About company

Our client is a company that has been selling high-quality sewing machines from 94 countries around the world for over 30 years. It provides complete equipment and service used by the largest companies in the industry. Thanks to its experience and high standards, it enjoys the trust of its customers, but is still ready to develop and expand the base of contractors. Therefore, in order to increase sales, she contacted us with an order for the SEO service of a corporate website on the web.

Goals and assumptions

At the time of signing the contract, the client’s website saw a decrease in visibility in the search engine, which also influenced the traffic and conversions. Therefore, the main goal was to reverse this trend and increase the website’s visibility, especially on difficult phrases for which the website obtained poor positions. The client also wanted to promote some devices and manufacturers from their offer, so we also chose the appropriate phrases for these purposes.

The contract is implemented from the very beginning on the basis of consulting – we do not make any corrections on the client’s website, but we watch over its SEO and recommend changes that the company implements using its own resources. We prepare detailed guidelines regarding both technical issues and the content to be included on the website, we also have regular contact with the client’s developer – in person and, if necessary, also by phones. This is one of the few cases when a client has contact not only with an account manager, but also an SEO specialist. In addition to preparing guidelines, we also deal with link building, i.e. creating a valuable profile of external links leading to the client’s website. We perform all of these activities as part of a $ 5,000 monthly package.

What did we start with?

When we started cooperation, i.e. in June 2020, the website already noted a lot of phrases in the top positions, but it had a lot of untapped potential. Her results from this period are:
– 80 phrases in TOP3,
– 345 phrases in TOP10,
– 2153 phrases in TOP50.

It is a good result which provides a solid foundation for further actions. However, in order to increase visibility, it was necessary to implement a whole list of tweaks that we specified for the client in an extensive audit.

Our recommendations

The guidelines contained instructions for introducing mechanisms to automate and improve the operation of the entire website, and thus minimize the introduction of manual changes. This was to eliminate errors in internal linking, limit the wide scale of 404 errors and improve the poor indexation resulting from a large base of similar products. It turned out that it was necessary to change the category structure, introduce key phrases to the headers, category names and meta titles, or eliminate duplicates in searching through filters by introducing canonical links. We also commissioned a number of changes that could speed up the website and adapt it to the high standards of the Google algorithm.

As for the content – the existing texts required optimization for SEO, including saturation with key phrases selected by me. We also suggested introducing additional content on subpages with categories and organizing news and guidance content. As the client has sufficient resources to prepare the texts himself and wanted to use them, writing the content is entirely on his side. However, we prepare detailed guidelines for all texts that are created so that they are valuable both in terms of content and from the SEO point of view. These texts are directed only to purely sales subpages, such as category, product or category filter pages.

Results after half a year and after a year of cooperation

Cooperation in the consulting model is demanding both for us and for our clients. It requires a lot of discipline and the will to reach agreement on both sides. However, if they do show up, the results can be very good – just like for a website. After six months, the results were as follows:
– TOP3 – 128 phrases,
– TOP10 – 424 phrases,
– TOP50 – 2274 phrases.

In our industry, however, it is repeated like a mantra that positioning is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes time for the implemented changes to start to bring tangible benefits in the form of increased traffic and improved visibility for the most difficult phrases. Therefore, it is also worth showing that this process is ongoing and you can still notice significant increases in organic results. In June this year, the results were as high as:
– 327 TOP3 phrases,
– 908 phrases in TOP10,
– 4266 phrases in the TOP50.

Organic traffic can be estimated at about 15.6 thousand per month. These are the results that show that we have chosen the right direction together with the client, and that our work translates into real profits for the company. This is also evidenced by the data from Analytics, which shows that the revenue from the organic channel in the third quarter of this year increased by 16.86% compared to the third quarter of last year, and the number of new users on the website increased by 26.92%.

SEO of Magento stores – why is it worth it?

Are you using the Magento platform? It’s a good choice. The system currently developed by Adobe is available in many languages, and its rich functionality makes it very easy to manage the sales process. The many advantages include adapting this portal to SEO needs. Indeed, positioning of stores on Magento gives you a wide range of possibilities. Here, however, nothing happens by itself.

