 |
||||||||
|
 |
|||||||
 |
     |
|
Client Case Study :: Street Characters
Company Background Street Characters Inc. has mastered the art of turning dreams into reality. Since its establishment in 1987, Street Characters Inc. has become the world’s number one supplier of high quality mascots. With a client base spanning nearly every major professional sporting league, (CFL, NFL, NHL, MLB) as well as major corporations (TELUS, FOX, VISA, etc.), Street Characters Inc. has created hundreds of mascots for clients around the world, and is without equal in today’s market. Founder and President Glenn Street based the Street Characters vision on his wealth of personal mascot experience. Glenn served as the original Harvey the Hound (of the Calgary Flames), the first mascot in the National Hockey League, and Harry the Horse (of the world famous Calgary Exhibition and Stampede). Under his direction, Street Characters Inc. has grown into a complete mascot solutions company. Street Characters Inc. offers
The Problem Originally, Street Characters Inc. had very little in the way of an Internet Marketing strategy and their website had some significant problems from design and search engine compatibility perspectives. The use of Frames technology was a major obstacle and no form of optimization had been performed previously, essentially leaving the Street Characters Inc. website (Mascots.com) off the search engine map. However, the creative and business team (including Glenn Fawcett: Marketing, Vince Fowler: Sales, John Reedwin: Webmaster, and Brendan Whitty: Visual Design) knew it was in a unique marketing position, and wanted to take advantage of the proven avenue of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to improve their Internet Presence and Search Engine Positioning while using their website to generate highly qualified leads. Anduro Marketing' Solution Starting February 2004, Anduro Marketing embarked on an ambitious SEM strategy to dramatically improve Street Characters Inc.’s Internet Presence. In return for full FTP access to the Mascots.com website and autonomy over every aspect of the SEM strategy, the goal of the Anduro team was to have Mascots.com listed in the top ten (first page) results of Google first for the keyword “mascots” and then for many others. Of course, a number of steps had to be taken to meet this objective.
Before implementing a custom SEM strategy, a high level website audit was completed to look for strengths and weaknesses in the Mascots.com website from a search engine perspective. Street Characters Inc.’s competitor’s websites were also evaluated in order to maximize the success of the SEM program. The results of these audit procedures were compiled as part of a 20 Point Internet Marketing Inspection, which served as the foundation for the design of an effective SEM strategy. Anduro Marketing staff worked alongside Street Characters Inc. employees to carefully adapt the Mascots.com website from Frames to Tables architecture. This was the first major step in increasing SEM effectiveness. At the same time, Brendan Whitty oversaw a sweeping visual redesign. Aside from simply changing the site architecture, a number of additional recommendations were made, including the creation of a complete site map and removal of the existing splash page. The stage was then set for the next phase of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) through the development of High Performance Keywords.
Researching relevant and frequently used keyword phrases (those entered by potential customers into search engines) was the crucial first step in the SEO process. The aim of the High Performance Keywords service was to create a list of keyword phrases that should get high placement in search engine natural results pages. The two most important criteria of these phrases are that (a) they are being used and (b) there is a manageable amount of competing pages. Following the extensive keyword research for Mascots.com, selected phrases were integrated into key areas of the website code, which was also optimized for the removal of extraneous HTML and JavaScript.
In the next step, seven static HTML pages were tailor-made for Mascots.com. These pages were fully optimized with High Performance Keywords systematically placed in the written content and prominent areas of the underlying code, and resulted in pages that were fully compatible with all search engines while providing additional relevant content to the website which improves linking structure and appeal.
One of the best ways to ensure high natural Search Engine Positioning for Mascots.com was to increase the website's link popularity. A greater number of quality inbound links has a dramatic impact on positioning, industry authority, and Google’s PageRank measure, which carries increasing weight in the SEM world. Following submission of Mascots.com pages to all of the major search engines, Anduro Marketing pursued an aggressive campaign to cultivate back-links from: (a) major business directories (Yahoo!, DMOZ, etc.), (b) industry specific directories, and (c) other relevant websites including client and/or supplier sites. Links from more popular websites and industry directories have a stronger impact on Search Engine Ranking. Google's PageRank feature relies on the number of internal links in a website, the number of back-links pointing into it, and the popularity of those sites. The Results Over the course of the last year, Anduro Marketing has been able to significantly improve Street Characters Inc.’s Internet Presence by drastically increasing Mascots.com’s Search Engine Rankings. Of great significance are the facts that Street Characters Inc. only pursued natural (unpaid) listings (no Pay-per-Click) and that their results have continued to improve with no further maintenance. Key positive results have included
As of December 2004, there are nearly 70 keyword phrases that, when entered into any of the top four search engines, will show a page from Mascots.com as the first result! Most importantly, the term “mascots” places Mascots.com on the first page of Google results. It is a considerable challenge to achieve top page ranking for a single word, but even more so when up against close to one million competing pages! One fifth of all visitors that find Mascots.com through search engines use the term “mascots.” As well, total page rankings for Mascots.com increased by more than 30 % over the course of the year. A sample of number one ranking pages is shown below:
(results valid as of December 2004)
Even when only examining the Google data, in the last year inbound links to Mascots.com have increased nearly 600 %! The site currently has a Google PageRank of 5.
Visitor response in the wake of the SEM strategy has “completely turned around” in the words of Vince Fowler. The site averages over 6000 visits per day and generates an average of 30 sales leads per month! Vince went on to point out that “70 % of our clients find us through the internet.” Getting even more specific, 50 % of visitors to Mascots.com find the site from a Google search. From a broader perspective, over the course of 2004, visitor traffic to Mascots.com increased an impressive 600 %. Conclusion “Anduro Marketing has been extremely helpful in our Internet Marketing efforts,” Vince reports, “sales leads are up and we’re able to better qualify potential clients….the work they did makes my job easier and adds credibility to our organization.” This is an excellent review from a successful client illustrating the proven value of the Search Engine Marketing solutions offered by Anduro Marketing Thanks to a solid strategy Street Characters Inc. has seen a noticeable increase in visitor traffic and a drastic improvement in overall Internet Presence. There is little doubt that, with ongoing vigilance, Mascots.com will continue to play a vital role in the Street Characters Inc. story.
|
