How I Increased a Handbag Brand's Revenue to $74,000 a Month with SEO

Many businesses struggle with SEO, especially when they hire cheap freelancers. This is the story of how I helped a women's handbag brand increase its monthly revenue from $12,000 to $74,000 using SEO strategies.

The Problem: Bad SEO Hurts Business

The handbag brand hired a freelancer for $600 a month to handle their SEO. After three years, they had:

• Hundreds of low-quality backlinks from sources like Fiverr and PBNs.

• Many low-quality blog posts have no clear strategy.

• No growth in organic search revenue.

• No increase in organic traffic.

The freelancer built hundreds of backlinks on low-quality websites. The blog posts were poorly written and didn't rank on Google. All traffic came from branded searches, meaning people were only finding the site by searching for the brand name.

Fixing the Damage

Before creating a new strategy, I undertook the crucial task of rectifying the damage from the previous SEO efforts. This was a significant relief for the brand, knowing that their online presence was being restored to its full potential.

Link Audit

During the link audit, I reviewed all the backlinks the previous freelancer had built. Many of these were from blacklisted sites, which could harm the brand's SEO. Instead of removing these links, I chose to ignore them since Google seemed to be doing the same. This is a common strategy when dealing with low-quality backlinks.

Blog Content

The freelancer had written over 200 blog posts, but none ranked on page one of Google. These posts were short, poorly written, and stuffed with too many images.

I archived 75% of these posts and redirected them to relevant pages to avoid broken links. The remaining 25% were updated with new content, better titles, and improved internal links. Some were completely rewritten.

Building a Custom SEO Strategy

Once the damage was fixed, I took the reins and crafted a custom SEO strategy, putting the brand back in control of its online presence.

Technical SEO

First, I audited the site for technical issues. Some key problems included:

• Missing pagination for blogs and collections. This made it hard for search engines to crawl the site.

• Many broken links from out-of-stock products that were not redirected.

• Blog URLs that had been changed without redirects.

• No advanced schema setup. Schema helps search engines understand the content on your site.

I worked with a developer to fix these issues within 10 days.

Keyword Research and On-Page Optimization

I did my keyword research, ignoring the previous freelancer's work. Instead of focusing on individual product pages, I targeted collection pages. Collection pages are groups of similar products, like "leather handbags" or "crossbody bags".

I identified the top-performing collections using tools like Google Search Console. Then, I divided them into two groups:

• Easy wins: Collections that were already ranking on the first two pages of Google.

• Big opportunities: Collections that had high search volume but were not ranking well.

Optimizing collection pages involves:

1. Adding the target keyword to the page title and meta title.

2. Writing 25-50 words of copy above the product grid, including the target keyword in the first sentence.

3. Adding keywords to the image alt text of the banner image.

4. Writing 300-500 words of copy below the product grid, describing the features and benefits of the collection and including the keyword and related terms.

Implementing these changes led to immediate improvements in rankings and traffic, instilling a sense of hope and anticipation for the brand's future online success.

Topical Authority

I focused on building topical authority by creating blog content around specific topics.

Topical authority, a key concept in SEO, refers to establishing oneself as a trusted source of information on a specific subject. Google tends to rank websites that have a lot of high-quality content on a particular topic higher in search results. This is why I focused on building topical authority for the handbag brand.

Instead of trying to cover every keyword related to handbags, I focused on crossbody handbags. This allowed me to create more focused and authoritative content.

We published four quality blog posts each month. Each post was well-researched, well-written, and included:

• Valuable information for potential customers.

• An internal link to a relevant money page in the first 100 words.

• Internal links to and from other relevant blog posts.

Link Building

The previous freelancer built hundreds of low-quality links each month. I took a different approach, focusing on quality over quantity.

I built 5-10 high-quality backlinks each month. These links originated from reputable sites within the fashion and design industries.

My link-building strategy included:

• Guest posts and link insertions: Placed on relevant websites with contextual anchor text.

• Tier two and tier three links: Built to support the guest posts and link insertions.

• High-authority links: Purchased with branded anchor text, pointing to the home and collection pages.

• Reactive PR and press syndication: Earned through press releases and media coverage.

This diverse link profile helped spread authority throughout the entire site.

The Results

Before working together, the brand was making $1,789 a month from SEO. After implementing this strategy, their organic search revenue grew to $74,000 a month. This is a 6x improvement in just nine months.

The brand invested just over $30,000 in SEO and made $389,000 in revenue.

You Can Do It Too

Bad SEO can cost you money. If you're paying a freelancer or agency that isn't delivering results, it's time to make a change. By resolving technical issues, optimizing your collection pages, establishing topical authority, and prioritizing high-quality link building, you can harness the full potential of SEO and drive business growth.

Ready to take your SEO to the next level? Contact a qualified SEO agency today.