[Case Study]
How I Boosted NCF Website Traffic from 15K to 25K in 6 months with SEO
Updated: August 27th, 2024
For over 20 years, NCF Living has been a trusted name in the furniture retail industry, known for its quality products and exceptional customer service. However, despite its strong brand presence, the company’s online footprint was not reflecting its market leadership. When I joined NCF Living as the Lead Digital Marketer, the website was attracting around 15,000 visitors per month—an impressive figure for many, but not enough to fully capitalise on NCF’s potential.
It was evident that the website had a solid foundation, yet the organic traffic had plateaued, limiting opportunities for growth. I recognised that there was untapped potential, not just to increase the number of visitors but to attract the right audience—potential customers who were ready to engage with the brand and make purchases. My goal was clear: elevate NCF’s online presence by boosting organic traffic from 15K to 25K monthly visitors within six months.
This case study delves into the targeted SEO strategies I employed to achieve this goal, transforming NCF Living’s digital performance and driving significant growth in both traffic and quality of engagement. Over the course of six months, these strategic interventions led to a remarkable increase in high-quality visitors, helping NCF Living not only meet but exceed its traffic goals.
Table of Contents
Understanding the Initial Challenges
- Low Authority Score: The website’s domain authority (DA) was just 18, which limited its ability to rank for competitive keywords, making it difficult to compete with higher-authority competitors.
- Poor Website Performance: The website had suboptimal loading speeds and image optimisation, which were negatively impacting user experience and SEO.
Stagnant Organic Traffic: The website’s organic traffic had plateaued around 15K, limiting its ability to attract new customers and drive sales. - Keyword Performance: While the site ranked for several keywords, the positions were not optimal, and there was significant room for improvement.
- Underutilised Backlink Profile: Although there was a decent number of backlinks, The majority of referring domains had low authority, which was not sufficiently boosting the site’s credibility and rankings.
The Strategy for SEO Growth
- Technical SEO Optimisation
- Keyword Optimisation and Content Strategy
- Backlink Building and Authority Enhancement
- Ongoing Performance Monitoring and Adjustment
1. Technical SEO Optimisation
Site Audit
Site Health 94%: Meaning This score represents the overall health of the website’s SEO based on the audit. A score of 94% is generally considered very good, indicating that the site is well-optimized compared to the top 10% of websites, which have a 92% score.
Errors 0: Meaning No critical issues were found during the audit. Critical errors can severely affect the website’s SEO performance, so having none is excellent. This suggests that the fundamental aspects of the site’s SEO are correctly implemented.
Warnings 1,593: Meaning Warnings indicate issues that are less severe than errors but still require attention. A high number of warnings (1,593) suggests that there are several areas where the site’s SEO can be improved. These issues might not be critical but could slightly impact SEO performance. It’s recommended to review and address these warnings to boost the site’s health further.
Notices 612: Meaning Notices are minor issues that don’t have a significant impact on SEO but are worth looking into. The presence of 612 notices indicates areas that could be fine-tuned. While these are not urgent, addressing them can contribute to overall optimization.
Referring Domains 1.7K (+2.58%): This is the number of unique domains linking back to the website. An increase of 2.58% indicates growth in backlinks, which is a positive signal for SEO.
Thematic Report
Crawlability (100%): The site is fully crawlable, meaning search engine bots can access and index all pages.
HTTPS (100%): The site is fully secure with HTTPS, which is critical for both security and SEO.
Site Performance (95%): The site is performing well overall in terms of speed and responsiveness, though there’s a small margin for improvement.
Internal Linking (94%): The internal linking structure is robust, helping with navigation and SEO. However, it might benefit from slight improvements.
Markup (100%): The site uses structured data markup correctly, which helps search engines understand the content and display it more effectively in search results.
Analysis
The site is in good condition with a 94% health score, which is above average. The absence of errors is a strong indicator of a well-maintained site. However, the high number of warnings (1,593) and pages with issues (539) suggests that while the foundation is solid, there are numerous optimizations that can be made to push the site’s performance even further.
In summary, while NCF Living UK’s site is well-optimized, focusing on resolving the identified warnings and improving Core Web Vitals should be the next steps to enhance its performance and ranking potential further.
A. Website Speed Improvement
One of the first tasks was to tackle the website’s performance issues. Page speed is a critical ranking factor and directly affects user experience. I conducted a thorough audit and implemented the following improvements:
- Image Optimisation: I reduced the size of images without compromising quality, using modern formats like WebP. This decreased load times significantly.
- Caching and Minification: I enabled browser caching and minified CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files to reduce server response times.
- Lazy Loading: By implementing lazy loading for images and videos, I ensured that only the media above the fold would load initially, speeding up the perceived page load time.
B. Mobile Optimisation
Given that a significant portion of traffic comes from mobile devices, I ensured that the website was fully responsive and that mobile performance metrics were top-notch. This included optimising touch elements, enhancing navigation, and ensuring that content scaled appropriately across all devices.
2. Keyword Optimisation and Content Strategy
Domain Analytics
Authority Score 24 (+1): This score is a measure of the domain’s overall SEO strength, based on factors like backlinks, organic traffic, and other signals. A score of 24 indicates moderate authority, and the “+1” shows a recent improvement.
Organic Traffic 25.4K (+13.4%): This indicates that the website is attracting 25.4K visitors per month through organic search. The 13.4% increase suggests a positive trend in attracting more visitors.
Organic Keywords 10.9K (+15.99%): The site ranks for 10.9K keywords in search engines, with a significant increase of 15.99%. This is a healthy indicator of keyword performance.
Paid Keywords: Paid keywords are those the website is bidding on through paid search campaigns (e.g., Google Ads). The decrease by 25% could indicate a reduction in the paid search budget or a focus shift away from paid advertising.
