{"id":6734,"date":"2017-01-16T16:23:30","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T16:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mageworx.com\/?p=6734"},"modified":"2022-04-19T15:14:53","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T15:14:53","slug":"zakwatch-ch-magento-seo-configuration-case-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/seo-configuration-service-case-study-zakwatch","title":{"rendered":"Zakwatch.ch &#8211; Magento SEO Configuration Case Study"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- SEO Ultimate (http:\/\/www.seodesignsolutions.com\/wordpress-seo\/) - Code Inserter module -->\n<!-- Google Tag Manager (noscript) -->\r\n<noscript><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.googletagmanager.com\/ns.html?id=GTM-5DTCW7B8\"\r\nheight=\"0\" width=\"0\" style=\"display:none;visibility:hidden\"><\/iframe><\/noscript>\r\n<!-- End Google Tag Manager (noscript) -->\n<!-- \/SEO Ultimate -->\n\n<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 6<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><h2>The Background<\/h2>\n<p><b><a href=\"https:\/\/zakwatch.ch\/\">Zakwatch<\/a>&nbsp;<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is a retail brand for watches, jewelry and accessories. Since its lauch in 2014, Zakwatch.ch<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">has managed to become one of the biggest stores of its kind in Switzerland. The brand is strongly committed to the domestic market, and has big loyal customer audience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Zakwatch was launched by <\/span><b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.allaleen.com\/\">Allaleen<\/a>&nbsp;<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8211; a Lucerne-based company specializing in brands development and distribution. Adhering to creative approach, founders of Allaleen are constantly seeking ways to provide one-of-a-kind experience to their customers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Willing to improve the store\u2019s online presence before the upcoming Christmas holidays, Dominik Meier, a co-founder of Allaleen reached out to MageWorx. After a short discussion, it was agreed to combine the functionality of MageWorx\u2019s SEO Suite Ultimate with skills and hands-on experience of the &nbsp;MageWorx SEO team. This combination is called a MageWorx Advanced SEO Configuration Service.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h2>About Magento SEO Configuration service<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A pioneer in Magento development, MageWorx was one of the first companies to utilize the SEO potential offered by the Magento platform. The SEO Suite Ultimate is considered one of the most (if not the most) advanced Magento SEO extensions to date.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">MageWorx SEO Suite Ultimate is a sophisticated toolkit designed to cover all important <\/span><b>on-page SEO*<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> activities. Packed with dozens of useful features, it helps online merchants to improve their website visibility, enhance indexation, reduce duplicate content issues, ensure more effective and more efficient website indexation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SEO Suite Ultimate comes with a free basic configuration. In our case, the client wanted to save time and add more &#8220;Swiss precision&#8221; to the basic setup. Therefore, Dominik decided to purchase the advanced configuration service, which is exclusively designed for this extension.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><b>*On-page SEO<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are practices aimed at optimizing web pages\u2019 content and elements to attract more relevant traffic and achieve higher search engine rankings.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<h2>The Challenge<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During the initial SEO audit of Zakwatch, MageWorx SEO team discovered a number of issues that were affecting the store\u2019s performance and overall SEO value. While not being overly &#8220;threatening&#8221; separately, altogether they were hindering the website\u2019s SEO progress.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When analyzing the HTML improvements report in the Google Webmaster Tools, the team found numerous issues with <\/span><b>Meta Description and Title tags<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8211; Duplicate meta descriptions: <\/span><b>706<\/b><b><br \/>\n<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8211;<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Short meta descriptions: <\/span><b>692<\/b><b><br \/>\n<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8211;<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Duplicate title tags: <\/span><b>521<\/b><b><br \/>\n<\/b><b><br \/>\n<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While duplicate content reduced the chances for the webpages to be properly indexed, short meta descriptions looked awkward on the results pages, which decreased the website\u2019s CTR.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Errors in website data markup<\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> could lead to snippets being incorrectly displayed in the search results.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Hreflang alternate tags*<\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> were not present for multilingual store views (English and French), which could cause incorrect display of the website for the local audiences. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lack of <\/span><em>cross-linking<\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> led to less effective distribution of the website authority throughout its pages.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Poorly optimized <\/span><em>layered navigation<\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8211; absence of meta tags and canonical tags** caused less accurate search results and errors in webpage indexation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Missing <\/span><em>XML sitemaps<\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for FR and EN storeviews made the search engines unable to see and timely index their pages.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Poorly configured <\/span><em>URL parameters<\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> led to many unwanted unique attributes that had no practical sense and led to unnecessary indexation when multiple variations of the same URL served the same content.