Search Engine Promotion
for an Online Lumber Store
for an Online Lumber Store
How to increase traffic to a lumber company's website to 30,000 visitors per month using SEO only
About the Customer
Ilya-Les is a large Russian producer of high-quality lumber from environmentally friendly Vologda forest. The company has been selling products throughout Russia since 1996, and is also engaged in reforestation.
The online store is aimed at construction companies and private consumers involved in construction of cottages and low-rise buildings, especially in Moscow and Moscow region. Offline media and context are used as advertising channels. The customer is interested in a significant increase in sales and product orders by customers coming from the organic search of Yandex and Google.
Website: ilya-les.ru launched in March 2016.
The online store is aimed at construction companies and private consumers involved in construction of cottages and low-rise buildings, especially in Moscow and Moscow region. Offline media and context are used as advertising channels. The customer is interested in a significant increase in sales and product orders by customers coming from the organic search of Yandex and Google.
Website: ilya-les.ru launched in March 2016.
Tasks
- Carry out SEO-promotion in Moscow region
- Attract traffic from search engines to the website without contextual advertising
- Display the maximum number of thematic queries in TOP
- Reach maximum conversion rate
- Promotion budget should not exceed 50,000 rubles per month
Project Timeline
1
May 2016
Getting started
2
October 2016
Traffic from the organic search exceeded traffic from contextual advertising
3
March 2017
Traffic from the organic search engines reached 10,000 visits per month
4
March 2018
Traffic from the organic search reached 20,000 visits per month
Work is still in progress.
The number of visitors exceeded
30,000 people per month.
The number of visitors exceeded
30,000 people per month.
Performed works
1
Semantic core
At launch, semantic core analysis suggested the need to work on 2784 thematic queries, of which:
- 18 high frequency ones
- 211 midrange ones
- 2555 low frequency ones
During the first year of operation, the semantic core was increased to 4194 queries.
- 18 high frequency ones
- 211 midrange ones
- 2555 low frequency ones
During the first year of operation, the semantic core was increased to 4194 queries.
2
Analytics and Audit
The main competitors of ilya-les.ru online store are manufacturers of similar lumber products. When analyzing the search engine results in TOP-100, we noticed that about 90% were represented by firms that sold construction materials, the rest were portals and bulletin boards. The number of organizations related to this field on Yandex.Maps was about 500 companies in Moscow and the Moscow region. The vast majority of them have their own websites. This led us to the conclusion that the competition is extremely high and each buyer matters. To add to this, many competitors offer a wider range of products.
We had to fix layout errors and CMS settings that were incorrect:
- to remove unnecessary headings in the slider, image names, product names, etc .;
- to fix incorrect header levels in product names;
- to display product cards in H1 headings, and not the parent categories;
- to configure 301 redirects;
- to configure 404 error;
- to remove duplicates.
In terms of usability, the website required the following improvements:
- The Price List section included a way too long table with information about prices;
- The structure of the Product Catalog did not correspond to the semantic core;
- The Shopping Cart required modernization in order to secure more efficient return of visitors to the website in case of a purchase that was not completed in the first place.
- to remove unnecessary headings in the slider, image names, product names, etc .;
- to fix incorrect header levels in product names;
- to display product cards in H1 headings, and not the parent categories;
- to configure 301 redirects;
- to configure 404 error;
- to remove duplicates.
In terms of usability, the website required the following improvements:
- The Price List section included a way too long table with information about prices;
- The structure of the Product Catalog did not correspond to the semantic core;
- The Shopping Cart required modernization in order to secure more efficient return of visitors to the website in case of a purchase that was not completed in the first place.
At the time of signing the contract for SEO promotion, monthly traffic to the website was about 1900 visitors, of which 59.8% were click throughs from contextual advertising, 29.3% were direct visits to the website (regular customers, offline advertising, etc.). The share of search traffic was only 8.57% (161 visitors).
ilya-les.ru was not even in the TOP-20 of Yandex and Google by any query.
Failure rate was 15.3%.
ilya-les.ru was not even in the TOP-20 of Yandex and Google by any query.
Failure rate was 15.3%.
A scoring analysis of search queries has been performed. The most promising groups that were able to give a return on SEO-events in the shortest possible time have been identified.
A plan of technical work on the website and promotion for 12 months was drawn up.
A plan of technical work on the website and promotion for 12 months was drawn up.
3
Technical and optimization work
- To improve visibility and to speed up indexing, the website was added to Yandex.Webmaster and Google Search Console services
- Standard micro marking was incorporated Schema.org for breadcrumbs, product cards, and addresses
- Technical layout errors fixed
- Correct robots.txt files added
- Technical errors in CMS settings corrected
- Technical page duplicates removed
- Automatic sitemap.xml file generation was setup
- Goals in Yandex.Metrica were configured
- A callback option was added
- A Chat in Yandex search was added
- A SSL certificate was installed
4
Enhancement of the structure and content
- 25 new pages were created and cross-linked: 15 additional pages were added on which the same type of products of different categories with the same sizes were displayed, including 10 pages in the Price List section for priority groups of products.
- For effective work with information requests, the Articles section has been added, which is being regularly updated.
- The Product Catalog was improved, the menu was made more complex, and 4 new sections were included.
- Price filters for product categories were added.
- A website search module was implemented.
- A quick scroll up button was introduced.
- The rating assignment on the product card was also introduced.
- For greater coverage a list of cities in Moscow region was added to the basement.
5
Text optimization
- Optimized meta tags.
- Unique content on landing pages was created, taking into account the semantic core. Information on the website was updated based on an analysis of competitor websites and the needs of the target audience.
- The weight of the link juice was redistributed depending on significance of the pages.
6
External optimization
The work to build the link juice was carried out gradually, as in 2016 the website was new, and the rapid increase in the number of external links could lead to sanctions from search engines. The sites for link placement were selected from the high-quality ones. We performed registration in companies' directories, on thematic sites, blogs and forums. This type of work is still in progress.
Results
Positions
During the promotion period, all the priority requests were displayed in the TOP. As of July 2019, 3166 search queries were on the first pages of search engines, which constituted 75.54% of the total semantic core.
Traffic
For 3 years from May 2016 to May 2019, traffic from the organic search in Yandex and Google grew 191 times and reached 30,760 visitors per month. All types of devices were used to view the website (51.6% of them were mobile ones).
The number of failures decreased almost 1.5 times from 15.3% to 10.5%.
The number of failures decreased almost 1.5 times from 15.3% to 10.5%.
Conversions and Orders
We can't give all the numbers about the calls statistics, orders and sales volumes coming from ilya-les.ru due to our NDA.
However, from June 2016 to the present, the company management has noted a steady increase in the number of purchases made by customers coming from the website.
However, from June 2016 to the present, the company management has noted a steady increase in the number of purchases made by customers coming from the website.
>5000
people
people
per month view the price list
(conversion 11.4%)
(conversion 11.4%)
>2000
people
people
are interested in the addresses of the company's lumber facilities
(conversion 4.7%)
(conversion 4.7%)
Since 2019, our client has practically got rid of contextual advertising and replaced it with search engine promotion.