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Today I am going to show you how we increased monthly revenue to £109,377 for an ecommerce store throughout Covid…
…despite the fact they are in the sports niche-
In fact we’ve been able to-
- Increase daily search traffic from 940 to 2,684
- Increase monthly transactions from 394 to 1,028
- Increase monthly revenue from £37,451 to £109,377 (£127,266 at peak)
Which perfectly positions them for success as we move into the golden quarter this year.
How did my team at Search Logistics do that?
Well, keep reading and I’ll break down the complete strategy for you step by step!
What Will I Learn?
A Closer Look At The Case Study Site
The client is an ecommerce site in the sports industry that competes against many household names.
This wasn’t helped by Covid, especially after the UK’s lockdown announcement in March.
So we spent the first part of the year making sure the site was in the right position to benefit when lockdown restrictions were lifted.
What did work in our favour was that many companies reduced their budgets & SEO spend during the initial Covid panic.
This is what we did-
- Analyzed the competition
- Completed a technical SEO audit
- Fixed all of the problems we found
- And cleaned up the link profile
But it wasn’t quite as easy as that because the site presented several challenges that I am going to talk you through below.
Challenges We Had To Overcome
The sports niche is a competitive niche with well-established brands with big-budgets dedicated to their marketing campaigns and website.
However, this isn’t the first time we have had to overcome such problems.
In this case, our main goals were to rank for the specific brands our client sells by building a cleaner on-page structure focused on driving authority to the top converting pages.
But when we first took the site on there were a number of problems to deal with like:
- Low-quality link profile
- Poor internal linking
- Missing and/or duplicate content
- Poor keyword research
- Weak on page optimisation
Plus – the website wasn’t particularly user friendly either which led to poor bounce rates, engagement and conversion.
Interested in ecommerce? Check out these ecommerce statistics.
Creating A Plan Of Attack
So with an uphill battle ahead of us…
…we put a 6 step strategy in place to guide us to search success!
Step #1 – Backlinks
Based on client feedback, the first thing we looked at was the backlink profile.
Ideally we like to see relevant links with a healthy mix of exact match, partial match, branded and generic anchor text.
But our client had a cluttered backlink profile with many domains that were not only irrelevant but very low in their quality.
To combat this problem, incremental updates to the disavow files were made in March, April, June and July on all variations of the client’s domain in Google Search Console.
This helped us to exclude the toxic links Google associated with the client.
We specifically looked for:
- Domains with no authority.
- Targeted anchor text.
- Total number of backlinks from any single domain.
- Traffic statistics of those domains linking to the client’s domain.
As we were cleaning existing backlinks (Learn how to disavow backlinks), we were also building new relevant and authorative links whilst also taking care of…
Step #2 – On-Page SEO
During our analysis we found that competitors category pages were ranking almost at will, but our clients category pages were not.
Why?
Because competitors were including complemntary excerpts of text on their category pages to supplement the products listed on the page.
This was a small but crucial difference that were allowing competitors to clean up.
Adding content to your category pages is essential for 2 reasons:
- They provide context to the user in terms what or how to buy.
- They help search engines to establish the topical relevance they need.
In some cases our client had added keyword stuffed content to category pages previously, but it was hidden and way over-optimized by today’s SEO standards.
So instead we replaced all of that with content that assists people’s buying decisions with internal links to key pages, brands and products placed accordingly.
Then, we let the products on the page do the rest of the talking.
Check out my full SEO checklist for more content optimization hacks.
Step #3 – Internal Anchor Text Optimization
The client was not making the best use of internal anchor text opportunities.
In most cases they were linking to category, sub-category and product pages with generic anchor text like-
- See More
- View Now
- Click Here
But internal linking is one of the most powerful tactics in Ecommerce SEO:
And Google’s John Mueller went on record to say-
“The context we pick up from internal linking is really important to us… with that kind of anchor text, that text around the links. That’s really important to us.”
So it pains us to see internal links that use generic anchor text at scale.
In this case, we recommended that they use the exact keyword that the category, subcategory or product wants to rank for as anchor text where possible.
Step #4 – Technical Fixes & Implementation
Our technical SEO audit found a number of fundamental problems that we needed to fix in order to create a well-oiled site.
