How did I 7x my organic users in one year?

After working on the SEO activities for one year I managed to increase my website's organic users from 277/month to 1,896/month - (almost 7 times more). Some tips to share:

[Tools 🔍] Purchased a SEO software (Ahrefs) - Search Console is not enough (especially for the keyword research and competition analysis)
[Content ✍🏼] Increased the production from 0.5 post/month to 3 to 4 posts/month
[Backlinks 🔗] Found other guys in my industry to partner with rather than buying some irrelevant links (takes much more effort but it is much more efficient)
[Technical ⚙️] Removed the loader thing and some other prebuilt items of my WP theme that affected my real loading time - although they had better results in lighthouse / GTmetrix - Always trust the real user experience instead of a bot measurement.

I'd appreciate it if you could take a look at my website ( https://www.databloo.com/ ) and let me know about further SEO recommendations.

Thank you in advance,

Giannis Stratakis

posted to

SEO

on April 2, 2022

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3

Your h2, is greyed out, i think this must be in error.
Speed up your h1 animation.

Text below isn't visible against the blue background.

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Rishi_Uttam

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2 years ago
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  Thanks Earl for the recommendation (h1 animation).
  
  Indeed the h2/CTA were cached (error).
  stratakis
  
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  2 years ago
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This is very good actionable advice. Can you please elaborate on the 3rd point about backlinks. Is this some sort of exchange or buying/selling?

Also like your website. Pretty neat concept. For feedback, only thing is I'd turn the popup into an exit popup, as right now it obscured the site as i was trying to read the hero text and reflexively I clicked the back button. Also a live example with sample data of your best template on the screen would make it really good, if it's possible. Rest nice looking site, clean design.

sankumar

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2 years ago
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  Thanks for your response. Regarding the 3rd point, I have tried two different ways to acquire backlinks to my website. First, to buy some from Fiverr experts - it didn't work. The second way is to partner with some other companies in my industry (including some Linkreators) - it requires a lot of effort, but you can get relevant do-follow links that drive some traffic to your site.
  
  I fixed the trigger of the pop-up (upon exit). The live example would be a nice idea, especially for the first-time visitors. Really appreciate your feedback!
  
  stratakis
  
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  2 years ago
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Short and very sweet advice. Thanks!

How did you find partners for building backlinks? Also did you pay for this?

edforson

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2 years ago
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  Thanks for your question. I usually find companies in the broad industry with similar (or higher) domain ratings and I ask them to do some synergies - For instance
  I can feature one of these companies in a listing article and ask them to do the same, or I use part of their technology (something from their product/service) in my products and ask them to link back. Guest blogging is the next action that I would like to try. But no, I avoid paying them (for me, it doesn't work).
  
  stratakis
  
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  2 years ago
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    I see... Smart :). Do you also you Ahrefs to find those companies with higher domain ratings?
    
    Guest blogging is a good idea. It's something I plan to do later this quarter too.
    
    edforson
    
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    2 years ago
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Hi Giannis, congrats on your growth! What are the key benefits that Ahrefs has over Search Console? I know you mentioned keywords research and competition analysis but is there anything else that is simply levels above the free options?

liamroberts

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2 years ago
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  Liam thanks for your comment. For me, the key benefits of Ahrefs are:
  
  Keyword research for my website (Ahrefs shows you metrics that are not available in Search Console, such as keyword volume, keyword difficulty, potential organic traffic to a specific market that you are interested in)
  
  Backlinks & referring domains analysis, so you can easily identify other websites in your industry that could partner for content synergies.
  
  Detailed analysis of your direct/indirect competitors that gives you the big picture of their organic and paid search efforts.
  
  Technical audit of your website (you can do it with Screaming Frog as well) that can help you to fix technical SEO issues such as 404 & orphan pages, broken links/images, and missing alt texts/descriptions
  stratakis
  
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  2 years ago
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Hi Giannis,
Amazing achievement. Interested to know what made you chose ahrefs over other alternatives?

If you could switch your paid tool now, would you?

shivangkhungar

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2 years ago
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  Thanks for your question! After some research, I ended up with Ahrefs and SEMrush. However, Ahrefs was a cheaper solution, with great resources, a great academy, and a pretty straightforward interface for newbies.
  
  Now I'm considering upgrading from lite to standard or advanced plan :)
  
  stratakis
  
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  2 years ago
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    Thanks. I switched to ahrefs as well
    
    shivangkhungar
    
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    2 years ago
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      Nice, happy to hear your feedback!
      
      stratakis
      
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      2 years ago
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Just one little small thing right off the bat: The popup when landing on your homepage comes in right away, much too early. I don't even know what you are doing and already i got the popup in my face. Try to delay that by either:
1. Show after x seconds
2. Scroll to x% of the page
3. Exit intent
manuelwill

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2 years ago
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  Manuel thanks for your feedback! You are right, the pop-up is annoying while landing on the website. I used to have it when someone trying to exit the website - somehow it changed 🤷 - Just fixed it back.
  
  As you are a design pro if you have any other suggestions feel free to share :)
  
  stratakis
  
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  2 years ago
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    Alright, a few more small things you can do to elevate it...!
    
    Data Studio should not line break in you main Headline - if needed do a manual line break here
    
    Instead of "Do more" maybe think about "Faster to insight" or something similar
    
    The key visual could be stronger, i'm thinking something along the lines of https://www.amie.so/ (if you got the budget haha)
    
    The animation of the second section "Key benefits" should fade in up instead of fade in down, because right now the main headline fades over the "Key Benefits" title. If you're going to change it, you might want to check that all elements should follow either up or down, otherwise this will get nauseating for visitors.
    
    Thats all for now, after that you'll need your credit card sir! :)
    
    PS: Choose a template is a good CTA, you could also use it in the main navigation instead of "Dashboards"
    
    manuelwill
    
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    2 years ago
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Hi Giannis. Thanks for sharing this. Curious about how you increased your monthly posts? Are you outsourcing? I am and even with that it’s still hard to publish more good articles.

Frenchcooc

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2 years ago
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  Corentin thanks for your reply. Yes, I decided to increase my monthly budget (500$) and outsourced the content creation in order to speed up the whole process. However, as the topics (Google Data Studio / digital reporting) require technical knowledge, I spent a lot of my time reviewing these articles, adding extra info and practical examples. Honestly, I'm not very happy with the results I get from the content freelancers (Upwork).
  
  stratakis
  
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  2 years ago
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    Same! I tried an SEO agency as well, but it wasn’t great either. Definitely something that someone could work on. I’m happy to pay $500 (even more) to find someone that publish me 2 posts per month…
    
    Frenchcooc
    
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    2 years ago
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