Znak

An online bookstore is a very complex site since it offers a lot of different books and publications that need separate pages. Usually, they are searched by genres and titles, which influenced our strategy for the optimization of the whole site.

The process was (and still is) driven by the broad-based approach. Apart from general phrases, we also worked with more specific ones – related to categories, or even book titles. We also focused on “new arrivals” and bestsellers.

We constantly follow industry trends and tailor our strategy to them whenever needed. For example: if certain authors start to gain popularity, it means that their books will be a priority when it comes to site optimization at a given moment.

Problem no. 1: Improper category names

Plenty of categories on the website had improper names, which didn’t include any keywords. We mapped them properly – we designed a new menu, in which the category names were keyword phrases at the same time.

Exemplary changes:
Romance -> Romance books
With humour -> Humour books
Closer to nature -> Books about nature
Travel -> Travel books

Problem no. 2: Wrong URL structure

The structure of URL addresses was a major issue for the bookstore. The words were separated with commas, and the names of the book authors were lacking. We changed the structure completely and ask the developer for implementing 301 redirections from old URL addresses to the new ones.

Exemplary changes:

Old address: https://www.znak.com.pl/kartoteka,ksiazka,48590,Jak-wytlumaczyc-Marsjaninowi-co-to-znaczy-pies-czy
New address: https://www.znak.com.pl/ksiazka/jak-wytlumaczyc-marsjaninowi-co-to-znaczy-pies-czy-leszek-korzeniowski-48590

Old address: https://www.znak.com.pl/kartoteka,ksiazka,121352,Nie-daj-sie-rakowi-Wsparcie-zywieniowe-w-chorobie
New address: https://www.znak.com.pl/ksiazka/nie-daj-sie-rakowi-wsparcie-zywieniowe-w-chorobie-brzegowy-maria-maciejewska-cebulak-magdalena-121352

Problem no. 3: Low visibility for general keyword phrases

The website had very low visibility for general keywords added to categories, for example:
History books
Religion books

The reason was the lack of content on category pages and H1 headers, which are actually important for SEO. We worked on implementing the H1 headers together with the web developer, and we’re still adding new content to category pages.

The exemplary header we added to “Religion books” (pl: książki religijne) category:

The exemplary content we added to “History books” (pl: książki historyczne) category:

Problem no. 4: Sitemap

There were two major issues with the sitemap. First of all, we had to edit it since we changed the URL addresses – and we did it immediately.

The second problem was the limited capability of the sitemap – it could only “store” up to 50 000 URLs. Znak’s bookstore is much bigger than that, which is why this limit affected the indexation of the website. We advised the developer to create separate sitemaps for photos and other subpages. At the moment, there are 8 sitemaps in Google Search Console:

Problem no. 5: Internal linking

Internal linking has a large influence when it comes to showing the Googlebot which pages are the most important within a given website. In this case, the links from the main page to specific subpages didn’t include their titles. We advised adding the book titles on the main page and category pages, thanks to which both the visitors and Google know exactly what the links are referring to.

Before:

After:

We also encountered another issue: the link was added not only to the title but the image as well. We recommended the change from one (red frame) to two separate links (green frame).

Problem no. 6: The limitations of the CMS

A dedicated CMS can be challenging since it’s often created without all SEO elements in mind. In this case, the biggest challenge was the lack of capability to insert titles and meta descriptions.

At the moment, after the change of category names, the titles of all category subpages is set up properly. We’ve also recommended necessary changes in the CMS in order to be able to add meta descriptions as well.

When it comes to product pages, though, the issue was the lack of book author in the site’s title. We asked for the name of the author to be added globally, to each title of the site.

Problem no. 7: The speed of the website

The SEO audit lists a number of factors that influence both the site’s visibility in the search engine, as well as its user-friendliness. In the audit, we included information about the website speed which wasn’t good enough – we advised reducing its weight to speed up the loading process.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

The seasonality of the industry can be seen on the graph taken from Senuto tool:

During the first 2 months, we noted a decrease in organic traffic and revenue stemming from it.

The comparison of March 2018 with March 2019:

After those 2 months, when the first effects of SEO started to be visible, we saw an increase. In August 2019, the organic traffic increased by 23% (comparing to the year before):

Over the months July-August (low season) we reached a nearly 25% increase in organic traffic:

After implementing most of the technical changes in April, we noted a significant increase in the site’s visibility. In 5 months, the number of phrases generating views grew by 2 million!

The increase in visibility seen by Semstorm:

Thanks to the improved internal linking and sitemaps, the number of indexed subpages also grew:

The changes in the ranks of the chosen phrases during the cooperation:

• History books to the 7th place – starting position: 20
• Religion books to the 4th place – starting position: 10
• Online bookstore to the 14th place – starting position: 25
• Books for teens to the 8th place – starting position: 19

High competitiveness within the industry still forces us to watch the competitors closely and react to their SEO & marketing efforts. We seem to be doing a pretty good job with it, though – here’s a graph that shows the visibility of the bookstore in comparison with one of its biggest competitors:

The comparison of keyword phrases in the top 10:

The comparison of keyword phrases in the top 3:

The plans for the near future

SEO is an ongoing process, which is why we constantly work on increasing the visibility of the website. We still have more changes in mind, especially in the area of technical SEO, which includes:

• Implementing breadcrumbs
• Improving structural tags
• Implementing changes in terms of site usability (UX)
• Improving the module with book reviews

We can’t wait for the high season to come – and after it does, we’ll surely update the case study and report on other successes as well 😉

SEO Specialist’s Comment

Optimizing Znak online bookstore may seem pure pleasure. Subject – yes, please. Brand awareness – awesome! But there came a custom CMS and brought us quite a challenge at the beginning of cooperation. There were a lot of technical changes that needed to be implemented by the developers’ team. We needed to find smart and global solutions that would bring long term effects while implemented once. As you can see the implementation of the SEO strategy ended up being a success and now we can, with great pleasure, build the website visibility based on the seasonality – focusing on new publications. 🙂

Milena Fietko

Senior SEO Specialist