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_6735\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6735\" style=\"width: 931px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6735\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/URL-params.jpg\" alt=\"That nasty URL parameter attribute will be \u201cterminated\u201d, resolving many further page indexation issues.\" width=\"931\" height=\"676\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/URL-params.jpg 931w, https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/URL-params-600x436.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/URL-params-768x558.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 931px) 100vw, 931px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6735\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">That nasty URL parameter attribute will be \u201cterminated\u201d, resolving many further page indexation issues.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last, but not least &#8211; <\/span><b>Robots.txt***<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> file was not configured.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To sum up, below are the key goals of the SEO Configuration team:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Perform a complete store audit<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fully configure the SEO Suite<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Setup Bing and Google Webmaster tools<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>*<b>Hreflang tags<\/b> are meant to mark up pages that are aimed at different languages or regions.<br \/>\n<\/em><em>**<b>Canonical tags<\/b> are used to set the originating source for duplicate pages so that the search engine could use it to resolve duplicate content issues and give all the SEO value to the source URL.<br \/>\n<\/em><em>***<b>Robots.txt<\/b> is a file that is used to give indexation instruction to the search bots.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Store Audit<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the years, MageWorx SEO team has been following best practices when it comes to SEO audit. The experience we have gained enables us to tailor these practices to the specific needs of each store.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Generally speaking, SEO audit is aimed to ensure that:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>SEO value<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is not reduced by the indexation of the URL parameters<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is <\/span><b>NO<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> duplicate content or missing meta data<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before the start, our clients are asked to provide access to Google and Bing webmaster tools as well as the ftp and backend access credentials of the live website. Without these details, it would be impossible to carry out the detailed website audit and find the abovementioned issues.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Other activities include checking whether www or non-www domain is treated as the main one by Google. If the preferred domain is not selected, Google might treat both versions as separate websites, which will cause the SEO value split between the domain versions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Essential thing is to check what pages have been indexed by the search engines. Duplicate URLs can be treated as the independent ones, which also leads to more relevant pages losing their SEO value.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>SEO Suite Setup<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The next step of the configuration service is to properly setup and configure the SEO Suite extension.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Issues resolved:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Meta Description and Title tags<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To make sure there are no issues with meta tags duplication, the SEO team created and tested various SEO templates for product, and category pages. The templates were made for every store view in order to ensure that they have unique meta tags in the needed language. These templates will later be used to automatically fill empty meta data fields with unique SEO-friendly data.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Website data markup\/Hreflang alternate tags<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After fixing the errors with website data markup that were present in category and product pages,<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">hreflang alternate tags setup was added for all store views, enabling correct search results view for English, French and German speakers.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_6736\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6736\" style=\"width: 228px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6736\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/hreflang.jpg\" alt=\"Hreflang alternate tags setup\" width=\"228\" height=\"189\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6736\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hreflang alternate tags setup<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Cross-linking<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We asked Dominik to name 7-10 keywords important for the store. To understand what words are needed for the project, both the client and the SEO team need to be on the same page and understand what products and categories matter the most. In case with Zakwatch, the store was going to add additional views views for English- and French-speaking visitors. Therefore, the keywords had to be translated into all languages to take full effect. Eventually, the SEO specialist set up cross-links that:<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Distributed the <\/span><b>ranking authority<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> throughout the website pages<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Increased <\/span><b>traffic <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">for the preferred brand\/product category pages<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Enabled visitors to easily navigate to <\/span><b>relevant<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> SEO-targeted pages more often<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Built a more convenient website <\/span><b>navigation <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">system<\/span><b><br \/>\n<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">*<\/span><b>Layered navigation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8211; a way to navigate through content on eCommerce websites, enabling shoppers to narrow down product catalogue search results and adjust them according to various criteria.