Sourav SEO Case Study - 1k to 100k traffic

Table of Content:

👉🏻​Overview 👉🏻​Professional Summary 👉🏻​Goal Attributes 👉🏻​Screenshots of outcomes 👉🏻​Strategic Approach 👉🏻​Conclusion

SEE HOW I WAS ABLE TO GENERATE NEARLY 2 CRORES OF REVENUE THROUGH SEO ONLY

Overview: For the past few years, the marketing and advertising industry have changed significantly. The new era of the internet has given entrepreneurs & businesses a chance to promote their product/service to millions of users.

Though SEO has a Great ROI, most of the businesses focus on social media & paid ads for promotion. SEO requires hell lot of up-front effort, once you rank, sales will skyrocket with no repetitive expenses. That’s an overview but, doesn’t the idea make you drool?

In case you are looking to hire an ​SEO Expert​ or want to get your hands on some proven SEO strategies, this case study is for you.

So, grab a cup of coffee, open up the Notebook and settle in.

This amazing case study on SEO will help you understand what works best in SEO to drive traffic along with qualifying leads that converts.

Professional Summary: Hey, everyone! This is​ ​Sourav Kumar​. Revenue driven SEO Practitioner & Digital Marketing enthusiast. I help businesses drive organic growth. Started from Internship & became a growth manager in less than a year! I managed to work with national and International Clients as well..

Note:​ I’m here to help those who are struggling with ranking, content distribution, contextual link building etc..

The Goals: • • • • • •

To drive traffic from 1k to 50k Reduce the spam score Generate Organic Leads Build contextual Links Outrank the competitors (Banks, NBFCs) Increase the Domain Authority

Organic Stats when I joined Afinoz(Sep 2018) Traffic DA-PA Alexa Rank Spam Score Impressions in Search Console Number of Keywords Ranking on 1st page Organic Lead

1148 18 & 25 110432 30% 30k 50 10-15

Organic Stats after 1 Year(per month)(March 2020) Traffic DA & PA Alexa Rank Spam Score Impressions in Search Console Number of Keywords Ranking on 1st page Organic Loan lead

90.5k+ 29 & 32

7631 36% 7.75M 3k+ 400+(Daily)

After putting lots of up-front effort, we managed to achieve more than we committed to the management. Check the below screenshot out.

PS : ​If anyone thinks this is a fake screenshot then buy some tools & check it by yourself & you will get a clear picture out there…

Feb 2019:

May Traffic 2020:

Top performing CTR Pages:

Before I describe my all strategies & steps, I took to achieve these numbers I want to drop a disclaimer that the steps & strategies mentioned below may give you results in a month or they can take a year to show results.

The above results for Afinoz is a result of regular work for a year. SEO is not a 4 month process. It’s very Important to keep updating your website to regularly gain trust of Google.

Step by Step How I Achieved these Number Step 1 - Website Audit On Day 1 I did the entire website audit of afinoz & made a list of all On page & Technical Issues found in the website.

Some issues which I found (or you can find) ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Unoptimized or No Meta Tags at all on many pages Pages with low or very thin content Orphan Pages No Schema No proper Internal Linking & outbound links 404 Error Pages High Loading Time Pages with unnecessary Nofollow or NoIndex Tag Mixed Content (When HTML loads in https & other resources (CSS, JS, Images) loads In HTTP Broken Links Open Graph Missing Duplicate Content No Breadcrumb Canonical Tag TOC(Table of Content) Sitemap Structure Keyword Cannibalization Keyword in H1, H2, H3 Tags Mobile Optimized

These are some errors which usually everyone finds in their finds, the more pages your website contains more possibilities of finding such issues.

After finding out these issues my job as a SEO Manager is to categorise these errors on basis of their types & send it to the concerned team who can work to resolve these, such as sending all technical issues list to developer & thin content issues to content writer.

Step 2 - Creating your SEO Strategy As an SEO Manager your job is mainly 1) Optimize your current website as per search engines rules & ensure your website follows all right practises to look authentic in the eyes(or algo) of search engines.

