This post will highly deviate from the format of my regular posts.
I’ve had quite a few requests to release a case study where I delve into the actual steps I’ve taken to get a site ranked higher and generating more profit.
So here we are.
In this article, we’re going to take a look at a particular affiliate website that grew in monthly profit by 179% in less than two months.
I’ll reveal the exact actions that I took to improve the site’s organic rankings and conversion rate optimization (CRO), resulting in nearly double the profit.
Before we get started, I’d like to make a quick introduction…
Meet Alex
Other than being a super handsome guy and a near-clone of Jake Gyllenhaal, Alex is a really good SEO.
Alex produces and ranks high-quality affiliate sites in the Amazon affiliate space, which allows him to travel and surf the globe nonstop. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Alex had a problem, though. He was spending more and more time focusing on new projects and, let’s not forget, surfing. In doing so, he was neglecting some of his projects that he knew deserved more attention than they were getting.
To fix this, Alex applied to my LeadSpring Launchpad JV affiliate program. We decided we were a good fit and forged a partnership. As a result, I assumed responsibility over the ranking and conversion rate optimization (CRO) of one of his affiliate sites.
This is how Launchpad works. I take over the management of one of your sites. From that point on, you do nothing. No more PBNs, content updates… nothing.
Whatever profit I add to the site, we split 50-50%.
Before partnering, Alex was making $2900 from his site. We increased profit to $5204. So essentially I’ve added $2304 additional profit added to the site which is split 50-50%.
In two months’ time, Alex is making $4052, while doing absolutely nothing.
It’s a solid win-win.
I talked to Alex and he’s graciously given his permission for me to discuss the site’s biggest wins regarding SEO and CRO.
Of course we’re not giving away the niche or the URL, but here’s what you need to know:
Monetization: Amazon affiliate and a bit of AdSense
Niche: Home products
Size: 55 Indexed Pages
Site age: 2 years
Ranking methodology: PBN
Daily traffic:
Before partnering: ~195 unique visitors
After two months: ~327 unique visitors
Profit:
Before partnering: $2900/month
After two months: $5204/month
How We Nearly Doubled Revenue in Two Months
SEO Wins
1) Cast a Wider Net with Onsite SEO
Two of the biggest onsite SEO keyword placeholders are the SEO title tag (<title>) and the page title (H1).
The SEO title tag can accommodate 70 characters while the page title can be any length you want, as long as you don’t look spammy. This gives us a ton of bandwidth to sneak in keywords into these critical on-page spots.
We were able to target 324 additional longtail keywords by intelligently rewriting title tags and H1s. The key is to increase the range of longtail coverage, while making sure to avoid keyword stuffing and over-optimization.
By looking at the total word count of each page and comparing it to various keyword counts, we found that a few pages were overly dense.
Reducing these densities gave us a quick win, as was expected with onsite SEO changes.
3) Reorganized the Inter-Linking Architecture
We performed a diagnosis of each page on the site and listed them in order of:
High traffic
High buyer intent
Once we could prioritize which pages were the most important to rank, we directed more link juice and topical relevance to the most critical ones. At the same time, we unlinked pages that had little topical similarity.
This is easier said than done, as it requires a bit of experience with understanding how and why Google would think that some pages are similar, but once that’d understood, the rewards are fab.
4) Technical cleanup
We audited the site, cleaned up empty alt tags, fixed the sitemap, removed redundant structural markup, and added schema.
Boring stuff… but it all counts.
5) Hit it with an Offsite Makeover
We gave the site the full Diggity offsite package, including:
All of these SEO wins stacked up over time, and in two months, we increased daily traffic by 50%.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Wins
6) Increased the Frequency of In-line Call-to-Actions (CTAs)
There’s a sweet spot when it comes to conversion. You don’t want too many CTAs on a page as it might turn-off the reader. But then again, you don’t want too few.
We applied various A/B tests to figure out each page’s sweet spot to ensure that we get the highest amount of clicks to our offers.
People are busy. More often than not, visitors won’t take the time to read content, even if it solves their problems.
For these folks, we created comparison tables for them to be able to quickly determine which product best meets their needs.
