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How UpBuild Helped Indow Grow Organic Traffic by 54% and Conversions by 98% Year-Over-Year

"UpBuild has mastered SEO. They steered us to the actions that would generate the biggest impact on our search results, and they helped us attack all of our technical issues in a systematic way.” - Sam Pardue, CEO, Indow

Highlights

Indow creates patented window inserts that insulate windows from a wide variety of challenges, including UV rays, drafts, moisture, and noise pollution. Despite having spent years working with a professional SEO agency, Indow’s organic traffic was stagnating. They needed a ground-up revamp of their SEO strategy to align with modern SEO techniques, and an SEO partner who would help them prioritize and execute against action items in a systematic way.

Challenges

  • Recovering from bad advice given by a firm using outdated SEO tactics
  • Optimizing website & correcting a variety of technical SEO issues
  • Implementing strategies that would promote long-term organic growth

Solution

  • SEO audit & strategy
  • Keyword research, targeting, and mapping
  • Keyword-specific strategies
  • Technical strategies and optimization
  • User experience review & improvements

Results

  • 3 months after implementation:
    • +13% more organic traffic
    • +75% more conversions
  • 6 months after implementation:
    • +54% more organic traffic
    • +98% more conversions
  • Sustainable 50% increase in user growth

Challenges

Outdated SEO strategies resulting in lost site traffic

For years, Indow, a manufacturer of interior window inserts, had enjoyed organic growth online. Their website rose through search results, which led to better brand visibility, increased traffic, and higher conversions.

But in early 2017, CEO Sam Pardue realized something was wrong: the company’s organic visibility had stopped growing. In fact, overall traffic numbers were down 5% since 2016.

“We hit a plateau where our organic results were not improving and we couldn’t understand why,” Sam says.

The drop in traffic confused Sam because he’d been working with a professional SEO firm for years specifically to improve organic results. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to him, the firm had been offering bad advice based on outdated optimization strategies. “We didn’t know it at the time but we were using old thinking in our SEO strategy,” Sam says. “We were trying to make sure our metadata was correct and using lots of keywords to signal search engines that each page was highly relevant. We didn’t understand the need to provide a compelling user experience for our visitors.”

As a result, the Indow website had way too many keyword-stuffed URLs (often targeting the same keyword phrases), there was no logical hierarchy to the URLs, and many of the URLs had nothing to do with their topics. For example, one page devoted to case studies had the file path /interior-storm-windows/.

The website was also riddled with technical issues, including overlong page titles, missing meta descriptions, and multiple H1 headings, all of which prevented the site from ranking as well as it could.

“We realized that the firm we’d been working with struggled with technical SEO. They also lacked strategic vision when it came to developing the right keywords,” he recalls.

“We needed to work with a firm that had the most contemporary technical and strategic tactics. That’s what brought us to UpBuild.”

Solution

Long-term keyword & SEO optimization strategies

UpBuild began working with Indow in April 2017. They kicked off their partnership with a thorough website audit which highlighted key issues and included steps Sam and his team could take to immediately improve their site without hiring a developer.

“UpBuild created a detailed proposal with a very coherent set of action items prioritized according to impact and return on investment,” Sam says.

Over the next seven months, UpBuild worked with Indow to create comprehensive end-to-end SEO and keyword-targeting strategies. Their primary point of contact during this process was Director of Marketing Kristina Damschen. “UpBuild’s perspective on user experience shifted our website’s content strategy and the pages we were directing people to,” she explains.

Together, they developed a list of keywords that reflected searcher intent and planned content that would answer visitor queries and provided them with the information they were looking for.

“Our first project was defining realistic keywords for our commercial market, which opened up a whole other niche in our industry. UpBuild ensured that our keywords would both drive traffic and be relevant for our users. The keywords we ended up with were very different than the list our previous vendor had proposed,” Kristina says.

This thorough keyword discovery phase laid the groundwork for all of the keyword-specific strategies that followed, including:

  • “Storm Window” Strategy: highlighted content opportunities for keywords related to storm windows that would rank well and target customers in the Discovery phase.
  • “Case Studies” Strategy: provided targeted keywords and page optimization recommendations for the thirty-one case studies Indow had already created.
  • “Featured Snippet” