A Local Business SEO Case Study

The Client:

In 2016, I was approached by Jennifer Davy, an Alexander Technique teacher who worked primarily in Exeter. Jennifer was keen to modernize her marketing and use the power of the internet to generate new clients and customers.

When we first spoke, my initial job was to properly understand what the Alexander Technique is, how it can help people, who the main customers are, and what market she was seeking to serve.

After having Jennifer outline to me the principles and practices behind the Alexander Technique (namely, that it is a form of postural training used by musicians, dancers, athletes, and actors etc. to achieve gains in performance, and also a form of therapy for those with muscular or skeletal conditions), I then asked which location(s) she sought to get more clients from.

Jennifer’s feedback was that – having spent much time in previous years traveling long distances for work – she now wanted to focus on securing local clients and treating them mainly at her Exeter base, and on occasion at their home address too.

At this time, Jennifer had a basic, homemade website that she describes as ‘minimal and amateur… a primary school effort.’

Another major issue with the website was that it was very difficult to use. This was a significant problem as Jennifer wanted to have a ‘hands-on’ role with the site, where she could easily update it with new content whenever she wanted.

But most importantly, her existing website was totally failing to generate her any business at all. In all the years it had been online, Jennifer had never received a single inquiry through the site.

The Process:

Having identified that Jennifer wanted to obtain new clients in and around the Exeter area, that her existing website was not producing any leads at all, and that it was too difficult for her to use, the decision was made to build her a new website from scratch.

This website would be far more modern in look, feel, and function, and would present a far more detailed insight into the Alexander Technique in general, and Jennifer’s work in particular.

To ensure that Jennifer would be able to update the site whenever she wanted, I decided to build the website using Wix, which is a self-hosted website building tool that is highly user-friendly and simple to work with.

As part of my SEO process, I did keyword research to identify the best phrases to build specific pages of the website around. The goal being that the website would rank high in Google’s search results for these phrases - thereby driving people to the site, from where they could easily contact Jennifer via phone or email to arrange an appointment.

During my keyword research, I found that - based on Jennifer's requirements - the most promising keyword to target on the website was the phrase 'Alexander Technique Exeter’.

This keyword was being searched dozens of times every month, was totally relevant to Jennifer’s services and target location, and my analysis showed that it would not be difficult to get her website to rank high on Google for the phrase.

Therefore, specific pages on the site were created around the keyword of ‘Alexander Technique Exeter’ in order to ensure it was properly optimized for this vital keyword.

For the text content of the website, it was important that Jennifer was able to write as much of it as possible herself since the Alexander Technique is a complex and technical discipline that requires decades of specialist training and careful study to master.

Thankfully, Jennifer was more than happy to do this, swiftly producing the lengthy (1000+ words each) batches of content that the website would require.

Building the website in Wix also allowed Jennifer to easily publish new blog posts to the site on a regular basis - another factor that would help it to rank well in the Google search results.

While building the website, I also created a Google My Business profile for Jennifer so that her business would appear in the Google Maps results whenever anyone in and around the Exeter area searched for the services she provides.

In addition to all this, I also used a couple of more advanced SEO techniques, including adding Schema code throughout the website to help Google better understand the services that Jennifer provides, and where she is located.

As a bonus, Schema code can also help to increase a website’s Click Through Rate – i.e. the percentage of people who visit a website after seeing it displayed in the search results.

This is important as it increases the amount of website traffic you get, therefore giving you a larger audience of potential clients and customers.

When the website was live, I then carried out a backlink-building campaign to create new links to the website from dozens of other, powerful sites. These included business directories, trade directories, social media platforms, and authoritative websites within the health industry.

The Results

Progress was fast and tangible.

Within a couple of weeks of Jennifer’s new website going live, it was already ranking in position 1 in the Google search results for our main keyword of ‘Alexander Technique Exeter’, and within the top 3 search results for the Google Maps ‘map pack’.

As a result, Jennifer almost immediately began to receive inquiries through the website from her target audience within her target location – something that had never even happened once while her previous website was online.

And over the past few years, these results have been maintained and improved upon.

Jennifer’s website still ranks in position 1 for our main target keyword of ‘Alexander Technique Exeter’, and aided by some excellent customer reviews, Jennifer’s Google My Business profile now ranks in position 1 in the Google Maps results for this search term and several others.

As a consequence, Jennifer continues to regularly and consistently generate new clients in her target audience and within her target location of Exeter, through her website.

In fact, whereas Jennifer never received a single inquiry through her previous website, she now gets around 50% of her Exeter clientele alone through her new, SEO-optimised site.

These results – combined with the fact that Jennifer continues to be able to easily update her website whenever she wishes – mean that this project is considered by both Jennifer and me to be a major success.

Case study by Alex Belsey of New Frontiers Marketing

Also Published Here