SEO plays a pivotal role when it comes to growing a Shopify store with regards to increasing organic traffic and generating revenue. This article is about an SEO strategy that helped an SEO professional hit 218,000 organic clicks in just six months. The SEO efforts were geared towards a new Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Shopify store. So without further ado, let’s break down the key performance indicators (KPIs) that helped in achieving this success, along with the goals that you should adopt in the future.
These results were achieved in the following ways. We will also reveal the obstacles that were encountered along the way. Read on until the end and we’ll tell you how to hit the 1 million clicks mark in phase 2.
7 Key Points of Success Derived From a Real KPI Growth Case Study
In just six months of SEO grind on a new Shopify store, significant growth across various KPIs was observed and these showed both the effectiveness of the strategy and also the foundations for future success in the organic search market.
1. 70+ New Domains Now Pointing to the DTC Store
One of the most crucial elements of SEO is backlink building. By securing over 70 high-quality domains linking back to the store, we’ve boosted the website’s authority in Google’s eyes. This has not only helped improve organic rankings but also brought more referral traffic.
The strategy involved targeted outreach, securing links from niche-relevant sites, and leveraging partnerships for long-term backlinks. High-quality backlinks from trusted sites signal to Google that the Shopify store is a credible source, which directly influences ranking for competitive keywords.
2. 100+ Intellectual Property Assets Created
Creating unique intellectual property (IP) assets is another driving force behind organic growth. This includes a combination of blog posts, guides, infographics, and other forms of content that align with the brand’s identity.
By publishing over 100 IP assets, we’ve created a content-rich environment that both educates and engages users. This content serves a dual purpose: it attracts traffic by targeting informational keywords and helps establish the store as a thought leader in its niche.
3. 13+ New Collection Pages Support SKUs
Product organization is key for SEO in e-commerce, and adding 13 new collection pages has played an important role in supporting specific SKUs. Each collection page targets long-tail keywords, which has helped drive traffic for niche products and improved overall website navigation.
Optimized with schema markup and relevant content, these collection pages also serve as landing pages for targeted ad campaigns, further boosting their value in both organic and paid search.
4. Clicks are Climbing in Google Shopping
The store has been gaining momentum in Google Shopping, with clicks steadily increasing. Google Shopping is a vital channel for e-commerce, and optimizing product feeds with accurate descriptions, proper categorization, and strong bids has allowed us to capture more qualified traffic.
The focus now is to optimize product images, titles, and descriptions for better visibility and higher click-through rates (CTR). This channel shows significant promise as we move into Q4, where consumer spending typically peaks.
5. 2.03% Average Conversion Rate
While the industry average conversion rate hovers around 2%, we are targeting a higher benchmark of 3%. The current rate of 2.03% reflects the effectiveness of our SEO strategy in driving qualified traffic, but there’s still room for optimization in the user experience (UX) to push this number higher.
Testing different layouts, refining product descriptions, and simplifying the checkout process are among the tactics we’re implementing to achieve a higher conversion rate.
6. 80+ SKUs Have Unique Content
Content differentiation is critical for SEO success, especially with e-commerce sites that feature numerous similar products. We created unique content for over 80 SKUs, ensuring that each product page is optimized with distinct descriptions, images, and meta information.
This effort prevents content duplication, enhances SEO, and provides customers with the detailed information they need to make informed purchase decisions. Furthermore, it reduces the risk of cannibalization in search results, allowing each SKU to rank for its targeted keywords.
7. Six-Figure Revenue Has Been Smashed
The ultimate goal of SEO isn’t just traffic—it’s conversions. By following a well-structured SEO strategy, we’ve managed to surpass six figures in revenue in just six months. This achievement demonstrates the power of combining organic search growth with high-converting product pages.
The foundation we’ve laid with SEO, content marketing, and technical optimization will only compound as we push into Q4, setting the stage for even more explosive growth.
Overcoming Challenges Along the Way
Achieving 218,000 clicks and breaking into six-figure revenue didn’t come without its fair share of challenges. Here are a few key obstacles we faced and how we adapted:
Organic Clicks Dropped Slightly
While clicks have been trending upward overall, we did notice a slight drop in organic traffic at one point. This decline can often be attributed to search algorithm updates or changes in competition. To counter this, we doubled down on content optimization and link building, ensuring that the drop was temporary and clicks continued to grow.
