So Lovely Box is a company offering personalized branded spirits sold in many European markets. We’ve been doing the SEO process for Spanish, German, Italian, and French language versions. This case study focuses on the activities aiming at the German and French markets.
See how we’ve improved traffic in the German market to more than 4000 users within 10 months and built organic traffic of 1851 visits from scratch in 6 months on the French market.
Industry
Gifts
Domain
2
Germany, France
Visibility
+600
Keywords the website is ranked for
Organic Traffic
+4000
Users per month (from 0)
Analysis
The cooperation on the german domain started on 1 February 2020. In November 2020, the client decided to entrust us with another, brand new domain aimed at the french market. The store uses CStore CMS whose functionality considerably limits our activities. Additionally, it needs to be taken into account that we’re dealing with a multistore.
Quick facts:
German and French market,
a competitive industry with its limitations,
multistore,
highly seasonal industry,
CMS that isn’t particularly SEO-friendly,
building visibility from 0 on a french market,
building visibility from the very low level on the german market.
On-SIte SEO
As in most cases, the on-site process for both german and french marekts began from a website audit that indicated a number of errors that needed to be corrected. During the audit, we marked elements that were the most threatening and we started the SEO process by getting rid of them.
The selection of appropriate keywords was another step. We’ve chosen two main types:
Generic, related to gifts (e.g. gift for mom, gift for grandpa),
Long-tail, related to specific alcohol brands (e.g. Jack Daniels gift, champagne personalized gift).
German Market
Problem 1: Multistore, most of the elements are in Polish
So Lovely Box is multistore. The Polish version was the first version of the store, the next ones were created later. Consequently, numerous items on other language versions were in Polish.
Exemplary Polish titles and meta descriptions on the German website version:
We’ve updated global settings for titles and meta descriptions. It’s important to mention that each and every modification of global settings have a positive impact on other language versions of the page.
Problem 2: Inappropriate category names
After selecting appropriate keywords for specific categories, we’ve changed category names. Product categories are created based on the functionality or purpose of a given gift (e.g. Christmas gifts, gifts for mom). Before the modification, category names didn’t include the “gift” word (instead, they were named “Christmas” or “birthday”).
We’ve changed category names to make sure that they correspond to selected keywords. Modified category names:
Problem 3: Missing or incorrect H1 category and product headers
The H1 header is the most important website header. It should include a keyword. Moreover, it’s recommended to apply one H1 header per site.
In the case of category subpages, H1 headers weren’t related to category names. This needed to be updated manually for each subpage.
We’ve implemented global settings for H1 headers on product pages.
Problem 4: Limited website content
An insufficient amount of content doesn’t mean only fewer keywords the page is ranked on. It also translates into increased duplicate content.
We regularly complement category subpages with new content optimized for generic keywords.
Internal duplicate content at the beginning of our cooperation:
Internal duplicate content that has decreased thanks to unique texts:
Problem 5: Incorrect internal linking
Internal linking is an important part of on-site SEO. An appropriate linking strategy helps Google robots to navigate the site and hierarchize the content.
Internal linking was incorrect when we were starting our cooperation. Wrongly linked graphics that were related to other URLs than product names were the biggest issue on the page. Apart from misleading the robots, they had a negative impact on the UX. We’ve improved the internal linking structure.
Problem 6: Inappropriately implemented structured data
We’ve modified structured data implemented on the site. Additionally, we’ve complemented the content with a few emojis that help to improve the CTR.
Problem 7: No sitemap
A Polish version of the sitemap was uploaded to Google Search Console. Our dev team generated a sitemap for each language version of the website and uploaded it to the Search Console to improve the indexation.
French Market
We started working on the french website soon after it was created. Similar to our other cooperations the whole process started with website analysis.
What really helped was the fact that So Lovely Box domains are based on the multistore system. That’s why global optimizations we implemented while working on the german market before, had a positive impact on the technical state of the .fr domain.
Still, it doesn’t mean we didn’t have some work there!
Problem 1: Not enough content on the website
When entering a new market the most crucial thing is to gain proper online visibility to reach new potential clients with the brand. A website without optimized content is basically left with no chance to do so.
That’s why we needed to create a solid base of high-quality content in the french language, which we later optimized for chosen keywords. The content is being systematically added to the website which translates into visibility growth.
Problem 2: Category names
After analyzing all potential keywords for the french market, we implemented category names. They are created in accordance with chosen keyword phrases and address certain gift types.
Problem 3: Structural data and CTR
Correct implementation of the structural data in the global website settings applied also to the French domain. Also, in this case, we implemented emojis that have an impact on the subpage CTR.
Problem 4: H1 and URL address changes
All H1 titles and URL addresses were changed so they match the list of most important keywords selected in the analysis.
Off-Site SEO
The off-site process, meaning external linking, is a relevant complement to the on-site activities. From the very outset, we do our best and use valuable websites to create a strong link profile.
German Market
Domain parameters at the beginning of the cooperation:
Link profile at the beginning:
Domain parameters after 10 months of cooperation:
Link profile after 10 months of cooperation:
Domain rating increase:
French Market
The off-site process was supporting all SEO activities also for the french website. However, in this case, our aim was to build a strong link profile from scratch.
The process was based on selecting high-quality linking domains, that would be relevant to the website topic and would be in the local domain (french, in this case). All links were created manually by our team.
As a result, the majority of backlinks come from the french market:
Delante is responsible for SEO for 4 of our European domains (DE, ES, IT, FR). It's convenient to have one point of contact for all those processes. We definitely see a steady growth in our online visibility.
Agata Jasinska
General Manager
Results
German Market
Website visibility increased by 919%. At the beginning of our cooperation, the page was ranked on 67 keywords. Now, the number reached 683 keywords.
January 2020:
November 2020:
Visibility improvement:
Changes in the positions of the most relevant phrases:
Jack Daniels geschenke:>/i> 33 -> 5
wein geschenke personalisiert: not indexed -> 2
personalisierter wein: 71 -> 7
geburtstag sekt: 47-> 3
other phrases:
We’ve increased organic traffic to 4000 users from scratch. The first improvements were visible already after the first month of our cooperation.
Organic traffic in November 2020 vs. organic traffic in November 2019:
French Market
Increasing the initial organic traffic on the website. After 6 months of cooperation, the traffic reached the level of 1851 visits per month.
An increase of online visibility built from the beginning of the cooperation:
Exemplary changes in linked keywords ranks:
Whisky Personnalisé (en: personalized whisky)
Starting rank: out of index
Current rank: 1
Bouteille de Vodka Personnalisée (en: personalized bottle of vodka)
Starting rank: out of index
Current rank: 1
Rhum dictador 10 ans (pl: rum dictador 10 years old)
Starting rank: 18
Current rank: 12
SEO Specialist’s Comment
So Lovely Box is a popular website that wasn’t particularly recognizable in the foreign market. This was mainly due to the fact that it was hard to find most of the website elements in the organic search results. The Polish language version was loaded in the majority of cases which hindered effective SEO in Germany or other countries. Moreover, CS Store isn’t the best CMS when it comes to multistores. We focused on the appropriate translation of website elements and the selection of keywords matching specific language versions. Thanks to the cooperation of the So Lovely Box developer and our specialist, we’ve improved many technical parameters and implemented global settings that have been bringing spectacular results when it comes to the visibility of every language version of the website. Currently, we’re working on four language versions and we’ll definitely let you know about the effectiveness of our activities – stay tuned! 🙂
We specialize in long tail SEO, which works best in e-commerce industry, but also in manufacturing, export or services (and many others). Learn about the stories of our Clients and how we helped them meet their goals.
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