With so many people heading to the internet to do their shopping, online retailers need to distance themselves from the pack. By using online marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) one online hat retailer has done just that and increased sales by more than 200 percent.

Hat Club, an Arizona-based online retailer with locations in Arizona, California and Texas, says it has used a number of online marketing tools to boost sales from its website 245 percent over the last year.

By teaming up with marketing firm Terralever to create a search engine optimization (SEO) campaign that is balanced with paid search, email marketing and social networking, the company says that in the last 12 months, it has seen a 175 percent increase in traffic to the site.

An aggressive search engine optimization (SEO) campaign seems to have been the most effective part of the overall online marketing effort for Hat Club. The company says it began implementing SEO five months ago and has since seen natural search traffic increase by more than 125 percent.

Even with an increase in the amount of people buying clothing online, many retailers have been avoiding search engine optimization (SEO) and other online marketing tools. According to the 2010 Search Marketing Guide from Internet Retailer, retailers owned a little more than half of the top three spots in search results for 20 different retail keywords.

Katherine Griwert is Brafton's Marketing Director. She's practiced content marketing, SEO and social marketing for over five years, and her enthusiasm for new media has even deeper roots. Katherine holds a degree in American Studies from Boston College, and her writing is featured in a number of web publications.