Behind the world of Bliss: A look into the skincare’s ecommerce site

        Skincare and beauty products seems to be more popular now than ever before. Although, I’m not sure if that’s because I’m at the age where I should start caring about this or if it’s just because they are more popular. In order to keep myself calm and feeling young, I’m going to go with the fact that these products are more talked about now! With that being said, Bliss has been a skincare company that I have known about for a couple of years now. The bright and fun colored packaging was what caught my eye in Target one day. I decided to do some research of my own and was brought to Bliss’s ecommerce Website where I found loads of information about its products. But since this blog is all about web analytics and SEO, let’s look at how Bliss uses both of those to monitor visitor traffic and customers!

(Wikipedia, 2020)

What is Bliss?

        Bliss was founded in 1996 in New York City’s SoHo. The company “ignited the modern spa revolution and championed skincare as self-care before it was a trend” (Bliss World Inc., 2021). In 2018, the brand relaunched its products with new branding and ingredients at a more affordable price point (i.e., everything under $30). Bliss is a “clean, cruelty-free, spa-powered skincare brand” (Bliss World Inc., 2021). The brand operates its own spas located in New York City and Washington D.C. It also has its own ecommerce Website along with selling its products through major retailers such as Target, Ulta and Amazon.

What tools is Bliss currently using?

        When a visitor enters the Bliss Website, they are presented with a bright and fun Web design but what is behind all of that? Well, upon entering the site, visitors are given the option to enable or disable accessibility up in the right hand corner. When a visitor enters the site, it is defaulted to enable accessibility. According to Bliss (2021), when accessibility is enabled the site has “all the same content and features but is formatted with assistive users in mind and is tested for accessibility.” Bliss uses “unique technology from UsableNet to ensure assistive users have full access to all content and features” (Bliss World Inc., 2021).

        Another tool that Bliss is currently using is cookies. Cookies are small data files that are stored on a visitor’s browser or device. These cookies allow Bliss to remember things about a user so that it can provide them with a better experience (Bliss World Inc., 2020). Bliss uses both first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created by Bliss and they help to provide each user with a better experience and to keep the session open (Wlosik & Sweeney, 2018). Third-party cookies are created by domains other than Bliss (e.g., Google) and are mainly used for tracking and online-advertising purposes, and providing certain services (e.g., live chat) (Wlosik & Sweeney, 2018).

How is Bliss using those tools?

        Now that we know what tools Bliss is using for web analytics and SEO, let’s discuss how they are using them and why.

        Since Bliss enables Web accessibility on its site, it helps improve its SEO. According to Ruth Everett (2020), an accessible website helps all users:

• Easily navigate the site.
• Improve their experience.
• Find information they are looking for.

This accessibility for all users helps Bliss to improve not only its SEO but its user experience (UX). One way Bliss has made their site accessible is by including alt image tags like the one seen below. According to Michael H. Fleischner (2020), Google takes the keywords used in the alt image tags into account when evaluating your website content. When relevant keywords are used in these tags, a sites Google rank can improve.

(Bliss World Inc., 2021)

        Bliss also includes a sitemap on its Website. This sitemap provides access to all the other pages on Bliss’ Website. Fleischner (2020) states sitemaps are important as they enable search engines to spider a site much quicker. Not only are sitemaps important for crawlers, they are also important for web accessibility. Everett (2020) claims sitemaps are important for web accessibility as they provide an overview, and clear access, to all the important pages on the site. Sitemaps are a great tool for SEO for both of these reasons.

        Bliss is using cookies to provide its visitors with a better user experience. Bliss (2020) states it's using them “to help see which features are most popular, count visitors on a page, improve user experience and to keep its services secure.” According to Bliss (2020), the cookies it uses typically fall into one of the following categories:

• Technical,
• Preferences,
• Security,
• Performance,
• Analytics,
• Advertising.

The following is an overview provided by Bliss for each cookie category:

Technical cookies are essential for Bliss’ services to function properly. Preference cookies are used to remember your settings and preferences (e.g., language preference). Security cookies are used to help identify and prevent security risks. Performance cookies are used to collect information about how you interact with Bliss services and to help them improve those services. Analytics cookies are also used to help Bliss understand and improve its services. Lastly, advertising cookies are used by both Bliss and its advertising partners to deliver advertisements, make the ads more relevant and meaningful to visitors and track the efficiency of its advertising campaigns, both on its Website and other Websites (Bliss World Inc., 2020).

