This detailed case study is intended to highlight the WiseToast.com, a business and lifestyle magazine, which saw its daily traffic increase from less than 20 to approximately 163 visitors within six months through the efforts of WebTech Solutions.
The analysis covers the initial state, identified issues, implemented strategies, and resulting outcomes, providing a comprehensive view of the optimization process.
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Introduction and Context
WiseToast.com, established in August 2015 as Listtribe.com and rebranded later, is a digital platform that offers guides and tips on diverse topics such as lifestyle, health, technology, business, travel, and beauty. When I first acquired this, WiseToast.com had a significantly low ranking.
However, after basic moves by me and my editorial teams, the company took on the challenge of revamping WiseToast.com’s SEO strategy by fixing its technical issues and improving content quality. As a result, in just six months, traffic skyrocketed to 5,500 monthly visitors.
Initial Assessment: Identifying Key Issues
The initial assessment revealed a range of technical and content-related issues that were likely contributing to the low traffic. I, along with my team, conducted a thorough audit and identified several critical issues hindering WiseToast.com’s performance:
Internal Broken Links
Links within the site pointed to non-existent pages, degrading user experience and risking search engine penalties. This could lead to a poor user experience, with visitors encountering “404 Not Found” errors, and potentially harm search engine rankings due to crawl errors.
Broken Backlinks
External links from other sites pointed to missing pages on WiseToast.com, potentially harming credibility and SEO. These broken backlinks could signal to search engines that the site was not well-maintained, affecting its authority and visibility.
Toxic Links
The site had backlinks from low-quality or spammy sources, which could negatively impact search rankings. Toxic links are often from sites with low domain authority or those involved in black-hat SEO practices, which can drag down a site’s reputation in search engine algorithms.
Lengthy Slug
URLs were overly long, reducing readability and SEO effectiveness. Lengthy slugs can be difficult for users to remember and may dilute keyword relevance, impacting click-through rates from search engine results pages.
High Resolution Images
User satisfaction and search engine performance suffered from delayed page loading due to large image files. High-resolution photos are attractive but slow to load, increasing bounce rates and lowering search ranks, especially on mobile devices.
Loading Speed
Slow page load times contributed to high bounce rates and poor search engine performance. Research shows that users expect pages to load in under 2 seconds, and slow speeds can lead to immediate exits, negatively impacting engagement metrics and SEO.
Mobile Optimization
Since mobile browsing is so popular, the site missed out on huge traffic by not being mobile-optimized. This mistake was concerning given Google’s mobile-first indexing and mobile traffic’s over 50% share of worldwide web traffic.
De-Indexed Articles
Some articles were removed from search engine indexes owing to duplicate or thin content, lowering visibility. If content violates search engine criteria, such as having too little unique value or being too similar to other pages, it can be de-indexed and hidden from search results.
Outdated Articles
A portion of the content was no longer relevant, potentially misleading visitors and lowering engagement. Outdated articles can confuse users, reduce trust, and fail to rank for current search queries, as search engines prioritize fresh, relevant content.
At the time of the assessment, there were a total of 284 posts, out of which 34 were outdated. All of them highlight the need for a content refresh to align with current audience interests and search trends.
Strategy and Solutions: A Multi-Faceted Approach
I discussed the issues with my WebTech Solutions team and created a thorough plan pointing out technical improvements, content management, and user experience development in order to meet these obstacles. The issues and corresponding fixes are compiled in the following table:
Issues & Solutions |
|
|---|---|
| Internal Broken Links | Used tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to identify and fix broken links, correcting URLs or removing them. |
| Broken Backlinks | Monitored backlink profiles with Ahrefs or SEMrush, contacted webmasters for updates, or used 301 redirects. |
| Toxic Links | Identified toxic links via backlink analysis tools, submitted disavow files to Google Console. |
| Lengthy Slug | Rewrote URLs to be shorter between 1 to 5 words, descriptive, and keyword-rich for better SEO. |
| High Resolution Images | Compressed images and converted to WebP using TinyPNG tool, reducing file sizes by about 50% without quality loss. |
| Loading Speed | Minified CSS/JavaScript, solved theme bugs, enabled browser caching, optimized server response times, and used a CDN. |
| Mobile Optimization | Made the site responsive, tested on various mobile devices for usability. |
| De-Indexed Articles | Improved or replaced content to address duplicate or thin content, submitted sitemaps for re-indexing. |
| Outdated Articles | Conducted content audit, updated or removed 34 articles, added 190 new pieces based on keyword research. |
Implementation: Step-by-Step Execution
Weeks 1-2:
Focused on identifying and fixing internal broken links and beginning to address broken backlink errors.
Weeks 3-4:
Analyzed and managed toxic links, and optimized URLs for better readability and search engine compatibility.
Weeks 5-6:
Transformed high-resolution photos into WebP and applied loading speed tweaks including file reduction, activating cache, and CDN use.
Weeks 7-8:
Worked on mobile SEO to make sure the site tested across many mobile devices and was responsive.
Weeks 9-10:
Addressed de-indexed articles by solving technical errors, improving content quality, and submitting sitemaps to search engines for re-indexing.
Weeks 11-12:
Conducted a thorough content audit, removed 34 outdated articles, and started adding new relevant articles, bringing the total to 440.
Weeks 12-Onwards:
Continuous monitoring and adjustments to ensure each step is effective, with a strong focus on content, user experience, and search engine performance.
