Two months ago I partnered on a high-potential affiliate website in the home furnishing niche.
The site reviews one of the most competitive and expensive pieces of furniture that a person can buy for their home.
As expected… competition is fierce.
In a little over 2 months, we were able to quadruple traffic to the site by dramatically increasing rankings from the middle of page 2 to the top of page 1. In addition, we increased conversion nearly 2x by optimizing both design and call-to-actions (CTAs).
As a result, profit doubled.
What did I do to make this happen?
You are about to get the exact playbook on how I increased rankings and conversions, so you can apply these steps to your site as well.
Meet Josh
As you might have already guessed, this is a LeadSpring LaunchPad case study – similar to the previous affiliate case study that was performed here.
At LeadSpring, we partner with affiliate SEOs with the goal of growing income to maximum levels and sharing the additional profits.
For this case study, I partnered with Josh Kelly from Hammerhead Domains.
Josh is a busy guy. Under his list of responsibilities, he…
- Owns 40 affiliate websites
- Maintains a PBN network of over 1500 sites
- Serves over 5000 happy customers at Hammerhead
- Visits over 7 countries each year (first world problems)
A couple of months ago Josh approached me about a JV opportunity on the site we’ll be discussing in this article.
This is how LaunchPad partnerships work:
At the time of partnering, you don’t have to do any more SEO on the site. No new content, no PBNs… nada! LeadSpring takes over everything.
Any additional profit added to the site is split 50-50.
Why did Josh decide to partner with LeadSpring?
Let’s ask him…
Well basically it just seemed like good ROI to me. I can focus on building new sites and you guys can focus on taking them to the next level.
The other thing is that you guys are working on stuff that’s not really on my radar. Improving the monetization and email list building are two things that particularly stood out to me.
For this site in particular, I also had been building new links to it for a while and wasn’t seeing any movement. So I figured if you guys can get it to move in the SERPs, that’s a win-win.
I too thought it was a win-win, and thus, a partnership was forged.
Here’s a quick snapshot of the site’s growth over these short two months…
Growth Metrics over the Past Two Months
The Testcase
Enough jibber-jabber. Let’s get into the details.
While I can’t reveal the exact site or niche, Josh has basically given me the green light to discuss everything else.
Here are the stats:
Monetization:
- Before Partnering: Amazon affiliate 100%
- After Partnering: Amazon affiliate + private deals
- Niche: Home furniture
- Size: 17 Indexed Pages
- Site age: 1 year 6 months
- Ranking methodology: PBN and press release
- Daily traffic:
- Before partnering: 118 unique visitors
- After two months: 501 unique visitors
How we Shot the Site up the SERPs and Tripled Rankings in 2 Months
Onsite SEO Wins
1. Added highly-optimized fresh content to ranking pages
We noticed a couple of weaknesses in the content on some of the pages.
- The content hadn’t been updated in months.
- Some of the main target keyword phrases hadn’t been mentioned in a sequential string.
Essentially, we added over 3000 words of content across all ranking pages in order to satisfy the fresh content algorithm.
In addition, we made sure that each page’s main keywords had their exact string explicitly mentioned in the content at least once.
For example, if the page’s main keywords were “dog training tips”, “guide for training your dog”, and “how to train a dog”, we made sure that these exact strings were written on the page.
2. Optimized SEO Title Tags and H1’s
We performed an audit of SEO title tags and h1’s and took note of which pages had entries that were…
- Repeating words
- Lacking their main keywords towards the front
These small changes resulted in some very quick wins.
Download my onsite SEO guide for more information on how to optimize key onsite fixtures such as titles and other metas.
3. 301’d a dead URL
At some point, the URL was changed for one of the main pages.
The old URL still had some nice links pointing to it so we simply repurposed that link juice by 301’ing that dead URL to the newly changed URL.
Easy-breezy.
4. De-optimized Alt Tags
Certain pages had a very high keyword density.
This was not because there were too many instances of the keywords in the content, but because there were over 10 images that had used the keywords in the alt tags.
By de-optimizing these alt tags, we brought the density down to a reasonable amount.
(Bet-cha didn’t know this was a “thing”)
5. Added outbound authority links
For critical pages that we wanted to rank, we made sure they had outbound authority links.
Daily Traffic Increase over 2 Months
Offsite SEO Wins
6. Adjusted anchor text distributions
We performed niche-specific target anchor text analysis on the competition to determine the ideal anchor text distribution.
The result showed that many URLs required some pillowing so we sent a few URL and misc anchors using…
7. Links from traffic-generating PBNs
We diagnosed which pages were lacking link juice and hit them with niche-specific PBNs that were already ranking and generating traffic themselves.
Overall we sent 11 links to the site.
These dramatically increased rankings in an average of 10 days.