2) Increase organic traffic of your website So after you have analyzed all On page & technical issues of websites & sent them to their respective teams to resolve them, your job is to create a solid SEO strategy.

But, what is Exactly a SEO Strategy?

I am not sure about how other guru’s explain in fancy terms, for me it's just a plan which explains how exactly we will increase our website traffic.

And when it comes to increase organic traffic of your website, there are only 2 ways to achieve this - Increase ranking of current pages - Create more pages & make them rank on search engine And since we did not have enough pages already in our websites we had to do both.

Working on current pages to make them rank seems okay, but various beginners get stuck while creating a plan of writing content (or better relevant content) which not only ranks on Google but also bring traffic & conversions (which was loan leads for us) Creating such a type of Content requires a good understanding of Content Marketing.

Only with a solid Content Marketing Strategy we can bring relevant traffic to our website which will eventually bring business to us.

There are a lot of things covered in Content Marketing Strategy but this case study is not for it.

For people who do not have an idea what Content Marketing is, It's a type of marketing where we leverage content to attract & retain your target audience.

The process of Content Marketing starts with finding the target audience & what their needs are.

Our Target audience was major Salaried persons who may require loan.

And we decide to create quality content to attract them.

The process of creating Quality Content for your website starts with Keyword Research. Lets learn both the concept in our next step

Step 3 - Keyword Research & Content Creation Keyword Research is a simple method to find what exactly your target audience searches in search engines.

My aim in keyword research was to find keywords with low/medium competition with decent to good search volume.

There are various tools which you can use to find such keywords.

After researching for keywords, save them in a spreadsheet or a Content requirement Sheet for your content writers to get an idea on what type of content they need to create.

Use this process to create enough content ideas even for coming months for your content writing team.

Always remember creating a great piece of content is key to rankings.

Note : if you write anything you have to expert on your niche -​ E-A-T My Content Plan Every month Our Team does Keyword research and makes a Content requirement sheet for content Writer.

On Page Content: Our competitor has lots of pages related to banks,nbfcs, instant loan so that every month I research Content Gap what we are missing. So every month we did these things.

1. Content Updation : ​ Our team updates at least 15 pages per month and I’m talking about only adding some sentences or adding an image. Also adding a new paragraphs, Insert internal link , deleting irrelevant paragraphs and you can re-writer some paragraphs as well. If you fix your thin content pages then it will be more beneficial.

2. Creating New pages:​ we have very few pages and they are very much competitive so I research for new pages which are related to our business.

3. Creating Blogs: ​ You must have a blogs section because you can give backlinks for your target pages.

Note : ​you have to think outside the box. You have to find out what your user behavior is if they are not searching your business keyword then what they are searching in google. Make your audience funnel. Let’s suppose if you're going to rank “​online physics tuition in India​” then your user is also looking for physics material. So, you should also create blogs for the other relatable Keywords.

Step 4 - Generating Backlinks & Promotion Many SEO Guys put so much upfront efforts on link building. But still they are not getting good results. Let me tell you what exactly I did for the same.

So, I want to rank "​SBI personal Loan​" what will be my link building strategy?

Steps: I will make a list of top competitors. (use excel sheet)

I will also check all the competitor backlink profile (what type of backlink they created) Also I have to check their internal link.

Most importantly, I will check their Anchor text.

I will surely Check Referring Domains.

Now, I’m clear to my competitor that what type of backlink needs to be created.

Backlink Strategy that actually works for me: 1. Spy on Competitor - ​I almost created backlinks wherever they created.

2. Guest post -​ My Team is very active on this because it will impact on your ranking quickly. if you post an article on a relevant website, you can get traffic as well. I have elaborated about this in detail towards the end so that you don’t miss out on some kickass PR opportunities!