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Google and Bing Webmaster Tools Setup<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We\u2019re almost done! A bit more optimization &#8211; and Zakwatch.ch will never be the same again \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here\u2019s what we fixed and optimized at this stage:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>XML Sitemaps<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Creation and HTML and XML sitemaps is an obvious yet very important step for the SEO optimization. While HTML sitemap is suited for website visitors to easily navigate the website, XML one is created specifically for the search engine to properly index the website pages. The SEO specialist created separate sitemaps for all store views, enabling more accurate indexation for each of them.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>URL Parameters<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Indexation was turned off for the unwanted URL parameters in Google and Bing webmaster tools (almost 40 parameters for Zakwatch).<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_6738\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6738\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6738\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/URL-params-2.png\" alt=\"Zakwatch.ch URL parameters\" width=\"1024\" height=\"828\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/URL-params-2.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/URL-params-2-600x485.png 600w, https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/URL-params-2-768x621.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6738\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zakwatch.ch URL parameters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Canonical tags have been added for the layered navigation* which made the search results way more accurate. Filtered pages now got higher chances of being ranked separately by the search engines.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>The Result<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It takes some time for the applied changes to be indexed by the search spiders. However, we have noticed that those curious spiders already detected some noticeable on-page SEO improvements. Thus, the planned goal has been met, and Zakwatch.ch managed to increase its traffic (and therefore the sales figures) before the Christmas holiday season.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As you see on the screenshots below: <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6739 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SEO-1-1200x529.png\" alt=\"SEO 1\" width=\"1200\" height=\"529\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SEO-1-1200x529.png 1200w, https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SEO-1-600x265.png 600w, https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SEO-1-768x339.png 768w, https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SEO-1.png 1488w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One month later:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6740 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SEO-2-1200x520.png\" alt=\"SEO 2\" width=\"1200\" height=\"520\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SEO-2-1200x520.png 1200w, https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SEO-2-600x260.png 600w, https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SEO-2-768x333.png 768w, https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SEO-2.png 1504w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>The Customer&#8217;s Testimonial<br \/>\n<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><em>&#8220;A big thank to MageWorx for its professional, fast and kind support! We haven&#8217;t spent a single second in SEO before getting in touch with MageWorx. With MageWorx SEO Ultimate we not only have integrated a powerful extension into our system, but also let the specialists of MageWorx do the advanced configuration in order to get most of that powerful pack. Thanks to Ulyana, Arthur and the whole MageWorx team!&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong>Dominik Meier<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Co-founder of Allaleen AG<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * * * *<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A few final words. No matter how big your sales figures are, you can always get <\/span><b>more<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with better SEO. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All that is left once the service is done is to follow the instructions outlined in the owner&#8217;s manual of the SEO suite for stable results. Want to save your time? Let our professionals do the job for you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/magento-seo-configuration.html?utm_source=blogpost&amp;utm_medium=zakwatch-case&amp;utm_campaign=SEOconfig\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-6750\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Flat-Orange-Click-Here-Button-web-300x114.png\" width=\"280\" height=\"106\"><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<em>to learn more about how <strong>SEO Configuration service<\/strong> can help your store stand out!<\/em><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 6<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>The Background Zakwatch&nbsp;is a retail brand for watches, jewelry and accessories. Since its lauch in 2014, Zakwatch.ch has managed to become one of the biggest stores of its kind in Switzerland. The brand is strongly committed to the domestic market, and has big loyal customer audience. Zakwatch was launched by Allaleen&nbsp;&#8211; a Lucerne-based company specializing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":14604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329,289,432],"tags":[328,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-6734","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-case-studies","8":"category-magento","9":"category-seo","10":"tag-magento-seo-configuration","11":"tag-seo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6734"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13676,"href":"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6734\/revisions\/13676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mageworx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}