Changes in SEO strategies – the natural sequence of things

When you think about an SEO strategy, first of all, you have to accept the fact that it is impossible to create a long-term action plan that will work without corrections. Google’s environment is very volatile – new updates of the search engine algorithm are constantly coming out, which often significantly change the rules of the game. Additionally, what worked on 100 similar pages may not necessarily work on page 101 as well. Therefore, changes in the strategy of activities are completely natural and even advisable if the chosen path does not bring results. Positioning is about constantly monitoring the effects, modifying, correcting and re-measuring the results. A properly selected strategy is therefore flexible and may change over time if changes in the algorithm or simply the specificity of a given website require it.

Clearly set priorities are essential

Most websites require many changes in various fields at the beginning of positioning – some of the corrections are purely technical, others require modifying and expanding the content or taking care of external linking. Such modifications cannot be made entirely in a week, month or even six months. Hence, SEO strategies should prioritize tasks to be performed, identifying those that are most urgent and those that can be introduced next.

The best strategies are divided into stages, thanks to which the client knows what to expect from a positioning agency. Not all changes are visible to the naked eye to someone who is not a specialist in a given topic. On the surface, it may seem that the positioner is doing nothing, while he is doing a lot of work necessary to improve the visibility of the website. Such changes take time, especially if the website is extensive, has many tabs, and has been modified frequently.

White hat SEO only!

Properly constructed SEO strategies focus only on good positioning practices, without assuming any prohibited actions or those resulting from the so-called the gray area. Attempts to take shortcuts and trick Google’s algorithm may result in the filter being imposed – either automatically or manually by an employee – and this causes the page to stop showing up in search results. Of course, you can try to remove the filter, but even if it is successful, the page drops in the search results, and restoring its good opinion in the assessment of the algorithm is extremely difficult.

What activities do you need to watch out for? For example, Google does not recognize the automatic mass generation of links to a page on unrelated websites, forums or blogs. Attempts to deceive search engine robots by presenting them with a version of the page other than users, or trying to “hide” texts on the page (eg creating white text on a white background) are badly seen. These types of naming activities are Black Hat SEO and should be avoided entirely.

SEO strategy – the role of cooperation

All changes introduced by the positioner must be accepted by the client, and the sooner the acceptance takes place, the earlier the website begins to achieve results. In addition, there are also such activities that the client must carry out on his own according to the recommendations of the positioning company. For example, the loading speed is very important for the visibility of the website, while some customers use slow and emergency hosting, which limits SEO possibilities. Then it is on the customer’s side to change the service provider, because without it, other activities become much less effective.

Sometimes the system on which the website was created is also a problem. If the client uses a proprietary solution or a less popular CMS, it may turn out that it lacks the functionalities necessary to improve the visibility of the website. In such cases, it is necessary to transfer the website to another system, which the client also has to do with his own resources. At this point, however, it is worth mentioning that such action must take place in cooperation with an SEO specialist who prepares recommendations on how to carry out the change so as not to lose the power of the website.

Cooperation must be based on trust

A mistake of many clients is blocking some of the changes recommended by the positioner. Most often it concerns interference with the content on the website, adding new content or changes in structural data. Lack of consent to some activities does not completely eliminate efforts to increase the visibility of the website, but it does not allow the website to use its full potential and achieve optimal results. Therefore, when deciding on services in the field of positioning, it is worth choosing a proven agency that you can trust. Then the client can be sure that all changes recommended by the positioner are necessary and work to the benefit of the website. Agreeing only some of the actions listed in the SEO strategy generally does not bring any satisfaction or measurable benefits to any of the parties.

However, it is important not only that the client can trust the SEO specialist, but also that the positioner can trust his client. SEO strategies cannot be fully implemented if the client makes changes to the website on his own without informing the SEO company about it. Such actions can destroy months of SEO work and cause an immediate drop in the visibility of your website. What activities are we talking about? Most often it concerns changing the CMS without prior information, changing the URLs of subpages, deleting subpages or deleting content on the website.

Linking strategy – an integral part of your SEO strategy

A very important part of the SEO strategy is the so-called off-site SEO, i.e. acquiring external links to the website. These types of links can be obtained from various sources, including online forums, product catalogs, back-end sites or through platforms selling sponsored articles. Less common methods of getting links are also possible, such as exchanging guest posts with bloggers or linking to a page on social media. However, it is important to remember that only good quality links give the website power – from thematically related websites, highly rated by algorithms. Therefore, the selection of linking sources is one of the most important elements of an SEO strategy. It is also important to schedule the publication of links – too many links that appear at the same time can alert the algorithm that starts suspecting us of unfair practices.

The strategy of building a link profile must be closely tailored to the industry, and even the specificity of the positioned page. It should also be preceded by an in-depth analysis of the competition’s link profile – on the basis of such information, we can decide what can be done better and how to expand the collection of links to gain a competitive advantage thanks to them.

What does an SEO strategy consist of?

The SEO strategy should include all the activities that will be carried out to position a given website on Google – both on the website itself and outside it (external linking). Its main elements are:
– a list of keywordsfor which the website will be positioned – it should contain all the keywords whose positions will be monitored by the positioner. Such a list is prepared by the agency in cooperation with the client, who can determine which areas of activity are the most important for him and which subpages, product categories or the products themselves are crucial for him from a business point of view.
– website architecture optimization plan – this means building a category tree, layout of website navigation, organizing tags, etc.,
– technical optimization plan for the website – that is, all those activities that are to increase the loading speed of the website, improve its responsiveness and user-friendliness. The purely technical changes include such activities as: code minification, graphics compression, implementation of browser caching, entering structured data, creating sitemap.xml, setting redirects, implementing canonical tags and many others,
– content development strategy on the website – at the planning stage, it is necessary to determine which page tabs should be enriched with new content, whether it is worth introducing space for additional content (e.g. blog or news), at what stages of work individual content will be added, etc.
– the concept of building a profile of external links – this means selecting sites for linking, determining how many links should be obtained and when to publish them,
– a plan for building a network of internal links – that is, creating links on the website to other subpages of the positioned website. A well-developed internal linking strategy makes it easier for the user to navigate the site and find the information they need.

