Achieving 500K+ Impressions and 25K+ Clicks in Just 6 Months
Hello everyone 👋🏻
I haven’t been writing on my Medium blog for a long time, but I wanted to share a case study that I developed using the self-learning method with all of you.
Six months ago, while browsing expireddomains.net, I came across a domain called Aferin.net. The name caught my attention and upon checking the archive, I found that it was an old social link site. Although I couldn’t use its past, I liked the name so much that I bought the domain and started publishing my first content. After six months, I obtained 500K+ organic impressions and 20K+ organic clicks. I wanted to share with you what I did and what I paid attention to in terms of SEO during this journey.
Wordpress and Generatepress
When I want to start a blog, the first CMS I usually use is WordPress. Within WordPress, there are millions of different theme options. Among so many themes, my choice is always Generatepress theme in terms of speed, customization and community. Generatepress is one of the most successful themes in terms of Core web vitals. I use GP at Aferin.net.
Use Schema Markup
Schema markup creates a detailed description that appears in search results after it is applied to a website. This description is often known as a featured snippet and can include desired ratings, reviews, prices or other information. In addition, schema markup helps search engines better understand web pages and therefore improves SEO performance.
Crawl Budget Optimization
There were existing contents on an old website and I added them to aferin.net. Over time, I realized that the quality content I wrote was not valued. At this point, I went to crawl budget optimization and deleted the old content that was not receiving traffic and made a 301 redirection to the homepage. At the same time, when I did a log file analysis, I saw that the site’s appearance on web.archive was also being scanned by Googlebot. I disallowed the old URLs through robots.txt.
Keyword Golden Ratio
I conducted keyword research using the keyword golden ratio strategy and focused on creating content in low competition keywords. You can find more details on my use of the keyword golden ratio in my detailed content by clicking here. I created 50 article with Keyword Golden Ratio keywords.
Content Optimization
Content optimization is a SEO technique that aims to make web pages more understandable to search engines and have higher search result rankings. The following steps summarize what needs to be done for content optimization:
- Conduct keyword research: Try to understand the search queries of your target audience to optimize your content. Find out what keywords they use and consider them in your content.
- Improve the quality of your content: The quality of your content is an important factor considered by search engines. Make sure your content is meaningful, useful and unique.
- Optimize your URLs: Your URLs should be understandable and meaningful to search engines. Use your keywords in your URLs, in particular.
- Use alt tags: Use alt tags to optimize your images. These tags describe what the images are about and are read by search engines.
- Use internal links: Internal links help you create links between other pages on your website. These links are considered by search engines and increase the value of your content.
Backlinks
Although its importance decreases day by day, acquiring backlinks still contributes to ranking, albeit small. Be careful not to spam when acquiring backlinks and try to get backlinks from sources related to you. You can also get promotional articles from authoritative sites in your field.
Results
500K impressions and 25K+ organic clicks in 6 months.
This case study has greatly improved my SEO knowledge. At the same time, it has enabled me to combine this knowledge with my expertise in PPC and look at brands from a growth perspective. Thank you for reading this far. I hope to see you in other case studies.