Maleomi is an online store selling all types of home accessories. After being on the market for 3 years, the client had problems with driving more customers to their website. The results produced by the social media campaigns were far from desired. When Maleomi contacted us, their monthly organic search traffic was 5,310.
Apart from doing SEO for maleomi.pl, we were given a separate task – make the Pusheen keyword reach first position on Google. The client sold Pusheen merchandise, and therefore aspired to be the main Polish retailer of those branded products. This task was pretty tricky, as the word Pusheen is a branded keyword associated with a completely different company.
Outdoing the manufacturer in getting their branded keyword in TOP 1 was one of the incredibly exciting and rewarding moments in my career. Working on this project showed me that winning top positions in SERP is possible even if the online store sells widely-accessible items like kitchen and home accessories.
The very first thing we had to work on was the homepage. Apart from implementing some of the key SEO elements, we also wanted to optimize it for the target keywords.
We had to go through four steps to make the homepage of maleomi.pl well-optimized for search engines.
Firstly, we had to do KEYWORD RESEARCH and consult our findings with the client. We left some of the general phrases, such as online store, and also added more specific ones, such as home accessories or kitchen accessories to match the client’s inventory better. Even though those keywords weren’t used on the homepage, we did our best to get the client’s website displayed on SERP whenever a user would look for those types of products.
Secondly, we modified the HOMEPAGE TITLE to give both Google bots and potential prospects clearer information on the contents of maleomi.pl. We did it by using the target keywords – the ones we defined in the previous step.
Here is how the client’s homepage used to be displayed on SERP:
Here is how the same page was displayed after us optimizing the page title:
Thirdly, we made the homepage CONTENT more SEO-FRIENDLY. Apart from tackling the basic formatting which facilitates readability, we also added a few chunks of texts at the bottom of the main page. At the beginning the client was reluctant to accept this idea – they doubted that the extra text published on the homepage wouldn’t go well with the page design.
When we justified the validity of adding more keyword-rich content to the homepage, the client eventually gave us the nod. We divided the text into sections, set proper headings and added INTERNAL LINKING. This way we utilized the web content to improve website ranks.
Here is the example of the content published on the homepage:
Luckily, neither our client nor we had to wait long to see the first positive outcomes of the homepage optimization. The website was gradually moving upwards, and was called out by both the general keywords and the branded keywords:
When we were done with the homepage, we could start making the keyword rank higher.
At that stage we focused on strengthening the position of keywords that showed high conversion potential. We also wanted to improve the rank of general and highly competitive keywords such as lunch boxes or food containers.
After optimizing the category, subcategory and product pages, we succeeded in pushing the
After helping the general and more specific keywords made it to the top of SERP, we had to do the same with a highly competitive keywords, which also happened to be the proper name and a trademark of Pusheen Corp.
Pusheen cat is a fictional character, widely used in various comic strips, sticker sets and other emoji-related images across multiple social media accounts. As the cartoon cat enjoyed huge popularity, various manufacturers produced numerous items carrying the Pusheen image. Our client was one of the resellers of those branded items.
Pusheen cat
The day we started working on pushing the Pusheen phrase upwards, its position was 52 and the monthly search volume was 495,000. Basically, it means that this keyword was highly competitive.
Truth is, moving the phrase to TOP10 was a pretty tough task. To achieve this, we combined content optimization with internal link building, copywriting and backlink building.
Our effort clearly paid off as the keyword was systematically making it to TOP5, later to TOP3. Then it was the time we had to compete with the biggest Polish online e-commerce platform (Allegro) and the official manufacturer of Pusheen merchandise. Yet, eventually, we made it! TOP1 was ours, or rather our client’s.
We used the same tactic for other branded products, e.g. Monbento. In this case, we managed to get the target keyphrases to 2th and 5th position:
On-site efforts work best when combined with an equally effective off-site strategy. Knowing that, we kept acquiring more quality backlinks that direct the customers to Maleomi. During almost a year-long cooperation, the number of referral links was growing steadily.
While expanding the backlink base for Maleomi, we also focused on constructing the correct anchors. This was done mainly to positively affect the off-site process and strengthen the link profile:
RESULT 1 150% increase in impressions: from 89,109 to 224,128
RESULT 2 101% increase in organic traffic: from 5,310 to 10,678
RESULT 3 Stronger keyword positions
4 exemplary keyword rank improvements:
52th position → 1st position
7th position → 3rd position
40th position → 11th position
5th position → 2nd position
RESULT 4 415% increase in sales (December 2018 vs December 2019)