Ahrefs backlink checker
Ahrefs is one of the most comprehensive tools on the market for keyword verification, link building and content. Its main advantage, however, is the link building part, because it has the largest link base on the Internet, and thus the information that we can obtain through it is invaluable. In addition, this link base is updated every now and then so you know when you are losing links or when you are getting them. This is due to bots that, like Google, roam the Internet, but index links instead of pages.

AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is a tool that allows you to find out what users are looking for on forums, blogs and social media. This is a free app for keyword research and creating content ideas. After entering the password, we receive dynamic charts containing the queries that were entered by Internet users into the Google search engine. Thus, we get a list of keywords from the so-called long tail. The website interface is in English, but the tool itself is simple and intuitive.

Check My Links
Check My Links is a Chrome extension that allows you to identify broken links on any website with one click. Broken links negatively affect the user experience and search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, so clearing them quickly is in our best interest. After starting Check My Links, the page scanning process begins. The results will be displayed in the form of a readable graph. You can also choose to scan pages automatically. Indexed links will be highlighted in the color corresponding to their status. Broken links are displayed in red.

Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free tool from Google that is used to track website performance and collect information about visitors. It can help companies identify the main sources of user traffic, evalsuate marketing efforts and campaigns, discover trends in user engagement that can be used to improve marketing campaigns, drive traffic to the site, and retain visitors for longer. As we can see above, Google Analytics provides statistics that are useful in the context of optimizing the website for search results (SEO) and for marketing purposes. Google Analytics as a free SEO tool is very handy!

Google Data Studio
Google Data Studio is a data reporting tool. It is used to create interactive and responsive dashboards that allow you to build your own panels using templates with a variety of charts, maps and tables. Access to advanced data makes it possible to evalsuate the effectiveness of SEO activities, as we can see, among other things, site traffic and how your sites are indexed by search engine bots. Google Data Studio collects metrics and indicators that support decision making and strategy direction, so companies take less risk and increase the chances of achieving their goals.

Google Search Console
Free tool available for any site. Google Search Console, contains tons of data about our site related to organic search results, as well as various error reports. Search Console is constantly evolving as Google adds new features and changes its approach to what is important to users, for example, an emphasis on site speed means that some of the platform’s key error reports are related to speed. You may also see crawl errors for your site or pages that Google tried to add to its index but was not able to do so due to poor coding.

Google Trends
Google Trends is a free tool provided by Google that will allow us to compare the search popularity of different words or phrases. Thanks to this, we know what is the level of searching for a specific keyword in a given time period. This comparison is represented by a graph that shows the search terms from 2004 to the present, which allows us to see changes over time and geographically. Other data that is shared with us is the global heat map that graphically shows the index of the number of searches in different regions of each country, or the list of words related to each search phrase that shows a greater increase. Google Trends also gives us the opportunity to compare up to 5 terms at the same time, and thus see how their popularity has changed over time.

HubSpot Website Grader
Website Grader is a tool that can be used by all websites, not only those related to Hubspot. It is a great tool when we want to check what stage we are at in terms of our website and SEO activities. To use, enter a URL and an email address and Hubspot will crawl your site and present a scoreboard. Our website will be assessed in four broad categories: Performance, SEO, mobiles and Security. Thanks to HubSpot Website Grader, we will discover areas for improvement and find out what to do to make our website more SEO optimized.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a program that captures web links, images, CSS, scripts, and applications. It also downloads key page elements for SEO, presents them in tabs by type, and allows filtering for the most common SEO problems. You can view, analyze and filter information as it is collected. Screaming Frog SEO is especially helpful when analyzing medium to large sites where checking each page manually would be extremely laborious.

SEMrush site audit
SEMrush works well for small to medium sized websites. The site audit option will allow you to analyze a given page (in the free version up to 100 pages) and will check about 140 different parameters related to SEO. It is, among others, o duplicate content, broken links, HTTPS implementation, page indexing. The website audit results show an assessment expressed as a percentage and any errors that need to be corrected. Each item has information on why it matters and how to fix it.

SEOquake
SEOquake is an easy-to-use SEO tool. Just install it on your browser. The main advantage of SEOquake is the ability to view all data and indicators in the same place, which facilitates their interpretation and decision making in the field of website positioning. You can also get more complete information on page or keyword optimization thanks to the audit option. Another advantage is the insight into site metrics that rank in the results for the searched keyword.

Surfer SEO
Surfer SEO is a free SEO tool used to support website positioning through content optimization and the appropriate selection of keywords. The SEO Surfer analyzes the current top 50 results in Google Search for potential ranking factors for the searched phrase. It also comes with a built-in keyword research and SERP review tool that gives you the average word count or preferred content length and keyword frequency and page speed estimates.

Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin that will improve our site’s search engine ranking by helping to optimize page content and keywords. Once installed on your WordPress site, the Yoast SEO plugin will appear on each of the pages and posts you create, then analyze the page content and make suggestions on how to improve it. Unless we have extensive SEO knowledge, regularly using Yoast SEO when publishing new pages or browsing existing ones is a great training. By using a plugin, we will start publishing content with optimization in mind, more instinctively.

Summary

If you want your website to attract more traffic and provide a better visitor experience, you should analyze it in terms of SEO, and there are hundreds of online tools available to help you with this. We’ve put together these free SEO tools that we find valuable at Paraphrase-Online.com and that are readily available. Within minutes, you can enjoy valuable feedback on your SEO. Free seo tools – or rather the ability to use them, will also increase your value on the labor market!

Effective SEO – why does it not work most often?

However, before we move on to the tools with which you can measure SEO effectiveness, let’s consider what parameters are worth checking at all. Just a few years ago, it was popular to sign SEO contracts “for effect”. It was a model which assumed that the client pays the agency only for achieving a specific goal, i.e. for placing the appropriate number of phrases in the TOP search. However, this method of billing the service is irretrievably obsolete and for good reason – the approach that assumes more work with the website than focusing on punching in specific phrases works better.

