SEO is tricky enough without having to worry about Google updates making your content irrelevant. With BrandBuilder’s Managed Site Service, we stay on top of the constant changes and keep your site fully optimized.
Picture this – one month your site is doing well, averaging thousands of users and showing no signs of slowing down. You’ve worked hard on your content, and your monthly numbers are proving that it is helping out others. All of a sudden, Google passes a core update and that traffic completely falls off.
Even though you’ll have some loyal followers engaging with your site, the core update may have made your SEO irrelevant, attacking your ranking and your traffic. This happens all the time, and one of our clients came to BrandBuilders for help after the May 2022 core update.
His website, we’ll call it XYZ.com here, was doing very well, averaging 12,000 users per month. Once the update passed, the site lost thousands of viewers almost overnight and was averaging less than 100.
The client approached us to try and figure out what may have happened, and to inquire if anything could be fixed. The expert team at BrandBuilders took over and quickly turned around the site’s misfortune.
After taking a look and diagnosing many problems (discussed below), BrandBuilders was able to get access to the site and start working. By the time it was over, the site was back on track, reclaiming lost traffic and becoming SEO relevant again.
Not only did we greatly improve some key site metrics, but we also continuously monitor the site, making sure nothing like this will happen again.
Some key highlights:
57 pt
Increase in Site Speed
21 pt
Increase in Site Speed
240%
Increase in Site Speed
Identify Problems and Generate a Plan
The first thing we looked at was a high-level overview of what XYZ.com needed. To do this, we ran the following:
- Generated an SEO Report for the site, allowing us to take a deeper look.
- We ran the site through a series of SEO tools and crawled the site.
- We had our SEO specialist examine the site. He checked for obvious buttons, landing pages, and the overall customer experience.
It became immediately clear that the site speed was a problem. The site was running many ads, which was slowing everything down.
The ads were being run through Ezoic, so we needed to get in and optimize the Ezoic speed. Our main goal here was to pass the web vital tests. After our internal optimization, we produced the following results:
Our analysis also turned up some critical issues to the site’s overall health. The site was affected by the following errors:
To resolve these issues, our expert SEO team went into the site and manually fixed everything. We also ran plugins like WP-Rocket, to help us speed up site loading times. Once we felt confident with our optimization, we tested the site and generated the following results:
After all the hard work and analysis, we were able to improve the site’s health by 21 points. The near-perfect health score instantly put XYZ.com back on Google’s radar and laid the groundwork for the upcoming traffic boost.
Recovering Site Traffic
When the client came to us, a major concern of theirs was the decrease in site traffic. Going from 12,000 users per month down to almost zero was a scary thing, something that happened almost out of the blue.
When Google passes along a core update (May 2022), or a product review update (July 2022), your content is at risk of becoming irrelevant.
BrandBuilders started to work on the site in August 2022. On top of our health and speed checks, we took a look at a few different factors that may be causing the dip in users.
We first went after the “low-hanging fruit” already present on the site. We studied the site and found some existing articles that could be reworked and updated. Doing this allows the content to stay fresh, and stay within Google’s latest guidelines.
For example, any article that ranked a “Top 10” was reassessed and updated to stay on top of the latest trends.
We also update articles based on traffic comparisons before and after the Google update. We analyze and determine which articles should be updated, usually by assessing the competition’s shortcomings and taking advantage. If we see an area where we can beat a competing page, the article is updated and optimized.
Below, we see an example of our landing page analysis, and the lost page views after an update:
After identifying which articles to improve, BrandBuilders will run them through one of our on-page SEO tools – in this case, Frase. Frase is a great tool that allows us to research top-ranking articles and helps our writing team create top content.
We aim to add fresh content consistently. BrandBuilders is always creating and uploading new, high-quality articles. We have found that the key to increasing your SEO rank is to choose the topics we write about carefully. We produce the best quality content possible, written by real people.
The highest-ranking competition does the same, so we know that we must benchmark against the best. Below is some sample data of how we determine which keywords will make a real impact, and which ones are not worth writing about.
In identifying quality keywords, and following through on great content, BrandBuilders was able to start rebuilding the site’s user base almost instantly. The graphics listed below show the immediate improvements made by the SEO experts at BrandBuilders:
When comparing September 2022 to October 2022, XYZ.com grew an astonishing 240%!
Consistency and Maintenance
After the initial problems are solved, the work is not done. BrandBuilders’ site management service continues to grow, optimize, and check on your site.
We run a monthly ahrefs check on the site, making sure that it stays in good health. We are constantly monitoring the site’s traffic every week, to be sure that we never miss any gaps in activity.
BrandBuilders is committed to doing what is best for your site. Whatever is needed for that ideal SEO optimization, will be applied to the site. On top of that, we will always be adding and publishing new content. This shows Google that you are continuously working on your website, while improving your SEO rank in the process.
Summary
It’s scary to think that your well-optimized site could one day become obsolete, to no fault of your own. XYZ.com thought everything was going well, only to see the bottom fall out after a core update.
With BrandBuilders, you can be sure that your website will always be taken care of. Let us worry about keeping things up to date, while continuing to cultivate and grow an organic user base.
Our client continues to see growth and SEO relevance, leading to more ad revenue. A healthy site with quality content is key, and BrandBuilders has the expert team to keep things on track.
I’m currently wearing many hats but my primary one is being the Business Manager at BrandBuilders.
My professional journey spans from being a tech enthusiast to evolving into a seasoned serial entrepreneur, with a primary expertise in SEO and Digital Marketing.
I am currently delving into the frontier of Ai, exploring its applications and implications in the ever-evolving digital landscape.
