Increase of 148% in website traffic in 2021 and ranking at number 1-3 for over 462 search terms on Google.
ScratchSleeves make innovative clothing and accessories for babies, toddlers and young children that are an appealing alternative to traditional scratch mitts. Their products prevent children suffering sleepless nights, due to eczema, chicken pox, measles or other itchy skin conditions.
Their range of products can also help with hair pulling, thumb-sucking, post-operative healing and protecting feeding tubes.
The challenge
When you have a great product and a great story to tell, simple SEO is probably not the answer.
We first met the team at ScratchSleeves over 8 years ago when they were setting up and we talked about the benefits of how good SEO can help build a website. A year later we were engaged to work with them and have done so ever since. Key to this relationship was how we helped them tell their story.
The aim of all good marketing is to drive a return-on-investment. So, when we were approached by this customer the aim was simple
“Help us drive organic sales from our e-commerce website.”
“We are delighted with the performance of our website, especially the conversion of new traffic to direct sales.
On a day-to-day basis, the freedom of knowing that Aqueous Digital are looking after everything SEO, means that we are able to focus on building the business in other ways, often based on their suggestions”
ScratchSleeves Testimonial
Our answer
Our strategy was simple;
- Agree a digital marketing strategy that would target the correct audience
- Create a content strategy to deliver the message
- Optimise the website to ensure visitors delivered sales
At the outset, we stressed two things to them.
Firstly, that SEO and Digital Marketing is not an overnight fix.
Secondly, that the strategy we would use was perfectly in line with Google’s advice to Webmasters and we were not going to follow the crowd and simply buy links.
Back in 2013 Google was busy releasing Panda and Penguin updates penalising lack of content and poor linking practices respectively.
We took the view, thankfully supported by our customer, that it would be better to create something that would engage real users.
After all, Google doesn’t buy products, people do.
Over the next twelve months, we focused on creating great content which would resonate with people who needed their products.
At the end of year one, we had achieved a 28% increase in organic traffic.
But as we were working closely together we both knew that the real benefit was yet to come.
We knew that the content we had created was gaining traction. It was being shared on social media and being naturally linked to by people who found that their products were the perfect solution. We could see the rise in organic traffic month-on-month and we knew there was more to come.
Over the next year, we continued to grow their content base and the traffic grew as well. By the end of the second year we had recorded a massive 138% growth in weekly organic traffic and by the end of year three, it was up another 58%.
By February 2016 they shipped more orders in a month than they did in their entire first year of trading and they have continued growing ever since.
2020 – 2021 strategy
In 2020, our overall aim was very similar to when we first started working with them back in 2014, only on a much larger global scale – to help ScratchSleeves grow and increase sales.
We avoided competing head-on with the large retail competition such as Asda, Mothercare, Next, Tesco and John Lewis, but instead focused on longtail keywords and establishing ScratchSleeves as the No1 expert in their field.
ScratchSleeves now serves not only the UK, but also exports worldwide including, the USA and Canada, Ireland, Germany, France and most of the rest of Europe plus Australia.
A robust strategy combining high-quality targeted content production combined with technical SEO and robust link-building was developed in collaboration ScratchSleeves. We ensured this complimented and enhanced their other marketing activity beyond SEO and digital.
Their strategy needed to be flexible to adapt to a changing world and despite delays with transport and logistics (especially at international ports), they were able to adapt, stay agile and come out on top.
Our delivery involved the following:
- Essential SEO fixes to the ScratchSleeves website and ecommerce store to improve efficiency and customer experience
- Onsite content optimisation targeting parents of children with eczema
- Building out a specialist research hub on the website to promote their expertise
- Creating and delivering an effective content strategy aimed at ScratchSleeves primary target audience and their ‘pain points’
- Shaping, defining and promoting the brand through high-quality crafted content
- Creating high-quality, linkable content written and reviewed by industry experts in the sector and specialist medical professionals.
- Creating niche and specialist bespoke blogs about eczema triggers and remedies
- Improve internal linking between blog content and the ecommerce store to improve sales traffic
- Improving the website’s E-A-T ratings (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness)
- Link-building strategy to build the brand and establish ScratchSleeves as an authority in its niche marketplace
- Support and recommendations on brand refresh and improvements to blog and ecommerce store, aimed at increasing sales and improving digital marketing exposure.
Overall results
In the first five years of working with ScratchSleeves we helped them increase website traffic by 390%, and generate £250k in sales.
Over the last year, we have helped them increase web traffic by a further 148%.
They are currently ranking on Google in positions 1-3 for 462 keywords. Over the past year the number of organic keywords ranking in organic search results doubled. This has led to a significant increase in sales and expansion of their global reach.
The results for the past year have been outstanding, breaking through the barrier of our initial target expectations, especially given the impact of COVID-19 and its effect on the global economy.
2021 results:
- Website organic traffic growth from search of over 148% (2020-21)
- Increase of organic sessions by 148%, number of users by 143% and number of new users by 148% compared to previous year
- 3x more clicks and 2x more search impressions to the website
- The number of organic keywords ranking in organic search results increased from 13,404 in 2020 to 17,010 in 2021
- Increased organic traffic to eczema related blogs by x5
- Organic Keyword Ranking Positions (June 2021)
- 462 keywords are ranking in 1-3 positions
- 1,143 keywords ranking in positions 4-10
- 1,614 keywords ranking in positions 11-20
SEO is never an overnight fix, it is a long-term strategy. We’ve demonstrated year-on-year growth through Trust, Loyalty, Collaboration (TLC), combined with no gimmicks or quick fixes, just a robust digital marketing, SEO and content strategy.
We are very proud of our work with ScratchSleeves. Our global-SEO campaign has returned a high return-on-investment given the fierce competition. The results we’ve seen across 2020-21 and prior are outstanding and we believe a demonstration of gold standard ethical SEO tactics.
The campaign was nominated as a finalist in the Global Search Awards 2021 and won the Global Excellence Awards 2021 for best low budget campaign. The campaign has also reached the finals of the Prolific North Marketing Awards for Best Search Marketing Campaign (winner announced in November 2021).
390%
increase in website traffic (first 5 years)
£250k
generated in sales income (first 5 years)
148%
increase in traffic in 2021
462
keywords in Google position 1-3
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