SEO Shopware case study. The inside story of 9 000% organic visibility growth

Furthermore, the fashion industry is exceptionally competitive and characterized by seasonality. For these reasons retailers need to make changes in their offerings and marketing strategies.

MT Collection is a premier online fashion retailer on a mission to provide its customers with high-quality products from top global brands in the simplest, fastest, and most hassle-free manner. Each product that MT Collection offers is carefully selected and absolutely authentic.

The store prides itself on its commitment to quality, as evidenced by the fact that the team members themselves use the products they sell, be it clothing, shoes, or backpacks. Among the brands available in their shop, customers can find internationally recognized names such as Calvin Klein, Lacoste, and Tommy Hilfiger. In addition, MT Collection carries specialized brands, admired for their functionality like Geox, Birkenstock shoes, and Cabaia's waterproof, customizable backpacks and accessories. Timeless classics such as Fjallraven Kanken backpacks, Dr. Martens shoes, and Crocs can also be found within their vast range of products.
MT Collection combines different shopping worlds, from the more casual to the more sophisticated. However, the most important things are always the high quality and 100% originality of the clothes, shoes and accessories.

At MT Collection, we not only work on the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but also take charge of the development of the Shopware system for this e-commerce, and contribute to parts of the User Experience (UX) design.

Shopware 6 stands as one of the most potent e-commerce platforms available today, thanks to its robustness and high level of customizability. It's the preferred choice of many enterprise-level retailers, including prominent names such as Douglas, Borussia Dortmund Shop, Stabilo, Philips, and more. As such, any SEO professional operating in the e-commerce space needs to be familiar with Shopware and its functionalities.

From an SEO perspective, Shopware 6 offers many advantageous features right out of the box. These include SEO-friendly URLs, automated XML sitemaps, canonical tags, and rich snippets, among others. These built-in features can significantly streamline the SEO process and help enhance the organic visibility of your online store in Google and other search engines. 

However, as with any platform, there are specific considerations when working with Shopware 6. While it provides many basic SEO features, for more advanced tactics, it's necessary to delve deeper into the platform or consider the use of plugins and integrations. Attention should be paid to the platform's configuration, to ensure that SEO practices such as correct redirections, proper use of meta tags, structured data, and website speed optimization are correctly implemented.

SEO optimisation for Shopware 6 requires an understanding of both its inherent features and the additional customizations needed to fully leverage its capabilities for improved search engine rankings and visibility. With the right approach, Shopware 6 provides a robust framework for an effective SEO strategy in the e-commerce industry.

Before commencing any project, it is crucial to establish clear key assumptions. For the MT Collection project, the following five issues were identified:

• Conduct an SEO audit to eliminate critical technical constraints;
• Create a Jira backlog for implementing tasks related to store development.
• Describe all brand pages with a minimum of 3,000 characters.
• Describe all category pages with a minimum of 3,000 characters.
• Write 4 sponsored articles monthly.

During the assumption-setting stage, we anticipated that the initial results of our work would become noticeable between the 6th and 12th month of our partnership with MT Collection.

As the third quarter comes to an end, we can take a look back and see what we have achieved together. In fact, quite a lot! Here is a list of completed tasks:

• conducted an SEO audit;
• task registration in JIRA;
• wrote content for landing pages:
  • created 35 brand descriptions;
  • created 24 category descriptions
• published 28 on-site blog articles;
• published 7 off-site blog posts;
• published 40 sponsored articles.

With the advent of ChatGPT, we were able to streamline our content creation process. The support of artificial intelligence allowed us to increase the number of content pieces threefold on a monthly basis. Moreover, thanks to ChatGPT, we were able to expand our activities with blog posts.

As we write these words, in the midst of the scorching summer, we are entering the 10th month of collaboration with MT Collection. Therefore, we can expect to see the first tangible results of our efforts. What do the numbers say? Quite a lot. And are they favorable? Definitely!

The visibility of the mtcollection.pl domain, as depicted by the number of keywords appearing in the TOP 10 rankings on Google.pl, has skyrocketed by an impressive 9,350%. When we delve into this, we can see that our dedicated SEO specialist's efforts have contributed to this outstanding growth.

From the outset, the mtcollection.pl domain was starting from a low visibility base. This presented an opportunity for our SEO specialist to perform a comprehensive keyword analysis to identify potential high-performing keywords relevant to the business. By incorporating these keywords strategically in meta titles and meta descriptions, and aligning them with the site content, we could significantly improve the website's ranking for these key search terms.

In addition to the aforementioned strategies, another crucial aspect of our work involved building and refining the backlink profile. By establishing high-quality and relevant backlinks, we could further strengthen the domain's authority, improving its credibility in the eyes of search engines and contributing to the enhanced visibility.

However, it's worth noting that an increase of 9,350% in visibility is not merely a consequence of the initially low visibility base. Yes, this base facilitated a high percentage increase, but the sustained and continuous growth in visibility cannot be overlooked. This steady increase speaks volumes about the site's organic reach and is a testament to the meticulous work put in by the SEO specialist.

The power of these strategic SEO practices lies in their capacity to drive a domain up the search results, enhancing the site's visibility, and by extension, its traffic and revenue. This impressive climb in the search rankings underscores the importance of detailed SEO work, from keyword analysis to source code optimization and link building services, in making a substantial and lasting impact on a success site's online visibility.

Since the visibility of the MT Collection store has significantly improved over the past months, it was reasonable to expect an improvement in sales performance as well. And indeed, that's what happened. Comparing equivalent periods in 2022 and 2023, it turned out that between October and July, there was an improvement in practically all crucial parameters. Particularly noteworthy are the increases in the number of sessions (by 15%), transactions (by 34%), and revenues (by 123%).

The table below showcases our top-performing keywords that have achieved significant visibility in the search engine. We've purposely omitted branded terms to focus on high search volume and long tail keywords. Importantly, these keywords align well with the interests of our target group audience, boosting both site visibility and relevance.

In conclusion, as evident, the creation of high-quality on-site (incl. internal links) and off-site content (incl. external links that lead to the client's website) is the apple of our eye. Besides immensely important technical aspects, this is the main reason for the organic growth in the initial months of SEO activities for MT Collection.

While this remarkable growth can be partly attributed to the site's initial low visibility base, the consistent and sustained uptick in search engine results is certainly an impressive feat to behold. 

The results unequivocally demonstrate that the path we have chosen was the right one. We are looking forward with anticipation to what good the future will bring us!

After implementing our comprehensive Shopware SEO strategies, our client experienced a significant increase in web traffic, improved search engine rankings, and a notable boost in sales conversions. If you're ready to elevate your SEO and achieve similar results, don't wait - Boost your SEO with Shopware Partner and contact us now.