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In this ecommerce SEO case study, we detail exactly step by step how we identified the challenges our client was facing and executed a solution that increased their revenue by $1,006,894. To protect the confidentiality of our client, we have hidden their brand name in this case study, but they are one of the largest wholesalers and distributors to retailers of CBD in the world. If you reach out for a free consultation, we are happy to disclose their brand name to you in private, outside of this full case study for the public. Check out our other ecommerce seo case studies. 

When we first met with our ecommerce SEO client, we asked them a few questions to learn more about the ecommerce challenge they are experiencing and how we could help provide an ecommerce solution personalized for them. This ecommerce client had been mainly growing their business through distribution to retail establishments. They have now shifted their focus to online consumer sales and subscriptions using ecommerce.

Unfortunately, in the CBD industry, all major platforms such as Google, Facebook, Instagram, and other traditional platforms ban the paid advertising of CBD for ecommerce. They had programmatic advertising going but did not succeed with it for ecommerce. They were focused on expanding to Facebook advertising; however, they could only promote educational CBD content. The ecommerce funnel was taking too long to convert and constantly needed to be optimized. 

Fortunately, they have a fantastic email marketing funnel setup for all their inbound traffic, which worked wonders with converting SEO traffic during this case study. Previously they were working with another media company that was managing their SEO when their representative got promoted. The new representative was not very personal and rarely checked in with them, only every 2 to 3 weeks. Before this new representative, they had a great experience with this company, which helped build what they have thus far. Since the new representative took over, they started to decline in traffic and revenue. 

They are aware that their main competitors, cbdMD and CBDistillery, are actively investing in SEO which we have had success working with in other case studies, and they would like to surpass their competition. During a discovery call with the client, we took notes to create a custom personalized SEO strategy that solves the client’s main challenge; this is what we did for them in this case study. 

Here’s what we found when we dug deeper into their e-commerce category pages during this case study:

Upon further analysis, they struggle to expand effectively into the direct-to-consumer CBD space since they cannot advertise traditionally. Most of their SEO traffic was branded traffic, so they were not adding new customers, which explains why their traffic and revenue have declined. The previous company was doing a great job capitalizing on existing branded keywords their existing customers are searching to purchase their CBD. The issue is that the previous company did not expand to acquire new customers and only was actively targeting existing customers. 

The average CBD customer has a lifetime value revenue of $588, so once they complete their lifetime value revenue, they tend to fall off and churn. They needed to expand their SEO traffic outside of branded traffic to add new customers and grow their revenue which we did in this case study. 

From February 17th, 2022, to March 17th, 2022, the website generated a total of $233,343.92 in sales, and the total directly attributed to organic traffic is $49,757.07. Organic traffic was currently contributing $49,757.07 in revenue monthly.

We took a closer look to see how much of our client’s organic clicks come from branded and non-branded traffic. Branded traffic is traffic from searches with the brand name; these are returning customers who already know the brand. In some cases, branded traffic can be new customers; however, in this particular instance, we knew, based on the research, that these were existing customers finding their brand on Google via branded search terms. 

Nearly 50% of existing organic traffic is coming from branded terms that returning customers are searching for on Google Search.

Their average conversion rate is 5.68% for organic traffic, and the average order value is $110. Using this data, we calculated that branded organic traffic is driving $19,949 a month of the total $49,757.07 in organic traffic monthly sales. This means non-branded terms, new customers unfamiliar with the brand only make up $30,263.07 in monthly sales from organic traffic.

How was their e-commerce SEO in comparison to their competitors?

Their ecommerce SEO was not doing great compared to their competitors’ cbdMD and CBDistillery’s SEO. Our research uncovered a large market share the brand is not currently taking advantage of on Google Search. When comparing our client to cbdMD and CBDistillery in terms of organic traffic market share, we found the following observations:

There are currently 1,176 keywords that our client’s website does not rank for that cbdMD or CBDistillery’s website rank in the top 10 for on Google Search. Some of these are very competitive terms like “CBD capsules” or “CBD for sale” as indicated in the screenshot below… 

We solved this problem using our proprietary SEO process that generates traffic that actually converts by increasing their organic traffic and revenue from non-branded search terms, which increased their market share and lifetime value revenue. We provided live reporting in the project tracker of everything we were doing at all times and provided weekly email updates demonstrating the progress we were making. After the first month, we provided monthly SEO progress reports on the top-line progress in revenue and organic traffic growth. 

