SEO Case Studies
1. UC Davis (University of California, Davis)
UC Davis decided to use SEO to increase organic traffic and 31% increase in organic traffic was achieved. SEO campaign had 4.5 times more impact than paid campaigns. By any standards this is a great success.
Challenge :-
Previously UC Davis degrees lacked universal acceptance as core product of the institution and it was felt that web communication team needed to improve communication strategy to promote majors and programs as core product. UC Davis wanted SEO campaign to be based on topmost concerns of students i.e. ‘What job will I get after completing this major’ and ‘How will this university’s course help in getting job.
Solution :-
A unique content strategy was developed by aligning core product with student aspirations. This strategy found overnight success and if ROI is taken into account then it can be safely included among most successful marketing projects of UC Davis. Title of the blog used in the SEO campaign was deliberately kept straightforward. What title can be more straightforward than “What can I Do with my major?.
Results :-
Since its posting, the Majors Blog has garnered nearly 400,000 page views and brought in over 160,000 new visitors to UC Davis website. “What Can I Do With My Major? blog provided 4.5 times better results compared to university’s paid advertising campaign. 19% increase in web traffic to majors page was achieved and if traffic to blog is also included then increase was 32%. Significant 31% increase of traffic to majors pages, 70% increase of traffic to content related to majors and 18% increase of traffic to minors pages was achieved. This resulted in increased enrolments for majors and minors.
2. Ondeck
Ondeck is an online small business lender whose mission is to support small businesses. Commitment of Ondeck to serve its customers with smartest of financing solutions is remarkable. It offers small business loans, disbursing over $10 billion in financing. It provides business loans, equipment financing and lines of credit.
Challenge :-
OnDeck wanted creation and promotion of informative, educative and inspirational content that could help in customer retention, brand awareness and acquisition. Ondeck’s thought leadership content had below average performance despite being a part of small business blog resource center for considerable time. By not establishing technical foundation for OnDeck.com, company had bypassed most important pillar of SEO success.
Solution :-
Proper audit of website was done to identify areas that required attention. Audit exposed many loopholes and need of following measures:
1. Page load speed improvement
2. Resolution of redirect errors like 404s.
3. Ensuring that technical SEO supports content efforts amicably.
4. Improvement of On-page elements.
5. Optimization of landing pages to spike up engagement.
6. Give due importance to measurement capability for RC pages.
Results :-
Improvements during very short span of time between January to July 2018:
• Minor errors decreased drastically.
• Moderate errors deceased by 82%.
• Severe errors decreased by 79% .
• Quick answers increased by 231% and went up from 13 in Jan to 43 in July.
3. Meritene
Meritene is a Nestlé Health Science brand that offers nutritional products that are meant to cater to specific needs of adults above 50 years. Products like flavored powders and ready-to-drink beverages for elderly have been made available by this company.
Challenge :-
Target audience (Adults above 50) are known to be less active on digital platforms and Meritene felt the need for enriched content to increase its organic relevance. Content that focused on relation between food components and healthy living was developed as per the belief that such content could be perceived as valuable by target audience. This territory was worth exploring with average 388,000 searches per month.
Solution :-
First step was to prioritize keywords keeping an eye on search volume and discovered keywords with minimum 29,000 monthly searches. Metatags and existing content was optimized with the aim to improve SEO performance. Wherever content didn’t exist SEO-friendly content was developed based on healthy living habits and food supplements using the language preferred by consumers in search.
Results :-
Results were fabulous and in a matter of months, company website progressed from unranked position on generic terms on page one to ranked position with over 90 terms related to health on page one. This spiked up traffic from a mere 435 users in Q1 to 67,735 in Q4. Meritene’s reach has gone up by 73% in its target age group of 45 to 65.
