And here is the proof…
We all know that SEO will increase your website’s performance, that is no surprise. The challenging part is finding a web developer or SEO expert that can provide the results they claim they can. We have all seen ads, messages, and proposals that say they can increase your website’s rank in the search engines. While any amount of SEO is better than none, being able to deliver results is the name of the game. Surf Your Name has many clients getting great results from the SEO services we offer and the work we do on their website.
It isn’t often that we are able to share this information with other clients and prospective clients. Many of our clients do not want their competition to know the details of how they are getting success. However, we are about to show you a case-study of one project with PROOF of our results. Some of the client’s information will be blurred to protect them and their work, but if you continue to read this case study you will get a good idea of what a good SEO firm can deliver.
SEO Case Study
For this case study we will review John’s (not his real name) website before and after SEO was started. John has several websites and most of them are eCommerce style websites. John joined the Surf Your Name family in 2016 because his business was growing and going to the next level. He had been using another web developer that took days to make minor changes, never answered the phone, and didn’t give his websites the attention they needed to produce results. John’s previous web developer had not done much SEO on his site and what he did do wasn’t producing results. Our first step was to get a “baseline” of John’s website performance so we could measure the results of our SEO and other modifications.
SERP (Search Engine Ranking Performance)
SurfYourName operates a special software that will take search words and phrases and do searches for them on the major search engines. We then take that data and build custom reports that show your website’s ranking in the search engines for each of those key words and phrases. Our software will track these results daily, weekly, and monthly so we know what portions of the SEO are working and what is not. We always want to get a baseline report prior to us doing any work on your website so we know what results we are delivering to our clients. We offer weekly SERP reports to our clients for a discounted rate and if they are using our SEO services.
The first image on the right, you will see John’s baseline report. It shows the keyword we are monitoring, the current rank of the keyword in the Google search results, the history of that keyword’s ranking, and the monthly search volume for each keyword. This is the baseline report for John’s website prior to any SEO work by Surf Your Name. From the 30 or so keywords in the baseline report, John’s website was only ranking for 4 of those phrases. This is why John hired us to get his websites performing for him and his business.
Performing SEO on a website is not a 1-time thing. We start by performing the “first round” of SEO and then monitor the change in results. Then we take what we have learned from the change in results and do another round of SEO on the client’s website. This can continue for weeks, months, or longer depending on the size of your website. It is also worth noting that search engines change their ranking system quite often. When this happens a good performing website can drop in the rankings quite quickly. Other websites could also start increasing their SEO efforts and that could effect how your website ranks in the search engines. This is why we want to stress….SEO is NEVER finished!
The 2nd image on the right shows the same SERP report, but ran approximately 2 months after the baseline and after the first round of SEO performed on John’s website. You can see his website is now ranking for 14 of the search phrases. With just the first round of SEO and only 2-months, the website is ranking for almost 4 times as many keywords as before. The second round of SEO will take the rankings on the 2nd and 3rd page of results and start pushing them to the first page of Google.
How Did SEO and Higher Keyword Rankings Change Performance?
We did not promise John his website would be ranked in the #1 position overnight. Proper SEO takes time and tweaking to get improved performance. Hundreds of factors go into your website’s rank in the search results. However, as we are about to explain, even the first round of SEO will have big impacts on your website’s performance. With a few modifications to John’s webiste flow, shopping cart, and checkout process coupled with search engine optimization; more visitors started flowing into John’s website.
Looking at the first image on the right, in just a 2-month period after the first round of SEO, John’s traffic from Google is up over 224%. This is almost 200 additional visitors to John’s website in a 60-day period. Every business and every website has a different conversion rate, but how many more customer would this mean for your website and business?
With an additional 200 visitors, would you convert 2 customers, 12 customers, or maybe 20? Now multiply your average sale price by the amount of new customers. Lets say your average sale is $150 and you add 2 new customers, that is $300 in additional revenue. Or you add 12 new customers at $150 each, that amounts to $1,800 in new revenue. If you can add 90 new customers a year at an average of $150 each, that will add $13,500 per year in revenue on your bottom line.
Take a look at the 2nd image. You will see that John added 11 more customers in 2 months versus the same time last year. That amounted to 162% sales increase for that 2-month period. If we stopped doing SEO on John’s website and just allowed to website to perform at this level he would see a $15,000 sales increase for the year. What would you do with an extra $15,000??
Summary
Everyone wants that coveted #1 spot in the search results. While it is very possible to get that spot, any raise in your rankings will drive more traffic to your website. SEO is not an overnight process in getting your website to perform better in the search rankings. It can take days, weeks, and even months to see your website’s rankings change. Search engine rankings are always changing based on new websites coming into the mix and search engine algorithm changes. If you think you can have your site optimized and never touch it again, you are not going to get the best results.
As you can see from this case study, the first round of SEO we performed did not get the clients site to the #1 position in every keyword. However the overall rankings did increase, the amount of keywords ranked did increase, the amount of visitors did increase, and most importantly….revenue increased. John website produced enough revenue in a few months to more than pay for the first round of SEO that will continue to drive visitors to his website. We know once we start round 2 of SEO it will drive even more traffic and revenue. There are hundreds of tutorials, videos, and articles around the internet on how to perform SEO on your website.
While small business owners can take the first steps in getting their site optimized for search engines, the money spent on the right professionals will typically pay for itself. Our team of developers and SEO technicians have years of experience that will save you hours of learning and allow you to focus on running your business. Send us a message or give us a call today at 910-452-6345 and we will perform a SEO status report on your website and go over all of the results with you.
There are no shortage of companies offering you SEO for your website and wanting your money. Make sure they can explain what they are going to do to increase your rankings. What reporting do they provide to show how your website is performing? Do they want your business or do they want to help your business? Surf Your Name has been helping our clients for over 10 years and we are dedicated to the success of your business. We know if we help your business you will keep doing business with us!
