How much SEO value does a fashion site get from bolting text onto the bottom of home page? Does the value compensate for cluttering up a page focused on an iconic image?

[RandyP]

Getting ready to launch a completely redesigned site for a fashion designer. Since it is a fashion site, visitors do not need text to describe what the site is about., We are weighing three options: 1) clean design with no text (just images and navigational links), 2) bolting on a couple of sentences of text at the bottom of the page to signal keyword terms to the search engines, 3) following the lead of the top ranking site in the category and adding lots of text to the bottom of the page.

Do the SEO benefits justify cluttering up the design by bolting text onto the bottom of the home page, and if so, how many characters of text seem to be the minimum to be effective?

[EGOL]

Nice work!

[RandyP]

I am going to close out the conversation by thanking the respondents and admitting that I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Google's current rankings for the most competitive keywords in my niche have become highly correlated with the sites that have the most comprehensive text. In my opinion, it is providing a skewed result, as many viewers of fashion sites ignore the text, but there is not much sense in fighting the algo. The algo isn't smart enough yet to be able to judge great photography.

[Bryant-Jaquez]

As the owner of a design firm/SEO agency, I feel justified saying that designers need to grow up a little bit and stop making excuses (imho.) It is not that hard to make a high quality site that includes both text and images. Photographers do it all the time (like this.)

Put information on your site that visitors will actually enjoy reading. Talk about what kind of materials the clothes were made from. You can describe the stitch patterns, the designer, what famous people have worn your clothes (if any) suggestions of how to accessorize the item with other products from your store...etc.

Obviously, you should find tactful and organic ways of including that information. In closing, I'd like to point out that sites without textual content rarely out-rank their competitors. Even PR 7-10 sites like Facebook & Pinterest are not able to rank for pictures without text.

[Unity]

Agreeing with everyone here, text is vital. Perhaps the non-text sites that rank do so because no other sites compete with them meaning links alone are placing them up high (i.e. no SEO optimization). Imagine being able to add some nice text to a well designed page and quickly gaining great placement.

As well as permanent introductory text I'd also recommend adding text that will change out, like a placement for the hottest fashion accessory and another for the hottest designer. Have these change out regularly and also link through to lower level pages. This will also give people another reason to come back, just like a womens gossip magazine, people buy them week after week because they know content is updated often.

[bradkrussell]

Randy those two sites are VERY well known brands - they can get away with less content to a certain extent (they're going to get a lot of natural links easily). I agree with EGOL, text is very important. Add some content about what your site is about, deep links to some key pages on your site, blog excerpts etc. Remember, getting visitors to your site and then off your homepage to other areas of your site is the key, not some fancy banner that takes up half the page and 'looks nice'.

[RandyP]

My previous response makes a bit more sense if I added the word "fashion" in front of the word designer in the first sentence. I totally agree that letting "web" or "graphic' designers make final decisions about web pages is a deadly mistake. However, when developing for a fashion house and the fashion designer is also paying the bills, his opinion counts for a lot, even if it is lousy SEO. On a anecdotal note, one of the most competitive terms in the fashion industry in "wedding dresses". The top ranked designer site has a lot of text in their links, but virtually no other textual content. So here is an anecdotal example that text content is not necessary to rank well for a fashion site. However, it is obviously foolhardy to give a lot of weight to a single example that may just be an exception to the rule.

[EGOL]

I know lots of designers who are adamant about their opinions.... but very few to none of them have done A/B testing to determine the impact of their designs on visitors, conversions or search engines.

Lots of redesigns tank when they go up.   Traffic drops or conversions drop or rankings drop.   Or a combination of these.

I am all ears to hear about case studies... but don't have a lot of faith in untested opinions.

I let my visitors inform me of how the design is working.  They are the voice that counts.

[RandyP]

Many designers, who ultimately approve the design of their sites, would disagree with your opinion. A couple of examples of sites with minimal text on the home page are, marcjacobs.com and versace.com. Obviously, the fact that there are examples of sites with home pages with minimal text does not mean it it appropriate, maybe just the in way to go. But then again, being on trend is everything in the fashion industry

[CMC-SD]

Visitors don't need text? I find that difficult to believe. People like to read about fashion, as you can see from the numerous fashion blogs that get tons of hits. If the design wasn't created with text in mind, it sounds like the design needs to be changed.

[EGOL]

My homepage looks like the homepage of the LATimes.com.

Tons of text.

Intentional.

Those tons of text pull in thousands long tail visitors.

So, if I removed all of that text and slapped up an image I would loose a lot of visitors, a lot of income and a lot of SEO benefit that those visitors produce through likes links tweets and shares.

Nobody is going to "bolt" anything onto my site.   I would tell the designer... "This text is an essential part of the design... non negotiable.  Use your creativity to make it look great."