I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished at ZipRealty.
Last year, I introduced a comprehensive SEO strategy, and 7 months in, we’ve really nailed it! The results far exceed my own expectations for what we could do. Here is our story:
Our Story:
I joined in August 2011 at a time when ZipRealty’s organic traffic had been declining steadily month after month. During the 6 months prior to implementing our plan, organic traffic had declined 27%.
The core objective of our campaign was to expose previously “closed” property detail content to Google, and hopefully triple traffic to those property pages. We set a goal to double non-branded traffic, triple traffic to Property pages (our equivalent to product pages), and increase traffic from long-tail 50% for a set of target terms.
7 months after beginning work on the campaign, we increased non-branded traffic 460% over the previous year. Here’s how we did it:
The Plan:
The site had virtually no blog content, had severe duplicate content issues, and Zip’s most salient content – their property detail pages – were hidden from Google behind a registration gateway. The plan was to…
Structural:
- Open up those hidden property pages
- Eliminate duplicate content and consolidate URLs to concentrate pagerank
Content:
- Produce hyper-local, link-rich, sharable content in 27 major markets
- Introduce a Realtor blog and evergreen content
Social:
- Provide social tools and training for Realtors to share our content
- Methodically share content, increase fan base, and acquire natural links across social media channels
It was an ambitious plan, but at its core, also a simple one. Simple in concept and focus, yet complex to execute. We steadily implemented the plan in phases over the next several months.
Campaign goals:
Remember, the campaign goals were to double non-branded traffic, triple traffic to property pages, and attain a 50% boost in long-tail traffic from target head-terms within the first year. We Far exceeded those goals.
SEO Results:
7 months in, the results far exceeded our expectations. The campaign:
- Increased non-branded traffic 744% to property pages and 460% site-wide y-y
- Increased address traffic to property pages 942% year to year
- Increased long-tail traffic for key terms ”houses for sale” 201%; ”homes for sale” 154%; and ”MLS listings” 149% year to year.
I’m really proud of my team at Zip as well as my extended teams at Motionstrand, LeadQual, and Brafton for their support.
This was really an exciting project to lead – I had so much fun! I cannot wait for the next one!!
Charted Growth:
The following charts show growth in Organic Landing Page Visits across a few key KPIs.
Non-Branded organic landing page traffic increased 563% y-y and 445% from launch.
- Address search (where users searched specifically for an address or MLS number) increased a remarkable 917%. This far exceeded expectations.
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