Thanks to the content optimizations and some technical fixes, the site’s organic traffic increased by 52% between 2021 and 2022. The growth – with some minor volatility – still shows an upward trend: between April and June 2023, the organic traffic increased by 26%, despite the fact that no SEO work has happened since 2021. The client is a wallpaper business with a B2B clientele.
About the Client
Wall Concept Ltd was founded in 2007, its core business was wallpaper hanging with B2B clientele. Its main target market consists of hotels, offices, private healthcare providers, and government buildings. Wall Concept offers not only various wallpapers but tiling services, too.
The Challenge
The website of Wall Concept was quite in its infancy back in 2020, without any prior online marketing optimizations whatsoever. Content-wise the site was in a poor state and generated minimal organic traffic.
The goal was to optimize the website primarily from a content perspective based on robust keyword research and competitor analysis. We wanted to generate higher organic traffic and optimize its sales funnel in order to increase B2B conversions as well. In the case of Wall Concept, a conversion equals a contact via the form or telephone, or email.
The Solution
During my competitor analysis, I wanted to find an answer to the following question: what kind of pieces of content do we have to create in order to better rank on the organic SERPs?
Based on the findings we concluded that we must show all of the available wallpapers on the site. But based on what grouping?
For this, I carried out keyword research. This was quite a big challenge, as most of the time the search intent behind tapestry-related keywords showed B2C intent. Or in other words: the users who search these wallpapers are everyday people looking for tapestries for their homes. And not interior designers or companies.
This made the whole keyword research a tad difficult as these keywords were seemingly not relevant to us. Thus, we shouldn’t draw solid conclusions based on them.
However, this doesn’t mean they didn’t provide valuable insights. For example, we could see the specific sets/wallpaper categories that were highly searched for. Before that, we had just hypotheses about how we should group the available wallpapers.
And despite being “B2C keywords” we drew the conclusion that users like interior designers or employees of the target market likely search for these tapestries the same way. Meaning that the insights we got from these keywords – again, in connection with how we should group them – were valid.
So overall, based on the competitor analysis & keyword research we concluded that users search for wallpapers along on following dimensions:
- fabric
- color
- design
- style of the wallpaper (e.g. vintage, graffiti, etc.)
- type of wallpaper (e.g. magnetic, liquid, washable, etc.)
- use case (e.g. bathroom, bedroom, etc.)
The main emphasis was on wallpapers, but in my keyword research, I also focused on tiling-related keywords. Because these keywords were also important for Wall Concept.
The Content Development
I created my recommendations based on this research. The recommendations were targeted at the content: what types of new page types do we have to create, and what type of new content do we have to develop? Plus, I created SEO-friendly titles & meta descriptions for these pages as well.
The new copy was created by Wall Concept, so the structural changes (e.g. new pages) on the website by their developer. The changes were finished quite fast (within months): new pages were launched, the available wallpapers were uploaded to the site with quality images, plus, SEO- and CRO-friendly content was placed on the pages as well (e.g. images about finished projects).
In the end, Wall Concept decided to categorize its products by brands. Regardless of the product being wallpaper, tile, or curtains. Users can visit and see the available wallpapers within the brands’ dedicated category pages.
The website has thus become more user-friendly, as potential interior designers (the client’s main target group) can easily see and browse through the available wallpapers based on the most important filters I mentioned earlier. Plus, based on the brands, which is more important in the client’s B2B market, as it turned out.
Thus, users were navigated into a better-shaped sales funnel, thus increasing the chance of a conversion.
The Results
I have a confession to make: at the time of this SEO project, I was still quite a rookie, a junior SEO. And I had quite big expectations from these changes we introduced.
But after waiting for months we still didn’t see any tangible results. Nor in traffic, nor in average positions.
So I began to wonder if the SEO project has failed. Was I underqualified for such a task? Did I miscalculate somehow? Or did I misunderstand the target group’s needs? Maybe it’s the changes that were implemented poorly?
I was quite sad at this time because of this.
But after a while…
After 1-1.5 years I checked the website’s traffic numbers and – frankly speaking – I was quite blown away by what I saw.
The number of organic sessions has improved by 52.37% between April and December 2022 on a year-on-year comparison. 58.79% more users visited the website than during the same time period of 2021. The number of new visitors increased by 61.66%.
(legend: Organikus forgalom = Organic traffic, Felhasználók = Users, Új felhasználók = New users, Munkamenetek = Sessions)
However, qualitative metrics decreased a bit between 2022 and 2021. The bounce rate remained more or less the same, but it looks like visitors from the organic channel spent less time on the website overall and visited fewer pages during their sessions.
But it may be the case that users find the necessary information quicker. Hence the improving quantitative metrics.
(legend: Visszafordulási arány = Bounce rate, Oldal / munkamenet = Pages per session, Munkamenet átlagos hossza = Avg. session duration)
The question still remains: did the site’s CRO-friendliness successfully improve? Well, unfortunately, there was no such work targeted at this task (nor during the SEO project, nor after).
One way to answer this question is to take a look at the most important conversion page. This is the /contact/ page and it increased by 4%. So we may be able to conclude that yes, the CRO-friendliness has improved, as well.
(legend: Oldal = Page, Organikus forgalom = Organic traffic, Oldalmegtekintések = Pageviews, Egyedi oldalmegtekintések = Unique pageviews)
Search Console Data
As for the data of Google Search Console, the earliest available data was from 12th February at the time of writing this article. Meaning that using data from Search Console we can only compare the data on a year-on-year basis between 31.12.-06.25. 2023 and 2022.
We can see that the increasing number of organic clicks still shows us an upward trend. During the time period mentioned before, the number of clicks increased by 26.79%, and the number of impressions increased by 20.91% from 2022 to 2023. No SEO work has been done since 2021.
(legend: Kattintások = Clicks)
(legend: Megjelenések = Impressions)
Furthermore, the average position improved by a little less than 4 positions. Unfortunately, we see a decreasing trend in this metric starting from April 2022.
(legend: Elhelyezkedés = Position)
It’s worth mentioning that growth was mainly driven by non-branded queries. We saw remarkable improvement for keywords like lélegző tapéta (breathable wallpaper) and mágneses tapéta (magnetic wallpaper).
Remember: when it comes to B2B SEO, we’ll likely see low traffic numbers, even after an executed SEO project. And we won’t see traffic skyrocketing in a short period of time, most likely. However,
even 1 or 2 new organic conversions can bring the client hundreds of thousands or millions of additional revenue. Thus, it’s quite “easy” to generate good ROI in B2B SEO.
(note: this case study was written in June 2023, but the actual SEO project happened between 2020 and 2021. Unfortunately, no Search Console data is available from this time period. This is a pity because the growth was even more remarkable between 2021 and 2020: traffic has increased by appr. 2-3x. But without any data, I can’t prove it at this point. My apologies to the Reader!)
Moral of the Story – for the Reader and for myself
We all know that SEO is a long-term investment, and in the case of a long-term investment, one tends not to see tangible results in the short- or mid-term.
The biggest moral of the story for me is that when it comes to B2B SEO projects, the aforementioned statement applies even more significantly. We must exercise even more patience until we see an increase in organic visibility.
On the other hand, it gives an additional challenge to the SEO as it becomes even more difficult to convince (and retain) the client and/or the most important stakeholders that results will indeed come. But it takes more time.
