Assignment Snapshot: Pick a favorite multinational company and create a list of 10 keywords you think should be associated with that company and its products. Do a Google Search of those keywords and see where in the results (if at all) you find the company you selected. Go to the company’s site and review their coding to see if any of the words you selected appear on their homepage

If you know me, have read this blog at all or seen some of my discussion posts for the Social Media Masters Program at University of Florida, then you know I am an aspiring yogi. It started after the birth of my first child when I was very overweight and fighting the baby blues. I’ve written about this journey in the Namaste section of this blog so I won’t dive into it here. Part of that journey though, was discovering the Athleta brand. They are yoga clothes for normal people like me. While in my head I may look like this:

The reality looks more like this:

SO WHAT IS ATHLETA?

 According to Athleta, they are  Gap Inc.’s premier fitness and lifestyle brand in the rapidly growing women’s active apparel market. Athleta offers high-quality, stylish, and functional apparel, footwear, and accessories across a  wide variety of sports and fitness activities, including crossover apparel and casualwear. Athleta products are found online, in stores, and through catalogs.  Athleta, the premier name in women’s fitness  fashion, values inspiring an active lifestyle from yoga to running to cross-fit. Athleta values motivating others and tapping into our collective power as women. Their slogan or tag line is Power to the She. Athleta was founded in 1998 in Petaluma, California. It started as a catalogue business that grew into online sales and was purchased by Gap Inc. in 2008 for $150 million. Since Gap Inc. acquired Athleta, they have opened  over 80 brick and mortar stores. (as of September 2014)

Ten keywords or keyword phrases for Search Engine Optimization:

• Womens fitness clothing
• Womens yoga clothing
• Discount yoga clothing
• Womens fitness fashion
• Yoga clothing
• Running clothing
• Athletic clothing
• Yoga pants
• Sportswear
• Yoga brands

I performed a Google search of each keyword phrase. The gallery below shows each result (click on image for larger view):

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Athleta chooses to pay for Yoga Brands, Yoga Clothing, Womens Yoga Clothing and Athletic Clothing. Priority appears to be expansion and fighting the perception that they are only a yoga brand based on their purchase of the top spot, left rail for the keyword phrase “Athletic Clothing.” They still clearly emphasize yoga based on these searches and you see they paid for a top right rail spot for the keyword phrase “Womens Yoga Clothing.”

In reviewing their homepage, some of the keywords appear directly on the page visible to all. First, in the title of the site captured above the URL (see below) you will see “Womens” “Yoga Clothing” and “Run Clothing”.

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The words “Fashion” and “Sport” also appear on the homepage. Looking at their site, they are really focused on performance, style and versatility. If I were going to redo my list, I would consider adding these in but with clothing or fashion also included.

In looking at the site’s HTML and alt tags, I found the following (click to view larger image):

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Under metadata the description reads:

“The ultimate performance apparel for women. Shop Athleta yoga clothing, running clothing, swimwear & more online and in stores. Clothing designed and tested by and for women athletes.”

The metadata description is formatted well for SEO based on some of my choices. Below you will see the keywords that Athleta uses in the metadata above. The bold ones align with my choices above :

• Athleta
• athletica
• womens yoga clothing
• swimwear
• running clothing
• athletic clothing
• workout clothing
• exercise clothing
• swimwear
• tankini
• bikini
• one piece swimsuit
• yoga pants
• yoga tops
• running tops
• running shorts
• skort
• golf clothing
• tennis clothing
• special sizes
• petite sizes
• plus sizes
• tall sizes
• organic cotton
• tights
• yoga tights
• run tights

They wisely use a common misspelling of their brand “Athletica”, the importance of which was discussed in lecture this week. Given the look and layout of their homepage, I would also consider adding performance wear and athletic style to keyword phrase choices.

Overall, based on this metadata and my Google searches, Athleta does a nice job capitalizing on SEO for the customer they want to target.

For me, the love affair is about comfort and price. I’m not a size zero and I want to practice without being half-naked. Athleta clothes accomplish this for me and I’m grateful for that.