In the cutthroat world of e-commerce, standing out is a Herculean task. This is especially true in the athleisure market, where new brands pop up like mushrooms after rain.
Our client, a high-end athleisure wear company targeting affluent women, had been in the game for over a decade.
They were doing well, raking in $3 million annually, but they faced a common e-commerce dilemma: an unhealthy addiction to paid advertising.
The client knew they needed to break free from this paid ad dependence and increase profitability. They'd heard whispers about the SEO promised land - a place of sustainable, long-term growth.
That's when they reached out to us, their potential SEO saviors.
When we first shook hands with this client, they were pulling in $21,000 per month from organic search with an excellent 6% average conversion rate.
Not too shabby, but we knew there was a goldmine of untapped potential. The client had several aces up their sleeve:
These factors screamed "opportunity" to our SEO-tuned ears. With the right strategy, we could turn this trickle of organic traffic into a roaring river of qualified leads and sales.
We kicked things off with extensive keyword research. We weren't just after high-volume keywords; we were treasure hunting for untapped keywords that could drive qualified traffic.
We discovered that customers often use different terms than what business owners might expect. While the client might say "performance leggings," customers were searching for "squat-proof yoga pants." This insight led us to explore countless keyword variations.
We proposed creating new collection pages to target these newly discovered keywords. This strategy would expand the site's semantic footprint, allowing it to rank for a broader range of relevant searches.
We also tapped into Google Search Console data to uncover even more keyword opportunities. This tool revealed queries that were already bringing some traffic to the site, even if the site wasn't optimized for them. These insights were gold dust for shaping our content strategy.
A solid technical foundation is crucial for SEO success. Our comprehensive technical audit uncovered a jaw-dropping 10,027 issues with their Shopify store.
These problems included:
Our expert technical team rolled up their sleeves and prioritized these issues, tackling them in the first week. We know that without a solid technical foundation, all other SEO efforts would be like trying to build a castle on quicksand.
We fixed broken links, implemented proper canonical tags, optimized images, and turbocharged site speed. We also ensured the site was fully mobile-friendly, a crucial factor given Google's mobile-first indexing.
With the technical foundation rock-solid, we turned our attention to on-page optimization. The client had over 700 product pages and 500 collection pages that were crying out for optimization.
Our team meticulously optimized each page, ensuring the main keyword, secondary keywords, and brand mentions were strategically placed throughout the content. This included:
For some products and collections, we completely rewrote the H1 titles. This ensured better optimization for the main keywords we had identified in our research.
We also focused on boosting overall content quality. We added more detailed product information, addressed customer pain points, highlighted benefits, and ensured each page provided genuine value to visitors.
Link building was a major focus of our strategy. The client had some existing backlinks from years of being in business, but they had never engaged in active link building. We saw this as a huge opportunity.
Our team set out to find highly authoritative and relevant websites in the athleisure, fitness, and lifestyle niches. We have an extremely strict set of metrics for evaluating potential link opportunities. In fact, we turn down 90% of the websites we come across. Our goal is to only acquire links that will genuinely move the needle for our client's SEO.
We avoid PBNs (Private Blog Networks), link farms, or any sites that could have a negative or neutral effect on our client's search rankings. Instead, we focus on high-quality, editorial links from respected sites in relevant niches.
Our link building strategies included:
We recognized that the founders of the athleisure brand were experts in their own right. They had valuable insights into fitness, fashion, and entrepreneurship. We saw this as an opportunity to not only build high-quality links but also increase brand awareness.
We started working with journalists who were seeking expert commentary on topics related to athleisure, fitness trends, and women in business. This approach has been incredibly successful, resulting in mentions and links from high-authority news sites and industry publications.
While SEO is typically a long-term strategy, we're thrilled to report some impressive early wins for our client.
Just two weeks into our campaign, we've seen significant improvements in keyword rankings:
These improvements are valuable because we exclusively target keywords with commercial or transactional intent. Any increase in traffic directly translates to increased sales potential for our client.
It's important to note that these are just the initial results. While they're extremely promising, we're only at the beginning of our SEO journey with this client. Our strategy is designed for long-term, sustainable growth.
With these quick wins under our belt, we're now focusing on:
Our goal is to move these keywords from their current mid-first page positions into the coveted top 3 spots. This will require skillful link building and a significant increase in overall brand authority, which our Digital PR team is actively working on.
Based on our experience and the current trajectory, we expect to see:
Moving forward, we'll continue to refine and expand our strategy. This includes:
By building a strong SEO foundation and continuously optimizing our approach, we're confident that we can help this athleisure brand achieve sustainable, long-term growth.
The days of relying heavily on paid advertising are coming to an end, replaced by a more balanced and profitable marketing mix with SEO at its core.
These early results are extremely encouraging, but they're just the beginning.
We're excited to continue our work and see how much further we can push these rankings, driving even more valuable traffic and sales for our client in the competitive athleisure market.
Stay tuned for more updates as we transform this brand's digital presence and skyrocket their organic revenue with our ecommerce SEO services.