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Technical SEO Case Study: 118% Increase in Organic Revenue for this eCommerce Site

You can have the best website content in the world — but if your eCommerce site isn’t technically sound, your organic efforts will continue to underperform year after year.

Fortunately, even the smallest of tech SEO fixes can make a major difference when it comes to organic traffic, impressions, and revenue.

In today’s case study, we’ll explain how a post-migration technical SEO audit helped one eCommerce brand increase its organic revenue by more than 100% in just a few months. Along the way, we’ll also share the four common errors we found and solutions we deployed to make it happen.

Remember: If you want similar results for your online business, our eCommerce SEO experts are always happy to diagnose and solve the technical issues keeping your brand from organic success. Request an audit from our team today to get started.

Client Background

Quality Woven Labels is an eCommerce business that specializes in creating high-quality woven and custom labels for clothing and other apparel. 

They first approached Inflow following a site migration in early 2022, after which they saw a significant drop in site performance — a 33% decrease in sessions and a 40% decrease in users over a three-month period.

Unfortunately, because QWL had completed their migration in-house, the potential for error was much wider than if they had used SEO migration services .

This, combined with the fact that the drop in performance was so closely correlated with the timing of the migration, led us to recommend an in-depth technical audit of the website as a whole.

Why a Tech Audit?

A technical SEO audit is often the first step for any new Inflow SEO client. Not only does it reveal some of the biggest errors holding a site back from organic success, but it also helps our team better understand the site’s current architecture, content marketing strategy, and more — all of which play a role in developing a custom approach for our clients.

Without finding (and resolving) those existing errors, any future SEO efforts are much less likely to succeed.

In our decades of experience working with eCommerce clients, we’ve developed an extensive technical SEO audit checklist that identifies some of the most common errors in:

• Crawlability & indexation
• URL & site architecture
• User experience
• Google Analytics & Google Search Console integration
• On-page SEO & content

We started with this comprehensive checklist to find the biggest areas of opportunity for QWL’s site.

The Solution

Keeping QWL’s migration in mind, we focused our initial review on technical SEO errors we believed to have been introduced during that platform transition.

From that list, we prioritized those fixes to resolve the following first for maximum impact.

1. Robots.txt & Sitemaps

In our initial review of QWL’s site, we discovered their team had originally set up their disallow robots.txt files incorrectly (likely due to a copy-paste error during the site migration). This prevented the site from being completely crawled by Google’s search bots.

At the same time, we discovered an error in their sitemap — that is, they were referencing the sitemap for another one of their sites in their robots.txt files. Typically, this reference is handled by a site’s CMS system; but, because QWL was using Magento, their team had to include that reference manually and had accidentally listed the wrong site in the files.

We quickly resolved these errors by correctly configuring the robots.txt file and referencing the correct sitemap (which we would later optimize further).

Why It Matters: 

Correctly configuring the robots.txt file ensures that search engines can crawl the pages of a site without being unknowingly blocked. 

Using the correct sitemap in those files is also necessary to make that happen; otherwise, you’ll confuse Google’s crawl bots and reduce your likelihood of being featured in the search results. 

2. Canonicals

Upon discovering that a substantial amount of pages on the site had missing canonical tags, we provided the necessary recommendations — not just for adding canonicals but also for making sure they were the best ones for the pages.

This error was also a likely result of using Magento. Unlike other eCommerce platforms like Shopify , which automatically adds canonicals to pages, Magento requires web developers to make a rule or add the canonicals manually.

Because of Magento’s tendency to use hard coding in the backend, it was likely that QWL didn’t have proper canonicals before their migration, either.

When similar pages exist on a website, canonicals tell search engines which page is the preferred page. 

The best practice here is to include a self-referencing canonical on each page, unless another page is preferred (such as in the case of internal search results or faceted/filtered URLs ).

3. Unnecessarily Indexed Pages

Because of the brand’s nature as a custom products provider , all QWL shoppers must create a customer account to log in, view product proofs, and approve their orders. However, these login pages weren’t noindexed, which means the site was wasting valuable crawl budget on pages they didn’t want Google to see.

We provided recommendations to help noindex the existing login pages, as well as a plan for noindexing any other login pages that would be created by users in the future.

Too many unnecessarily indexed pages mean it could take longer for search engines to crawl the site. They could also increase the time search engines take to recognize future optimizations made to the site.

4. Sitemap Optimization

During our initial sitemap review, we also discovered that the site had multiple versions of the “about us” page (10) and homepage (41), all of which were being referenced in the sitemap and, unfortunately, being indexed. While it’s not a common error, it is one our team has seen before — often, due to the creation of new landing pages for individual ad campaigns.

Our team quickly removed those duplicate page versions, as well as broken links (404s) and any other non-indexable URLs from the sitemap.

Then, we completed another full sitemap review to make sure everything in the new sitemap was being indexed properly moving forward.

Too many errors in a sitemap could make search engines believe a site is low-quality, which, in turn, can hurt rankings in the search engine result pages (SERPs).

The best practice is only including indexable pages in the sitemap for easier crawling and indexing.

The Results

After completing our technical SEO audit and fixing those errors we could (sending the rest to their web development team), we didn’t have to wait long to see results for Quality Woven Labels’ site.

In comparing the first month post-fix to that from the beginning of our audit, QWL saw:

• 18.6% increase in organic sessions
• 18.8% increase in organic users
• 118% increase in organic revenue

Like many of our SEO clients, the Quality Woven Labels team was surprised to see these serious technical errors that had been hiding in their site — and even more pleased when the results of our audit started to roll in. 

With these SEO issues resolved, they could now move forward with their planned category page improvements, detailed keyword research , and strategic content, knowing that they had a clean slate to improve their organic search performance.

In short, a technical SEO audit is crucial to laying the foundation for a successful organic search marketing strategy — but only the most expert digital marketing strategists can identify and resolve these issues for your online business. 

Learn more about Inflow’s approach (including what we can do for your eCommerce website) by requesting a free SEO strategy proposal today .

Thank you, Calvin, for these tips

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About The Author

Calvin Carter (Alumni)

Calvin has been working in digital marketing for over 10 years, specializing in SEO for the past seven years. Calvin put his analytical and technical skills to work as a former SEO Strategist for Inflow.

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30 Best SEO Case Studies: Real Examples & Results That Work

How would you like to read the best SEO case studies ever published?

More importantly, how would you like to copy the best practices in search engine optimization that are based on real-world examples and not just theory?

Below, you’ll find a list of the top 30 SEO case study examples along with the results and key findings. By studying these SEO case studies and applying the lessons learned on your own site, you can hopefully achieve similar results for your SEO campaigns.

Best SEO Case Studies

How i increased my organic traffic 652% in 7 days  – backlinko seo case study, seo investment – google search central case study.

Find out how an investment in SEO and implementing applicable structured data can improve user experience and increase organic traffic on Google Search.

How to Create a Squeeze Page That Converts at 74.5%  – Gotch SEO Case Study

See how Nathan Gotch used 9-step approach to create a squeeze page that converts at 74.5%. The tactics revealed in this case study also boosted another one of the pages by 69%, so you know it’s a proven method that works.

From 126 to 121,883 Unique Visitors in Under 6 Months – Ahrefs SEO Case Study

This SEO case study example focuses on Northmill, a Fintech company founded in Stockholm. It reveals how you can analyze your business competitors to develop higher-quality content that will gain a huge amount of traffic and convert those readers into customers. Read it to find out exactly what Northmill did during an SEO campaign to go from 126 unique visitors to 121,883 in under 6 months.

Ranking in 24 Hours in the Competitive SEO Niche – SEO Chatter Case Study

This case study was a partnership between SEO Chatter and Keyword Chef. It shows you how much organic traffic and money was earned by publishing 45 blog posts based on keywords found with the Keyword Chef tool. You’ll also discover the steps taken to get those posts to rank in the top 10 positions on Google within 24 hours or less after publishing.

From 0 to 75,000 Visits A Year – Ryan Darani Case Study

Find out complete details on the challenges, limits, budgets, and timeframes for a client that went from 0 clicks per day to now 300-400 on average with only 60 pieces of content on the site.

How We 4x’d Traffic and Doubled Revenue in E-Commerce – Diggity Marketing SEO Case Study

Diggity Marketing is also featured on my SEO secrets page and is a good resource for more SEO success case studies.

6-Step Process That Generated 150,732 Visits  – Robbie Richards SEO Case Study

In this SEO case study, you’ll learn a repeatable 6-step process that one SEO marketer used to get his client to #1 in Google. This strategy helped him outrank big name brands like Mashable, and increase organic traffic by 11,065% in just 6 months.

Scaling an Outdoor Niche Site to a $175K Exit – The Website Flip SEO Case Study

Get a complete month-by-month breakdown of how one business bought a website on Flippa and scaled it for a $175,000 exit. You’ll learn every step they took with SEO and site improvements from day one of the purchase at $23,000 and the sale 22 months later, all while making $100,938 revenue on top of the final sales price.

How Long Does It Take to Rank for A Keyword  – Bloggers Passion SEO Case Study

Find out how long it really takes for a keyword to hit the first page of Google in this case study. SEO for a new post can take some time to kick in before the page generates thousands of visitors from search. But how long do you have to wait? Is it one week, 30 days, or longer? Read this data-packed example to find out as well as get actionable steps you can take to speed up the ranking process.

Traffic Improves SEO and Affects Google Rankings – Cognitive SEO Case Study

This company tracked a strong correlation between a spike in traffic from a Reddit post to an increase in Google rankings for an ultra-competitive keyword. Find out how they experienced a boost from the 74th position to the 8th in Google search results in just one day.

$780 Revenue In Month 1 with An Aged Domain – Stream SEO Case Study

This is an ongoing case study of a website built on an aged domain. In this first post, you’ll learn how the aged domain was resurrected and what SEO steps were taken in the first month to generate $780.

Large Images In Google Search – Google Search Central Case Study

How i increased seo traffic by 600% in 24 months  – wordstream seo case study.

The author of this case study took a site from 20,000 monthly visitors to over 150,000 (a 600% increase) with mostly on-page SEO updates and internal linking methods. He even unpublished 90% of the content on the blog. Learn the four SEO techniques that he used in the right way to explode the search traffic.

A Case Study of Winning in Local SEO  – SEMrush Blog SEO Case Study

How to 4x organic traffic in 6-months using pure seo basics – authority builders seo case study.

This is an interesting case study on SEO because the site that was studied had increased organically from 7,000 visitors per month to about 68,000 between January to April. The site owner was doing a lot of things right but many simple things were also being done wrong. Find out here how you don’t need fancy SEO tricks to get high rankings and traffic to your blog or website. Once the author performed a technical SEO audit and put into place some off-page optimization strategies like link velocity, anchor text ratios, and relevance, the site’s traffic quadrupled in the next 6 months.

How to Rank in the First 2 Results on Google – Leanne Wong SEO Case Study

How to 14x search traffic in 8 months – matthew woodward seo case study.

Matthew Woodward is an expert in search engine optimization and he publishes a lot of SEO case study examples. This one in particular is worth the read because it shows you how SEO doesn’t have to be complicated to get exponential results. Inside, you’ll learn how to create a strong plan of action based on 7 steps. Using these same strategies in this case study, the author We increased traffic on an affiliate website from 2,732 visitors per month to 38,420 in just 8 months (14x higher or 1,306% to be exact).

Data-Informed Strategy Delivers Results – Rise Interactive SEO Case Study

This is an SEO case study for the American Egg Board (AEB), a U.S. The AEB is best known for its long-running slogan, “The Incredible, Edible Egg”, and the Just Mayo scandal. The AEB relies heavily on organic traffic to drive awareness; however, it was experiencing a steady decline in traffic and organic visibility, year-over-year. Learn how the Rise Interactive agency used an integrated site-wide keyword strategy, an SEO-first approach on the site structure, and ways to capitalize existing SEO equity to generate an 87% increase in mobile traffic and 22% improvement in desktop traffic.

How an Integrated, Keyword-Driven Blog Strategy Increased Organic Traffic to a Leading Analytical Laboratory’s Blog by 58% – TopRank Marketing SEO Case Study

Organic visitors increased by 87%, located in target local cities – wastecycle seo case study.

The client behind this case study is Wastecycle, a sustainable waste management company that provides a recycling and waste management service. Wastecyle wanted to get more business by reaching customers looking for local skip hire and Hallam digital marketing agency provided local SEO strategies to achieve this goal. Read the SEO case study to find out how the agency generated an 87% increase in organic visitors in local cities, 150% increase in clicks for the targeted term “skip hire”, and 297 varied phrases achieving page one rankings on Google.

How We Ranked on the First Page of Google for 4 Competitive Keywords in Just 8 Months – OutreachMama SEO Case Study

Design modo penalty removal boosts organic traffic by 61.79% – reposition seo case study.

This is a good SEO success case study to read because it focuses on Google penalty removals. You can skim through in less than one minute too. Design Modo, a resource for digital designers and developers, had an apparent partial penalty that had gradually decreased its organic traffic month on month. Reposition SEO agency got involved and found out that the root of the penalty was due to Design Modo’s outbound links rather than the usual inbound links. After a few tweaks and a reconsideration request to Google, the organic traffic increased 61.79% along with an 86% improvement in all keyword rankings.

An Increased In Total Organic Users By 555% – Victorious SEO Case Study

This case study follows the journey of Oji Vape, a wholesale vaping supplied company, that initially got burned by an agency that used outdated SEO tactics that no longer applied to Google’s constantly evolving algorithms. After switching to Victorious SEO agency, Oji Vape experienced a 555% increase in organic visitors within 8 months. This has translated to a 745% improvement in goal completions that took into account sales inquiries by phone and online form submissions. Find out what Victorious did to achieve these amazing results.

Content Strategy for a B2B Furniture Supplier – Web Talent Marketing SEO Case Study

313% more organic traffic with real examples – from the future seo case study.

This case study examines the SEO results from 3 different websites, in 3 totally different niches, that all have different conversion metrics for “success.” Learn what steps were taken to run an SEO campaign for each website to meet the key goals for success.

How We Got a 32% Organic Traffic Boost from 4 On-Page SEO Changes – Moz SEO Case Study

A 48% boost in year-on-year organic traffic – brand new copy seo case study.

This case study focuses on Field & Lawn, a marquee hire company that operates throughout the UK. As a result of the hired agency’s efforts, Field & Lawn saw a 48% increase in Year-on-Year traffic, a 5% reduction in bounce rate, and a significant ranking improvement for almost all 42 targeted keywords. Find out what methods were used to gain these increases in visibility and how you can copy them for your own success.

How I Ranked 1800+ Keywords on Page 1 of Google in Just 6 Months – Shane Barker SEO Case Study

7 steps to 197,514 monthly traffic – apollo digital seo case study.

In this SEO case study, you’ll discover the step-by-step formula of the entire search engine optimization process that Apollo Digital uses to rank its clients’ websites. This study in particle focuses on a SaaS business process management software and how it went from around 8,000 monthly visitors to about 200,000 in less than 2 years. You’ll get everything explained in detail like the content writing process, interlinking strategies, visual improvements, headline tweaking, and of course, SEO tactics.

Read More Case Study Examples

I also have more digital marketing case studies with real results from other industry experts that you can study and use to improve your online marketing campaigns:

What Is an SEO Case Study?

An SEO case study is an in-depth study of search engine optimization in a real-world context. It can focus on one SEO tactic or a group of SEO strategies to find out what works in search engine optimization to improve traffic and organic visibility.

Are Case Studies Good for SEO?

Case studies are good for SEO because you can learn about how to do search engine optimization in an effective way. Instead of just studying the theory of SEO, you can learn from real examples that applied SEO methods to achieve success.

Summary for the Best SEO Case Studies

I hope you enjoyed this list of the best SEO case studies that are based on real-world results and not just theory.

As you discovered, the SEO case study examples above demonstrated many different ways to perform well in search engines. By studying the key findings from these examples, and applying the methods learned to your own site, you can hopefully achieve the same positive outcome. New SEO success case studies are being published every month and I’ll continue to update this list as they become available. So keep checking back to read the current sources of information on search engine optimization.

