Chess.com, from 0 to +30M organic visits per month and +150M$/year thanks to SEO

The presentation discusses Chess.com's SEO success story over eight years.
- Key strategies included international SEO with 56 languages and localized content.
- Content improvements, like redesigning opening pages, led to significant traffic growth.
- Expanding content to news, events, and player profiles increased organic clicks.
- Data analysis and internal tools were crucial for tracking and optimizing SEO efforts.

Transcript

1. #brightonSEO
2. #BrightonSEO 2025 The 10 Most Populated Countries In The World ?
3. #BrightonSEO 2025 The 10 Most Populated Countries In The World
4. #BrightonSEO 2025 World Map with number of Chess.com members
5. #BrightonSEO 2025 UK Stats 3rd largest country in the world in terms of Chess.com registered users. 5.9M UK 8.9M 5.9M GERMANY FRANCE 8,9M/68,3M (2023), which means 13% of UK PLAYS CHESS!! 😍
6. #BrightonSEO 2025
7. #BrightonSEO 2025
8. #BrightonSEO 2025 Reaching +1M clicks per day on January 2025
9. 2025 #BrightonSEO HOWEVER, this is 2025. It has not been ALWAYS like this.
10. #BrightonSEO 2025 2016: 13 million users worldwide!
11. #BrightonSEO 2025 1 International SEO 2016: 1 Language (English) 2025: 56 Languages
12. #BrightonSEO 2025 Opening a new language may seem easy... ...BUT it requires an entire process. 1 International SEO
13. #BrightonSEO 2025 New URL in the system 1 Steps for International SEO
14. #BrightonSEO 2025 1 Steps for International SEO Custom metadata & translations (Crowdin)
15. #BrightonSEO 2025 1 Steps for International SEO Link Building & PR
16. #BrightonSEO 2025 1 Steps for International SEO Translation of articles, lessons & videos
17. #BrightonSEO 2025 1 Steps for International SEO Social media
18. #BrightonSEO 2025 One language = 12M organic visits per year 56 languages = 278M organic visits and over 1B impressions per year 1 Impact of International SEO Impressions 1,291,943,252 137,625,580 11.92% Growth Clicks 277,778,608 6,320,603 2.33% Growth
19. 2025 #BrightonSEO "Can I translate my website’s most important pages into another language to test if that market is worth it?" 1 Question
20. #BrightonSEO 2025 2 Openings 5k pages • no value • not great UI 116k clicks/month (2021)
21. #BrightonSEO 2025 2 Opening s Improvements: • Complete redesign • Internal linking • Content creation +260k organic clicks per month (2025)
22. #BrightonSEO 2025 2 Redirect Tool (Bonus)
23. 2025 #BrightonSEO “Can I take my category pages or pillar pages to the next level?” 2 Question
24. #BrightonSEO 2025 3 News, Discover & EEAT Key point: Sharing the LOVE for SEO across the entire organization. 600k-1M organic clicks per month (2025)
25. #BrightonSEO 2025 3 Google News
26. #BrightonSEO 2025 3 Google Discover
27. #BrightonSEO 2025 3 EEAT
28. 2025 #BrightonSEO "Should we rely on external media and publishers, or can we make our brand stronger?" 3 Question
29. #BrightonSEO 2025 4 Articles & Evergreen Can we answer all key user questions with curated articles & videos? 60-70k organic clicks per month (2025)
30. 2025 #BrightonSEO “Can we build a recurring funnel that grows month by month with evergreen content?” 4 Question
31. #BrightonSEO 2025 5 Events Covering the world’s major chess events with real-time coverage. +400k organic clicks per month (2025)
32. 2025 #BrightonSEO "Can we do live coverage or broadcasts of major events?" 5 Question
33. "Is SEO-driven growth possible through product?" Of course!
34. #BrightonSEO 2025 Enabling thousands of new player profiles (80k+) + automated updates. +152k organic clicks per month (2025) 6 Players & Ratings
35. 2025 #BrightonSEO "Can we build a small automated database with top players biographies and their ratings?" 6 Question
36. #BrightonSEO 2025 7 3D Chess Page 40kclicks/month
37. #BrightonSEO 2025 +200 glossary pages for every chess term. 500k-1M clicks/month 8 Chess Terms
38. 2025 #BrightonSEO “Can we create a small glossary on new trends to showcase our expertise?” 8 Question
39. Data Analysis & Business Intelligence The FUTURE!
40. #BrightonSEO 2025
41. #BrightonSEO 2025
42. #BrightonSEO 2025
43. #BrightonSEO 2025
44. #BrightonSEO 2025 Thank you so much for your valuable time and attention! +376 381742 David Kaufmann SEOcrawl CEO & Co-Founder info@seocrawl.com linkedin.com/in/david-kaufmann-79a5b72b/