SUMMARY
Established in 2016, WebQuest is a Dubai-based specialist SEO agency that has forged a reputation for delivering high-performing campaigns for ambitious brands across MENA. In 2020, we were approached by a major website based in the Middle East and focusing on the automotive industry. The client was looking to gain traction in three new regions. As a result of our analysis, technical recommendations, and implementation by the development teams, we were able to increase overall organic non-branded traffic by 441% in less than 12 months!
OBJECTIVE
The objective of the engagement is to:
- Increase the visibility of the native region.
- Gain visibility in three new regions in the Middle East.
- Cater to English and Arabic speakers.
The team at WebQuest and the client agreed on the following:
- Keywords: To rank for as many non-branded keywords as possible across 4 countries, in English and Arabic, on the first page.
- Traffic: To improve total traffic by 100% within 12 months. Traffic per region to increase:
-
- Country #1 (original presence):
- Overall (organic) sessions by 50%.
- Overall (organic) unique users by 50%
- Clicks by 50% (non-branded).
- Impressions by 50% (non-branded).
- Country #2, Country #3, and Country #4 – agreed to increase:
- Organic sessions by 100%.
- Unique users by 100%.
- Clicks by 250% (non-branded).
- Impressions by 250% (non-branded).
- Country #1 (original presence):
TARGET AUDIENCE & STRATEGY
> TARGET AUDIENCE
- Region: Four countries in the Middle East.
- Languages: Arabic and English.
- Age: 25-45.
- Gender: Male and female.
- Intent: Individuals looking to purchase new/used vehicles.
> STRATEGY
To reach the target demographic and meet our objectives, we undertook:
- Research: understand the intent behind searches.
- Keyword research and mapping: defining search entities, defining attributes to the entities, defining makes and models for each manufacturer, categorizing search intent behind the searches.
- Website: restructuring website to capture transactional searches in English & Arabic.
- Reviews and continuous feedback with the client
- Reporting: Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Google Data Studio, Semrush, and ahrefs
- Website optimization: improve website crawlability, load-time optimization, backlinks, landing pages, on-page SEO, and content.
- Technical: Server logs, Google Search Console API, and XML sitemaps analysis.
IMPLEMENTATION
The Clients’ website is a completely custom-built architecture & platform, which required us to collaborate closely with the client’s web development team and also engineer solutions entirely from scratch, including:
- Keyword research: Conducted across four countries in Arabic and English. To nest non-branded search phrases for vehicles, which have hundreds of possible permutations, we created scripts to automate intent classification, mapping segments, to determine precisely what the buyer is searching for.
- Total website restructures: Created a new URL structure, internal linking structure, and language siloes; switched from client-side to server-side rendering, conducted server-log analysis; configured on-page elements, devised a new strategy for XML sitemaps, enhanced core web vitals performance, schema implementation.
- Data pipeline & analytics: Built scripts to pull data through the Search Console API to get insights into the data set, and overlay data from server logs to better understand crawler behaviour.
- Optimizing crawlability: We discovered significant index bloat and noticed that the crawl budget was being wasted on unproductive URLs. We, therefore, aimed to continuously clean up the index and conducted regular crawls & server log analysis.
- Localization: Because this is a custom platform, we implemented hreflang tags as well as international targeting to build 8 sections for the website (two languages, four regions).
> CREATIVITY
- Schema implementation: Previously, the Client had no structured data approach for products & sections across the website. Therefore, we implemented multiple schema types across the website, including:
- Website Schema.
- CollectionPage Schema.
- BreadcrumbList Schema.
- Product Schema.
- Ongoing analysis: We built live dashboards on Google Data Studio to compare/analyse search, per language, per region, for branded and non-branded search (weekly and monthly).
RESULTS
> Keywords
As of the publication of this case study, the client now ranks on hundreds of non-branded keywords across 4 countries, in English and Arabic, on the first page.
> Traffic
This campaign delivered 1.4m searches on a three-month basis (vs. 316k pre-campaign) and a 441%increase in non-branded search across four regions in just 12 months! (vs. 100% target). 
By region:
-
- Country #1 (native region):
- Overall organic sessions increased 62.83% (vs. 50% target).
- Overall unique organic users increased 118.27% (vs. 50% target).
- Clicks (non-branded) increased 172% (vs. 50% target)
- Impressions (non-branded) increased 188% (vs. 50% target).
- Country #2:
- Overall organic sessions increased 339.78% (vs. 100% target).
- Overall unique organic users increased 264.17% (vs. 100% target).
- Clicks (non-branded) increased 1780% (vs. 250% target).
- Impressions (non-branded) increased 1794% (vs. 250% target).
- Country #3:
- Overall organic sessions increased 981.51% (vs. 100% target).
- Overall unique organic users increased 904.45% (vs. 100% target).
- Clicks (non-branded) increased 2010% (vs. 250% target).
- Impressions (non-branded) increased 2154% (vs. 250% target).
- Country #4:
- Overall organic sessions increased 983.67% (vs. 100% target).
- Overall unique organic users increased 867.97% (vs. 100% target).
- Clicks (non-branded) increased 1930% (vs. 250% target).
- Impressions (non-branded) increased 1411% (vs. 250% target).
- Country #1 (native region):
> Website optimization
We helped the Client’s web development team achieve the following:
- Mobile speed score of 81 (for main listing pages)
- Desktop speed score of 99 (for main listing pages)
Mazen Aloul