SEO Chatter is dedicated to teaching the fundamentals of search engine marketing to help marketers understand how to increase organic website traffic and improve search engine rankings.

Technical SEO Case Study

How to generate a 26x increase in traffic with 4 simple tweaks.

This post highlights technical SEO work that our team did to help drive a massive increase in traffic and rankings for a listing site (similar to a Yelp). The site lists commercial and shared kitchen spaces available for rent. BigCommerce defines Technical SEO as, “…website and server optimizations that help search engine spiders crawl and index your site more effectively (to help improve organic rankings).”

Basically, technical SEO is the “backend” and structure of the website. It ensures that you have the best chance of generating organic traffic to your website. If you have a website that can’t be crawled, it is impossible for you to rank with key terms.

In this case study, you\’ll discover the four main strategies we used to drive a massive increase in rankings for The Kitchen Door.

The Food Corridor is a software company that services shared and commercial kitchen spaces.

As part of its sales and marketing efforts, The Food Corridor created a database called The Kitchen Door (or TKD). This site is a free tool for users that lists all of the commercial and shared kitchen spaces in the United States.

TKD also has a premium listing feature for kitchens, allowing it to generate its own revenue. Kitchens can pay to show up at the top of the list by purchasing a premium subscription.

The Kitchen Door provides a valuable service for food entrepreneurs and startups, but the initial site architecture prevented the site from being crawled by Google.

The website only received a miniscule amount of organic traffic – primarily focused on the brand. Besides the homepage and a handful of individual kitchen pages, no other pages were indexed.

Our goal was to get many more pages ranked in targeted localities. This would help food entrepreneurs as well as generate opportunities for sales of The Food Corridor software and services.

A t the beginning of our engagement, a Kitchen Door team member had trouble closing a sale for a premium listing. The client pulled the organic traffic estimates on the site and balked at paying for a premium listing. But things were about to change.

Intervention :

In order to help build traffic to The Kitchen Door, our first step was a deep technical audit of the website.

We found four main problems:

Problem 1: Few of the pages were crawlable 

• Due to current site architecture (how the site was built), Google wasn’t able to see the best pages, nor the pages that needed to be ranked. There was no chance of getting any valuable traffic to the site without rebuilding the site for crawlability.

Problem 2: The client didn’t know which keywords were important

• People search using keywords and key phrases. We had to research and define the keywords users entered into Google in order to optimize the site to rank for those keywords.

Problem 3: Page content was too thin

• The simple site design, although beautiful, did not have enough word content to compete for rankings. It needed longer content in order to be indexed and crawled by search engines.

Problem 4: No true way to measure SEO

• Although Google Analytics was installed, we had no framework to measure success of our SEO efforts. In addition to Google Analytics, we needed to use SEO specific tools to track and measure ranking success.

Here are the four main steps we took to optimize the site:

Step 1: Technical Architecture

The technical architecture of a site is one of the most important ranking factors for Google. If the site cannot be properly crawled and indexed, we stand no chance of being able to rank the site.

The Kitchen Door was conceived as a search engine. Users could input cities, zip codes, or other geographic information in a search bar and the site would return a list of kitchens in that particular area.

Each of these pages populated based on a query, so there was no way for Google to see the result pages. The search engines won’t run empty queries. Instead, they look for pages that exist, then crawl them.

This is a problem we often see with many search-based websites and startups. We assume that Google will see our results pages. However, if the results pages are only shown after a query is conducted, it’s virtually impossible to get those pages ranking.

In order to ensure crawlability, we worked with The Kitchen Door to create the following 5 pages:

• Revamped homepage with key links to index, state, and metro pages
• A full index of all 50 states with links to the individual state page
• An “index” page for each state providing linking to each metro page
• Metro pages that listed all kitchens within that metro
• Individualized kitchen pages

This new hierarchy allowed Google to crawl the site and ensure that all state, city, and individual kitchen pages were indexed properly. This logic made it easy for Google to crawl and rank each page on the website.

These pages are still dynamically generated, but they now are fully crawlable and can be kept in Google’s index.

The three major benefits of this structure include:

• State pages are returned for the state (and often the city) query
• City pages are returned for city queries (example: Kitchens for rent in San Jose)
• Individual kitchen pages are returned when users search for information about a particular kitchen (example: Bob’s Kitchen San Jose)

Optimizing Internal Linking

In addition to ensuring that the site was fully crawlable, we pushed more links toward key pages. Larger metros with steeper competition needed as much “link juice” as possible to start ranking.

For the top metros, we added footer links from the homepage to ensure that these pages received an added link credibility and could compete in the ultra-competitive locations where they reside.

O n Canonical Tags

The website provides an option to set a distance radius after searching. The default result was a 20-mile radius, but users could select anywhere between 5 to 100 miles in their query.

When users selected a distance, the URL changed and loaded a different set of kitchens based on distance. With multiple distances, we needed to ensure Google only crawled a single metro page so we weren’t competing against ourselves.

For example, when searching for “Kitchens for rent in Colorado”, we only wanted the default 20-mile radius page to show up. We didn’t want to compete with our own 100-mile radius page in the search results.

Using canonical tags, we established the “20 mile” distance as the default. Users could still search for multiple distances, but we instructed Google to only index the default page to avoid duplicate content issues on the site.

Step 2: Keyword Research

In order to optimize for search, we first had to determine what keywords and phrases the client wanted to rank for. Our typical keyword research process is extensive, but this particular site was a bit different than our traditional process.

Rather than ranking for dozens of completely unique keywords, we wanted to rank for a handful of important keywords across hundreds of different states and metros. After digging deep using our proprietary keyword research process, we discovered a handful of keywords we wanted to rank.

These included:

• Kitchen Rental
• Commercial Kitchen for Rent
• Shared Commercial Kitchen
• Rent a kitchen
• Commercial Kitchen
• Shared Kitchen
• Food Truck Commissary Commissary

These keywords covered most of the popular variations of the high-intent audience we were targeting. Once we defined these keywords, we began tracking the rankings for them nationally.

Rankings were also tracked in all of the major cities (and many smaller cities as well). All of these keywords return localized searches in Google. The results look different depending on where the user is physically located when conducting the search.

Now that we knew what keywords to track, we optimized the pages to rank for these keywords. Rather than working on individual pages, we worked with the developers to improve the page template so that each unique metro, state, and kitchen page would see increased rankings.

For example, we built a title tag template that included most of the main keywords we wanted to target. Our title tag template for metro areas is:

Commercial and Commissary Kitchen Rentals in Jacksonville –

The Kitchen Door

The city or state is always dynamically generated by the software. The other keywords are the most appropriate combination that still sounds natural.

We also optimized the individual listing page for each kitchen. This allows us to capture some branded traffic when users are looking for a particular kitchen. It also helps incentivize users to upgrade from a standard to a premium listing, which allows kitchens to be featured first in their metro.

Step 3: More Content

Once the site could be properly crawled, our next step was evaluating the content on the pages themselves. Many pages contained multiple kitchens with long descriptions, giving us an appropriate word count.

However, still many other pages – especially in smaller metros – had only one or two kitchens listed. On these text-sparse pages, we needed to ensure that there was enough content on the page to be valuable without not allowing the text overtake the results or distract the user.

Working with the site designers, we developed two key text boxes on each metro page.

The top text box is a quick intro and added around 100 words of valuable content to the page. City names and state initials are loaded dynamically based upon the page the user is visiting.

Then we added a sidebar to highlight a few of the benefits to cooking in a commissary kitchen. This gave us the opportunity to expand the content and use related keywords in a natural, conversational manner.

Finally, we were able to add a link to The Food Corridor’s main website in order to help shift traffic from The Kitchen Door to the main SaaS website.

Step 4: Vigilant Tracking

Although we had expectations as to which tactics would drive traffic to The Kitchen Door, we believe in constantly tracking and testing new tactics when looking at technical SEO.

Once we established our keywords and defined the main metros, we put those into our rank tracking software to monitor for continuous improvement.

In addition, we worked with the development team to test Google Analytics so we had accurate tracking numbers.

SEO without vigilant, accurate tracking is useless. As algorithms, user preferences, and standards change in search, having regular feedback on your progress is imperative. Without that, you’ll never know exactly how and where to improve.

Finally, Massive Results:

We compared our traffic from September with the following April. As the site aged, rankings kept increasing steadily in a variety of metros, states, and on individual kitchen pages.

The chart below is a screenshot from Google Analytics showing the increase to organic traffic comparing those two periods.

The previous September before the re-architecture of the site, organic traffic accounted for a mere 304 visits to the website. In April 2019, organic traffic generated 8,239 users.

That’s a 26X increase in just 8 months!

As far as rankings, the progress is impressive. Here is a tiny snippet of the hundreds of keywords the site is ranking for currently.

And the work we’ve done continues to help the site rank better than it ever has – generating more traffic and revenue for the business.

What the client had to say:

“Their team was crystal clear from the beginning regarding the project’s contract, deliverables, communication, and completion. It was both impressive and helpful. We communicated via email mostly and had a couple of in-person meetings.” – Ashley @ The Food Corridor

Want to work with us?

Chances are you’re missing opportunities right now to generate revenue and organic traffic to your site. If you’d like us to take a look, reach out to us. We’ll do an audit to help you determine the big opportunities for you to improve your rankings, traffic, and ultimately generate revenue from search.

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8 seo case studies: examples that will energize your strategy.

Looking to level up your SEO strategy, but need help figuring out where to start? What if you could learn from real-world examples of companies that have successfully improved their rankings and attracted more organic traffic?

I’ve got many compelling SEO case studies from the years I’ve spent learning everything I can about search engine algorithms. I hope these stories help spark ideas and develop strategies you can model in your own efforts.

By seeing what has worked for other businesses, you’ll gain invaluable insights on refining your approach and achieving your SEO KPIs . The case studies we’ll explore cover various industries, goals, and tactics — from revamping on-page content to building high-authority backlinks to recovering from Google penalties.

Discover eight concrete SEO success stories and get actionable tips you can implement today.

What Is an SEO Case Study?

An SEO case study is an in-depth analysis and strategic review of how a website improves its search engine rankings and organic traffic growth over time. SEO case studies explain the goals, technical approach, and results of specific optimization tactics.

The purpose of documenting SEO stories is multifaceted. 

First, they provide a blueprint for success (similar to a product launch checklist ) that others can model because they outline the step-by-step process of what worked to boost rankings and traffic. 

Second, case studies build trust and credibility by showcasing real examples with data and metrics. This is particularly valuable for SEO and SEM agencies creating bottom-of-funnel content to show their potential ROI.

Lastly, case studies are a learning opportunity for all SEO practitioners to improve their own strategies. Analyzing the factors that led to positive ROI, search visibility, and conversions for others helps you identify smart tactics to test on your sites.

In terms of content, a complete SEO case study will cover:

• Initial objectives
• Ranking situation
• Technical audit findings
• Specific on-page and off-page activities
• Time frames for implementation
• Associated costs
• Measurable results month-by-month and year-over-year 

Tracking detailed analytics data is critical. The most compelling case studies also outline the estimated revenue and long-term ROI from the SEO initiatives.

Have you ever created case studies of your own work? They can help you persuade prospects and get more SEO clients .

I’m going to provide “mini” SEO case study examples to give you an idea of what’s possible.

Why Are SEO Case Studies Valuable?

Here’s why SEO case studies are worth reviewing.

• They showcase proven strategies in action. You get to see what combination of tactics boosted rankings and organic traffic for actual sites.
• You learn the step-by-step process of SEO initiatives that generated strong ROI. The case study format allows you to model what worked and avoid the efforts that don’t pay dividends.
• Since case studies focus on the metrics and data, you get real analysis based on actual results — not guesses or estimates. You see what moved the needle.
• By covering time frames in detail, you understand realistic SEO timelines — giving you a framework for smarter goal-setting.
• Well-documented case studies outline the costs associated with SEO efforts , so you can optimize budget and resources.

In short, getting detailed SEO case study examples (particularly from sites in your industry) is like accessing an SEO expert’s blueprint for increasing organic search visibility.

SEO Case Study Examples to Check Out

Here are eight compelling examples that offer key lessons you can apply to your site.

1. Edelweiss Bakery

Edelweiss Bakery is a small, local bakery in Florida that struggled with low online visibility despite having a loyal customer base. To boost their search rankings and web traffic, they partnered with the international SEO agency Why SEO Serious. 

Semrush described how the agency optimized Edelweiss’ on-page elements, conducted technical audits, redesigned the homepage, expanded its site structure, built backlinks , and created an SEO-optimized blog. 

Just four months after implementing these tactics, the bakery attracted 230 backlinks and grew its organic traffic by 214%.

2. Learning with Experts

The demand for online learning is high, and competition for top spots in the SERPs is fierce. Learning with Experts , an online learning community, partnered with UK-based agency Re:signal to boost their low organic visibility. 

Re:signal conducted keyword research, site audits, and on-page optimization. They identified keyword gaps, optimized category pages, improved site structure, and created new blog posts. After five months, organic sessions rose 59%, and Learning with Experts grew their revenue by 94%.

3. CMA Exam Academy

Accountant Nathan Liao created a CMA exam prep course but struggled to scale traffic with paid ads and social media. He saw some organic success but lacked the bandwidth to optimize this site further on his own.

Nathan hired Digital Commerce Partners (DCP), who analyzed and fixed technical SEO issues, reoptimized existing blog posts for quick wins, developed a custom content strategy integrated with DCP’s writers for scalability, and provided monthly reporting.

After a year, CMA Exam Academy saw a 125% revenue jump, increased its pageviews by 121%, and attracted 147% more users. DCP’s multilayered SEO approach drove significant business growth for CEA.

4. The CBD Supplier

UK-based CBD product marketplace The CBD Supplier struggled with low organic visibility in a competitive industry. 

Web design agency Cude targeted long-tail keywords with high search volume and low difficulty. The agency also improved internal linking and built a plan to create topical content clusters. 

This laser-focused SEO strategy grew search traffic by 557% in 12 months. It transformed The CBD Supplier into a mid-5-figure e-commerce business — which is particularly remarkable, given that it previously only generated £1,000 in revenue. 

Avis Car Rental , partnered with digital marketing agency Big Leap in 2018. The rental car company has more than 1,700 locations, so Big Leap focused on local SEO optimization tailored to each specific branch.

The agency conducted extensive audits to optimize individual map listings and citations across search engines. It sought to improve the website’s location pages to rank for key city and state-specific terms.

Big Leap performed in-depth technical SEO audits to identify high-impact areas to target. Then it assembled a team of skilled writers to produce more than 300 original, on-brand pieces of content optimized around high-volume keywords and strategic internal linking. Maintaining quality control was a top priority.

The multi-channel local SEO strategy delivered tremendous ROI. Avis ranked on the first page for 213 additional target keywords, including valuable conversion-focused terms. This led to hundreds of thousands of new qualified leads, accelerating business growth.

6. Healthspan

Health supplement retailer Healthspan approached UK agency Re:signal seeking to improve rankings after a Google Penguin penalty tanked their search visibility. 

Re:signal set goals to increase organic revenue, recover from the algorithm hit, and reduce Healthspan’s reliance on paid search. They worked through the penalty problem using link analysis and optimized for key product terms in the supplement industry. 

The results? Organic revenue rose 144% in a year, enabling Healthspan to cut back on paid search spend. Re:signal also secured high-quality media coverage that showcased Healthspan’s brand on a larger stage.

7. Regional Dentist

A large regional dental provider hired the agency Momentic to improve local search visibility across 14 cities. 

Momentic audited the competitive landscape and optimized location and service pages through content updates. 

Just one month after implementing recommendations, the dental provider increased organic traffic so much that they could turn off paid search. Appointments skyrocketed alongside a 140% increase in organic traffic year-over-year.

8. DesktopReady

Desktop-as-a-service company DesktopReady hired agency HawkSEM after a website relaunch tanked their traffic. HawkSEM audited technical SEO issues, optimized old content, created new targeted content, and enhanced DesktopReady’s social media profiles. 

This multifaceted strategy increased users by 409%, grew backlinks from 822 to 1,340, and catapulted DesktopReady to solid rankings for 468 more keywords . DesktopReady recovered from the traffic plunge and reclaimed its position as an industry leader.

