10 Reasons Why Your Fashion Brand Needs SEO in 2025
In the ever-evolving fashion industry, being seen means staying relevant, making SEO one of the most important marketing channels at your disposal in 2025 and beyond.
As a specialist fashion SEO agency based in London and New York, SINE Digital are passionate about delivering smarter marketing strategies. SEO is often an afterthought for fashion and eCommerce brands, with budgets typically directed toward paid performance channels that deliver short-term results but become increasingly expensive over time.
Meanwhile, Social SEO and AI-driven discovery are on the rise. Social media platforms like TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram now act as powerful search engines, especially for fashion and styling content, while AI tools like Google AI mode, AI Overviews and platforms like ChatGPT are reshaping how people search, shop, and discover brands.
That’s why we believe in integrated, connected strategies – using SEO to power all marketing channels, unlock PPC efficiencies, and boost discoverability across multiple search platforms to drive long-term, sustainable growth. SEO value also compounds over time, leading to long term incremental growth.
Here’s why SEO is essential for fashion companies today, not just a nice-to-have, but a key revenue-driving channel.
Fashion SEO Agency: 10 Reasons to Invest in SEO Services in 2025
1. Your Customers Start With Search – and Google still dominates
Over 44% of shoppers research products on search engines like Google. If you’re not ranking, you’re invisible to fashion-savvy shoppers actively looking for your products or inspiration. And with 16.4 billion searches taking place on Google every day, it’s a missed opportunity if your brand isn’t present against relevant search terms. While AI and other methods of search are rising, Google and other traditional search engines remain a critical discovery channel.
2. Organic Search Helps Paid Search Work More Efficiently
In 2025, Google Ads costs are rising across almost every sector – with the fashion industry seeing a +27% year-on-year increase in average CPCs, with an average CPC of $4.31 according to Wordstream. Paid search offers fast visibility, but it’s rented space: once your budget stops, so does your presence in search engines if you don’t have a solid SEO strategy.
That’s why organic search is so important. SEO and PPC work better together – but are too often in silos, and sometimes even competing directly with each other. For example, often branded search can cannibalise organic, especially if no competitors are present – and too often its impact is not actively measured alongside organic to determine if paid brand search is actually driving incremental value.
Other times, branded paid search is absolutely essential to compete when competition is high, can protect your brand, and provide a halo effect and ultimately drive incremental revenue – but the key is testing and measuring both channels to maximise efficiencies, avoid wastage and measure overall performance.
Organic insights help to identify gaps in paid coverage, reduce wasted spend, and improve landing page relevance and Quality Scores. A well-optimised site and strategy allows you to scale back paid investment where organic is strong, and double down on non-branded keywords where SEO needs support – making every pound work harder for incremental growth across both channels.
3. Google Shopping Isn’t Just for Paid Ads
Google Shopping in particular is a key part of SEO for fashion brands, with strong SEO being eligible for ‘free listings’ in Google Shopping. With optimised product feeds, you can appear in organic shopping carousels without paying for clicks. With Google serving a large proportion of organic shopping results against fashion keywords, this is more important now than it ever has been.
Becoming a ‘Top Quality Store’ on Google Merchant Centre is vital for improving your visibility, including quick shipping times and clear returns policies. Paying close attention to product attributes, product feeds, high-quality images, and clean structured data is key. Our team ensures your products are optimised for Google Shopping, schema is in place, and content meets Google’s quality standards – so you can earn and increase your free visibility across Shopping.
We also use insights from your Google Shopping Ads (also called Product Listing Ads or PLAs) and Google Merchant Centre to share insights cross-channel and test the best performing product headlines.
4. SEO Predicts Seasonal Demand & Fashion Trend Forecasting
From “linen dresses” in summer to “trench coats” in autumn, SEO helps you match your inventory with what people are searching for, when they’re searching for it. It can also be used to assess demand for certain products by fit, fabric and colour – helping inform which products are likely to be more popular and which are likely to be sold in higher volumes. For example, ‘black silk midi skirts’ are searched for 2 times more than ‘white silk midi skirts’ – so ordering higher volumes of black skirts is likely to be more beneficial.
Seasonality and search trends can be tracked using a mix of SEO tools. This allows us to create a seasonal calendar to match product drops and marketing efforts to the times of year they’ll work the hardest across platforms, not just Google, while also helping to identify when it’s beneficial to scale paid search:
We combine Google search data, seasonal trends, social insights and more to inform both content and product strategy, ensuring your collections and campaigns launch at the right time, already aligned with real demand, as well as informing your next season’s designs.
Interested in our Product Development and Fashion Trend Forecasting solutions? Get in touch to discover more about our fashion predictor offering to get ahead of style trends for 2026.
5. Social Media Platforms Are Search Engines Too
Your social media content may focus on entertainment, community building and going viral, but can shoppers find you when they search directly for products in-platform, such as “office party outfits” or “best midi silk skirt”? Applying SEO as a key pillar in your social strategy is key to capturing customers actively in the market and doing their research.