This included problems like-
- Adding relevant ALT tags
- Fixing internal 301 redirects
- Taking care of all 4XX errors
- Updating duplicate meta data
And so forth!
Although many of these are low level problems, lots of small problems quickly add up to a big problem so it’s important to take care of these as you find them.
We also worked to increased website speed across the board-
Because site speed is not only a ranking factor for Google, but for your customers as well.
Step #5 – Page Titles
One of the biggest weaknesses of the site was that the page titles were not including target keywords to cement the purpose of the page.
Ideally you want to do this as close to the start of the title tag as possible-
But this wasn’t the case for this client.
Instead they were using title tags that looked like-
Brand Name | Online Sports Shop | Order Now | Partial Match Keyword
Which left an awful lot of room for opportunity! So we went through the entire site and updated titles to be keyword focused with SEO copywriting in mind.
Step #6 – Heading Tags
Like title tags, the use of heading tags throughout the site was also problematic.
Not only was the structure often wrong, but they were under utilising the opportunities a correct header strucutre presents-
We went through each page and updated the header structure to be correct and to also increase the overall net of relevant keywords we captured.
This also helped to establish topical relevance, reduce cannibalisation across the site and streamline the customer journey.
Need extra help to run your Magento ecommerce store? Check out my Magento SEO best practices to speed up your Magento store or hire one of these Magento SEO services!
The Results Are In
The site’s growth has been incredible-
And that is despite the fact they have had to fight off Covid lockdowns that had a huge impact across the sporting sector.
But more important than traffic growth, is revenue growth-
Because what good is hiring an SEO agency if they don’t add to your bottom line?
Overall we are proud to report that we-
- Increased daily search traffic from 940 to 2,684
- Increased monthly transactions from 394 to 1,028
- Increased monthly revenue from £37,451 to £109,377 (£127,266 at peak)
Which especially impressive given the competitive nature of the niche and the uphill battle we faced with lockdowns and the economy.
This is a case study we are particularly proud of because of how much we had to overcome!
If you need help with your SEO, feel free to check out my ecommerce SEO services list- Otherwise, we would love to help increase the revenue of your ecommerce store or website – Just Click Here Now!
Wrapping It Up
So there you have it.
How to grow organic traffic and revenue in a competitive niche during a pandemic and series of lockdowns against competitors with big budgets.
We didn’t do anything fancy or complicated. We just established a solid base that both Google and Humans love through technical audit and implementation.
Otherwise please feel free to check out some of our other SEO case studies-
- +73% Search Traffic With These 6 Fixes
- How to 14x search traffic in 8 months
- From 5,156 to 30,347 search visitors per month
- 656 top 3 rankings step by step
I promise you are going to love them!
What Are Your Thoughts?
93 Responses
157
+12,583
Hi Matthew, great work as always. We have been working on one of your previous videos, regarding the company in the beauty industry. Have built loads of links, optimised the pages, added extra content to improve on the competitors pages and sure enough, the rankings have improved.
Still a long way to go, but the path is a lot clearer now.
Happy to hear that. Keep it up!
This is very helpful information. good work and content. article is very interesting and easy to understand and learn. Thanks you for sharing
Thank you!
This is a very good and informative blog written by you, write more new blogs like this and share with us. thank you for sharing with…
Glad you found my blog helpful! More posts are coming soon!
Greetings.Thank you for posting an awesome article pertaining to ecommerce SEO optimization techniques.With the country i reside in steadily heading to a harsher lockdown level, i will definitely be putting some of your suggestions into practice.
Way to go! Applying what you learn is the best way to get results!
Great post!
It’s such a amazing blog on ecommerce seo. And also its very helpfull for others who work on how to increased monthly revenue.Thanks for sharing this amazing and helpful content.
No problem!
It’s truly incredible and extremely enlightening article .Thanks for sharing this extraordinary data and keep review these stunning data.
Thanks- Cheers!
Thank you for sharing this amazing and wonderful blog world with all of us. Your website is very nice and it has the best content blogs. Yours all blogs topics are really helpful, useful and very informative. So thank you for sharing all yours blog post.
Thank you for reading my posts! Cheers!
