Anupam Mittal, the CEO of Shaadi(.)com, is widely regarded as the king of online matrimony. He has transformed the way people find their partners online and created a platform that attracts over 750K users every month from Google alone. His success is a testament to his exceptional marketing strategies and SEO techniques.
In this article, I will uncover the secret behind Anupam Mittal’s SEO scorecard and delve into his marketing methods. By doing so, we aim to empower entrepreneurs and startups with valuable insights that they can implement to take their businesses to new heights.
So, if you are looking to skyrocket your startup, join us as we unlock Anupam Mittal’s SEO success and learn his marketing strategies!
What is Shaadi(.)com? Why do they need SEO?
Shaadi(.)com is an Indian matrimony website founded by Shark Tank’s Anupam Mittal. He founded the startup in 1996 when the internet was unknown in India. But, a decade since then, India was internet-ready.
Quickly, India’s wedding market came online and Shaadi(.)com became the NO.1 matchmaking site with over 35M users. Its brand recall is extremely strong, with 85% of traffic directly arriving on its website, That’s a total of 13.7M visitors every month! So it’s safe to assume that a better part of India knows about this startup. But, what about the rest? Well, turns out, that their second-highest source of traffic is SEARCH. This means they need SEO to get new users. So let’s explore their SEO strategy!
What is SEO?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is crucial for any online business for that matter. It is the process of optimizing a website to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords. By doing so, the website becomes more visible to potential users, which can drive more traffic to the site. Increased visibility and traffic can lead to more opportunities for the business, such as increased leads, sales, and revenue.
In the case of Shaadi(.)com, the company needs to rank well for relevant keywords related to matrimony and matchmaking services to attract potential users searching for these services online. By having a strong SEO strategy, Shaadi(.)com can ensure that it remains one of the top options for individuals looking for a suitable partner online.
How do they get users from Google?
Shaadi(.)com’s matrimony subfolder brings the highest amount of traffic to the whole website. These pages target users that are directly searching for matrimony sites on Google. So, the target keywords contain terms like:
- Matrimony
- Match-making
- Brides
- Grooms.
- ..etc
Now, this “matrimony” subfolder has over ~4300 pages. So, how did they figure out what pages to create under this specific subfolder? Well, there is a simple strategy for buildd-ing a winning subfolder.
A. Narrow down unique keywords applicable to the category
We know that Shaadi(.)com caters to the Indian audience. That’s over a billion people. The sheer volume of their target audience might seem like a huge plus, but this user base is very complex. Why? Well you see, Indians operate in small tight-knit communities based on their religion, caste, state and more. And they tend to marry within those communities. Shaadi(.)com clearly understands this. So, they have designed their pages targeting each community group.
But, how do we start listing such communities and narrow down the keywords? Well, the key to building a proper subfolder and URL structure is categorization. They categorize keywords both based on geography and religion. So, we get keywords like:
Religion — Hindu Matrimony, Muslim Matrimony, etc
Communities — Brahmin Matrimony, Maratha Matrimony
States — Bihar Matrimony, Kerala Matrimony
Cities — Mumbai Matrimony, Bangalore Matrimony
Country (NRI keywords) — US NRI Matrimony, Saudi Arabia NRI Matrimony’
After listing all the obvious keywords, they move on to see what users are actually searching for. This is important because ultimately your target page should match these queries. A quick search will fetch you keywords with terms like “brides”, “grooms”, “vivah” etc.
We try different combinations for these terms with our previous set of keywords under different categories, to produce the final list:
- Marathi brides
- Hindu brides
- Telugu vivah matrimony
- Saudi Arabia NRI grooms and more!
So, now we have our unique keywords!
B. Create a unique page for each unique keyword
Next step is to create pages for all unique keywords. These pages are all programmatically generated. Shaadi(.)com already has a database of brides and grooms with specific info about their religion, state, and country. Now, to generate these pages, they simply apply filters to only include profiles that are applicable to a given case. For example: “USA nri brides”, will only list brides who currently reside in the US and have an NRI status.
All these pages are listed under the subfolder “matrimony”.
Example:
- /matrimony/hindu-matrimony
- /matrimony/united-kingdom-nri-matrimony
- /matrimony/bengali-hindu-matrimony
- /matrimony/hindu-grooms
C. Internally link all these unique pages
Next, it’s important to internally link all these pages. Internal linking means adding a link from one page of the website to another. So, the “Indian Matrimony” page will contain links to all pages in the subfolder. The benefit of doing this is simple. If one of these pages does very well, for example, the “indian matrimony page”. Then all the other pages that are internally linked from this page will also do well. So, the authority flows from high authority pages to others.
That means proper internal linking will cause all pages in the subfolder to start doing well eventually.
D. Focus on on-page SEO
Finally, when creating these pages it’s important to focus on on-page SEO elements. That means embedding the target keyword in the HTML.
HTML elements like URL slug, H1, H2, Body, Image alt text should all contain this keyword. What we get is an e-commerce-style webpage that lists brides and grooms with CTA’s like – “click to chat”, “I’m interested” that help convert these visitors into registered members.
The Results and Key Takeaways
Ultimately, Shaadi(.)com’s SEO numbers look amazing:
Monthly Organic Traffic = 747K
Keywords = 27.7K
Backlinks = 682K
DR = 71
Referring Domain = 3.9K
So, let’s summarize our learnings from this case study!
- Before building anything, lay out your SEO strategy
- Start by doing keyword research Make sure to create proper categories and use p&c to find out all the unique keywords. This will help you cover an entire scope of keywords, which builds topical authority.
- Next, work on on-page SEO. The best way to approach this is by creating a base template and automatically populating the keywords where ever applicable.
-
Finally, focus on internally linking your pages. This will help search engines quickly index these pages.
Conclution:
In conclusion, Anupam Mittal’s success in capturing 750K users every month on Google is a result of his exceptional SEO and marketing strategies. He has effectively leveraged the power of search engines to reach potential users looking for matrimony services online.
By continuously optimizing his website for relevant keywords and utilizing effective marketing techniques, he has been able to attract a large user base and establish Shaadi(.)com as a leading online matrimony platform. This success serves as an inspiration for startups and entrepreneurs looking to increase their online visibility and reach more customers.
By following in Anupam Mittal’s footsteps and adopting similar SEO and marketing strategies, businesses can achieve similar levels of success and take their operations to the next level.