TTT Academy: The Next Step for Your SEO Education

Now that you’ve seen some inspiring SEO case studies that show you what’s possible, I’ve got the next step for you. 

TTT Academy provides the ultimate training environment to grow your SEO knowledge and career. 

Here’s what’s included:

• 200+ hours of exclusive webinars and training from top SEO experts on crucial topics to solve your biggest challenges.
• Highly relevant sessions based on your skill level and current needs with a searchable archive of categorized resources.
• Monthly Q&A calls so you can ask questions and get help applying what you’re learning.
• Downloadable assets like process documents and cheat sheets to start implementing tactics immediately.
• Access to a highly active community that lives and breathes SEO.

If you’re ready to shortcut years of learning curves and trial-and-error in your SEO growth, now’s the time to join TTT Academy. Sign up today to get instant access and start accelerating your SEO skills the fast (and smart) way!

On-Page Technical SEO: The Definitive Slam Guide [Audit Template + Case Studies]

If you want your website to rank in search engines, you need to understand SEO . And if you want your SEO strategy to be successful, you need to apply best practices in on-page technical SEO. Confused? Overwhelmed by the tech jargon? This article is for you.  

In this guide, we’ll cover: 

• The importance of on-page technical SEO
• Understanding on-page technical SEO
• On-page technical vs. content SEO
• Optimizing on-page technical SEO with Webflow
• How to monitor on-page technical SEO
• How to audit on-page technical SEO
• On-page technical SEO case studies
• Slam’s on-page technical SEO offerings 

Here at Slam Media Lab , we’ve seen first-hand the many SEO benefits for small business , nonprofit organizations, and anyone looking to ensure their website shows up on the screens of their target audience. 

Often, companies like small businesses and nonprofits are unfamiliar with the importance of on-page technical SEO–especially if their website has been online for years. That’s why our objective as an agency is to increase available knowledge and help organizations stay competitive with improved search rankings. 

In addition to helping organizations of all sizes with their SEO strategy, we also offer a technical SEO audit template for DIY enthusiasts .  

Whether you’re hoping to do things yourself, or interested in working with an award-winning web design agency , read on for a comprehensive intro to on-page technical SEO. 

Understanding On-Page Technical SEO

Search engine rankings are increasingly focused on prioritizing websites that offer a positive user experience. To improve the various aspects of your site’s usability, you need to understand and apply best practices in on-page technical SEO. 

In this section, we’ll explore: 

Technical SEO 101

• How crawling works
• Understanding indexing

These three topics should provide you with a good knowledge base for working with on-page technical SEO. Also, if you find the tech language in this section confusing, check out our free SEO terms guide.

On-page technical SEO refers to applying best practices that will ensure search engines can easily understand and index your website. 

Best practices in on-page technical SEO include: 

• Secure Socket Layer (SSL) to protect user data
• Well-organized hierarchy, logical URL structure, and internal linking strategy
• XML sitemap listing all important pages
• Robots.txt file indicating which pages or sections should not be indexed
• Structured data markup to help search engines understand page content
• Unique content without duplicates
• Use of canonical URL tags signaling which version of a page should be indexed

Also, search engines favor fast-loading websites that are easy to navigate on mobile devices, so you should take care to prioritize website speed, performance, and responsiveness in your strategy and design. 

Likewise, it’s crucial to perform regular audits of page experience and Core Web Vitals, which measure the speed, responsiveness, and visual stability of a site. Regularly checking for crawl errors and fixing broken links or inaccessible pages is also a best practice in on-page technical SEO. 

Our technical SEO audit template makes it easy to apply best practices in on-page technical SEO .

How Crawling Works

Search engines routinely send bots to explore and index website content. This process is referred to as crawling, and it’s designed to facilitate efficient indexing (something we’ll cover more in the next section). 

The crawling process begins when search engine bots access your site’s robots.txt file to identify crawl permissions. 

With crawl permissions confirmed, the bot then navigates through your website’s pages, following links and analyzing HTML elements for relevance and structure. 

Effective on-page SEO ensures crawl ability by: 

• Optimizing URL structures
• Employing proper tags
• Fixing crawl errors

Your pages are more likely to rank in search engines if bots can access and index your website content . So, if you want your on-page technical SEO to be effective, optimizing for crawlability is a must. 

Understanding Indexing

First, search engines crawl a website. Then, they organize and store information about its pages in a database. This process is called indexing, and it’s an important part of on-page technical SEO. 

During the indexing process, search engines analyze the following variables: 

The analyzed information is then organized into an index to facilitate quick retrieval of relevant results during user searches. 

To improve your website’s visibility and potential for higher rankings in SERPs, try using descriptive titles and meta tags. This is especially important for small business local SEO , which relies on local search results. 

For instance, if you own a restaurant in Philadelphia, you need it to rank high in the Philly area–not California. When designing your restaurant website , you can improve indexing by incorporating location-specific meta tags and local keywords in your content to ensure the pages show up in local search results. 

On-Page Technical SEO vs. Content SEO

An effective SEO strategy involves combining different variables into a holistic approach. To ensure your strategy lands, you need to understand the difference between technical SEO and content SEO. 

In this section, we’ll address the differences between the two and help you understand how to address both structural and content-related aspects of your website’s search engine visibility. 

Ultimately, integrating technical and content SEO strategies will improve your website performance and increase the likelihood of achieving higher rankings in search engine results . 

Technical SEO

Technical SEO focuses on website infrastructure. The goal is to ensure your website is: 

• Performing well 

By focusing on aspects like crawlability, you’ll ensure search engine bots can efficiently navigate your site. Likewise, indexation will ensure relevant pages are included in search databases. 

To guarantee great website performance, you should address issues like:

• Mobile responsiveness
• Secure HTTPS protocols 
• Optimized URL structures
• XML sitemaps
• Canonical tags to prevent duplicate content 

A well-optimized technical foundation will improve your website’s search rankings, user experience, and overall online presence. 

To assess the effectiveness of your technical SEO strategy, check out our technical SEO audit template .

Content SEO

To optimize website content for search engines and user experience, you need a strong content SEO strategy that integrates holistically with your on-page technical SEO. You can achieve this by incorporating keywords, improving content readability, and ensuring your content aligns with user intent. 

Key components of content SEO include: 

• Keyword research
• Quality content
• Descriptive titles, headers, and meta tags
• Optimized images and URLs 
• Content tailored to match users’ search queries

Want to write SEO friendly blog posts ? Check out our guide!

For example, let’s say you’re designing a nonprofit SEO strategy for an animal welfare organization. You’ve done your keyword research and determined that search terms like “animal rescue” or “wildlife conservation” are relevant to your target audience’s intent. To maximize your visibility and impact with content SEO, you can develop high-quality, informative blog posts and educational resources to address your audience’s interests. 

If you’re wondering how to choose keywords for SEO , here are five best practices to follow: 

• Understand your audience
• Define your goals
• Research your niche
• Use keyword research tools 
• Create a keyword map

By following these steps, you can develop a targeted and effective keyword strategy that will improve your content SEO efforts and increase your website’s visibility in search engine results . 

For more on nonprofit SEO, check out our guide to what a nonprofit website should include . 

On-Page Technical SEO Optimization with Webflow

In our humble (and well-researched) opinion, Webflow is the best preferred CMS for optimizing on-page technical SEO. Webflow is a no-code platform that excels at allowing users to design, build, and launch responsive websites without extensive tech know-how. 

As a Webflow SEO consultant agency, we recommend Webflow for its features that contribute to SEO optimization:   

• Flexibility and design control
• Clean HTML markup
• Responsive design
• Customizable meta tags
• SSL security
• Third-party SEO integrations

These Webflow SEO capabilities are built into your website from the get-go, making the platform a great choice for website design and development . 

If you’re wondering how to choose the right CMS for website design , check out these Slam guides comparing Webflow to the top platforms on the market: 

• Webflow vs Wordpress 2024
• Webflow vs Wix
• Webflow vs Contentful
• Webflow vs Elementor 
• Squarespace vs Webflow
• Editor X or Webflow

Also, while our technical SEO audit template is designed to work with any website, we suggest combining it with Webflow for maximum impact. 

How to Monitor On-Page Technical SEO

In this section, we’ll cover four tools you can use to monitor on-page technical SEO: 

Google Search Console

Chrome lighthouse, pagespeed insights.

Another great tool to consider is Google Analytics , which we comprehensively discuss in our guide to integrating Webflow and Google Analytics . Be sure to bookmark the page and check it out once you’re done reading this article! 

Google Search Console is a powerful tool for monitoring and improving on-page technical SEO. As a free web service provided by Google , it allows website owners to optimize their site’s presence in search results. It also offers several tools to address technical SEO issues. 

We suggest following these ten steps to monitor your on-page technical SEO using GSC: 

• Verify site ownership by adding a meta tag or uploading an HTML file
• Analyze the "Performance" report for clicks, impressions, and CTR
• Inspect URL coverage to identify indexing issues
• Review "Core Web Vitals" for loading performance
• Check "Mobile Usability" for mobile-friendliness
• Address errors in the "Coverage" report
• Submit XML sitemap for effective indexing
• Set up performance alerts for changes
• Use the "URL Inspection" tool for detailed diagnostics
• Monitor the "Security & Manual Actions" section for potential issues

By regularly addressing these aspects, you’ll ensure a well-optimized website and improved visibility in search engine results .

Chrome Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool for assessing web page quality and performance. Integrated into Google Chrome DevTools , its job is to audit websites for performance, accessibility, and SEO best practices. 

To use Chrome Lighthouse for monitoring on-page technical SEO, follow these five steps: 

• Access Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools via the “Audits” tab
• Select the categories you want to audit (SEO, accessibility, performance, etc.)
• Click “Run audits” to analyze the selected categories
• Examine the generated report, paying attention to SEO-specific recommendations
• Address any issues highlighted in the SEO audit and implement its recommendations 

By leveraging Chrome Lighthouse, you’ll gain insights into your website’s on-page technical SEO . This will help you identify areas for improvement and implement the necessary changes to improve your page’s search engine visibility. 

PageSpeed Insights is a web performance tool by Google that assesses the speed and usability of a webpage on mobile and desktop devices. We love this tool because it provides a performance score along with suggestions to optimize and improve your page loading times, which will ultimately lead to a better user experience and higher search rankings. 

To monitor your on-page technical SEO with PageSpeed Insights, follow these five steps: 

• Enter your webpage URL in the PageSpeed Insights search bar and click “Analyze”
• Examine your site’s server response times, image optimization, and resource loading
• Address high-priority recommendations impacting user experience and SEO
• Implement suggestions to optimize images and leverage browser caching
• Assess the mobile performance insights

This tool is great for identifying and resolving performance-related issues that may affect your website’s search engine rankings . We recommend making it a core part of your toolkit! 

Ahrefs is a comprehensive search engine optimization tool that provides insights into things like website performance, backlink profiles, keyword rankings, and competitor analysis. 

To monitor your on-page technical SEO with Ahrefs, follow these ten steps: 

• Use the “Site Audit” feature to identify on-page issues like broken links, duplicate content, crawl errors, etc.
• Review the list of crawled pages to ensure important pages are indexed
• Analyze HTML tags for relevant keywords, including titles and meta descriptions
• Check the page load speed and make note of performance issues
• Identify and manage redirects
• Analyze competitor pages to identify areas for improvement
• Assess your backlink profile to ensure the quality and relevance of incoming links
• Identify content gaps and opportunities for improvement
• Monitor keyword rankings over time
• Set up alerts for changes in backlink profiles, rankings, site health, etc. 

By leveraging Ahref, you’ll have everything you need to perform a thorough analysis of your website’s on-page technical SEO. 

On-Page Technical SEO Case Studies

As a website design agency specializing in SEO, we’ve helped countless clients improve their website search rankings.

In this section, we’ll take a look at three on-page technical SEO case studies : 

• Lunarsol Studios

Ukraine Rises

We hope these examples serve as inspiration for your website goals!  

Lunarsol is a creative studio that collaborates with social justice movements, art organizations, nonprofit foundations, and any organization invested in using compelling visual art to advance social change. 

As a creative services firm that prioritizes equity, solidarity, and trust, Lunarsol Studios needed to reach a target audience with the same values and goals. That’s why they contacted us about a website redesign that would tell their unique story through branding, art direction, and on-page SEO optimization. 

We helped this great organization reach its audience by employing technical SEO strategies like improved navigation, image compression, page structure, and heading hierarchy. You can check out our Lunarsol case study to learn more about how we made it happen.  

Ukraine Rises is a 501c3 nonprofit that provides safety, protection, and in-country care to victims of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The organization’s mission is to help Ukrainian citizens reclaim their lives and rebuild their nation.

The ongoing impact of Ukraine Rises includes: 

• 2,000+ power banks and string light units distributed throughout hot zones
• 16 tons of shelf-stable food delivered to the Kharkiv region
• 100+ children and their parents given psychological support via COPEKITs
• $135,000+ in grants to Ukrainian partner nonprofits

To continue their life-saving work, Ukraine Rises needed to reach as many potential supporters as possible through Internet search results. Here at Slam, we’re proud to have supported their efforts through on-page technical SEO revisions, including image compression, site structure, heading hierarchy, and metadata.  

Kai XR is a virtual learning platform that aims to bridge the digital divide by giving students hands-on access to the technologies they need to prepare for future careers. 

The organization designs accessible learning resources that can be used with any device, making mobile responsiveness a top priority. 

Here at Slam, we understand the importance of responsive design to a site’s searchability. We improved their on-page technical SEO by incorporating sitemap structuring, image compression, and metadata. You can read more about how we did it here .   

Slam’s On-Page Technical SEO Offerings 

As an award-winning B2B website design agency , optimizing our websites for searchability is a non-negotiable part of our services. From boosting website speed and performance to setting up canonical URLs, we do it all so our clients don’t have to. 

If you’re a DIY enthusiast, we’ve created some tools to help optimize your Webflow website: 

Technical SEO Audit Template

• Website Launch Checklist
• Free Website Audit
• SEO ROI Calculator  

And if you’re thinking of launching an SEO-focused business, check out our guide on how to start an SEO agency . 

We also offer small business SEO packages to nonprofits and businesses of all sizes looking to boost their site’s UX, functionality, and visibility . 

In addition to SEO , we provide the following award-winning services : 

• Webflow Design & Development
• Content Writing & Strategy
• Brand Strategy & Identity

Contact us to schedule your free consultation with one of our SEO experts today! 

Join our email list to be the first to know about exciting launches, new products, and tools to help you and your team grow online.

Slam Media Lab is an award-winning digital agency hyper-focused on SEO, web design, content marketing, and brand design. We help impact organizations shaping the future win online through conversion-driven design.

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SEO Case Study: +73% Search Traffic With These 6 Fixes

Campaign Challenges:

• Very poor technical SEO with problems at various levels
• Poor internal linking structure leading to indexing bloat
• Huge amount of keyword cannibalisation problems

Campaign Results:

Organic Traffic

Organic Revenue

I’m going to show you how my team at Search Logistics increased our client’s monthly organic search traffic by 73% .

As a result of the strategies that we implemented, we increased monthly search traffic from 26,668 to 46,136 –

I’ve broken down all of the steps below so that you can apply them to your own sites.

Before we dig into the details though…

…let’s learn a little more about the site at hand.

What Will I Learn?

A Closer Look At The Case Study Site

Apart from targeting keywords that have high commercial intent, the website also has lots of content targeting informational terms.

This way, prospective customers are able to:

• Purchase the products from the online store.
• Learn how to use and fix these items themselves via detailed tutorials on the blog.

When joining my team over at Search Logistics last year, the client’s main objective was to increase their standing in the market, targeting customers in the need of purchasing equipment and parts for their homes.

Our main focus during the campaign was to:

• Make sure that the site was technically sound
• Fix existing content issues

Although we did some light link building, most of our wins came from getting the foundations right.

The Biggest Challenges We Had to Overcome

Without having a technically sound website and great content that addresses the search intent of the keywords you want to target, your site is going to struggle to rank.

This site had some major issues with both .