Referring Domains 1.7K (+2.58%): This is the number of unique domains linking back to the website. An increase of 2.58% indicates growth in backlinks, which is a positive signal for SEO.
Position Tracking
Visibility: 100%: This shows that the site is visible for all the tracked keywords in the top positions, which is an excellent indicator of SEO performance.
Keywords in Top 3/10/20/100: The site has 6 keywords in each of these categories. The fact that there are no new or lost keywords means that the rankings are stable.
Top Keywords: All tracked keywords (“ncf,” “ncf furniture,” etc.) are ranked #1, with a visibility percentage of 16.67%. This suggests strong dominance for these specific search terms.
Analysis
Positive Trends: The increases in Authority Score, Organic Traffic, and Organic Keywords are all strong indicators that the site’s SEO efforts are paying off. The growth in referring domains also suggests that the website is gaining more credibility and trust in its niche.
Strong Keyword Rankings: The fact that the website holds the top position for all its key terms with 100% visibility is a clear sign of SEO success. Maintaining such rankings is crucial for sustaining traffic.
Paid Keywords: The decrease in paid keywords (-25%) suggests a strategic reduction in paid search efforts and potentially a more efficient use of paid advertising, focusing on fewer, more profitable keywords.
A. Content Audit and Keyword Update
The existing content on the NCF website was informative but needed a refresh to align with current SEO best practices. I performed a comprehensive content audit, identifying outdated information, underperforming pages, and opportunities for expansion.
- Keyword Research: Conducted in-depth keyword research to identify high-volume, relevant keywords that NCF could target. This included both primary keywords (e.g., “furniture UK,” “living room furniture”) and long-tail keywords (e.g., “best affordable sofas UK”). This also involved optimising meta titles, descriptions, and headers for better search visibility.
- Content Enhancement: Updated existing content to align with the targeted keywords, ensuring that the content was informative, engaging, and optimised for both users and search engines. This included optimising meta tags, headings, and content structure.
- Content Expansion: Created new blog posts, product guides, and landing pages targeting additional keywords and addressing common customer queries. The new content was designed to capture long-tail search traffic and improve keyword visibility. I expanded on topics that were performing well by creating in-depth guides, how-tos, and industry insights. This not only attracted more visitors but also encouraged them to spend more time on the site.
3. Backlink Building and Authority Enhancement
A. Audit and Cleanup of Existing Backlinks
NCF’s backlink profile was weighed down by low-quality links. I initiated a comprehensive audit using tools like SEMrush to identify and disavow toxic links that could potentially harm the site’s ranking.
B. Strategic Link Building
I focused on acquiring high-authority backlinks to boost the site’s DA from 18 to 24:
- Guest Posting: I identified industry-relevant blogs and websites and pitched high-quality guest posts that linked back to the NCF site.
- Content Syndication: I syndicated top-performing content across reputable platforms, ensuring proper canonical tagging to avoid duplicate content issues.
- Partnerships and Collaborations: Collaborating with influencers and industry leaders helped in acquiring backlinks from high-DA sites. These links were crucial in establishing the NCF website as a trusted authority in its niche.
C. Internal Linking Optimization
I also enhanced the internal linking structure to improve the flow of link equity across the site. This helped in boosting the rankings of key pages by ensuring that they received sufficient internal links from other relevant pages.
4. Ongoing Performance Monitoring and Adjustment
A. Regular SEO Audits
To ensure that the improvements were sustained, I conducted regular SEO audits. These audits allowed me to identify any new issues, track performance, and make necessary adjustments. Tools like Google Analytics, Search Console, and SEMrush were instrumental in this process.
B. Continuous Content Optimisation
Content optimisation is an ongoing process. I kept a close watch on how content performed and made iterative improvements. This involved updating keywords, refreshing old content, and optimising for emerging search trends.
C. A/B Testing and User Feedback
To further refine the user experience, I conducted A/B tests on key landing pages. These tests focused on elements like CTA buttons, headlines, and page layouts. Additionally, I gathered user feedback to identify pain points and areas of improvement.
The Results
Through these combined efforts, the NCF website saw remarkable improvements:
- Traffic Growth: Organic traffic grew from 15,000 to over 25,000 monthly visitors. This 67% increase was achieved through targeted SEO strategies and consistent optimisation efforts.
- Improved Domain Authority: The site’s DA increased from 18 to 24, making it more competitive in search engine rankings.
- Enhanced User Experience: Website performance improvements led to lower bounce rates and higher engagement metrics, contributing to overall SEO success.
- Stronger Backlink Profile: The quality and quantity of referring domains improved significantly, further boosting the site’s authority and search rankings.
Conclusion
The NCF website’s journey from 15K to 25K monthly visitors is a testament to the power of strategic SEO. By focusing on technical optimisation, content enhancement, and authoritative link-building, I was able to significantly increase both the quantity and quality of the website’s traffic. This case study underscores the importance of a holistic SEO approach that addresses multiple facets of search engine optimisation.
The success of this project lies in the continuous monitoring and adaptation of strategies to align with evolving SEO best practices. As search engines and user behaviours evolve, so too must our strategies. The NCF website is now well-positioned to continue its growth trajectory, serving as a solid example of how targeted SEO efforts can drive tangible business results.
With over a 10+ years of experience in the digital marketing arena, I have honed my skills in multi-channel marketing campaigns, leveraging the power of data, past lessons and AI to drive extraordinary results. My expertise lies in bridging the gap between branding, growth, performance, marketing tech, and analytics. I am passionate about constructing and executing innovative strategies that amplify brand awareness and drive conversions.