Strategic use of the Microsoft Advertising Network (MSAN) helped a health insurance plan facilitator increase high-quality leads during an incredibly competitive period of open enrollment.
SEO + Content Case Study
100% increase in business during Covid-19
Creation of website hierarchy for an ecommerce-style site produced dramatic new sales and enhanced visibility for a previously under-performing sector.
Results
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107%
increase in sessions for restaurant equipment pages
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115%
increase in goal completions
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109%
increase on keywords ranking on page 1
The Clients:
Bid-on-Equipment operates an online marketplace for businesses to buy and sell used machine equipment. When they came to Digital Third Coast, they needed help handling their day-to-day SEO. As our engagement progressed, they expressed concerns that one area of their operations — restaurant equipment — was underperforming, and wanted guidance on how to improve their visibility.
The Objective:
To drive more qualified traffic to Bid-on-Equipment’s “used restaurant equipment” ecommerce-style pages by improving the site’s keyword rankings for competitive keywords in the sector. At the time our work was completed, the Covid-19 pandemic was starting to shut many businesses nationwide, we aimed to produce steady business despite the economic downturn.
“We’re about to roll out restaurant equipment with brand new SEO structure and content and then the pandemic hit. We expected the company to have all kinds of problems. We sent everyone to go work from home, and our business increased.”
John Spaw, Technical Operations, Bid-on-Equipment
SEO Strategy
Create website hierarchy structure to categorize and organize relevant content
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The Problem
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Bid-on-Equipment wanted to drive more business to their “used restaurant equipment” pages, but there was minimal on-site organization allowing users to easily navigate and discover relevant content.
The website didn’t have a singular landing page to house all relevant urls that fell under the “used restaurant equipment” category, and there was little to no unification between related pages. -
The Solution
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We needed to organize the project as logically as possible. To accomplish this, we built a hierarchy of pages and subcategories to logically unify all product urls under a broader subcategory of “restaurant equipment.” We worked hand-in-hand with the client to identify which relevant product pages and URLs ought to be housed under that subcategory, to assure we were organizing the taxonomy in a way that benefited their customer experience and business.
Once we built the page hierarchy from scratch, we wanted to boost the visibility of this new page organization by adding keywords. We worked with a third-party writer to add relevant content above-the-fold of the subcategory pages to incorporate additional keywords and improve the overall SEO benefits of this on-site work.
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Why it Matters
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Site structure is extraordinarily important to SEO. Well-structured websites help bots crawl and understand what content exists on a site’s pages, and improves user experience of a website. When an ecommerce site is well-structured, easy to ready, easy to use, and filled with relevant keywords, the payoffs can be tremendous for visibility. Structurally optimized websites appear higher in search results for relevant queries, which helps filter more qualified audiences to product pages, and can boost business.
This work had particular meaning as it was completed right before the Covid-19 pandemic closed many Chicagoland offices. The improved structure actually drove record new business to their used restaurant equipment pages and helped them stay afloat during a difficult economic period for our nation.
“…All of a sudden we’re selling restaurant equipment. Within a month you could notice the inventory that was going out in that category specifically. It was very emotionally strange because…it was hard to smile back then…but watching this happen was an incredible lift. I felt better for the people who work for me. I felt good that we were connecting, and it allowed me to see that people were still doing things. It was multifaceted.”
In just a four-month period, Bid-on-Equipment saw a 109% increase in the number of keywords they ranked for on the first page of Google results. This represents a tremendous increase in visibility for an incredibly competitive vertical.
Results
Nearly all of Bid-on-Equipment’s subcategories rank higher than they ranked prior to added the new page structure and hierarchy. Bid-on-Equipment has seen some of their more trafficked product pages appearing higher in search engine results that traditional restaurant equipment sales companies which, according to Bid-on-Equipment’s head of technical operations, John Spaw, describes as “insane.”
As a result of the boom in business, they’ve pushed the company to acquire additional inventory of restaurant equipment to meet the growing demand.
115%
Increase in form completions in just four months.
Bid-on-Equipment measures the number of bids received and contact forms completed as metric goals. Between April and August 2020, the number of bids and forms completed on pages under the restaurant equipment categories increased by 115% compared to the previous period.
Another key metric of success is the number of organic sessions to pages under their new subcategory. During the four months after the implementation of a new site structure, Bid-on-Equipment experienced a 107% increase in sessions to its restaurant equipment pages. This increase reflects their visibility in search and improved keyword rankings for this highly competitive field.
“While I was confident in the relationship all the way from the beginning. 2020 has really changed things. My relationship with the SEO manager has bonded us a lot closer, because it showed that he knows exactly what I’m trying to do. It was always sort of “making progress,” but now it feels like we talk back and forth and he understands what I’m trying to do, not just that he has to do something.”
John Spaw, Technical Operations, Bid-on-Equipment
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Lyndsey Maddox
Chief Executive Officer
Email Lyndsey. Find out how we can help.