Increasing Search Traffic By 934% In 6 Months [Case Study]
In September 2017, Watch & Bullion (a retailer of Luxury watches based in Gibraltar) had 562 visitors organically from Google. 6 months later, in March 2018, they had 5,809 organic search visits; this is a 934% increase.
In this article, I’ll discuss how we achieved this, and how you can replicate our success. Let’s begin!
Content, Content, Content
Sick of hearing ‘content is king’? Yup, me too. But that doesn’t make it any less true. This case study is built entirely on ranking blog articles to bring in relevant search traffic.
The fundamental process (which can be replicated for almost any industry/website) is this:
- Identify search terms that your target audience are typing into Google
- Create amazing content that satisfies that query (e.g. information or entertainment)
- Promote & rank your content to bring traffic
- Convert that traffic into something that is useful to your business (email subscribers, social followers, and ultimately customers)
Let’s break down some examples of how this has been applied to Watch & Bullion, and some pointers on what to look for on your own website.
Example
Article: Cheapest Richard Mille Watches
Arguably the most successful post on the site currently, this article alone generates over 1,000 clicks per month and counting.
We identified ‘cheapest Richard Mille’ as a good search term to pursue because:
1) It had enough search volume to make it worthwhile creating content for
2) The results that ranked for this search term just didn’t quite satisfy the query. The few results you can see in the screenshot below do focus around Richard Mille prices, which is relevant. But naturally, if someone came along and produced content that is specifically focused around the cheapest Richard Mille, that will be a better result for searchers.
Additional Opportunities
We originally set out to rank for the term ‘cheapest Richard Mille’, which had 880 average monthly searches according to the Keyword Planner.
However, when analysing our traffic in the Search Console, we discovered that, despite having not considered it previously, we were also creeping onto the first page for ‘Richard Mille price’ too (a query with over 20k/mo searches):
Now being aware of this, through slight tweaks (such as adding ‘prices’ to the page title tag), we were then able to tap into some traffic from ‘richard mille prices’, which is a much bigger search term than we initially set out to pursue.
The result? Over the last 90 days from the time of writing, we’ve generated 1,266 clicks that would have otherwise been missed (or at least substantially lower!).
Action Point
For established blogs, I recommend jumping into the search console and reviewing your current performance. Are you receiving traffic from search terms that you never originally intended to pursue, like we encountered here?
Perhaps you can slightly tweak / repurpose your content & SEO to optimise for those keywords.
Evergreen Content Keeps On Giving
‘Evergreen’ might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but my point is that the bulk of the work in this strategy is done just once, and that article will continue to generate traffic for many months and years to come.
So, by producing & ranking more and more articles like this, traffic will grow exponentially.
Content Ideas Tip: Continue The Theme
We discovered a winner here with our ‘cheapest +brand’ post format, and we have followed it through for other brands too. If you search ‘cheapest patek philippe’ in the UK or the US, you’re sure to find Watch & Bullion in the top few results.
This search term currently brings between 250 and 300 clicks per month.
And I won’t go into too much depth, but just to show one more example…
We’re also working on an entertainment-focused series about ‘celebrity’ watches; these all bring significant traffic to the website.
https://watchandbullion.com/jay-z-watch-collection/
https://watchandbullion.com/conor-mcgregor-watches/
https://watchandbullion.com/ed-sheeran-watches/
Okay great, we’ve got the content… Now to rank it!
Once we’ve decided on the search terms we want to pursue & created content, next we need to actually start getting some traffic in. Typically, efforts towards ranking any page can be divided into on-page factors, and link building.
On-Page
In a nutshell, on-page SEO refers to the technical elements that you have control of on your site. Things you can change that helps a search engine understand what a page is all about.
This is a non-exhaustive list, but it includes things like:
- Your page title tag
- Your page description tag
- Heading tags (h1-6)
- URL structure
- Image alt text
- Page load speed
- Internal linking
- … & more.
This article won’t be going into much depth on on-page SEO; I simply wanted to draw your attention to this as a major part of any SEO activity. On-page SEO is a broad topic that demands its own guide. Luckily for us, there is already excellent content out there. I recommend Matt Diggity’s Evergreen Onsite SEO Guide.
Link Building
Although arguably less impactful than they once were, backlinks/referring domains are still a major ranking factor and are likely to be for the foreseeable future.
Here are a few thoughts on building links to your content.
Amazing content attracts links. Look at the previous paragraph; Matt Diggity produced an awesome piece of content, and I linked to it naturally because it helps my readers.
Build relationships with other influencers in your industry. If you mention other people’s articles or cite their work as a source, reach out and let that person know. Maybe they’ll share your content. Write guest contributions for other blogs for additional referral traffic & relevant backlinks.
Promote your content. If you’ve put a lot of work into your content, it’s definitely worth spending some time & effort on promoting it. Email your list, post on Reddit, share on all your social channels, and even put a little ad spend behind it on Facebook. If it isn’t worth spending money on promoting, was it really worth producing in the first place?
For a more in-depth look at link building strategies, I highly recommend reading Brian Dean’s link building guide.
That’s all for now! Over to you…
Have you had success in growing your search traffic? Or have you been producing content without results? Either way, I’d love to hear about your experience.
If you’d like to grab a coffee or schedule a phone call to discuss all things inbound marketing & SEO, please do get in touch and let’s talk!
