Case Studies
CivilMart.
Tackling a post-migration to generate a powerful and user-friendly website with a massive increase in first page keywords!
Civilmart is a leading business-to-business precast concrete operation, servicing builders, contractors, businesses, and developers needing ‘concrete’ solutions to their whims and queries. Locally owned and operated Australia-wide, Civilmart had become a market leader in their field. Part of that reputation, as always, came down to their digital presence and returns on search intents. Enter StudioHawk – armed with ‘piping’ hot SEO know-how, expertise, and search skills that never go to waste!
THE NEED
As the National Marketing Manager, Chris was tasked with increasing leads through the Civilmart website in an industry that was far too outdated. Having recently acquired six new companies to Civilmart, there was an immense amount of pressure for success. Was this a sure shot at producing rankings and results? Enter the Hawks!
THE PLAN
Civilmart came to StudioHawk searching for answers as we uncovered a range of opportunities and problems with the website. A bit of elbow grease helped us cement their position as one of the largest precast concrete suppliers in Australia!
With a previous migration already done, it was a matter of deconstructing the website and rebuilding it from the ground up. We tore up the previous migration and found every SEO expert’s worst lucid nightmare: no URL mapping, 301s to a landing page – essentially, no plan. We identified all of the pages from the merged websites that were redirected to a singular landing page on the Civilmart website. These pages had little to no content, and every page was redirected to these landing pages. We put on our business socks, because this was business time!
We walked through a detailed migration plan and checklist with Chris; setting up URL mapping across all websites to ensure that we could redirect transferable content where possible to save any keyword rankings. With the migrations already done by another team a few months ago, we were nervous about which rankings we could preserve.
THE EXECUTION
Cleaning Up The Concrete Jungle: With the majority of the mapping done, it was time to push play on the redirections. We staggered the approach and built the necessary pages, (new products, etc.) on the CivilMart website to accommodate incoming redirections from all six websites. In this period, we ensured to clean up as many technical issues on the site as possible in parallel. We also recommended product page structural changes and provided a content template to boot. We engaged in weekly catch-ups and looked to wipe the ‘slate’ clean for a fresh start. Woo!
Our executions included:
- Setting up URL mapping across all websites to ensure we could redirect transferable content where possible to save any keyword rankings.
- Product page structural changes and providing a content template for descriptions.
- Cleaning up the CTA, building a new mega menu for UX and internal linking, and a mega footer to boost internal linking and keywords on the homepage.
- Optimising the category pages. Many were missing content above the fold, internal linking, and usability in general.
- Rolling out a brand new blog content strategy.
Results
Thanks to a website redirection and structural improvements, newly built pages, and content recommendations, we saw the dividends of our work take off by April of 2021. Chris even mentioned his CEO was using the term “link juice” in their board meetings, and SEO was beginning to make waves within their business.
By May, most of the redirections had been completed. But redirections meant more pages and more content, which meant crawl budget. To circumvent any potential issues, we used GSC and sitemap.xml to remove a range of unnecessary pages. We cleaned up the CTA, built a new mega menu for UX and internal linking and a mega footer to boost internal linking and keywords on the homepage. Shazam!
We were well and truly in the phase of ‘optimisation’ by July, with a jaw-dropping 287.69% increase in users coming through the website YoY. Civilmart moved to an average of 80+ leads per week up from an average of 35. With an average led value of $15,000K, this was huge for the business.
Notable Results Include
- An increase in organic traffic users by more than 100% YoY in 6 months!
- Grew the total keyword base by 155% and increased first page keywords by 323% in 6 months!
Keyword Growth Galore
We saw improved SERP rankings from industry-specific keywords and key product offerings – ‘stormwater pits’ [shown below], ‘concrete pipes’, and ‘concrete water tanks’ – plus 3x average leads acquired on the website!
CONCLUSIONS
With work on the website progressing smoothly, we also focused on educating Chris on SEO. Chris delved into our Hawk Academy SEO training with suitable aplomb, leading to him signing up to SEMRush to analyse the ins and outs of SEO! Civilmart continue to dominate in their industry.