Very Nice I Love the way You Explain Things
Thank you! I appreciate it 🙂
Very informative article for the SEO student like me. Thank you
No problem, Umer!
keep on writing such a great post
Don’t worry, more posts and videos are coming! 😉
Nice article thanks for shaing this.
Always happy to help!
Thanks for sharing..
Thanks for reading 🙂
The article is amazingly precise to the point. Got a lot of valuable information about e-commerce SEO.
Glad to hear that!
very nice blog and good job firend
Cheers!
Such an interesting and amazing blog. Learned a lot of new important information from it. Thank you keep up the good work!
Thanks for reading!
Thanks for sharing..
Cheers!
Great article Matt. 1 question.Was the e-commerce store on a platform like Shopify or Wordpress? Thanks,B
Hi Ben! Yes, it was 🙂
Thanks for sharing Excellent information
No worries, Jawad!
Hey, Matthew Woodward I really like this blog not because it’s informative but I need this type of post because I’m doing SEO an e-commerce company and it’s my first e-commerce project, so I was facing a lot of problems like my traffic are increasing day by day but the conversation rate are decreasing day by day according to ahref we also losing keyword ranking.I learn most of the new thing so let me apply this and acknowledge you when I get the result
Hey Anurodh! Glad my case study helped. I suggest you read this as well- https://searchlogistics.com/seo/ecommerce/
The article is amazingly precise to the point. Got a lot of valuable information about e-commerce SEO. Thanks for the article.
No problem, Fred! Happy to share some tips with my readers 🙂
Hi Matthew, As always it was really pleasant to read your post. Do you work with french companies or should I wait my website to be translated in english to work with your team ?
Hey! It really depends on the website… Could you, please, submit an inquiry here- https://www.searchlogistics.com/enquiry/So my team can have a look at your website. Thanks 🙂
Fantastic case study Matthew. Love reading these case studies, Matthew. You make it look so easy. I particularly like the methodical way you work through and apply.
Thanks, Maksudur! Always happy to share my tips with my readers 🙂
Wow!!! It was a great blog with so much information about how to get more and more revenue during Covid-19.Thanks for sharing these useful suggestions. I am also following these techniques after which I may earn revenue.
No worries! Hope it works for you!
Hey Matthew, Like your on page stuff. As an Post COVID ecommerce industry is booming and i think your contents comes to light at right time. If possible, Create a in depth Ecommerce SEO and digital marketing practice for future.
Hey Chris! Thanks for the suggestion! I already have a guide about SEO for eCommerce; feel free to have a look at it-https://searchlogistics.com/seo/ecommerce/
Well written article Matt,I have a question regarding this paragraph referring to Toxic Links, “To combat this problem, incremental updates to the disavow files were made in March, April, June and July on all variations of the client’s domain in Google Search Console.Is there a reason we should not submit all toxic links at one time in the Google Disavow Tool?
Hey Steve! Google Disavow Tool has to be used with precaution. Before using it, you have to make sure that the link you want to remove is actually an issue for your website. Otherwise, it can hurt your website instead of helping it.Pus, before using this tool, we try to send request removals to take it down manually. It’s safer. Overall, we analyze the link, try to take it down manually, and if it doesn’t work, we use Google Disavow… This is why we don’t submit all the toxic links at once. We don’t want to hurt our client’s website.
LOL, the section about changing the titles made me laugh. I once catapulted a friend’s keyword to the top of all relevant keywords in Google SERPs just by making him change his post/page titles and headings.To be fair, it was easy because his website is the original and most authoritative source for the niche content he was creating (a novel). It’s just that he had absolutely no idea about keywords. Instead of the novel title he had something like “IFGWCGW.”I’m not joking! He said that he was tired of typing out his actual title so he used an acronym instead. *laughs*
Yeah it’s often the simple things have the biggest results!As SEO’s we are just so used to writing and thinking with SEO in mind it’s baffling to me when sites haven’t optimised title tags.
I like the process you did to enhance the organic traffic as well as conversions. But, I have one question, what you exactly did to get rid of the toxic links. Actually, I have prepared a list of toxic links considering two tools (ahrefs & SEMRUSH) both have different parameters to identify the toxic links but I somehow manage to finalize the toxic links list and disavow the file for one of my client. But, it didn’t work and not found any significant improvement. Please guide.
What made you think links were the problem in the first place?
