Surpassed competitors in Google search in a month

The team interaction process

Before the start of work with the client’s team, discussions of communication processes have been held, 3 main principles were highlighted:

• Regular calls at convenient times for our client and a discussion of which tasks have been completed, what we encountered along the way, and how to move forward;
• A specially created chat in the messenger where quick questions can be addressed as soon as they come in;
• Prompt correction of published materials and a detailed description upon request, how we work with similar ones, what changes are needed and a plan for the future.

Stage 1

The process of website promotion

When we began working with our client, organic website traffic was insignificant, and it was not clear about the reason of such subsidence.  Firstly, the internal optimization and audit of the site has been conducted by our team. 

The results were as follows – the site was not optimized – robots.txt was missing, the loading speed of the site for mobile and PC was very low, canonical links were not registered, as a result there were many duplicates on the site, title and description needed improvement. 

There were not enough incoming links, not all links were of good quality.

Our main efforts in the area of internal site optimization included:

• A robust audit (with permissions) and checking the proper tuning of:
  
  1. Sitemaps, redirect;
  2. Meta tags, headers;
  3. Micro-markup;
  4. Download speed checks;
  5. 4xx and 5xx error code checks;
  6. Site content analysis, namely uniqueness, duplication, spam, and text size;
  7. Site’s main mirror;
  8. Monitoring page speed metrics (site loading time, server response time, etc.);
  9. h1, h2, and h3 header monitoring and correcting if necessary;
  10. Metric monitoring for site visits;
  11. Duplicate Title and Description metadata check and critical error elimination;
  12. Server response code 200 check for site’s main sections.
      
      • Defining terms of reference for programmers following the results of the complete site audit;
      • Monitoring of all technical edits by programmers;
      • Adding a sitemap to the dashboard for webmasters;
      • Building a semantic core that best represents the website;
      • Utilizing clustering and balanced keyword distribution across site pages;
      • Checking keyword agreement, getting into the TOP 10, generating a month-end report. Queries are selected from the compiled semantic core;
      • Formation of new meta tags (title, descriptions) based on the established semantic core. They are created right away for approved website categories and their agreement;
      • Working with meta tags and writing and correcting tags for site’s main pages;
      • Goods were distributed according to the appropriate categories, after which the traffic began to be distributed across  the site, the relevance of the pages improved significantly, which allowed the positions to grow rapidly;
      • Resolving duplicate headers and meta tags;
      • Detailed file verification for robots.txt and tuning when needed;
      • Setting technical specifications for proper implementation of hreflang tag for different versions of the site;
      • Checking canonical tags and drafting technical specifications for their implementation, if necessary;
      • Scanning site pages, determining weight, and comparing them with traffic and promotion priority. Based on the results — developing a plan for linking site pages;
      • Organization of project manager’s work — Coordination (communicating with client monthly, coordinating workflow, proofreading and approving additional agreements, invoicing);
      • Defining terms of reference for landing page and/or blog section text;
      • Monthly report.

Stage 2

From the second month we connect the following work activities:

Site monitoring – tracking indicators and ensuring they are normal after setting and optimization in the first month:

1. Analyzing site content (uniqueness, duplication, spam, and text size);
2. Ensuring proper configuration of the site’s main mirror;
3. Monitoring page speed metrics (site load time, server response time, etc.);
4. h1, h2, and h3 header monitoring and correcting if necessary;
5. Metric monitoring for site visits;
6. Identification and closure of leaking and hidden links;
7. Checking site for duplicate title and description metadata and eliminating critical errors;
8. Checking site’s main sections for server response code 200;
9. Monitoring for the appearance of affiliates and, if detected, providing instructions and support for their closure;
10. Monitoring previously optimized pages and, if necessary, updating them to better meet relevant search result conditions. For example, say the relevance of some key queries has changed because of a behavioral factor. In this instance, we change phrases, edit SEO texts, and tune the optimization;
11. Analyzing site semantic core and adjusting it if necessary;
12. When errors are detected, either terms of reference are compiled for programmers or a proposal drafted for overcoming the highlighted difficulties;
13. Optimizing the site’s main landing pages;
14. Validating site through the W3C service.
    
    • internal site linking;
    • working with meta tags and writing or generating descriptions for pages with blank descriptions;
    • working with micro-markup;
    • defining technical specifications for addressing errors;
    •  working with incoming domains, including the rejection of “toxic” ones with a disallow tool;
    • monitoring site positions and promotion dynamics;
    • defining technical specifications for landing page texts writing and/or blog section text.
      

In addition to the general plan and strategy, we completed additional work to improve search results and increase behavioral factors on the site, as flollows:

• Analysis of the menu structure of competitors (in the header and footer of sites),
• Improvement of the existing menu and navigation on the client’s website (by adding rubrics, Table of Content),
• Analysis of priority pages of competitors (meta tags, micro-markup, content),
• Supplementing the client’s content plan with thematic articles that are interesting to users,
• Analyzing CTR snippets and improving low-performing snippets.

The technical optimization has been completed correctly and the site quickly began to be indexed, the traffic went up, Google search engine’s visibility increased.

Also, in order to achieve the set goal, it was decided to expand the visibility of the site by increasing the landing pages, adding content on the landing pages with the expansion of the semantic core.

External website optimization

The team has started working on the site’s link profile and its improvement. The first stage was competitors’ audit. The most successful ones were selected, their sites, content, links, relinking and successfully implemented solutions were analyzed. The second stage is the compilation its own link’s algorithm for online store promotion.

Work on the link profile has been carried out at the expense of outreach (placed on trust sites with good traffic and visibility in search engines) and crowd links (guest posting, forums, directories). That made it possible to significantly increase the site’s link profile in terms of quantity and quality.

Such a strategy turned out to be successful. During the 2 years of cooperation, the site shows constant traffic’s growth.

Additional work on external optimization:

• Market analysis of the client’s niche, 
• Full audit of competitors and their links,
• Developed a promotion strategy based on quality links,
• Choosing a site for work,
• Placing links for link building (directories, forums);
• Placement of SEO articles on external blogs and other sites;
• Ordering and placement of press releases. Placement of links on satellites.

Results:

At the beginning of the work, there was no organic site, because the site fell under the filters. After removing the site from the filters, it began to show a steady increase in organic traffic. 

Website’s subsidence to zero reasons have been identified, the filter was removed, after which the site was improved, the portal became structured and understandable for search engines. Now we see a constant increase organic traffic.

The main sources of website traffic – organic.          

Ahrefs Data.     

External links: 

Total site traffic at the time of work:

Organics has declined to 0 in 2020 

Keywords by Ahrefs:

Note:

The success of the promotion was largely determined by the result of the competitors’ audit. It was important to create the functionality, content and design of the site better than on the sites that appeared on the first page of the search.

We adapted and implemented everything that was useful for the client’s experience of interacting with the site, and this process continued throughout the works and continues on a regular basis. The site is being improved as much as possible.

Content plays a big role. The traffic generating topics have been selected. We especially worked on a comfortable text structure. The text included headings, sub-headings, was divided into easy-to-read paragraphs, the articles had high-quality images that drop out as previews of materials when relinking. 

Articles were also relinked in such a way that the user stayed on the site as long as possible.

If you already know what kind of online business you want to open, plan to create an online store and don’t know where to start, email us! We will analyze the potential market, competitors and help launch your project from scratch to the start of sales!