When Matt started sending links, that’s when traffic and earnings really increased. One page in particular that’s targeting two 5-6k/month keywords popped from the bottom of page 2 to the middle of page 1. – Josh
8. Balanced the distribution of homepage versus inner page links
The homepage for this site isn’t optimized for any keywords. It merely serves as a portal to the many silo pages which indeed rank.
Because of this, the homepage had a lack of links going to it.
We balanced out the believability and naturalness of the link profile by sending more links to the homepage.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Wins
9. Created a brand new theme design from scratch
This site needed a makeover. We took it from “pretty ugly” to “damn pretty”.
Using Thrive Themes, we custom built our own theme, which included:
- A lighter, more visually-friendly color scheme
- Beautiful graphics
- A new custom logo
- A minimal but functional navigation bar menu instead of a sidebar
Note: When learning how to do affiliate marketing, pretty doesn’t always equal more sales. A lot of times, ugly converts better as it is more believable as being an honest, 3rd party review site. In this case, since the price of the items being sold is so high, conversions shot up when we brought sexy back.
10. Optimized Call-To-Actions (CTA)
We changed the CTA textual links and buttons to display our prized, highly split-tested, best-converting button.
You’ll have to buy me a beer sometime to get this from me.
11. Improved readability and time-on-site
We kicked off each article with a custom introduction image, each with an attractive cursive font, which gently whispered to the reader, “Hey there. You’ve landed on the right page. Stay and have a read, my friend.”
In addition, we broke up walls-of-text with images so people wouldn’t be intimidated into thinking they might actually have to read.
12. Optimized comparison tables for conversion
First, we reorganized tables to have products listed horizontally (i.e. by row) and thus friendlier for stealing the featured snippet.
Next, we clearly numbered each of the table’s products as #1, #2, and #3 to quickly inform the reader which product is the best.
Conclusion
In just over two months, I think we’re safe to say this this project has been a success.
Here’s what Josh had to say about the Leadspring experience:
Overall, I’ve been very happy with the experience. They’ve added a ton of value to the site while allowing me to be completely hands off.
Personally, I also want to give a special shoutout to LeadSpring team members Jay and Ken for their valuable contributions on this site.
What do we have planned for the future of this project?
One of our specialties at LeadSpring is creative monetization.
We’re currently in discussions with manufacturers and have negotiated much higher affiliate payouts than what’s currently offered by Amazon. This is especially important in this niche with Amazon’s payment structure changes.
Those should go live next month and allow us to jump from a 2x profit increase to a 6x increase.
There is no doubt in my mind that, in due time, this site can break 5-figures per month.
If you believe that you have a site that has untapped potential and might be a candidate for LeadSpring, apply now.
For everyone else…
Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more case studies like this to come in the near future.
Solid article and solid work guys. It is work that simply “makes sense” on what to do to to an affiliate site that needs help.
Enjoyed the image alt tag de-optimisation. Never thought of this as “word count” per say, however when thinking about it from a search engine point of view, simply click “view source” and it now makes sense. 🙂
Spot on, Yannis.
What tool are you using to do the on-site analysis, Matt?
Leadspring seems like an absolute no-brainer to me. You guys are the experts in this field so it’s very unlikely that you won’t be able to improve what someone else has produced. So essentially you are saying would you like 50% of revenue that you are unlikely to achieve on your own.
I am seriously considering producing a site just so I can partner with you.
I would never use a tool to do onsite analysis. I don’t know many humans that up to LeadSpring standard, let alone software.
Another great post Matt! Appreciate it!!
Thanks, Gary.
Awesome post !! keep it up buddy 🙂 🙂
I recently started an amazon niche site. Hopefully, I can use these tips to get most out of my site.
Thanks Matt for the post. All your posts are really helpful.
This is amazing – awesome case study Matt!
I thought I remember reading this before in a different post of yours but on the lines of keywords in image alt tags, what about image filenames with keywords in them? Do those seem to affect kw density as well?
Correcto.
As usual good stuff Matt!
Great case study – I noticed that you added private deals into the mix.
How did you go about looking for these?
The old fashioned way. Contact manufacturers.
This is pure awesomeness, Matt! Can’t wait to get my first affiliate site earning $500+/ month so I can apply to LeadSpring.
Nice. Looking forward to your application.
Hey Matt,
Great case study. Was a great read, and there was much to take from this one.
I’m a bit confused on the conclusion you made on optimal layout a table should have for the best chances of landing in the featured snippet. For me it sounds like you say that the products should be vertically listed in the featured snippet guide, whereas in this article, you say that you list them horizontally?
So which of these 2 tables have you noticed gets the snippet most often? (horizontal vs. veritical)
1. (horizontal product listings)
http://i.imgur.com/zVVPtXQ.jpg
VS.