Following our analysis of the site at the start of the campaign, we found that the site had…

• Broken product pages that were returning a “HTTP 200 OK” status, but were rendering incorrectly and displaying blank pages
• Numerous warnings with their Product schema markup, which was affecting the ability for these pages to show additional information in the SERP and losing out on the potential to increase CTR as a result
• Mixed content where HTTPS protocol URLs were also loading unsecured HTTP resources, breaking SSL which is a ranking factor
• No breadcrumb navigation was implemented on the site
• Pages that were under optimised with a lack of keyword density and thin content
• Missed out on several important keywords that they could have been ranking for

Because of these issues, the site was not ranking for nearly as many keywords – or as highly – as it had the potential to.

Google was unsure which pages to rank for those facing keyword cannibalisation issues and was not recognising pages with little-to-no keyword density as being worthy of ranking.

Overall, these issues had snowballed into a large buffet of both technical and content related problems that all needed to be addressed in order to help the site reach its full potential in search.

Especially given it already had a solid backlink profile to work with!

Create A Plan Of Attack

When it came to creating a plan of attack, the strategy was relatively simple.

First we completed an SEO audit to find all of the problems and understand where we were starting from.

Then it was mostly fixing the technical problems we found before making sure that the content issues were sorted and structured in the correct way.

Step #1 – Fixed Broken Product Pages

A common occurrence with any site is having pages that are broken or for whatever reason, don’t render correctly.

In our case, the site had over 50 product pages that returned a “200” HTTP status code , were indexed by Google, but were loading as blank “ broken ” pages.

This is an issue because:

• It wastes precious crawl budget (important for eCommerce sites with lots of products)
• It creates a poor experience for the user

We went through and removed each of these pages from the index by adding a “ noindex, nofollow ” meta robots tag in the HTML code of each page.

We also added a custom 404 page to let users know that the page no longer exists so that they can revert back to the homepage, or another relevant landing page.

Pro Tips: If you’re ever in doubt about whether or not a page is indexed by Google or not, a simple site: search can do the trick.

Use the “inurl:” operator to search for a specific URL. This is what you will see if the URL is not indexed by Google.

Step #2 – Fixed Structured Data on Product Pages

Structured data (or schema markup) is a way of providing Google with more information about what your web pages are about. Take a look at my FAQ Schema tutorial to learn more.

There’s a Schema markup for pretty much anything and everything-

• Job Listings
• Organizations

…And more!

In our case, we noticed that the client’s Product schema wasn’t implemented correctly as it had several warnings – we checked this using Google’s Rich Results Test tool .

You can see below that the original implementation was missing several key pieces of information such as the brand, description and the URL of the product.

We went through each of these errors for each product on the site and made sure that the properties were filled out correctly.

In doing so, we increased the chances of the client’s pages showing up with star ratings, pricing and product information in the search results page like this.

This makes your web pages more noticeable in the search results, which in turn increases the click-through rate (CTR).

So if you don’t want to end up with the same issues as our client, don’t forget to test the quality of your schema markup with a schema tester .

Step #3 – Fixed Mixed Content Issues

While the site was running on HTTPS, we found lots of issues with mixed content warnings where they were loading HTTP elements.

This is problematic because it allows the loading of unsecured content on an otherwise secure page, which in turn makes the whole page not secure.

Plus let’s not forget that HTTPS is a confirmed Google ranking factor , so it’s important it works correctly.

You can check your own site using the SSL Check tool –

We found our clients site had this issue across a ton of pages!

So we updated the URLs of the unsecured resources so that they now load over a secure HTTPS connection.

Step #4 – Implemented Breadcrumb Navigation

Another change that we made to the client’s site was to implement breadcrumb navigation which was missing when they first joined.

Breadcrumbs are links that allow a visitor to track their path from the page they are currently viewing to the homepage of your website.

They appear close to the top of your page and reflect the hierarchy of your site.

But more importantly:

Breadcrumbs also help search engine bots like Google understand the overall structure of the pages on your site. If you haven’t got breadcrumbs setup, get them setup immediately!

Step #5 – Optimising Existing Content

During our initial SEO audit at the start of the campaign, we noticed that:

• Many of the site’s core landing pages weren’t quite as well optimised as they should be for the keywords they were targeting.
• Many of the pages contained thin content.

It’s important to remember that thin content isn’t just about pages with not enough “ words ” on them. It’s about understanding the user intent/purpose of your page and providing the right content to address that.

For example, with a collection or category page on an eCommerce site, you don’t want to read large blocks of text.

Instead, you want to see lots of products – this is because the intent of the user here is to buy and/or browse.

Click Here To Get The 7 Day Ecommerce SEO Strategy (You’ll learn how to create perfectly optimised product and category pages)

Over the course of several months, we improved the existing content by:

• Optimising the core landing pages for further keywords.
• Addressing the thin content issues by analyzing the user intent of each page.

The quickest way to do this is to do a simple Google search of your primary keyword and take a look at what the top-ranking competitors have included in their pages – simple!

If you need more help with this take a look at our website content and SEO copywriting guides or our SEO checklist to take your content to the next level.

Step #6 – Target New Keywords With New Content

Looking at the keywords that your competitors are ranking for makes creating a content plan so much easier.

You can download my intelligent keyword research template to help you out with this.

We like to use Ahrefs to find new keywords to target based on what your competitors are ranking for, but you aren’t – it’s called the Content Gap tool.

All you have to do is enter your competitor’s domains along with your own and the tool will generate a bunch of terms that you should target.

Using this simple but effective method, we produced many pages of new content for the site which allowed us to target new, long-tail commercially focused keywords.

The Results Are In

Since joining Search Logistics and deploying those fixes, the site’s organic search traffic has grown by 73%-

• The number of users increased from 23,014 to 40,877
• The number of sessions increased from 26,668 to 46,136

Revenue has increased by 28.43% .

On top of this, the client is now ranking for 3,953 keywords in the top 10 positions compared to 1,412 keywords at the start of the campaign.

This represents an increase of 179.96%.

If you want help increasing your organic search traffic, you can check out my list of ecommerce SEO services or you can contact my team here .

Wrapping It Up

After implementing numerous fixes to both the site’s content and technical facets, our client’s site has seen a significant improvement in revenue.

While we were fixing technical issues, we were building links slowly to support the overall strategy but most of our wins came from fixing the on-page SEO problems.

I should also mention at this stage that we’ve also been building links (Use the link building checklist ) on a regular basis for the client which will have helped move the needle – but it was by no means a core element of our strategy here.

What this case study shows, however, is the importance of nailing down:

• Your keyword research
• Your technical SEO
• Your content

…Before focusing on links.

Next we are going to turn our attention to optimising the on-page elements of the core pages with a CRO audit while also turning the dial up on link building.

If you want to grow your e-commerce site you can follow our 7 day e-commerce SEO strategy or submit an enquiry now to have my team do the hard work for you.

Otherwise please feel free to check out some of our other SEO case studies-

• How to 14x search traffic in 8 months
• How to triple ecommerce revenue during Covid-19
• From 5,156 to 30,347 search visitors per month
• 656 top 3 rankings step by step

Link building you will be proud of.

We take full control of your traffic.

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What Are Your Thoughts?

157 Responses

Hi,Amazing Post, thanks for sharing.

No problem, Lucas

one of your best blog thankyou for providing us this great information.

Thank you for reading- Cheers!

Amazing Piece of information. Thanks For Providing such useful information.

No problem!

good case study Mathew. I learnt a lot from it. Keep up the good work

I found your article very informative. Thanks for shairing such an informative article. I have bookmarked your website for further posts.

Thanks for reading my blog!

Really amazing post. learn allot from here, waiting for the upcoming post.

Thank you. More case studies are coming!

Thank you author for such a nice article .Keep it up.

Thank you for sharing this with us.

nice information thank you

You’re welcome!

Nice fixes! It is a checkup I can use on most of the sites I get in. Also I always check for speed. It is very common people have their sites hosted on a slow host and haven’t optimized for speed at all.Thanks for a great read!

So true! People still don’t pay enough attention to site speed- which is an official ranking factor!

Hey Man! It took me some time to read this – in fact, all the articles I have read are very comprehensive. SEO is a LOOOT of work but this article is almost a to-do list. Know from experiments that SSL errors are deal-breakers! Had a test site that went from 50 daily visits to ZERO. But the day after implementing SSL the traffic was back.Thanks for all the wisdom you are sharing!

Hey David, yeah SEO is a lot of work but when done correctly, the ROI you get from it is completely worth it. Don’t you think?Also if you’re interested in SEO checklists, I suggest you check this out: https://searchlogistics.com/seo/seo-checklist/

Hi Admin. Thanks for sharing helpful information.

Hey dear, thanks for sharing such good information, I have also created the eCommerce website and working on it to rank the website, really very helpful thanks for sharing

Don’t forget the key to success is to apply what you learn! Good luck with your ecommerce store!

Nice article, Thank’s for sharing this information.

No worries, Jack

Thanks for sharing the post, really help me a lot

Thanks for your tool, I’m hoping to spend the rest of the fixing hundreds of issues your tool has highlighted that I wasn’t aware of. So glad I found this tool via Google!

Keep it up, Kishen!

great blog, thanks for the tips.

Thank you for sharing this information with us

Always happy to help!

your article was to helpful

Thank you, Shreyas!

Nice article, the article is really helpful for me. Thanks for sharing with us.

Thanks for sharing this useful information.

This blog was really helpful for me. I really love the way how precisely you describe every thing. Thank you so much.

Really Good Information

Hi Matthew, It’s an amazing resource! Thanks a lot for sharing your strategies and breaking them down into small steps. I really gained a lot of information from your resource, and I am looking forward to applying these strategies to my website as well and overcoming my challenges. I especially agree about optimizing existing content. We also conducted an SEO audit and found some issues with content. So, I am glad that you added it to your article.

This is really informative information …Thanks

Really Good information sir

Compliments on an excellent article.You have brought up an indepth analysis of chamges to implememt in ones websites to rank better.Will definitely be looking at implementing some of your suggestions as soon as possible

Glad to hear that! Good luck

Nice blog and very useful information

Cheers, Ankit

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In this case study, you’ll learn how we helped our client grow by 2,550% by fixing on page SEO issues with content and indexation.

Top 10 Positions

In this case study, you’ll see how we grew our client’s monthly organic revenue by 493% after optimizing key pages.

Monthly Revenue

Learn how we grew search traffic by 44% in just 12 months without building any new links to the site!

Top 10 Results

In this case study, you’ll see how we grew our client’s organic traffic by 288% after implementing a complete site migration.

Top 10 Rankings

In this case study, you’ll see how we more than doubled our gambling client’s monthly sessions from 52k visits to over 77k in just 12 months.

Conversions

In this case study, you’ll see the exact strategy we used to grow our gambling client’s organic traffic by over 800%.

These are the 4 steps we followed to drive our clients websites to 1.4M visitors in just six months without building any links!

Organic Visitors

This SEO case study shows you how we beat the May 2022 core update to increase search traffic by 111% and revenue by 51% per month.

We’ll show you how we recovered our client’s coupon websites search traffic after it was destroyed by Google’s May 2020 core algorithm update.

We’ll show you the SEO strategy we used to increase revenue by 438% for an ecommerce health brand, whilst facing heavy competition.

Core updates have the potential to destroy your SEO. We’ll show you how we recovered our client’s website from a huge Google core algorithm update.

Discover how we 3x a client’s revenue from organic search in just 90 days by focussing on fixing big SEO issues that were holding the site back.

See how we increased our client’s search traffic by 1,367%, including the big challenges we faced & the strategies we used to overcome them.

Monthly Visitors

Discover how our team increased monthly sales to £109,377 for our client during COVID & lockdowns despite the fact they’re in the sports niche.

Learn how we increased monthly search traffic from 5,156 to 30,347 in the highly competitive gambling niche by taking a different approach to SEO.

Daily Visitors

Learn how we won 656 top 3 rankings with 1,951 keywords listed on the first page with our SEO case study. The result was 498% traffic growth.

Top 3 Rankings

See exactly how we took search traffic from 2,732 visitors per month to 38,420 in just 8x months in this detailed SEO case study.

Learn the link building & SEO strategy behind 53,000 visitors per month in one of the most competitive niches.

This client runs an ecommerce store that sells pet products and were not ranking for any kind of commercial terms to begin with.

Top 5 Rankings

This client works in the highly competitive world of real estate and was spending a small fortune every month.

The site was already established but it had a range of issues and was losing traffic and revenue for over a year before we started working on it.

This site was hit with a manual penalty from Google so we had to act fast. We cleaned up the site and had our reconsideration request accepted first time.

Number 1 Rankings

Learn how we beat big brand competitors to increase this furniture stores e-commerce revenue by 369%.

Learn how we managed to overcome the Penguin penalty and bring this sites search traffic to record levels.

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Simple Technical Fixes, Easy Wins 

Find out how our client achieved a 216% increase in keyword rankings over 6 months just by implementing technical SEO best practices. 

Technical SEO

Results at 6 Months

increase in

total keywords

first page keywords

Results at 9 Months

organic traffic value

Case Study: Do Technical Fixes Really Matter?

You likely already know the importance of having a well-working, technically-sound website, especially when it comes to search engine optimization. But when you're working on a site redesign, it's easy to let technical tweaks and SEO best practices come second to the fun stuff: new branding, flashy design, engaging content. 

Future.co is a groundbreaking app working on modernizing personal training. They connect you to an elite fitness coach who designs a custom plan around your goals and schedule. When Future.co decided to redesign their site, they knew they wanted to do it the right way. That's why they came to First Page Strategy: to ensure they understood technical SEO best practices and could make the next version of their site the best it could be.  By the time we were done incorporating small technical tweaks into their redesign plan, Future.co's total ranking keywords had increased by 216%.

As Future.co prepared to launch their new site, they knew they wanted better SEO results. They just weren't sure where their current site stood in terms of SEO best practices, and they wanted to be confident that the new site they were building was heading in the right direction.  Future.co wanted First Page Strategy to perform a technical SEO audit of their existing site, using that as a springboard to deliver recommendations on best practices for the new site. From our perspective, it was a unique situation. Normally, we find SEO issues and fix them right away. But for this project, we needed to carefully evaluate the effort, expected results, and timeframe to see results in order to determine whether the fix should be made on the existing site or built into the new site instead.  We also wanted to provide any needed education for the Future.co team so they knew the best steps forward when it came to technical SEO. 

Strategy & Execution

We began our work with the goal of answering two key questions:

• 1. What short-term fixes could we implement on Future.co's existing site to improve organic search rankings?
• 2. What long-term best practices do they need to know in order to keep growing organic traffic and leads in the future? 

To do so, we performed a thorough technical SEO audit of Future.co's existing site, outlining specific recommendations to improve indexation, avoid duplicate content, optimize on-page SEO, increase page speed, boost the user experience, and more.

Short-Term Recommendations

For Future.co's existing site, our recommendations included:

• Fixing the robots.txt file
• Making adjustments to the sitemap
• Resolving issues with redirect chains
• Adding appropriate heading tags in the HTML
• Adding self-referential canonical URLs

Long-Term Recommendations

• Making sure all content is easily crawlable and indexable, even when using JavaScript
• Improving rankings through better on-page optimization
• Building out site architecture to prioritize important keywords
• Boosting page speed
• Improving mobile-friendliness
• Including relevant Schema markup

We also created a custom best practices guide and checklist for their developers so that they could use it as a reference in the future. 

Technical SEO is just one piece of the SEO puzzle. To truly grow organic traffic and revenue, you need to invest in an SEO content strategy and link building. But our work with Future.co showed that big gains can be made simply by getting that technical SEO piece in place. 

When we presented Future.co with our fixes and recommendations in August of 2022, they were ranking for 887 keywords.

By March 2023, eight months after our initial presentation and six months after their new site's launch, they were ranking for a total of 2,802 keywords — that's an increase of 216%, purely from a focus on basic technical SEO. 

Better yet, their first-page keywords (the ones driving the most search traffic) rose by 51% after 6 months and 77% after 9 months. This is a great illustration of how investing in technical SEO has an incremental impact down the road. Their organic traffic value also rose 83%, reiterating the impact technical SEO can have on revenue. 

