Cestus
Meet the Partner
Cestusline, Inc. also known as Cestus Armored Gloves sells heavy-duty work gloves online and promotes hand and glove safety in the workplace. Their gloves come in a variety of different types, styles, materials, and features and are used in a variety of different industries.
The Challenge
Opportunities
Cestus came to us in the Fall of 2018 with a recently built Shopify site. In business since 2010, Cestus had primarily relied on B2B opportunities through trade shows, but was looking to expand their ecommerce and B2C operations. They wanted to get their products and their brand in front of more people. Aside from growing revenue, increasing brand awareness was their #1 goal.
Game Plan
Our SEO strategy began with on-site optimizations to their product and collection pages to improve the visibility of the site. After creating a solid foundation and resolving a few technical hiccups at the start, we were able to shift our focus towards content creation and growing their keyword rankings.
How We Did It
As our content strategy evolved over time, blogging became the top priority for them. As an ecommerce retailer, conveying their brand’s expertise in their industry and to their customers was paramount, especially being in an industry that revolves around safety. Cestus wanted to be seen as the foremost provider of work gloves and hand protection in the industry. We understood their mission, and worked closely with them to take their technical know-how and translate it into high-powered content that was fully SEO optimized.
As content creation fell into a consistent cadence, we started to see traffic to their site increase exponentially. Their blogs were bringing in thousands of new visitors each month, and reaching larger segments of their audience, which was resulting in more views of their products. In the last 12 months alone, we’ve seen a 744% increase in blog traffic and revenue from blog traffic increase by over 1000%.
When COVID-19 hit, a shift to selling masks and PPE equipment allowed them to sell additional safety equipment, in accordance with their company values of providing a safer work environment. Supplemental content was created to rank and sell products that they had not previously offered.
The numbers speak for themselves on this one. What you see here is a textbook example of how blogging (when done right) can grow a business.
Outcome
Through on-site optimizations, consistent blogging, and conversion rate optimization, Cestus has been able to reach a wider audience and attract new visitors to the site, all while growing their B2C revenue.
Their organic keyword visibility has grown exponentially, ranking in top spot for a number of glove and safety-related topics. Their total keyword rankings have grown 34% in the last year, and keywords ranking on the 1st page of Google have grown 66%.
Along with keywords, the backlinks have begun to flow. Cestus saw a 48% increase in referring domains this year, thanks in large part to the high-quality blog posts we’ve created.
In the last 12 months (6/20 – 5/21), Cestus has seen a 105% increase in returning visitors, and a 44% increase in returning visitor ecommerce conversion rate. So not only are more users returning, but they are returning and converting at much higher rates.
We think it’s pretty safe to say that blogging and SEO has been a successful brand awareness strategy for them.
116%
Increase in total traffic
12.7%
Increase in total revenue
161%
Increase in total transactions
21%
Increase in ecommerce conversion rate
