is most successful after the strong competitor, with 745,924 likes and a high interaction. This constrains the high number of the Impact metric. Yoox.com is also very successful on Twitter and Google+ with a relatively high number of interactions per post. The weak point of the online fashion shop are the two photo-based platforms, Instagram and Pinterest. The online retailer has to catch up its competitors to get more attention on these Social Media platforms.

Impactana Results

Impactana is a tool that helps to find content ideas and influencers to succeed in content marketing. Let us look at the results for stylebop.com.

Looking for: “stylebop” AND “fashion” AND comments>5

The results of this search are content which includes both “stylebop” and “fashion” as terms, and this content has more than five comments.

Impactana result page for “stylebop” AND “fashion” AND comments>5

The result page shows a short information of the content and the author, but also the BUZZ and Impact metrics. The BUZZ metrics includes all social signals, divided into shares and likes from different Social Media Channels.

Impactana BUZZ metric

Right to the BUZZ metric you can find the Impact metric. This is an important one because it measures the long-term user engagement in comparison with BUZZ metric, which gives information about the short-term user engagement. It measures the number of backlinks, comments, clicks, views and downloads.

Impactana Impact metric

Change the search details to get results for pages which have a high metrics of Buzz and Impact: "stylebop" AND "fashion" AND impact>1k AND Buzz>1k

Impactana shows eight results for this specific search, which you can order by decreasing number of impact. If you compare these results with the results for NET-A-PORTER.com for the same search details, then it is obvious that NET-A-PORTER.com has more influencing content. Impactana shows 184 results for the following search details: "net-a-porter" AND "fashion" AND Buzz>1k AND Impact>1k. The highest number of Impact metric is 156k.

Impactana Results for “fashion” including “net-a-porter” on the site:”pinerest.com.”

Impactana Results for “net-a-porter” AND “fashion”AND impact>1k AND Buzz>1k, ordered by decreasing number of Impact

Impactana offers a possibility to visit the pages, where the content comes from or to see more content from this page. It is also possible to start a quick backlink analysis with LRT for the page or the whole domain.

In conclusion, this comparison shows that NET-A-PORTER.com has more content, and it comes from sites with a high BUZZ and Impact metrics. But it also allows stylebop.com to search for these sites to get also good and strong content.

TODOs for STYLEBOP.com

Three recommendation results from this direct comparison of STYLEBOP.com and its competitors:

Vary the contents on each platform! Your target groups use different platforms and expect interesting and different content.

Instagram: Well done! Here, its competitors can learn a thing or two from STYLEBOP.com. Pinterest: Less is more! The competitor mytheresa.com proves that you can attract more followers with fewer pinboards. The recipe for success does not seem to be the number of pictures. It is crucial to address the right target group. The picture language on Pinterest and Instagram is not the same.

Improve your performance on Pinterest! This platform is growing and its users are consistent with the target group of STYLEBOP.com. It is an excellent way to increase your brand awareness and to attract customers to your website. If one harmonizes the campaigns with the platform Pinterest and interrupts product photos with inspirations, the fan base will feel more addressed. Photos of the current Easy Casual Look could be ideally combined with the whole season’s theme. In combination with colors, landscapes, and the latest food trends a more varied mood board could be the result.

mytheresa.com’s pin board mytheresa Feels like Summer

A look at the theme pin board “in the navy” STYLEBOP.com presents itself in a rather boring way. The theme allows unlimited design possibilities. STYLEBOP.com needs more context content. The navy offers a lot of different pictures which can be shown on the board, like ships or restaurants on the beach, etc.

A lot of potential slumbers within STYLEBOP.com’s pin boards on Pinterest.

STYLEBOP.com’s pin board in the navy

Stylebop.com would have big marketing potential by looking for sites with high BUZZ and Impact metrics, look for the most influential articles, blogs, pages and authors and contact them for cooperation. The question to ask is:

What are my competitors doing and how can I do it too - only better?

Stylebop.com should also look for the fashion bloggers and viral Facebook posts. For the search of “fashion” AND inurl:”facebook.com”, the best result is a page of a young fashion blogger with about 78,000 Fans and a high Impact metric of 391k.

Impactana results for “fashion” AND inurl:”facebook.com.”

2. Linkbuilding

The Right Protection Against Penalties

A look at the backlinks as well as the social media marketing strategy of the competitors has shown that here professionals are at work. Individuality is important especially within the fashion industry! An online store should never give up its unique selling proposition and adapt to the masses. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile taking a look behind the scenes of the competitors and to explore some best practices and apply them to your context.

Another way to take advantage of the competitor’s links is an investigation based on the Competitive Link Detox (CDTOX) Tool. This tool screens the competitor’s links for the ones with a low link-check-priority: The lower the risk of a Google penalty; the more one should consider a link. At the same time, one can identify one's DTOXRISK compared to the competition.

In the beginning of the report, keywords have to be classified. It is required to classify at least 80 percent.

Keyword Classification for DTOX Report

The keyword classification is done by relating the keywords to various categories like „Brand,“ „Compound,“ „Money“ or „Others.“ This procedure increases the accuracy of the calculation and assessment of risk. Especially for companies whose "Money”- Keywords aim at conversion, there is an increased risk for punishment.

Keyword classification according to categories

I decide to classify all to be more precise:

100% Keywords classification

Keyword classification

Now we must reprocess the rules to apply the classification on the risk. It doesn’t cost any credits!

