Chewy: A Case Study

(Tyler, 2020)

I’ve never actually purchased anything from Chewy, but I’ve always been curious about getting something from this website. I’m also a dog lover and have an English Springer Spaniel, so I decided this would be a good time to explore this e-commerce retailer. 

Chewy (Chewy.com) was introduced in 2011 and has changed the way many people shop for their pets (Chewy, 2021-c). With over 2,000 brands, Chewy has products for dogs, cats, fish, small pets, reptiles, farm animals, and horses that are shipped to your door (Chewy, 2021-b). They sell items such as food, litter, pet beds, treats, toys, supplements, leashes, and collars. They have a pharmacy that will fill and ship prescriptions, and customers can also connect with a vet if they have questions or concerns (Chewy, 2021-b). 

(Chewy, 2021-b)

The company is committed to quality, speed, customer service and customer experience. Their mission is to “be the most trusted and convenient online destination for pet parents (and partners) everywhere (Chewy, 2021-c). The Chewy headquarters are located in Florida and Boston with fulfillment centers in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Ohio (Chewy, 2021-a).

In fiscal year 2019, Chewy’s net sales reached $4.8 billion dollars. They had about 15 million active customers at the end of Q1 in 2020 (Chewy, 2021-c). 

Before diving into posting, selling, and promoting, it’s important for companies to have established goals, strategies, tactics, and measurement plans. Melanie Mitchell, director of acquisition marketing and SEO at Chewy.com, recommends that companies crawl their sites and review their current content marketing strategies to see what’s working well and what’s not working (Perrin, 2019). Businesses should review website elements such as website logos, duplicate content, meta data, and page speed (Perrin, 2019). These elements affect both SEO and the customer experience. It’s also critical to creating customer-centric content. Perrin states, “In order to lead them [customers] down the funnel, you must know your customer’s interests, desires, and need to then create content that addresses those thinks effectively.” The better the customer experience, the more acquisitions and loyalty a business will gain. It's also helpful to analyze competitors to understand their strategy and see how they are connecting with customers (Perrin, 2019). 

A survey conducted in 2018 concluded that Amazon.com, Walmart.com, and Chewy.com were the most popular online retailers for pet products (Statista Research Department, 2021).

With so many other pet retailers offering online services, how did Chewy become one of the most popular online stores that consumers are buying pet products from? Let’s take a look how web analytics and SEO has influenced this. 

When Chewy was first getting established in a 20-billion-dollar industry, the company was only being discovered by paid search. Chewy teamed up with REV7 (n.d.), an innovation and growth agency, to help increase organic search, total transactions, and revenue over two years. REV7 used SEO, PPP (pay-per-click), conversion optimization, and social media marketing. As a result of these efforts, the website saw a 263% increase in organic traffic. They added several hundred of keywords, helping Chewy to go from no rankings to ranking on the first page in two years. REV7 also helped to generate 173,000 new links through blogger outreach, affiliates, media buys, and strategic partnerships. Chewy also has a blog directly on its website. These different techniques and the growth in organic traffic led to a 380% increase in transactions and a 29% increase in visit per value (REV7, n.d.). 

(REV7, n.d.)

In January 2021, Chewy.com received 43.7 million visits (SEMrush, 2021-f). There are 790.5K keywords that are driving people to the website. These keywords are estimated to bring in 6.8 million users (SEMrush, 2021-e). Chewy has 7.2K keyword variations, 738 questions, and 2.4K related keywords (SEMrush, 2021-c). Keyword research is an important process in “better understanding your target market and how they are searching for your content, services, or products” (Moz, n.d.). Companies can learn what people are searching for, the number of people that are searching for something, and the searcher’s preferred format of information (Moz, n.d.). Reed College of Media (2021) states, “Your perception of keywords and searchers perceptions of keywords may be very different.” Understanding how and what people are searching for can help businesses provide the best customer experience possible.  

Some of the keywords that drive the most traffic for Chewy include “food,” “dog,” “cat,” “puppies,” “pharmacy,” “french bulldog, and “german shepherd.” Some of these keywords appear on the homepage of the website as well as in the head tag element and meta description (SEMrush, 2021-e)

(SEMrush, 2021-e)

Chewy can definitely improve in the keyword arena. The website has less keywords and is gaining less traffic than some of its competitors. Some of the top keyword opportunities for Chewy include “yorkie,” “big dogs,” “crate training a puppy,” and “schnauzer” (SEMrush, 2021-c).

