How Die Bewerbungsschreiber doubled their SEO performance in Austria and Switzerland with Clonable

Background

Die Bewerbungsschreiber is a leading platform for professional job application assistance in the DACH region. Because their reach in Austria and Switzerland was decreasing, and maintaining the Austrian and Swiss websites was time-consuming, they wanted to start maintaining their website via Clonable. Since these countries largely use the same language, a traditional translation was not necessary. What they did need was a way to quickly optimize their website for these new markets - without spending a lot of time and resources.

The solution? Clonable, which allowed them to easily clone a German website and adapt it for the Austrian and Swiss markets.

The challenge: regional SEO without duplicate content

Many businesses think they can simply copy their existing Web site to a new domain name and it will rank well in Google. But that's not how it works. Without proper technical optimizations, search engines may see the new site as duplicate content, leading to worse rankings.

For Die Bewerbungsschreiber, it was essential to:

• Provide regional signals to Google, such as hreflang tags and local addresses.
• Subtly adapt content to the local market without rewriting the entire site.
• Leveraging the authority of their main domain, so the new websites started to rank faster.

With Clonable, they were able to accomplish all of this within days.

The growth in visibility: figures from Semrush

The results speak for themselves. In less than a year, organic traffic from the Austrian and Swiss versions of the website exploded:

• Austria: from 2.8K visitors per month in September 2023 to 23K in March 2024.
• Switzerland: from 5K visitors per month in September 2023 to 42K in April 2024.

Of course, it cannot be said with certainty whether actual traffic has actually increased nearly tenfold, as appears in Semrush. SEO tools estimate traffic based on search volumes and rankings, and those can sometimes vary. But one thing is clear: Organic reach and visibility have at least doubled, and within a few months.

What makes Clonable so effective for SEO?

1. Automatic hreflang tags - This allows Google to instantly recognize that the new sites are intended for specific countries, preventing duplicate content.
2. Retain URL structure and metadata - Key SEO elements remain intact, ensuring fast indexing.
3. Easy local adjustments - The user-friendly interface allowed them to quickly make small changes for a more authentic look.