On-Page SEO Case Study: A 48% Boost in Year-on-Year Organic Traffic

In November 2016, we worked on an SEO campaign in collaboration with creative agency, Mearns & Gill. The client in question, Field and Lawn provides marquee hire for a range of industries all over the UK. This on-page SEO case study details the approach we took to increase their year-on-year website traffic by 48%.

Some background info:

The marquee hire industry in the UK tends to be seasonal, with demand reaching its peak in January and August. Although we did see a month-on-month increase in organic traffic (63% between December and January), a fair comparison needs to consider seasonal trends. We chose February as the month to compare as by then, our campaign had 3 months to take effect.

The following graph from Google Trends shows how the term ‘marquee hire’ peaks throughout the year.

The aim of this campaign was to improve Field & Lawn’s online search presence by focusing on-page SEO. We wanted to:

• Gain increased visibility without risking standing with popular search engines
• Gain more attention from interested prospects
• Turn that new attention into paying customers

As a result of our efforts, Field and Lawn saw a 48% increase in Year-on-Year traffic, a 5% reduction in bounce rate and a significant ranking improvement for almost all 42 targetted keywords.

Stage 1: SEO Audit and Recommendations

In order to establish an effective on-page SEO strategy, we conducted an SEO audit on the site. We began by crawling the website using the Screaming Frog SEO Spider.

Screaming Frog site crawl

 This served two purposes:

1. It provided us with a detailed overview of the website from an on-page SEO perspective.
2. It helped us identify areas for improvement.

We then looked at Field and Lawn’s current Google Analytics data to identify the site’s best performing pages and top organic keywords.

In order to gather more structured data on the marquee hire industry, we carried out keyword research using SEMRush Pro and Google’s Keyword Planner.

We also conducted three competitor analyses to gain additional insights into the marketplace and identify potential keyword gaps. 

SEMRush Pro

We used this data to identify the most effective keywords to target for each of Field and Lawn’s service pages. As well as being focused on search volume, we wanted to ensure that we were targeting relevant search terms in keeping with Field and Lawn’s audience.  

Based on our findings from the SEO audit, keyword research and competitor analyses, we drew up a list of recommendations on how to improve the website’s presence in search engines and increase relevant traffic to the site. Our recommendations included both technical and content-related improvements.

Stage 2: Technical Implementation

Based on the technical recommendations from the audit, Mearns & Gill’s web developer implemented the necessary changes to the website’s CMS.

Before these changes were made, we recorded all of the website’s current information as a way of documenting the process and tracking improvements. The information we recorded included:

• Current meta information
• Current Keyword rankings
• Current internal link placement

To ensure consistent results, keyword rankings (before and after) were carried out from the same Edinburgh IP address with a cleared cache in a Firefox browser. All cookies, TIFs and browsing history were deleted and user was logged out from all Google accounts. The technical changes that were made to the website’s back-end included:

• Additional fields to include meta information
• Changes to page architecture, including header tags
• Changes to image fields, including alt text fields
• Changes to call to action buttons
• Creation of 4 new location pages

Stage 3: Rewriting Website Copy

In total, we rewrote 8 pages of existing website copy, principally focusing on Field and Lawn’s main services pages. We wanted to ensure that the website copy reflected the client’s market positioning while targeting the appropriate keywords for each service.

As some of the services pages were thin on copy, we ensured that each page exceeded 300 words, so that there was enough content for Google to index and for us to create keyword-rich internal anchors.

For each of the existing service pages, we allocated one primary keyphrase and two secondary keyphrases, which we used in the page titles and meta descriptions. We also made sure that each phrase appeared at least once in the body copy.

In addition to the existing services pages, we wrote the copy for the newly created location pages, which had previously been the focus of one single page. By dedicating a page each to Field and Lawn’s four offices, we were able to use location-focused keyphrases to rank the new pages.

We also ensured that each service page had a call to action button that used different micro copy each time.

Stage 4: On-Page Optimization

With the changes now made to the CMS, we reviewed all the website content, implementing all the relevant on-page SEO elements.

To begin with, we ensured that the headings and subheadings on each page were given an appropriate header tag in keeping with their appropriate page hierarchy.

We created internal links using keyword-rich anchor text, ensuring that we had at least one internal link pointing to and from each page. We used a variety of primary and secondary key terms, being extra-careful not to use the same keyphrase twice.

We added image alt text to 300+ images throughout the site, making sure that each description accurately described the image in question.

For each location page, we followed local SEO best practices, ensuring that each page contained the following:

1. The full address of the local office
2. The local phone number
3. An integrated Google map
4. Images with location-specific alt tags and text

We also created additional internal links from the News section of the site to the new location pages.

Summary

As a result of our efforts, Field and Lawn saw a 48% increase in Year-on-Year traffic, a 5% reduction in bounce rate and a significant ranking improvement for almost all 42 targetted keywords.

To find out how our SEO copywriting services can help increase your website traffic, get in touch today at jamiethomson(at)brandnewcopy.com.

Related posts:

Content Marketing Case Study

SEO Case Study: a 1005% Increase in Organic Traffic in 9 Months

YouTube SEO Case Study: a 55% Increase in Year-on-Year YouTube Traffic

SEO Case Study Example: A 20.48% Increase in Organic Traffic in 8 Weeks