Megantic helps homeware marketplace The Block Shop migrate to Magento2 and grow organic revenue by 240%
About Megantic:
Megantic is an organic search agency focusing on eCommerce Organic Search Growth with 99% of their clients being eCommerce. They have created a unique strategy for online retailers which enables websites targeting educated shoppers and buyers. Megantic is greatly experienced in Magento, Neto, Shopify and BigCommerce.
Business Challenge: migrate SEO value to Magento with minimal traffic impact and achieve 100% non-branded keyword growth
The Block Shop (TBS) is an eCommerce marketplace launched in 2012 to help viewers of the popular renovating Australian TV show “The Block” find and buy the products.
Before 2019, the website ran on Expression Engine (EE) and by that time had outgrown the platform. Megantic advised migration to Magento2 (M2) Enterprise and in July 2019 the agency drafted a full migration plan in collaboration with TBS and their development team.
Even the best migration plan wouldn’t be possible without significant SEO challenges.
Megantic’s migration focus between July to November 2019 was to:
- Migrate SEO value from EE to M2;
- Minimize Organic channel traffic risk for “The Block 2019” show season;
- Prepare the site for enterprise level targeting.
Post migration, the agency challenge was to:
- Create 100% non-branded organic growth pre 2020 TV Season;
- Utilise M2 functionalities as a competitive advantage;
- Double converting visitors, transactions and revenue.
Solution:
Megantic planned and executed a platform migration process mid-to-end 2019 which included:
- Google reindexing
- URL alignment
- Mapping and executing 301s
- Robots.txt, meta-robots, x-robots-tags and GSC Parameters
- Crawl Stats and GSC monitoring
- Server Caching/Site speed improvements
- Resolving Mobile indexing challenges
- Addressing 3rd Party tools conflicts
- Site Speed Enhancements
- Onsite SEO transfer
- eCommerce funnel setup
The migration was not without its challenges. However, by using data collected from Semrush, Google Analytics and Search Console before, during and after the migration Megantic was able to consult and execute on fixes that would optimise the site further.
The solution involved ongoing support and reinforcement of the new structure, and site architecture would require exercises around:
- Site speed consulting
- Semrush log file analyzer and GSC data mapping
- Robots and GSC parameters enhancements
- Crawling and indexing improvements
- Mobile rankings and experience optimization
- Semrush Keyword Gap analysis
- CTR optimization
- Content outreach/reclamation
- Metadata improvements
- Internal content and linking
- Structured data adjustments
- Redirect chain removal
- Data mining
Semrush’s Log File Analyzer tool & GSC mapped data were crucial for quickly catching errors as they were occurring after the transition between two platforms. It also helped identify content that Megantic could exclude from crawling & indexing to make sure they used the crawl budget most efficiently, especially resolving mobile errors & crawlability enhancements.
- Category + Color;
- Category + Style;
- Category + Shape;
- Category + Material.
During the deployment of the new M2, Megantic implemented an enhanced SEO friendly layered/faceted navigation. This part of the strategy tapped into the keyword variations that were important to TBS that included the Category + Attribute variations. The site was now positioned to target the relevant short and long-tail keywords throughout the product range that were previously identified as extremely valuable via Semrush & Google Keyword Planner for increasing converting traffic and revenue.
The goal was to capture as many relevant search terms as possible on the shopping pages that were structured to satisfy transactional search intent by applying:
- Product Segmentation;
- Relevant Category and Subcategory Hierarchy;
- Relevant Product Assignment;
- High Product Offering;
- Engaging Shopping Experience on primary shopping pages: Categories, Filters and Products;
- Clear Transactional Search Landing Page Signals.
This strategy enabled the pages to rank for low, medium, and high volume keywords, achieving the domino effect across the product range. This was done by regularly utilizing the Semrush Organic Research Positions dashboard & Google Search Console data with the following steps:
1. Analyze top 20 keyword rankings via the Organic Research dashboard to identify low hanging keyword opportunities not on page 1.
2. Prioritize P2 keywords associated with shopping pages.
- Robots.txt
- URL parameters
- X Robots Tags
- No Index, No Follow rules
- URL Removal
9. Review Crawl Stats data from Semrush, GSC & other tools to ensure accessibility for all bot types. This data is great for providing a case for improving site performance & accessibility by device for users and search engines.
10. Regularly run site audits from tools like the Semrush Site Audit to address any valid or potential errors. These audits are a great guide for improving your SEO profile and should be reviewed via multiple tools.
This approach prioritizes user search intent on all shopping page levels based on relevancy and increasing search intent satisfaction for transactions based customers. This was repeated regularly to ensure that Megantic was always improving the users’ shopping experience and increasing the relevancy of the entire site.
Megantic’s strategy focused on existing strengths and leveraging them to tap into new keyword rankings while creating a positive shopping experience on all fronts that satisfied users' search intent first and the search engine second through:
- Identifying the relevant transactional market.
- Segmenting shopping landing pages to satisfy user search intent.
- Utilizing consumer search behavior via keyword data for on-site and off-site SEO.
- Leveraging existing keyword rankings.
- Improving accessibility for the user and search engines.
- Increasing transactional relevancy.
- Focusing on the user.
This provided the keyword growth across all levels of shopping pages:
- Home Page
- Products
- Categories
- Filters
- Brands
Results
- 80% non-branded keyword growth in Google’s Top 10 in 9 months
- The Block Shop went from ranking for 2059 keywords on Google’s first page in November 2019 to 5300+ keywords in August 2020 - the highest ever pre-show non-branded keyword growth & exposure. The growth continued to 6200+ keywords in November 2020, at the time of writing.
This could not have been achieved without migrating to M2, recovering and growing the SEO value utilizing tools such as Semrush.
- 300% high-volume (1000+ searches per month) keyword growth in Google’s top 10
- The number of high-volume keywords grew to 340+ keywords (compared to 113 pre-migration) which includes competitive single term & high volume phrases:
- 240% organic revenue growth
- While migrating SEO value and growing the non-branded presence were Megantic’s goals, it would mean nothing for a marketplace like The Block Shop without bottom-line growth. Throughout the campaign, the new platform & strategy achieved pre-show organic channel growth of 180% in transactions and 240% in revenue. This positioned The Block Shop to capitalize on the surge of traffic during the TV show and new non-branded customer acquisition during COVID-19 and into the future.