 

(SEMrush, 2021-e)

Another important technique that Chewy uses is optimizing their product pages for conversions, which can impact SEO and customer experience. Keywords are also an important part of the optimization process. Looking at one particular example of dog food, Chewy uses the following elements to create a strong product page (Palatnik, 2020):

• Title: It includes the brand of the product and flavor if referring to food.
• Breadcrumb Links: This is the brand of the product below the title, which is highlighted in blue. This is a link and helps with SEO. This helps Chewy to rank #2 for the keyword “Buffalo Blue”
• Reviews: These can have a very powerful impact on people’s decision to purchase a product. 
• Q&A: This helps to provide information on the same page as the product, which makes it easier for customers to find answers to their questions. This also helps to provide more credit and authority for your website while also building user-generated content, which can help with SEO. 
• Pricing: The regular price and subscription price are very clearly highlighted, making it easy for users to see this important information.
• Availability: This helps to enhance the customer experience by providing a clear understanding of the products that are available and the products that are sold out.
• Sizing: This can be helpful for SEO as well as providing an easier experience for the customer.
• Buying Element: “Add to Cart” is clear to help show customers what action they should take. 
• Product Images: The images include marketing material and showcase the value of the product.
• Frequently Bought Together Element: This feature uses consumer data to show what products are usually purchased together, which can help to increase the average order value and overall sales.
• Description: The description should highlight the main benefits of the product without going overboard. Tell customers how the product will benefit them and their pet.
• Enhanced Content: This helps to provide customers more information about a brand before purchasing, which can be especially useful for customers in the research phase of the buying process.
• Product Comparison: This helps compare different products to help customers learn which product is best for their pet.  

(Palatnik, 2020)

The title “Blue Buffalo Wilderness Chicken Recipe Grain-Free Dry Dog Food” is really long; however, this is a great example of how using a long-tailed keyword can be very beneficial. Long-tailed keywords are defined as “terms with low search volumes” (Soulo, 2020). Using long-term keywords costs less and provides a higher chance of closing because there is less demand and competition (Reed College of Media, 2020). They keyword “grain-free dry dog food” has a search volume of 480. When you search this keyword in Google, Chewy shows up as a result on the first page (Palatnik, 2020).

The On Page SEO checker tool through SEMrush analyzed 49 pages and identified ways to optimize every page. For the 49 pages, SEMrush compiled 201 ideas for how to improve the website. The ideas fall into the following three categories: content ideas, semantic ideas, and backlink ideas. Some of the ideas include making the text content more readable, enriching page content, providing more relevant titles, and providing more relevant meta descriptions (SEMrush, 2021-d).

Something that Chewy can do to help improve their overall web analytic efforts is to add H1 headings. Headings are important to help both users and search engines understand what your website or article is about. Alderson (2020) uses the term "signposts" to describe headings, stating that they "guide readers through an article." Headings allow readers to scan an article and still get an overall understanding of its key features. They also help communicate to search engines that your article is relevant and more important than others when people search specific topics or keywords (Zahringer, 2010).

H1 headings should be used to describe the name or title of the page or post, and H2 headings should be used like subheadings to describe different sections of the page or article (Alderson, 2020). Zahringer (2010) recommends using short-tail and long-tail keywords in headers so that search engines recognize the important keywords when they crawl your website. Zahringer (2010) states, "The h1 tag should contain your targeted keywords, ones that closely relate to the page title, and are relevant to your content. The h2 tag is a subheading and should contain similar keywords to your h1 tag." You have to be careful not to stuff too many keywords in headings, or it could actually come back to hurt you (Zahringer, 2010). They do not have any H1 headings but they have 15 H2 headings. Some of the H2 headings are “customer favorites,” “2,000+ brands in stock!,” and “shop by pet” (Internet Marketing Ninja, 2021).

Overall, I think Chewy has some very strong techniques. It seems like they’ve used data in the past to help improve their sites and to create a stronger customer experience. SEO is a continuous journey, so there are always more ways that the company can improve their site to increase traffic, acquire customers, and increase revenue. 

