Online shop in Ukraine selling hookahs and electronic cigarettes — х2.5 organic traffic

How we achieved the result

The site with a large assortment, which is constantly replenished, had a poor technical condition in terms of SEO and basic content, the main task was to strengthen the site to get maximum results in terms of traffic and positions. Therefore, we analysed competitors in the niche and started to move in several directions at once: content and links. In parallel, we brought the technical state of the site in order.

Audit of the site and making the necessary corrections

Initially, we conducted a general audit of the technical part and collected the semantic kernel. It was necessary to introduce several small but significant changes, such as the introduction of micro markup and redirects, expansion of the filtering system. Further, we checked the site for correctness and quality of meta tag templates, and derived a task to optimise the titles and meta descriptions for all types of categories.

We conducted a competitor analysis to determine their organic search strategy (catalogue, filter system, content marketing, control profile, etc.),

Based on the results, we formed an initial project strategy that was based on:

• Eliminating technical errors of the site;
• Preparation of a broad semantic kernel;
• Expanding the link profile.

Preparation of semantic kernel and content

The site was recommended to present a wider range of products, but did not require the creation of new categories, we took the following path:

• Broke down the process of semantic kernel formation and content preparation into iterations.
• Worked with the client to prioritise categories and brands for hookahs and e-cigarettes.
• Developed semantic kernel and, in parallel, TOR for texts for priority categories.
• We prepared a content plan and started writing articles for the blog.
• Working on the link profile

The project already had a certain set of links, so in order to better understand the dynamics of development, we updated our link acquisition strategy and studied the link profile of competitors. We needed to determine the following parameters:

• The number of donors and backlinks needed.
• Types of links to focus on (crowdlinks and articles).
• The rate of growth of links.
  Required budget.

Based on the obtained data, we developed a strategy to attract links and started its implementation.

Stable growth of positions and traffic

At this stage we actively worked on the content on the product category pages, writing unique informative articles in the blog of the site, regular building of backlinks according to the strategy and, if necessary, changes in pre-optimisation on the pages. The site promotion strategy was regularly reviewed to monitor changes in the competitive environment and implement the necessary recommendations to achieve the goals.

Difficulties encountered:

1. Lack of optimisation on site pages
2. URLs with double underscores (__)
3. Low site loading speed for mobile devices
4. Change of the site domain
5. Blocking of the site by search engine

Result:

• Increased visibility. The average position for the homepage reached good indicators and had a stable growth every month.
• Query dynamics, queries in top 10. According to Ahrefs analytics more than 2K out of 18K queries were in TOP-10
• Increase in organic traffic for the period of promotion can be seen on the screenshot from Analytics
• Graph of increase in clicks and impressions. Average CTR and positions also increased due to good description of meta tags.