Closing Thoughts

Launching a new site can be tricky, and if you’re not careful, you can lose organic traffic and keywords in the process. By getting top-notch technical advice and understanding their priorities before launching, Future.co was able to keep SEO on a forward momentum throughout the transition. And with Future.co's trust, we were able to go beyond the role of SEO agency and serve as a training partner, sharing best SEO practices with their internal team and teaching them how to implement those practices independently. 

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Driving results using Technical SEO Strategy | Case study

October 4, 2023

When the new client, an impressive player in the B2B Medical industry , first approached us, we were fully aware that this was a challenge requiring our utmost dedication. In the following case study, we’ll walk you through the five pivotal steps we took to completely revamp their online presence, enhancing both page health and authority in the process – bringing an increase of 25% in traffic in just a few months.

Dive into our latest in-depth SEO case study and learn how Page Health and Authority Optimization can drive real-world results. See the transformative power of a meticulously planned technical SEO strategy.

Client Background

Our client, a prominent B2B business, from the medical industry, approached us with a pressing concern: their website’s underperformance. The objectives were clear – bolster online visibility, boost organic traffic, and, ultimately, amplify revenue streams. The website presented several challenges, including a distressingly low Page Health score of 48 and a less-than-optimal Page Authority of 17. The Analytics showed a high bounce rate and a low average time on the page.

The mission was unequivocal : transform these pivotal metrics to drive higher organic traffic and conversions by improving its metrics.

Challenges Faced

Low Page Health (Score 48): The website grappled with technical and on-page SEO issues that urgently required rectification.

Limited Page Authority (Score 17): The website’s trustworthiness and credibility fell short, impeding its ascent in search engine rankings.

Stagnant Organic Traffic: Organic traffic had plateaued, failing to meet conversion rate expectations.

Strategy and Approach

1. comprehensive technical audit.

The first crucial step was an exhaustive technical audit.

This audit unearthed a multitude of issues, including a sluggish page load speed, poor mobile-friendliness, and crawlability impediments.

We also identified and rectified:

Broken links, which were harming user experience.

Duplicate content issues that led to search engine confusion.

Inadequate URL structures that hindered proper indexing.

Furthermore, addressing page speed was of paramount importance. Google’s Core Web Vitals update places significant emphasis on page speed, and our efforts in this regard had a profound impact on website health.

2. In-Depth Keyword Research

Simultaneously, we embarked on an extensive keyword research expedition. Our goal was to identify high-impact keywords that resonated with both the client’s objectives and current industry trends. This laid the foundation for a robust keyword strategy, ensuring that the content aligned perfectly with the target audience’s intent.

3. On-Page Optimization

Optimizing existing content and crafting new, keyword-rich content was the next step. This involved:

Enhancing meta tags, crafting compelling headings, and optimizing image alt attributes to enhance visibility.

Leveraging schema markup to provide search engines with structured data, enhancing search results’ richness.

4. Technical SEO Enhancements

Technical SEO enhancements played a pivotal role in improving website health:

We submitted updated sitemaps to search engines for expedited indexing.

Canonicalization issues were addressed to prevent duplicate content penalties.

An improved website navigation system and internal linking structure provided users with an enhanced experience.

5. Content Marketing and Link Building

The final piece of the puzzle was content marketing and link building:

Improving internal linkage between relevant content pieces within the website, which also improved time on site.

We created high-quality, shareable content to attract backlinks, thereby elevating Page Authority.

Employing ethical link-building strategies solidified the website’s authority and trustworthiness.

Results Achieved

1. page health transformation.

Within a matter of months, our strategies propelled the Page Health score from 48 to an astounding 95. The resolution of technical issues, especially the optimization of page load speed, resulted in vastly improved overall website performance.

2. Page Authority Ascension

Page Authority, a key indicator of trustworthiness, surged from 17 to a highly commendable 29. The remarkable improvement was primarily attributed to the augmented backlink profile garnered through our content marketing and link-building endeavors.

3. Explosive Organic Traffic Growth

One of the most remarkable outcomes of our SEO campaign was the monumental 20% increase in organic traffic within just three months. Our meticulous efforts in addressing page speed and optimizing for Core Web Vitals played a substantial role in this growth.

4. Enhanced User Experience

By addressing technical issues and optimizing on-page elements, the website now delivers a seamless and engaging user experience. This has led to lower bounce rates and extended user sessions, cementing the site’s position in search engine rankings.

This case study serves as a compelling testament to the power of a meticulously crafted SEO plan and precise technical optimization. The transformation of Page Health from 48 to an impressive 95 and Page Authority from 17 to 29 vividly illustrates the tangible benefits of strategic SEO efforts.

By systematically addressing technical issues, optimizing on-page elements, and implementing effective content marketing and link-building strategies, we achieved remarkable results. The client’s online visibility, organic traffic, and conversion rates experienced substantial growth. This case study underscores the pivotal role of SEO in enhancing website performance and achieving substantial business growth.

In conclusion, for businesses aspiring to thrive in the digital sphere, investing in SEO is not just a choice; it’s an imperative step toward realizing online success.

If you’re seeking more detailed information on how optimizing page speed and eliminating duplicate content can enhance your website’s health and drive remarkable traffic growth, visit us to read more: https://ozglobalb2b.com/SEO/

Ready to take your website’s SEO to the next level? Book a meeting to schedule your consultation and unlock the full potential of your online presence.

• B2B Digital Marketing
• Digital Marketing
• Online Marketing

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Even Great Content Can Miss the Mark and How a Strategy Pause Can Make All the Difference

By  liron ramot , 22/09/2024, digital marketing is essential for b2b companies to reach their target audience, generate leads, and stay competitive. many lack the resources to handle it in-house, making outsourced digital marketing a valuable solution., why digital content often misses the mark.

Understanding the Study Process

What it achieves, how it’s done.

• Initial Consultation : In-depth session to clarify your business’s current digital marketing objectives and identify the key areas that require attention.
• Targeted Research : Assessing the performance of specific campaigns, audience engagement metrics, and the effectiveness of your content in driving desired outcomes.
• Strategy Refinement : Adjust and optimize existing strategies based on findings.
• I mplementation and Monitoring : Monitoring and tweaking the revised strategy as needed.

Exploring the Discovery Process

• Kick-off Meeting: Clarify goals and challenges.
• Comprehensive Research and Analysis : A thorough examination of the market, competitors, and internal capabilities. Key activities include identifying Buyer Personas, conducting a Competitive Digital Analysis, and performing a detailed SEO review.
• Digital Strategy Development : Based on the research insights, a full-scale digital strategy is formulated. This includes defining content pillars, creating a media plan, and developing creative visual guidelines that ensure brand consistency across all platforms.
• Presentation and Implementation : Once approved, the strategy is implemented, with ongoing support to ensure its success.

Why Discovery Is the Better Choice?

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Rules, Regulations & Medical Brands How your medical brand can stand out within the regulatory framework

By  nirit elyovich, mba , 15/08/2024, balancing marketing ambition with regulatory compliance is no easy task for medical brands. our latest blog explores how early collaboration between marketing and regulatory teams can transform these challenges into opportunities, ensuring your brand stands out while staying compliant. discover the smart strategies to help your brand shine within the regulatory framework., when the journey takes an unexpected turn.

Understanding limitations and optimizing capabilities

Challenging the norms, it’s not about overstepping the bounds of the approved claims, but we also don’t want to take a step backward in the name of conservatism., structured and managed conflicts are an opportunity.

From Fruit Stand to Frontlines: The Unexpected Journey of the Watermelon Emoji

By  rivi kesten buk , 25/07/2024, navigating digital symbolism can be intricate, but the case of the watermelon emoji adds a unique layer of complexity. it’s a prime example of how symbols can shape online narratives and influence global perceptions. this post uncovers the strategic use of the emoji and offers actionable ways to support pro-israeli voices in the digital arena..

But first, a disclaimer: My name is Rivi, and I'm a proud Zionist (I believe in the Jews' right to self-determine in their ancestral homeland).

In recent years, while immersed in the online world of Hasbara, I’ve witnessed firsthand the challenges of representing Israel's narrative in a vast digital landscape. With Jews comprising just 0.2% of the global population, our voice can easily be drowned out in the maelstrom of social media.

This blog post examines a fascinating case study in digital activism: how a simple fruit emoji became a battleground for narrative control. We'll explore the marketing strategies at play and their implications for Israel's online presence. While we analyze these tactics objectively, our goal is to empower pro-Israeli voices in this ever-evolving digital dialogue.

At the end of this blog, you'll find actionable recommendations on supporting content creators who are amplifying Israel's perspective in the online world.

The Roots of a Symbol

As we approach National Watermelon Day on August 3rd, let's slice into a juicy marketing tale that's more complex than meets the eye. It's the story of how a simple fruit emoji became a powerful symbol in one of the world's most enduring conflicts. The roots of this story begin back in the 1960s, when the watermelon, with its colors reminiscent of the Palestinian flag, became a covert symbol of Palestinian identity. Palestinian activists used the watermelon imagery in graffiti and posters, primarily because in 1967, Israel passed a law prohibiting the raising or display of Palestinian flags (which had been canceled, during the Oslo Accords in the 1990s). The watermelon became a symbol of political resistance, and if we fast-forward to today's digital age, this symbol has found new life as an emoji, skillfully wielded by pro-Palestinian activists in their online narratives.

A Clever Marketing Strategy

• Bypassing Algorithms: By using an innocuous fruit emoji, activists can often fly under the radar of content moderation systems. It's a digital sleight of hand that marketers call "Algospeak."
• Viral Potential: Emojis are the universal language of the internet. They're easy to use, easy to share, and can convey complex emotions and ideas in a single character. It's virality in its purest form.
• Continuity of Message: By adapting a historical symbol to modern digital platforms, the pro-Palestinian movement maintains a consistent narrative across generations. It's brand continuity at its finest.

The Israeli Perspective

Marketing Insights from the Emoji Wars This digital tug-of-war offers fascinating insights for marketers:

• The Power of Symbols: Who knew a fruit could carry so much meaning? It reminds us that in the right context, even the simplest symbols can convey complex messages.
• The Importance of Proactive Strategies: The pro-Israeli response underscores the need for brands to be vigilant about their symbols and ready to reclaim them if necessary.
• Authenticity Matters: The most effective responses are those rooted in genuine cultural connections. Israel's agricultural tie to watermelons provides an authentic base for their counter-narrative.
• David vs. Goliath in the Digital Age: The pro-Palestinian digital presence significantly outnumbers the pro-Israeli one. It's a reminder that in the world of digital marketing, it's not always about who's loudest, yet sometimes it is.

Beyond Emojis: The Real-World Impact

Conclusion: The Power of Digital Symbols

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14 SEO Case Studies: Challenges, Solutions & Results

Christina Lyon

Patience Hurlburt-Lawton

Content Editor

Approved By

Caroline Cox

Senior Content Manager

These SEO case studies illustrate that marketing tactics like content optimization, local SEO, and strategic keyword targeting are likely to set your brand up for search engine success. Find out what obstacles they overcame, what methods they leveraged, and how they achieved major ROI.

Here, you’ll find a handpicked roster of 14 inspiring case studies:

• Moneta Group
• Escape the Room
• DesktopReady
• Honda Motor Co.
• Career Group Companies
• Happy Ears Hearing Center
• Mommy’s Bliss
• Forks Over Knives

Constant keyword research, consistent content writing , user-friendly web design, backlinking … so much goes into a solid, in-depth search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.

What’s more, you might invest a ton of effort into all these tactics but still struggle to get anywhere near the top of search results.

Two pieces of good news: You’re not alone, and there are ways to get your rankings where they ought to be.

Reading over real-world examples in a good SEO case study can help inspire new strategies and show you what’s possible with the right plan in place.

To give you a head start, we’ll cover dynamic SEO success stories from HawkSEM as well as other agencies. We’ll share some of the best SEO case studies, complete with tactics, common challenges to overcome, and results to support your marketing efforts.

Get ready to ramp up your SEO.

14 SEO case studies for top-ranking inspiration

Thousands of monthly traffic hits, 2X conversion boosts, and pumped-up keyword rankings are just a few of the incredible results our clients have experienced with the right SEO services.

But you’ll notice each brand comes with a unique challenge that informs the right SEO strategy for them.

(Image: Adobe Stock)

1. Moneta Group catches local leads with triple-boosted keyword portfolio

Moneta Group has over two decades of experience in the wealth management space. Still, competition increased over time, so we needed to study those competitors and their keywords closely.

While Moneta wanted to improve national keyword rankings overall, their top priority was to stand out in four local markets. If you’re also looking to boost visibility in your area, then check out the strategies used in this local SEO case study.

Strategies:

• Local SEO – We built geo-specific web content to capture potential wealth management clients in the four areas Moneta Group was interested in. On top of that, our beefed-up citation profiles for each office helped solidify independent local ranking signals.
• Competitive analysis to fill keyword gaps – Moneta still wanted nationwide keyword rankings, so we had to review their competitors to see what was missing. We identified keywords with the lowest competitive metrics and organized them into a brimming content calendar to rank for each one.
• Content optimization – Moneta had a ton of great content on its website, but it needed a revamp for Google and new audiences. We conducted ongoing, on-page optimization, including backlinking and keyword development.
• 326% increase in net organic keyword portfolio
• 164% increase in organic keywords in positions 1-3
• Over 23% increase in Google Analytics goal completions

2. Escape the Room makes a real impression — 4 million, to be exact

With locations across 18 cities and 10 years of industry expertise, Escape the Room is a leader in the live game and entertainment industry.

With all those locations to manage, their marketing initiatives fell behind. They had a substantial base but needed strategic input to work with the algorithm and maintain a strong digital footprint.

• Metadata revamp – Escape the Room had 16 different locations, and not every website contained optimized metadata. But crawlers dive into these details, so they deserve some attention. That’s why we added new SEO elements like title tags and meta descriptions to keep Google happy.
• Speedy load time – Slow site speed can send your audience packing after just a few seconds. We dove into each website’s assets to remove anything clunky and decrease load time. This also improved mobile responsiveness.
• Quality content creation – From team-building ideas for company staff to escape room tips and tricks, there was no shortage of relevant content to create for Escape the Room. We paired new pieces of content with fresh, snazzy website designs to attract information-seeking readers, planting the seeds for conversion later on.
• Achieved an account-wide peak of 62% impression share
• Hit a record number 4 million monthly impressions
• Reached an all-time-high account-wide ad position of 1.1 for the brand

3. DesktopReady waves hello from the top of the SERPs

A new website launch caused DesktopReady to experience a traffic slump, despite being a leader in their industry with over 1 million users on their desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) solution.

How could they maintain their leading position in this space with endless competition and minimal organic traffic? We knew what we had to do.

• Technical SEO audit – New website launches sometimes miss the mark with SEO. We conducted a full audit to catch all issues affecting the site’s appeal to SERPs.
• Content all around – We optimized old content with new targeted key terms and created new content to target more qualified leads and foster website traffic.
• SEO support for social media profiles and YouTube – Believe it or not, your social profiles matter, too. So, we optimized DesktopReady’s social media to complement its strong web content and backlink profile.
• Increased users by 409%
• Grew backlinks from 822 to 1,340
• Jumped from 4 to 468 terms in SERP rankings

Keyword revamps, backlink strategies, and content creation are not the simplest tasks to complete on a marketer’s endless to-do list. Luckily, an SEO agency can check all those boxes for you.

4. Honda doubles traffic and reaches 30 million people

Honda Motor Co. wanted to promote their new Civic hatchback and Accord models to South American audiences. The problem? They were competing for keywords with their dealership partners.

On top of that, Honda just wasn’t reaching their target demographic with their existing content.

• New and improved keyword targets – We needed to get Honda and its dealers on the same page. So, we looked at the digital marketing goals for all parties and created new keyword targets for each to follow.
• Audience research – Honda had a target demographic, but SEO campaigns just weren’t reaching them. We sat down to discuss the brand’s unique selling points and linked them to their customers’ needs via tailored SEO content and keyword research.
• 30% decrease in CPC (cost per conversion)
• 40% increase in dealer inquiries
• 200% increase in traffic

5. Zephyr sees massive gains in lead volume and market share

When leading SaaS company Zephyr came to us, their digital marketing strategy was overly broad and lacked cohesion. With campaigns and goals in place, they needed help reigning everything into a sharp message and aligned approach.

