SEO Case Study: Traffic Recovery After Google Core Update

About

Kouboo.com is a family-owned eCommerce store based in Los Angeles that manufactures and sells artisan-crafted furniture and home decor items. 

scandiweb SEO team and Kouboo has a long-standing collaboration that began back in 2020 with a challenging re-platforming project, migrating their online store from Magento 2 to Shopify. Following smooth migration, our partnership evolved into a full-scale SEO program still ongoing today.

Challenge

After Google’s core update in the summer of 2021, Kouboo saw a noticeable decline in organic traffic and reached the lowest point in December 2021. The client wanted to get back to the level of organic traffic that the website had before the core update.

Approach

Ranking drops after core updates can be caused by a myriad of things, and traffic recovery is not an easy task. It requires in-depth investigation into all aspects of the current state of SEO. 

We had to take into account the specific situation of the client’s website and the nature of lost traffic to choose the approach that could bring the most significant improvements. The solutions we offered included focused work on technical and on-page SEO.

Technical improvements

If Shopify has an SEO app installed, it can handle technical SEO fundamentals quite well. Nevertheless, we had to make sure that all URLs are in order. To fix any technical issues, we made sure to review status codes, fix 404s, and redirect broken backlinks.

On-page optimization

On-page optimization was the most time-consuming in regards to actions taken for traffic recovery. The biggest drops in traffic were observed on collection pages which is why we focused our main optimization efforts there.

Website quality audit

As the first step of on-page optimization, we performed a website quality audit. We gathered insights via multiple data points and evaluated individual pages of the website through the lens of internal links, on-page content, keyword, and organic traffic data, as well as links.

This evaluation helped us with further strategy development and prioritization regarding which pages to address first.

Collection page updates

Then, we evaluated collection pages that weren’t performing as well as they could. The evaluation consisted of a review of collection page content and keyword intent, and a thorough check of SERP intent by reviewing what Google is showing in the SERP for certain keywords. This step led to main keyword updates for certain pages.

As part of collection page updates, we also updated content on collection pages to be:

• Easier to read
• More information-rich for the reader (ideas, instructions, assurances)
• Inclusive of relevant keywords and related topics with the reader in mind

Collection page updates led to a ranking increase for new keywords, but the movement was slow for the main keywords on the pages.

Title updates

One of the simplest things that started to move the needle for certain pages was meta title updates. 

As you might have heard, Google started automatic rewrites of meta titles not that long ago. We noticed that pages with titles rewritten by Google were fluctuating in rankings way more than those with the original titles. Adjustments were made to the problematic titles, and we could see an almost instant benefit in terms of rankings since Google wasn’t rewriting the titles anymore.

Results

By leveraging our experience and SEO best practices, we managed to recover lost traffic for Kouboo.com with additional improvements. 

Success was measured in:

• Keyword rankings recovery and increase
• Organic traffic from non-branded keywords

After keyword ranking increase, we have seen organic traffic growth for important keywords when looking at the last 3 months and comparing YoY:

• +141.46% rattan furniture
• +84.87% rattan wastebaskets
• +204.34% rattan chair
• wicker chair—new keyword with no traffic last year

Today, Kouboo’s organic traffic keeps steady and is slowly growing.

Have you noticed a drop in your website’s rankings and traffic? Looking to fix tech SEO issues and get your site higher in search results? Let us help you! Browse our SEO services or write us a message, and we’ll get back to you within 48h.

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