SEO Consultancy Case Study

Introduction

In mid-2017 we were approached by a national manufacturer who were interested in our SEO consultancy services. They were struggling to provide sufficient leads to their network of local suppliers across the UK and wanted our assistance to improve their SEO. At the time they were generating around 100 leads per month but were targeting 600 per month.

We were selected to become their SEO consultancy partners due to our experience in working with lead generation websites and years of SEO experience in SEO. However, unlike most SEO firms our team have good sales experience. This experience means our team understand the value of good quality, qualified leads, and don’t just look to increase traffic for the sake of traffic through sources such as Pinterest and twitter.

After spending some time reviewing their website it become clear that they were not making full use of their website and we kicked off the consultancy work with them in August 2017.

As with any SEO consultancy work communication was going to be key so to help smooth the process and make it easier for everyone involved we took on the role of project manager. This meant that we were (and remain) the hub of communication between their sales and marketing team and their website developers and outsourced resources. This process meant that we were able to use our technical knowledge to fully engage with their developers and act as “jargon busters”, ensuring that the changes we specified correctly, and speeding up the development process.

The challenge

When we started our SEO consultancy work we were faced with a host of issues. To give an indication we have listed some of them below:

What we did

Once the scale of the problem become clear we recommended a host of changes designed to not only increase traffic but also leads; making the website work both harder and smarter.

Design

• We transformed the website from a brochure style website to one that was interactive, full of information yet easy to use, and focused on providing information and generating leads.
• Significantly increased the number of images used throughout the website, showcasing all of their products and examples of their installations
• We introduced a “sticky header menu” which made navigation easier without having to use side bar menus

Site structure

• Fixed all the links to allow people and Google to navigate through the website
• We updated the menu structure to reflect what they did. This meant dividing it up by products and services to make it clear and logical to use.

Content

• A number of the pages on the website were empty. We removed the ones that were not needed and added content on the others.
• To improve the quality of the website we used our bank of writers to significantly increase the length and quantity of pages. This meant that we were able to create a page for each of their products and product features
• Google does not like duplicate content on websites so to make the content more compliant we have all of the content rewritten to avoid duplication issues.

On-page optimisation

• We ensured that every page was targeting one primary keyword which meant that we were able to apply a laser like focus on that keyword
• Ensured that each page followed h tag best practice to help Google better understand the website
• We removed, replaced, or revealed all of the hidden content across the website
• To ensure that there was only one version of each page, and that all the authority of the website was focused on the correct pages we ensured that all the redirects were set up correctly.
• We updated the URLs across the site to make sure it reflected the site structure and Google best practice
• While we do want the vast majority of pages indexed there are some that we do not, mainly to help improve conversion tracking

Lead generation

• Inserted contact forms
• Added telephone numbers and quest request buttons in the “Sticky Header”, ensuring they are always visible
• Set up tracked telephone numbers
• Created a brochure download section behind a contact form
• Implemented lead tracking so all leads were recorded, whether they came from telephone, brochures, or contact forms significantly increasing the visibility of lead numbers and online marketing ROI

Page speed improvements

• Optimized and compressed images
• Eliminated render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold content
• Leveraged browser caching
• Compacted the HTML code, including any inline JavaScript and CSS contained in it

PPC

• Increased conversions
• Significantly decreased cost per conversion to below industry average

Moving in to a longer-term content strategy

The SEO consultancy plan for the website was broken down into phases. The first was to simply get the website functioning correctly and structured in such a way that we could expand it over time. The second was to improve the optimisation and content across the website. The third phase was to increase the conversion rate of the website.

Once these initial phases were complete we wanted to expand the website to make sure it not only produced traffic and leads but was producing the right type of lead and using some automated lead handling to free up capacity in the marketing department.

To this end we started to populate a local supplier directory which had three aims:

1. To make it easy for customers to find their local supplier – Increasing leads
2. Track the leads to help the manufacturer BDMs show value to being a supplier – Improved lead tracking
3. Created landing pages optimised for local keywords – More keywords which means more traffic and leads

We also started the longer-term project of increasing case studies on the website. Case studies are a fantastic way of improving the content and optimisation of the website as well as showing off what their products can do.

Again, there were three main benefits:

1. Created landing pages optimised for local keywords – Increasing traffic and leads
2. Shows the products in real life situations – Improving conversion rates
3. More interesting than product pages, allows customers to see all of the different options – Improving user engagement

The results

All of this SEO consultancy work is meaningless if we are not able to show results. For that reason we made sure that we were tracking traffic through the website via Google Analytics and rankings via our SEO tools from day one.

However, traffic and rankings only tell half the story. What really mattered to us and our clients were leads so it was important that we set up good quality lead tracking. To do this we separated the leads in to website and telephone leads. To track the telephone leads we set up call tracking which allows us to see who has called each number and for how long. This allows us to monitor the effectiveness of the installer directory.

The website leads are broken down in to brochure and quote requests and rather than just sending a notification to the manufacturer they are now sent directly to the relevant local supplier who can contact the lead directly. This saves valuable time and allows the best placed person to speak to the customer.

Traffic

You can see from the graph below there has been great improvement in overall traffic, indeed, there has been a 91% increase in traffic from non-paid sources between January 2017 and January 2019. Which is a fantastic result!

Leads

The lead numbers tell an even more impress story. Part of our aim was to not only increase traffic but to improve website conversion and while we have doubled traffic to the website we have increased lead numbers 6 times, a number we are very proud of!

• January 2017 – 117 Leads
• January 2018 – 208 Leads
• January 2019 – 684 Leads

What’s next?

Although our SEO consultancy has achieved it’s initial target of 600 leads per month we continue to push for greater improvements. Our target is now 1,200 per month which means that we still have a long way to go but we have many more plans to implement, new ideas to use, and other resources that we can exploit. Indeed, we have only just started.