The Brief
“Can you help me get my e-commerce site listed on more Google SERPs?”
Yes, I can, and there are a few quick fixes I can implement!
Setting
This e-commerce website has three domains (.com, .eu and .co.uk). The main site (.com) has 534 pages, most of which did not appear in SERPs. If my client wants to fight the stiff competition from better-known brands in a niche market, that needs to be vastly improved - so we must start gaining traction quickly.
As you can imagine, there’s a feeling of despair if you don’t understand why your site isn’t ranking. So, I needed to give the client a quick win. Something that would help them to understand ranking is possible, even if it is much more involved than they might first think.
I started with the main site and got to work.
The Quick Fix
As I said, there is a lot of work to do with a project like this. You need to establish where you want to rank, with what and how that disrupts the competition. But you have to start somewhere, and I always find that a quick win puts a smile back on a client’s face. It builds confidence and trust.
I started by indexing pages through the Google Search Console and following up with an SEO audit and quick optimisation refresh. Why? Because a quick win is a quick win!
What can you expect to gain from this quick-win strategy? Well, in short:
Google will know you have more pages it hasn’t sent bots to - when it does, you get indexed and ready for ranking. Usually, ranking will be much quicker for optimised pages because the work is already there.
An SEO audit helps to set the scene - what is and isn’t working and what needs to be optimised. It provides clarity and gives a timeline, making the impossible feel possible.
A quick optimisation refresh creates an early uptick - sometimes, you already have your ducks in the pond; they just aren't in a row. A quick refresh helps create the proper optimisation signals for search engines. Later on, you can develop these pieces further to maximise your position.
Results
In early June 2023, I double-checked that the sitemap was added to Google Search Console and submitted any blog posts and pages that were outstanding in the indexing process. You can see that almost immediately, we started picking up extra traffic.
There are two reasons for that increase: firstly, the indexing and, secondly, a peak season in sales means more organic searches.
You’ll also see a drop just before I started my second quick fix - the SEO audit and refresh. That accounts for a hit by Google’s core update in August (still peak season for us). We didn’t recover until September’s update.
Why was September better for us? Because we started ranking for more keywords, not just in volume but also in better positions.
Here’s how I did that.
I conducted an SEO audit of the entire site in July. There were two significant problems. Firstly, the site hadn’t been optimised, so there were no metadata entries and no use of the Yoast application they had integrated. Secondly, none of the blog posts had been written with SEO in mind and some topics covered subjects that may have been better for social media.
Under our quick-fix case study, I can’t include all the SEO work I will be doing because months of work still need to be done. What I can say is this. Before you run headlong into updating and writing fresh content, it is worth ensuring your Yoast signals are green. Just go into each page and each post, ensuring you have the bare minimum of optimisation that makes that signal flash from red to green. It’s not perfect. You will need to address those long-term content issues, but can it give you a nice uptick in traffic from better SEO practice.
Next Steps
I have a lot of steps to take next, and the following graph shows that perfectly.
We are getting many more impressions now (new keywords and indexed pages), but our clicks are decreasing. There are several reasons for this:
We have started running Google ads - these need to be reviewed.
We need to improve rankings on the keywords we rank for - that means rewrites and axing content that underperforms.
We need to create more helpful content that better answers search intent.
That’s what I’m working on now - wish me luck!
The Takeaway
If you don’t understand why your website isn’t performing as you’d like, you need to outsource it to someone who can provide you with a full SEO audit. Your audit will explain why traffic is as it is and give a strategy to improve it.
I always include quick wins when I carry out copywriting services after SEO audits. It gives you a boost that can help bring in more leads while I work on an Editorial Calendar and site content program that will lift your website with better traction and engagement.
Do you need your website to reach more people? Check out my website copywriting and SEO audit service here.