With so many team members and initiatives at play, everyone was hamster-wheeling and struggling to stay caught up.

This lapse in cohesion created a hodgepodge of mixed messaging, and, not surprisingly, they weren’t bringing in as many qualified leads as they desired.

• Big-picture strategy: The first thing we did was get everyone on board about how to organize each and every initiative to work together cohesively. With an aligned, collaborative vision, we created a more unified strategy for all digital marketing campaigns.
• Landing page redesign and optimization: We tackled creative from the get-go and redesigned a landing page that was working against Zephyr by not engaging its visitors. Plus, the lead form was long and convoluted. With an engaging, dynamic new landing page design and a more efficient lead form, Zephyr saw immediate results–we’re talking double the lead volume than the original landing page.
• 100% increase in Zephyr’s lead volume with the new landing page
• $250 decrease in CPA

(Image: Career Group Companies)

6. Career Group Companies boosts job applications with keyword revamp

Imagine you’re an employer with a ton of job listings, and you aren’t receiving any applications. Career Group Companies , a staffing agency, faced this problem. The culprit? Less-than-stellar SEO was hiding their listings from prospective candidates.

We got to work with tried-and-true SEO tactics to improve the brand’s connection with its audience, drive more traffic, and improve application volume.

• Keyword portfolio expansion – We needed to understand why people looking for certain jobs weren’t landing on Career Group Companies’ listings. The answer was a few adjustments to their keyword portfolio, including long-tail variations and keyword phrases that included specific job titles and industries.
• Data-driven strategy – Our proprietary tech, ConversionIQ ™, helps us decrypt all the data to reveal the whole picture of your SEO and content marketing campaigns. We used our platform to gather sophisticated data across multiple channels and identify qualified and unqualified leads to inform a greater SEO strategy.
• New content assets – Career Group Companies wanted to highlight diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts and channel company-wide goals in their content. Naturally, we created new content assets to accommodate these goals and optimized existing content as well.
• 43% increase in job listing page views from organic traffic
• 71% increase in entrances from organic searches directly to job listing pages
• Significant growth in the candidate pipeline

7. Content, colors, and CTAs bring Happy Ears Hearing Center a nearly 4X traffic increase

Happy Ears Hearing Center is a Phoenix-based audiology office that offers specialized ear healthcare services to clients.

The company had two SEO goals: one, to capture the local audience that would best benefit from their services. And two? Establish their brand as a national industry expert on hearing issues.

We tackled a wider net of keywords and user experience improvements to garner more conversions.

Strategies :

• User experience enhancement – Don’t you hate clicking on a web page only to be met with a long, boring block of text? We spiced things up on Happy Ears’ website with colors, digestible headers, and engaging calls to action (CTAs). This led to more local conversions and appointments.
• Expanded keyword targets – Happy Ears wants to be an online go-to for all things hearing. So, we had to research what its audience was plugging into Google and expand that across the whole country.
• 245% increase in total organic keyword rankings
• 396% increase in organic traffic
• 44% increase in local conversions

Happy Ears had its audiology services on point. With added focus on the online user experience, readers benefited from their knowledge and expertise.

8. More visuals and updated keywords help DILO recover lost rankings

DILO is a gas-handling product and service provider with decades of experience, but even its longstanding SEO wasn’t immune to a website redesign in 2019.

We’ve seen it before: lost traffic and dropped keyword rankings from a new launch or migration. And in DILO’s case, those lost rankings were high-value keywords that it really needed to get back in order to re-establish its place in the industry.

• On-page optimization – We always conduct a technical SEO audit after a redesign. This time, we fixed a few speed and navigation issues. Next step? Content optimization with updated target keywords and meta tags.
• Visual content – The gas industry isn’t the easiest to grasp, even with an organized, comprehensive article. We introduced more infographics and charts into DILO’s content to improve organic traffic and the user experience.
• 36% increase in organic clicks within 6 months
• 24% increase in Google clicks for high-value keywords within 3 months
• 46% increase in Google impressions within 3 months

9. Easly hits the SEO ground running with 70 new pieces of optimized content

Easly is a Canada-based platform that provides capital advances on SR&ED grants to innovative new brands.

The company was new to the digital marketing world and came to HawkSEM with a brand-new website. It was our job to get it off the SEO ground with relevant content and authority to appeal to their audiences.

• New content to the max – We had to start from scratch, and 70 new pieces of content did the trick. Of course, we had to ensure the information was flawless and accurate to capture niche audiences for this brand. And we wrote for every potential customer in the funnel, from curious onlookers to conversion-ripe audiences.
• Domain authority – Easly was still fresh to Google’s eyes. They didn’t have enough external or internal links to channel credibility and thought leadership. We focused on creating linkable content that naturally brought backlinks from other reputable industry players.
• Technical tidbits – New websites always have a few snags. We enhanced site speed and adjusted some web elements to improve the mobile experience.
• 2,500% increase in referring domains
• 40+ featured snippet results on Google
• 1,500% increase in the brand’s keyword portfolio

People love reassurance, especially before making a purchase. A content library brimming with industry knowledge and helpful tips delivers that assurance to both readers and search engine crawlers.

10. Wind River triples CTR with PPC and SEO management

Wind River is a global SaaS brand that helps companies with digital transformation for vital intelligence systems in the aerospace, medical, automotive, and defense spaces.

They originally came to us for PPC services , but every cohesive marketing strategy leverages SEO, too.

• Internal linking – We improved site navigation and organic rankings by finding relevant placements for internal links across Wind River’s content.
• Content research – Tech niches are abundant with potential content, but you really need to ensure audience relevance before you start writing. We conducted competitive analysis and keyword research to inform our content calendar.
• Technical and on-page SEO – We covered our technical bases by cleaning up metadata and title tags. On top of that, we ensured logical formatting for web content with H1s and H2s, as well as updated all pieces of content with relevant keyword targets.
• 20% decrease in ad spend
• 294% increase in clickthrough rate (CTR)
• 39% increase in users

11. Samanage reaps organic traffic with a poppin’ content calendar

Asset management and service-desk SaaS brand Samanage operates across 50 different countries. Despite their global presence, they still had trouble ranking in the SERPs.

A custom-coded WordPress template impeded them from making technical SEO changes to appeal to Google’s crawlers. Plus, their blog wasn’t aligned with a cohesive SEO strategy, so they enlisted marketing agency Tinuiti to help them get on track.

• Robust content strategy – Tinuiti published over 65 pieces of content for Samanage across various types. They started with keyword-targeted blog posts and expanded to whitepapers, landing pages, and more evergreen content to improve web visibility.
• Blog redesign – Brainstorming ways to improve conversion rate optimization? Take a page from Tinuiti’s playbook and optimize your blog’s design elements with overall website A/B testing.
• 42.14% increase in organic traffic YoY
• High rankings for non-branded keywords

12. Mommy’s Bliss builds trust with new audiences via link-building

When you’re a mom-and-pop shop, marketing might be as easy as a Facebook ad or physical sign. But when you start expanding, things get more hectic.

Mommy’s Bliss sells high-quality baby products and experienced immense growth that spurred an entire website redesign. Those two events can seriously throw your SEO strategy off-course.

Luckily, help from HawkSEM made all the difference, as showcased in this ecommerce SEO case study.

• Backlinking for credibility – Mommy’s Bliss expanded its audience, so new visitors might not have been aware of the company’s strong values and credentials. That’s why we needed to launch a backlinking strategy to establish E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness). Think about it: parents need to feel 100% confident in a brand before purchasing a product for their kids.
• Daily SEO management – HawkSEM offers all clients a dedicated manager to oversee progress, strategize improvements, and catch any snags before they develop into bigger problems. We handled all the SEO oversight so Mommy’s Bliss could focus on creating new products for its booming audience.
• Over 65% increase in organic sessions year over year
• 79% increase in total keyword rankings
• Doubled goal completions

13. Forks Over Knives leverages search data to recover lost traffic during COVID

The pandemic kept people at home and away from Forks Over Knives’ website. The health lifestyle brand noticed a slump in organic search traffic, along with a decrease in search volume for their target keywords.

But the problem wasn’t their rankings. They still held top spots for their target keywords, people just weren’t typing them into Google anymore. Search intent had changed, and marketing agency Wpromote knew the keywords needed to change, too.

• Trend research – Wpromote used Google Trends data to understand how people were shifting their search queries and which keywords were replacing the old ones.
• Content strategy shift – When life gives you new keywords, you make new recipes (at least, that’s what Forks Over Knives did during the pandemic). Everyone was looking for recipes, so Wpromote used trend data to predict the most highly searched recipes to create content for.
• 278,000 organic sessions for their “banana recipes” pages
• 41% increase in total organic sessions month over month (MoM)
• #1 trafficked all-channel landing page since publishing

People adapt with the times, and your SEO strategy should, too.

14. Vimeo takes technical SEO to the next level for better visibility

Even enterprise-level SaaS businesses like Vimeo need to stay sharp on their SEO . With over 260 million users uploading hundreds of thousands of videos daily, it’s not surprising that indexing and structure data issues arose.

Customers struggled to conduct basic SEO tasks to optimize their videos, like indexing APIs, adding structured data to their sites, submitting sitemaps, and beyond. Meaning? They weren’t getting as many eyes on their video content.

The solution? Vimeo got on board with Google’s SEO best practices to improve visibility and searchability for their active customers.

• Allowing customers to index videos at scale – Vimeo streamlined the indexing process to allow embedded videos to show up on Google’s SERPs. By using iframe embeds and noindex in tandem, embedded Vimeo videos from customer websites’ could be indexed and thus, provide more visibility to their own web page without the mess of adding individual markups for each video.
• Making Key Moments searchable – Ever searched for how to boil an egg and had to skip past the first three minutes to get to the instructions? Annoying, right? Fortunately, you won’t have this problem anymore because time-stamped segments of Vimeo’s video content now show up in Google Search. By adding Clip markup to all video pages and rolling out Seek markup (auto-generated Chapters that Google identifies as Key Moments), Vimeo customers can now attract more organic traffic to specific segments within each video.

When it comes to visibility and video content, Google and Vimeo go together like PB&J.

What is an SEO case study?

An SEO case study highlights how a consultant or agency partnered with a specific client to drive significant, notable SEO results.

When brands want to beef up their SEO strategy, they often partner with an SEO agency or professional to help them achieve desired outcomes.

A case study helps paint a clear picture of how a brand went from point A to B on the search engine results page, or SERP — with “B” being results like skyrocketed organic traffic, greater conversion rates, and high keyword rankings.

But SEO isn’t the same for every brand. Sure, there are overarching categories like content and keywords. But different niches, budgets, and goals distinguish SEO tactics and results across the board.

Reviewing an SEO case study helps you identify success markers and the strategies used to achieve that success.

With these insights, you can glean tips and tactics to apply to your brand’s SEO strategy.

The takeaway

Whether you’re running a small business or a giant ecommerce operation, SEO success is vital for a modern online marketing strategy.

Each of these SEO case studies shows key takeaways and tactics you can apply to create the most effective strategy for your business goals.

And if you still need a hand? HawkSEM’s SEO experts have over a decade of experience helping clients like you improve conversion rates, boost traffic, and smash any other SEO goals on your roster.

Our clients enjoy an average of 4.5x ROI after working with us. So, let’s turn your SEO into one of our success stories. Book a call today .

This post has been updated and was originally published in August 2023.

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Importance of Topical Authority: A Semantic SEO Case Study

Topical Authority and Semantic SEO will be discussed more frequently with the concept of Structured Search Engine in the coming years. In this article, I will explain how I used these techniques to grow monthly organic traffic from 10,000 to 200,000+ on Interingilizce.com in just 5 months.

When you read this SEO case study, some things may seem strange to you because they’re a bit extraordinary. Therefore, we will need to highlight the not so familiar concept of semantic SEO.

Background of the Semantic SEO Case Study and Projects

During this SEO case study, none of the following methods were used, and all the important visible SEO elements below were intentionally excluded from the projects.

• Pagespeed Optimization
• Brand Power and Branding
• Technical SEO (That’s right: I didn’t use it.)
• Quality Web Page Layout and Design
• A Healthy Server

In summary, anything we normally say is good great practice in a normal SEO case study was not carried out on this website. Therefore, you may think that the success I have had is a fluke. But you would be wrong: with the same methodology, I have created 4 separate SEO case studies and success stories in the last 5 months.

This article is an executive summary of my methodology and also a manifesto for semantic SEO and the true values of SEO theories with free analytical thinking.

This means I have decided not to cover related topics and experiences, such as:

• Minor Google updates
• The reason I lost all featured snippets in one day
• How our server collapsed from excessive traffic
• The effect of server failure on search engine algorithms.

With that in mind, let me present the methodology.

4 Different SEO Projects, Same Methodology and Same Success with Semantic SEO

In this article, I will focus on Interingilizce.com with a simple semantic SEO executive summary. But, to reduce the questions you may have and guarantee that “SEO Theories and Google Patents” has a concrete and actionable value (thanks to Bill Slawski), I want to summarize the 4 different SEO projects’ journeys with only their results.

If you want to read all the heavy SEO terms, theories, patents, and practical details about these SEO case studies and projects, I recommend you read my Topical Authority, Coverage, and Contextual Hierarchy for SEO article. (It’s a long one and has more than than 14,000 words.)

“We were aiming for success in a short time with a quick effect in our new projects. And we surpassed our targets in our new project.” Rüstem Ersöyleyen Head of Marketing, KonuşarakÖğren

First Project: 1100% Organic Traffic Increase in 5 Months, Interingilizce.com

Interingilizce.com is actually 2 years old, but there was neither content on the website nor organic traffic. I have increased the Org. Traffic by 1100% in 145 days. From 10,000 to 200,000 clicks. Since you already saw the “last 6 months organic traffic” result in the intro section, you can see the “May 2020” and “November 2020” comparison below.

I know, actually, it is way much more than just the 1100% organic traffic increase, but I can’t use the “%” sign for this kind of increase to make you imagine something concrete enough.

Below, you will see Interingilizce.com’s Last 3 Months Comparison graphic for organic traffic.

And, last 6 Months Organic Traffic Graphic for Interingilizce.com.

You might confuse it with GetWordly.com’s GSC Report, but they are different. Since, I use the same methodology, they had the same reflexes against Google algorithms and updates.

Second Project: From 0 to 330,000 Monthly Organic Traffic, and 10,000+ Clicks Per Day: GetWordly.com

GetWordly.com is the second site, the website was pure in terms of organic visibility and history. On GetWordly.com, I reached the level of 11,000 organic clicks per day and 330,000 organic clicks per month in just 6 months. You will see GetWordly.com’s last 6 months organic traffic graphic from Google Search Console below.

Below, you will see GetWordly.com’s Ahrefs graphic.

And, below, you will see the SEMRush Graphic for GetWordly.com.

Third Project: 600% Organic Traffic Increase in 5 Months: Focused on Azerbaijan

Third website (Name not disclosed yet) saw 600% growth achieved. Within 5 months, monthly organic traffic increased to 70,000 from 10,000. (The traffic volume is lower than the previous examples as the third website only targets Azerbaijan.)

Below, you will see the last 6 months’ graphic for the third site’s GSC Graphic.

And, below you will see the last 7 months of the “dictionary section”.

You can see that “in one day” the “dictionary section” of the website has lost all of its traffic. We had changed nothing. All the difference was coming from Google’s own internal systems. Since Google started to fully rely on “Deep Learning” and “Machine Learning”, I know that they also evaluate “page layout” according to the “general feedback” that they collect from the web.

Thus, we just changed the layout of pages, with some “background color changes” and just “order of the page elements”, and everything has gone back to normal, in two days.

While this part of this SEO case study and experiment is not about semantic SEO, as a Holistic SEO, I just wanted to say that sometimes you should focus on “different things”. Below, you will see “Website Representation Vectors” from Google Patents.

Fourth Project: 400% Organic Traffic Growth – Focused on Arabic Countries

The fourth website (Name Not Yet Disclosed) targets the entire Arab World. Since my main focus was not on the website (since I don’t speak Arabic), only 400% growth was achieved.

