B2B Ecommerce SEO Agency Services– Case Study
- Client: SUNSTAR GUM® SA
- Project Duration: 6 months, Nov- April 2023.
- Client Vertical /Industry: Oral Healthcare
- Client Location: Vaud, Switzerland
- Services Provided: SEO Consulting, SEO Audit, Content Audit.
Ecommerce SEO Project Overview
SUNSTAR GUM®, a global oral healthcare company headquartered in Vaud Switzerland, specializes in promoting oral care through high-quality products, including toothbrushes, toothpastes, dental floss, mouth rinses and other innovative oral care solutions. The in-house SEO team reached out to SEOTransformer post a website migration that caused a drop in organic performance and the need for technical optimization for the multi-lingual AEM-Magento ecommerce platform.
SEO Services Provided
Traffic Drop Down After Website Migration Assessment
After meeting with the client and getting access to the needed tools and data sources, we conducted an in-depth analysis of the website indexation status, technical implementation and performance and identified key issues contributing to the decline in traffic following the website migration. Key factors were:
- A significant number of critical pages were not indexed due to contributing factors such as page duplication caused by improper utilization of canonical tags, compounded by hreflang errors that affected the visibility of the correct regional or language versions of the site.
- A lack of indexation of a high-traffic driving section of the website due to technology limitations in handling URL parameters effectively.
- Critical pages were excluded from the sitemap as a result of default platform restrictions, impacting their visibility and indexing.
We have provided the details of elements and discussed with the in-house SEO team and the platform provider possible fix options and their impact the SEO. Additionally, we have conducted a comprehensive SEO audit and provided the needed details and fix recommendations. Below we list the main points.
Technical Ecommerce SEO Audit Findings
We conducted a comprehensive technical SEO audit to provide details of the elements contributing to the drop in organic performance and to identify opportunities for technical optimizations. Our review of the website’s current performance, page indexation, and rankings revealed several issues commonly found in large e-commerce websites with dynamic content, including the following:
● Crawl Efficiency and Indexation
The e-commerce implementation of faceted navigation using dynamic URL parameters resulted in numerous page combinations with duplicate content. This consumed a significant portion of the search engine’s crawl budget and diluted the search visibility of critical pages.
We ensured the proper indexation of key pages and the exclusion of non-valuable duplicate versions by recommending updates to the sitemap and using the robots.txt file to disallow specific parameterized URLs and low-priority pages. This approach helped focus search engines on crawling and indexing the most important and relevant content, improving overall crawl efficiency and search visibility.
● Optimizing Canonicalization
We identified and detailed pages with canonical tag issues, such as non-canonical return links, broken canonical links, or using multiple canonical links, and provided the correct resolution to improve indexation. These fixes help search engines identify the preferred version of a webpage when duplicate or similar pages are created due to URL parameters, filters, session IDs, pagination, or archive pages generated by the platform. This ensures that critical pages are indexed correctly and improves overall search visibility.
● Hreflang implementation
For a big ecommerce website using country and language-specific subdirectories, hreflang implementation is key. We have reviewed the implementation of hreflang and identified pages using non-canonical return links, inconsistent language and region return links, missing return links and other issues.
Additionally, we aligned our ongoing efforts with the client’s social media initiatives, ensuring an end-to-end approach to optimization.
● Optimized Faceted Navigation
We recommended restructuring the website’s navigation based on high-performing pages and user search behavior to enhance the overall user experience. Our proposal included an optimized URL structure that minimizes the use of query parameters where possible, helping search engines index the most important product pages and channel targeted traffic to key product pages while preventing potential issues with duplicate content and crawl inefficiencies caused by faceted navigation.
● Optimized Internal Linking
We identified issues with the internal linking structure, including the use of non-canonical internal links, broken 404 links, and inadequate link equity distribution to critical pages. To resolve these, we recommended implementing a comprehensive internal linking strategy that corrects broken links, applies canonical tags where needed, and strategically links from high-authority pages to key product and category pages.
● Enhancing User Experience Through Core Web Vitals Optimization
We identified performance issues related to Core Web Vitals, including slow loading times (Largest Contentful Paint), delayed interactivity (First Input Delay, now replaced by Interaction to Next Paint), and visual instability (Cumulative Layout Shift). These metrics directly affect user experience and search rankings, as they are key factors in Google’s algorithm. We provided recommendations prioritized by page template and impact, aimed at improving page speed, website usability, and overall user experience.
Future Perspective
The client has been integrating the SEO recommendations with the technical service provider, aligning them with the roadmap and budget allocation.
Client Testimonial on Our SEO Service
Julia Philippes
Senior Manager AEM Platform at Sunstar