SEO Turned E-Commerce Expansion: 2,000%+ Sales Increase and Four New Stores | CBD E-Commerce Website
Despite a tight budget at just one-third of their national competitors, we accepted this challenge. With our help, the client surpassed the initial goals!
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Our client, a little-known CBD product provider, turned to our SEO agency seeking to rise above fierce competition and increase their brand visibility and sales.
Despite a tight budget at just one-third of their national competitors, we accepted this challenge, confident that our expertise, innovative strategies, and persistent implementation could yield good results.
And yield good results it did!The traffic to our client's website skyrocketed from 1,500 to over 15,000 visitors thanks to an effective SEO strategy.
Sales increased dramatically, with monthly orders jumping from an average of 20 to 450.
New brick-and-mortar stores set up thanks to the increased sales volume.
Ranked keywords gained in 2 years, mostly of commercial intent.
Our client sought a 200% increase in online visibility within a year – a target we met head-on.
A key business objective set by the client.
The client's ambitious goal was to build a recognizable brand, both locally and nationwide.
Our client aimed to establish their platform as the go-to destination for CBD/THC/Mushroom products.
The client began as an unknown brand with a website lacking domain authority.
We encountered technical issues with the website's navigational structure.
The client's product descriptions were repetitive and required meticulous reworking.
The project took place during the CBD/THC boom – with that, the competitive market posed a significant challenge.
We developed and executed a sales-oriented SEO strategy.
We tackled the website's technical issues and implemented speed optimizations and security measures.
Our team executed a quality, niche-focused link building and digital PR campaign.
We performed comprehensive content editing and writing for the website, including product pages and knowledge base.
2021 and 2022 were huge when it comes to CBD and related products. It’s not difficult to see why – the entry barrier was quite low, the FDA has ultimately loosened its grip on hemp-derived products, and consumers rapidly adopted a new, natural solution for their well-being.
Yet, at the time our client entered the market, it had already been saturated. They had a taller threshold to cross in a booming industry packed with slickly-marketed competitors powered by enormous budgets.
They came to us with a dimly lit website and a brand that had yet to gain traction. Our team saw the rising potential of this e-commerce website, so we rolled up our sleeves and started the work to lift them up!
The Client
As we said, the client was an unknown in the competitive world of CBD products – a small fish in a big pond. However, they had one big selling point: a surprisingly large product selection.
To put it in perspective: most CBD stores only offer a few generic CBD products with their labels. Our client was set on selling products from respected brands across the country, giving customers extensive choice and quality assurance.
However, their ambition contrasted with their experience in e-commerce.
They reached out to us, seeking our expertise in visibility campaigns for e-commerce websites. We accepted the challenge, hoping to transform their business.
Project Timeline: How We Transformed a Startup into a Standout
The project lasted two years and took just a little over $25,000. While this isn’t a tiny amount for a small-sized startup, it’s a fraction compared to the marketing budgets of the nationwide players in the CBD niche.
Raf ChomskyThe main problem with this project was the budget – about 3x lower than that of our nationwide competitors, according to our estimates. Therefore, we had to approach this differently.
The main ingredient of success was both the strategy and regular analysis and retrospections following our PDCA workflow. I’m personally proud of the result of this project, as CBD/THC has become one of the most difficult niches to operate in.
CEO of NoN Agency and Sustainable Growth Advocate
Let’s get into the specific actions we took to overcome this and other challenges.
Phase I: SEO Discovery and Technical Fixes
We started with the usual – SEO discovery. This time, the first audit already showed a few critical areas of improvement.
The store looked fine from the outside – it wasn’t anything fancy, but it would pass as another CBD store. When we dug deeper, we discovered that the store needed more than the usual links and content-based SEO strategy.
There’s no point in building visibility for a website with technical issues, so we started working on those immediately. The fixes included:
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- Speed improvements – both when it comes to WordPress and the content optimization itself,
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- Security upgrades – protection against spam, flooding, DDoS attacks, etc.
Another task that was high in priorities of our SEO strategy was improving the navigation and structure of the client’s website. Figuring this early in the project meant less work in the future.
With the initial technical issues off the table, it was time to address the website’s online visibility.
Phase II: From Humble SEO Beginnings to Full-On Business Expansion
The budget set by the client didn’t allow us to go all-in on content and links.
The existing content needed a lot of reworking – which already covered a good chunk of our workload for the first few months of the project.
The links were another issue. Being a new player, our client didn’t have any authoritative websites linking towards them.
We had to get creative.
Product Descriptions Optimized for SEO and Potential Customers
The product descriptions on the client’s website included lots of duplicate content. Google does not like that!
Knowing the specifics of CBD products – especially the lackluster product information even on the manufacturers’ websites (!!!) – we devised a three-month plan in which our content team completely reworked all the product descriptions.
We transformed them into unique pieces of copy that not only performed well for SEO but also offered valuable and accurate information to potential customers.
Maksym SzumiłowiczWriting product descriptions that are SEO-friendly, attention-grabbing, and compliant with existing regulations is never easy. It requires a delicate balance of creativity and strategy.
Content Writer
Covering the Informative Intent: Lifestyle and Wellness Blog
It wouldn’t be a successful SEO strategy without an enhanced blog platform for the client to publish informative and engaging content. We repurposed the client’s “News” section into a lifestyle blog focused on CBD and wellness-oriented topics.
This move acted as a valuable inbound strategy, allowing our client to capture top-of-the-funnel traffic, inform potential customers, and establish a voice for the brand within the competitive industry.
It was our secondary goal for this project. In the first phase, we updated and optimized 11 existing blog posts and published 6 more, focusing mainly on educational content.