Below, you will see the last 6 months’ graphic for the fourth site’s GSC Graphic.

In my opinion, for this website, we didn’t have enough traffic increase according to the power of semantic SEO. That’s because of a lack of Arabic language skills. Technical SEO is “language-agnostic” while semantic SEO is heavily bound to the nature of words, terms, concepts, and languages.

As a final proof of semantic SEO, you will see the 3 Months GSC Organic Traffic Performance Comparison for the fourth project.

A Brief Explanation of the Semantic Web, Semantic Search, and Topical Authority

The semantic web is the state of the information organization on the web. The semantic web uses two basic elements that come from the nature of the human brain’s and the universe: taxonomy and ontology.

Taxonomy is coming from “taxis” + “nomia”, which means “arrangement of things”. Ontology comes from “ont” + “logy” means “essence of things”. Both are means of defining entities by classifying them into groups and categories. Together, taxonomy and ontology make up the semantic web.

Over the past ten years, Google has created several initiatives moving towards a semantic web.

In 2011, Google announced the “Structured Search Engine” for structuring the information on the web.

And, in May 2012, they launched Knowledge Graph for better understanding information about real-world entities.

In 2019, they launched BERT, a model for a better understanding of the relations between words, concepts, and entities in human language and perception.

All of these processes created the semantic web, semantic search , Google as a semantic search engine, and consequently semantic SEO.

What do Topical Authority and Topical Coverage stand for in this Context?

In a semantic and organized web, every source of information has a different degree of coverage for different topics. Things or entities are connected to each other through their shared attributes. These attributes represent “Ontology”. Things also connect to each other within a classification hierarchy . This hierarchy represents the “Taxonomy”. To be an authority for a topic in the eyes of a semantic search engine, a source should cover a thing’s different attributes within different contexts. It must also reference similar things, and things in parent and child categories.

Creating a content network for every “sub-topic”, for every possible question, within contextual relevancy and hierarchy with logical internal links and anchor texts is the key for these SEO case studies.

Topical Authority and Topical Coverage can be acquired with the most detailed, entity-oriented, and semantically organized, comprehensive content network. Every successful piece of content increases the chance of success of other content for the connected entities and related queries.

To keep things brief, I will move on to the “do” and “don’t” section. If you need more details or understanding on these topics, I recommend you read the article I mentioned before.

What Should You Do to Implement Semantic SEO?

To understand the concept of semantic SEO fully, you need to understand why a search engine needs the web to be semantic. Especially with the dominance of machine learning-based search engine ranking systems instead of rule-based search engine ranking systems and the use of natural language processing & understanding technologies , this need has increased even more. So approach these concepts through the eyes of a search engine to understand the suggestions below.

1- Create a Topical Map Before Starting Publishing the First Article

Remember ontology and taxonomy? You should check Google’s Knowledge Graph because for Google, things can connect to each other in a different way than according to a Dictionary or Encyclopedia. Google uses the web and information provided by engineers for its entity recognition and contextual vector calculations.

Thus, you also should check SERP to see which entity has been connected to which and in what way for which queries…

This might be a little bit exhausting but after a while, you will see how Google thinks, acts, and connects things to each other. There are some quick-practices you can do to check a niche and query group for creating a topical map.

• Crawl your competitors’ sitemaps to understand their topical maps.
• Pull Google Trends related queries and related topics.
• Collect data from autocomplete and search suggestions.
• Notice how your competitors are connecting content hubs.
• Use Google Knowledge Graph to pull relevant entities.
• Use non-web resources to view the properties of entities and their hierarchies and connections.

The last item is also important to become a resource that provides original and authoritative information for a search engine’s knowledge base.

P.S: Also use other search engines. I especially recommend you check Swisscows to understand a semantic search engine’s nature. Do not solely focus on Google to understand semantic search.

2- Determine the Link Count per Page

In all of these SEO case studies and achievements, the total number of links on each web page was at most 15.

Most of these links were in the main content, with relevant and natural anchor texts. I didn’t use a footer or header menu. This contradicts traditional recommendations in technical SEO. I had to accept that and I am not saying that you should use no more than 15 links per web page. I am saying that you should keep the relevant and contextual links within the main content, and try to make search engines focus on those links.

You can use the following items to determine the correct number of internal links that should appear on a web page:

• Industry standards for internal link count to understand the minimum and maximum values.
• Number of Named Entities in the content
• The number of contexts for Named Entities
• The “granularity” level of the content
• A maximum of 1 link in each heading section
• Linking entities belonging to the same type to their respective pages if they are in “list format”.

[Case Study] Driving growth in new markets with on-page SEO

3- determine the anchor texts in a natural and relevant way in terms of count, words, and position.

I won’t cover the need for internal links to be natural and how they pass PageRank. I have already covered this in detail in “How to Become a Winner from Every Google Core Algorithm Update” , which I recommend you read.

But, I will briefly tell you that I never use an anchor text more than three times for a web page within the main content. In other words, for the fourth time, I recommend you add more words or change some words within the anchor texts.

I also have some other types of rules for anchor texts:

• I never use text in a page’s first paragraph as anchor text in links to that page.
• I never use the first word of any paragraph on the page as anchor text to that page.
• If I link an article to another article from a different context or a side-topic, I always use one of the last heading’s paragraphs (Google calls this type of connection “Supplementary Content”.)
• I always check competitor’s anchor texts for a specific article internally and externally.
• I always try to use synonyms for a topic when creating anchor texts.
• I always check whether the “anchor text” exists in the targeted web page’s content and link source’s related heading text or not.

P.S: I am not saying that you have to do this to do successful semantic SEO. These are just a few examples of guidelines I followed when I obtained these outcomes. If you find some examples that are not compliant with these guidelines, it is probably because of my lovely authors.

4- Determine the Contextual Vectors

This terminology can be a little bit “scratchy” for your ears, again. This is a term from Google Patents, for me. Contextual vectors, contextual domains, contextual phrases… There are lots of things to dig in Google Patents (another thank you to Bill Slawski, our educator).

Simply put, contextual vectors are the signals to determine a content’s angle. A topic can be “earthquake” and a context can be “comparing earthquakes”, “guessing earthquakes”, or “chronology of earthquake”.

For instance, “apple” (fruit) is an entity and also a topic, and Healthline has more than 265 articles for just “apple”. Benefits of apples, nutrition of apples, types of apples, apple trees (basically, a different entity and topic, but it is close enough.)

So, in this context, all of these sites were from the second language education industry. “English Learning” is the main topic; learning English from games, videos, movies, songs, friends… are different contexts.

To create more contextual connections, I always try to fill the gaps between different topics and entities within them with the help of different types of pillar cluster contents. I also recommend you to read about Google’s contextual vectors and knowledge domains from their patents.

5- Determine the Content Count be Written and Published

Content count is not a ranking factor. Actually, telling more things with less content with more comprehensive and authoritative articles is better for many aspects such as crawl budget, PageRank distribution, backlink dilution, or cannibalization problems.

But, content count is important to plan the process. Because, you will need to know how many authors you will need, or how many articles you will publish per day or per week. I didn’t include lots of SEO terms in this executive summary such as content publication and content update frequency… But, even if you determine the topics, contents, contexts, entities, you still don’t know how much content you will need. Sometimes Google prefers sites that show different contexts for a topic on the same page, but in other cases Google prefers to see different contexts on different pages.

To know the exact count for the content/article, examining the Google SERP types, competitors’ content network’s shape is important. This is also important for the budget of the project . If you tell your customer that you just need 120 pieces of content but later, you realize that you actually need 180 pieces of content, it is a serious problem for trust.

And, for any SEO success story, clear communication is a must.

6- Determine the URL Categories and Hierarchy

URL categories were not used in any of the SEO case studies here. However, this does not mean that URL categories and corresponding breadcrumbs are not beneficial for semantic SEO. Keeping similar content in the same folder in your URL path makes it easier for a search engine to understand a website. It also provides tips for users and facilitates in-site navigation.

If that’s the case, why didn’t I use it? For the same two reasons I am not using technical SEO: because of time constraints and because I want to run a future SEO experiment.

7- Create a Topical Hierarchy with Contextual Vectors by Adjusting it with URL Hierarchy

Sub-topics have been confirmed to be used by Google during January 2020 but actually, Google has mentioned them as “Neural Nets” or “Neural Networks” before. In the Google Developers’ YouTube channel, they also showed a nice summary about how topics are connected to each other within a hierarchy and logic. That’s why again, taxonomy and ontology are key for semantic SEO.

But, what does “creating a Topical Hierarchy with Contextual Vectors” mean? It means that every topic should have been processed with every possible context and related entities by being grouped with a logical URL structure.

This will lead the search engine to give a source better topical authority and expertise thanks to a more granular and detailed information architecture.

8- Adjust Heading Vectors

Heading Vectors… Another term that is foreign to many ears. Heading vectors are actually the order of the headings as a signal for determining the main angle and topic of the content. According to the Google Quality Rater Guidelines, content is viewed as having three different sections: “Main Content”, “Ads”, and “Supplementary Content”.

We all know that Google gives more weight to the content above the fold or in the “upper section” of the article. That’s why the queries on the upper section of the content always have a better rank than queries on the bottom section. To Google, the bottom section actually represents the “supplementary content.”

That’s why using contextual relevancy and logic within the heading hierarchy is important. Simply put, here are some basic guidelines for heading vectors in my perspective on semantic SEO:

• Whatever the search engine says, use semantic HTML tags , including heading tags.
• Heading vectors start from the title tag, thus the headings and the title tag should comply with each other.
• Every heading should focus on different information and any paragraph after those headings shouldn’t repeat the information that was provided before.
• Headings that focus on similar ideas should be grouped together.
• Any heading that should include another entity should also be linked to it.
• Every heading’s content should have the right format with lists, tables, descriptive definitions…

As you can see, everything about this section actually has a basic logic. Nothing new. But, let me show one of Google’s patents, “Context scoring adjustments for answer passages” below.

Using the heading vector, Google tries to pick which passage has the best contextual vector for a given query. So that’s why I recommend you create a clear logical structure between these headings.

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9- connect related entities for a topic within a context.

Connecting entities and entity associations are close terms to each other. Entity association can be done by search engines based on the entities’ attributes and also through how queries are phrased for a possible search intent.

Connecting entities and associating entities to each other within a context is a practical application of ontology. For instance, in the context of the industry of these SEO projects which is “English Learning”, for the topic of “Phrasal Verbs”, you can also use “Irregular Verbs”, “Most-used Verbs”, “Useful verbs for lawyers”, “Etymology of verbs of Latin origin”, “Less Known Verbs” which can be connected to each other.

All those contexts actually focus on “verbs in English”. They are all related to “Grammar Rules”, “Sentence Examples”, “Pronunciation” and “Different Tenses”. You can detail, structure, categorize and connect all these contexts and entities to each other.

After you basically cover every possible context for a topic and all related entities, a semantic search engine doesn’t have any other chance besides choosing you as a reliable source for possible search intents for these.

10- Generate Questions and Answers for Possible Search Intents

“Generating Questions from Answers”… Another Google Patent. But, since this article is long enough already, I won’t go into detail. Basically, a search engine generates questions from contents on the web and matches these questions with queries with query rewriting. And it uses these questions to close the possible content gaps for possible search intents on the web.

That’s why I tell you to process every entity with every context while connecting them to each other. However, you should also know what information extraction is. Information extraction is pulling out the important facts and definitive connections about concepts from a document. Thanks to information extraction, a Search Engine can understand which questions can be answered from a document or which facts can be understood. Information extraction can even be used to create a knowledge graph between entities and their attributes, and used for generating related questions.

You shouldn’t just focus on SEARCH VOLUME! It might even be that no one has asked this question before. And even the search engine might not know the answer to this question. But if this unique information is useful for defining the attributes of entities within the topic, generate and answer these questions, and be a unique source of information for the web and for search engines in your niche.

11- Find Information Gap Instead of Keyword Gap

First, read the quote below.

“An information gain score for a given document is indicative of additional information that is included in the document beyond information contained in documents that were previously viewed by the user.”

We all know that even as recently as 2020 , “15% of queries everyday are new and Google uses RankBrain to match these queries with possible search intents and new documents”. Google also always searches for unique information and answers for possible future queries from its users. Provide unique information, and try to contain less known “terms, related information, questions, studies, persons, places, events and suggestions”.

So, “longer content” or “keywords” are not the key for these SEO case studies. “More information” and “unique questions” and “unique connections” are the keys. Every piece of content for these projects has unique headings that are not even related to the search volume and even users may not be aware of them.

Below, you will see another Google Patent to show the contextual relevance for augmented queries and possible related search activities.

“Including every related entity with their contextual connections while explaining their core” can be seen also here with its importance.

12- Stop Caring About Keyword Volume or Difficulty

I’ve already shared my opinion about keyword volume. During these four projects, I saw myself mostly as creating a quality and understandable “educational book”.

• At the beginning of the project, authoritative competitors with tons of backlinks did not intimidate me.
• I didn’t care about third party metrics like keyword difficulty.
• The historical data and brand strength of the competitors did not scare me.
• And finally, I avoided resorting to “I just used Google Search Console to show my client the latest situation of projects”. Except to review Google’s reactions, I didn’t get into GSC.

When writing articles, if a subtopic is required in a topic’s semantic structure, it should be written. It should be written even if the search volume is “0”. It should be written even if the keyword difficulty is 100.

There is another important point here.

If you want to rank first in the SERP for a “phrase”, you need to include all relevant phrases, and every detail in all relevant topical graphs. In other words, it is not possible with semantic SEO to see an increase in rankings in queries related to that topic without fully processing each related topic.

13- Focus on Topical Coverage and Authority with Historical Data

Topical graph is a graph that shows which topics connect each other within which connections . Topical coverage means how well you cover this graph. Historical data refers to how long you have been covering this topical graph at a certain level.

Topical Authority = Topical Coverage * Historical Data

That’s why in every graphic that I show you, you see a “rapid growth” after a certain amount of time. And since I use natural language processing and understanding, most of this initial rapid organic traffic growth with a wave shape comes from featured snippets.

If you can take featured snippets for a topic, it means that you have started to become an authoritative source with an easy-to-understand content structure for the search engine.

14- Use Natural Language Processing Terms with Your Authors to Determine the Best Possible Sentence Structure and Content Format

Educate your authors.

Show them how Google uses NLP and NLU. Teach them what “Part of Speech Tags” are or what “Named Entity Recognition” and “Named Entity Linking” are. Use N-Grams, Skip-Grams, Word2Vec with concrete results and practices to make them understand machine-run text analysis. Show them how the Google Knowledge Graph works.

Teach them what Neural Matching or Entity Type Matching is. Show them their mistakes over Google Docs while revising their content, then show them the organic traffic growth with featured snippets.

I sometimes call this “Featured Snippet Oriented Content Marketing” . We all know that Google simply uses NLP models to understand the content and to be honest, beating even the most authoritative competitors is easier than it was in 2011, thanks to Google’s NLP-based algorithms.

And, as I said at the beginning of this Semantic SEO Manifesto, I lost all featured snippets in one day. This occured when Google performed a minor update that decreased the percentage of featured snippets by 4% in one day. At the same time, our server has been down due to excessive traffic. Additionally, to create a “reranking demand”, I had updated lots of content while continuing to publish new pieces of content.

Below, you can find some of my rules for my authors:

• Never give your opinion in an article.
• Never use an “everyday language” in the articles.
• Don’t use analogies.
• Don’t use unnecessary words.
• Content should be short as possible and long as necessary.
• Always use short sentences instead of long sentences.
• Always give answers directly and precisely.
• Always use a “source” as an authority before giving a statement.

Sometimes it is difficult to get your authors to follow these rules, and I am not saying that you must follow them.

Oncrawl SEO Crawler

15- educate your customer instead of keeping them in the dark.

I see that most of the SEO agencies do not explain SEO’s subtle sides to their customers. The main reason for this lies the basic side of their business model. SEO is a business model based on the subscription economy model. It means that customers should continue to buy the service.