Social search is growing fast with social media platforms becoming search engines in their own right – with fashion content having one of the highest engagement rates on TikTok. With 23% of TikTok users heading straight to the search bar, it’s a missed opportunity to only optimise for the For You Page (FYP). TikTok also released search ads in the US and is slowly rolling them out in the UK – showing that platform search is a clear company focus. An example from one of our fashion clients shows our SEO optimised social content is driving more views through TikTok search than through the FYP:
We’re also watching closely as Meta continues to invest in platform search. There are growing reports of enhanced search features being developed for Facebook, while Instagram is rolling out updates to mirror TikTok’s search-led discovery experience. In July 2025, Instagram content began surfacing in Google search results – part of a broader shift we predicted earlier this year, as social content becomes increasingly indexable and discoverable beyond the platforms themselves.
Pinterest remains a powerful search-first platform, especially for style discovery and trend-driven queries like “autumn wedding guest outfits” or “capsule wardrobe ideas”. And YouTube continues to be a major channel for fashion content, from styling guides to hauls – with high discoverability for optimised titles, descriptions, and tags.
Social SEO is now a crucial part of platform strategy across TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube – especially for fashion brands, as video content mirrors how customers actually want to discover products by seeing how they move, fit, and look in real life – not just in static images.
6. The Industry is Fiercely Competitive – But Smart SEO Can Help You Compete With Global Brands
Global brands like ASOS, Amazon, Nike, H&M, Zara and Shein often dominate search results – but there is still space to cut through for smaller brands. But winning that space means being smart, focused, and deeply intentional with your SEO strategy.
Without SEO, it’s hard for independent fashion brands to compete or get seen outside their own brand name – we often see fashion brands with 90%+ of traffic coming through brand search only, with virtually no non-brand visibility. This means you are almost totally reliant on existing brand awareness – and if this drops, so does your traffic. It also often means an over-reliance on paid search and performance marketing, with no strong foundations to fall back on if media spends decrease or prices continue to rise.
Focusing on optimising for rich and niche product specific keywords can help you get ahead of the crowds and stand out in search where it matters. You need to be hyper-focused and look at owning certain product categories as much as possible, including longer-tail keywords, and not the top level, broad and highly competitive terms.
For example, you might not be able to compete for topline searches for ‘women’s dresses’, but you can compete for colour, fit and fabric variants e.g. ‘white linen dresses’ and ‘short linen sun dresses’ – mapping keywords by difficulty, volume and relevance is key.
Additionally, a strong supporting editorial strategy is key here. Strong SEO should drive value to your commercial pages, mainly PDPs and PLPs, but we also need to consider content mapped to the customer journey. We create evergreen and editorial content that drives consistent traffic and brand discovery across all stages of the customer journey. From style guides to trend roundups and FAQs, our editorial approach supports SEO growth and keeps your brand front-of-mind year-round.
7. Fashion Is Visual and Visual Search Is Growing
Google Lens and Pinterest Lens are changing how people find fashion. Image optimisation and alt text are now essential for discoverability through visual search tools. Google revealed in 2024 that lens was used 20 billion times a month, with 20% of these searches having a shopping focus. Ensuring you’re optimised for Google lens not only means you’ll appear for visual searches but Google has also stated that it will help your content to appear in AI-generated search results too.
Google’s AI Mode teasers also show that soon users will be able to upload a photo of themselves and ‘try on’ clothes available to purchase online, opening a brand new way for digital fashion customers to shop.
Visuals drive fashion ecommerce and image SEO is key to ensuring your products are seen across Google Images, Pinterest, Google Lens, and beyond. Your images need proper file names, alt tags, fast load times, and to appear within structured formats (e.g. product schema) to show up in visual and AI search. They also need to be coded and compressed efficiently to avoid slowing down your site, as large or unoptimised media can hurt both rankings and user experience. Our team optimises images, videos, and schema to ensure your assets perform across visual-first platforms.
8. Trusted Brands Win in Search and AI Results
Search authority today isn’t just about high rankings, it’s about building trust. Search Engines like Google and Large language models like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode are more likely to reference your brand in answers if you are trusted and have brand citations across the internet.
This makes it essential for fashion brands to actively engage in digital PR to gain mentions, recommendations and links from a range of publications. This doesn’t mean buying links at scale – links should always be contextually relevant and not spammy. High quality content should naturally attract links, and targeted Digital PR mapped to key product collections will help you gain visibility and referral traffic. Your strategy should also be mapped to high intent target keywords – with SEO working hand in hand with Digital PR to drive stronger press content based on data.
Other ways essential to build trust for your fashion brand include high-quality content, named authors and expert commentary, alongside appearing in forums such as Reddit. Reviews are crucial – including replying to reviews, especially if they are negative. Ideally you will have strong ‘About Us’ pages and content about your brand story, values and stance on key issues such as sustainability.
These signals help establish credibility with both users, search engines and AI, ultimately supporting stronger and more sustainable organic performance.
