SEO works and if you need proof of that, then you just need to go through the innumerable testimonials that are available online. There are so many companies that are telling stories of what SEO has done for them. What makes SEO even greater is the fact that it can be applied to just about all businesses. There is not a single business that you cannot use SEO for. As long as you have a website for your business then you need (and should enlist) SEO service providers to set up a campaign that will take your business to the next level.
The article is a basic case study of Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and how SEO worked for its website. This website is focused upon jobs in the communication and public relations profession. Before going any further into this article, it’s worth mentioning that SEO is not just about increasing traffic and ranking of a website. There is also the goal of getting more conversions.
Starting point:
Before you start any SEO campaign, you have to evaluate your business and figure out where you are. This will do tons in helping you come up with goals to work towards. The PRSA situation is one of so many companies. The society decided to carry out an upgrade on the PRSA Jobcenter’s architecture. The objective was to improve both traffic through visibility on the search engines and the usability of the site by its members. PRSA is one of the biggest organizations for professionals in public relations, being home to more than 32,000 professional and student members. The PRSA Jobcenter is one of the main resources that are offered by the society where over 77,000 potential employers are able to get in touch with a multitude of professionals in PR.
In a bid to achieve their objective and as a component of their existing SEO program, PRSA contracted TopRank Online Marketing to do the job for them. TopRank was simply meant to improve the usability of the site and the search engine visibility of PRSA’s Jobcenter.
The way forward:
After conducting a thorough SEO audit, a keyword glossary of relevant and popular terms was reconciled with the content that was on the website. Generally, the audit involved identifying the target market keywords, indexing issues, chances for code level optimization and content. Recommendations were made to update the pages, links and tags where it was necessary. As part of the recommendations, several job category pages were created to offer specific information concerning the top job searches on the job center. RSS feeds were also created for each category. This allowed the job seekers to subscribe in order to receive notification of updates.
A number of link building tactics were also employed. This included using a widget to populate other web sites that contained job listings powered by PRSA. These tactics brought in direct traffic as well as a useful signal to the search engine crawlers that other websites in the niche considered the PRSA Jobcenter a trustworthy site to link to.
The addition of new job category pages plus the site optimization edits offered targeted content for the search engines. It also made the connection between the employers’ job listings and the job seekers seamless. Clustering the popular phrases by category and the subsequent content pages proved very helpful for the searchers and the search engines. The PRSA staff was also trained on how to use keywords properly when creating new content.
Results:
Were the goals met? PRSA managed to get achieve its targets abundantly. Within the first six months of adding new category pages and implementing the SEO audit, the total traffic that was directed to PRSA’s website increased significantly. Page views for the PRSA Jobcenter increased by more than 40% and the numbers still continue to climb.
It was also noted that the visitor refers and search engine rankings from competitive keyword phrases increased considerably. For instance, referrals from queries on the top Google ranking keyword phrase ‘public relations jobs’ shot up by a staggering 450%. PRSA stated that partnering with TopRank is the best thing that they have ever done. They were able to meet their goals effortlessly and without having to spend a fortune in the process. This statement comes at a time when many companies and website owners in general, are claiming that the best SEO services are overpriced. This clearly is not the case.
Lessons to learn
There are a number of things that you can pick up from this SEO campaign that was set up for PRSA Jobcenter by TopRank. For starters, SEO is not just one strategy. There is a common misconception that focusing on one strategy and doing it excellently is going to bring in the results. PRSA’s campaign involved a whole lot of activities including content creation and addition of pages. Several tweaks had to be made on the website for the SEO activity to be successful. SEO is not one strategy and there is no perfect strategy to use.
Secondly, get expert guidance. TopRank is a renowned SEO service provider with years of experience in the field. It is only natural that PRSA would go for such a company. Any business would go for such a company. This article was not meant to promote TopRank but they have been touted to be among the best in the business.
Thirdly, always ask for maintenance tips and training where necessary. This is why you should get experts to help you out. TopRank provided the PRSA staff with training on keyword usage when creating new content. It is better to do content creation properly from the beginning than to do repairs afterwards.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, it is always necessary to have someone to walk with you and guide you in the treacherous road that is SEO. There are SEO tactics that can earn you hefty penalties. What’s worse is that you probably do not know that some of these tactics are wrong. It is also worth pointing out that for your SEO campaigns to be successful, a variety of strategies must be employed.
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