This is how we increased organic traffic by 200%
Thorough insight work and content plan created a 200% increase in organic traffic. Read more about how we worked on growth here.
When Minera Skifer came to us to develop a new website, they had a specific challenge - most people associated slate with the slightly old-fashioned “cottage slate”. The one that one often finds in the hallway or up the fireplace of the classic mountain hut. They knew how much potential they had to increase sales, if only they could reach out to more users.
Too little knowledge of slate as a material
Although slate is a great choice for your mountain hut, there are so many more possibilities with slate — both in terms of application, format and style. Minera Shale therefore had ambitions to increase awareness of the excellent qualities of slate as a material.
One of the goals of the new website was therefore to rank on keywords for users who are in the research phase before they are going to renovate, renew or make any updates to their house or garden. That is, before they start thinking about what materials they need.
This is what we have done
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Thorough insights and keyword analyses
Ahead of the keyword analysis, we gleaned insights from several of the stores that sell Minera Shale:
- Who is the typical customer who buys slate? Gender? Age range? House type? Income? Other?
- What challenges do they face in the buying process?
- What do they often wonder?
- Why did they choose slate? Did they consider other materials?
- What do they use slate for?
The answers we were left with gave us a starting point to create personas and scenarios that were applicable to the target audience. Next, we began to narrow down on current areas and phases where it was relevant for Minera to be visible.
After we had identified what Minera was going to talk about, we looked at how they were going to do it. We did an extensive keyword analysis focusing on inspiration and research keywords such as: courtyard driveway inspiration, maintenance free garden, zones in the garden, how to make path in garden, slate tile inside and tiles in hallway.
Better visibility with a good content plan
With a complete overview of relevant keywords and relevant topics, we created a strategy for the keywords we wanted to be visible with in Google, and created a content plan for product categories and inspiration articles.
The product categories were named and optimized based on what people actually search for and the inspiration articles were designed based on what the users did research on - this is how users would find the answers they needed on mineraskifer.no.
Fractured slate or fractured slate?
One pitfall when working with content is that you don't write the words that potential customers actually use. An example is fracture slates and fracture slates which have been used interchangeably in Minera Shale but have widely different search volumes. One word has 110 searches a month, the other has 590 searches a month. That is, if you rank number 1 in a search, and 20% click in - one word will bring in 22 visitors, while the other gives 118. That's why the fracture slate, which has 590 searches a month, became the name of the product category.
It is more than the number of searches that determines what is the best keyword for a business. In Minera Slate's case, for example, we made a judgment on the word wood chips versus slate chips. Chips have a significantly higher volume (2400 searches a month) than slate chips (480 searches a month). Nevertheless, we opted for slate chips. The word defines what the user is looking for, and competition is significantly higher for searches for general words such as tile than a niche category such as slate chips.
Theme-based articles - also called keyword-clustering
Based on the EAT strategy (EAT - expertise, authority, trustworthiness), we decided on themes/areas within the slate that Minera would take ownership of. Garden, outdoor kitchen, facade and cottage. Next, we prepared at least 5 content ideas for each theme, which revealed the most important areas within the given topics.
To ensure a good ranking on the keywords you want to be visible on, you need to create content that benefits the user, and at the same time show that you are the expert in the market by communicating good tips, advice and professional knowledge to users.
Frequently Asked Questions and FAQ Schemas
To build on the EAT strategy and widely used keywords, we designed and developed a field in the CMS for questions and answers. By encoding the block of structured data (schemas) for frequently asked questions, Google will also be able to read the content as questions and answers, highlighting this as rich snippet in search results.
Using structured data to gain better visibility in search results offers several advantages:
- Users get quick answers to what they are wondering
- Increases brand awareness over time
- takes up more space of the search result, ergo there will be less space for competitors
- allows users to click into the website to read more or do more research
200% increase in organic traffic
The new website was launched in June 2021, and since then its rankings have only gone upwards. Spring and summer are peak season for Minera Shale. When we compare the peak season (April-Aug) in 2021 with the same period in 2022, we see a 200% increase in organic traffic.
In the collaboration with Minera Shale, knowledge and idea exchange goes both ways. In this way, we discover new growth opportunities that can be explored. After launch, we continued with insight and growth analyses to measure the results of the work. Which measures led to increased growth, and which did not produce as good results? What could we scale up and do more of? The work of evaluation and adjustment of measures is a continuous process that is still ongoing. A 200% increase in traffic to the page shows that it is worth the effort.
“We are getting a lot more inquiries from the website. It feels like we get 99% more inquiries than before.”
- Ane Gorset, Marketing Director
Need help driving growth for your business? We help you with growth analysis and identifying opportunities. By initiating several small measures that are measured along the way, we minimize risk and cost by spending our resources on scaling the measures we actually see an effect from.