In order for your store to be displayed high in Google search results and its offer to effectively reach interested customers, you should take care of it through positioning. It is a series of activities thanks to which Google recognizes your e-store as valuable in terms of SEO for people entering certain key phrases into the website. For this to happen, the search engine algorithms, after reviewing your store on Magento, must recognize that:
– it is easy to use,
– quickly provides information consistent with the search intention for a given keyword,
– it is credible.

How to “convince” Google algorithms to each other? This is a process that requires, first of all, refining the store itself – in terms of its code, security, hosting parameters, but also the content posted. That’s not all, of course, because additionally there is also the issue of linking and other related issues.

Seems like a lot of work? Yes. In order to position a store on Magento, you need to have the appropriate knowledge, experience, tools and time. However, the effort and budget invested in this process pay off many times over. Well-planned and performed SEO activities will allow you to:
– get high positions in Google search results for phrases related to your business,
– attract the interest of recipients who belong to your target groups,
– increase the number of visits to the website, and thus maximize the chance that the visitor will make a purchase,
– strengthen the brand awareness of your store,
– compete more effectively with other e-stores in your market niche.

Our experience shows that a well-carried out positioning of Magento stores means a significant decrease in the cost of acquiring customers, especially when compared to the cost of running intensive Ads campaigns. In addition, the effects of SEO activities are long-term and you will benefit from them for many months or even years.

How to SEO stores on Magento?

The Magento platform itself is well suited to conducting activities related to positioning. The tools available to users include such functionalities as automatic creation of a site map and robots.txt file or grouping of metadata for individual categories and subcategories. This can make your work much easier and help increase the visibility of the site for Google. However, the question is whether such actions will be enough.

It is worth realizing that the positioning of stores on Magento is carried out by an increasing group of their owners. This means ever-increasing competition and ever higher efficiency requirements. Therefore, in many cases, independent actions, even based on quite extensive SEO options of this platform, may not be successful. When positioning a store on Magento, even the slightest mistake or omission may decide about the failure of the entire investment.

For this reason, the answer to the question of how to position stores on Magento is: using the help of experts. However, before you start working with a digital agency, be sure to find out what elements should be taken care of by specialists so that their work translates into measurable results.

SEO of Magento stores – what elements do you need to remember?

At the beginning, the most important thing: how your store will be positioned depends largely on the specifics of its operation or industry. The fact that it is created using Magento also matters as you may find it necessary to correct the script code. Nevertheless, the basic principles according to which SEO activities should be carried out remain consistent with those used when positioning websites on a different basis. Here is a list of the elements that will ensure the success of all actions taken.

SEO audit – the basis for effective Magento store positioning

In theory, it may seem that positioning your store is a simple task. After all, it is all about selecting keywords and their skilful use in the resources of the website. However, this is a very big simplification of the whole process, which in fact is much more complicated. It must be remembered that the Google algorithms themselves change even several hundred (!) Times a year. The rules followed by the search engine are very extensive and cover not only content-related aspects.

That is why, before you start positioning your store on Magento, you should carefully look at the current situation. Experts have to assess how the store looks in terms of SEO and what needs to be changed to be visible in the first places in SERPs. Therefore, they assess, among others:
– technical aspects of the e-shop – incl. its code, page loading speed, its security, as well as the number of errors,
– content posted on the website – their quantity, quality are important, but also keyword saturation and uniqueness,
– page meta data and linking.

But this is not the end. You still need to look at the specifics of the company’s business processes, target group, and how competition is promoted. This information can be very important when choosing keywords for which positioning will be carried out.

Remember: keywords should not be selected “by eye”, but based on in-depth analysis and precise statistics. It is important, among others how much competition there is in positioning for specific phrases, as well as what potential they bring. Contrary to appearances, sometimes it is more profitable to choose less popular keywords, but it is much easier to get higher. When making your decision, follow the tips of SEO experts. Thanks to this, the positioning of the Magento store will be more efficient.

E-shop code optimization

Once the audit is done and experts provide concrete information on what needs to be done to get results from SEO, you can move on to action. Experts usually first look at the website of the e-shop itself and check whether it works properly.