Hey Matthew, very inspirational blogpost. There is one thing you dont talk about in this blogpost. How do you manage a large website or webshop with, say 500 or 1000 pages? Do you make excel sheets with individual entries for each and every page, so you know what page needs more text, or do you have an automated proces? And for a normal website, how do you know if a specific page needs more text? Do you use SEMrush to see what it ranks for first or perhaps you also have an automated process for this?
You can use tools like Screaming Frog https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ to do a comprehensive audit and access the data you needKnowing if a page needs more text or not can be done via manual review or using a tool like Surfer https://searchlogistics.com/seo/reviews/surfer-seo/
great job bro
Thanks, Tariq!
Thank for sharing this amazing case study. i’m from Iran and i always read your articles. recently, i started a brand new education website about stock exchange traning. I will use your tips on investyar.com SEO. hope my website rank well on targeted keywords.
Hey! Thanks for reading my blog & good luck with your website!
Excellent post, as usual! Thanks mate! I love these case studies from you.
Thank you! Always happy to share my experience with my readers!
Very cool! Thanks for the presented case!
No problem!
Hi Matthew, please tell some link building technique for ecommerce stores?Thanks
Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtquYhaLdoM Read this: https://searchlogistics.com/seo/link-building/strategies/ – Let me know if it helps!
Wow amazing! You always seem to be able to rank any site in any niche!
Thanks, Reece!
this information is amazing, i will join asap
Thank you, glad you found it useful!
Love reading these case studies, Matthew. You make it look so easy. I particularly like the methodical way you work through and apply. Very thorough, and obviously the results speak for themselves
Thanks for your feedback, Roger- I appreciate it!
Fantastic case study Matthew. Well done on giving insightful examples whilst not compromising your clients details.
Thanks, Jon- It’s part of the deal 😉
Hi Matthew, great work and a very interesting article How did you go about building new relevant and authorative links?Are H tags neccessary? I thought MOZ did a survey recently that proved H1 tags made no difference. Not trying to be awkward in any way, just wondering if I need to brush up the header tags on sites.
Nearly all links were guest posts on relevant sites but we made sure to avoid things like “write for us” pages or sites that mention we are a guest author etcIf you want to find out if H1 tags are neccessary, remove them and find out! I like to turn all opportunities in my direction though.
Hi Matthew,Awesome job once again and very inspiring case study!I just want to ask something. You said you updated the titles. Did you leave the urls intact or did change them accordingly and maybe redirected the old ones?I always face this dilemma when I change titles.Thanks in advance! Keep up good job!
The URL’s stayed in tact
Really nice tricks. Thanks!
No worries! Hope it helps!
Thank you for sharing the case study.I have a little confusion here. Earlier I was adding text to my categories. My blog categories started ranking on 3rd and 4th page of Google. My main keyword (article) was ranking on first page of google and then suddenly, my URL was panelized by Google. I was out of first 100 SERP.I discussed the matter with one of my collogue and he told me your URL was panelized by Google May be due to cannibalizations issue. My article was in category and google was showing my article content in category part too. So, the point is “Are not you getting cannibalizations issue when you rank the category?” I mean you are ranking the product pages and also category pages and they will cause cannibalizations.
You were getting a cannibilization problem likely because the category and article were very very tightly related.Where as our strucutre the category pages target specific broad terms, while the product pages below target product specific terms so there is risk of cannibilization.
Thanks for sharing amazing information
Thank you for reading!
Great Sharing. These are the basics but the most important.
I couldn’t agree more!
Such an interesting and amazing blog. Learned a lot of new important information from it. Thankyou keep up the good work!
No problem John! I am glad you like reading my blog!
That’s great effort and more importantly results…But how much money they spent on SEO over this period?How much profit they got ? Increase in income is fine but that reflect positively in profits as well right?
Hey Sreenivas! I can’t answer all your questions, but I can tell you that they increase income as well as profits 🙂
I think you should provide a guide on how to get clients/devs to action items faster. Reading this case study shows that what needs to be implemented is pretty stock standard amongst a lot of sites. Most SEOs worth their salt should know all of this, where I think they struggle is getting the client/developer to do what they want, or to prioritise their work above other issues.
You’re right, thank you for the suggestion! I’m gonna think about it!