The client and the need
The client is a label and packaging manufacturer with operations in Australia and Asia. From May 2021 to February 2024 we ran SEO for more than seven of its websites across Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Each market had its own site, and each site needed to be found in search in its own market. The brief covered SEO for every market, an analytics setup to measure the results on the same basis, and later a platform migration and the consolidation of sites.
What we did
- Analytics setup: Google Analytics, Tag Manager and Search Console configured so every site could be measured the same way.
- SEO across 7+ websites: Keyword research and rank tracking in Ahrefs, technical fixes and on-page optimization for each market's site.
- Content strategy and briefing: Keyword-led content plans and writing briefs for new and existing pages.
- Site migration: Moving sites from WordPress to Odoo.
- Site consolidation: Combining separate sites into fewer sites.
- Google Ads: Managing paid search alongside organic search.
Year one: results by market
The first annual review compared organic sessions from Google Analytics (19 Sep 2021 to 25 Sep 2022 against the previous 12 months) and keyword rank volume from Ahrefs (September 2021 against September 2022). Growth was strongest on the Vietnam and Cambodia sites. One site, the Australian packaging site, went backwards on both measures.
| Site | Organic sessions | Keyword rank volume |
|---|---|---|
| Vietnam site | +432% | +49% |
| Cambodia site | +298% | +61% |
| Australian trade site | +217% | +35% |
| Malaysia site | +60% | +56% |
| Australian online label store | +34% | +47% |
| Australian main site | +6% | +32% |
| Australian packaging site | -1% | -43% |
Keyword rank volume also grew on the group site (+82%) and on two other brand sites (+62% and +79%).
Year two: Australia in detail
In 2023 the focus moved to the Australian main site. The figures below compare 2023 with 2022. Sessions and users cover all traffic to the site, not only organic search.
| Metric | 2022 | 2023 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Site sessions | 13,785 | 15,948 | +15.7% |
| Site users | 9,844 | 10,665 | +8.3% |
| Ranking keywords (top 100) | 973 | 1,226 | +26.0% |
| Google search clicks | 7,106 | 7,985 | +12.4% |
| Google Ads spend (AUD) | 15,478 | 15,173 | -2% |
Google Ads spend fell 2% while paid clicks rose 61% and impressions rose 38%, so cost per click dropped 39%.
Two other Australian sites also added ranking keywords between December 2022 and December 2023: the online label store went from 982 to 1,045 (+6%) and the packaging site from 380 to 580 (+53%), after its decline in year one.
Why it mattered
With seven or more sites in four countries, the client needed to know which markets were growing. Measuring every site the same way showed strong organic growth in Vietnam and Cambodia, a year-one decline on the packaging site followed by keyword growth there in 2023, and steady gains on the established Australian main site, which ranked for 253 more keywords in the top 100 by the end of 2023.
Sources: Year one: Google Analytics (organic sessions, 19 Sep 2021 to 25 Sep 2022 vs 12 Sep 2020 to 18 Sep 2021) and Ahrefs (keyword rank volume, Sep 2021 vs Sep 2022). Year two: Google Analytics (site sessions and users, all channels, 1 Jan to 23 Dec 2023 vs same period 2022), Ahrefs (keywords ranking in the top 100, 26 Dec 2023 vs 26 Dec 2022; other Australian sites, Dec 2022 vs Dec 2023), Google Search Console (clicks, Jan to Nov 2023 vs 2022) and Google Ads (2023 vs 2022). Client anonymised.