WHAT'S IN IT FOR YOU?
This site and the optimisation I provided are are winning combination. Please read the journey taken, it may be something that you are interested in doing ...
HISTORY: The Gluten Free Pages is a current ongoing project, so I will not be divulging any major competitive secrets, but I will discuss some general objectives and results that are applicable to any site, and my future clients.
This site has heart and soul as it was conceived by a coeliac for other coeliacs after the director was diagnosed and found how hard it was to go out and find gluten free places to eat. Rather than be a medical site or a food reseller, they differentiated themselves by becoming a ‘lifestyle and living’ site. This means they include the latest news and events articles and a directory that includes everything imaginable in the gluten free world.
ACTION: I was brought into this project from the early planning stages which meant that all on and off site search engine optimization activities could be planned well in advance. The difficulty of entering a new market, with clients new to the market is that there is a steep learning curve to understand the desires of their core clients and customers.
This project involved everything from detailed competitor analysis, swot analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats), estimations of potential growth etc. The advertising budget was considered to be essentially zero, so optimisation for purely high organic ranking for selected keywords was a prime objective.
Many optimisation tools have been and will continue to be used. One of the main differentiators of this site is its ‘Original Articles’ written exclusively by myself (so far) for GFP. In fact a vast amount of time was spent comparing the e-demand characteristics of gluten free markets worldwide and creating a concept called the GFP Matrix where countries were compared based on a notional term ‘celiac searcher per month’. This information can either be found on the Gluten Free site or in this sites Marketing Analysis section.It is this kind of detailed research which can provide great information to site visitors, enables the potential for PR campaigns and sates Google’s thirst for new content.
The graph below shows the different search volumes that different communities have for the seven different gluten free grouping terms. Notice how Australia, US English and Canada - English have similar proportion profiles and are also the leading Celiac search communities.
Original e-demand global demand research
A resources page was created for visitors and Google, however anyone who has developed such a page understands how difficult it can be in finding useful resources for their visitors.
RESULTS: After only a few months this site was teetering around the bottom of page one for its chosen keywords. Detailed analysis of site performance using Google Analytics revealed many areas where improvement was possible. Again the key to the recommendations being taken up is a concise executive summary that clearly, positively, states the value of taking the suggested actions.
This company is competing in a field that includes several well established online shopping stores, a large magazine, an events company and a government organisation. All of these have relatively high page rank values, high regular visitors and large work forces. If this company is to compete in their chosen niche, they will need to stay focused, put in the hours and continue to evolve a very targeted differentiated service solution.
Search Engine Optimisation success
CONCLUSION
With virtually a zero advertising budget, optimisation techniques become critical for company such as this. For similar companies I would take the approach of discussing where they want their site to go and how to get there. After the initial consultations, the majority of the time and fees would be consumed by finding a niche in which they can compete, creating all of the on page optimization that they or their developers can edit, then teaching them ‘to fish’ or continue the good work of off page optimization themselves.
While I am available for writing monthly website reports and recommendations and eye catching articles, it is up to the commitment of any company towards such campaigns as to how far their budget will stretch and how much growht they are comfortable with. But with the right attitude and goals, anything is possible. Contact me if you wish to discuss increasing your site's popularity.