3. Web 2.0 -​ I see many of the SEO people getting huge backlink through web 2.0. we also managed to get a bunch of backlinks from web 2.0 sites along with the proper strategy. We published 100% unique articles with proper internal links, keyword rich anchor text.

4. Article submission -​ we have published a huge number of article submission sites which are very active and less spam.

5. Social Bookmarking –​ We shared blogs on social bookmarking sites and also promoted web 2.0 & guest post articles.

6. Classified -​ Classified links improved local ranking as well.

7. PPT & PDF Submission 8. Video Submission 9. Q & A (we found finance related Q & A sites) 10. Local Listing 11. Startup Directory 12. Link exchange 13. Press Release 14. Image sub

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podcast Sub

Necessary Work : Keyword Rich Anchor Text Having Keyword Rich anchor text is an important element in ranking for competitive terms. Because if you create a backlink with an exact match it will consider spamming.

For example: ​I want to rank on "sbi personal loan '''.I will use anchor text like; Personal loan from sbi, personal loan in sbi, apply loan from sbi, apply personal loan in sbi bank. The mix of anchor text would look pretty natural to Google.

Bonus Tip:​ promote your Target page through facebook but before promoting make sure you implemented Hotjar (heatmap tracking tool) you can check that user behavior.

Step 5 - SPY on your Competitor There are a few objectives for analyzing your competitors: ● To find New Keyword Opportunity ● To see what type of content are performing well ● To find link opportunity ● Check their Top performing pages ● Check their On page Strategy ( internal link, anchor text ratio, outbound links, side-wide links, CTA(click to action button), Content Structure, ● Last Concern: In concrete terms, performing an SEO competitor analysis lets you:

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Learn what works and what doesn’t in your industry.

Find competitors’ weaknesses, and capitalize on them.

Find competitors’ strengths, and replicate them.

Understand what SEO tasks to prioritize going forward.

Understand how difficult outperforming competitors in the SERPs is likely to be. ​(By Ahref)

Note : Download SEO Competitor Analysis by Moz - ​Click here

The X Factor - Holistic Branding & PR One thing that many of us tend to sideline is the power of Branding & PR. ​Apart from publishing the desired volume of content and creating quality backlinks, we never ignored the look and feel of our website. The use of creatives and the kind of colour pattern that goes with it are a very crucial part of this exercise. Let's have a look at some of the screenshots attached below:

As you can see from above, we changed the complete look of the blog section and each post had a set of identical patterns for creatives, which gives Google the notion of a brand when it crawls the website periodically.

What about the External Branding?

To rank higher on any high competitive keyword is no child’s play. We took refuge in branding our content on different platforms where we also got the hyperlinks pointing to our mainsite.

Check a few of the links where we have published our content with hyperlink. One thing to note is that getting a do-follow backlink from good volume sites may not always be necessary as if not for core SEO, it would always add to your branding!

Economic Times https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/afinoz-ai-based-instant-loan-ma rket-place-receives-seed-funding-from-top-silicon-valley-investors/articleshow/72543254. cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/borrow/cash-salary-no-experience-at-credit -now-avail-instant-loans-at-nominal-interest-rate/articleshow/73803529.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/borrow/bid-adieu-to-multiple-lending-appsafinoz-app-is-your-one-stop-shop-for-all-borrowing-needs/articleshow/74294334.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/borrow/how-fintech-startup-afinoz-is-riding -on-young-indias-cash-crunch/articleshow/74395249.cms WCRC Leaders - Awarded as the most promising brand in Fintech 2019 https://wcrcleaders.com/afinoz-indias-most-promising-digital-finance-brand/ Deccan Chronicle https://www.deccanchronicle.com/business/in-other-news/131119/impact-of-an-online-fin ancial-marketplace-on-todays-millennial.html

Yourstory https://yourstory.com/2019/12/weekly-funding-roundup-startups-raised-2465-m-in-e inc42 https://inc42.com/buzz/top-indian-startup-funding-galore-134-december/ BW Disrupt http://bwdisrupt.businessworld.in/article/AI-Based-Instant-Loan-Market-Place-Afinoz-Rec eives-Seed-Funding-/16-12-2019-180540/ IBS Intelligence https://ibsintelligence.com/ibs-journal/ibs-news/afinoz-receives-seed-funding-from-top-sil icon-valley-investors/

What about the PR? Getting desired PR value is no child’s play and for us it was a herculean task as well. So what did we do??