In SEO activities, we fight primarily for valuable traffic, i.e. one that brings measurable benefits for the brand. However, the mere appearance in TOP10 or even TOP3 of a phrase that no one is looking for does not bring any profit. Additionally, even if it is a valuable phrase, its appearance does not guarantee that the user will click on the link to the page. If the content of the headline and description doesn’t meet his expectations, he or she may search for a different site. And even if the recipient goes to the page, it will not do anything if they do not find what they are looking for on it. Therefore, for SEO to be really effective, it must be comprehensive and lead the user through the entire shopping path. With this approach, phrase monitoring is only one of the ways to measure SEO effectiveness.

What parameters say, “yes, SEO works”?

In order to correctly measure the effects of positioning, we should first determine what goals we want to achieve with its help. On their basis, the so-called KPI (Key Performance Indicators), i.e. key performance indicators. It simply means a verifiable premise that SEO activities should be considered a success – these indicators should be agreed with the SEO company at the beginning and accompany us throughout the process of building website visibility. KPIs for positioning may be different and should be set each time for a given brand. The most commonly used, however, are:

– increase in valuable traffic on the website,
– an increase in the number of conversions from the organic channel, i.e. from search results,
– decreasing bounce rate, i.e. situations in which the user leaves the website immediately after entering it,
– increase in the number of phrases in TOP10 and TOP50,
– improving the position of key phrases for business,
– extending the average time spent on the website.

SEO results in Google Analytics

The first free tool that we can use to measure SEO effects is Google Analytics. By placing a special tracking code on your website, we can use this tool to check how users behave when they are on it. It is worth checking parameters such as:

– website traffic – by comparing the current results with those from before, say, half a year, we can check whether the website has a noticeable increase,
– bounce rate – this indicator will show us whether users find what they need on the website,
– the number of views of those subpages that are the most important for our business, e.g. the most important product categories,
– the number of conversions – i.e. actions that are important to us to be performed by the user. A conversion can be the purchase of a product, but also, for example, sending a contact form, downloading a guide or booking an appointment,
– average time spent on the site – this information will help you determine if the site meets the expectations of users. Thanks to this, you will find out if the subpages are positioned with the appropriate phrases.

However, in order to get the correct results from Google Analytics, you must first configure the tool properly. If we don’t, the data will be falsified. Before we start monitoring anything with its help, we should exclude the own IP and IP of the agency that deals with SEO from the measurements. Then the tool will not count visits to the website that do not come from potential customers. Then, we should also exclude traffic generated by known bots and block typical spam bots from accessing the site. For the data to be credible, you should also mark that the tool should only consider traffic to our host.

If we use Google Ads or Facebook Ads, it is also necessary to link the Analytics account with the Google Ads account and the implementation of the Facebook pixel on the website. Thanks to this, the system will recognize traffic and conversions from these sources, which will give more reliable results from the organic channel. What else do we need to set to get information about SEO effects from Google Analytics? Certainly, define the appropriate goals, i.e. indicate what the system should consider as a conversion.

In the case of Google Analytics, the Acquisition and Conversions reports will be most helpful for us.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is the second from the repertoire of google tools that are worth using in measuring SEO effectiveness. It does not use internal data directly from our website, but shows how the website is viewed by search engine robots. First of all, we can check in it:

– a list of phrases for which the page is displayed on Google,
– CTR, which is the ratio of clicks on a link to impressions of that link in the results.

Thanks to this, we can control not only how many phrases our website is displayed in TOP positions, but also whether these views are followed by further actions.

What Google Search Console offers us in the context of measuring results is also the ability to filter phrases on which the page is displayed. Thanks to this, we can easily and quickly control what results are achieved by those phrases that are key to our business. However, Google Search Console is only an auxiliary monitoring tool and will not replace the more precise tools that will be discussed in the next paragraph.

Third party SEO monitoring tools

In addition to free Google tools, we also have a number of paid external programs to help measure SEO effectiveness. They have their own algorithms that try to imitate the algorithms of search engines and based on them provide data on the visibility of a specific website. These tools help not only to screen the website in terms of the position of phrases or estimated traffic on the site, but also to compare these results with the visibility of the competition. There are a lot of such programs on the market and most of them have a similar field of action, so the choice between them is usually dictated by personal preferences. Such programs include Senuto, Semstorm, Ahrefs, SurferSEO and Semrush, among others.

Reports from these tools are a good starting point when analyzing the effectiveness of positioning, but they should not be the only sources from which we draw our knowledge. None of the programs has access to the Google algorithm, so it does not reflect 100% of the results that our website achieves in the search engine – it can only approximate them. Sometimes the results of individual tools may differ significantly from each other. Practice shows that these differences, in extreme cases, may even reach several dozen percent. Where do such discrepancies come from? Nobody knows exactly what the impact of individual elements on the position of the page. External tools must therefore make certain assumptions that do not always overlap. It also happens that updating one of the tools will lead to an error that distorts the data for some time. Therefore, you should always assume a certain margin of error when using these tools.

So how do you ultimately monitor your SEO activities? First of all, instead of focusing only on tracking the position of phrases, you should take into account the wider context, including website traffic, bounce rate or the number of conversions in which organic was the main or supporting channel. It also helps to divide KPIs into main and auxiliary and focusing in them on activities that are dependent on the positioner. You cannot limit yourself to only data from one source – each of them has its limitations, so only a comparison gives us a full picture of the situation.

Algorithmic factors determining the success of the content

The first was Robert, referring to his experience and research, he took the most important factors influencing the items on the wallpaper. In his presentation, he presented such conclusions as, among others, the lack of dependence of the content length and age of the domain (excluding the newly established ones) and the high dependence of the Topical Authority and the use of semantic SEO on the position in TOP10. He based his research on the Pearson’s correlation coefficient.

