Data Analysis Platform Aptech Doubled Organic Growth in 12 Months

It’s not a small feat to double organic traffic in 1 year if your brand does not even show up on the SERP, your queries are niche and low-volume, and the competition – fierce. Here is how Aptech did it.
SEO
Content
50% growth in new organic users in 12 months
160% growth in clicks and impressions YoY
100% brand visibility reclaiming their own brand name‍

Challenge: Low Organic Performance and Hijacked Brand

Aptech is a niche brand whose main product is GAUSS – a platform for data analysis and visualization. It is used by data analysts, scientists, and students in the fields of econometrics, finance, risk analysis, statistics, and many more. The platform provides ready-to-use solutions for common analysis algorithms and has smooth integration with the top programming languages in the field.

The client approached us to enhance overall website SEO, covering technical, on-page, and structural elements. They also sought a practical strategy to guide their internal content marketing.

They wanted to solve branding challenges with both their main brand (Aptech) and their core product (GAUSS) and increase relevant organic traffic to the website from all stages of the marketing funnel. The initial traffic to the website was very low and mostly brand-driven.

In a nutshell:

  • Highly technical and niche product with a narrow audience in Search
  • Strong brand competitors
  • Limited internal dev resources
  • Very strong competition for informational queries

Solution: Extensive Keyword Research, SEO Audits, and Implementation Support

Phase 1: Audits, Research, and Opportunities

Our SEO work started with Technical, Content, and Backlink audits. Our specialists discovered significant missed opportunities in terms of technical SEO:

  • Crawl budget optimization started with updates of the XML sitemaps and stopping the indexation of duplicate content
  • Security issues – implementation of HTTPS certificate for all pages & resources
  • Page speed and Mobile UX improvements – improving page speed scores and resolving mobile issues on several pages
  • Updates of the Structured Data set up with more formats and a larger variety of entities.

The keyword research and website structure suggestions were the most challenging part of the project because of the product specifics.

We combed through 3168 potential keywords, participated in a product demo, and collaborated closely with the client to discover the best keyword opportunities that would be relevant to the niche.

After we decided on the core key terms (more than 80 keyword groups), the SEO team suggested metadata improvements and implementing a pillar-cluster structure in the blog to support the main product pages. As the existing traffic of the website was relatively low, our first goal was to increase the visibility of the domain for relevant terms.

Next, we built a content strategy based on the findings of the audit, with detailed buyer persona research, specific recommendations on the blog structure, and a plan for content creation that would be executed by the in-house team.

Our backlink audit discovered links that needed to be disavowed for Google due to low relevance and domain authority, and also opportunities for creating high-quality backlinks for the domain.

Phase 2: SEO Health Monitoring and Ongoing Content Work

Our ongoing work with Aptech included monthly SEO health monitoring – a close review of the results from the SEO and content strategy, spotting new technical issues, and constant monitoring of negative backlinks (spam activity).

Our team provided help with suggestions for new sections of the website, redesign planning, and CRO opportunities. Additionally, we provided detailed content briefs for key articles on the website with the goal of making the in-house content creation as SEO-friendly as possible. Our content team adapted their usual work process to better meet the needs of the client due to the specifics of their niche.

Results: Reclaimed Branded Traffic, Grew Organic User Acquisition by 50%

Within 12 months, we were able to achieve substantial organic traffic growth. The SEO audits and implementations significantly improved the websites’ technical performance.

Between the first and the second half of 2020, we achieved a 51% increase in users, primarily new visitors to the brand.

Organic traffic users trendline from the time of the SEO implementation till the end of the project (drop at the end is seasonality at the end of the year). The organic channel was bringing 85% of all website visitors.

YoY comparison for June (2019 & 2020) shows 163% more clicks, 167% more impressions on the domain.

Organic traffic trends | June 2019 - July 2020

Aptech also gained full visibility for brand-related searches – both for the brand and for its main product, GAUSS Platform. This was a specific goal for this project due to brand competition.