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SEO Case Studies2006 to January 2012

Introduction

This case study presentation is intended as a tool to help people understand what SEO is and the value that it can bring to an online campaign.

The reason these case studies have been selected is because in each instance, the client partnered with Shake to implement or improve their SEO. The following slides will showcase the problems Shake faced, the solutions that were implemented and how the client ultimately benefitted from Shake’s efforts.

Later on in the presentation, you’ll find a glossary to explain any SEO jargon, but please be in touch if there’s any other information you’d like to find out.

Tel: +27 21 447 2522Email: hello@shakeinteractive.com

7 key principalsBelow is a list of the key principals that the case study presentation addresses:

1.How site health affects your traffic.2.Site links and why they are important.3.SEO for highly competitive markets.4.SEO vs. Paid search (PPC).5.Targeted SEO for e-commerce sites.6.Clients want results… quickly.7.Traffic increases.

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1. How site health affects your trafficClient: MotorsIndustry: Second hand cars portalMarket: UKCompetition: Auto Trader UK, Car Craft, Parkers etc.

The Scenario:

• The client wanted to increase the traffic to the site.• He also wanted to rank #1 for the term “used cars”. Auto Trader was the incumbent #1 at

the time.

The Problem(s):

The site had major health issues:

• Duplicate pages• Regional directories within the site without any stock caused 1000’s of duplicate pages

e.g.. Rolls Royce in Henley on Thames, South London, Rolls Royce in Sidcup, Essex.• Constant site changes without consulting us, caused these duplicates.

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1. How site health affects your trafficThe Solution:

• Add a 301 Redirect from the empty search results pages.• Implement a robots.txt file to prevent indexing of empty search results pages.

The Result:

• A massive spike in traffic after the recommendations were completed.• Shake got them ranking #2 for “used cars” – they are now at #3.

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2. Site links and why are they important Client: Grand Reef CasinoIndustry: Online casinoMarket: Australia, New ZealandCompetition: Casino Mate, Platinum Play etc.

The Scenario:

• There were 2 sites: www.grandreef.tv and www.grandreefcasino.com. • The client was running a TV campaign that displayed the .tv domain, but the client

wanted their target market to find the .com domain on Google.

The Problem:

• You may not advertise any service that allows gambling, on television.• The .tv domain didn’t allow players to actually play on the site for real money, it was just

there so that people could go to a website for information. • Our task was to get the .com ranking for any “Grand Reef“ or “Grand Reef Casino”

searches. This way people could play for money and the casino wouldn’t be breaking any rules.

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2. Site links and why are they importantThe Solution:

• Shake blocked the .tv site from the search engines with a robots.txt file.• Shake acquired links (votes) targeting “grand reef tv” and variations thereof, based on our

keyword research and pointed these to the .com site. • At the bottom of the .com site, Shake added the text: “In partnership with Grandreef.tv”.

This has since been removed as the TV campaign has run it’s course.

The Results:

• The site is viewed by Google as authoritative for the search phrase which it wasn’t before.• Now it’s getting brand traffic that it wasn’t getting before.

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3. SEO for highly competitive marketsClient: Unable to discloseIndustry: Online casinoMarket: GlobalCompetition: 32 Red, Ladbrokes, 888

The Scenario:

• Our client wanted paying players from organic, non-brand traffic.• The market is competitive, lucrative and the cost to get results is high. • Our client is cost sensitive. • Shake had to select the correct method of getting this traffic.

The Problems:

• The client is skeptical of all SEO companies.• The website had serious health issues.• The owner is based in London and his dev team are based in JHB.• Managing the client is difficult because he has out-of-date information.

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3. SEO for highly competitive marketsThe Solution:

• Create a strategy that had a quick return on investment so the client could see quick results.

• Shake used it’s technical knowledge to get the site health in line with the SEO strategy. • Shake’s strategy was to choose long-tail keywords like “Thunderstruck II” (one of the

game titles) to get short-term results instead of generics like “online casino”• The campaign made provision for the generic keywords later on.

The Results:

• A 136% increase in organic SEO traffic for the corresponding 5 month period.

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4. SEO vs. Paid search (PPC) Client: Infiniti (Nissan)Industry: Car manufacturingMarket: Italy and SpainCompetition: BMW, Audi, Mercedes etc.

