270% increase in visibility in 16 months and core algorithm update strategy

The tables below show the increase in visibility of the entire website and its sections

Visibility increase of the entire website

Visibility increase of the blog

Strategy resistant to Google algorithm updates

We have been working with the iZielnik.pl store since October 2019. During this time, the Google algorithm has had quite a few updates, including three key ones related to the main part of the algorithm:

• January 2020 Core Update
• May 2020 Core Update
• December 2020 Core Update

Recent key updates to Google’s algorithm have been most felt in the medical industry and industries in the so-called “YMYL” (your money your life) segment. For websites in this category, Google requires the greatest possible authority of the pages as well as the quality and credibility of their content, because it can have a direct impact on users’ life decisions – in this case, their health.

In addition, Google introduced the concept of E-A-T (Expertise – Authoritativeness – Trustworthiness) which correlates directly with the requirements used in the YMYL industries, meaning it affects our client as well. This concept is related to building an expert website with a high authority that can be trusted, and thus maximizing the safety of the users of such websites.

Below are examples illustrating how last year’s algorithm updates can affect the visibility of websites:

• endokrynologia.net website
  
• hellozdrowie.pl website
  

In our strategy, we combined our experience with the YMYL genre and E-A-T directives with our knowledge of SEO. As a result, we built a strategy that has so far been resistant to change in key areas Google has been active in.

The Senuto visibility chart below shows that iZielnik.pl did not suffer after any of the key Google algorithm updates in 2020. In the period from August to November, within the four months just before the December algorithm update, the website’s visibility in the TOP 10 increased by 138%.

SEO strategy

The most important elements of the strategy we created for iZielnik are:

1. optimization of the existing category structure and designation of new category subpages
2. optimizing existing articles on the blog and planning new ones
3. obtaining links from business partners

Optimization and expansion of the store structure

First, we focused on optimizing the existing categories. We prepared the titles so that they contained relevant keywords for a given category. Then, we prepared descriptions. Each description contained an average of four thousand characters and was based on a set of keywords for a given category. The keywords mainly concerned information about buying herbs in an online store, the form of the substance being purchased (tablets, powder, capsules) and information on why it’s worth taking.

New category subpages

We recommended building 174 new category pages to complete the structure of the store. The new categories were created based on the intentions of users who search Google for herbs for specific diseases. Creating the right landing page for a given intention (keyword) increases the chances of successful positioning.

Blog – optimization and development

Building a blog for an online store should now be a standard part of every SEO strategy. Some of the many benefits include:

• customer journey – guide content allows you to reach potential customers who are at earlier stages of the path of purchase than the purchase phase itself, so online stores should build content that covers questions related to the products sold
• topical authority – Google rewards websites that accurately cover a given thematic area
• brand awareness – by creating content, our website reaches new audiences. Even if these new recipients do not provide conversions we expect, we will still have the chance to make it into their awareness, and in a positive way. Now that they are aware of our brand, perhaps in the future they will come back and meet conversion expectations
• internal linking – in each article, we should pay special attention to internal links that lead to category pages within the structure of the store as well as to thematically related articles. This has a positive impact on the website’s internal linking, which is one of the fundamental elements of SEO strategy.

Optimization of blog articles

On the iZielnik blog, we found about 270 guide articles related to:

• herbs
• spices
• supplements
• cosmetics
• home remedies related to health and appearance

We conducted a content audit to verify which articles should be optimized to increase their visibility in Google. 74 articles required optimization. Optimization activities consisted of:

• creating meta titles and titles based on the most important keywords
• developing an article structure based on keywords related to a given topic
• determining the length of an article on a given topic based on the average content length in the first ten organic search results for the main keyword of a given topic
• preparing synonyms and keywords semantically related to the main keyword for a given topic to be placed directly in the content of the article
• designating internal linking for each article so that the article links to the category page related to the topic of the article as well as the thematically related article

We also redirected about 20 articles that were duplicates of other ones. Content duplication does not serve a positioned website – within the structure of the entire website, there should be only one landing page for each topic, and one article for content.

Blog development

So far, we have planned about 120 articles on topics such as:

• how to drink collagen
• honey for heart health and high blood pressure
• properties and application of goldenrod honey
• how to use a face roller
• overdosing vitamin C – symptoms and effects
• homemade disinfectant
• properties and application of vitamin K2
• berberine – effects of use and contraindications

Over the course of 26 months work, we have scheduled a total of 150 guide articles.

The table below shows the visibility increase of the blog

The table below shows example keywords that achieved top positions

Links from partners

Link building is the bread and butter of SEO. Any website that aspires to achieve and maintain high positions for keywords relevant to its business in the search engine results should make sure a high-quality profile of links lead to it. Quality links are ones that come from sites with high authority; that is, websites of brands with a good reputation. Such websites have built up the high authority of their domain naturally, through a quality link profile. iZielnik.pl, as an e-commerce shop selling natural supplements and cosmetics, is fortunate, because such brands are often partners of companies like theirs. Our role in this process was to educate the client that such links from business partners, who often have websites with high authority, can and should be obtained. Links obtained in this way are better than the widely available links from content marketing platforms. An important factor in the case of such quality links is their uniqueness – thanks to building real business relationships, we can get links where our competitors cannot. For this reason, we prepared a wide list of partners from whom it was necessary to obtain links. Below are some examples:

• Bartnik
• Herbapol
• Intenson
• Mokosh
• Now Foods
• Solgar
• Tołpa