Anyone can increase traffic, but few can generate traffic that converts to new revenue for you.

Our proprietary system generates traffic that converts into new revenue for your business. That’s because our company starts with understanding your business goals, ideal customer, and products, so we know exactly what your customer is searching for on Google.

Other SEO companies focus on only traffic and changing e-commerce category descriptions before learning your business resulting in unqualified traffic that does not convert into new revenue for your business.

We are so confident in our proprietary system that we will return your money if unsuccessful.

We were able to get short-term SEO results fast within five months of making changes to the website and category description changes because we focused on making changes from existing pages and traffic on the website to increase revenue and market share growth fast. We combined this strategy with a long-term strategy of creating new pages while refining category descriptions to capture traffic that needed a little push to convert and traffic ready to convert now. Executing this strategy allowed the brand to capture traffic they normally would pay affiliates for, which reduced digital marketing costs and dependence on affiliate content marketing. 

First, we developed a deep understanding of their business goals, ideal customers, and products, so we knew exactly what their customers search for on Google.

Other SEO companies focus on only technical SEO, content development, and traffic before learning their business resulting in unqualified traffic that does not convert into new revenue. 

SEO Brand Strategy

We started by creating a content brand strategy because an effective content brand strategy allows us to understand who our client is as a brand and focuses on their long-term goals when creating content. According to EU Business School, simply presenting a unified content brand message can increase profits by nearly 25%. We used data-backed surveys to inform our content brand strategy, so we knew what was true and not true based on the data. The content brand strategy allowed us to discover that the majority of CBD users are young people but not only young people who experience pain, inflammation, anxiety, and insomnia. Even more, they are young people but not only young people who have pets that experience pain, inflammation, anxiety, and insomnia. For young people and their pets, their current treatment methods were not alleviating their pain, inflammation, anxiety, and insomnia. 

They may be aware of CBD, but they are skeptical about its effectiveness and if they can trust the companies that manufacture CBD. Others are concerned if CBD is the same as marijuana and if it has psychoactive effects. They would like to learn more about CBD to feel confident they could trust it to work and that it is safe to ingest without psychoactive effects. They need someone to educate them on how CBD works effectively, how it benefits them, and how it helps achieve their goals of alleviating pain, inflammation, anxiety, and insomnia in themselves and their pets. 

This content information gives us an informed viewpoint on our clients’ main target audience backed by data, so we are not guessing who their audience is and is not when developing content. Furthermore, our client has pioneered a proprietary delivery system that makes their CBD 90% effective compared to traditional CBD, which is 10% to 15% effective when absorbed. This means smaller doses for greater effects saving the consumer time and money. All our clients’ CBD products are 0% THC compared to other CBD products containing 0.3% THC, making them safe and legal for humans and pets without the psychoactive effects. These discoveries allowed us to combat the skepticism about the effectiveness of CBD and differentiate our client’s CBD from the competition. 

To combat the distrust by consumers of the companies that produce CBD, we discovered that our client’s CBD is backed by state-of-the-art technology and scientific research. Our client has prestigious in-house scientists continuously innovating and improving their CBD. Our client’s CBD is 3rd-party lab tested, with lab results showing that certify their CBD as safe and effective. 

SEO Positioning Statement and Unique Selling Proposition

Next, we took the data-backed content insights we gained from the content brand strategy to create their content positioning statement and content unique selling proposition. The content positioning statement allowed us to see our client’s competition clearly and how our client differs from the various players helped us identify opportunities for growth and focus on what makes their products great when creating content. Companies with a well-written positioning statement consistent throughout their brand see an average of 10%-20% increase in revenue. 

The content unique selling proposition is our client’s specific unique benefit in the marketplace that other competitors do not offer that makes our client stand out from the competition. Think of the positioning statement as an overview of our client compared to the competition in general. Then the unique selling proposition is the one unique benefit that is valuable to the consumer that our client only offers and the competition does not offer. 

Miller Lite used their core unique selling proposition to increase their sales by over 200% in three years during a broad market downturn. We will keep our clients’ digital positioning statement and digital unique selling proposition a secret to protect the confidentiality of our client. 

