This case study is about an online is an online store selling Kratom worldwide. We will refer to this store as because the information below contains sensitive data and we do not want to cause any competitive disadvantage to the website owner. So, what is Kratom? Kratom is actually a drug that is used to alleviate depression, lessen anxiety, fatigue, pain relief and bring relief from withdrawal symptoms. The issue is – advertising it is banned on Google, Facebook, and almost anywhere that matters due to healthcare and medicine policies of these networks.

So could not do ads. They depended on Influencer Marketing and had a Facebook group of enthusiasts. We found in them the perfect opportunity to show the power of Organic Marketing. This is a site which is banned from doing paid ads on almost all networks, so the only way they could make sales was through word-of-mouth, sponsorship, contextual link-backs and a lot of content. The content had to reach the right groups of the audience to bring the most interested visitors. We created and implemented a strategy that grew their revenues by as much as 200% within 6 months. We have been thrilled by the results.

Once the site was optimized, we set up the full suite of Google’s tracking tools and Facebook remarketing pixel, for gathering data for studying and improving the user experience further.

The most important Google integrations are Google Analytics, Google Search Console and Google Tag Manager. These tools are important for tracking and understanding Google’s crawl information and user behavior.

We verified that Google Analytics was firing properly and proceeded to schema element installation, 404 error correction and site-wide tags definition. Now the website looked good to users, as well as to Google.

Once the above steps were completed, we set out to do Off-Page SEO, reputation building and content marketing for <SITE>. We wrote a lot of content, sparked conversations on Reddit and asked their existing users to chime in their experience on Reddit. This results in improved social proof and improves conversion.

Over a period of one and a half years, we have built a great team of writers, partner magazine sites and blog networks. We put these resources to work for <SITE>. We wrote numerous articles, lists, news, and press releases about Kratom over a period of wecks, and got them syndicated on reputable blogs and online magazines like CNN, Huffington Post, etc. Every article had a very contextual link back to the main site.

Creating good online citations is not a one-time job. Velocity is key for online stores and sites looking for continuous growth. We had to build a steady inflow of new links day after day and week after week. The Kratom market is a rather competitive space due to the lack of many advertising opportunities, and we had to build about 30 new linking root domains every month.

If you have a reasonable budget and a good margin on product sales, getting reviews is a scalable and worthwhile strategy. First, using advanced search operators, we found sites that already have articles having keywords related to Kratom like how to use it, when to use it, where to buy, types, benefits and so on. We scraped all these to a Google Sheet and qualified them based on link quality criteria (usually a DA25 and TF15). Now we had a list of reputable sites that have written about Kratom. We loaded the filtered domains to our outreach tool (we use BuzzStream) and kicked off the campaign. We suggest you follow up at least 4-5 times for every link target, even if they initially say ‘NO’. Make sure that you get a response.

Donations work like reviews – you need a budget, but it doesn’t need to be just cash. You can find people or groups that need the products you are selling and are willing to show off your logo on their website in exchange for free products. We got such links built for <SITE> over a period of few months.

Sponsorship works like donation. For great sponsorships, think beyond simple sponsored articles and seek out opportunities that support causes that are important to your business and (if possible) in your local area. Good examples could be youth sports leagues, non-profit and independent organizations with sites. For <SITE>, we were able to get sponsored citations from advocacy groups, NGOs and other organizations. These were reputable websites with a visitor-base already interested in advocacy of Kratom. They gave high-quality citations for our site.

Sponsorship works like donation. For great sponsorships, think beyond simple sponsored articles and seek out opportunities that support causes that are important to your business and (if possible) in your local area. Good examples could be youth sports leagues, non-profit and independent organizations with sites. For <SITE>, we were able to get sponsored citations from advocacy groups, NGOs and other organizations. These were reputable websites with a visitor-base already interested in advocacy of Kratom. They gave high-quality citations for our site.

Contests are an amazing way of creating a buzz and lots of backlinks. The most important part of a contest is designing it. The contest must be compelling enough so that people REALLY wish to win it. Holding a contest could be expensive, but if its execution is done right, it can mean a lot of link juice and buzz for your website. For our contest, we gave a 75% discount on the purchase of Kratom to users for a period of 1 year. So, the users could redeem the code any time during the next one year. We promoted this campaign among online groups and contact lists that are already interested in Kratom. Knowing that they WILL be interested in the product at least once in the next year, this discount got a wonderful response.