Effective competition analysis in less than 60 minutes

During this presentation, the speaker (Tori) advised on how to qualitatively check the competition. Conversation with the client, use of analytical tools and search results were identified as key factors. Tori suggested that when presenting the analysis to the client, include budget data – the technical parameters of SEO may seem like machine gibberish, and the translation of information into costs that the client may incur is more transparent to the client.

What I have learned by “outricing” to a million websites

We write about how linking is an important factor in positioning on our blog. In his presentation, Mark reminds about acquiring links from journalists, freelancers, etc. The speaker emphasized that in his opinion the subject matter of the pages is less important, more important is the content itself with which the link will be linked.

… And I won’t say twice! Were the parents right?

Nathan, the lecturer, took a closer look at duplication, which is widely regarded as harmful. In his presentation, the speaker presented the thesis that content can be copied for various intentions – responding to the user’s needs and using appropriate anchors and URLs. He presented the audience with a few examples of phrases in which the creation of unique content did not guarantee a higher position. He also provided an acceptable duplication rate on the site – 5%.

SEO Quick Wins. Elements that will strengthen the effects of your SEO strategy

Emma shared with the audience some tricks that will increase traffic on the site. Here are some of them: constant analysis of phrases outside TOP3, which are increased by a few positions immediately gives big results; regular verification of site, cache, pagespeed, i.e. elements that we remember at the beginning, and with time we look less often; using tools such as Google Search Control, Google Analitycs or Screaming Frog. She emphasized the importance of valuable content – external publications also affect sales.

Content marketing strategy created by an algorithm

The speaker talked about the benefits of artificial intelligence in planning topics for selected keywords. The algorithm, whose author is Derek, automates semantic SEO, which we already mentioned on our blog.

Successful Large Site Migrations: The Process

Daniel showed up and made sure that migrating large sites is not much different from small ones. He recalled the most important steps – a ready-made checklist written in Excel could be downloaded by every festival participant. He outlined how important it is to cooperate with developers and that there can always be drops, for which the client must be prepared.

Domain reputation – trust rank – as one of the most important ranking factors in Google

The speaker Thomas talked about the example of one of his clients – he did not perform any optimization, he only linked and invested in a large number of sponsored articles. The website rose in the visibility rankings. It is hard to expect that such a strategy will work for other sites, and the method of obtaining such high visibility was not fully presented to the audience.

Manual SEO technical audit

In contrast, after a lecture that jokingly said not to do anything, Norman entered the stage and presented the most important tasks to be performed during the initial SEO audit. Using a crawler, manual website analysis, checking the mobiles version, site.xml or checking Google Search Console is an audit performed by Norman. We are confident to sign it, because we act similarly. The speaker also noted how important it is to check individual subpages several times.

Whatever Works Hat SEO, i.e. a pragmatic approach to linking

The lecture led by two specialists was conducted with the narrative of a duel of two visions. Simon recalled how a google update (Penguin and Panda) changed many SEO methods and forced linking from sponsored articles. In turn, Kate based his tactics on what he called PBN (private blog network), which we translate to the back office. The author of this shortcut believes that the Black Hat SEO patch is stuck to the “backend”. The lecturers advised on how to check the domains that we want to obtain for linking pages.

During coffee breaks, where we could eat delicious snacks, we discussed the tests, conclusions, opinions and experiences presented.

Case study – motorcycle shop

We have been cooperating with the motorcycle shop since May 2020, jointly building the visibility of the website for phrases with the greatest potential. When we started, the site was showing 11 phrases in the TOP10, and only 2 of them appeared in the top three search results. This means that organic traffic to the site existed, although it was relatively small. So we took action on various fronts – technical optimization of the website, adding content and external linking helped us achieve significant increases after just one year. Currently, the number of phrases in the top positions is as follows:
TOP3 – 42 phrases,
TOP10 – 188 phrases,
TOP50 – 1092 phrases.

This represents an increase of 1,609% in the case of TOP10 and as much as 2,000% in the case of TOP3. However, we know that the website still has the potential to gain even better results, so we do not give up our arms and together with the client we fight to dig ourselves into the forefront of search results. The average cost of positioning this website is $ 3,500 per month.

Case study – a shop with water filters

Let’s look at the results of our other client who sells water filters. Here we will present a similar period as in the case of the previous example, which is more or less the last year. In October 2020, the website was already well visible in Google: 24 phrases in TOP3 and 130 phrases in TOP10 – this was our starting point in this case.

This is a very good foundation for building visibility in search results, which we have tried to use one hundred percent. In October 2021, the results reached 78 phrases in the top three and 334 phrases on the first page of the ranking. These are increases by 225% and 157%, respectively.

The average cost of SEO for this site is $ 2,000 per month.

Case study – shop with anti-varicose products

Our third example in today’s post is a shop with anti-varicose products. How has the visibility of this page changed over the last year? In October 2020, we recorded the following results:
TOP3 – 41 phrases,
TOP10 – 209 phrases,
TOP50 – 566 phrases.

As in the previous case study, the basic visibility was already built and it was only necessary to take care of the systematic increase in position in the search results. A year of combined efforts of the client and positioner, we achieved increases of 256% in the case of TOP3 and 78.5% in the case of the first page of the ranking. It was respectively:
TOP3 – 146 phrases,
TOP10 – 373 phrases,
TOP50 – 900 phrases.

Here, too, however, we are still fighting for more and more visibility, and this goal is definitely within reach. The average cost of positioning this site is $ 1,700 per month.

SEO of stores on PrestaShop and on other platforms – differences

PrestaShop is a platform that largely allows you to personalize your settings. We have to introduce most of the plugins and add-ons to it ourselves, thanks to which we do not burden the server with functionalities that are not useful to us (such as in the case of WooCommerce). As a result, Presta works a bit faster than WooCommerce, but the latter platform can also be optimized to reduce loading times.

When it comes to comparing PrestaShop with Shoper, these platforms are very similar, and the main difference is that we may have a bit more trouble finding a programmer who knows Presta well. When choosing PrestaShop, you must also take into account the fact that most of the add-ons are paid in this case. If we want to have more free novelties, it is better to put the store on WooCommerce, although this platform is also gradually moving away from free lending of functionality and most of them are free only in the basic, heavily reduced version.