Well for starters we started publishing content on some of the high authority websites and of course the media portals as shown above. It is always advisable to keep some money for submitting your guest posts on high authority websites as it will contribute the link juice to your main site in the longer run. Normally, publishing your article takes around $10-15 dollars for a 900+ word article with 2 do-follow backlinks.

If you are looking for a massive boost with PR then you can also go for some good websites listed in our ​PR Portals sheet

The combined outcome?

At the beginning of December we were reeling with a direct traffic of around 3000 monthly visitors, which rose more than 6 times in a span of the next 3 months. So, by the end of February our monthly direct traffic swelled to around 18000 visitors. After posting on different good DA websites, we were finally being taken seriously Google!This is the impact of doing your branding on different portals. Please note that direct traffic is of the users who land directly on your website.

In case you need any kind of assistance related to media or press releases(PR) of any kind then swiftly get in touch with me. I can bring out some amazing options for you.

Step 6 - How i Reduced Spam Score( 36% to 1%) When I joined Afinoz, our major concern was traffic and spam score. Since then traffic was hardly around 900 & the spam score was 30%.

After 2 months, it increased to 38% & traffic was constant there. I was worried about how spam scores are increasing day by day. I don’t know much about spam scores but somehow, I need to decrease them.

So, I started reading too many blogs regarding the same. I asked on fb groups, SEO community, but I didn't get a genuine way to reduce spam score.

The conclusion is, It takes time to reduce spam score by performing such tasks …

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Remove your backlink from spammy sites.

Don’t get too much backlink from web 2.0 sites.

Remove Copy content.

Get High quality backlinks through guest posts, blogger outreach, web 2.0.

5. Don’t use spammy-looking anchor text.

6. Disavow highly spam score sites.

7. Remove or improve your thin pages Reference : I​f you want to know more that how moz spam score is works then - click here Note:​ I Just want to inform you that Search Engines like Google does not consider the spam scores.

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After :

7th Steps: Track Your SEO Monthly I have made an SEO Goal Sheet Where we are tracking monthly keyword ranking, Backlink status, monthly traffic (direct, referral, organic), organic lead, Brand Search, Total number of pages Ranking on 1st page, 2nd page and 3rd page. Crawl budget.

What You Can Track 1.

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Monthly Traffic (Organic, referral, Direct, others) Check Monthly Ranking of your keywords Top 10 Ranking keywords 10 to 20th position Ranking Keywords

5. Bounce Rate 6. CTR 7. User Behaviour ( by hotjar) 8. Meta Data 9. Content Structure 10. Page Speed 11. Brand Search 12. Low-Quality Links 13. Crawl Budget 14. CTA performance ( We are getting 200+ leads through CTA Button)

Extra Tips What other things to keep in mind 1)Keep your pages & post updated 2)Keep Updating Meta Tags to improve CTR 3)Focus on getting returning visitors (Building subscribers ) 4)Branding to increase Brand Name Searches

Conclusion: The above SEO case study shows how businesses can be improved by the right use of SEO. I have Increased numbers of active visitors, generated growth in organic traffic, spike in total sales are all proof that SEO is a highly effective business investment in the long term.

If you want the right results, you must hire the right people. SEO is one of the most underrated forms of marketing on the internet. Without having much knowledge of SEO, many companies & freelancers guarantee a top ranking. They are in the chase of after your money and will not be interested to grow your business.

You must know how to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Hiring An SEO Consultant? Ask some of the key metrics mentioned above, which will help you hire a trustworthy Guy. I hope the above key points will help you to drive organic growth to the next level.

Cheers :)

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