In this case study, we discuss how we eliminated technical SEO debt for Newsletter Glue.
Topline Stats:
- Improved PageSpeed score from 73 to 98!
- Improved technical SEO score to 96%, ‘Excellent’
- Fixed hidden site issues like hosting and caching
“Clio Websites provided a clear plan to follow that led to direct improvements in my site speed and SEO.”
Lesley Sim, Co-Founder, Newsletter Glue
THE CHALLENGE
Newsletter Glue is one of the top WordPress plugins for newsletters, allowing you to create and publish newsletters seamlessly from the Gutenberg editor.
A simple page builder was used to build the first version of the website. The team were ready to start content marketing to drive organic search; but they knew they had to fix their technical issues first.
Google’s Core Web Vitals meant that load speed was paramount. If the site loaded slowly, Google would penalize NewsletterGlue.com in the search rankings. The team would face an uphill battle to rank for keywords and drive organic traffic.
That was where Clio Websites came in to offer our expertise and set them up for SEO success.
THE SOLUTION
We created a three-step plan:
- Perform high-level audits to identify the major issues
- Recommend best practices to fix issues
- Research keyword opportunities to inspire content marketing
Site audit
First, we performed several high-level audits to identify the most critical issues we needed to fix.
- PageSpeed Audit: We discovered issues like uncompressed images and a lack of caching that were causing the website to load slowly.
- Technical SEO Audit: We also found broken links, a fragmented site structure and a lack of meta information. Fixing these would help the site rank higher on Google.
To address these issues, we provided the Newsletter Glue team with a number of best practices. A quick win was to install the Cloudflare APO Plugin. This instantly addressed caching and optimization issues, and reduced page loading time from 3 seconds to just 1 second.
“I saw an instant jump in Page Speed after installing Cloudflare APO. Clio Websites made prompt, valuable recommendations.”
Lesley Sim, Co-Founder, Newsletter Glue
Fixed technical SEO issues
Using Ahrefs, we found that Newsletter Glue already had a decent SEO score. We also found some easy wins to improve from a technical SEO standpoint.
Following technical SEO best practices helps search engines understand your website better and leads to a higher ranking.
The focus areas that were resolved during the technical SEO improvements were:
- Fixing 404 errors and fixing broken links
- Making sure that the meta descriptions were filled out
- Limiting duplicate content
- Tuning and shrinking images for faster speed and better performance
With these quick fixes, we improved the technical SEO score to ‘Excellent’.
Researched keyword opportunities
We followed our strategic SEO process to generate keyword ideas, as follows:
- Determine what keywords the website is currently targeting
- Assess how existing content can rank better for keywords
- Perform a competitor analysis to see which competitors rank for those keywords
- Identify keywords that competitors are pursuing that Newsletter Glue may not be
- Use keyword research to Identify other opportunities that are low competition but bring in quality leads
When searching for keyword opportunities, we focused on::
- Low competition keywords for quick wins in organic traffic
- High-value keywords used by competitor that would prove valuable in the long run
This laid a strong foundation for Newsletter Glue to start working on content marketing.
THE RESULTS
We compared the performance of the Newsletter Glue website before and after the audit and our optimization.
Using Google Lighthouse, we saw significant pagespeed improvements:
- Overall PageSpeed score improved to 98!
- Total Blocking Time reduced by 92% from 380ms to 30ms
- Time to Interactive reduced by 66% from 3.3s to 1.1s
Using Ahrefs, we saw a significant jump in the Health Score from resolving technical SEO issues.
“Users have remarked that our page loads faster now. Nat and team helped sort out technical issues I didn’t know I had, and I’m excited to see the results of their keyword research.”
Lesley Sim, Co-Founder, Newsletter Glue
For small teams, organic search is a key channel for customer acquisition. Without resolving the technical issues, the Newsletter Glue team would face an uphill battle to rank for keywords and drive search traffic.
We resolved these issues and optimized the Newsletter Glue website. We eliminated potential penalties from Google, and set up the team for content marketing success.
How we eliminated technical SEO debt for Newsletter Glue is just one of the many examples of how we help businesses put their websites to work. If you have any questions or want us to replicate these results for your website, get in touch with us.