Changes in DTC Store Structure
We made adjustments to the store’s structure after gaining a deeper understanding of our customer base. These changes were necessary to align better with consumer behavior, such as improving the navigation and product categorization for better usability.
Search Console Not Influenced by Brand Searches
One important distinction is that the search console data is focused on non-branded searches, meaning our success in growing organic clicks has been purely through organic search efforts, not relying on brand recognition. This makes our achievements even more notable in a highly competitive landscape.
The Importance of Not Stopping SEO
SEO is an ongoing process, and despite challenges, we never stopped. Continuously auditing and optimizing content, links, and technical aspects ensured that any dips in traffic were temporary, with the overall trend moving upwards.
15-Point Sprint Strategy For Setting Goals in Q4
Setting New Goals for Q4: 15-Point Sprint Strategy
With Q4 fast approaching, it’s time to raise the bar and set new goals to build on our success. Transactional revenue will be a key focus as we push for even more growth. Below is a detailed breakdown of our 15-point sprint strategy, designed to optimize the store’s performance and set us up for a powerful finish to the year.
1. Testing Hierarchy Structure from Root to PDPs
The way your website is structured plays a critical role in how users interact with it and how search engines evaluate it. We will dive deep into the website’s hierarchy, refining everything from the homepage (root) down to the Product Detail Pages (PDPs). The goal here is to ensure seamless navigation, allowing users to find products with ease while improving the site’s SEO performance. A clean, well-organized structure not only enhances the customer journey by reducing the number of clicks to complete tasks but also helps search engines to crawl and index content efficiently, which is key for ranking on high-value keywords.
2. Auditing MS Clarity for Q4 Template Quality
MS Clarity provides valuable insights into how users engage with our website through heatmaps and session recordings. This tool will be used to assess how the current page templates are working in terms of user experience, page speed, and page design. The aim of this exercise is to find any pain points that might be causing a decrease in user engagement or simply causing visitors to turn away rapidly, thus increasing bounce rates. By carefully adjusting these key elements you can ensure that the website is not only fast and efficient but also ready for a successful Q4. This will also help you immensely in banking on the holiday sales because this traffic is very fast.
3. Testing CTR Placements and Movement
Click-through rates (CTR) are very important because they tell you how well users are engaging with the call-to-action (CTA) buttons placed on your website. They also tell you about the links, and other elements on your website that help you get more traffic. We will experiment with different placements of CTAs, product images, and even navigational elements to see what boosts engagement the most. Testing the movement of elements like banners or buttons could also lead to better visibility and interactions. By running A/B tests on high-traffic pages, we’ll gather data on what placements and designs are most successful at guiding users down the sales funnel, ultimately boosting conversion rates.
4. Auditing Conversion Paths in GA4
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) offers a detailed bird’s-eye view of the customer journey. By focusing on the conversion paths outlined by it, we can find areas where users are leaving your website and uncover the precise friction points which prevent conversions on your online portal. This exercise helps us in refining every customer journey step until the purchase point as it removes all the unnecessary steps, simplifies forms, and eventually makes checkout more intuitive. In the end, you get a website with improved conversion rates and increased sales. What more can you ask for?
5. Finding New Opportunities in GSC
When it comes to finding new opportunities in online sales, nothing beats Google Search Console (GSC) because it helps you discover untapped keyword opportunities. So what you need to do here is to execute a deep dive into the data to find high-potential keywords that are relevant to your products but haven’t been fully optimized. You can focus on the long-tail keywords along with relevant search terms that might be getting lower traffic. These underutilized opportunities will help you increase your organic reach and drive new traffic to your website.
6. Testing Navigation Placements
Navigation is, no doubt, the spine of a user-friendly website and if your website has poor navigation, then you need to run tests to see which placement configurations for menus, filters, and search bars offer the best results in terms of usability. These placements are really important as they can affect how easily visitors can explore products. Websites with poor navigation often lead to frustrated visitors that leave your website and increase your bounce rates. Make sure your visitors find exactly what they are looking for without crossing a maze of unwanted steps and believe you me, this will result in longer sessions and higher conversion rates.
7. Improving Back-End Marketing
Back-end marketing initiatives are commonly referred to as email automation and remarketing campaigns. These are crucial for increasing repeat online visits and managing customer relationships for repeat business. By using data from tools such as the GA4 and customer relationship management (CRM) systems, you can craft targeted campaigns that speak directly to user preferences. These can be abandoned cart emails, special offers, or even remarketing ads. Remember, personalized touches always help increase customer lifetime value. It also brings users back to your website and helps in the overall revenue growth.