8) Made the Site Prettier and more User-friendly
We added more relevant images to the content. This not only increases the perceived value of a website, but it also reduces huge walls-of-text that might have caused readers to bounce because they got bored.
We have to remember that we’re in an age where our attention spans are highly fickle. Adding in interesting images will keep a person on-site, which increases their chances of clicking CTAs.
Tip: Split test your images around call to actions. For example, someone smiling vs. someone angry can all have a surprising effect on conversions.
9) Made the Site Mobile-Friendly.
We tossed the site into a mobile compatibility checker and saw that a few of the CTAs weren’t showing up because the pages weren’t responsive.
This was fixed and as a result, no matter how you’re viewing the site (whether it is on a PC, tablet, or phone) you have access to all of the content, images, and most importantly, CTAs.
Tip: Track to see how many of your visitors are coming from mobile. You can do this in Analytics or Clicky. Many sites have more mobile visitors than desktop. Make sure you are serving these users the best you can.
In just under two months, this project was a huge success and today the profit continues to grow. We’re on track to increase site revenue by another 50% at the end of this month and, so far, we see no sign of this niche hitting a plateau. The sky seems to be the limit.
Here’s what Alex had to say about the Launchpad experience…
The funny thing is, as happy as Alex is with our partnership, we’re equally as happy to be working with him. That’s what JVs are all about.
If partnering up is also something that you’re interested in doing, make sure to apply at LeadSpring.org.
Over time, I’ll be releasing more of these case studies, highlighting the factors that yielded the biggest wins in our projects. Stay tuned.
I LOVE case studies like this, and am delighted you’ll be doing more of them in future. It’s great to be able to learn what’s working (or indeed, not working) for some of the top guys in seo; sharing such knowledge helps everyone improve their abilities, and it looks like you had some great results in this case study.
I feel so much smarter now. I like the trend that content is becoming more and more important. This case studies are very useful for my future of SEO career. What are the best ways to reduce Keyword density from on-page work.
Great tips thanks. It is amazing how SEO has changed over the past few years. Will be going through all my seo titles and H1 as well as checking keyword density. Thanks again.
I am very close to jumping on board your leadspring service. I have 3 or so affiliate sites that I think would be a great fit but I’m not quite at the threshold for getting accepted. I’ll take these tips into consideration and see if I can get them up there myself then apply for the program and hopefully make us both a lot of money.
Just starting a new branded website. So glad to read all the tips so I can use them as I am building the site and not have to go back and change web content afterwards.
After re-reading this post I came up with couple of questions:
1) You’ve said “We were able to target 324 additional longtail keywords by intelligently rewriting title tags and H1s.” I’m wondering did you include any of those longtail keywords anywhere in the content as a normal text or as H2/H3 tags?
2) What do you mean by “comprehensive and holistic social fortress” ? Do you mean filling up those accounts with some content and interlinking with each other?
Hi Matt, thanks for the awesome case study. This is exactly what I need: seeing theory put into practice, with results you can measure. One thing I’ve been wondering about w.r.t. onsite optimisation: do you ever change page URLs when you do onsite optimisation for a new site? Or if the URL is bad, do you stick with it and just optimise everything else?
Hi Matt, that’s a great case study. Just started reading your articles, I must say there’s so much value in your content, am already hooked 🙂
Matt, can I ask you for some advice, I’m in the beginning stages of learning SEO & want to learn by doing it. So can you refer to an online resource or a course about affiliate SEO where I can learn & put my (affiliate) SEO skills into practice?
What’s the requirement besides $1000/month to join Leadspring? I have the impression that the backlink profile must be squeaky clean….but it seems like Alex’s ranking methodology was PBN.
This is a list of the tools and services that I'm currently using to rank my own sites. Everything you find here has been tested and proven to show value in the many tests you've seen on my blog.
Diggity Marketing's
Evergreen Onsite SEO Guide
30 pages filled with years of research in Onsite SEO.
Covers everything. From optimization to schema.
Always up-to-date with the latest findings.