In general, however, both PrestaShop and Shoper or WooCommerce are good for positioning in search results and you can get good results on each of these platforms, as in the examples shown here.

Do you want an SEO store based on PrestaShop technology? Choose a company with experience and results in this regard. Contact us and we will consult you free of charge on the possibilities for your store.

SEO background – definition

SEO facilities, or positioning facilities, are specially created pages containing content about a given brand, industry or a specific issue. They support the process of page positioning, i.e. improve the visibility of a given domain in organic search results, thanks to adding links leading to a page using a given backend.

What are Inbound Links?

Inbound links are links that appear on one website and direct you to another website. They are also known as backlinks, backlinks, or inbound links. Acquiring links is not easy, because a link from another site works like a recommendation, and the higher the quality of the site, the more difficult it is to get that type of recommendation.

Why are inbound links important?

While Google’s algorithms are complex and constantly evolving, inbound links remain an important factor in which search engine decides which rank to rank a site on. Link building is one of the many tactics used in search engine optimization because, based on the links, Google decides whether the content on a given site is worth citing. Therefore, sites with more backlinks tend to rank higher. As you can see, links play an important role in the positioning process, which is why the backend is created with content that is the carrier for SEO links.

How to create a good backend text?

Let’s start with what backend texts are. These are content intended for publication on the SEO backend. It should be emphasized that links that come from pages filled with attractive content are of greater value. How this content looks like will vary slightly from industry to industry. It can be content rich in details, technical, or creative and humorous. Any good background text should:

Be original
This does not mean that you cannot reuse content or write about the same topics as other brands from time to time. However, it’s important to create your own unique content.

Include answers
Most people use a search engine because they try to find an answer to a question quickly. The text is supposed to give them that and satisfy their curiosesity.

Engage
Start with an eye-catching headline followed by a strong introduction. Text that elicits readers’ questions and comments draws more attention, and so may result in higher search engine rankings.

Include keywords and key phrases
Back-end texts should be properly saturated with keywords. It is also important to skillfully place phrases along the length of the test and in the header. However, you should avoid the pointless stuffing of the text with phrases so that the content does not lose its value.

Have the correct length
It is assumed that a good background text should be at least 2,500 words long. Of course, it can be longer, but not too long so as not to get bored with the user. On the other hand, short text may have a negative impact on indexation.

Be correct
It is necessary to take care of grammatical, spelling and punctuation correctness, because the Google algorithm pays attention to this.

Features of a good SEO background

This provides the background not only for original and valuable content that will be appreciated by Google users and algorithms. When building SEO facilities, you should also remember about the visual side and appropriate technical solutions. Good background, apart from an attractive text, is also characterized by:

Relevant subject
Back-end pages to be linked should be thematically related to the linked page. When one site links to another, Google requires the two sites to be related to each other.

Regular publications
Systematically adding content to the backend is very important. Algorithms like regularity. If the texts are published every few months, it will not translate into better positioning.

Use of graphics and videos
It is important that next to the text there are also photos, pictures and videos that will visually diversify the website. Since Google can’t see the images, it’s a good idea to use alternative descriptions.

Domain selection
It is also worth choosing the right domain. It’s good to choose a domain name with a keyword phrase that you care about. The domain name will also be information for the user about the subject of the page. You should also consider whether we prefer to buy a new domain, or whether we decide to have a domain with a history from the secondary market.

Adequate security
Always remember about security: updates, appropriate plugins, purchase of SSL certificates, strong passwords for CRM and the administration panel.

The advantages of an SEO backend

Having an SEO background has its undeniable advantages. Here are the reasons why you should consider this solution:

Improve your organic search ranking
Thanks to SEO facilities, we permanently support the positioning of our website. If a site receives links from other significant sites, it will rank higher in organic search results.

Increasing the authority of the site
Google wants to know that the website it places on the first page of results is valuable and has authority. One way of determining this is the number of backlinks you have.

Increasing the visibility of your content and building awareness
The bigger the audience the better. Increasing traffic from referring links from one site to another means more people will see your products and services. It should translate into more people interested in your offer. Thus, having SEO facilities supports marketing and builds brand awareness.

Who should consider having an SEO facility?

Companies focused on long-term improvement of sales results and willing to build brand awareness on the web should consider creating an SEO base. Building an SEO backend is a time-consuming process, and building the backend itself will not guarantee that the website will achieve a stable position in organic results. Therefore, companies often decide to cooperate with agencies and specialists in the field of SEO.

We receive many inquiries from potential customers regarding the positioning of online stores depending on the platform they operate on. What results can be achieved with specific e-commerce software? What is the difference between positioning a store on a specific platform and SEO on other platforms? These and other questions will be answered by collective case studies showing the visibility of e-commerce selected by us on Bat, which we have the pleasure to position.

This material is all the more valuable as you get time, budget and domain – hardly any company on the market can boast of such transparency. All the more, we thank the three companies that have decided to share the data.

Case study watch shop

SEO case study
The company with watches has been with us since October 2019, but in this case study we will show its results from a year ago and compare them with those that are currently recorded. Why? Well, it is an interesting case because the client has migrated the website over the last year and redirected it to a new domain. The example below shows that a correctly carried out migration in cooperation with an SEO specialist does not have to have a negative impact on the SEO of the website, and the power of the old domain can be redirected to the new one. The results from last October are:
TOP3 – 134 phrases,
TOP10 – 670 phrases,
TOP50 – 2479 phrases.

In October this year, the customer’s visibility is at the level of:
TOP3 – 348 phrases,
TOP10 – 1283 phrases,
TOP50 – 4325 phrases.

This means that for 12 months the number of phrases in TOP3 increased by 160% and in TOP10 by 91%. The website achieved such results despite the migration carried out in the spring. In the chart below, you can see the time at which power from the old domain was transferred.

This customer chose the Advanced package for e-commerce for $ 3,500 per month.

