What’s up usc legends let’s talk about wayfair.com these guys are pulling in 40 million in monthly organic traffic. We’re gonna break down exactly what they’re doing how they’re doing it let’s get into the blog.

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Wayfair.com Traffic Overview:

If we take a quick look at this overview on ahrefs we’re seeing that wayfarer is getting 40 million in monthly organic traffic that’s a lot. And if we take a quick look at the breakdown of where this traffic is coming from 96 is coming from the us because we’re looking at the US version of their website so now we want to take a look at their top subfolders. We want to take a look at the sections of their website that are bringing the most traffic and so right away what we see is this big subfolder bringing around 27 of the traffic and the subfolder looks like this.

So we have wayfair.com keyword.php there’s a lot of really interesting things going on in the subfolder and that’s actually the last thing. I’m talking about in this video I’m saving the best for last but if we keep scrolling down we also see that they have a second cell folder its bringing 26 of the traffic that’s targeting that furniture area of their website and then we have an outdoor subfolder that’s bringing in six percent of the traffic.

Category Page landings vs Subcategory pages:

We’re gonna start off with this outdoor subfolder because there’s a lot of really interesting things happening. Here so we’re gonna open this up and take a look at the top pages. If we take a look at some of the keywords that these guys are ranking for so patio furniture huge keyword ranking quite well outdoor chair cushions as well bringing a lot of traffic outdoor dining as well a huge keyword ranked second bringing a lot a lot of traffic. So these guys are doing really well in the subfolder is really powerful one thing you guys are going to notice is that most of the pages that I’m opening up and analyzing are going to be category. The sub category pages that’s because that’s where most of the traffic comes in for ecommerce website and that’s a pretty big misconception that people have that actually traffic is gonna come to the product pages.

But unless your product is very well known most likely people are looking for the type or the category of your product. So that’s where we need to invest most of our SEO energy into category and sub category pages but I want to open up these top two pages and I want you to notice. How different these pages are so this first one that we’re going to take a look at is targeting the keyword outdoor chair cushions. And so if we open up this page we’re going to see that it’s really well designed page so we do have this sidebar drop down menu filter type thing where we can filter the products a little more. But what we’re gonna see is that it’s basically a huge collection of outdoor patio cushions right so that’s great but then if we open up this second page that’s targeting the keyword patio furniture. We’re gonna have a completely different type of landing page so we’re seeing a lot of different elements on this page. We actually don’t see too many products right so why exactly that is so when we take a look at the outdoor chair cushions page.

We know exactly what people are looking for that specific keyword right they’re looking for those outdoor chair cushions one of the things that we’re not sure about is that user intent so are they ready to buy are they comparing that’s what that subcategory page is built for right. We want that user to find as many products as possible and to be able to compare and buy if that’s what they want but with a keyword like patio furniture we actually have no idea what that user wants it’s a really vague keyword.

We don’t know the type of furniture the materials what price range they’re looking at so instead what we do is when we have these very vague general keywords that have a lot of traffic as you see right here. We actually want to build category pages where that main focus is to help that user find what they’re looking for and as a result we connect all the different parts of that category with internal links. So let’s take a look at how these guys are doing that so we see that this whole section they’re basically all internal links to different subcategories and again this is helping that user find exactly what they want but we’re also making sure to have a really clear architecture and structure to all of our categories.

And sub categories right so again let’s take a quick look at some of the elements on this page we do have this section that’s completely navigational so again we’re helping those users find what they want. Then we have this popular pick section for that user that’s maybe just looking for something quick to buy something that’s popular something that’s trendy.

And then we have a bunch of other internal links that also helps link to other main category pages and then we have a pretty big chunk of content which as you guys might have guessed has been made purely for SEO purposes. I doubt anybody’s reading this type of content we have some related searches and then we have the footer so guys it’s really important to note that we can’t just build one specific landing page for all the keywords. We’re targeting there’s going to be different intents different types of keywords and we want to be able to accommodate and we want to help our users find exactly what they’re looking for.

Fake filters (Wayfair’s internal link structure):

Now I want to show you how wayfair is using fake filters to target a lot more keywords than their competitors so if you go back into ahrefs. I’ve opened up the second most popular subfolder so that was the furniture subfolder.

And I want to open up a sub category page so this one specifically is targeting sectional couches. They’re ranked first pulling in quite a lot of traffic right here and if we open up this page I want to show you guys exactly what I mean so if we click into any of these filters. Here on the left if I click on this one for example u-shaped we’re going to see that this page is going to completely change so now there’s a completely different a1. So now it says u-shaped sectionals instead of the previous h1 and if we actually take a look at this metadata so if I quickly just type in site. through the url.

We’re gonna see that this is a totally different page so not only are they leveraging the sidebar to add a bunch of internal links but they’re not wasting possible keywords with filters that aren’t very indexable for google.  Let me show you guys how this is different on a website like ikea so if I quickly get rid of this filter I’m on the outdoor sofas page right.

So now if I want to add a filter here and I select fabric for example it’s going to behave like a normal filter on most ecommerce websites. And what happens here is nothing really changes on the page except the actual filter that’s selected here so the actual content that’s been presented changes but it’s the same page as before that outdoor sofas page and if we compare this again to wayfair we’re gonna see that if I get rid of that filter. We’re going back to a completely different sub category page right so if I decide that I want another filter maybe a thousand to two thousand dollars is my price range this is again gonna change into a different page. and that’s a completely different page so they’re leveraging the sidebar really well loading it up with internal links and creating a lot more pages which is targeting a lot more keywords really interesting but guys let’s target the final.

Indexing internal search results (It works!):

And the biggest subfolder of wayfair in the us so again this specific subfolder is bringing in 27 and if we open this up and take a look at the top pages. I actually have it opened up right here we’re gonna see that this subfolder is actually doing quite well so it’s ranked number one for TV recliner number two for cheap couches ottoman coffee table. So on and so forth TV benches it’s pretty big keywords guys and they’re doing really well and if we actually click into any of these we’re gonna notice something really strange.

So we’re gonna see that this page is actually the result of someone typing in this specific keyword into the internal search box of wayfarer’s website right. So we see it right here in the url and what’s happening is wayfair is deciding to index some of these internal searches this is something that’s discussed quite heavily in the e-commerce SEO space most people decide against indexing any internal searches but wayfair has clearly seen that there’s a huge benefit to indexing at least some of the most popular. And most relevant internal searches so again we can check this out again something like ottoman as a coffee table so they’re filtering the results on this page based on what that user has typed in the search bar.

But they’re letting Google index this page because they know there’s traffic for this specific keyword and these pages are doing phenomenally well that’s something that we should think about for our ecommerce page do we have a search bar. What are people searching can we use those searches to create pages and to think about different keywords. If you guys like this type of video I really recommend you can check out my breakdown of ikea’s e-commerce SEO strategy pretty phenomenal SEO strategy otherwise guys I’ll catch you guys in the next one.