There are many important issues in this aspect, but the most important ones are:
– page loading speed and smooth operation – may depend, among others, on from the “heaviness” of the e-store (the higher it is, the more data the user has to download to open it), as well as the hosting server parameters,
– correct operation of the website, i.e. whether it opens well on various devices and does not generate various types of errors,
– security – is extremely important, because the customer leaves his data in the store, so it must be transferred without the risk of passing through third parties. The basis is a valid and up-to-date SSL certificate.

These are all “programming” and technical tasks that SEO specialists must perform. It’s good for them to know about Magento store positioning, because the script of this platform is specific and needs to be skillfully optimized.

Verification of the site map and its layout

A site map is a record of its layout and “organizational chart”, i.e. how individual categories and subcategories branch out. It should be as logical, precise and orderly as possible. Why? Because the lack of a clear breakdown is problematic for both the user and Google’s algorithms. It should be remembered that it is unacceptable that all products are thrown into one bag, which can be seen not only in the structure of the website itself, but also in URLs. This leads to improper indexing of the e-store in Google, and thus preventing effective positioning.

SEO specialists carefully look at the layout of products in the store and, if necessary, propose a new, logical and more nested level. Remember: the more articles you sell, the more “densely” you should go into them. Thanks to this, finding individual elements will be easier for the customer clicking on categories, and positioning the Magento store – easier.

After making changes, of course, you need to generate a new sitemap and a robots.txt file. On Magento, this can be done automatically.

Meta tag optimization

Meta tags are additional content that does not appear directly on the store’s page, but is important information for search engines. The most important and visible tags are title and description, i.e. the title and description of the page. They are visible in the Google results list. That is why it is worth taking a closer look at them and making sure that they are:
– unique – repeating the same meta tags reduces their value in the eyes of Google, which consequently weakens the positioning of stores on Magento,
– saturated with keywords – it is worth including those that dominate in a given tab,
– attractive in terms of marketing – they should encourage visitors to the site, so it is worth including a CTA in them, i.e. a slogan prompting you to do so.

In addition to these basic meta tags, it is also worth taking a look at the ALT descriptions of images placed on e-shop pages. Adding them can also help from a positioning point of view. This is another place that you can saturate with keywords related to a given tab.

Remember: although Magento offers automatic adding of meta tags, it is worth at least to verify them when generated and edit them if necessary. Thanks to this, you will avoid problems that will weaken the effects of SEO activities.

Store content on Magento – SEO depends largely on them

The texts for the e-shop website are important not only from the marketing point of view, although it must be admitted that this aspect is also important. However, the SEO perspective is just as important. The content must be adapted to the rules governing the positioning of Magento stores. Otherwise, you may have trouble achieving high SERP scores.

The question, however, is: what do SEO-adjusted content mean? There are several elements that must absolutely be taken care of.

First, the uniqueness of the texts. And it is understood in two ways. First of all, don’t duplicate content found on other sites. You may be entitled to use promotional material from the manufacturer of the items you sell. However, filling individual subpages with such texts will reduce the SEO value of your Magento store. Why? Because Google will consider the content repetitive, and thus – little needed by the user. It is also important not to copy the same content on multiple pages of the website. Perhaps you sell goods in twin similar subcategories, so you thought about changing a few words in the text describing one of them and copying it to the other. The resulting duplicate content will also be misinterpreted by algorithms. So avoid such mistakes.

Second, the right amount of texts. Quantity can also be considered in several different ways. On the one hand, it is about the number of characters on individual subpages. On the other hand – how many tabs will be filled with content. We advise: more is better. However, text resources should be expanded gradually – also due to the budget that must be allocated for it. Remember that texts that are too short will translate into little space for key phrases.

And where and what content should be placed in the Magento store for positioning? They’ll be useful:
– content for the home page and subpage about the store – should contain the most general phrases related to your distribution activities,
– descriptions of the main categories followed by sub-categories and products. The process of preparing these texts should be spread over time, step by step extending the range of positioning,
– articles for a shop blog – they can be useful both for SEO reasons (including long tail positioning) and for image purposes. They will also help you reach your customers at different stages of the buying funnel. Therefore, it is definitely worth investing in them later.

Third, the quality of the texts – with the positioning of Magento stores in mind, it is worth remembering that the amount of content should go hand in hand with their substantive and persuasive value. The times of the so-called “pretzels” or texts, which were the proverbial “pouring water”, are long over. Today, not only the customer, but also Google pay attention to the information value of the content. This is important for their credibility.

