How we helped an e-commerce client build authority from scratch
The client is an e-commerce company in the construction supplies space. Because they were a relatively new company, they reached out to Linkflow for help driving organic traffic to their site.
They were competing against household name brands, such as Amazon and Home Depot, and needed an expert to help them develop and execute a strategy to compete with the big name players in their industry.
In this case study you’ll see how, in less than a year, Linkflow helped them build site authority from scratch, significantly increasing organic traffic and DR.
Total Links Built
144
Average DR of Links Built
58
Campaign Length
9+
Months
Increase in Site Traffic
129%
Background
A newly formed e-commerce company in the construction space reached out to us to begin a link building campaign. Their challenge was to rank for a wide range of commercially relevant keywords with high difficulty scores.
Established industry players including Amazon and Home Depot had a massive head start but our team identified opportunities to compete.
Our Strategy
It’s important to note that when you’re starting from scratch, you can’t just build links to pages and expect to rank for your target keywords. Instead, one of your primary objectives should be to build the overall authority (typically referred to as DR or DA) of your site.
It’s the same in fitness: building up core strength should be your first priority–before you start to focus on biceps, triceps, or anything else.
Our SEO team put together a strategy to strengthen site authority. The client’s category pages would need to be fortified with keyword-optimized supplemental content to have the best chance of ranking.
The reason for this is that link building and content creation go hand in hand–no matter how strong your backlinks are, if you are building them to pages that have no keyword mentions or provide a bad user experience, your chances of achieving the best possible rankings are slim to none.
This client had significant internal bandwidth and budgeting constraints that prevented them from making the recommended content enhancements before we began link building. However, as these content changes are implemented, we expect even more dramatic results.
The Results
Over the course of 9 months, we achieved the following results:
- Built 144 links with an average DR of 58
- Ranking page 1 for a high-intent keyword with a 74 difficulty score
- Went from single-digit DR to 25+
- 129% increase in site traffic
Domain Rating (DR)
Note that these achievements are purely from link building–again, once content enhancements are completed, it’s reasonable to conclude that these results will be even more impressive. Still, it’s a great example of what can be accomplished through steady, strategic link building.
Takeaways
- Backlinks alone can dramatically improve SEO results, but building links while optimizing content is the most powerful strategy.
- Even if you’re a new e-commerce brand going up against household names, it is still entirely possible to compete for traffic and revenue.
- Websites starting from scratch face additional hurdles to rank. It’s important to set realistic expectations and to have patience while your site builds authority.
Find out how we can improve your domain authority, traffic, and conversions steadily and safely.
