No traffic after 6 months

[zerozenecostore]

Hi All

I started to build our store 6 months ago, added around 140 products, redesigned the store a few months ago, made it as fast as I can get it, have mobile AMP pages for products and collection. have been adding blogs every week nearly, the SEO on page is pretty good, all the images have alt tags, I use Smart SEO and have a score of 100% on every page for that app. 

My site is pretty fast for shopify I think https://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.zerozen.co.uk/ha5vV8UJ/

Over the past 3 months I started link building the natural way, first added our business to local directories, set up facebook, linkedin, instagram, twitter, pinterest pages, have a listing on Yahoo business, Google business. also blog comments, a few guest blog pages with links pointing to us and a number of other links, like reddit and so on.

We have around 325 links from around 58 sites found this on Google Console this has grown week by week over the last 3 months and we have 1,110 results on google https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.zerozen.co.uk&rlz=1C5CHFA_enGB930GB930&oq=site+&aqs=chrom... so I think we are not penalised and we have stayed away from black hat seo.

Yet we get no traffic, the most we get a day is 5 from Google and 2 from Yahoo and Bing, not sure what else I can do other than keep guest blogging but I feel like I am hitting my head on a wall.

Any advice would be helpful as I feel like giving up on this, maybe we opened up the wrong kind of business..

[PageFly-Victor · Accepted solution]

Hi @zerozenecostore, 

I made a quick audit - and it's true that mobile performance is good, backlink profile is solid, I wager the problem is your keyword research. 

Let's say you're selling Dog Chew Toys - which will be the keywords you're going to target? 

1. How to keep my dog happy? 
2. Dog toys near me
3. Buy dog chew toys online

Now you want to target the last one right, but should you? 

These options are three types of keyword: 

1. Informational keyword - this type of keyword matches the first stage of the online buyer journey - Awareness. Buyers use informational keywords to help them learn more about a topic, problem, product. 
2. Navigational keyword - this type of keyword matches the second stage of the online buyer journey - Consideration. Buyers use Navigation keywords to learn about a specific offering (dog toys) - these keywords often include brand-specific terms and navigational phrases like Near me, Features of, Reviews, Prices. 
3. Transactional keyword - this type of keyword matches the 3rd stage of the online buyer journey - Conversion. Buyers are ready to buy, and they are using transactional keyword (or product-focused keywords) to take action. Hence, these keywords often include phrases like: Discount, Buy, For Sale, Where to buy, etc. 

Simply put, you use Informational keywords and Navigational keywords for creating content (blog posts, video, tutorials) to lead potential buyers to your store, and get them to be familiar with your brand. 

At the same time, You use Transactional keywords for your Product Pages, to tailor the product pages and match it with the conversion step of the buyer's purchase process. 

For example, bamboo bedding is a keyword with high volume: 900, and low Keyword Difficulty: 02, I would write about 5-6 articles on bamboo bedding topic, then links all of these articles to the bamboo bedding product page (or money page), so basically what I do is to create a topic cluster with strong internal linking structure to help me rank faster. 

Hope this suggestion works for you. 

Let me know if my answer is of any help with a thumb up or like 😄 

[NikkiElizDeMere]

Hi @zerozenecostore! 

• What are the top ten keywords that are your main focus?
• What keywords are driving traffic (so far) according to Google Analytics / Google Search Console?

Here's a solid list of Google SEO tips for 2021 from Moz.

[jam_chan]

Firstly, you have to check the search volume of your target keywords. If the search volumes are too low, you don't have any obvious traffics even your store ranks high on these keywords. 

Secondly, if your target keywords are competitive, it takes a long time to rank high. Let's say you target the keyword "SEO". It's almost impossible to rank since many SEO consultants are competing for the keyword. 

Finally, I suggest you take a high-level view of SEO. SEO is just one of the marketing tactics. Don't think that SEO is a silver bullet. Imagine other store owners (>1000 merchants) can also the same as you. What makes you different from the others?

Besides SEO, you should consider other tactics like social media marketing, Pinterest, PR, videos, whatever effective for you. The key is to find a cost-effective channel for yourself. If it doesn't work, just try another way. Why bother?