"I couldn't recommend Matt'sOnsite SEO Guide enough. No fluff there. Just facts." - Gareth Bull, Bulldog Digital Media
I LOVE case studies like this, and am delighted you’ll be doing more of them in future. It’s great to be able to learn what’s working (or indeed, not working) for some of the top guys in seo; sharing such knowledge helps everyone improve their abilities, and it looks like you had some great results in this case study.
Keep up the good work!
I feel so much smarter now. I like the trend that content is becoming more and more important. This case studies are very useful for my future of SEO career. What are the best ways to reduce Keyword density from on-page work.
Regards,
Sindhu Bell
Hi Sindhu. Replace high density words with their synonyms.
Matt am using my focus keyword on H1, First Paragraph and Last paragraph only, Is that enough???
Definitely don’t forget the SEO title tag.
yes sure Title, Description and URL also am using,
Thanks Matt
Hi Matt,
great article as usual – I really like to come over to your place and read your new blog entries.
Results speak for themselves.
Thank you, Philipp
Excellent case study. Keep ’em coming! About ‘2) Reduced Keyword Density’ ..what’s your current take on this in regards to %?
Aboput 2-3% single-word depending on the niche.
Really, keyword density should keep in mind for better seo.
Thanks a lot for sharing.
Hi Matt, what kind of requirement to partnering up with you? I applied it already but never get any replay
Hi Sam. We reply to everyone. I’d check your spam box.
Great tips thanks. It is amazing how SEO has changed over the past few years. Will be going through all my seo titles and H1 as well as checking keyword density. Thanks again.
I am very close to jumping on board your leadspring service. I have 3 or so affiliate sites that I think would be a great fit but I’m not quite at the threshold for getting accepted. I’ll take these tips into consideration and see if I can get them up there myself then apply for the program and hopefully make us both a lot of money.
Looking forward to it, Trent.
Great article! Will apply those tips immediately. Thanks!
Just starting a new branded website. So glad to read all the tips so I can use them as I am building the site and not have to go back and change web content afterwards.
Hi Matt,
After re-reading this post I came up with couple of questions:
1) You’ve said “We were able to target 324 additional longtail keywords by intelligently rewriting title tags and H1s.” I’m wondering did you include any of those longtail keywords anywhere in the content as a normal text or as H2/H3 tags?
2) What do you mean by “comprehensive and holistic social fortress” ? Do you mean filling up those accounts with some content and interlinking with each other?
Thanks as always!
1) There were ever more that were added in non-metas. I was just referring to the title tags and h1s.
2) We have a process. 🙂
Very insightful. Explained in detail.
Thanks for the article Matt.
Hi Matt, thanks for the awesome case study. This is exactly what I need: seeing theory put into practice, with results you can measure. One thing I’ve been wondering about w.r.t. onsite optimisation: do you ever change page URLs when you do onsite optimisation for a new site? Or if the URL is bad, do you stick with it and just optimise everything else?
If its really, REALLY bad, I’ll change it. Rarely though.
Hi Matt,
Thank you for your case study. I want to know-
1. What was the conversion rate before the contract? and,
2. What was the conversion rate after 2 months?
I am curiously interested to know!
Sorry, we didn’t track overall conversion rate data. Just increases per CTA.
Hi Matt, that’s a great case study. Just started reading your articles, I must say there’s so much value in your content, am already hooked 🙂
Matt, can I ask you for some advice, I’m in the beginning stages of learning SEO & want to learn by doing it. So can you refer to an online resource or a course about affiliate SEO where I can learn & put my (affiliate) SEO skills into practice?
Will let you know if I find something for you.
I am curious to know I to join this? Having website making $800 per month… Can I become like Alex?
$1000+ is the minimum entry level.
Great Case Study mate.
Really practical. Will surely apply this to my niche site.
Thanks Matt
What’s the requirement besides $1000/month to join Leadspring? I have the impression that the backlink profile must be squeaky clean….but it seems like Alex’s ranking methodology was PBN.
Helps to have a clean backlink profile, but more importantly there’s got to be upside.
Hey Matt, greetings from Brazil. Before jumping in affiliate marketing do you recommend building a pbn around a chosen niche? Btw great article.
Niche down to the level of “health” or “home”. You don’t need to go all the way down to building “sprained ankle” or “floor rug” PBN.