The global sneaker store faced significant challenges due to a “set-and-forget” SEO model that primarily targeted the US market while neglecting other regions. This led to issues like Google crawlers accessing irrelevant pages, underutilization of link equity, poorly structured navigation, and confusion in website hierarchy. Additionally, GA4 was not effectively implemented, the search console was cluttered, and there was considerable index bloat, all exacerbated by limited resources.

Key Challenges

• Market Neglect: Focus on the US market resulted in missed opportunities in other regions.
• Cannibalization Issues: Variations in DTC SEO across countries led to conflicting search patterns and seasonal trends.
• Resource Limitations: A lack of dedicated location-specific teams hindered the ability to adapt strategies effectively.

Strategic Roadmap

In the SEO sprint phase, the team focused on a specific location with the highest potential for growth, devising an 11-step roadmap to address the identified issues:

1. Link Equity Improvement: Enhanced both external and internal link structures.
2. Transaction Intent Organization: Worked with the team to streamline content based on customer intent.
3. Crawl Analysis: Conducted a crawl to identify and segment weak or dead pages.
4. SKU Restructuring: Reorganized SKUs to improve the overall customer journey.
5. Media Strategy Development: Planned a targeted media strategy for Google properties.
6. Content Enhancements: Collaborated with a native writer to improve content quality.
7. Target High-ROI Traffic: Focused on traffic opportunities that were within reach.
8. Low-Resource Fixes: Prioritized changes that could yield significant macro results.
9. Crawling Issues Cleanup: Addressed and rectified Google crawling problems.
10. Index Bloat Resolution: Cleaned up excessive indexation issues.
11. Internal Strategy Systems: Developed systems to support long-term SEO strategy success.

Outcome

By implementing the proper taxonomy and leveraging the brand’s authority, the campaign achieved impressive results. In just six months, there was a remarkable increase of 203,000 clicks for non-branded transactional keywords, demonstrating the effectiveness of a tailored, data-driven approach in overcoming the challenges faced.