Take your visibility to the next level and grow your business with Aphexmedia. Leverage our expert SEO services for actionable insights and strategies that drive results. Book a call today to explore personalized growth tactics that will help you stand out in the competitive digital landscape.
and grow your business with Aphexmedia. Leverage our expert SEO services for actionable insights and strategies that drive results. Book a call today to explore personalized growth tactics that will help you stand out in the competitive digital landscape.
When a website has great design, responsive functionality, and amazing content, it feels like success should come naturally. But in the case of this micro-niche crypto affiliate website, things weren’t moving. No matter what the client tried—backlinks, content updates, —the rankings stayed stuck.
In August 2024, the client approached Aphex Media with a simple but urgent request: help us break out of stagnation. Here’s what we found, what we did, and how we turned things around.
Enhancing E-E-A-T signals, onsite improvements, and strategic tweaks
Challenges
SEO stagnation despite good design, responsive functionality, and strong content
Main Goal
Break free from ranking stagnation and optimize for E-E-A-T and conversions
Introduction
When we took over the website, it was clear this wasn’t a case of poor content, technical issues, or a bad backlink profile. In fact, the client already had: ✅ A highly responsive and well-designed site. ✅ Strong transactional content optimized for targeted keywords. ✅ A decent SEO foundation that most websites dream of.
But the problem? No movement. Rankings were somewhat flatlined, and even with various attempts like PR campaigns, social media pushes, and backlink purchases, nothing changed.
Using our holistic SEO approach, we dug deeper into the website’s structure, audience intent, and market positioning. While popular tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Google Search Console gave the website a perfect health score, we noticed something crucial was missing: strong onsite E-E-A-T signals and social proof.
In the crypto and finance niche, where trust is paramount, a lack of visible authority and credibility can quietly hold a website back. So, we got to work.
What We Did: Enhancing E-E-A-T Signals
To overcome stagnation, we implemented key E-E-A-T focused updates that signaled authority, trustworthiness, and transparency to both search engines and users. Here’s what we added:
1. Author Credentials and Bios
We created detailed author pages showcasing credentials, experience, and expertise in finance and crypto.
Each review and guide was linked to an author and person that reviewed the content, providing transparency and accountability for the content. We used legit profiles of website authors since they are reputable financiers in a given market.
2. Transparent About Us Page
We revamped the “About Us” page to highlight the company’s mission, team members, and industry experience.
Added trust-building elements like awards, media mentions, and partnerships to establish authority.
3. Clear Contact Information
Improved trust signals by making the contact page more comprehensive.
Included email, phone numbers, and a physical address to show transparency.
4. Editorial Policies and Content Review Processes
Published an Editorial Policy page that outlined how content is researched, written, and reviewed for accuracy.
This demonstrated a commitment to quality and fact-checking in the high-risk YMYL niche.
5. Citations and External References
Improved the credibility of articles by adding citations to reliable sources like financial reports, crypto regulations, and trusted news outlets.
Updated key pages with links to data-backed studies and external references.
6. Engaging Multimedia Content
For high-priority money pages, we created informative videos and added follow-up schema to boost engagement and improve SERP visibility.
For less important pages, we used picture explainers to simplify complex financial topics while keeping users engaged.
7. Transparent Advertising and Sponsorship Disclosures
Made it clear which content was sponsored or contained affiliate links.
Added disclosures at the top of each review and comparison page, aligning with Google’s transparency guidelines.
8. Social Proof Design Elements
Added user testimonials and trust badges across the site to reassure users of the website’s credibility.
Implemented social proof widgets showing real-time activity like “5 users just signed up for XYZ crypto tool.”
Technical, On-Site, and Off-Site Enhancements: Fine-Tuning for E-E-A-T
Since the website already had a solid SEO foundation, our focus was on making targeted enhancements to boost its E-E-A-T signals. Rather than overhauling everything, we implemented key updates to fine-tune the site for maximum impact.
1. Technical Enhancements
Schema Markup Integration: We implemented all the relevant schema types, including:
Author schema to highlight credentials and expertise.
Organization schema to establish trustworthiness for the brand.
sameAs properties to connect the website with official social media and external profiles.
Publishing principles and citation schema to communicate transparency and credibility in content creation.
Article and FAQ schema for key pages to boost SERP visibility and trust.
Media Optimization:
Optimized all media elements (videos and pictures) to ensure they loaded quickly without affecting the website’s overall speed.
Used compressed, high-quality formats for faster delivery while maintaining visual appeal.
Implemented lazy loading for non-critical images and videos to improve load times on mobile devices.
2. On-Site Enhancements
Interlinking Improvements:
We conducted a quick interlinking audit and improved internal links for the most valuable pages.
This strengthened the website’s topic clusters and helped distribute link equity efficiently.
Content & E-E-A-T Updates:
As part of schema markup implementation, we enriched the website’s content with author bios, multimedia elements, transparent policies, and some FAQs expansions further aligning it with Google’s E-E-A-T requirements.
3. Off-Site Enhancements
Social Media Campaign Guidance:
We worked with the client to strategize and structure their social media campaigns, ensuring alignment with their website’s goals and audience.
Advised them on engagement-driven posts to amplify credibility in the crypto/finance niche.
High-Quality Backlinks:
Despite the client’s small budget, we acquired 5 highly reputable backlinks from trusted sources in the finance/crypto niche.
All links pointed to the homepage with branded anchor text, reinforcing the site’s authority and trustworthiness.
The Results: Small Increase With Big Impact
While the website did start gaining more clicks and visits which is what the client was striving for, the increase in traffic wasn’t massive in volume. However, due to the nature of the highly transactional, long-tail keywords the website targeted, even this modest boost in traffic translated into extraordinary results in conversions.
Why? Because every additional user who landed on the site was a highly-qualified visitor ready to take action—whether that meant signing up, purchasing, or engaging with the client’s affiliate offerings.
Here’s what made the difference:
Laser-Focused Targeting: The website wasn’t just attracting any traffic; it was attracting the right traffic. Users arriving through these long-tail keywords were further along in the buyer journey and ready to convert.
Optimized User Experience: By fine-tuning the E-E-A-T signals and ensuring trust and transparency, visitors had confidence in the site, which helped close conversions.
Transactional Keywords Deliver ROI: Small traffic gains on high-intent search terms outperform larger traffic increases from generic keywords when it comes to driving revenue.
“In SEO, it’s not always about massive traffic numbers. This case study proves that even a modest increase in highly-qualified visitors can create an outsized impact on conversions. When targeting transactional niches, quality over quantity always wins.”
– Milan Misic, Head of SEO, Aphex Media
What Aphex Team learned from this brief journey
By focusing on E-E-A-T and user trust, we gave search engines the confidence to rank the website higher for its competitive keywords. Even with a small audience, the website’s improved authority and transparency translated into significant ranking improvements and significantly stronger conversions.
This wasn’t just about climbing the ranks—it was about proving to both users and Google that this website is the real deal.
