SEO case study: Limited budget in SEO doesn’t have to be a barrier
Content structure
Whenever you embark on a new SEO campaign, the way you think about it and the steps you take in it will change.
There are lessons to learn and challenging tasks to face which will motivate and propel you forward.
In this case study, I will share with you the story of one such campaign. We will also discuss – as the title of the case study suggests – what the investment was.
About the client
- Expert and consultant in the field of livestock nutrition
- Producer and seller of feeds, concentrates and premixes operating in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia
- The company is active in more than 75 countries and employs more than 7,000 people
The beginning of cooperation
The client was interested in a complete website redesign and online marketing strategy.
The KPI set was to increase the number of clicks and pageviews on the “Where to Buy” page – a page listing all feed retailers (exact KPI numbers were not set). To meet this KPI, we needed to obtain really relevant traffic.
Having all activities under control is what suits me best. I take full responsibility for the results, which thus allows me to be more responsive in promoting the brand and getting contacts.
When you have this process entirely under your thumb, you can focus on every detail during web development and other activities.
If you have to work with an already-finished website that was created without some knowledge of SEO, however – this is going to mean a lot of extra worries and wrinkles for you.
Limited budget is not an obstacle, but a challenge
Several professional blog articles from the original website have been used, but aside from that, the project has undergone a complete transformation.
SEO almost never goes according to plan. In fact, more often than not, it proves to be a thorny road full of obstacles. In practice, you usually have to adapt to the conditions and find the most effective solution possible.
Honesty will get you far, says a Czech proverb, and this is especially true in the case of SEO projects. It takes a great deal of creativity, patience, and – above all – consistency.
This is especially true for campaigns where I’m struggling with a limited budget. In this case, the size of the budget is defined by the time I can devote to it.
A very general equation can be applied to such examples – a smaller budget will yield the desired results, but over a relatively long period of time. Of course, there are also many variables that should not be forgotten.
And this is nothing revolutionary, of course. It works the same way when building a business.
Below, you can see how the long-term growth looked over time. And now I will describe how I achieved it.
How I proceeded:
Keyword analysis
I chose two main workflows for the keyword analysis. The purpose of the first step was to cover the priorities related to the client’s business strategy and monitor the health of the project.
Categorizing search queries gives me a clear and quick overview of which landing pages on the site should be a priority for us. It was all about achieving a set KPI (increasing the number of visitors clicking through to the “Where to Buy” page).
It wasn’t about exact percentages, but rather the fact that relevant traffic was needed in order to meet the goals.
With the second step, I wanted to find out what sorts of gaps in the content I would encounter with the client, so that I could then make sure to work around them.
I found only a few older technical articles on the web, and decided to maximize their potential with a content gap analysis. However, I only got to this stage during the optimization of the project.
The individual stages of the second step were as follows:
#1 We will find content that we will try and expand
#2 Search for competitors in SERPs (search results) on the same topic
#3 In the Ahrefs we use the content gap
#4 View the list of keywords
#5 Filter the generated list and expand it with LSI keywords
Note: The acronym LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords refers to related queries that search engines use to better understand the content on a webpage.
#6 We perform the final filtering of the keyword list
#7 We incorporate keywords into the content
For all the filtered keywords, I found out what their average monthly search rate was, and then gradually began adding them to the content.
However, it is not just a matter of adding keywords to the text itself; it also needs to be augmented with other valuable information that will add value to the reader.
In the picture, you can see how the content started to evolve after these modifications – the arrow indicates when the implementation took place.
Site architecture design
If you want to attract relevant visitors, you have to have somewhere to bring them. That’s why keyword analysis needs to be followed by creating a holistic design of what the information architecture of the website should look like.
In such a design, I had to take into account several essential aspects, namely:
- Business priorities – landing pages that should meet the set KPIs
- Extension topics – product usage, pet care tips, comparisons, etc.
- Appropriate use of internal links
The design of the site structure must be conceived taking link building (external backlinks) and internal linking (within the site) into account according to the simple diagram below:
Creating content writing assignments
Once the landing pages are ready, it’s time to prepare the documents for the copywriter, who will create content based on them.
To do this, we use the data obtained from keyword analysis, for which we trace related queries (LSI keywords). Below, you will see an example of what the result of such a procedure looks like.
In the following screenshot, you will see an example of a label created for one of the categories on the site.
The figure below shows how content affects the evolution of a site over time, when it has been optimized correctly.
The arrow points to the point in time when the texts were deployed and the subsequent growth in the number of keywords for which the site is optimized.
Competitor analysis
If you want to tackle SEO at a high level, then you need to constantly monitor your competition.
You’ll find that many SEO best practices are ignored at the top of SERPs (search results), and that success is hidden in the details.