But you can also use the “IKEA Effect” for your business. The IKEA Effect is when you make customers contribute to the work, and it makes them love you more. As an owner of a “one-man-one-desk” company, I use my customers’ team for our SEO projects. In other words, I don’t need an SEO team for myself because I already have multiple teams that I educate.

And when the customer starts to understand, to learn from you and to work hands-on on their own project, they start to love SEO and they feel the IKEA Effect. They give more value to the SEO project through self-association and effort justification.

Thus, they will listen to you easier, and sharing the “real know-how” won’t jeopardize your business. Instead, it will make things easier. I even educate interns or sometimes enter job interviews for my customers’ job applicants, because their future team member is also my team member.

As an entrepreneur, this is my own model that is born from my own conditions. I hope this also fits for you as in other articles. Semantic SEO relies on patience, costly authors, highly theoric SEO terms, and content engineering with algorithmic knowledge. Without educating the customer, it might not be possible to convince the customer to follow you on this road.

And when you do convince them, they are happier to work with you, even when you propose theories that sound new or different to them:

“Koray likes to apply new things to our projects in a very short time. We got huge spikes in our web sites with his strategy. We like his enthusiasm. If you don’t work with him, you haven’t seen an advanced SEO theory glossary.” Savaş Ateş Owner of the KonuşarakÖğren

Last Thoughts on Semantic SEO

While writing this guide for this SEO case study with four different SEO projects, I have tried to keep things simple as much as possible. And I have told everything with complete honesty. If you can endure long theoric articles with a deep analytical analysis for SEO, I recommend you read the article that I recommended in the beginning that explains more than 40 different lesser-known SEO terms to understand everything behind this methodology.

As you have seen, in order to focus on an initial, rapid gain in traffic, I neglected a lot of SEO improvements for these sites. Working on these different technical SEO elements that you have seen in screenshots throughout the article will also improve traffic even more, but I wanted to be able to clearly show you the effects of semantic SEO alone.

Thanks to deep learning and machine learning, semantic SEO will soon become a more popular strategy. And I believe that technical SEO and branding will give more power to the SEOs who give value to the theoretical side of SEO and who try to protect their holistic approach.

See you in the future SEO case studies and experiments.

• Semantic SEO
• Technical SEO
• Topic graph

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• Case Studies

SEO case study: how to release a new website and attract 380,000 users per month!

Promoting a new website is always challenging, especially in a highly competitive niche. When a site is brand new, Google doesn’t know about it yet, and our task is to ensure that the search engine not only recognizes it but also begins to trust it. In such situations, it’s crucial to collaborate closely with the client to better understand the future website and its business goals. This case study details the successful release of such a site.

In May 2022, we began SEO optimization for an online games catalog. At the start of our work, the site was still under development, so our primary task was to prepare it for release. This involved pre-release optimization and setting up basic SEO to avoid indexing issues at the initial stage and to start generating early traffic from Google.

Project initiation and plan approval

We started working on the website from the very beginning with the idea of what the resource should be and what its naming should entail. With this in mind, and in close collaboration with the client, we developed the following plan for the release and ongoing work on the website:

Domain selection

Analysis of the current market situation , development of a promotion strategy .

• Pre-release optimization
• SEO support during the release

Technical audit of the website

• Ongoing website content updates and further SEO work

After the plan was approved, we moved on to the first and most fundamental step — recommendations for domain selection.

We considered both existing and new domains. The options for existing domains were quickly dismissed as none of them adequately matched the project’s name, and combining different names could potentially confuse users. Therefore, we decided not to rely on old domains and opted to develop the site on a domain without any history. 

Although this approach is more challenging than working with an established domain, the naming was a decisive factor for the client in this case. If a domain name doesn’t suit your needs or doesn’t synergize with your company’s name, it’s not necessary to stick to old domains; you can explore working with a new one. While more complex, it is still possible, and in 1-2 years, your site will have established a history in the domain that aligns with your brand. Moreover, the absence of history allows you to build it yourself from scratch.

Simultaneously with selecting the domain, we began analyzing competitors and the market niche.

To develop an effective promotion strategy, we first needed to understand the client’s goals and analyze the niche. The primary objective was to drive traffic to game pages, with the aim of monetizing this traffic through advertising.

With this in mind, we focused on identifying the websites that receive the most traffic from organic Google searches in the needed field. In addition, we reviewed a list of competitors provided by the client to ensure that we accounted for them in our analysis.

Once we identified the key competitors, we began analyzing how they generate traffic, how they optimize their pages, and other relevant factors. 

Conducting such an analysis during the website development phase is crucial for SEO. This is why we recommend involving an SEO specialist early in the development process. By doing so, we were able to design the correct structure for the future website, even at the prototyping stage. 

For example, after analyzing competitors and their website structures , we were able to determine what the structure of the site should look like:

Competitors typically generated the most traffic on the following pages:

• Homepage. This was usually driven by branded keywords but also included important high-frequency keywords like “online games,” which we also needed to target for the homepage. 
• Game pages. These were a crucial part of the website, as games were the main source of non-branded traffic and served as the primary pages for monetization. 
• Tag pages. Another important aspect of the site, tag pages, allowed us to create listings based on user queries related to specific game types. 
• Game categories. These are classic collections of games organized by genre (shooters, strategy, action, RPG, etc.). 

Overall, this structure is similar to that of an online store, where traffic is distributed between product pages and listings. At this stage, we were able to provide the design and development teams with recommendations on the types of pages that should be included on the site and how they should be interconnected.

Knowing the types of pages that attract traffic, we needed to identify:

• Which games attracted the most visitors

• Which categories were most frequented

• Which specific tags generate traffic

This targeted approach helped us pinpoint where to allocate resources, specifying which games to feature and which categories and tags to emphasize for optimal user engagement. 

Additionally, as we approached the site’s release, we conducted an analysis of the competitors’ backlinks profile. This involved examining everything from the number of domains linking to their sites to how these backlinks were distributed across different types of pages, the anchor texts used, and other relevant factors.

Based on this information, we developed an off-page SEO plan to build a high-quality backlinks profile for the site.  

After completing the competitor analysis, we moved on to preparing the promotion strategy. 

When preparing the promotion strategy, it was important to consider that the website was still in the development phase. Therefore, all tasks were divided into pre-release activities and post-release ongoing promotion. 

The plan for the website development phase included:

• Enabling the domain for Google indexing.
• Finalizing the website structure and its pages with the client. 
• Preparing recommendations for basic optimization to be implemented by developers during the site creation process. 
• Agreeing with the client on the main categories and tag pages that would be available on the site immediately after the release. 
• Creating unique content for categories, tags, and game pages. 
• Populating the test version of the site with games, tags, and categories to ensure it wasn’t empty at the release.
• Checking the implementation of SEO recommendations on the test version of the site. 

Additionally, we prepared and agreed with the client on a promotion strategy for the first six months following the site release, allowing for regular progress reviews and adjustments as needed.

The post-release plan included the following steps:

• Release and monitoring of the website. We closely monitored how the site was being crawled during the first few months. While we continued to monitor the site’s status through weekly updates, it was crucial to conduct daily monitoring immediately after the release. 
• Technical audit of the site. This was done to identify and correct any errors that could hinder the crawling and indexing of the website. 
• Ongoing competitor analysis and search for new traffic sources for expanding the traffic funnel. 
• Content creation for new games and other types of pages, and filling the site with new pages. This involved identifying the most promising pages for driving traffic, preparing the content, and creating these pages to expand the site continuously. 
• Work on building the site’s backlinks profile. 
• Comprehensive site audit after six months, supplemented by monthly reports with updates on the site’s progress.

Preparing the website for release

Enabling the domain for google indexing.

As mentioned earlier, the client chose a new domain without any history, and we based our development strategy on this decision. Achieving initial results for new websites typically takes longer than for domains with an established history, partly due to an unofficial filter known as the “Google Sandbox.”

New sites often remain in this “sandbox” for an average of 3-6 months, sometimes longer. During this period, Google observes the site’s development, including its content growth, user behavior, and trust signals. Only once the site has accumulated sufficient content and demonstrated the necessary behavioral characteristics and trust does Google’s algorithm begin ranking it higher, leading to the first organic traffic. This theory, although unofficial, is supported by the experiences of many sites and confirmed by the practical knowledge of SEO specialists. 

Given this, our first recommendation was to open the site for Google indexing as soon as possible. To achieve this, we placed an announcement on the homepage stating, “We’re coming soon,” informing visitors that the site was under development and would be operational shortly. This allowed us to gain a few months’ head start — Google indexed the domain almost immediately, ensuring that the site was already recognized by Google by the time of its official release.

Creating unique content 

While unique content is typically a standard requirement, we faced the question of whether it was necessary for the website, given its specific nature. Additionally, we had to determine the appropriate content volume — could we rely on templated informational blocks with variables?

Our competitor analysis revealed that many were publishing pages with minimal content, often templated or even without any content at all. It might seem logical to follow their example, but we knew from experience that this approach could lead to problems with Google indexing the pages. The situation with competitors was an exception rather than the norm; they might have been able to forgo substantial content due to other factors like domain trust or backlinks. Since the site was new, we needed something that would set it apart from the competition, both for users and for Google. Unique content became that differentiator.

After agreeing on the necessary pages, we began preparing content for them. Initially, we developed several content templates. These templates outlined what needed to be included in the text for game pages versus what should be included for tag or category pages. 

After the content was finalized, we began adding it to the website and preparing for the release.

Pre-release testing of the website

A month before the release, we thoroughly checked the test version of the website to ensure that all our templates were correctly implemented and that the prepared content was properly integrated. Key steps in this process included: 

• Crawling the test version of the website (we used Netpeak Spider to scan the test site). 
• Ensuring there were no empty Titles, no pages without content, and no duplicate content. 
• Checking that all URLs were correctly formatted.
• Configuring the robots.txt file .
• Configuring the sitemap.xml file .
• Setting up canonical links .
• Securing the site with HTTPS and ensuring it functions correctly across all pages. 
• Testing the mobile version of the site for any errors or issues. 

Whenever we identified a problem, we immediately communicated with the development team to make the necessary corrections.

This highlights another reason why having an SEO specialist involved from the start is beneficial — it’s much easier to make adjustments while the site is still in development. After the release, the responsibility typically falls to a single developer, who might not have the resources or knowledge to address all SEO-related tasks effectively, especially if the original development team has moved on.

In our case, the development team continued working on the site alongside the SEO department even after the release, which greatly contributed to our success in achieving the desired results.

Website release

The Big Day finally arrived — the developers released the website. At this critical moment, the most important thing for an SEO specialist is to be responsive and quick to act. Immediately after the release, we worked alongside the testers to ensure that all our recommendations had been correctly transferred from the test version to the live site. If any issues were identified, we were prepared to implement hotfixes immediately. During this period, we also set up and verified all monitoring and analytics systems to ensure they were functioning correctly. 

Post-release website promotion

After the website was released, we immediately began a technical audit and checked all the same points as we did with the test version. We did this to ensure that everything was transferred correctly. 

Why is this important? Sometimes, errors that were not present in the test version slip through at release, which is normal. Therefore, it’s crucial to check that everything is in place.

However, it’s important to make these checks and corrections in the first few days to fix all critical errors before Google detects them.

As part of this audit, we recheck everything: 

• How the site is scanned, whether there are any service or auxiliary pages open for indexing;
• Presence of a robots.txt file;
• Presence of a sitemap.xml;
• Presence of canonical links;
• Whether there are any broken links on the site;
• Along with various other checks to ensure optimal site performance.

In the beginning, no critical errors were detected, and everything was going according to plan, so we started the ongoing SEO process. As I mentioned earlier, we kept a close watch on Google’s indexing of the site. In general, if your site currently has no technical issues, we recommend conducting a full technical audit at least once every three months and more frequently for new sites. You never know when issues might arise, especially if the site is actively developing and being updated – which is precisely our case. 

Initial challenges 

As we actively populated the site with games that had similar structures, Google scanned them but was reluctant to rank them. As mentioned earlier, the privilege of posting such pages without content was reserved for older sites. We needed high-quality content, and we were not mistaken. However, even the content we prepared for the game pages did not appeal to Google. 

Google started marking the game pages as “Discovered - currently not indexed” because we were adding many of them continuously, and they were very similar in structure.

We quickly identified the problem and concluded that the content we were preparing for these types of pages needed further refinement. Although the content was unique, it was too generic and SEO-focused, so we decided to change our approach to content preparation radically. 

Content creation intricacies

Every expert understands that content is a fundamental and essential part of any SEO efforts. This project was no different. We had 3 types of content to work with: tag and other utility pages, guest posts to create a powerful backlink profile and bring traffic to the site, and individual descriptions for hundreds upon hundreds of games. 

While working on standard page content and guest posts was straightforward — you just performed an analysis, drafted the content brief, and gave it to a writer — creating game descriptions was much more involved. We had to ensure that each game page had its own high-quality description, and so we got to work.

First, these descriptions had to be truthful and accurate. How do you go about it? You get a dedicated copywriter and have them play the games first of course! Another interesting aspect of this task was that the copy needs to be engaging, fun and, above all else, “gamey.” This meant the copywriter had to have a solid grasp of gaming terminology, slang, genres, mechanics, and so on. Since in our in-house content team, only the editor was a fellow gamer, we chose to find the most fitting writer for the job outside of the company. Luckily, we managed to find just the person quite quickly and entered into a long-term collaboration — with them playing and writing and our editor verifying, correcting, and approving.

During our work, we encountered a dilemma. Our descriptions had to be honest because there’s nothing worse than falsely advertising something, so then a user ends up utterly disappointed. “Fool me once”, as the saying goes. But not all games are made equal. Some are fantastic and are pure works of art while others can be more leaning into arthouse or actually want to be terrible. However, every product has its audience and it wasn’t up to us to decide, so we chose the most direct path — being upfront in setting up correct expectations in our descriptions. Naturally, our writer had their own gaming preferences and found it difficult to praise games he didn’t like, so we worked on sticking to honest language without turning a blind eye regarding drawbacks. This led to balanced and fun-to-read descriptions.

After we made adjustments and prepared new content according to new requirements, the problem was resolved:

Currently, the number of unindexed pages sometimes increases, especially when we add many new games, but this issue usually resolves itself within a few days. 

As of the moment of writing this case study, we have played, written, and checked 870 game descriptions. More to come.

Website promotion and initial results

Now that the site is live, we continue to populate it actively, and thanks to the work done initially, we understand which categories need to be prioritized and which can follow. 

In addition, we periodically check the site’s optimization and technical condition and work on improving the backlink profile.

Over two years, we have built a high-quality backlink profile from scratch using thematic resources, having previously agreed on a more lenient, non-aggressive strategy with the client. And it is yielding results.

Thanks to our efforts, after the website’s release in September and the subsequent bug fixes, we began seeing the first steady stream of traffic by January 2023, with the initial 400 users coming from Google:

By March, the number of users on the site had already grown to 3,500:

This all indicates that the strategy we chose at the beginning of the project was the right one. While it can take some new websites up to six months just to get out of the “Google Sandbox,” we were already generating traffic. 

The initial goals were achieved, and from that point on, our focus was on maintaining momentum and continuing to develop the site in a high-quality and natural manner. By May 2024, the site had already attracted 383,000 users.

Over the two years we’ve been working on this project, we’ve gained a deep understanding of the niche and the competitors, which has significantly contributed to our continued success. 

This is why it’s crucial to analyze competitors’ websites and establish a solid SEO strategy from the development phase, especially when dealing with a new site. Promoting a new site is generally more challenging than an established one.

This also explains why SEO professionals often say that SEO is a long-term game, particularly if you aim to work exclusively with white-hat methods. Creating unique and high-quality content and filling a site with valuable information takes time, and Google needs time to start trusting your site. Finding the right copywriter for the project also takes time. Building a quality backlinks profile requires time as well. Achieving all of this within 3-6 months is nearly impossible, but once everything is in place, the site begins to grow, and you gain a clear understanding of how to scale operations naturally without running into issues with the search engine.

Currently, we continue to work on the project and are actively seeking new sources of traffic! 

Inspired to boost your own site’s performance? Fill out our contact form today, and let’s start building your success story together.

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