Bliss allows its visitors to adjust their cookie preferences, meaning visitors have the option to opt-out of these cookies if they wish. Bliss (2020) currently uses Google Analytics but visitors are able to prevent their data from being used by the platform by installing Google’s opt-out browser add-on. Visitors can also opt-out of ads on Facebook, Pinterest or Google by changing their settings via those sites (Bliss World Inc., 2020).

        Overall, it seems that Bliss is performing well with its current uses of Web analytics and SEO, especially to monitor visitor traffic and customers. But no site is ever completely perfect so I have offered some suggestions on how to improve even more.

Suggestions

        The first suggestion I have for Bliss is to work on its sites backlinks. The site currently has a Domain Authority Score of 53 with an overall toxicity score of Medium, meaning that its backlink profile doesn’t look perfect (Semrush, 2021). According to Semrush (2021), a Domain Authority Score between 45 and 59 is potentially toxic. Below, we can see that Bliss has more potentially toxic or toxic domains that it should. In order to improve this, Bliss should review the backlinks then reach out to the site owner of those toxic backlinks and request to be removed or it should disavow the most toxic backlinks (Semrush, 2021). Disavowing means that Bliss would request that Google ignore its toxic backlinks. The brand should also whitelist the good and trustworthy backlinks.

(Semrush, 2021)

        After running a Site Audit on Bliss, I found a number of issues that need to be addressed. Bliss currently has a Site Health of 75 percent along with multiple issues in each of Semrush’s categories (Semrush, 2021). To begin, Bliss should address the Errors first and move down the line to Warnings and Notices. Errors include the most important issues that need to be addressed and fixed immediately. Once these are resolved, Bliss can see improvements to its Website and SERPs rank.

(Semrush, 2021)

        Lastly, Bliss needs to improve its bounce rate. According to Jay Peyton (n.d.), the rule of thumb for bounce rates is as follows:

• 26 to 40 percent is excellent,
• 41 to 55 percent is roughly average,
• 56 to 70 percent is higher than average,
• Anything over 70 percent is disappointing.

But according to Customedialabs (2021), the benchmark bounce rate for ecommerce and retail is between 20 percent and 45 percent. Bliss currently has a bounce rate of 67.55 percent which is way higher than what it ideally should be. In order to improve this rate, Bliss should use its Google Analytics data to get more insight as to why its bounce rate is so high. With this data, the company can then implement different split A/B tests to hopefully make improvements. Some of these split tests could include optimizing its product pages by testing different copy or offering a live chat feature to help users with their experience.

Conclusion

        Since Bliss does have its own ecommerce Website, it needs to always be improving and changing the SEO and Web Analytics tools and techniques it is using. Without constantly upgrading and improving, Bliss will be lost in the shuffle of the ever-changing skincare and beauty ecommerce industry.

 

I would love to hear your thoughts about Bliss and its use of Web analytics and SEO so leave ‘em in the comments!

 

 

References

Bliss World Inc. (2020, January 1). Cookie Policy. Retrieved from Bliss: https://www.blissworld.com/cookie-policy/

Bliss World Inc. (2021). Bliss. Retrieved from Bliss: https://www.blissworld.com/

Bliss World Inc. (2021). Our Story. Retrieved from Bliss: https://www.blissworld.com/our-story/

customedialabs. (2021). Bounce Rates: What’s Good, What’s Bad, and Why You Should Give a Damn. Retrieved from Customedialabs: https://www.customedialabs.com/blog/bounce-rates/

Everett, R. (2020, September 3). How & Why Accessibility Matters for SEO. Retrieved from Search Engine Journal: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-accessibility/379582/#close

Fleischner, M. H. (2020). SEO Made Simple 2020: Insider Secrets for Driving More Traffic to Your Website (7 ed.). USA: Independently Published.

Peyton, J. (n.d.). Good, Bad, Ugly, and Average Bounce Rates. Retrieved from Rocket Fuel: https://www.gorocketfuel.com/the-rocket-blog/whats-the-average-bounce-rate-in-google-analytics/

Semrush. (2021, April 19). Backlink Audit: Bliss. Retrieved from Semrush: https://www.semrush.com/backlink_audit/5183809/overview

Semrush. (2021, April 19). Site Audit: Bliss. Retrieved from Semrush: https://www.semrush.com/siteaudit/campaign/5183809/review/#overview

Wikipedia. (2020, October 29). Bliss (spa). Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_(spa)

Wlosik, M., & Sweeney, M. (2018, November 2). What’s the Difference Between First-Party and Third-Party Cookies? Retrieved from Clear Code: https://clearcode.cc/blog/difference-between-first-party-third-party-cookies/#first-party-cookies