SEO Audit: 121% Increase in Traffic for Online Apparel Store

This case study analyzes how we achieved a 121% traffic increase and a 3-point Domain Rating (DR) for a client in just 3 months through a technical SEO audit. 

The client operates an e-commerce store that sells high-quality apparel out of New York. 

E-commerce SEO is one of our many specialties, so we knew we could help them improve their online visibility. 

The e-commerce space is extremely competitive, especially considering the behemoth that is Amazon. 

In order to compete with big dogs like Amazon and Walmart, tinier e-commerce operations must carve out a space for themselves in the market through highly targeted SEO strategies. 

That means doing a boatload of keyword research to uncover relevant search terms that aren’t already dominated by the likes of e-commerce juggernauts. 

Flawless technical SEO is also paramount to the success of an online store, as it matters for both search rankings and your user experience. 

For example, if your online clothing store takes ages to load just a single product page, the vast majority of users will exit your website in favor of online stores that provide a better experience. 

Other technical SEO factors like site architecture and internal links are crucial for achieving a pleasant user experience. 

Stay tuned to learn how we used technical SEO to improve our client’s domain authority and ability to generate more traffic. 

The Client: A Reputable Online Apparel Store in New York 

The client we’re looking at today manufactures and imports high-quality children’s apparel and clothing, and they manage a successful e-commerce business selling them. 

While they specialize in children’s clothing, they also provide apparel for men, women, and pets. 

Yet, whenever anyone decides to engage in e-commerce, Amazon is always the elephant in the room. 

Selling apparel is even more challenging when you consider the vast amount of clothing brands that have online stores. 

Thus, airtight SEO and marketing are necessary to achieve success, and our client needed both. 

In particular, their site lacked domain authority, which represents how much Google trusts your domain. Not only that, but their organic traffic numbers left much to be desired. 

After getting in touch with us for a consultation, we set them up with a managed SEO campaign through HOTH X. The kicker was a technical SEO audit that we would perform in the very first month of the campaign. 

We recommend that clients order a technical audit as early as possible in a managed campaign so that we can catch and resolve crucial issues before they get in the way of our future tactics. 

For instance, if the client’s loading speed remains slow well into our SEO campaign, it will continue to negatively impact search rankings and user experience until we identify and resolve it. 

Engaging in a technical audit during the first month ensures that we’ll catch and fix this issue before it becomes a big problem. 

The Strategy: Reducing Unused JavaScript, Avoiding Large Layout Shifts, Properly Sizing Images  

This client was in dire need of a technical audit, as we uncovered numerous high-priority issues that were holding their website back. 

The most important issues included:

• Unused JavaScript. We found many WordPress plugins on the client’s site that were loading unused JavaScript that was wasting precious memory and slowing things down. The potential savings from our suggestions totaled 384 KiB. 

• Large layout shifts. The client’s homepage and inner pages were experiencing multiple layout shifts. This is when a web page’s layout abruptly shifts up or down while loading, usually due to elements that take longer to load than others (like ads). Layout shifts are frustrating for users and can lead to missed inputs and mistakes. We outlined several ways that the client could optimize their CLS (cumulative layout shift) metric in the report. 

• Oversized images. There were many images on the site that were in excess of 100 KB. To save data and improve loading speed, our recommendation was to either compress their images or upload them directly from the media library. 

Besides these, other pressing issues included a poor JavaScript execution time, unused CSS, and an excessive DOM size. 

Once these fixes were implemented, we started to see results after just a few weeks. 

The Results: 121% Increase in Traffic, 3-Point Boost to DR Score 

The client’s traffic began to rise after we implemented quality-of-life improvements like faster loading times and a more logical layout. 

Also, their Domain Rating saw a 3-point increase, which means they’ve established stronger trust with Google (something that’s crucial for high rankings). 

Overall, their SEO metrics saw improvements across the board:

Their case is proof that technical SEO audits can yield strong ROIs and aren’t just for ‘cleaning things up’ or paving the way for better results down the line. 

Instead, they’re often what websites need to start seeing real results. 

Do you suspect that your website has technical issues that are holding it back?

Don’t wait to sign up for one of our Technical SEO Audits to know for sure!