The Scenario:• The client was spending EU2million per year on Google Pay-Per-Click advertising.• The site didn’t appear naturally for 100’s of it’s brand terms e.g. Infiniti, Infiniti FX 35

etc.• The client was paying EU440.00 per PPC lead (test drive request or brochure download)

The Problems:• It was a Flash website in foreign languages with very little text to work with.• Any brand related work that we did had to comply with very strict EU laws on

self-promotions and declaration.• Shake was working through an agency so we didn’t have direct access to the client.• The development company were well embedded and resistant to change so our

recommendations could take anywhere between 3 – 6 months to be implemented.

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4. SEO vs. Paid search (PPC) The Solution:

• Do keyword research and monthly analysis to find the keywords people were using to find the site and convert.

• Shake built links in relevant languages, markets and communities: auto forums, directories and blogs

• All the pages titles said: “Buy Infiniti FX” so we changed the page titles to reflect the content on the pages.

The Results:

• Within 6 months, Shake got the CPL below €120.00 and 6 months after that, to €35.00.• The client got #1 rankings for all Infiniti models and other key terms e.g. Infiniti car, Infiniti• Shake increased traffic from 1 500 organic search visits per month to approximately 20 000

organic visits per month.• Shake got the dev company to complete our changes in 30 days based on the strength of

our results.

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5. Targeted SEO for E-CommerceClient: Deals Direct AustraliaIndustry: Online retailMarket: SACompetition: OO, e-bay, Online Shopping Australia

The Scenario:

• Deals Direct ranked at #3 and #2 for "Online Shopping" and "Online Shopping Australia" respectively

• Shake’s argument was that these were irrelevant keywords to rank for.

The Problems:

• Dealing with a client in a vastly different time-zone.• Getting the client to realise that these keywords weren’t the most relevant.• Establishing the most relevant keyword silos based on traffic volume and profit margin.

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5. Targeted SEO for E-CommerceThe Solution:

• The decision was made to adopt a more revenue-focused strategy in order to capitalise on the Christmas season, as well as providing a revenue bump for longer tail products.

• The budget was reallocated to focus on product silos more targeted to the Summer/Christmas market in Australia, while reducing link spend on the two trophy phrases.

• Examples of the targeted silos were “Outdoor appliances” and "Toys".

The Results:

• Within a month, the client saw an 18.75% increase in organic non-branded (SEO) traffic, while only dropping 1 position for "Online Shopping", and with no loss in rank for "Online Shopping Australia".

• The decision to remove emphasis from our trophy phrases was not an easy one, but it ultimately bore fruit in terms of long-tail traffic and revenue.

6. Clients want increases… quickly!Client: Thrifty Car RentalIndustry: TourismMarket: SACompetition: Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz, Etc.

The Scenario:

The client came to Shake with the view to do the following:• Increase in search engine penetration for a range of industry-related keywords.• Increase in ranking for high-level phrases such as "Car Hire".• Increase in the number of site pages indexed by Google.• Increase in traffic through the Organic, non-branded vertical.• Increase in revenue through the Organic, non-branded vertical.• Improve the site’s technical performance in search engines. (reduced crawl errors,

reduced duplicate content, enhanced URL structure etc)

The Problems:• The site had health issues specific to the Drupal CMS. The dev company were very

accommodating when it came to finding solutions.

6. Clients want increases… quickly!The Solution:

Shake’s proposed solutions were as follows:• A full technical audit of the site and supplied the dev company with a list of

recommendations that they implemented.• Benchmark where they were traffic, rankings, links and revenue wise.• We established the most viable keywords through thorough research and structured a link

building campaign and content strategy that would ensure regular content got added to the site.

The Results:

In 3 months we achieved the following:

• Year-on-year, we got organic traffic in November 2011, up by 25.03%.• Year-on-year, we got revenue from organic traffic in November 2011, up by 26.6%.• It wouldn’t be saying anything showing December’s figures, but the plan for this client is to

show month-on-month growth of between 4% - 6% for the 12 months.

7. Traffic increasesClient: Land Rover Our PlanetIndustry: Automotive, EnvironmentMarket: UKCompetition: Suzuki, Jeep

The Scenario:

The client has a “gas guzzler” image and is trying to improve awareness of its involvement in:

• Conservation projects, particularly in Africa and South America• Humanitarian projects• Greener, sustainable motor manufacturing• CO2 off-setting

The Problems:

• The client’s international, corporate structure used to cause long delays in implementing changes and adding content

• This is still a very niche market• The campaign had zero exposure in popular social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and

YouTube.