In this case, thanks to competitor analysis, I managed to find out that long-term success cannot be achieved without expert content, which then only needs to be slightly supported by link building.
No web project with long-term authority can be built without having a good link profile and content plan in place.
User Intent – this is the most important aspect to consider when you’re researching the competition.
It tries to understand what the user’s intent is when entering a search query, and thus the whole context of these words.
While analyzing the competition in search, I found out how other sites try to help their users when they search for a specific query.
With this in mind, I set out three basic pillars of content for the client:
- Range (category) of feed provided
- Blog content – specifying topics related to livestock farming
- Distribution points for the feed provided
When it comes to UI (user intent), I often come across one fundamental mistake that is based on the simplest things.
When you search for a query, what type of content do you see occupying the top ten positions in the search results?
If you’re offering users significantly longer content than your competitors for your chosen search query, but they’re still a few positions ahead of you, then you’ve missed the main point.
How do you proceed with such a quick analysis?
#1 Enter the desired term into the search engine
#2 Export search results from the first ten positions
#3 Analyze content on specific URLs
As the data in the figure above shows, it is very likely that taking a more holistic approach to content is going to yield the best results for this search query.
In fact, if we look at the URLs of the top ten results in the search, we find that the average length of their text is around 1,299 words.
Preparation of internal link building strategy
As it turned out, my client’s competition in link building was not at a very high level – so in our case, this was enough to focus solely on the first phase of the strategy.
The specific breakdown of each phase is described below.
Let’s take a look together at the link building strategy I’m tackling with my team.
Using these three aspects:
- Competitors link portfolio
- Client link portfolio
- Experience in a similar industry
I have compiled an internal spreadsheet to provide an indication of both the number and types of links that will bring about the project’s desired success.
This process also helped me to obtain a general idea of how much time and money I would need to invest in a link building strategy.
As you can see above, creating a spreadsheet may indeed look very simple – but in reality, it cost me several dozen hours of work.
It required a thorough analysis of the market, competitors, and link opportunities, which took a great deal of time and effort.
In addition to this, I had to consider the fact that I had to take internal linking into account. This is still the cheapest way to achieve better rankings for individual landing pages.
That’s why content strategy and planning are among the most essential practices that support web visibility.
As I mentioned above – I always divide my link building strategy into several phases depending on how competitive the industry is and how competitive the market really is.
In the first phase, I focus on links in the first level – i.e., directly to the client’s website. This is then followed by the second phase, which aims to give the links in the first level the necessary link juice.
To give you an idea of what I mean, I have prepared the following diagram:
Fulfilling the link building strategy
Once a thorough analysis and preparation of the final link building strategy has been completed, I move on to preparing the complete list of backlinks that I want to get within the next month.
This involves large-scale mail campaigns in which specific conditions for the placement of a backlink have to be agreed upon.
This is a time-consuming activity and one in which I test several important aspects.
I am primarily interested in the response rate of email campaigns, which is crucial for achieving maximum efficiency for the whole process, and therefore, cost savings for the client.
I use Mailshake to manage my mail campaigns. The actual search for contacts to the owners of the sites is useful – for example, hunter.io, and also partly Marketing Miner.
Below, you will see an example of what the monthly plan table looks like.
For some providers, the entire house requires the exchange of five or more emails, which probably gives you a pretty good idea of how much time a monthly campaign can take.
Below you can see the results of the link-building campaign – the graph shows how the number of domains linking to the client’s website has increased. The arrow indicates the beginning of link-building activities.
Below, you can see the increase in organic traffic over time. The arrow points to the point in time when I started my link building activities.
The campaign and its results are still not at the very top, so I still have a lot of work to do – some of the search queries still don’t have good starting positions.
However, it is with such an approach that you can achieve a result that ensures continuous growth, project stability over time, client authority, and a position as a major market leader in the livestock feed industry.
As of the time I am releasing this case study to the world, we have had 22 months of cooperation at a total cost of $349 per month (work + link building). The content was prepared by the client himself according to the documents I provided.
Conclusion
The „one size fits all“ paradigm has no place in SEO.
Every industry and every specific website has its own specific needs, to which a universal solution cannot be applied. Instead, you need to focus on the real details and find gaps for improvement.
The case described in this study needed a stable foundation based on quality and expert content, and it was, therefore, necessary to expand and improve the existing one considerably. This gave us a huge advantage over our competitors.
The link building itself did not require any king robust campaign and quality won over quantity.
This is my recommendation for all clients – it is always better to invest in a quality SEO specialist who has the experience you need, and will not try and start a million activities without achieving any results.
Instead, they will create a logical strategy, incorporating only those procedures and steps that will bring the maximum benefit to the project within the set budget.
Then it doesn’t matter if the world is facing a pandemic, because this approach will always work!