8. Understanding Demographics
Understanding demographics is like getting an insight that you need to tailor marketing campaigns that vibe with your target audience. By focusing on the age, gender, location, and device usage, you can adapt your strategies to curate relevant messages that are just for these people. For example, a younger audience will lean towards mobile-first experiences, while older people might respond better to email campaigns because they are used to them.
9. Analyzing Top Location Traffic
Location-based data from Google Analytics tells you about the regions and cities from where you get the most traffic. These are your high-value and you can personalize your marketing efforts to better serve these areas. We are talking about launching localized promotions, or adjusting pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. If you have a good team, you can even create region-specific landing pages for a better SEO boost. Trust me, it will help.
10. Next Phase SKU Releasing
Alright, listen up. Dropping new SKUs isn’t just about tossing some products on the site and calling it a day. No, no. It’s about strategy, people. We’re talking about carefully rolling out each product with maximum precision. Every SKU gets its moment in the spotlight, with optimized product pages, targeted marketing campaigns, and a strong social media push. It’s like a product launch party, but online. You stagger the releases to keep things fresh, keep people hooked, and keep that revenue flowing. Trust me—nail this, and it’s a game-changer. You keep your inventory hot, your customers engaged, and watch those sales numbers climb.
11. Auditing PDP HTML Zones
Now, let’s talk about the nitty-gritty of PDPs—Product Detail Pages. These bad boys need to be airtight. We’re doing a full audit of the HTML zones to make sure everything is on point, from header tags to alt text. Why? Because SEO is everything when it comes to being found online. Search engines love structure, and if your pages are a mess, you’re missing out on traffic—plain and simple. Plus, we’re not just thinking about Google here, we’re thinking about you. It’s all about striking that perfect balance between being search-engine friendly and user-friendly. Fix any broken links, clean up that schema markup, and boom—you’ve got a fast, functional, and polished page ready to convert.
12. Adapting to Audience Behavior
This is where things get real interesting. Consumer behavior? It’s always on the move. What worked last month might not hit the same this month. You’ve got to stay flexible, keep an eye on the data, and be ready to pivot. The key? Analytics. We’re constantly monitoring user patterns, checking out what they’re into, and adjusting on the fly. Whether it’s changing the way we recommend products, tweaking some content, or adding a new feature to keep people interested, it’s all about staying ahead of the curve. You keep giving people what they want, how they want it, and you stay competitive. Simple as that.
13. Monitoring Traffic Trends
Alright, finally, let’s talk about trends. Traffic trends. You’re not just sitting back, hoping the numbers go up. Oh no. You’re watching those patterns, keeping tabs on every dip and spike, so you’re always one step ahead. When organic traffic fluctuates or there’s a seasonal shift, you know it’s time to react. And the best part? This isn’t a guessing game. It’s all data-driven. You see what’s working, double down on that, and improve the stuff that’s falling behind. Stay in the know, keep optimizing, and you’ll ride those traffic waves to long-term growth. That’s how it’s done.
14. Continuous Optimization
SEO is not a “set it and forget it” task. Continuous optimization is necessary to stay competitive. Each sprint we conduct will focus on iterative improvements, whether it’s tweaking meta tags, refining internal linking structures, or updating outdated content. This ongoing process ensures that our site remains in peak condition, consistently ranking well for important keywords, and providing a superior user experience.
15. Taking Action on Data Insights
Collecting data is only useful if it leads to actionable changes. Every audit and test we perform, whether it’s through MS Clarity, GA4, or GSC, will be used to drive specific improvements. We’ll implement changes based on these insights and monitor the results to ensure that they lead to measurable growth in traffic and conversions. By consistently taking action on data, we ensure that our strategy is always evolving and improving, setting us up for continued success in Q4 and beyond.
The Road to 1 Million Clicks in Q4
We’ve built a solid foundation over the past six months, but the next step is to target even bigger goals. With thousands of transactional keywords climbing in Google and a clear strategy for Q4, I’m confident we can hit 1 million clicks—clicks that convert into real revenue.
By focusing on sprint-based strategies, feeding the PPC and social teams with valuable traffic insights, and continuously refining our SEO approach, this Shopify store is poised for even greater success.
+971 582 871635
+971 582 871635