Determining the Type of Purchase and Creating the Ideal Customer Profile

Determining the type of purchase is an often overlooked but very important step when working with a client. There are two types of purchases, considered and impulse purchases. Considered purchases are purchases where the consumer considers whether they would like to purchase the product or service. Typically considered purchases are higher-priced products or services with a longer sales cycle.

Impulse purchases are impulsive purchases where the consumer does not consider the options or price and impulsively makes a decision. Typically these are products or services which are lower priced and have a short sales cycle. CBD is more of a considered purchase since the average order value is $110, and CBD is a specific product with a large amount of skepticism and a lack of education. 

Next, we created the Ideal Customer Profile, which is the type of consumer that would benefit most from our products or services. Using the data-backed information we collected during the brand strategy stage, we know consumers typically purchase CBD to combat pain, inflammation, anxiety, and insomnia. For this reason, we broke each of these reasons for using CBD into separate ideal customer profiles that we target individually. Ideal customer profiles are important because they allow us to focus our marketing efforts on the consumers who are most likely to buy from our clients.

Unlike other SEO agencies that do not create an ideal customer profile and guess who can benefit the most from their clients’ products or services. Our SEO agency uses data and surveys to know who will benefit most from our client’s products or services and then targets each customer. Hence, our marketing resonates with them and converts them. 

Creating the Buying Process or Customer Journey

The buying process pages, commonly referred to as the customer journey pages today, are a key piece for determining where your consumers spend their attention on Google. Other SEO agencies do keyword research based on guessing, but we use data pages and surveys as well as our ideal customer profile pages to create a Google Search buying process page and customer journey page that converts. Think of the buying process pages as a series of steps a consumer takes before making a purchase, and we create a custom buying process page focused on Google Search.

The buying process page is important because it lets us know which keywords will, directly and indirectly, lead to sales and which keywords to target that generates brand awareness and educate the consumer. Instead of other brands reaching your customers first using the buying process page, we could reach your customers before they even know what CBD is. Then we can reach them exactly at the time of purchase and everywhere in between when creating new pages on your site. 

SEO Implementation

Now that we understand our clients’ business goals, ideal customers, and products, we know exactly what their customers search for on Google. We can use this information to implement a highly effective SEO strategy. During our SEO strategy, we analyzed existing pages that were under-optimized or optimized for the wrong keywords but had the potential to show up number one on Google for keywords that directly lead to sales.

Using this data, we were able to deliver an ROI immediately in the second month of implementing the campaign keywords. If you have an existing website with previous SEO pages work done, we can get short-term SEO page results for you fast. If you have a brand new website but are willing to invest a lot into SEO pages within a short time frame, we can get SEO page results for you fast.

Even more, we combined this short-term focus SEO pages strategy with a long-term SEO pages strategy to create new pages that expands our client’s audience and captures more market share. To earn links, we focused on leveraging by ranking content on Google that other websites would link back to share our clients’ target audience. The best part is that over time; these links increase even after our client stops investing in creating new pages for links. 

The Results

Within five months since we optimized our client’s website, our page changes optimization directly contributed to increasing $1,006,894 of customer lifetime value revenue. Their website added $52,710 of monthly revenue from all channels, and we contributed by increasing organic traffic-assisted conversions from 29.35% to 56%. Every month their website adds about $5k to $10k in new monthly revenue from new customers, which continues to their website even after our client stops investing in SEO. In total, there were 1,423 new customers added, and there are about 100 to 200 new customers added each month, continuing for our client.

Total revenue from organic traffic directly increased by $17,675 a month and continues to increase by about $2k to $4k monthly. Total revenue from organic traffic-assisted conversions increased by $12,788.48 a month and continues to increase by about $1k to $2k monthly. The website added 15,600 clicks and 5,620 monthly clicks, which continue to increase month over month. 

Our clients’ website went from 7,710 clicks per month at the beginning of the campaign to 14,200 clicks per month now. In total traffic value, we added $42,388 per month or $508,656 per year in traffic value, which means it would cost our client $42,388 per month or $508,656 per year to obtain this traffic from paid advertising. The total SEO investment up to this point is $21,000, and the total ROI is 4,794.73%.