SEO Case Study Example: A 20.48% Increase in Organic Traffic in 8 Weeks
In July 2017, we worked closely with creative Agency Mearns & Gill to improve the online search presence of Aberdeen-based gym Banks O’ Dee. Our aim was to increase website traffic through organic search and turn website visitors into customers. In short, our mission was to help the gym’s website:
- Gain increased visibility without risking current standings with Google
- Gain more attention from interested prospects
- Turn that new attention into paying customers
Some background info:
The fitness industry in general, tends to be seasonal. Google Trends show that every year, the term ‘gym Aberdeen’ peaks twice. Firstly, around the winter months: January and February and then again in the late summer months of August and September, with searches declining for the periods in between. Although we did see a month-on-month increase in organic traffic, a year-on-year analysis would provide further insights into the site’s progress. However, the website’s analytics only provided us with data from the beginning of the year.
The following graph from the last 5 years shows how the term ‘gym Aberdeen’ peaks throughout the year.
Stage 1: SEO Content Audit
In order to establish an effective on-page SEO strategy, we conducted an SEO content audit on the site. We began by crawling the website using the Screaming Frog SEO Spider.
This served two purposes:
- It provided us with a detailed overview of the website from an on-page SEO perspective.
- It helped us identify areas for improvement.
We then looked at Banks O’ Dee’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 fitness industry in the local area, 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.
Stage 2: Implementation
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.
Within a 4-week period, we completed the following optimizations on the website:
Technical changes:
- Additional fields to include meta information
- Changes to page architecture, including header tags
4 pages of website copy re-written and optimized, which included:
- Primary and secondary keyword focus
- Meta information
- Page architecture
- Internal linking structure
- Addition of videos
The Results…
One of the key objectives of the project was to improve Banks O’ Dee’s website rankings and overall search presence. Since implementing the changes, we saw significant ranking improvements for all 10 primary and secondary keywords.
Primary and secondary keywords were chosen based on Banks O Dee’s existing services and additional ranking opportunities were identified within the context of each service page, using SEMRush Pro.
First month since start of campaign – 10.97% increase in organic traffic
14/07/17 – 14/08/17 Compared to 14/08/17 – 14/09/17
Second month since start of campaign – 8.44%% increase in organic traffic
14/08/17 – 14/09/17 Compared to 14/09/17 – 16/10/17 (32 days each period)
Traffic to date – 20.48% increase in organic traffic
14/07/17 – 14/08/17 Compared to 14/09/17 – 16/10/17 (32 days each period)
Summary
After a 4-week period re-writing website copy and implementing technical changes to the Banks O’ Dee website, we completed the SEO project on the site on the 14th August 2017. After only 8 weeks, the website saw a 20.48% increase in organic traffic.
Please note that since publishing this post, the Banks O’ Dee website has been redesigned and the copy has since been redesigned
If you enjoyed reading our SEO case study example, you might be interesting in finding out how our SEO copywriting services can help increase your website traffic. Get in touch today at hello(at)brandnewcopy.com.
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