We started work with a new client in July who had been getting about 80% of his traffic from paid sources like Google AdWords for more than two years.
They were doing well – their site had grown substantially and they were pulling a solid profit month after month – but it cost them a pretty penny to do so, and the second they stopped spending on AdWords, their traffic would dry up.
If they had a slow period, he was worried they would start to hemorrhage money fast as sales dried up. So they brought us in to improve the organic side of things as they weaned off paid search. Here are five of the things we did immediately to make the switch:
- Made Every Page On-Site Unique – The first step was to rewrite product descriptions and landing pages that had duplicate content from other pages on the site. There were nearly 300 such pages and this was focused on first as a means to ensure all pages met the minimum unique content threshold for ranking in Google.
- Created a Blog – We created a new blog and started posting once every 2 days for a total of 15 times per month. As of three months, we had nearly 50 posts on the blog and continue to post weekly to maintain as high a level of quality as possible.
- Connected with Social Media – Every blog post was shared to four social networks upon publication and two more times during the following week. Additionally, we integrated a social sharing function for product descriptions and seeded all social accounts with at least 100 Fans/followers to ensure better reach when promoting posts.
- Created Smart Inbound Links – To maximize return on investment for the client, we focused on creating inbound links that had the greatest impact. This included five guest blog posts during the first month, two press releases, and numerous additional “smart” links from authority sites.
- Set a Monthly Schedule and Maintained It – We are now in a maintenance stage to fit the client’s budget, creating new content for the blog and core site weekly, generating new shares from social media, and growing fan/follower counts weekly.
The core of the work was done in a 30 day period and we’ve maintained a steady flow of new blog posts, revised landing pages and new site content over the three months since then, with an 11% increase in organic traffic in August, 20% increase in September and currently a 15% increase as of October 15th. Month over month, the site has drawn nearly 50% more organic traffic than it did in July, allowing them to cut their paid search by 15% and saving them more money than they’ve paid us in that time period.
We have a long ways to go – the site isn’t done yet and there are much greater growth opportunities out there we’re still pursuing, but it goes to show just how effective a shift from paid to organic can be be when done over time and at the right time.