Fourth, the clarity and layout of the texts – with SEO in mind, texts should be written with appropriate headings (H1, H2, H3), as well as bullets, as well as bold and underlines. They make the content easier for the user to read and are an additional hint for Google robots.

It is worth considering that the content should be prepared by a professional copywriter in consultation with an SEO specialist. This will ensure that they meet the requirements of Magento store positioning.

Linking matters

Another important element for positioning Magento stores is the proper use of linking. You should check if the links already used in the content are correct and expand their base. It is important to both increase the number of internal links (but so that they do not cross each other) and external links. These can be obtained, among others on blogs, social networks or by publishing sponsored articles with links to the store.

How long does it take to position stores on Magento and can they be accelerated?

The process of positioning the store on Magento will take several months until the first clear results are achieved. How much exactly? It depends, among others on the condition of the website before starting SEO activities or how competitive the industry in which you operate is. The budget you can spend on positioning is also important. Most often, however, results can be expected after about 3-6 months. They last much longer.

Is it possible to somehow speed up the positioning? It is difficult, especially if you expect really good results. However, if you need a much faster increase in website visits and support in stimulating sales, you can be tempted to advertise a Magento store with the help of Ads systems, e.g. offered by Google. The combination of activities in these two fields: paid advertising and SEO, will bring satisfactory results in the short and long term.

What is a phrase?

Keywords are queries that a user enters into a search engine – for example on Google – when he searches for something on the Internet. Of course, there are billions of passwords entered into the search engine and new ones appear every day, but there is a large pool of those that are repeated many times – from this group we choose valuable phrases for website positioning.

But one by one: what is it about positioning for specific phrases? When a user enters a specific term into a search engine, the algorithms rank the results for them. It contains the pages that most likely answer the internet user’s question best. The assessment of whether a website should appear high in the search results for a specific keyword is influenced by many factors – including the quality and credibility of the website, the correctness and formatting of texts or links from other websites. However, one of the most important is whether the headings and the texts themselves on the page contain the specific phrase that the user has entered on Google. When it appears, it is a signal to the algorithms that the recipient is likely to find the answer to their question on this site, which makes them rank it high in the results.

Key phrases in texts

The discovery that algorithms take into account key phrases has brought a real plague of texts written exclusively for bots. They were packed with the most searchable keywords, but they were of no value to the user. However, Google quickly put an end to these practices by introducing an algorithm aptly named Panda to the search engine. It was created to promote high-quality websites that provide reliable knowledge and contain original content. From that moment, inserting phrases in each sentence ceased to make sense and today it is necessary to ensure that the optimal number of phrases is included in the text and that they are naturally woven into the sequence of the narrative.

Key phrases – types

Key phrases can be short – one word – or even a few words. Most often, we divide them into general phrases and long tail phrases, i.e. the so-called long tails.

General phrases are short and – as the name suggests – rather imprecise. They are entered by users who are usually at the beginning of the shopping path, i.e. do not yet have specific expectations as to the service or product. General phrases can be, for example, slogans like “summer dress”, “sneakers” or “car mechanic”. They have a lot of searches on the web, which is why they are often considered the best for website positioning. In fact, this is not always the case, because often the user entering such a phrase is only doing initial research and is not determined to make a transaction.

Long tail phrases are much more complex and quite precise, because they are entered by users who already know what they are looking for. Long tails have fewer searches than general phrases, but are often more effective – because if the Internet user has already formulated his expectations for a product or service, it means that he is most likely ready to decide on them. Long tail phrases are becoming more and more important in website positioning, as the popularity of Voice Search, i.e. voice search, increases every year. This type of search favors the use of longer and natural-sounding search terms, i.e. long tails.

Selection of key phrases

How to choose key phrases? There is no universal way here. It all depends on the type and scale of business, offer, competitors’ activities and many other factors. For example, if we run a hairdressing salon, local phrases will work first, i.e. those that give the name of the city or district in which the establishment is located. Positioning for very general phrases is unnecessary, because the logic requires looking for customers only in the area. Online stores will not use local positioning, but should focus on longer passwords that match their product range. The selection of phrases should therefore always be preceded by a thorough analysis of the industry and competition and the formulation of the goals we want to achieve.