Four Mine Co. LLC is riding a growing organic traffic wave.
Online-only engagement rings and jewelry retailer FourMine.com‘s web traffic between March and May surged more than 200% compared with the year-ago period, according to SimilarWeb Ltd. data. And organic search drove 53% of that increase, up from 25% during the same period a year earlier.
Several marketing tactics have helped drive that increase, says co-founder Slisha Kankariya.
The best way to increase organic search ranking is to be viewed as an authoritative source on that content, which is why the retailer has made an effort to create abundant content about engagement ring shopping on its own website. At the same time, the retailer has attracted authoritative websites—such as news articles—to link back to its content, which also helps boost its natural search rankings, she says.
Increase website content
Four Mine has increased the “Education” part of its website with content informing shoppers about the many different facets shoppers need to consider when buying an engagement ring, such as the diamond’s size, stone setting and cut. As a small retailer of less than $10 million in annual sales, Four Mine aims to appear near the top of natural search results for long-tail keywords such as “diamond size chart” instead of generic terms such as “engagement bands,” because it is less competitive and the retailer is more likely to move up in the rankings, Kankariya says.
This has helped Four Mine reach the top three results in Google search for the keyword “diamond size chart.” In fact, this is the top search term driving traffic to the retailer’s site, generating 10.6% of all its visits in the past three months; it even ranks above the search term “four mine,” according to SimilarWeb. A year ago, the term generated minimal traffic to FourMine.com.
In the last six months, the retailer has added 100 ring styles to its site. In line with that expansion, it has created more content related to those products to help it bolster its search results. Next on its list is to create content around “split shank diamond rings,” “rose gold engagement rings” and “two-toned engagement rings,” Kankariya says.
Grab media attention to build links
Several influential wedding bloggers and news articles have published articles about Four Mine, which has helped increase its ranking.
One of Four Mine’s unique offerings that has gotten the attention of bloggers and the news media is its “at-home preview.” The free preview lets shoppers choose the ring styles, and Four Mine 3-D prints identical copies of the rings and ships them to the shopper to try on for a couple days before shipping them back. The rings visually look like the engagement ring would; however, the material it uses is way less valuable and can’t withstand everyday use like diamonds can.
And with the increased traffic comes increased sales, Kankariya says. In 2017, Four Mine generated between $2 and $4 million in online sales, and the retailer is projecting to generate $20 million by the end of 2018. While this is a large surge, sales in the first half of the year are on track to reach this projection, she says without providing exact figures.
Speed up the site and improve usability
Another initiative Four Mine had was to increase the usability on its mobile site by upgrading its Magento Commerce e-commerce platform to Magento 2.1, which helped increase the speed of the site, she says. The retailer also got rid of redundant cascading style sheets that were eating away at load times and eliminated APIs that were inefficient, she says. These changes helped increase time on site, pages per session and reduced the site’s mobile bounce rate, Kankariya says without revealing specifics.
Although the retailer sells a variety of 150,000 diamonds, such as some high-value diamonds for more than $10,000, Four Mine’s average order value is around $5,500, which Kankariya says is near to the national average for what consumers spend on an engagement ring.
Four Mine, which now employs 12 people, went through a New York City technology accelerator and raised about $2.5 million. Next, the retailer is looking to raise around $4 to $5 million in a series A round to scale up its operations and hire more employees to fulfill orders, she says.
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