Blog / Articles30 October 2018

Case study: optimization for low-frequency search queries helped to increase positions of an online store

Owners of online stores and SEO specialists often face a situation when it’s almost impossible to quickly get into the top of search results for high-frequency target queries. This happens most often due to strong competition.

This is the picture we saw when promoting the website of Bosch Aerotwin car wipers online store. It’s a relatively young resource developed by our agency. This article will tell you how we optimized for low-frequency keywords to avoid this problem.

Prerequisites

From the very start, Bosch Aerotwin store chose a niche quite successfully. It specialized in selling not just car wipers, but only one brand – Bosch, focusing on its most up-to-date product line Aerotwin. Due to this, it was possible to achieve the top in Google Ukraine for such branded queries as "buy bosch aerotwin" or "bosch aerotwin wipers" quickly. However, the situation was not so good with queries that are more general.

Google SERP for "buy bosch aerotwin" with store's site on the first position

Bosch Aerotwin store doesn’t have many direct competitors (online stores selling only car wipers in Ukraine). However, to get to the top of search results, it had to compete not only with them. A significant part of SERP for requests like "cars wipers" is occupied by large auto parts stores that have a huge range of goods and strong link profiles.

Pages that refer to wiper blades on these large sites are often less optimized and contain less useful content than in specialized wiper stores. However, these sites win because of their general "weight", so it’s not easy to overtake them by high-frequency queries ("wipers", "buy wipers", "car wipers").

Methods

We assumed that competition with large online stores can be avoided by using low-frequency queries. In the niche of car wipers, there are plenty of them. These are keywords related to wipers for certain car models ("reno traffic wipers", "buy wipers for chevrolet aveo", "rear wiper skoda octavia a5"). Marketplaces offering a wide range of auto parts are unlikely to optimize for these queries, as the wipers do not form the basis of their sales.

Similar queries section in Google for "skoda octavia a5 wipers"

We collected the semantic core for analysis basing on the site’s content. First, we used Screaming Frog SEO Spider to parse titles of the catalog pages. From these titles, we extracted the base of all car models for which the store sells wipers. Having added to the name of each car "wipers for ...", we received a primary set of queries.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider report with titles of catalog pages

Then we expanded the semantics using Key Collector. After filtering out unnecessary keywords, as well as words with zero frequency by Google Ads, we received a list of 550 queries that we used. Most of keywords from the list had a frequency near 10-20 requests per month by Google Ukraine; however, for some of the most popular cars, it reached 140 requests per month ("wipers for lanos").

Final queries list in Key Collector sorted by frequency in Google Ukraine

We checked the site's positions for all the keywords from the array, and then selected first of all those pages that are already ranked by a sufficient number of target keywords (at least 4 per page), but mostly in the top 20-30, so pushing them into the top 10 seems like a challenge. We optimized these pages first. We also paid attention to the cannibalization of keywords, which had to be eliminated (for example, if a Mazda 3 catalog page was ranked by the query "wipers for mazda 6").

Seranking statistics for Mazda 3 page. Average postitions before and after optimization are highlighted. You can also see 6 targeted queries, their frequences and page's positions by them

Before optimizing, car model pages contained:

  • first and second level headers;
  • links to product cards suitable for this car with photos and brief specifications;
  • occasionally – a brief reference about the unique features of the wipers for this car;
  • customer reviews (if customers made them for this model).

As you can see, the text content on the pages was rather poor, so we first decided to add a small text (1000-1500 characters) under the product photo. The text contained:

  • brief general information about the car model;
  • general characteristics of wipers suitable for it (size, type of attachment);
  • options for wipers that are offered for this car, and recommendations on how to choose the right one;
  • if necessary – some issues that are worth paying attention to not make a mistake when choosing wipers;
  • occurrences of targeted keywords.

An example of a car model page with optimized text

Results

For now, we have optimized 28 pages of car models. Texts were added in several stages, so a different time has passed since the modification for different pages. For visual comparison we consider positions after 1 month and, if available, after 2 months. You can see our results in the table below.

Car model

Average position before optimization

Average position after 1 month

Average change after 1 month

Average position after 2 months

Average change after 2 months

Changes date August 9, 2018

Ford Focus II

25

7

+18

7

+18

Ford Focus III

29

14

+15

10

+19

Mitsubishi Lancer IX

27

18

+9

11

+16

Opel Astra J

15

8

+7

7

+8

Skoda Octavia A5

7

5

+2

4

+3

ВАЗ 2110-2112

40

37

+3

34

+6

Lada Priora

>100

30

+70

26

+74

Volkswagen Tiguan

13

13

0

12

+1

Changes date September 13-14 2018

Chevrolet Aveo

32

16

+16

 

 

Citroen C4

21

14

+7

 

 

Kia Ceed

74

26

+48

 

 

Mazda 3

23

13

+10

 

 

Mazda 6

20

14

+6

 

 

Mazda CX5

23

12

+11

 

 

Mitsubishi Outlander

31

10

+21

 

 

Nissan Qashqai

22

12

+10

 

 

Opel Astra H

41

25

+16

 

 

Volkswagen Passat B5

14

15

-1

 

 

Volkswagen Polo

26

24

+2

 

 

Suzuki SX4

11

6

+5

 

 

Renault Traffic III

26

34

-8

 

 

Skoda Fabia

46

28

+18

 

 

Hyundai Accent

37

28

+9

 

 

Changes date September 27 2018

Daewoo Lanos

30

26

+4

 

 

Hyundai Getz

14

11

+3

 

 

Audi A4 Avant

30

19

+11

 

 

Toyota Camry 40

19

12

+7

 

 

Toyota Corolla

17

17

0

 

 

Thus, we can see that to optimize text for a number of low-frequency queries was enough to increase positions in Google significantly. For some queries, we were able to hit top 10. Mostly these were the pages that ranked in top 20 before optimization.

In addition, text optimization helped to avoid the cannibalization of keywords. For example, a week after changing and indexing the page of Opel Astra J, we noticed that it began to rank also by queries related to Opel Astra H (there was no text on the page of this model). After we optimized the Opel Astra H page, it returned the necessary target queries to itself. We had a similar situation with the Volkswagen Polo page: before optimization, Volkswagen Golf and Passat pages ranked for a number of keywords related to this model.

We can also note that the most active growth of positions occurred during the first month after optimization. However, during the second month we observed further growth too.

Some of the optimized pages did not show an increase in positions or even showed a slight decline. In the case of Daewoo Lanos and VAZ 2110-2112, this can be explained by the relatively high frequency of target queries: maybe competitors also promoted on these keywords, so text optimization was not enough. For Toyota Corolla, Renault Traffic and Volkswagen Passat, the lack of growth may be due to an insufficient time since the moment of changes or due to random search result fluctuations that are not dependent on our efforts.

Conclusions

Thus, text-based page optimization has shown itself to be quite an effective method of promoting online car wipers store for low-frequency queries. A number of pages have already achieved good results due to the addition of text; for others, this manipulation was not enough. Most likely, further growth of the positions for such pages can be achieved through link promotion.

Do you need SEO experts?

We in Arto are ready to help! Our agency offers SEO audits, consultations and promotion for both growing businesses and big companies. If you have any SEO request, please contact us by clicking the button below. Or you can find out more about our SEO services.
Nikolay Ashpin
SEO, blog editor
I have been engaged in copywriting since 2014, in SEO - since 2017. I am interested in Internet marketing modern trends and search engine optimization, as well as in the capabilities of the Google My Business tool, and I share the experience of using it at seminars and conferences. If you have a question about this article, please write to nikolay@arto.agency.

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