Heuts — Case Study

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Thanks to Positionly we are in total control of our positions in Google.

Joris Benneheij, E-commerce & online marketing, Heuts

About

Heuts logo

Heuts is a retail company from the south of the Netherlands. We have 23 stores and 10 webshops.

The most important webshops are:
www.heuts.nl, www.slagerbv.nl,
www.top-zwembadshop.nl and www.intex-poolstore.de.

www.heuts.nl

Competition and online marketing

We are working in markets with a high level of competition. Our competitors are mature companies when it comes to online marketing. Most companies have their own online marketing department or work with agencies to generate traffic and increase conversions. A good online marketing strategy is crucial for Heuts to be successful with our webshops. And to monitor and adjust the results of our strategy good tools are indispensable.

Generating traffic

Heuts has an online marketing department. This team consist of 5 online marketing experts who are each responsible for one or more websites. The team uses various online marketing tools to drive traffic. Google is the most important source for visitors and revenue. Organic and paid search traffic account for over 70% of the visitors. Other valuable traffic sources are email, affiliate websites, comparison websites, online marketplaces and offline advertising.

Organic and paid search traffic account for over 70% of the visitors.

In control of our paid search results

For all websites Google is the most important source of income. 70% of traffic and 65% of our revenue are driven by search traffic. In this result paid and organic traffic are equally important. Google provides more than enough data to analyse and improve our paid results. The combination of reports from adwords and analytics gives our team the tools they need to employ adwords in an effective way.

Organic traffic a black box

But for organic traffic we did not have a tool to see how we were scoring compared to our main competitors. Last year we monitored this by hand. But this took a lot of time. Time we would rather spend on improving the results. Because we lacked a good tool our data was often out-dated and incomplete. At the end of the year we had the feeling that we were not able to respond optimally to the possibilities to increase organic traffic. What the opportunities for improvement were and how our competitors evolved was not clear enough.

Search of a good tool for organic traffic

Therefore this year we were looking for a good tool to monitor how we score in comparison to our competitors. We reviewed several seo tools and created test accounts for the 4 most promising tools. In the selection process the following features were very important.

  • A clear overview of the positions of our websites in comparison to our competitors in the Google results.
  • A clear overview of how these positions change in time.
  • Group keywords to see how we rank with a specific product or brand, and how this changes over time.
  • Zoom in at keywords to see our exact position and gain an overview of the other websites that rank in the top 10.
  • An overview of backlinks that our competitors have and receive a notification if they get new backlinks.
  • Compare how we rank in the Netherlands compared to Belgium and Germany. Evaluate if we have different competitors in these counties than in our home country.

Positionly the best tool available

After we reviewed all the tools, the choice was simple.

After we had reviewed all the tools, the choice was simple. There was one tool that stood out. This tool met all our requirements. But what made Positionly stand out most from all other tools, is de way the data is presented. The information is presented very clear, which makes it easy to draw conclusions. The homepage shows an overview of the average positions over a chosen period. The menu gives you the option to zoom in on a specific website or keyword. Besides the regular website Positionly surprised us with a great iphone app. This app is just as user-friendly as the website and makes it possible to monitor the serp’s wherever you want.

In control of our organic traffic

Positionly is one of the first things we check every morning and makes it possible to monitor our positions easily. Thanks to Positionly we are in total control of our positions in Google. This saves about 6 hours a week and gives us much better insights to increase the revenue via Google. It shows us on which keywords we must improve and with which keywords we have to defend our good position in Google.

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