A Leading USA’s Fitness Equipment Seller

About the Client:

An independent business founded by a national-level competitive bodybuilder and fitness enthusiast. In contrast to large retailers selling commercial gym equipment, our client focuses on delivering exceptional quality products at competitive prices. Additionally, their hands-on customer service sets them apart in the industry.

Keywords provided by the client & Ranking (June 2019)

Keywords

Global (USA)

Google USA

cable crossover machine

6,600

23

dumbbells for sale

49,500

>100

fitness equipment

14,800

67

fitness equipment for sale

9,900

11

gym equipment for sale

24,600

>100

hammer strength machine

2400

>100

leg press machine

14,800

>100

life fitness equipment

1,300

54

Pre-owned gym equipment

1900

>100

rubber gym flooring

4,400

>100

used fitness equipment

4,400

14

used gym equipment

6,600

>100

 

Organic Traffic (June 2019)

 

User

New User

Sessions

Organic

8,556

7715

12249

Social

10197

9379

11214

Direct

7308

6848

10522

Referral

151

131

314

 

The Challenge

The website is currently underperforming, as the clients are struggling to achieve high rankings for extremely competitive keywords. This situation is adversely affecting their sales and organic traffic.

  • Our primary challenge was to drive organic growth and increase the website's organic traffic. We aimed to target a wider audience across the USA through organic searches.
  • Following the YMYL update, optimizing the website according to EAT and YMYL guidelines presented a significant challenge. Moreover, standing out amidst fierce competition from major eCommerce suppliers like Amazon and eBay required us to employ attention-grabbing tactics.
  • Another major hurdle we faced was the limited project budget. Despite this constraint, the client suggested ten highly competitive keywords, while we identified an additional 40-50 keywords. Initially, we lacked sufficient website pages to effectively optimize and target these keywords.
  • Website content posed a significant challenge as well, with the initial content being of low quality. We optimized the website and urged the client to add high-quality, unique content aligned with our target keywords.
  • The website was lacking high-quality backlinks, which posed a significant hurdle for us.
  • Website speed also emerged as a substantial challenge that required attention and optimization.

By addressing these challenges head-on, we aimed to enhance the website's performance, improve keyword rankings, and drive increased organic traffic.

The Solution

Upon analyzing the website, we quickly realized that there was a lack of sufficient categories and product pages to effectively target our chosen keywords. Recognizing this, we commenced work on the initial website while simultaneously proposing to the client the addition of more categories and product pages. To emphasize the importance of separate categories and product pages, we presented a comprehensive plan to the client. Fortunately, the client was receptive and created the category pages within the designated timeframe.

In order to enhance the website's visibility and improve keyword rankings, we diligently added quality content that aligned with our target keywords. This not only increased the website's presence on the web but also had a direct impact on improving keyword rankings, subsequently driving an increase in website traffic.

To optimize the website's performance, we focused on improving its speed by implementing various measures across all website pages.

In addition, we embarked on a proactive approach to generate high-quality backlinks. This involved engaging in guest posting, article submission, quora submission, classified submission, and other strategies to acquire relevant and authoritative backlinks.

By implementing these actions, we aimed to improve the website's search engine visibility, and keyword rankings, and ultimately, drive increased organic traffic.

We identified the following opportunities to scale traffic & ranking:

  1. Best SEO practices - To enhance organic traffic and improve the performance of the website, we implemented a range of effective SEO practices. Here's an overview of our approach:
  • Keyword Research and Targeting: - We conducted comprehensive keyword research, identifying 40-50 high-value keywords with a monthly search volume of approximately 300 thousand. Based on these keywords, we strategically mapped out target landing pages to be created and optimized.
  • We had requested the client to incorporate a Blog section and regularly update it with blog posts. However, the client declined our proposal. Simultaneously, we approached them regarding the addition of location-based pages, and fortunately, they agreed. By incorporating these new website pages and content, we can seize opportunities for website analysis, internal linking, heading tags, and optimizing other web pages. As a result, our website's ranking started to improve, and we began to experience an increase in traffic.
  • A comprehensive off-page campaign was implemented, during which we diligently created hundreds of links every month, resulting in an impressive total of over 1000 links within a year.
  • We adopted various SEO best practices, including optimizing the metadata, improving the speed of the website, and enhancing the existing content.

Managing Google Updates

We implemented an information-rich strategy to enhance our website's ranking based on the principles of Google updates.

Every time Google rolled out an update, it had an impact on numerous websites, and we were no exception. When the YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) and EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) updates were introduced, we focused our efforts on adhering to the EAT principle and undertook the following steps:

  1. We displayed accreditation badges prominently in the footer of our main website.
  2. We optimized client testimonials and review ratings in the website footer.
  3. We embedded testimonial videos from our clients' YouTube channels on the main specialty pages of our website.

Content Structure and Optimization

We recognized the importance of utilizing information-based content to attain top rankings on SERPs, which led to our client's pages being featured on rich snippets. Here are the steps we implemented:

  1. We created new city pages and optimized the content according to our targeted keywords.
  2. The content was factual, concise, and aimed at establishing trust between the customer and the supplier.
  3. From an SEO standpoint, we prioritized improving indexing and incorporated images to enhance the EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) value.
  4. We strategically utilized specific keywords to facilitate users in swiftly reaching the bottom of the sales funnel, minimizing any unnecessary time wastage.

The Results:

Keywords Ranking:

From June 2019 to June 2020, we achieved consistent top 3 rankings for highly competitive keywords.

No. Of keywords in the top 10:

 

June'2019

June'2020

Growth

Keywords in the Top 3

62

109

67.58%

Keywords in the Top 10

369

608

65.00%

 

Keywords

Global (USA)

Google USA

cable crossover machine

6,600

33

dumbbells for sale

49,500

2

fitness equipment

14,800

1

fitness equipment for sale

9,900

1

gym equipment for sale

24,600

2

hammer strength machine

2400

8

leg press machine

14,800

56

life fitness equipment

1,300

7

Pre-owned gym equipment

1900

1

rubber gym flooring

4,400

32

used fitness equipment

4,400

4

used gym equipment

6,600

3

Keywords ranking data from SEMrush -

Overall Traffic Growth:

Overall, we experienced a remarkable 145% increase in organic traffic during the 6-month period from July 2019 to December 2019 compared to January 2020 to June 2020.

Organic Traffic (June 2019)

 

User

New User

Sessions

Organic(Jul’19-Dec’19)

47,266

45,667

74,775

Organic(Jan’20-Jun’20)

148,054

144,537

209,017

Social (Jul’19-Dec’19)

50,040

48,632

56,343

Social (Jan’20-Jun’20)

96,133

95,702

107,509

Direct (Jul’19-Dec’19)

46,113

45,401

69,213

Direct (Jan’20-Jun’20)

131,258

129,198

175,252

Referral (Jul’19-Dec’19)

2,463

1,331

1,393

Referral (Jan’20-Jun’20)

2,636

2,504

4,725

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Mohit Singh Digital Marketer Expert at Digibirds360. I have 10+ years of experience in digital industry including Organic, social media, content marketing and paid media. Expertise in Search Engine Optimization and PPC (Google Adwords & Facebook Ads) to increase brands customer base. Ability to successfully analyze, design, implement and manage all phases of site auditing from start to finish. ROI driven approach to give transformation growth via digital execellence.
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