Case study bed shop

SEO case study
And what do the increases look like when we position the website, starting almost from scratch? Let’s show it on the example of a bed store, a website that we are positioning from September 2020. At the beginning of the cooperation, the list of top phrases included:
TOP3 – 2 phrases,
TOP10 – 2 phrases,
TOP50 – 27 phrases.

After a year of SEO, the visibility increased as follows:
TOP3 – 14 phrases,
TOP10 – 94 phrases,
TOP50 – 620 phrases.

This means an increase of 600% in the case of TOP3 and as much as 4,600% in the case of TOP10. Such results were achieved with the Advanced package for e-commerce for $ 3,500 per month. The number of phrases in the top3 may not be impressive yet, but their number in the top10 and top50 indicates that the increase in visibility will definitely skyrocket in the next year of cooperation. This is the standard time for positioning fresh online stores on a budget of this level.

Case study of a honey shop

Case Study SEO
We signed the contract with the honey store in March 2021, so we’ve been through a little over half a year of website optimization efforts. The client chose the Standard package for e-commerce for $ 2,000. When we started our cooperation, the visibility of the site was as follows:
TOP3 – 26 phrases,
TOP10 – 118 phrases,
TOP50 – 573 phrases.

Half a year of positioning brought valuable traffic to the website and significantly increased its visibility for phrases related to the industry. Currently (i.e. in October 2021) the client’s website is visible:
TOP3 – 63 phrases,
TOP10 – 255 phrases,
TOP50 – 945 phrases.

This is an increase of 142% in the case of TOP3 phrases and by 116% in TOP10.

SEO on Shoper and SEO on other platforms – what are the differences?

Shoper is usually installed on a server provided by the manufacturer, so there are very rarely any problems with performance, and this is an important aspect of evalsuating Google algorithms. In addition, Shoper updates the software itself, so you do not have to introduce new versions yourself. Its downside is that the positioner can use a limited number of extensions and add-ons for Shoper, so not all changes can be easily implemented.

Platforms such as WooCommerce or PrestaShop can be freely modified. Especially WooCommerce has a huge number of functionalities, which gives a lot of room for modification. On the other hand, if we use this WordPress plugin, we have many built-in functions, some of which may be completely redundant. This slows down the performance of the page, so a lot of work needs to be done to optimize the site well and improve the page load time. PrestaShop, on the other hand, works faster and offers great configuration options. When deciding on it, however, you must remember that most of the plugins for this software are additionally paid. However, as our experience in positioning online stores shows, all these platforms – both Shoper and Woo or Presta – are well suited for SEO activities and allow you to obtain satisfactory results.

– SEO Marketing is a process whose goal is to constantly increase the position of a website in the search engine.
– It is a good solution for both service websites and online stores. However, your SEO strategy will be different in each of these cases.
– SEO Marketing is the cheapest method of acquiring customers on the Internet in the long term.

SEO Marketing – What is it?

SEO Marketing is a process of taking planned actions, thanks to which a given website will be found more effectively in the search engine, i.e. it will achieve better positions for specific phrases. As a result of SEO activities, pages become more visible to web crawlers.

We divide SEO optimization into two basic areas
– technical – we can mention here, among others code optimization, speed of the website, fixing errors, etc.,
– content – here we distinguish, for example, expanding the text content, optimizing headings, etc.

SEO should be an ethical and fair process, both for competition and website users, and thus follow Google’s guidelines for webmasters. For example, obtaining artificial links and automatic linking are inappropriate, which unnaturally inflate the position of websites in search engines. SEO should, however, include link building activities aimed at acquiring links from other websites. Thanks to links, the promoted website is more often visited by search engine robots and rated higher than the competition’s websites.

SEO Marketing is therefore a combination of optimization activities and page linking. Both of these activities should be carried out in a consistent manner. When designing a strategy as part of the SEO Marketing service, it is always worth considering the benefits and needs of the user, business goals and taking into account the operation of algorithms and additional guidelines.

SEO Marketing – What does it consist of?

SEO marketing involves a comprehensive approach to website visibility in search results. SEO and link building are part of a broad spectrum of activities. Apart from them, the scope of optimization activities also includes monitoring and eliminating potential threats to the effects of positioning as well as searching for and implementing beneficial solutions.

More than half of the work on the success of most positioned websites is spent on analyzing, preparing and implementing optimization changes on the websites. Linking complements thoughtful optimization.

On-site activities – these are all activities that we conduct within our website, i.e. technical optimization of the website, content enrichment, internal linking.

Off-site activities –  include linking the website from external websites (back-end, blogs, internet forums, sponsored articles, taking over domains).

SEO Marketing – Who Is It For?

Both local and regional businesses advertising their services through their website and owners of online stores can benefit from SEO Marketing activities. SEO Marketing allows them to gain an advantage over the competition by appearing higher in search results. What’s more, it also allows you to gain the trust of customers and strengthen the effectiveness of other marketing activities, such as Google Ads campaigns, advertising in social media or offline marketing. How can particular types of businesses benefit from SEO Marketing?

– Service companies running their local businesses. Such companies are mainly interested in positioning on local phrases in order to attract new customers from their regions, for example by entering search queries “Las Vegas hairdresser”, “London plumber”, “Manila tailor”. It will be especially important for these companies to get traffic from searches in the areas where they operate.

– Online stores that expect long-term results and want to get high positions in search results, both for branded, non-branded and long-tail phrases. These are companies that cover much larger areas, often operating throughout the country. Positioning for local phrases does not fulfill its function here. Often the keywords here are more specific and unique, as well as more elaborate.

How to measure the effects in SEO marketing?

The effectiveness of SEO Marketing activities depends on the market environment and changing Google algorithms. Therefore, it is important that conducting SEO work is a long-term process that is monitored on an ongoing basis. Constant factors, independent of market conditions and changes in algorithms, also work for their effectiveness.

The constant factors influencing the effectiveness of SEO Marketing include:
– activities related to the posted content (texts on the website, guides, articles);
– implementation of new pages, subpages or products;
– site redevelopment or relocations;
– supporting and complementary advertising activities.

