Stats
17.6K to 121.6K Monthly Visits
Industry
Ecommerce & Retail
Niche
Apparel
Reporting Date
September 2023
With global eCommerce sales projected to reach USD 58.74 trillion by 2028, there's never been a better time to go international.
So, that's exactly what the subject of this case study did.
Join us as we explore meshki.co.uk and analyze the strategies that skyrocketed its traffic by 589% in just 3 months.
We'll reveal how this fashion brand tapped into its international market with a new domain and share tips for growing your site's traffic.
Let's get started.
In This Article
About MESHKI
MESHKI is an Australian fashion brand established in 2013.
It was founded by two architecture students who shared a love of fashion.
Today, its trendy designs are a favorite of social media influencers and celebrities alike. Its budget-friendly price points also make its clothing accessible to a broader audience.
MESHKI boasts an international customer base and ships to 190 countries worldwide.
Historical Performance
MESHKI made its online debut in 2014 with the domain meshki.co.au.
Naturally, Australia is its highest traffic-driving country, accounting for 73% of this domain’s traffic.
In 2020, MESHKI tapped into the American market with its second domain, meshki.us. The United States generates 88% of website traffic, while Canada accounts for 9.6%.
Most recently, MESHKI expanded into the United Kingdom with meshki.co.uk. This domain generates the highest amount of traffic for its target country, with 90% of visits coming from the UK.
This domain has experienced the most dramatic growth yet and will be the focus of our case study.
Here, we see the UK domain’s growth, which is particularly impressive in the last 3 months.
From June to September, MESHKI has catapulted its organic traffic from 17.6K to 121.6K.
So, how did they do it? And why didn’t they choose to combine all traffic in a single .com domain?
We’re going to reveal those answers next.
The Catalyst: How MESHKI Achieved 589% Growth in 3 Months
Meshki.co.uk grew organic traffic by performing the following:
- Using a ccTLD
- Ranking for branded keywords
- Winning review snippets on the SERP
- Obtaining high-quality backlinks
Let’s examine each strategy to understand its significance and impact on MESHKI’s success.
1. Using a ccTLD
A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) indicates the geographic location of a website. They use two-letter country codes, as we saw with MESHKI’s domains:
- .au for Australia
- .us for the United States
- .uk for the United Kingdom
So, why would a website opt for a ccTLD domain over directing all traffic to a single website?
According to Moz, ccTLDs are the strongest indicator for search engines that you’re targeting a specific country.
This is important for a few reasons:
- It helps you rank higher in the country’s search results.
- You can tailor content to a specific country.
- You can use the same content in a different language.
- For eCommerce, some users are more comfortable purchasing from a local website than an international one.
Why this matters:
In MESHKI’s case, they’re using ccTLDs to target specific countries in their global market. This decision allows them to offer a similar shopping experience tailored to their UK audience. It also helps them rank higher for branded keywords, which we’ll discuss in the next strategy.
How to decide if you should use a ccTLD for your international site:
Choosing the proper domain architecture is an important component of international SEO.
Here’s further reading on the subject to help you decide if a ccTLD is right for your website:
- Pros and Cons of ccTLDs
- Top Domain Extensions (includes ccTLDs)
- gTLD vs ccTLD: Impact on SEO
Ultimately, there are many factors to consider when expanding into international markets. ccTLDs aren't a one-size-fits-all solution and require research before implementation.
Tools for multisite networks:
Multisite is a WordPress feature that allows you to build and run several websites from a single WordPress installation. This means you can manage all your sites (including ccTLDs) from a single dashboard.
It’s an efficient way to juggle multiple websites, especially when you have the right tools.
All in One SEO (AIOSEO) can help you perform the following on your multisite network:
- Edit robots.txt files across domains
- Import and export metadata
- Import and export SEO settings (see screenshot below)
For more information, here’s a comprehensive guide on multisite SEO and tutorials for AIOSEO multisite settings.
Next, let’s explore how MESHKI targeted branded keywords to boost traffic in the UK.
2. Ranking for Branded Keywords
MESHKI, having already established high-traffic domains in Australia and the US, faced a unique challenge when ranking the UK website for the MESHKI brand.
Given the lack of a UK domain for much of the brand's history, Google served UK branded traffic to the next best thing: the US website.
Meshki.us ranked in position 1 for the top branded keywords (“meshki” and “meshki uk”) in 2022 and most of 2023.
Note: Branded keywords are search queries that include a brand name. For example, “apple laptop.”
That is until June 2023 marked the beginning of a transition.
In June, meshki.co.uk garnered 2.3K organic visits from branded traffic. The primary keyword “meshki” was absent from these rankings. Instead, variations like “meshki dresses” and “meshki returns,” took the lead.
The chart below illustrates how this trend gained momentum in the following months.
| Month | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Branded Traffic | 2.3K | 3.6K | 13.1K | 44K |
| Traffic for query “meshki” | 0 | 1.1K | 10K | 32.4K |
By September, Google had transferred UK traffic from the two most important branded keywords from the US site to the UK site.
This secured the UK's homepage in the top-ranking position and generated 35% of the site's total traffic for September.
Why this matters:
MESHKI is a unique case in that it already had several well-ranking domains. It took a little time for search engines to sort country traffic to their respective ccTLDs.
For website owners, this highlights the importance of patience in SEO. Sometimes, you're at the mercy of search engines and algorithms, waiting for the desired results to materialize.
Nevertheless, SEO is the best way to signal your intent to search engines.
On-page optimizations can help you rank higher for your target keywords and drive more traffic to your site.
How to do on-page SEO on your site:
On-page SEO refers to the optimizations you make in your content. Keyword placement (where you put keywords) plays a central role in this process.