Updated product descriptions and blog allowed the client’s website to gain visibility for 4,500 new keywords. Growing the client’s authoritativeness was a nice bonus!
In those two years, we managed to quadruple the overall number of keywords the client’s website ranks for, including top-ranking keywords (from 57 to 205), which is a great achievement in such a competitive industry.This means that our client takes the top positions in Google for hundreds of search queries!
Developing the Client’s Authority: Link Building
With good content in place, we needed to spread the word about our client. We started a link building campaign focused on reputable websites in the CBD and lifestyle niche.
Backlinks from high-quality, relevant websites improved the domain’s credibility and ranking position in search engine page results (SERPs). In the first three months, the domain rating grew from 9 to 19.
This is a great result, considering our budget constraints!
Andreea SavelucBuilding links for a CBD company on a limited budget required a strategic approach. We targeted smaller, relevant sites within CBD and adjacent niches like health and wellness to secure valuable links.
Our goal was to ensure each link was contextually relevant, focusing on how it fits within the content. In doing so, we broadened our outreach while maintaining relevance and strengthening our client's online authority.
Outreach Team Leader
Phase III: Further Improvements and Store Overhaul
Armed with the success of our initial efforts, we continued refining and expanding the SEO strategy to further boost our client’s online presence and sales strategy.
While the first phase involved a great deal of foundational work, the second phase of our SEO strategy was about going deeper – addressing more complex issues, implementing our updated content plan, and moving forward with our link-building efforts.
Advancing the Content Strategy
In the second phase of this project, we continued working on the client’s content.
After reauditing and status reports, we executed a new content schedule based on key commercial and informational keywords.
With a focus on evergreen content related to the usage and benefits of CBD products, we aimed to secure high-ranking positions in SERPs while providing valuable information to potential customers.
The starting position of the client’s website wasn’t terrible – but it wasn’t generating the much-needed traffic. Boosting it with our link strategy and technical SEO updates, it started gaining traction.
Continuing Link Building efforts
As part of our ongoing link-building strategy, we continued to procure high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites in the CBD and lifestyle niches.
This allowed us to strengthen the client’s position, turning them into a serious player in the CBD market – both online and offline!
The bump in referring domains at the beginning resulted from the client’s previous strategy – and a good chunk of it was toxic. Note how traffic started growing after about six months; it was when our SEO efforts started kicking in. And the more links we built, the more traffic the website generated.
Refurbishing Tech and UX
A couple of minor technical red flags still remained from our initial audit. We conducted a thorough reaudit to secure these loose ends, fixing issues such as Instagram embed errors to optimize the user experience.
We also introduced a ‘Mega Menu,’ providing customers with a more user-friendly and efficient way to navigate the online store.
Finally, the entire structure of the shop was redeveloped based on industry best practices and competitor analysis.
This optimized structure allowed customers to navigate the store intuitively and find the products they were looking for with ease.
Example mega menu, source: prowebdesign.ro
Business Awareness and Other Strategic Moves
Understanding the business side of things is also crucial. Therefore, we went ahead and implemented Google Analytics (GA) Goals to track user interaction with the website.
This enabled us to measure the effectiveness of our SEO efforts better and provided insights into where the e-commerce store was performing well and where adjustments were needed.
Understanding the importance of customer communication, we set up a live chat feature, paving the way for direct customer engagement and problem resolution.
We also introduced a new project dashboard, allowing the client to keep track of project progress and results in real time.
All those changes made the online store as a whole highly efficient, user-friendly, and increasingly profitable.
The PDCA Cycle: How We Keep Developing For You
We worked through each stage of the client’s strategy with one crucial aspect in mind: the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) framework. We are strong advocates of this method, as it encourages a cycle of constant improvement.
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- In the Plan stage, we mapped out the entire process in detail, setting clear and achievable goals.
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- The Do stage saw us springing into action. We cooperated with the client on tasks devised from the audit.
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- Once completed, the Check phase took center stage – we gathered performance data, analyzed the results of our actions, and compared them with our goals. We monitored everything from page speeds to traffic flow.
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- Lastly, in the Act stage, based on our observations and data analysis, we made necessary adjustments. We tweaked our strategy where required and reviewed what was working well and what needed improvements. This approach ensures a cycle of continuous improvements, keeping our strategies effective, up-to-date, and high-performing.
A True E-Commerce Success Story in Numbers
A successful SEO strategy is not just about creating an enthusiastic plan and implementing it. It’s about the business results at the end of the day, the numbers that demonstrate how the client’s business has grown!
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- A ~1,100% surge in overall site visibility, with monthly traffic booming from a little under 1,500 to over 15,000 visitors.
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- A significant increase in sales, leaping from a mere 20 to over hefty 450 orders every month.
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- Increased keyword visibility from an initial few to an impressive 12,679 keywords.
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- Expansion of the client’s physical presence, with four new local stores testifying to their growing brand reputation.
The graph above shows how the client’s website traffic is shaped over time. Given the limited budget, the results are more than satisfactory. It’s safe to say that the increased (and maintained!) traffic was one of the major driving factors for the client’s business.
Case study created by:
Content Coordinator & Social Media Specialist
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) & Co-Founder
This project truly showcases the impact of a well-executed SEO strategy on the growth of an e-commerce business. Even in a highly competitive industry, our client became a prominent player, both online and offline, within just two years!
With our support, the client managed to develop their website to meet industry standards despite having a budget markedly lower than their nationwide competitors.
Now, they are reaping the benefits in the form of strong numbers in visibility, sales, and brand growth. All this aligned with their original objectives, proving once again that a strategic SEO approach can work wonders for businesses seeking expansion.
Looking to partner with a dedicated, results-driven SEO agency that will prioritize your success? Contact us today!
