WHSmith

WHSmith

Solution to Critical Indexing Issue

WH Smith, a UK retailer, faced a critical issue with poor URL indexation, impacting organic visibility and site traffic.

The problem was traced to mobile top navigation menu design, hindering search engine bots from crawling links.

Our team implemented a solution to make these links accessible, resulting in immediate improvements in indexing, organic visibility, and traffic. This project highlights the significance of addressing technical SEO issues for enhanced search engine rankings and organic traffic.

Challenges :

The main challenges we faced during the project were:

Site size: The size of the site meant that pinpointing the root cause of the issue required a comprehensive site audit.

Time constraints: This was a major issue impacting site traffic and consequently revenue, and therefore required rapid resolution. 

Numerous stakeholders: Due to the stature of the brand, numerous stakeholders were involved in the process from the clients side, which prolonged the fix implementation.

SOLUTION & RESULT:

Our SEO team conducted an exhaustive audit and identified that the issue lay in the configuration of the top navigation menu on mobile devices following a recent restructure. Specifically, the design was preventing search engine bots from being able to crawl the top navigation menu.

Our team developed a solution aimed at making the links within the mobile top navigation menu accessible and crawlable for search engines.

  • +69%  Number of non-branded keywords ranking on page 1 (top 10) of organic search results
  • +15k  Additional non-branded keywords ranking on page 1 (top 10) of organic search results
  • +63%  Number of non-branded searches for which the site appears on page 1 (top 10 positions) of organic search results

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