7. Traffic increasesThe Solution:

• We created an SEO friendly micro-blog that successfully aggregated traffic via Google and social sites and directed it to LandRover.co.uk

The Results:

Establishing niches and driving social network traffic such as:

• Over 500 Twitter followers• Over 6,600 Facebook Likes• Created and promoted a dedicated YouTube channel with 20,000 YouTube views

Search engine traffic via top organic rankings for important projects such as:

• Born Free Foundation• Biosphere Expeditions• Red Cross + keyword (e.g. Haiti)• Atlantic Rising

8. Traffic increasesClient: FlightsiteIndustry: Flights and package holidays onlineMarket: GlobalCompetition: Travelstart

The Scenario:

Flightsite was looking to take on the very competitive travel industry. The site had been built without taking into account the following:

• Keywords to target• Site architecture to target those keywords

The Problems:

• Their website was not optimized at all. • There were mounds of duplicate pages, • They had very little content on the site• Unfriendly URL structures• They weren’t getting enough traffic coming organically from the search engines.

8. Traffic increasesThe Solution:

• Compiled a full tech audit and a site structure for their flight section • Optimized title tags, meta descriptions, header tags based on keywords per page.• Break the monthly strategy down into targeted silos

The Results:

• A 325% increase in traffic.• Exponential increased in page views and time on site• An immediate month on month increase of 30%

8. Traffic increases

Site changes live: 16 Aug. 2011

ConclusionIn closing, I’d like to stress that these are hand selected case studies to showcase certain scenarios. Here at Shake, we encounter problems on a daily basis so we’re constantly creating more by solving different problems with search. If you have a problem that you think is very different from the ones listed here, and you’d like some advice on possible solutions, then please get in touch. My details are listed below and I’d be delighted to hear from you.

Tel: +27 21 447 2522Fax: +27 21 447 7573Email: hello@shakeinteractive.comWebsite: www.shakeinteractive.co.za

Thanks for listening and we’re looking forward to hearing from you.

The Shakers

GlossaryDuplicate pages: Pages on the same domain, or on another domain, that share exactly the same content. This causes problems for SEO health because search engines will ignore pages it deems to be the copies.

Redirects: A redirect is a server side instruction that forwards a request for a certain resource, like a webpage, to another location. Redirects come in various forms but the most common redirect, for SEO, is a 301 or permanent redirect.

Robots.txt file: A Robots.txt file is a simple text based file that is uploaded into the root directory of a website that controls the crawl permission of search engines over your web property.

Links: Links are hyperlinks embedded onto web pages that enable navigation. Backlinks, links that come from another domain onto your domain, pass credibility and authority onto your domain and gives your site a greater chance of ranking higher in the search results.

Link building: The process of procuring links from other websites to your site. Link building can be done in a wide variety of ways, ranging from outreach to widget embedding and viral content marketing.

Non-brand keywords: Keyword phrases and search engine queries that don’t mention brand

Glossary cont…Organic rankings: The natural, unpaid position in the search engine results pages where a site appears based on a specific search engine query/keyword phrase

Site health: The technical health of a website in relation to effective search engine optimisation

ROI: Return on Investment. A measure of a company’s profitability based on how much return the company receives in comparison to the amount spent on marketing

Long-tail keywords: Keyword phrases driving traffic to a site which are more than 4 words long and contain primarily generic keywords

Generic keywords: Keywords which do not include brand terms

PPC: Pay Per Click ads only charge advertisers if a potential customer clicks on an ad regardless of the number of impressions.

Keyword research: The process of discovering relevant keywords and phrases.

Directories: A categorized catalog of websites, typically manually organized by editorial experts.

CPL: Cost Per Lead – The cost incurred to acquire a new lead.

Glossary cont…Page titles: The HTML <title> tag associated with the title of the page included in the header of the webpage.

Keyword Silos: This refers to grouping of thematically related keyword sets. An example would be keywords such as "white bedding" or "bedding for children" within a Bedding-related silo.

Technical Audit: The process of assessing your site for technical issues that may inhibit it's performance in the search engines.

Benchmark: This is essentially a snapshot of your site's search engine performance thus far. Once a site has been benchmarked, your SEO campaign commences in earnest.

Content Strategy: This is a road map of how your content will be produced and disseminated throughout the web. It could refer to onsite content production, all the way through the spectrum to distributing infographics as "link-bait".

Microblog: This is a user-generated blog, but with size constraints on both content and file size. An example would be Twitter.