References:

Alderson, J. (2020, December 7). SEO basics: How to use headings on your site. Yoast. Retrieved from https://yoast.com/how-to-use-headings-on-your-site/#why-headings.

Chewy. (2021-a). About Chewy. Retrieved from https://www.chewy.com/app/content/about-us.

Chewy. (2021-b). Home. Retrieved from https://www.chewy.com/.

Chewy. (2021-c). Investors. Retrieved from https://investor.chewy.com/overview/default.aspx.

Internet Marketing Ninjas. (2021). Side-by-side SEO comparison tool. Retrieved from https://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/seo-tools/seo-compare/.

Moz. (n.d.). Chapter 3: Keyword research: Understand what your audience wants to find. Retrieved from https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research.

Palantik, P. (2020, August 2). Anatomy of a product page for conversion optimization from Chewy.com. ETREND. Retrieved from https://etrend.com/anatomy-of-a-product-page-for-conversion-optimization-from-chewy-com/.

Perrin, S. (2019, May 8). E-commerce SEO case study: A few insights from Chewy’s Melanie Mitchell. Tandem Interactive. Retrieved from https://tandem.buzz/seo/e-commerce-seo-case-study-chewys-melanie-mitchell/.

Reed College of Media. (2021). Week 6 lesson: Further thoughts on keyword research, content and introduction to SEMrush. Retrieved from https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_155927_1&content_id=_7582549_1&framesetWrapped=true.

REV7. (n.d.). Chewy. Retrieved from https://www.rev7.co/chewy-case-study#second-link.

Semrush. (2021-a). Domain overview. Chewy.com. Retrieved from https://www.semrush.com/analytics/overview/?searchType=domain&q=chewy.com.

SEMerush. (2021-b). Keyword gap. Retrieved from https://www.semrush.com/analytics/keywordgap/?db=us&q=chewy.com&searchType=domain&keywordType=organic&compareWith=petco.com%3Adomain%3Aorganic%7Cpetsmart.com%3Adomain%3Aorganic%7Cthesprucepets.com%3Adomain%3Aorganic%7Crover.com%3Adomain%3Aorganic&date=20210228.

SEMrush. (2021-c). Keyword overview: Chewy.com. Retrieved from https://www.semrush.com/analytics/keywordoverview/?q=chewy.com&searchType=domain&db=us.

SEMrush. (2021-d). On page SEO checker: Chewy. Retrieved from https://www.semrush.com/on-page-seo-checker/4930261/scores/all/?sb=priority&sd=desc.

SEMrush. (2021-e) Organic research: Chewy.com. Retrieved from https://www.semrush.com/analytics/organic/positions/?filter=%7B%22search%22%3A%22grain%20free%20dry%20dog%20food%22%2C%22volume%22%3A%22%22%2C%22positions%22%3A%22%22%2C%22serpFeatures%22%3A%22%22%2C%22advanced%22%3A%7B%7D%7D&db=us&q=chewy.com&searchType=domain&date=20210228.

SEMrush. (2021-f). Traffic analytics: Chewy.com. Retrieved from https://www.semrush.com/analytics/traffic/overview/chewy.com?searchType=domain.

Statista Research Department. (2021, February 9). Online stores consumers buy pet products from in the U.S. 2019.

Statista Research Department. (2021, January 29). U.S. online pet care market-statistics & facts. Statista. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/topics/4405/online-pet-care-market/#:~:text=The%20most%20popular%20shopping%20locations,Walmart%2C%20followed%20by%20grocery%20stores.

Soulo, T. (2020, November 13). What are long-tail keywords? How to find and use them. Ahrefs Blog. Retrieved from https://ahrefs.com/blog/long-tail-keywords/#:~:text=Long%2Dtail%20keywords%20are%20terms,or%20how%20specific%20it%20is.

Tyler, J. (2020, September 15). Chewy sales growth reflects pet industry e-commerce boom. Pet Food Processing. Retrieved from https://www.petfoodprocessing.net/articles/14113-chewy-sales-growth-reflects-pet-industry-e-commerce-boom.

Zahringer, D. (2010, September 16). H1, H2, and H3 header tags for SEO. TM. Retrieved from https://www.tmprod.com/blog/2010/h1-h2-and-h3-header-tags-for-seo/#:~:text=Header%20tags%20have%20their%20own,keywords%20to%20your%20h1%20tag..