9. AI Search Is Reshaping the Landscape
With AI Overviews, ChatGPT and other generative search platforms becoming mainstream, brands with structured data, authoritative content, and well-optimised PDPs will win in the new SERP, not just the traditional one. With AI mode launching in the UK in late July 2025, it’s becoming more essential than ever to optimise for AI searches.
Sine Digital – August 2025 – Example of a user searching for padel / tennis outfits
AI platforms are rapidly growing as a starting point for customers to find the clothes and accessories they’re after. Their prompts can describe exactly what they’re looking for and the LLM will do all the hard work for them – even going as far as putting their size in their cart and filling out the checkout page for them. We have a clear process to help your brand be the answer to those AI-generated fashion queries, which also includes voice searches.
Shopify and ChatGPT are likely to be integrated soon. In May 2025, Lightflows reported on increasing evidence uncovered by developers that “buy_now” buttons and references to “shopify_checkout_url” were discovered in ChatGPT’s codebase – indicating that a native in-chat shopping flow powered by Shopify’s checkout is being built into ChatGPT’s interface. While this feature has not officially launched, sources from Reuters report that OpenAI and Shopify are actively working together, showing early demos and discussing monetisation terms.
This move points to a future where AI chatbots like ChatGPT aren’t just a discovery tool, but a direct sales channel where users can potentially purchase directly within the AI interface without needing to even visit your website. It means brands need to prepare now, ensuring that product data is accurate, structured, and rich enough to surface when AI prompts users to buy directly within the chat interface.
Measuring AI Search for your fashion brand
It’s also essential to measure as much as possible. While tools are limited, we can measure AI Overviews against set keywords and cross reference CTRs in Google Search Console to understand the impact of AI on CTRs. Ahrefs has reported that AI Overviews grew by 116% between March 12th and May 6th. Additional research by Ahrefs suggests they decrease clicks by 34% as of April 2025, with this research conflicting with Google’s stance – underscoring the need for brands to do their own research on how it’s impacting your visibility:
“It’s also telling that despite Google’s optimistic claim that “links included in AI Overviews get more clicks than if the page had appeared as a traditional web listing for that query”, there is still no way to disambiguate AI Overview clicks and impressions from the rest of your Search Console data.” – Ryan Law for Ahrefs, April 2025
We can also measure how many website sessions come through from AI clicks via custom filters in Google Analytics. Post-purchase surveys are a valuable tool for fashion and e-commerce brands to better estimate the value of AI, with our SINE case studies showing that this reports 34% higher revenue than Google Analytics alone for AI engines.
As AI use grows, it’s expected for organic sessions from Google to decrease overall, especially for informational terms, however core commercial keywords should still be strong alongside new avenues for discovery. Either way, AI is no longer optional to optimise for – it’s essential.
10. SEO Drives Commercial Value Through Long-term Revenue Growth
SEO is a key growth driver for your fashion brand’s organic revenue – especially through high-value, commercial landing pages. It supports key sales periods like Black Friday, Christmas and gifting seasons, and new collection launches, ensuring you’re visible when purchase intent is at its highest.
High quality content, smart bundling, occasion-led guides, and high-quality imagery and videos all contribute to stronger AOV and conversion rates, even in competitive or challenging market conditions.
At SINE, we focus our SEO strategy on making your PDPs and PLPs perform harder, with everything from content to technical refinement geared towards improving visibility, driving revenue, and turning organic traffic into measurable commercial results. That includes technical SEO foundations – like fast, mobile-first experiences, clean internal linking, and indexability – as well as local SEO for brands with physical locations, helping to capture high-intent “near me” searches and drive footfall to your stores.
For brands operating globally, we also ensure international stores are discoverable in the right market and language with strong International SEO strategies.
How SINE Can Help Your Fashion SEO Strategy
If SEO is part of your growth strategy for 2025, here’s how we can help.
From on-page foundations to emerging discovery platforms, our strategies are built for the way fashion audiences search, scroll, and shop today. We focus on real commercial impact through organic, local, visual, AI, and Digital PR strategies that build long-term authority and ensure your brand shows up where it counts.
We work in close partnership with social, Digital PR, content, web development and paid media teams to align performance across every touchpoint. Whether it’s powering revenue-driving pages, owning trend moments, or preparing for the future of AI search, we help fashion brands lead across every searchable channel.
We don’t just follow industry change – we shape it. Our team have guest lectured on the future of SEO at institutions like King’s College London since 2023, and we’ve been shortlisted for two European Search Awards in 2025 for one of our fashion clients, including Most Innovative SEO Campaign and Best Use of Social Media in a Search Campaign.
Get in Touch to Unlock Your Fashion Brand’s Organic Potential Today
Want to elevate your fashion ecommerce brand’s search visibility to the next level? Get in touch with our SEO team today!
Author’s Note: This article was written by Katie Hawkins, Senior SEO Manager and Danielle Ward, SEO Director on 13th August 2025.