From success to insights – December 2024
SEO is never an overnight success, and our December successes show how long-term strategy and constant updates pay off.
Introduction
Our December successes are here! It’s another month when we get reminded that SEO is never an overnight success and seemingly minor technical issues can act as a major blocker. Ongoing work through the strategy and competitors actions pays off.
Duplicate content detection
Challenge
While reviewing a new offer subpage, I identified an issue with duplication, which caused traffic to be split between two nearly identical subpages. The analysis revealed that the root cause was an automation tool’s behavior, which generated duplicate versions during offer updates.
Actions
- Improving the site’s structure
- Implementing preventive measures,
- Regular URL verification,
- Usege of canonical tags,
- Monitoring of the tool’s performance.
Results:
- Enhance the quality of the client’s site,
- Minimized risk of issues causing ineffectiveness.
Insight
Pay close attention to the uniqueness of content and URL structure, and regularly review the outcomes of automation tools. Systematic site audits can help detect and resolve errors early, preventing negative impacts on visibility and traffic.
Do you need to consistently analyze competitive landscapes?
Challenge
A car rental company’s website held significant untapped potential for improving its organic search performance.
Actions
- Through an in-depth content analysis of both the client’s domain and its competitors, several opportunities for enhancement were identified:
- Enhanced keyword presence on key landing pages to boost search visibility
- Optimization of internal linking between offer pages and blog articles to create cohesive, user-focused content clusters.
- Refinement of metadata on the homepage and offer pages to boost click-through rates (CTR).
The Results
The results of this focused effort were transformative. Within just two months of implementation:
- The number of keywords in the TOP 10 search results increased from 3,835 to 4,779, a growth of 24.62%.
- Keywords in the TOP 3 rose from 1,048 to 1,546, reflecting an impressive 47.52% increase.
Insights
- Continuous Content Optimization: Ongoing refinement of website content is a cornerstone for achieving and sustaining SEO excellence.
- Competitor Benchmarking: Consistently analyzing competitive landscapes unlocks unique opportunities to differentiate and excel.
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Research & Strategy
Amplify your online presence with data-driven SEO strategies. We optimize keywords across all sales funnel stages, ensuring targeted growth at every level.
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SEO Reporting and Forecasting
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How to avoid unnecessary redirect chains?
Challenge
The internal links on the blog listing page pointed to automatically generated URLs that redirected (via 301) to custom URLs for individual blog posts.
It created unnecessary redirect chains, adding latency and diluting link equity.
The content was duplicated across different language versions of the blog posts, which further complicated indexing and ranking.
Actions:
- Updated the internal linking structure to point directly to the final, custom URLs—bypassing the 301 redirects.
- Addressed the duplicate content issue by consolidating entries and implementing appropriate canonical tags for the blog posts.
The Results
Noticeable uptick in the site’s visibility, particularly for blog-related keywordsA sharp increase in rankings, driving more traffic to the site.
Insight
Sometimes, even seemingly minor technical issues can act as a major blocker to achieving optimal SEO performance and visibility.
SEO is never an overnight success
Challenge
In September, due to a heavy workload, I had to scale back my activities on the site. The lack of new content during this period had a noticeable impact on the visibility chart, which began to decline gradually. Publishing new content and regularly updating it not only enhances a site’s substantive value but also signals to Google’s algorithms that the site is active and constantly evolving, encouraging the search engine to visit more frequently and treat the site as a valuable source of information.
Actions
Fortunately, in November, I was able to return to intensive content activities. The systematic publication of new materials quickly began to yield results, and the visibility chart once again recorded a significant increase.
The Results
Consistency in SEO activities, especially in terms of creating and updating content, is a key element in building a website’s visibility. Success doesn’t happen overnight, but consistency and systematic site development are rewarded by both users and search engine algorithms. Thanks to this, we can achieve long-term results and continuously strengthen our position in search results.
Insight
The lack of new content during extended period can have a noticeable impact on the visibility chart, which began to decline gradually. This clearly demonstrates how crucial regularity is in SEO, especially for new or developing websites. Consistency and systematic site development are rewarded by both users and search engine algorithms. Thanks to this, we can achieve long-term results and continuously strengthen our position in search results.
Addressing drops: how we regained search visibility
Challenge
As a result of a critical server error that occurred on Friday afternoon, the entire client site began returning HTTP 5XX response codes. The problem remained throughout the weekend. While fixing actions were undertaken, an unintentional change was made. The robots.txt file that prevented all search engine robots, including Googlebot, from accessing the site has been modified. The most important key phrases began to lose positions in the search results, and overall organic visibility deteriorated significantly. Snowball effect was started. Google’s algorithms categorised the site as not meeting user expectations, resulting in a further drop in rankings and visibility in the SERPs.
Actions
- Restoration of the correct robots.txt file: The robots’ access block was immediately removed, allowing the site to be re-indexed.
- Re-indexing of key pages: Using Google Search Console, the most relevant pages were re-indexed in order to refresh their status in the search results as soon as possible.
- Monitoring crawl budget: Optimization measures were taken to rebuild Google’s trust and increase the crawl frequency of the site.
The Results
Thanks to the rapid implementation of corrective actions, the organic visibility of the website has gradually started to return to pre-crash levels.
- The website has regained its ranking positions for most key phrases.
- Visibility in search results has returned to previous levels.
Insight
- Need of regular monitoring of server performance and the correctness of the robots.txt file configuration.
- Quick response to errors, especially in crises that may affect the indexation and visibility of the site.
- Implementation of preventive mechanisms, such as testing changes to configuration files before deploying them to the production server.
- The proactive approach and skilful management of the crisis allowed the long-term effects to be minimised and the site to quickly regain its position in the search results.
Optimizing categories with high search potential
Challenge
Recently, we have been conducting an internal linking optimization focused on product categories with high search potential. Our analysis revealed that certain key phrases, such as “Black evening dresses” and “Red sandals”, had limited visibility in search results due to insufficient internal linking structure.
In response to these findings, we implemented targeted internal linking for strategic categories. This improved Google’s understanding of the site’s structure and supported keywords at the lower stages of the conversion funnel. The optimization was carried out on July 3rd, and by July 11th, we observed significant results.
Actions
Internal linking optimization focused on product categories with high search potential.
Results
Black evening dresses: The phrase began ranking in the Top 10 after the internal linking implementation, unlocking new organic traffic opportunities. Red sandals: Improved rankings from position 46 to the Top 10.
Insight
Effective internal linking is critical for improving search engine visibility, especially for high-potential keywords that attract traffic across various stages of the purchase journey. Our efforts enabled the client to better align with user intent, resulting in improved SEO performance and increased visibility in a short time frame.
Bonus Insight
Ensure that your internal linking strategy prioritizes both popular and emerging keywords. Use clear anchor texts that align with user queries to signal relevance to search engines and guide users seamlessly through your site.
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