/ SEO Case Study: From 0 to 500k+ visitors a year

SEO strategy incl. keyword research / content plan and execution / monthly SEO maintenance and optimization / Linkbuilding / website design & development

If you search on Google for a keyword related to intermittent fasting, it’s very likely you will end up on 21dayhero.com. What started in 2018 as a small personal blog, has now grown to be one of the main intermittent fasting niche content hubs online.

Our team has been working with 21dayhero since the very beginning to reach the average 60k visitor/month milestone it has now surpassed.

How did we do it?

Here are our keys to SEO success for 21dayhero.com.

/ 7 Keys to SEO Success

Good keyword research

Proper keyword research is one of the most important parts of SEO. There are no doubts about it. It is essential to understand which keywords are the most relevant for your website and what strategies you should pursue in order to optimize them. This is especially true in competitive niches like health and fitness.

In the early stages of growing the website, you have to identify keywords for which your site can realistically rank. There is no point in aiming for the most popular keywords with the highest volume if your website doesn’t have enough authority to rank for them.

Therefore it’s important to find the right balance between keyword difficulty and volume. This will allow you to get organic search traffic while building up the authority of your website.

Topic Clusters

The concept of topic clusters is the key to successful SEO results. It allows you to create related content that is linked together and organized by specific topics. This creates a great user experience and helps Google to understand what your website is all about.

For example, with 21dayhero.com, we identified the main topics related to intermittent fasting and we created content clusters around them. This allowed us to create a central hub of information about intermittent fasting and establish our website as an authority in the niche.

For example:

Pillar post that has an overview of what to drink while fasting.:

What Can You Drink During Intermittent Fasting

Supporting posts that go in-depth into each type of drink:

What Breaks a Fast? All You Need To Know On Intermittent Fasting Drinks
Does Lemon Water Break A Fast?
Can You Drink Alcohol While Intermittent Fasting?
Does Stevia Break A Fast?
Does Coffee Break A Fast? Guide on Coffee While Fasting
Does Chewing Gum Break A Fast?
Does Diet Soda Break A Fast: Here’s The Answer
Can You Use Apple Cider Vinegar While Intermittent Fasting
Can You Drink Green Tea While Intermittent Fasting
Can You Drink Water While Fasting? Here’s The Answer

Regular content updates

Your competitors are always working hard to outrank you and your website will have difficulty staying on the top if you don’t keep up. Regularly updating your content and adding new insights is the key to staying ahead of your competition.

This could look like:

Updating old blog posts to make sure they’re up-to-date with the latest information.
Adding more visuals, infographics, videos and other types of visual content to your posts.
Adding additional sections that provide more in-depth insights and answer new questions (aka keywords) people are searching for.

These tasks may seem daunting at first, but when done correctly and consistently, they can help you gain an edge over your competitors.

Producing quality content

Content is still king when it comes to SEO. Producing high-quality content that adds value to the reader is essential for SEO success.

At 21dayhero.com, our team worked with industry experts and content writers to create informative, well-researched blog posts that cover a wide range of topics related to intermittent fasting. We also added another layer of content quality control by having our posts reviewed by medical professionals. This is particularly important in health and fitness niches since the information must be accurate.

This approach proved to be very successful and helped us establish 21dayhero as an authority in the intermittent fasting niche.

Optimizing blog posts for speed

The website is done on Elementor page builder which can potentially slow down the website. To improve the speed without compromising on the design, we used WordPress native Gutenberg editor to publish the post content and set up a clean Elemetor post template for the top, bottom and sidebar sections.

Optimizing images, setting up cache and choosing good hosting are also essential aspects to consider in the pursuit of fast-loading blog posts.

21dayhero.com blog design

Link building

Link building is an essential part of SEO. It helps your website rank better and increases its authority in the eyes of search engines.

At 21dayhero.com, we actively seek out link opportunities from relevant websites and build relationships with influencers in the industry. This includes content collaborations, guest blog posts and even link exchanges.

We also keep an eye out for broken links on other websites and offer our content as a replacement. This is an effective way to get quality backlinks and build relationships with other website owners.

/ Results

As of October 2022, 21dayhero.com has over 500k visitors each year and continues to grow. The website is on a steady upward curve and has more than tripled its organic traffic throughout 2022.

It’s ranking in positions 1 – 3 for over 1500 keywords.