For example, some of the best places to put your target keyword are:
- URL
- H1 (Page Title)
- Meta Title (SEO Title)
- Meta Description
- Body Copy
- Images
For a complete list of places, this article shares where to put keywords to improve your on-page SEO.
Tools for on-page SEO:
TruSEO is the best on-page SEO tool. It takes the guesswork out of content optimizations and makes maximizing your content’s reach easy.
TruSEO works by analyzing your content against a range of SEO criteria. It checks for things like internal links, character limits, readability, and keyword placement.
It then provides a checklist of items showing where your content passes and gives actionable tips for the areas where it didn’t.
Here’s an example of a keyword placement check:
It really is that easy!
Now, let’s look at how review snippets drive more organic traffic to meshki.co.uk.
3. Winning Review Snippets on the SERP
In September, MESHKI received a record number of review snippets.
A review snippet, or review rich result, is an enhanced search listing that shows an average of your product ratings.
Here’s what they look like on the SERP:
Winning review snippets often involves using product review schema in your website's HTML code. This informs search engines that you collect user reviews, enabling enhanced search listings.
MESHKI implements product schema on its site and is getting more traffic as a result.
The chart below shows the growth of keywords with review snippets on meshki.co.uk.
Why this matters:
Rich results are proven to drive more traffic and improve clickthrough rates (CTR). These types of search results take up more space on the SERP, attracting more user attention.
For eCommerce, review snippets are particularly effective. They build trust with customers and establish credibility.
How to implement product schema on your site:
There are several ways to use schema markup on your site manually.
This article shows three methods for adding structured data to WordPress without a plugin.
Each method involves a few steps and requires you to obtain and copy code snippets into the appropriate fields.
Tools for product schema:
You can implement product schema with a click of a button—when you have the right tools.
AIOSEO’s Schema Generator handles formatting schema markup for Google, so you don’t have to worry about coding. Just pick Product from our Schema Catalog, choose your review settings, and we’ll take care of the rest.
Now, let’s look at the final growth factor on meshki.co.uk: backlinks.
4. Obtaining High-Quality Backlinks
In the past 3 months, MESHKI has obtained significantly more backlinks. They had 2,929 backlinks in September, where historical data reveals that they never breached 900 before July.
A few elements reveal themselves as we look over the individual backlinks:
- Their backlinks are relevant, frequently coming from fashion and celebrity news websites.
- The anchor text is natural. There’s no keyword stuffing or repetitive exact-match anchor text for every link.
- They have more follow links than nofollow links, as shown below.
Tip: While there’s no golden ratio for follow vs. nofollow links, it's beneficial to maintain a combination of both with a higher count of follow links.
Why this matters:
MESHKI demonstrates the importance of high-quality backlinks as a contributor to traffic growth. Backlinks are among the top two Google ranking factors, making them a critical component of your SEO strategy. They act like votes of confidence, signaling your site’s credibility to search engines.
How to do link building on your site:
This backlinking guide explains how to find and get good backlinks. It highlights quality over quantity and the importance of relevancy.
It’s also worth noting that an effective linking strategy goes beyond backlinks.
You should also optimize for the following:
- Internal links (from one page on your domain to another page on your domain)
- Outbound links (from your domain to another external domain)
This link-building guide has everything you need to know to optimize for all three types of links.
Tools for link building:
Link Assistant supports your internal linking efforts with linking recommendations in WordPress. While working on a page or post, check Link Assistant's suggestions and click Add Link. That’s all it takes!
Standout SEO Wins
Before concluding, there’s an additional technique we’d like to highlight at meshki.co.uk:
1. They have a custom 404 page.
Page not found errors are bound to happen when running an eCommerce site. Product changes, items sell out, collections are discontinued, etc.
To create a seamless user experience, MESHKI uses a custom 404 page when a user tries to access a page that is no longer available.
In place of a cold “404 page not found” message, users are greeted with an on-brand image that warmly invites them to explore new arrivals. This creates a more positive user experience and can help improve bounce rates.
Tool: AIOSEO’s Redirection Manager can help you redirect page not found errors to your custom 404 page. This tutorial walks you through the steps for implementing these automatic redirects.
Takeaways
In our analysis of meshki.co.uk, we've uncovered the strategies that led to its recent organic success.
Now, let's review which ones to apply to your website and strategies to reconsider.
Top 3 Strategies to Emulate
- Using ccTLDs to target international markets. MESHKI uses country-specific domains like “.co.uk” to tailor sites to regional audiences. This strategy helps them rank higher in each country for their target keywords.
- Leveraging on-page SEO to boost rankings for branded keywords. Even though it took a few months, search engines successfully transferred UK brand traffic to the UK domain in 2023. MESHKI's on-page optimizations made this process easier.
- Implementing product schema to win review snippets on the SERP. MESHKI's use of product schema produced review snippets that take up more real estate on the SERP. These eye-catching search results boost CTR and help drive traffic to your site.
Bottom 3 Strategies to Reconsider
- Not assigning an H1 tag to every URL. An H1 is the main title of a web page. It lets users and search engines know what your page is about. Without it, it can be difficult for search engines to understand your content. A headline analyzer can help you catch a missing H1 and optimize it.
- Exceeding metadata character limits. The SERP has limited space for meta titles and meta descriptions. Character limits help you create metadata that fits within this space and prevents truncation in search results. A SERP snippet tool shows you what your search listing will look like before publishing.
- Neglecting image title tags. While MESHKI does a good job optimizing image alt text, they overlook title tags. Image title tags appear when users click or hover their mouse over an image. They also help search engines understand the content. You can use an image SEO tool to set image title tags automatically.
Steal Our SEO Winning Strategy: A Checklist for Your Website
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Our SEO checklist has you covered with the steps to get there.
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