Increasing SEO Traffic 10x and Sales 5x: Working at the Intersection of Marketing, Product, Design, and Development

This case may be unique, but it demonstrates that promoting a company or brand always requires cohesive, comprehensive work involving many specialists and multiple teams. Thanks to this approach, we managed to increase traffic to the client’s website tenfold and sales fivefold over a year and a half.

We compiled this material to share valuable insights with managers of various categories—owners and heads of digital and content agencies, team leads, and managers of product companies. This case won’t include generic information about optimization or ranking factors. Instead, buckle in for practical insights on establishing cross-team interaction, guided by clear principles and a well-tested approach.

Initial Steps: Conducted a full audit of the site. The specifics of this stage required the SEO team to deeply understand the processes within the product team and thoroughly analyze the entire project.

Monthly Results: Developed a detailed plan consisting of 60 tasks, including traffic forecasting. Prioritized each task, forecasting traffic for the year ahead.

SEO Recommendations: Most changes involved the website’s design and user interaction logic.

Additional Resources: To implement all planned tasks, naturally, we needed designers and developers. Each change required coordination, which was accomplished in phases as each team tackled a different set of challenges.

Process Adaptation: Most processes were already established before our involvement. Hence, we couldn’t drastically alter other teams’ workflows without causing chaos. Our task was to integrate smoothly and compete adequately for the developers’ budget and time.

Gaining Trust: Earning the trust of the client’s product team was crucial. To achieve this, we had to demonstrate tangible results, which required substantial developer resources. Despite the challenges, we devised an effective solution, and everything ultimately fell into place.

Step One: Optimized main meta tags for title and description, as well as organized text materials on various pages. Given the volume, which was thousands of pages, it was crucial to get new admin tools, which we used to manage meta tags and articles.

Solution: Integrated the Twig template engine, minimizing the development team’s involvement and time spent.

Result: Improved website functionality in just a few hours. Gained flexible site management access.

Developed MVP: To save development resources, we minimized the preliminary goals of each task to an MVP format, suitable for initial test mode work.

Task Description: We created detailed task descriptions spanning several dozen pages, covering:

Collaboration Challenges: Discussing and agreeing on planned changes with the client’s teams and designers proved challenging.

Revised Requirements: Key SEO optimization points included:

Each task was prioritized based on the projected traffic volume it could generate. Although exact figures were unattainable, relative traffic volume served as the key criterion for determining task importance.

Our Approach: We tested SEO hypotheses with a minimal budget, facilitating easier agreement on task evaluations with the product team.

Achieved Results:

Sequential Task Management: Listed tasks in MVP format, forecasted traffic, and secured necessary resources from the product team.

New SEO Task Launch: Increased traffic volume, and flexible resource allocation based on sales effectiveness.

SEO and Product Team Integration: Weekly alignment with the product team’s work plan, setting priorities, planning in short-term increments.

Task Execution from Concept to Specification: Agreed on mandatory SEO requirements with development and design teams before drafting technical specifications.

Flexible SEO Solutions: Used alternative solutions when designers or developers imposed limitations, ensuring feasible compromises.

Market Solutions: Utilized ready market solutions to achieve quick results, benefiting from small budgets and short timelines. The Twig engine proved particularly helpful.

Automated SEO Testing and Monitoring: Regularly checked website functionality, quickly addressing any issues with custom software that parsed the website, and reported critical SEO areas to our optimization team.

Just like that, over a year and a half, SEO traffic grew tenfold, and sales increased fivefold. Now, we are collaborating closely with the client’s teams, establishing an optimal task agreement approach, and ensuring quick implementation of approved tasks.