In this case study we’ll be sharing exactly how we increased Yard Sign Plus from nearly 0 organic search visitors per month to over 30,000.
We’ve used these same techniques on 100’s of other eCommerce stores to achieve very similar results. And by the end of this case study, you’ll be well equipped to implement the same SEO techniques on your eCommerce store.
Yard Sign Plus provides custom yard signs in a wide variety of shapes and sizes for several audiences.
- Domain: https://www.yardsignplus.com/
- Platform: Custom-coded domain
The client’s main goal was to increase organic search revenue. Our first step was to analyze the website, their target keywords, and competition to build the custom SEO strategy.
During our initial analysis, we identified a few key issues and opportunities:
Issue #1 – Page Optimization:
Most pages had poor title tags, and even duplicate meta descriptions.
Issue #2 – Content:
The content was not properly optimized for their target keywords, and there were many important category pages that didn’t have any content at all.
Issue #3 – Technical SEO:
There were several critical technical issues negatively impacting the crawling, indexing, and ranking of the website (missing robots.txt,junk URLs indexed, keyword cannibalization, poor internal linking, etc.).
Issue #4 – Link Building:
The yardsignplus.com domain only had a Domain Rating of 4, whereas most of their direct competitors had Domain Ratings between 20 and 50. We knew we had to build lots of backlinks and increase Domain Rating to have any chance at surpassing the competition.
Based on initial SEO review, we created the following custom SEO strategy:
The Plan:
- Fix technical SEO issues as fast as possible.
- Optimize all important pages.
- Eliminate any Keyword Cannibalization issues
- Build high-quality, relevant backlinks.
- Improve Topical Authority by creating highly relevant content.
The first step of the SEO Strategy was to fix any technical issues. Here are the main initiatives we focused on:
- Keyword Cannibalization Analysis
- Robots.txt Improvements
- SEO Diagnostics
Keyword Cannibalization Analysis
Keyword Cannibalization is an SEO issue that occurs when multiple pages compete for the same keyword. When a search engine has trouble determining which page to rank for a specific search keyword, oftentimes none of the pages rank as well as they could.
Here’s a clear example of what keyword cannibalization looks like.
Notice how Google keeps jumping from page to page, trying to figure out the best page to rank for “outdoor yard signs”?
Using our proprietary Keyword Cannibalization Tool, we were able to quickly identify keywords where a significant portion of impressions were shared across multiple pages, a clear sign of keyword cannibalization.
The next step was to help search engines understand the best page to rank for each keyword. This was done by re-optimizing the ranking pages and adding internal links from the incorrect pages to the correct pages, all while using exact-match anchor text.
Once it became clear to search engines which page to rank for each keyword, we noticed many rankings steadily increased. Take for example “contractor yard signs” that shot up to position #1 once Google determined that https://www.yardsignplus.com/contractor was the best URL to rank.
Robots.txt Review & Modifications
Every website has a robots.txt file that can be accessed by adding “/robots.txt” to your root domain (ie. 180marketing.com/robots.txt). The robots.txt file tells search engines which parts of your website they’re allowed to crawl.
It’s a good idea to block any sections of your website that you don’t want indexed. This is especially helpful for larger websites with 1,000’s of pages. This way search engines spend more resources crawling your more important pages (category pages, product pages, blog posts, etc.), and less resources crawling pages that really don’t matter.
We reviewed all crawled URLs and found a few parameter URLs that were getting crawled 1,000’s of times, which provided no value to users or search engines.
We improved the robots.txt file by adding specific directives to block these parameters:
- Disallow: /*custom=**
- Disallow: /*category=**
- Disallow: /*c=**
As a result, search engines would now spend more time crawling the important pages, and less time crawling junk URLs that don’t matter.
Once the technical issues were resolved, we focused on optimizing the most important pages using our proven page optimization process.
We identified and optimized over 50 key pages including category pages, product pages, and landing pages to target our most valuable keywords.
Meta Tag Optimization
We optimized title tags and meta descriptions across all important pages to include target keywords and improve click-through rates from search results.
Content Optimization
Content was enhanced to include primary and semantically related keywords while maintaining readability and user value.
We created valuable content targeting informational keywords to capture customers at different stages of the buying journey.
Our content strategy focused on creating comprehensive guides and resources that would rank well and provide genuine value to visitors.
We published detailed guides on topics like yard sign design, material selection, and installation tips to establish topical authority.
Link building was crucial for Yard Sign Plus to compete with established competitors who had significantly higher domain authority.
We implemented a comprehensive link building strategy that included:
- Guest posting on relevant blogs
- Resource page outreach
- Broken link building
- Local directory submissions
- Industry partnership outreach
Through consistent effort, we were able to significantly increase the domain’s authority and ranking potential.
The results from our comprehensive SEO campaign exceeded expectations, with dramatic improvements across all key metrics.
Within 7 months, Yard Sign Plus went from virtually no organic traffic to over 30,000 monthly visitors.
The number of keywords ranking on the first page of Google increased by 1,900%, giving the site visibility for thousands of relevant search terms.
Domain Rating increased by 175%, significantly improving the site’s ability to compete for competitive keywords.
Most importantly, this organic traffic growth translated directly into increased sales and revenue for the business.
Key Takeaways
- Fixing technical issues can positively impact keyword rankings and site performance.
- Make it crystal clear to search engines which page you want to rank for each keyword.
- Understand the type of pages search engines predominantly rank on page 1 for your keywords.
- Optimizing the meta data and content on your top pages is still very important.
- Make sure you’re building relevant backlinks from trusted domains.
- Create educational content on relevant topics that your customers are actually searching for.