Search Engine Optimisation Case Study: SEO Success for a Building and Development Brand

The Goal


Our client is a successful turnkey construction company based in Buckinghamshire. They wanted to improve their organic search rankings for a range of terms focused on their service area.


They already had a website, with some basic information on their services and a small number of case studies. Previously, they were writing the content for the website themselves. Although the content was descriptive and relevant to the business, it wasn’t optimised for search engines in the most effective way. There was no foundational SEO in place – including meta descriptions, alt tags and so on. Therefore, we knew we would need to start from the beginning with this project and get basic elements in place first.


The client had reasonable amounts of competition in their service area, which spanned multiple counties in the Southeast of England. This presented a challenge in the local SEO optimisation, due to the requirement to mention a range of different locations.


They also wanted to ensure that the website was updated regularly with new content, although they did not have the time to dedicate to doing this themselves.

Our Actions


Firstly, we met with the client to discuss their requirements, obtain information about their services and identify hero products/services that they offered.


Then we completed a full SEO sweep of the site using premium software. This allowed us to identify any issues and build a working list of technical SEO improvements. Next, we completed keyword research for the client – identifying a list of keywords relating to their services and the areas they wanted to optimise for. Using this list of keywords, we also carried out competitor research to assess the levels of competition and difficulty for ranking in each term. This included keyword gap analysis.


Next, we built a working list of on-page SEO improvements to be made. This included the foundational SEO mentioned previously. It also included meta titles and content-based improvements relating to keyword density, readability scores, and general quality of the copy on the site. We identified and optimised landing pages across the site, as well as potential opportunities for high-quality blog content. This would go on to help us build topical authority in relevant terms and categories.

We began working through the lists, monitoring progress regularly to ensure optimal results. Alongside creating our own blogs focusing on specific search terms, we also created a list of desired content for the client to have. This meant they could send us further information regarding specific jobs and services.


Due to the nature of our client’s business, we also created a specific local SEO plan focusing on Google My Business, Maps rankings and social proof. Because the client’s company operates in several different areas, we had to overcome the challenge of optimising for various locations. We worked around this by harnessing the project pages to insert localised keywords relating to each of the service areas.


Throughout this process, we provided regular updates and reports to the client. Once we achieved a strong base of page 1 rankings, we identified SERP opportunities within desired search terms. This included featured snippets, related questions, top stories, knowledge graphs, rich cards and so on.
Although this client didn’t opt for a backlink building service, we still aimed to ensure they were listed in relevant local and industry directories. This helped to increase their domain authority score and drive new traffic to the website.

The Results


We increased the site health score from 84% to 95%. On average, top 10 ranking websites for any Google search term will have site health scores between 90-92%.

Total issues – reduced from 432 to 96
Errors – reduced from 31 to 1
Warnings – reduced from 107 to 63
Notices – reduced from 294 to 32

SEO Case Study Swifty Social

More critical problems were focused on first, and then we moved on to the less urgent issues. As Google updates its algorithms, new issues are regularly identified on the site. We regularly go back over the work we have done, optimising and updating the website to ensure adherence to the latest requirements.

Initially, the client’s website was ranking for 10 keywords. It is now ranking for 53. This includes 5 top 3 rankings and 8 top 10 rankings, with many more on the increase. We achieved a range of position 1 rankings in search terms requested by the client.


We increased their visibility from 0.53% to 1.55%, and estimated traffic from 0.92 to 2.15.

Case Study SEO Swifty Social
Swifty Social SEO Case Study

Conclusion


Overall, the work that we did increased customer enquiries by around 20% – ensuring a positive ROI for the client. We also made significant improvements to the quality of the content on the website, which now receives high scores for readability and grammar.