Happy Hippo Media
How a Central Coast business used SEO to increase online enquiries by 500% in 4 months
Updated: Oct 20, 2019
Before we get started, for those readers thinking, “What is SEO?”, it stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It’s the process of manipulating content both on-site and off-site in a way that is favourable to Google.
Here’s our best analogy to help you understand: pretend that Google is the big wealthy business owner that has a vast network of contacts always asking him for his best recommendations of people to do business with. You want to be his best friend so that whenever someone asks him about your business services, he recommends them to call YOU! To become his best friend you need to play the game of wining and dining him, impressing him with business talk that he likes, taking his kids out on play dates with your kids and all the rest of that jazz that comes with forming a meaningful relationship. The equivalent of this is implementing things such as on-site SEO, writing blog articles, creating backlinks and citation listings, etc. This takes time! Once you earn his trust and confidence, he will begin throwing you business left, right and centre and you will be a happy little vegemite...now, let us unveil what this business did.
The Problem
A law firm engaged us to do their SEO for them. They originally used to rank well for particular keywords until the last digital marketing agency they used decided to do the runner and break some promises - we see this kind of thing all the time and it gives our industry a bad name.
The law industry is notoriously competitive when it comes to SEO and ranking on page one of Google. We knew immediately from the research we did that it would be a difficult task so we implemented the below strategy.
The Solution
We began picking keywords that not only ranked well but also that had a high monthly search rate through Google and at the same time didn’t have too many competitors competing for the words. We call these the ‘low hanging fruit’. We then also liased with the customer and made sure we understood which areas of law returned them the highest ROI and then from this list we decided what keywords we needed to target. This formed our strategy to find the quickest way to reach page one of Google.
The Result
To give you an idea of the difference that was made, they were on page 7 for some words (which is where people hide dead bodies) and we were able to bring them to rank one page one of Google in just 4 months!! The results were effective and the mission was a success. We ended up increasing their online enquiries by 500% in four short months. Our customer was happy to say the least and they are still our customer today.
It can be difficult to compete against competition that seem to have an unlimited budget. Sometimes the best thing to do is to know what keywords they are chasing and to then outsmart them by thinking outside the box and looking at options that lay just beyond the obvious.
The algorithms of Google are evolving more each day. Google now not only understands the words that people type in but also the context of the search that someone is making. This is becoming more prominent as voice search is being used more in today‘s society with people using tools such as Siri on the iphone, Alexa or Google Home to help them seek information. To help you understand what we are talking about, Google no longer just looks at keywords but rather looks at the bigger picture of what someone is trying to search for. For example: someone can type in "law firm central coast" and arrive on a google search of multiple law firms on the Central Coast, yet someone can type in or make a voice search of "someone that can help me with a traffic fine" and Google will recognize that they are in fact after a lawyer who specializes in traffic law and will show them likely candidates.
Advanced tip: when writing blog articles for your website it is wise to make these as conversational as possible as Google recognises when you are simply writing a blog to add in as many keywords as possible because you want to rank well. Being conversational in your blog writing has been found to positively impact your SEO results given that Google is now focusing on understanding the context of conversation/searches...not only this but also for the fact that you are writing to appeal to a reader, not a robot!
To have an agency that understands advancements in the algorithms such as this is the key to staying on top of your game when it comes to SEO.
If you need a tech savvy digital marketing agency that knows all of this then we’re here to help. Simply contact us here or just head to our website :) We‘re a passionate bunch of digital minded tech-heads located on the Central Coast helping businesses all around Australia with growth strategies that work fast and effectively.