When developing an SEO strategy, it is also worth planning the method of evalsuating the results of work and analyzing periodic control reports on the basis of which you can objectively assess the implemented and supervised activities. The guarantee of the effectiveness of SEO work is the continuity of optimization processes and consistent rationalization of all necessary areas related to the operation of the website.

The effectiveness of SEO Marketing will be determined, among others, by previously established KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). The most frequently used KPIs in the case of SEO are, for example:
– Increase in website traffic in a given period by the assumed number of unique users;
– Increase in the number of brand phrases in TOP100, TOP50, TOP10 and TOP3;
– Increase in the number of non-brand phrases in TOP100, TOP50, TOP10 and TOP3;
– Ultimately, an increase in conversions (sales of specific products, inquiries, complex contact forms, material downloads, etc.) from organic traffic;

How long do you have to wait for the effects?

There is no clear answer to the question of when we will see the first effects of SEO activities. Most specialists will tell you that it depends on many factors, including those described above. However, we can assume that for websites or online stores that have never used any SEO techniques before and have not undertaken optimization, the website should notice an increase in the first 6 months. Very often, it is enough to implement the first recommendations from an SEO specialist to see how they will positively affect, for example, the reception of the website by users, and thus also on web robots.

Starting a cooperation in the field of positioning is associated with relatively high initial costs and no return on investment in a short time. However, with the following months, the position of positioned phrases increases, which translates into an increase in traffic on the website. As a result, the number of clients acquired through positioning is increasing.

In the case of websites with an established position, which were previously positioned and optimized, we can achieve the first significant increases based on a long-term strategy. As an example, we can take the website of one of our clients, who, thanks to the compilation of SEO Marketing activities, increased the traffic on the website by 394% in 3 years. Importantly, when assessing the effectiveness of positioning activities, we should also take into account, among others, whether the given increases are relatively constant, and the revenues and other KPIs that we achieve also go up.

What does the cooperation with an agency look like in terms of SEO Marketing activities?

When deciding to entrust SEO Marketing activities to an agency, it is worth realizing the need to implement all the proposals and changes signaled during positioning. The knowledge of the positioner is supported by extensive experience, and the priority in his work is to propose changes to the client that will bring measurable, i.e. the best results. Cooperation between two entities whose common interest is the best possible website optimization effect is effective only when the positioner can count on the client’s trust in the area of website rationalization activities.

What if the proposed changes cannot be implemented?

If, in any case, the introduction of changes will be difficult due to, for example, emerging restrictions resulting from insufficient functionality of the website engine, it may be recommended to change the software responsible for the operation of the website. Each case is considered individually, and major changes that require website preparation and planning positioning and optimization activities are always agreed with the client.

During the SEO cooperation, changes to the website are being worked and implemented all the time, subsequent errors are eliminated and less important elements of the website are optimized. It is worth noting, once again, that website optimization is a continuous process. After introducing changes, the actions are analyzed and how they influenced the visibility of the website in the search results. Based on the conclusions drawn, subsequent stages of optimization are carried out.

The latest trends in SEO Marketing

Website positioning itself is a term that has been known for many years, and many companies have invested in its activities. However, it is impossible to notice certain trends that have more or less affected the environment and practice of SEO specialists.

User Experience

In recent years, we have been talking more and more often about users, including their experience on the website (UX – user experience) and how important they are also in terms of website positioning and optimization. Why is it so important? Why does SEO Marketing have to consider UX?

The website is now a powerful advertising tool on the web. You may be tempted to say that “if your business does not have a website, it does not exist”. The website is a showcase of the company on the web, presents the offer, portfolio and enables direct contact with your company. Therefore, website designs are more and more advanced, they allow you to place high-quality images, quick payment methods or the presentation of thousands of products. In order for all the amenities to really benefit users and make the company achieve better results, it is worthwhile to adapt them to the needs of potential customers.

SEO Marketing must also take these guidelines into account. Therefore, when setting an SEO strategy for a given business, it is also worth bearing in mind the aspect:
– visual – related to the ease of reading messages by the user, the simplicity of navigation on the website and its readability.
– user-friendly – including the page loading speed and its adaptation to various devices (mobiles, tablet, desktop), having a simple purchase and payment process.
– business – the overriding goal is to sell / attract more customers. The pages should therefore contain a clear CTA (call-to-action), the possibility of contact, customer service chat window, etc.

User intention

Therefore, more and more attention is paid to adjusting SEO activities to the user’s intentions. Google understands better and better what the user means when typing a given phrase and what search results he expects. If it is possible to give him a simple solution in TOP3 or TOP10, this page will be there. No matter how much we saturate our content with keywords. It will be important for the algorithm whether they are really valuable from the user’s point of view and whether he received an answer to his query after entering our website.

About company

Our client is a company that has been selling high-quality sewing machines from 94 countries around the world for over 30 years. It provides complete equipment and service used by the largest companies in the industry. Thanks to its experience and high standards, it enjoys the trust of its customers, but is still ready to develop and expand the base of contractors. Therefore, in order to increase sales, she contacted us with an order for the SEO service of a corporate website on the web.

Goals and assumptions

At the time of signing the contract, the client’s website saw a decrease in visibility in the search engine, which also influenced the traffic and conversions. Therefore, the main goal was to reverse this trend and increase the website’s visibility, especially on difficult phrases for which the website obtained poor positions. The client also wanted to promote some devices and manufacturers from their offer, so we also chose the appropriate phrases for these purposes.

The contract is implemented from the very beginning on the basis of consulting – we do not make any corrections on the client’s website, but we watch over its SEO and recommend changes that the company implements using its own resources. We prepare detailed guidelines regarding both technical issues and the content to be included on the website, we also have regular contact with the client’s developer – in person and, if necessary, also by phones. This is one of the few cases when a client has contact not only with an account manager, but also an SEO specialist. In addition to preparing guidelines, we also deal with link building, i.e. creating a valuable profile of external links leading to the client’s website. We perform all of these activities as part of a $ 5,000 monthly package.

