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Solving 283 Soft 404 Errors
The Challenge
This client came to Echo with an unmanaged website and an unoptimised site structure that had limited visibility in the search engines. We noticed a sudden drop in web page rankings which was beginning to impact their organic traffic.
Our Audit Findings
After reviewing the website, we found 283 Soft 404 errors across the website. Google had flagged the page content as thin, lacking in quality, or as duplicate content which limited the pages’ ability to rank well and was heavily impacting the website’s overall online visibility.
After a full site structure and content audit, we found a large number of URLs and pages targeting the same keywords, leading to Soft 404 errors and keyword cannibalisation – meaning pages were competing with one another within search engines.
Ultimately, finding the right information on the website was confusing for both users and search engines
Solution
We created a structured and in-depth strategy to help resolve the issue by completely remapping out the site structure. This allowed us to merge similar targeted pages and delete several redundant pages with no traffic and low quality content. This helps to ensure Google only crawls unique, quality content that is kept up to date.
Finally, for any page with a Soft 404 error which was not merged or deleted, we improved with high-quality, helpful content that would appeal to the client’s target audience.
Outcome
0 Soft 404 errors!
Following our work, we successfully increased 25 high-volume keywords onto the first page, receiving 77,000 searches a year. On top of this, we have also seen over 1,500 keyword positions increased across the board.
With their new site structure and improved content, our client has benefitted from numerous sold out bookings, proving the importance of unique, quality content and a carefully planned out site structure.