I will discuss the SEO campaign that I led for an e-commerce pet store selling predominantly cat and dog food but with the other usual accessories like beds, toys, harnesses and much more. (due to confidentiality, I will not mention the business name).
Challenges
We began this SEO campaign on the first day of September 2021 with the aim to increase the number of online orders to the website. What became apparent is that this was a very small business run by 1 gentleman with website support from an intern. Therefore, getting tasks completed and sent over for inspection would be a tricky task. However, thanks to our technical team, there were very rarely any issues with implementing tasks.
This client came to us with a different brand name to the one it currently uses now. It originally had the name of a major retail brand in the US so we advised that they change their name to avoid any confusion for the crawler and user experience.
Another issue that we faced was that this client implemented thousands of products from their supplier’s website all with plagiarised text. This was not helping them rank for keywords so this is something that we identified and tried to fix with the time and effort afforded to us for this client.
Main SEO Tasks
Backlinks/Citations
I used Ahrefs.com to determine how many backlinks the website had. Since it was a fairly new website, there were only a handful of backlinks. Therefore, we decided to buy some directory backlinks using Brightlocal.com to gain some authority for the website.
Content
Since every product and category page on the website either had 0 text content or had plagiarised content, we decided to beef up the main category pages first to try and display to the crawlers that these are the main pages of the website and to also optimise the page for on-page and content optimisation. I conducted research to find similar websites with optimised category pages to draw some inspiration for the pages that I would create. I also used Semrush to identify the main keywords that I should be focusing on. I then got some FAQs and answered them from Google search and Answerthepublic.com whilst creating an FAQ schema to help the crawlers. I did the same process for the other main category pages and the top-performing products which I found when using their Shopify analytics.
Google My Business
Whilst this was an e-commerce business, they also had a pet shop in York. Their original GMB profile was listed as their previous brand name so that was something that we changed immediately. We updated their business description, services, area, photos, website links, phone number and opening hours to ensure that the profile was as optimised as possible.
Results
The results for the client from September to December will be available to view down below:
Website Performance
Sep – Dec Website Analytics compared to May-Aug
- Sessions – 205%
- Impressions – 69%
- Clicks – 258%
- New Users – 204%
- Bounce rate – 30%
- Av session duration – 73%
- Pages per session – 20%
- CTR – 113%
As you can see from the results, the website has benefitted massively since the start of the SEO campaign. The number of website visits and impressions both increasing shows that the keywords and backlinks that we have created had a massively positive impact on the website. What’s interesting to see is that the CTR, pages per session and bounce rate improved which is strange considering that these metrics typically decline with an increase in traffic.
Google My Business Performance
August 2021
December 2021
- Total Searches = 130%
- Direct Searches = 28%
- Discovery Searches = 142%
- Total Views = 113%
- Search Views = 182%
- Maps Views = -18%
- Total Actions = 250%
- Website Actions = 24400%
- Directions Actions = 0%
- Phone Call Actions = 25%
The results for the Google My Business profile have massively improved since the campaign began in August. This is thanks to the optimisation that we carried out immediately including the creation of some GMB posts, promoting new products.
Organic Results
Organic Traffic
Organic Keywords
From looking at the graphs for the organic traffic and keywords, you can see the improvements to the website that the SEO campaign has had as there is a large increase starting from September time. The drop in the graph right at the end is reflective of the Christmas low that many businesses face.
Keyword Improvements
This table shows the keyword improvement of our targetted keywords based on research conducted (these are only taken from December to January too). By adding these keywords into the text, URL, headings and more, we can see the improvements in SERP positions from this campaign.
Impact On Business
Whilst all of these stats are good in the eyes of an SEO analyst, the main focus of search engine optimisation is to grow the business. The below image shows the positive impact that the campaign has had on the success of the business.
In just a few months, the number of sales via the website has increased by 92%. This is the main stat that the client notices when it comes to the performance of the SEO campaign, so I was very happy to see this large increase in sales.
Conclusion
The work put into the account has been vast and from the early results, it’s been worth it since there have been major improvements in all areas of the website, including sales.
It is a shame that the business and SEO campaign have come to a stop since the owner is retiring. I would’ve loved working on this account for many years.
Harry Buckley 