International SEO Project for SoundImports

The leading store for DIY speakers and audio components

SoundImports specializes in advising customers and selling DIY audio components and accessories. The company was founded in 2015, serves customers throughout Europe, and is known for its high level of service. In a short period of time, SoundImports has grown to become Europe’s leading online store for DIY audio, with a product range comprising more than 4,500 items. In addition to various top brands in the DIY audio sector, SoundImports has also launched its own brand (SoundImpress) to further bolster its growth ambitions. SoundImports keeps all products in stock and ships them from its own warehouse in Groningen, ensuring fast shipping and excellent service.

SEO Project for SoundImports

As of March 2020, SmartRanking has been SoundImports’ regular SEO partner, with a focus on increasing visibility throughout Europe.

The objective from SoundImports

SoundImports has asked us to help the company grow in a sustainable and profitable way. As a result, SoundImports is not only building a rapidly growing business but also one that is built on a sustainable foundation. To achieve this, an ROI target has been set that the investment in SEO must meet. In addition, SoundImports has another important goal: to be the market leader in SEO in Europe. This is measured in terms of search visibility.

The Approach for This Project

Given the wide range of products and the multilingual nature of the online store, it is important to set priorities and choose a focus. Within the project, our approach focuses on several key keyword clusters:

• The best-selling products with a good margin.
• The brands, which are then further divided into three categories (based on priority).

By breaking down the keyword research in this way, we can more effectively determine the focus and growth opportunities. Furthermore, this approach allows us to better filter the data in the tracking project, thereby providing insight into search visibility (and its growth).

Based on search visibility, optimization priorities are set each month, and these optimizations are carried out in collaboration with the SoundImports team. The focus is on creating a positive user experience (including a fast online store) and producing valuable content that demonstrates SoundImports’ authority. Based on competitor gap analyses, the online store is continuously expanded and product pages are optimized.

One of the issues we encountered during the project was internal cannibalization among the multilingual product pages. For example, it often happened that a product page targeted at the UK could be found in German search results. To prevent this, all product meta titles and meta descriptions were uniquely rewritten using programmatic SEO, and the most important product pages are translated into the local language by SoundImports.

While the focus at the start of the project was heavily on optimizing brand and category pages, the focus is now increasingly shifting toward improving product pages. In doing so, we look beyond just content; internal links and UX are also part of the equation. We determine the order of optimization for the product pages—once again—based on profit margins, search volumes, and search visibility. This way, we can be sure that, together with SoundImports, we’re working on the pages that will have the greatest impact.

The result achieved

By closely analyzing key data points—such as the top brands—and prioritizing our efforts based on search visibility, we’ve been able to achieve solid year-over-year growth for SoundImports. As a marketing channel, SEO delivers a high ROI for SoundImports, enabling profitable growth. Within the SEO strategy, the focus is on continuously improving the user experience, expanding the content, and optimizing existing content.

The SoundImports team is critical, enthusiastic, and dedicated. This helps us keep each other on our toes and achieve great results together. We’re also keeping an eye on the possibility of expanding into a fourth language, which would allow us to provide SoundImports with the right advice based on search data.