4x Organic Traffic Growth for Art & Object

Challenge

‍

Traffic had remained stagnant for 12 months with little sign of growth. Barry was recommended to Webb Howell, President of Food News Media as the SEO expert to help the Art & Object editorial team grow organic traffic quickly. After discussing with the team their goals Barry immediately identified a number of challenges.

1. SEO Training. With Art & Object being a relatively new site, just 18 months old, the Art & Object team wanted to increase revenue through organic traffic. They needed a solid grounding in SEO knowledge in order to help them action the SEO strategy that would be put in place for them.
2. Google News. Many of Art & Object’s competitors were getting a much larger amount of traffic from Google News. Jeremy, the editor, was keen to increase their share of this traffic and needed a robust plan with Google News SEO training.
3. Technical SEO optimisation. There was no one to identify current SEO issues that if fixed, would positively impact rankings in Google. They needed someone not just to identify on site technical issues but someone to recommend further technical SEO optimisations that would make a significant impact.
4. Content Strategy. The editorial team were experts in content creation but needed a clear plan on what content they should be creating in order to maximise potential organic traffic.

"Being a start-up looking for rapid growth, we needed to cut years out of the growth process."

Web Howell, President of Food News Media

‍

Solutions

With a decade of SEO experience working with large scale sites and experience of driving traffic through GoogleNews, Barry established a prioritised SEO roadmap with clear objectives that would give the A&O team the SEO tools and techniques they needed to increase traffic.

1. Barry carried out an initial site audit on the site to identify quick wins that could be implemented with speed and would have immediate effect driving value early on in the project.
2. After that, Barry performed an in-depth keyword research project that uncovered thousands of art related terms that Art & Object could rank for. This provided the keyword data needed to create a content strategy that was focused on Google news and evergreen traffic.
3. Next, Barry completed a full technical SEO audit of the site. Barry worked with the web development team and the editorial team to resolve these issues over the coming months.
4. As well as equipping them with a new, data-led content strategy, Barry coached the editorial team in SEO best practices for ranking better in Google Search and Google news.
5. Barry created an inventory of pages on the website and using performance metrics from a variety of sources Barry was able to give the team recommendations on which content to keep, which to improve, and which to remove or consolidate.

"With no dedicated in house SEO resource there was a general lack of SEO knowledge and we needed a clear strategy for improvement. The editorial training we received shapes how we think about every piece of content that we publish."

Jeremy Howell, Editor of Art & Object

‍

Results

‍

• Within 10 months, organic page views increased from 9,600 to 38,000 monthly page views.

• Art & Object is now ranking on page 1 of Google for over three times as many keywords - going from 646 keywords to 2,200 and over 100,000 ranking keywords overall.

• Technical SEO issues were uncovered by Barry. These were discussed with the editorial and web development team, prioritised and fixed.
• The editorial team now had a content strategy driven by keyword insights which shape how the team thinks about every piece of content they create.
• The team is now well trained in how to optimise content for Google News.
• Content generation strategy completely changed leading to a more efficient process in editorial writing.

"We appreciated the care Barry took to explain complex topics and his willingness to answer questions as they came up. Barry tailored his SEO solutions to our specific needs, was friendly and easy to work with. What sets him apart is his genuine dedication to helping us improve our SEO. If you get a chance to work with Barry, take it."

Jeremy Howell, Editor of Art & Object