2. (vertical product listings).
http://i.imgur.com/W743Gw9.jpg
—
Thank you
The nomenclature confuses me as well… but #2.
Thank for your article Matt!
I will build my Niche site follow your advance.
Great article, as always 🙂 I were a little surprised about the image alt tag de-optimization. I was under the impression that the image alt tag should be used to explain G what the image is showing. With a lot of products, this simply mean that you have to use the keyword or at least some of it, on pretty much all pictures(a good example is a computer mouse, since it has no synonym what so ever). Is it better to flat out lie and write something else in order to de-optimize? Thanks for the great read though!
Code is code and keywords are keywords. Just know that you’re adding to the density with alt tags and adjust accordingly.
Hey Matt,
Nice case study!
Can you dig into and write about private deals more? Do you mean you guys contacting to product owner and making $/sale or just flat monthly fee to promote for th best product ?
Really curious outside the box thinking how to monetize websites without Amazon.
Yeah… I’ll start putting something together.
Great! Can’t wait to read it!
Great as always. I also recently had a client whose alt tags were keyword heavy, simply buy making that one change I saw I quick jump.
True story.
The alt tag comment is gold, most of the sites I work with are photographers that put the same keyword every image’s alt text for a 100 image blog post.
Love your case studies.
Hey Matt,
Great article as usual. Thank you for continuing to provide such actionable information.
One question. Where’s the “buy me a beer” button to get a peek at your split tested CTA button? Couldn’t find it anywhere. 🙂
Cheers,
Jason
Hah!
Jason, lol, you beat me to it! I was about to ask until I saw your post! Come on Matt, let us buy you a digital beer. =D
The cat is actually me and how I feel after I read a diggity post.
The Leadspring Program seems like such a win. Looking forward to hopefully reaching that point where application is possible (only making about $300-600 monthly at the moment) but truthfully unsure how much more profitable my niche is.
Regardless some great stuff as always.
Excellent article Matt, I remain a doubt, it is good or bad the density of keywords in this case if the keyword is in all ALT of the images, this I am not clear.
The main takeaway is that alt tags add to your total density.
“Hey there. You’ve landed on the right page. Stay and have a read, my friend.” – LMAO.
Matt, great case study, nice and transparent, which is really appreciated.
I have a question, of all the changes you made, as a percentage, how much do you think the 11 inbound links contributed to the overall success? I’m trying to gauge how important the other matters were. I appreciate that they all work hand in hand obviously, but I rate it’s possible to give an idea..
Probably 50-50% split between PBNs and onsite SEO.
Fantastic stuff! New here but have been reading your other case studies. Learned a lot already! Loved the on-page seo guide. The PBN’s that have traffic going to them is very interesting..would love to hear more on that or maybe you’ve already written about it so will search that out. Thanks for taking the time to educate the rest of us. Cheers!
Here you go Jason: click here.
Thanks!
Love the article mate. I been also de-optimising alt tags writing long tail synonyms keywords in there…
Great article, thanks for sharing guys!
Love your blog, always learn so much useful stuff from your articles.
Just applied for LeadSpring, maybe, I will get lucky =)
Wow Matt, this is another awesome example of your expertise. Can’t wait til I get that great Leadspring worthy idea 😉
definitely useful info! And love the cat walking away from the explosion LOL
nobody mentioned these awesome pics! so true… 🙂
do you offer leadspring for foreign languages? or just english speaking websites?
We prefer English, but take anything.
Hello Matt,
I`ve read your on-page guide and i was curious to see an example of on-page optimization for a local business (i still see a lot of people ranking when their H1`s are almost identical to the SEO title tag. So my question to you is this
If your main keyword is let`s say “Las Vegas NV personal injury lawyer” how you would set up the page title? I mean what you would use in this case ?
Thanks in advance for answering
Hi Matt,
I`ve read your on-page guide and I want to ask you something. If your main keyword would be “Las Vegas NV personal injury lawyer” can you provide an example of one (or more) page titles ?
Thanks in advance
John Smith: Personal Injury Lawyer in Las Vegas, Nevada
Absolute gold as always Matt, I’ve just started building out a couple of my own niche sites following our chat and I’ll be honest; my entire objective is to get them to a point where I can apply for Leadspring – looking forward to it! 🙂
Godspeed, my friend.
“The result showed that many URLs required some pillowing so we sent a few URL and misc anchors using…”
What did you use for pillowing? The traffic generating PBNs? 11 links doesn’t sound like a lot as far as pillowing is concerned, unless the target pages didn’t have a lot of links to begin with.
Correct. Traffic generating PBNs. We’re dealing with high power PBNs here. Doesn’t take many to rank.
Hey Matt, Great Article!
I have one question, when you added the PBN links with traffic, was it permanently add to the homepage or an internal page that rolls off the homepage?