It can be said, that STYLEBOP.com has conducted a very sustainable link building and has a below-average risk of being punished by Google. STYLEBOP.com can view first-class links of competitors, to further minimize this risk and to continue to run a successful link building.

Nevertheless, STYLEBOP.com should again check its backlink profile to play safe and to end up in the "green zone." A summary of the report shows that 75 % of the links and this is after all 8,078 links, have an average recommended link check priority.

Experience has shown that toxic Link sources sooner or later loose its positive effect on the link destination or even strongly harm it. So better keep them at a distance!

Link Audit Priorities of STYLEBOP.com

Using the Competitive Link Detox Tool (CDTOX) STYLEBOP.com can have a look at  first-class links of its competitors, to further minimize the risk of a penalty and to continue a successful link building.

Competitive Link Detox of STYLEBOP.com’s competitors

The report shows that STYLEBOP.com has a low DTOXRISK, just as its competitors. In comparison on the level of below average risk, DTOXRISK of STYLEBOP.com is even lower.

Link Audit Priorities of the competition - Good Links

At the same time, a look at the links marked in red is recommended, that means links with a high link check priority. The tool allows you to create a disavow file so that “bad” links can quickly be removed from the backlink profile. The red marked links signalize that no effort should be put in link building here. That lowers the DTOXRISK, and the quality of the link profile will be upgraded at the same time. Facing the already announced new Penguin algorithm that is of uttermost importance: The development of a real-time Penguin, which is expected any day, can strike directly and punish websites faster than before.

Link Audit Priorities of the competition - Bad Links

Examination and Comparison of the Backlink Profiles - Where Can STYLEBOP.com Score?

As we can see, STYLEBOP.com’s marketing strategy does not seem to focus much on Social Media. So which strategy does the online-retailer apply? A look at the backlinks of the shop reveals something about its strategy.

The Backlink Profiler gets us a detailed overview of the strongest backlinks. This tool crawls a huge amount of data with all favored measures and thus allows us a comprehensive analysis of the most actual backlink data for STYLEBOP.com and its competitors.

Backlink Profile of STYLEBOP.com

You can see that STYLEBOP.com attach great importance on being recommended by the major fashion magazines. This strategy seems to be very successful because the online retailer has gotten backlinks from all well-known international magazines such as Vogue, Elle, Grazia, Harpers Bazaar, Vanity Fair or Marie Claire. The German fashion magazines Brigitte, Glamor, Jolie, and Myself, are represented in the backlink profile, too.

The Vogue recommends STYLEBOP.com, for example, if known top models like Claudia Schiffer or Candice Swanepoel releases collections. This happened earlier in 2015 at http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2015/01/28/candice-swanepoel-mother-denim-collection-pictures.

Beside this Vogue, for example, tells the story how STYLEBOP.com grew for a decade: http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2014/11/12/stylebop-shopping-mario-eimuth-leila-yavari-site-founder-interview.

NET-A-PORTER.com appears in this context, too, as seen in a shoe collection of Poppy Delevigne and Aquazzura: http://www.vogue.de/people-kultur/people-news/mode-news-poppy-delevingne-launcht-schuhlinie-mit-aquazzura.

Another Example is the special edition of jewelry by Tracey Emin and Stephen Webster: http://www.vogue.de/mode/mode-news/schmuck-liebesschwur-von-tracey-emin-und-stephen-webster or Francesco Russos patent leather shoe collection: http://www.vogue.de/mode/mode-news/schuhe-francesco-russos-faszination-fuer-lack.

The renowned fashion magazines have the advantage that they provide a perfect thematic match as well as excellent quality backlink metrics.

Power*Trust Metrics of STYLEBOP.com

Elle.com has an LRT Power*Trust of 42. Only Wikipedia, social networks, and large national newspapers have stronger metrics. The same applies to

Vogue (Power*Trust=42),

Glamour,

Harper’s Bazaar,

InStyle and

Marie Claire (Power*Trust=36).

Blogger does not achieve such high values.

The Buzz for STYLEBOP.com

STYLEBOP.com profits from strong Impact of social signals

If you have a look at the backlinks of the competitor mytheresa.com, it is striking that they rather are interested in networking with bloggers. Exceptional is the vast number of blogs from Scandinavia. The backlink profile of mytheresa.com contains 565 backlinks from Scandinavia and 165 backlinks of blogs from Denmark, for example:

http://costume.dk/modenyheder/carine-roitfeld-hyldes-af-mytheresa or

http://ella.looklab.dk/category/craving /

Although the quality metrics for these blogs are lower, Power * Trust = 16 for costume.dk and Power * Trust = 10 for ella.looklab.dk , they still address an important target group.

Backlink profile of mytheresa.com - Country distribution

This observation is confirmed by the link distribution by country. A large number of backlinks comes from the US; that is where the parent company Neiman Marcus has its headquarters. Striking is the number of links from Denmark, which supports the hypothesis that mytheresa.com networks with bloggers from Scandinavia.

Extract of the List of the Scandinavian Bloggers for mytheresa.com

In Denmark and Scandinavia numerous fashion bloggers seem to be fans of mytheresa.com. As mentioned above the link metrics are not high like the ones from fashion magazines. Those blogs don’t have higher Power*Trust than 2.

Scandinavian Blogs:

http://cecilieslemming.dk/

http://ella.looklab.dk/

http://fashionbones.dk/

http://emmasilke.dk/

http://modemedmere.dk/

http://jacquelineannsofie.dk/

http://highonsophie.dk/

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