The Latest SEO Tips for 2023 with Freddie Chatt, founder Village Cricket Co (episode 436)
Freddie Chatt is the founder of Village Cricket Co, a WooCommerce site launched in 2020 to sell affordable Cricket gear. Their primary growth engine over the last 3 years has been SEO and content marketing and that’s got them on track to pass £100k in sales this year.
Listen now for free:
Subscribe on your Favourite Podcast App
About Freddie
When Freddie dropped out of university, he says he got lucky when he landed a job at an eCommerce company called Amara. He worked as a general digital marketing assistant, where he covered different channels and gained broad knowledge before eventually focusing on SEO.
He moved to launch his own eCommerce store when his bat broke, and he found that the prices of cricket bats were relatively high. He initially looked for other options, which eventually turned into research on how bats are made. He got an opportunity to have some sample bats sent over from India that were effectively more affordable.
After testing the bats with friends and becoming redundant at work, Freddie decided to go freelance and start Village Cricket Co.
About Village Cricket Co
- Based in Essex, south of England
- Ships mainly to the UK or around the area, but has also shipped to Europe and the US
- Is on WooCommerce
Village Cricket Co started out selling bats but has since expanded into other cricket gear such as pads and gloves, as well as garden cricket sets.
Freddie generally does everything himself in the business but outsources the copywriting and content writing.
Starting Out with SEO
For SEO, Freddie started with keywords and finding out what their audience was searching for. He opted to target long-tail keywords that had much less competition and for which they could rank more easily and quickly.
He also worked on getting links to build up their authority. Freddie knew they had a unique story, and he managed to secure interviews in various cricket publications that resulted in relevant links.
Link Building for eCommerce
Freddie says that for eCommerce brands selling giftable products, his main strategy is reaching out to journalists who have written gift guides in the past. For him, this is a great way of securing high authority status and obtaining opportunities to get some links.
Find out when publications came out with their gift guides from the previous year and get in front of them as early as possible. Getting on the right people’s radar to have your products featured is the key thing.
More SEO Tips
For SEO, have a consistent approach for the whole year. For Village Cricket Co, Freddie says there’s a slightly harder push for links and such during the summer because it’s when their product is most used.
When it comes to keyword research, Freddie does this for almost every individual product they’ve released. For their cricket bats, he did a lot of research at the start, then revisited what he had put in place after a year to see if there were any changes.
In general, once a year, check to see if there are new keywords that have become relevant in your space or how keywords have changed in terms of difficulty and search volumes.
Sustainability
Cricket bats are made from willow trees, so Freddie acknowledges that that is not a great start to sustainability. However, both in the UK and India, replanting of willow trees is done to ensure enough supply and that there is no damage to the environment.
Freddie also mentions that considerations were made in their supply chain. They use cashmere willow sourced directly from India, and this means that their bats are only shipped once, instead of going back and forth if they went with English willow.
On the packaging side, they use recycled and recyclable materials for their products.
Lastly, Freddie says they’re starting to look at a cricket exchange program where people can donate their old cricket gear and recycle them into something else rather than just throw them out.
eCommerce Book Top Tip
- Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It by April Dunford
eCommerce Traffic Top Tip
- It’s SEO for Freddie, and he adds that before you get into it, make sure you’re really confident in your product. Test other channels first if there’s demand or interest, but as a long-term strategy, SEO is perfect.
Tool Top Tip
- Keyword Insights keyword grouping tool
Growth Top Tip
- Talk to your customers because this will help improve your messaging and boost your conversion rate.
Interview Links
Head over to sister podcast Keep Optimising for more on SEO
Related episodes
- How to hit 7-figures selling products available everywhere with Bec Slack from CleverStuff (episode 353)
- Do you need an App? With audiobook and ebook BCorp xigxag’s Kelli Fairbrother (episode 417)
- Running a 7 Figure eCommerce Business from a Campervan with Charlie Low and Dale Comley (episode 423)
Without the sponsors the podcast wouldn’t be possible – please do check them out:
Bloomreach is more than a marketing automation solution – it’s a vast canvas of possibilities for eCommerce marketers to create any campaign they can imagine.
From email to SMS to ads to web and mobile, there is a channel for every message.
With customer behavioral data at the core, you can colour promotions to the most personalized tastes of customers and then perfect those promotions with the power of AI.
If you’re a data-driven and creative marketer, you need a solution that brings those two halves together to create a beautiful picture. You need Bloomreach.
Imagine the possibilities at Bloomreach.com.
Have you accessed our FREE Excess Stock Training yet?
We’re solving your overstock problem!
- Do you have stock in your warehouse you desperately need to turn back into cash?
- Do you want to know how you can sell more stock at full price?
- Do you want to leverage your stock to improve your profits, cashflow, and environmental impact?
Then it’s time to get your FREE ticket to our brand new training resource
You’re going to learn how to tackle the problem of overstocks – BOTH how to avoid them, and how to clear them.
Sign up now to get your FREE access to all the replays
Full transcript to read & download:
Like to be a guest? Apply Here‘