July 2006

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and
Press Release Case Study

A case study for a typical search engine optimization (SEO) project. This is a real project for a motorcycle leather apparel manufacturer that lasted about 6 months (we've changed their name here to US Leathers).

Results Summary
When we started this project pages from the site were not reaching the first 3 pages of search results for most of the company's important search terms (Only phrases that included the company name and its brand names were reaching top positions) - Read why it's vital to reach the first 3 pages of Search Results

At the end of the project search positions (rankings) for almost all search terms had improved dramatically in the search results, many to page 1, in the four major search engines, Google, Yahoo, MSN, and ASK and traffic from search engines has increased significantly.

In addition, the site has received and continues to receive considerable traffic from the optimized press releases we submitted.

Just as important, many industry and news web sites have added the company's product information to their sites because of the press releases. Most of these industry and news sites include links to the US Leathers site that bring targeted traffic and may help influence the search position of the pages from the site - Learn more about Optimized Press Releases

The Complete Case Study
US Leathers (not their real name) produces motorcycle apparel specializing in leather jackets made in the USA.

Starting June 2005 we performed a keyword research project (link) to help determine the important search phrases for their business and the competition for those phrases.

We did a complete site audit/analysis to look for problems hurting search engine results. Having a "search engine friendly" site, a web site with no barriers to the search engines, is critical to success with “natural” or “organic” search engine results - To learn more about keyword Research projects or Site Audits see our Search Engine Optimization page..

The site was reasonably search engine friendly and had no significant barriers to the search engines. However we identified a number of issues that were hurting search engine results. Many of those were corrected over the following few months.

We compared the site's linking position to the competition. Linking Position (also called Link Popularity) is the number and quality of other web sites that mention and link to a site. These links can bring targeted traffic to a site and can influence search engine rankings - Learn more about Link Building.

The site was already in a decent linking position compared to the competition so we did not need an extensive Link Building Campaign.

However we recommended and have produced a series of five optimized Press Releases that were released from August 2005 through June 2006. Most of these press releases announced new products or major new features - Learn more about Optimized Press Releases.

We began optimizing 5 pages on the site beginning in November 2005 to improve search engine results for a number of specific important keyword phrases. Many of the recommendations were completed by mid December (however some of the suggested modifications have not been implemented yet).

We waited about two months for the major search engines to completely pick up the changes we made to the pages and then tested the results in May and June 2006.

Project Results

Improvements in Linking Position

The linking position of the site has improved dramatically. As we said this site was in decent shape already, but it has improved even more in a large part due to the series of optimized press releases we submitted over the past year.

We use a number of indicators of link popularity for the major search engines. These indicators help us compare the linking position of a web site to its competition in general and for specific important keyword phrases.

One of the indicators we use is the number of links from other sites reported by the Alexa Data Service. The Alexa Data Service, owned by Amazon.com, provides a different view of link popularity than other sources, because it is based on the number of sites linking in, as opposed to the total number of links. This, plus the fact that Alexa uses the Google Database, we believe, it is an indicator of some of the links to a site that Google and other search engines may consider important links to the site too.

During the project the number of other sites that link to the US Leather's web site as reported by Alexa almost quadrupled as can be from the following chart.

Other sites that link to the US Leathers web site
(from Alexa.com)

Targeted Traffic from Optimized Press Releases
The site has received and continues to receive considerable traffic from the optimized press releases we submitted.

Just as important, many industry and news web sites have added the company's product information to their web sites (In Product Showcases for example) because of the press releases. Most of these industry and news sites include links to the US Leather's web site that bring targeted traffic and could be influencing the search positions of pages from the site.

Rankings Improvements (Search Positions)
Since August 2005 there has been significant improvement in the positions being reached in search results by pages on the site.

As we mentioned, when we started this project few pages from the site were reaching the first 3 pages of search results for most of company's important search terms. About the only pages reaching top results were for searches that included the company name or its brand names - Read why it's vital to reach the first 3 pages of Search Results

At the end of the project search positions (rankings) for almost all search terms had improved dramatically in the search results, many to page 1, in the four major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, and ASK)

Search Traffic has Increased
Traffic from search engines has increased substantially.

Unfortunately the company's web server was not collecting log files before we started so there is no data from before July 2005.

Visitors referred by search engines

There has been a 40 to 45% increase in visitors from search engines. This increase resulted primarily from the site wide changes that were made as a result of the site audit, the 5 pages we optimized, and the overall improvement in linking position during the project.

In addition, as we mentioned this site was already fairly search engine friendly and in a decent linking position. Much of this improvement in rankings and traffic for specific keyword phrases has come from optimizing only 5 pages of the site. Optimizing more pages or adding new content should bring even greater improvements.

Of course it's not just about getting traffic to the site, but what happens once visitors reach the site. In other words, is the site successfully “converting” these visitors into leads and sales?.

Ideally, using Advanced Analytics we can see by keyword phrase, what people do once they reach the site, how they navigate through the site, where they drop off, what pages are converting well for these phrases, what pages are not converting well and should be modified and tested, etc.

For more information on Search Engine Optimization see our Search Engine Optimization page or contact us.

George Aspland