Some SEO Case Studies
Challenge: to Compete with High Authority, Long Established, Holiday Letting Websites, in Northumberland Holiday market.
Deb Walton first contacted my collaborator Chris Wilcox of Light Bulb Web Design simply to create a website with integrated booking portal, for a new glamping business to help diversify the income streams to the existing farm business. After referring Deb to myself, I carried out a full appraisal of the keywords that likely prospects would use, and where the glamping business’ future competitors sat in relation to those searches. Auditing of competitor strength allowed us to tailor a local visibility package that included a carefully planned website that targeted all the search angles that customers might use; seo aware copywriting, local and niche directory listings to be more “present” than competitors and setting up of social media channels for audience engagement.
In the first 4 months of operation, the website has gone from 0 to a typical monthly traffic volume of 1100 – 1200. The website visitors have resulted in near fully booked pods for the bulk of the summer season, giving Glampods Northumberland an excellent first season. This was achieved despite the interruption of building work during the hard winter.
Further Work Recommendations:
- Strengthen blog writing to target wider range of keywords related to pod glamping and the attractions in the Otterburn / Northumberland National Park.
Build out further landing pages for other keywords; - Develop social media skills and leverage facebook advertising to engage with potential customers and stay in touch with previous happy occupants of the pods.
- Develop use of Youtube videos
- Develop external backlinks to raise authority and profile relative to established competitors.
Challenge: to Refresh Branding, Improve Search Presence and Increase New Patient Enquiries
and Registrations for a Well Established Local Private Dental Practice in Carlisle.
The York Place Dental Practice first approached me for advice about improving their search visibility as they had noticeably lost ground to competing practices in the area. An initial audit of the website revealed several significant errors in the the previous copy and SEO activities that they had engaged in, in-house. These were significantly reducing their ability to be seen for key search terms that would bring visitors to the website… and the potential to attract new clients. The practice offers a range of cutting edge treatments to Carlisle dental patients and is seen as a leading innovator in private dental care in the area. The initial keyword research demonstrated a need for deeper research unto the practice’s current standing and into the competitor websites’ strengths and weaknesses. We engaged Light Bulb Web Design to complete the rebuild of the website and I took a deep look at the keyword data for dentistry for the services offered and the target area. Changes were made to the original structure of the website and a final plan was agreed for the website design to be commenced. While initial design work was going on, the website copy was completely rewritten to target the appropriate searchers more accurately. Much extraneous and incorrect metadata was also fixed. The audit also revealed a series of conflicting phone numbers located in old listings that had never been updated. We spent significant time regaining control of listings and updating the local NAP+W data for consistency with the website. The result of this work was an initial upturn in traffic from around 350 visitors per month in November 2017 to over 600 during the summer months of 2018. There was a decrease in bounce rates as the visitors were better targeted. York Place enjoyed an improved rate of enquiries initially, but there was a falling off after a couple of months. Subsequent investigations reveal that competitors have upped their local SEO activities following takeovers by a national dentistry chain.
Further Work Recommendations:
- Investigation of competitor strategies
- Initiate a programme of page testing to improve conversions.
- Develop a programme of external link acquisition.
- Initiate digital PR campaign with a focus on generating backlinks.
Challenge: to Compete with High Authority, Long Established Community Websites, that are Part of a High Authority City Council Network.
Stanwix Community Association required a website that would help them get over a period of 2 years when the community association was unable to generate any revenue; due to a long drawn out refurbishment and frost damage. Members of the community association were keen to be able to automate some of the booking processes and to be found in local searches for appropriate keywords. One committee member with an eye for design chose the overall look of the website. It was then optimised for a series of 7 keywords that appeared to be related to the target audience we wanted to attract to hire the room and keep it viable for the community members to use for their activities. Despite being up against a network of long established local authority community centres, different landing pages soon began to appear in searches for the services we offer. 1 page failed to: but this is deliberately de-tuned: until the facilities are in place to actively promote Stanwix Community Centre as a training room. Currently the website brings in 2 or 3 ad hoc bookings per month which is on target for the first year. It is also one of the key factors that has attracted the attention of adult education leaders to take the “tiniest” community centre seriously as a venue.
Further Work Recommendations:
- Rewrite website with a stronger copy-writing focus;
- Build out further landing pages for other keywords;