What did we start with?

When we started cooperation, i.e. in June 2020, the website already noted a lot of phrases in the top positions, but it had a lot of untapped potential. Her results from this period are:
– 80 phrases in TOP3,
– 345 phrases in TOP10,
– 2153 phrases in TOP50.

It is a good result which provides a solid foundation for further actions. However, in order to increase visibility, it was necessary to implement a whole list of tweaks that we specified for the client in an extensive audit.

Our recommendations

The guidelines contained instructions for introducing mechanisms to automate and improve the operation of the entire website, and thus minimize the introduction of manual changes. This was to eliminate errors in internal linking, limit the wide scale of 404 errors and improve the poor indexation resulting from a large base of similar products. It turned out that it was necessary to change the category structure, introduce key phrases to the headers, category names and meta titles, or eliminate duplicates in searching through filters by introducing canonical links. We also commissioned a number of changes that could speed up the website and adapt it to the high standards of the Google algorithm.

As for the content – the existing texts required optimization for SEO, including saturation with key phrases selected by me. We also suggested introducing additional content on subpages with categories and organizing news and guidance content. As the client has sufficient resources to prepare the texts himself and wanted to use them, writing the content is entirely on his side. However, we prepare detailed guidelines for all texts that are created so that they are valuable both in terms of content and from the SEO point of view. These texts are directed only to purely sales subpages, such as category, product or category filter pages.

Results after half a year and after a year of cooperation

Cooperation in the consulting model is demanding both for us and for our clients. It requires a lot of discipline and the will to reach agreement on both sides. However, if they do show up, the results can be very good – just like for a website. After six months, the results were as follows:
– TOP3 – 128 phrases,
– TOP10 – 424 phrases,
– TOP50 – 2274 phrases.

In our industry, however, it is repeated like a mantra that positioning is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes time for the implemented changes to start to bring tangible benefits in the form of increased traffic and improved visibility for the most difficult phrases. Therefore, it is also worth showing that this process is ongoing and you can still notice significant increases in organic results. In June this year, the results were as high as:
– 327 TOP3 phrases,
– 908 phrases in TOP10,
– 4266 phrases in the TOP50.

Organic traffic can be estimated at about 15.6 thousand per month. These are the results that show that we have chosen the right direction together with the client, and that our work translates into real profits for the company. This is also evidenced by the data from Analytics, which shows that the revenue from the organic channel in the third quarter of this year increased by 16.86% compared to the third quarter of last year, and the number of new users on the website increased by 26.92%.

SEO – increases after a year

We started cooperation in the field of online store positioning in July 2020. The website visibility status at the start of our activities was as follows:
31 phrases in TOP3,
366 phrases in TOP10,
3027 phrases in TOP50.

What does it mean? The website has already developed visibility in organic results for several dozen phrases. Therefore, our task was to increase the volume and calorific value of traffic from organic search results. We started by optimizing the site so that it would meet the high requirements of search engine web robots. We worked on improving the page loading time and organizing the assortment in terms of belonging to specific categories.

The site was experiencing cannibalization of content, which means that it was having trouble displaying a specific URL in response to a query that contained a keyword. Effect? Jumping positions of monitored phrases. Therefore, one of the first things we did was organize the texts to get rid of this phenomenon. We also commissioned writing new content – approximately 160,000 characters optimized for SEO enriched the client’s website. At the same time, we took care of external linking, paying particular attention to the diversification of links, i.e. their diversification.

During the cooperation, the client decided to change the category structure and URLs, which entailed the need to implement redirects so as not to lose the results achieved. Nevertheless, after a year of work, the website shows increases in terms of both the number of phrases in top positions and website traffic. In July this year, the client’s website was visible on:
82 phrases in TOP3,
675 phrases in TOP10,
5435 phrases in TOP50.

In the case of phrases from the top three results, this represents an increase of 164.5%. As for website traffic, the change is also clearly visible – it increased by 103% compared to 2020

Google Ads – How the number and cost of conversions have changed

In Google Ads, we run various types of campaigns for the client. Search ads, dynamic search ads, Smart Shopping campaigns (PLA Smart), remarketing and Discovery format are launched. This combination, in the case of the discussed brand, gives the best results and allows you to observe constant increases – both in website traffic and revenues. Let’s take a look at how the overall results for all campaigns changed from January 2021 to July 2021.

In January, the total number of clicks on Google Ads ads was 15,000, while in July it was 35,917, indicating a significant increase in paid traffic. The mere increase in the number of users, however, does not prove the effectiveness of the campaigns carried out. The parameters that indicate this are the generated revenues, the increasing number of transactions or the cost of a single purchase. In January, thanks to the ongoing activities of Google Ads, 196 transactions were registered on the website, and the cost of one was around $ 65.42. In July, conversions were already 796, and the cost of a single conversion was close to $ 40.54.

This means an increase in the number of transactions by 306% with a simultaneous decrease in the cost of acquiring a customer by 38% over the last six months of the campaign.

Regular profits from the campaign at a satisfactory level allowed for a gradual increase in the Google Ads advertising budget. Over the indicated time frame, it increased from approximately $ 6,500 to $ 16,500, representing a 157% increase in ad run. At the same time, revenue increased from $ 40,000 to $ 197,500, or 392%. So the return on investment increased by 175%!

It is also worth mentioning here how important Google Ads are in relation to the total revenues of the website. In 2019, the revenue generated by Google advertising campaigns accounted for 26.7% of the website’s total revenue. In 2020, this share increased to 36.6%, while in 2021, considering the period from January to August, this value is 37.9%.

Facebook Ads – the beginnings of activities

Less than a month ago, the client also transferred advertising in social media under our wings – on Facebook and Instagram. At this point, we are at the stage of determining the operating strategy, testing various advertising formats and collecting data. All these activities are guided by one goal: generating sales equal to the level of Google Ads. The first ads are already on the web and are in great demand, bringing people involved to your site.