SEO Case Study
www.direct-golf.co.uk
DADI 2009 award winners
Blueclaw won both nominations, 2009 DADI awards for Direct Golf: -
Best Use of Organic Search (SEO)
Best Use of Paid Search (SEM)
Brief
The brief from our client, Direct Golf UK - one of Europe’s largest golf equipment retailers- was in two parts: to improve natural search rankings and to deliver profitable traffic through a paid search campaign based on CPA targets.
SEO:
- To optimise the site to achieve top rankings for ultra competitive golf related phrases.
- To achieve KPI targets for online sales and discount scheme/brochure signups.
- To boost the number of visitors to the website.
- To improve general phrase and longer tail keyword rankings.
PPC:
- To bid on keywords across the entire product range.
- To establish cost per acquisition information by product type and deliver profitable traffic to the website (based on the client’s net margins by product type).
- To measure conversions and other key performance indicators, e.g. total sales, average basket value, cost per acquisition, new versus returning traffic and catalogue and discount scheme sign ups.
- To test, measure and optimise the campaign.
Strategy and Execution
SEO:
- Extensive on-site SEO to improve brand, generic and longer tail search engine results.
- Improvement of key landing pages, URL rewrites and site structure optimisation.
- Extensive competitor link analysis.
- Anchor text keyword driven link building via articles, blogging and online PR.
- Extensive content creation strategy.
- Development of link baiting strategies and sticky on-site content
PPC:
- Performed keyword research across the whole product range targeting general, brand and long-tail type keywords, deciding on a group of over 3,500 keywords.
- Set up conversion tracking in Google Adwords and also ecommerce tracking within Google Analytics.
- Set up Goals in Google Analytics.
- Tested, measured and optimised the campaigns.
Results
SEO:
- Traffic via search engines (non-paid) increased by approximately 200,000 visitors compared to the same time last year.
- Sales growth via this traffic has increased significantly- transactions are up by 40%.
- Number of online completed transactions from search engine traffic (non-paid) increased by 47%.
Medium-long tail keyword search query examples:
- Cheap putter – traffic increase: 315%
- Golf shoes uk – traffic increase: 1325%
- Taylor Made burner driver – traffic increase: 211%
- Callaway drivers for sale – traffic increase: 616%
- Mizuno wedges – traffic increase: 100%
- Golf balls for sale – traffic increase: 685%
Cemented top 3 Google rankings for extremely competitive phrases such as ‘Golf shoes’, ‘Golf Bags‘, Golf Equipment’, ‘Golf Clubs’ and various long tail phrases within 6 months.
PPC:
- Following ongoing campaign optimisation we have further increased conversion rate by 186% and reduced cost per conversion by 76.5%
- The campaign continues to be optimised, including the utilisation of Google Conversion Optimizer delivering further improvements to cost per acquisitions.
- Other key performance indicators displayed strong performance: percentage of new visitors, discount scheme and brochure sign up and average basket value.
- Optimised campaign structure and landing page usage resulted in top quality scores (10 out of 10) for 97% of the 3,645 keywords after the first four weeks. Click through rates increased to over 8.4% during the same period.
- Blueclaw has begun Conversion Rate Optimisation experiment using Google Website Optimizer. During the experiments created so far (based on new webpage designs by Blueclaw design team), the conversion rate has increased by up to 90%.
These experiments are currently ongoing before any new page layout is incorporated on the client’s website.
Testimonial
“The SEO is a highly effective strategy for Direct Golf, Blueclaw is delivering first class results.”
Neil Rowett – Web Manager – Direct Golf