Permanent homepage.
Hey Matt, care to share the OBL on those permanent style pbns? Thx
3-4 including authority links.
Hi Matt, great article as usual! Thank you for posting all those case studies.
I would like to ask you a question regarding KW density. In your onpage SEO-Guide you say anywhere between 2-4% is fine.
Now if I am targeting “best electric cordless beard shaver” it looks very unnatural to have all the single KWs in the content between 2-4%. Words like “best” or “review” naturally have a much lower KW density and in this example “electric” and “cordless” would have a lower density, too. Because most of the times you use the word “shaver” in the text, you won’t write “electric cordless shaver” every single time, but just “shaver”.
What to do about that? Still push up the density to 2-4%? Looks like sth only an SEO would do…
If it’s better to not push up the density artificially, what percentage are you aiming for then?
Thank you for your help!
Dani
If you’re trying to rank “best electric cordless beard shaver”, you don’t always need to have these words together in a string. This is the key point.
Yes, thanks 🙂 And what about the single KW density of each word? 2-4% for all of them?
That’s about what I use.
Thank you Matt for taking the time :). I just want to make sure that I understood you correctly:
“best”, “electric”, “cordless”, “beard” and “shaver” – all those single KWs should have a density of 2-4%?
Keep up the great work! I appreciate it.
Yes.
Great post Matt,
I wasn’t aware that balancing anchor text ration could make such a difference!
Thanks for that tip.
Would you still increase the density for all single KWs that are not in the 2-4% range, if your page is already ranking for all the main KWs in the TOP 5 in a low-medium comp niche?
(For some of the KWs density is as low as 0,4%, but competition has about the same density for same KWs.)
Thank you so much!! 🙂 Best Regards
Dani
No. This range is a maximum. You’re certainly ok with having words lower than this.
On page SEO is definitely very important as without this spiders won’t find the site. Overall great article. Good job
Hi Matt,
Love the content you guys produce!
Regarding SEO Title Tags.
You teach that we should not use a keyword (e.g. city name) more than once in a title tag…….however what if you want to add your company name to the seo title tag …….but your company name includes the city name?
Is your company name a major recognizable brand name? If not, then there’s really no use in putting it on that critical serp real estate.
Hey Matt,
Having read your awesome on-page guide i’m revisiting some old sites that have dropped in rank over time (no penalties, just not kept up with the times I think).
A typical page is 2000 words and targets keywords like “roof repair Kentucky”. Having looked at the source and done some counting I get:
roof repair kentucky – 2
roof repair in kentucky – 1
roof repairs kentucky – 1
kentucky roof repair – 4
kentucky roof repair – 1
roof repairs – 10
roof repair – 30
roof – 84
roofing – 24
repair – 48
repairs – 20
kentucky – 24
Which seems a bit high in places! What kind of figures should I be aiming for? It’s hard to write about this subject without writing ‘roof’ a load of times lol
Am on the list for the PBNs… can’t wait to get access 🙂
The answer is in the onsite guide. I try to target 2-3% single word.
Thanks Matt…
So actually, given that it’s a 2000 word article and 2-3% would 40-60 mentions, only the term ‘roof’ is above that target?
Would you suggest cutting down anyway or would that be somewhat underoptimised?
That’s about right.
Nice compilation of actions in this case study, it’s great you share visibility on specific projects. I was not aware of the img alt-tags keyword density, as this is one of the point that many SEO tools highlight.
Thanks Matt!
My pleasure.
Great article Matt, in terms of links I am thinking of linking from the homepage of one more my more powerful affiliate sites to one of my new ones with something like “visit our sister site”
Do you think there is a google penalty danger with this?
I wouldn’t. Compare whats to gain vs whats to lose.
Hey Matt what sort of backlinks, besides PBNs, are a must for an affiliate site?
Also regarding affiliate sites and PBNs, what fraction of all of the backlinks are PBNs in %? Would it be more than 50%?
I like citations and outreach.
Nice one! I have a site that i was thinking of partnering with leadspring. But how does leadspring work ? I mean when i have the domain ownership, how do we start and incase we decide to sell the site ( or i decide to sell ) then how does it work ? Would love to know more about this model.
Hey Chris… everything is split on top of what the “baseline” is when we start the partnership… including the flip. More information can be found at leadspring.org.
great Idea! I think I have to find good partnership! 😀 because I have pbn with Tf53 and CF 40! and actually its not hard to find good metric! but its hard to find good JV, with potential partner 😀
True that.
Hey Matt, Great Article!
I have one question, when you added the PBN links with traffic, was it permanently add to the homepage or an internal page that show on the homepage ?
The latter.
Matt, great case study, nice and transparent, which is really appreciated.
Amazing Tips! I have tested these SEO tips and are 100% working on affiliate marketing