+135% increase in organic traffic
in 18 months
Client Goals
1. Increase in Organic Traffic
Endera provides diagnostic, repair and vehicle service on the German market. Since the automotive industry is rather competitive, the website had problems with reaching top places in SERP. Our task was to develop and implement a tailored SEO strategy for the client, and bring more organic traffic to the Endera website.
SEO Team
Despite the limitations of the custom CMS, we managed to deliver the promised results – the monthly increase in organic traffic is more than satisfying. The website is ranked higher, too.
On-Site Strategy
Adding Basic Modules to the Custom CMS
Often, our clients use custom CMSes which may be quite a challenge when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. We needed to add a few things to Endera’s system.
Why we
did it
Our audit revealed that Endera Digitaltechnik used a custom CMS to build their website. That meant we couldn’t add basic SEO-improving elements as they weren’t provided in the content management system chosen by our client. There was no possibility for us to add metadata which is absolutely necessary for improved search engine rankings. Without metadata, Googlebots can’t read the page content, and therefore can’t process it correctly.
To find a way around this knotty problem, we implemented most of the technical SEO globally using FTP. This is how we managed to add the following SEO fundamentals to the client’s website:
- breadcrumbs
- schema markups
- page titles
- automatic internal linking
Adding H1s to the Service Pages
Headings are important element for both website structure and SEO process. Unfortunately, service pages within Endera domain lacked correct H1 headers – we took care of it.
Why we
did it
None of the service pages had any first-level headings. Even though we found some pieces of content marked as H1, those weren’t the elements that should be used for this purpose – it was done incorrectly, so none of the H1s played their role as intended.
We modified the incorrect H1s and added more headings via FTP. This is how this section used to be displayed:
and after we fixed it:
When we corrected the headings, their hierarchy was established automatically. This is crucial when it comes to SEO as it clearly indicates which piece of content is more important than others, and denotes the main theme for a page.
Implementing Breadcrumbs
The next step was to improve navigation around Endera’s domain – breadcrumbs would do the trick!
Why we
did it
Endera Digitaltechnik had no breadcrumbs. Since this element is considered as a “big deal” for SEO, we added it to the website, and marked it appropriately in the schema. As a result, the users and crawlers can navigate the Endera Digitaltechnik website easily. The breadcrumbs are also displayed in search result pages making it better-looking on a search page.
Below an example of the implemented breadcrumbs:
Creating a Sitemap
Even though Endera isn’t a classic example of eCommerce, they do have an offer catalog available on their website. In this case, a sitemap was necessary.
Why we
did it
The website had no sitemap – this was yet another major issue that we learnt about after doing the SEO audit for the client. Our SEO team built this absolutely essential element and uploaded it to the Google Search Console. In this way we notified the crawlers that the client’s website was ready to be indexed and showed it to the customers looking for vehicle repairs and services on the local market.
Adding Structured Data Markups
We needed to give search engine a hint on the website content – we used structured data markups for that purpose.
Why we
did it
Although Endera doesn’t sell car parts through their website, they offer a kind of a catalog with prices, images of car parts and product descriptions. Having such content, we decided to implement structured data type:product.
Again, we did it via FTP:
Fixing Internal Linking
Along with building external links – we needed to work with our client’s internal linking that required some improvements.
Why we
did it
Internal linking needed some fixing, too. For example, the anchor text that connects homepage with second-level pages was added only on the MEHR (English more) button. This didn’t give the clawlers a clear signal what the button takes the visitors to which, of course, wasn’t useful in terms of SEO.
To fix that, we added the anchor text to the category name. We also added the rel=nofollow attribute to the MEHR word.
Our adult also revealed that the service pages needed a fix with internal linking. Links were added to the entire block of text, with zero anchors. However, the images that the anchors were actually put on didn’t have any alt text. Such a solution didn’t contribute to SEO at all – it simply didn’t carry any value for the robots.
We introduced all necessary changes globally, again through FTP. From that moment, the alt text was generated automatically (it was the name of the service).
Creating Separate Service Pages
Offering a different types of services, Endera didn’t have dedicated pages for each of those. We decided to create such pages for better traffic to the website.
Why we
did it
Endera offers various vehicle repairs and services. However, they didn’t display each service separately on individual pages. Instead, they used just one page to list all the car makes they fix.
We changed that, devoting each page to one car make. Our content team created unique service descriptions which increased the number of keywords used on the website.
Here’s an example of a service page:
This was another opportunity to add more title descriptions, meta descriptions and H1 tags. Here’s the pattern we used for the H1 tags: “car make” + service.
While working on the on-site strategy, we were also doing our best to strengthen the link profile for Endera by building quality referral links. We also worked on the cloud anchors because they hadn’t been built properly.
Here is the link profile before we started the off-site process for Endera:
And the same link profile after 18 months:
This is how anchor profile used to look like:
And the same anchor profile after 18 months:
Results
RESULT 1 Significant growth in website impressions on google.de:
RESULT 2 135% increase in organic traffic:
Organic traffic in February 2020 vs February 2021:
118% increase in organic traffic in February 2018 vs February 2019:
RESULT 3 Higher keyword positions:
