Today, I’m bringing you a case study of a services-led business, based in the UK, that I have worked with for over two years on my SEO and content consultancy package. This client came to me in 2022 looking to maximise their return on a new website, with the aim of raising their online visibility and helping them to drive bookings and new client registrations.
Read on to find out how I increased my client's organic search traffic by over 1,200%, from just under 400 monthly sessions in May 2022, to over 5,000 monthly sessions in August 2024.
The Situation: A New Website
When my client came to me, they had a relatively new website that functioned well and displayed all the key information and pages that would be expected. There was nothing majorly “wrong” with the website, but it was not optimised for search engines, so it was not as visible as it could be in Google. The website was largely being found through:
Branded keywords - keywords that included the name of the business
Local keywords - keywords that included the location in which the business was based
There was no blog on the website, so this client was missing a significant opportunity to grow their organic search visibility and traffic for non-branded keywords. Furthermore, they lacked the type of educational, informative content that would help them demonstrate their experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness to potential clients and give them the edge over their main competitors.
Whilst some very basic SEO had been carried out by the website developer, a lot of this used outdated techniques that would not have a significant positive impact on the website’s SEO. So, the website was in need of some essential technical and on-page SEO.
There was a lot of scope to increase the website’s organic visibility and traffic, which could in turn drive more enquiries, bookings and new client registrations.
My client wanted to maximise the return on their website investment by increasing its visibility, driving more traffic and ultimately generating service bookings and new client registrations.
Key Results From This SEO Case Study
This SEO campaign was highly successful at driving organic visibility and traffic through the client's website, allowing them to transform their website into an active driver of enquiries, bookings and new client registrations. Key results after two years of consistent, strategic SEO and blog content marketing include:
Traffic from organic search (SEO) alone increased to 5,300 sessions in May 2024, from 386 sessions in May 2022
SEO drove 86% of website users in May 2024, from 24% in May 2022
Search visibility increased to 16% in May 2024, from 6% in May 2022
Average position increased to 40 in May 2024, from 69 in May 2022
My client ranked in the top 10 (first page) for 86 of their target keywords in May 2024, up from 12 in May 2022
Of those keywords, my client ranked in the top 3 for 47 in May 2024, up from 4 in May 2022
Website engagement rate increased to 67% in May 2024, from 55% in May 2022
It should be noted that this client does little marketing besides SEO. They have a very small Google Ads campaign, which targets a local audience and they manage their own social media channels (Facebook and Instagram), which they use to share blog content and engage with their existing clients. The results above are just from SEO / organic search.
How We Did It: SEO Strategy; Quality Content & Technical Fixes
Strategy: Having a clear, effective SEO strategy is key to these amazing results. After a thorough audit of the website and speaking with the directors to understand their business goals, I carried out comprehensive keyword research. The keyword research allowed me to identify attainable, relevant keywords that we would target as part of the SEO campaign. These keywords included high-intent commercial keywords that directly described my client’s services, as well as lower-intent informational keywords that we would target via blogs.
Content: Content was king when it came to this client’s SEO success. We produced a series of blog articles - between one and three each month - to help the client target more keywords, build trust and authority, and drive more organic traffic to the website. These blog articles were a mixture of case studies and educational articles.
The case studies demonstrated my client’s niche expertise and experience in helping their clients (Google EEAT). Furthermore, the case studies also provided unique content that would not be found elsewhere on the Internet. These elements are all essential to providing the quality content that Google (and its users) looks for, which helped to push the entire website up the organic search rankings.
Of the top 20 pages to drive traffic to this website, 16 were blog articles. In fact, the top 2 drivers of traffic to the site were blog articles, both of which were driving more traffic to the website than the Home page. This demonstrates the power of blogging when it comes to driving organic traffic to your website! Furthermore, the engagement rate for this website increased from 55% to 67%, meaning that visitors were spending more time on the website, consuming more content and ultimately building trust and loyalty with the brand.
Technical: Finally, I carried out extensive work to improve the technical health, speed and user experience of the website. After a technical audit to identify issues that could be fixed, I set about updating SEO titles and descriptions, fixing or removing broken or redirected links, compressing images and adding internal links where relevant to help improve the flow of traffic through the website, as well as to aid crawling and indexing of the site.
What's Next? Semantic SEO, Ongoing Technical Work and Brand Transformation
The growth has not stopped for this client. Here's what I've been doing in recent months to further increase this client's visibility and traffic and help them target a new audience:
Semantic SEO and Topic Clusters: Now that we have a good number of quality blog articles on the website, the focus is now on maximising the ROI of the content. Following a semantic SEO strategy means organising the content into topic clusters, and linking that content together through copy, internal links and pillar pages. These pillar pages cover a broad topic, and link out to a number of articles on specific topics within the umbrella topic.
Early analysis shows that semantic SEO is improving the website's search engine rankings, as the keywords covered by the semantic topic clusters are ranking 11 positions higher on average than the rest of the keywords. The average position of these keywords increased by five within one month of the semantic strategy being implemented.
Ongoing Auditing and Technical SEO: Regular SEO auditing supports ongoing technical SEO fixes and work to improve the speed, user experience and crawlability of the website. This ensures that Google is able to find and index new content, and that users can easily navigate the website.
Brand Transformation: The SEO and content marketing strategy has shifted in-line with my client's goal to target a slightly different audience. This has involved tweaking the copy in existing content, as well as writing new content about slightly different topics in order to establish visibility, credibility, trust and authority with this new audience.
You Can Achieve Results Like This Too!
These results demonstrate what SEO can do for your business when you are consistent, strategic and willing to think long-term. These results did not happen overnight, and relied on my client investing in the long-term success of their website and business.
I am on a mission to help independent business owners (products and services based) maximise their website’s potential through SEO. By working with me, you can transform your website from an online shop window that relies on passing trade, to an active driver of visibility, traffic and leads or sales.
You don’t need to be a tech whizz or website development expert to optimise your website for search engines and start making the most of what SEO has to offer. I am completely self-taught, and if I can get results like this then so can you. All you need is a functional website as your canvas, a willingness to put the effort in and a commitment to consistency.
If you want to start your journey to search engine success, check out my SEO programmes for beginners - including my SEO membership and SEO Sprint group programme - and join the waitlists for first access and exclusive bonus offers. Alternatively, feel free to book a free 30 minute discovery call with me to find out how your business could benefit from my high-level SEO & content consultancy.
Comments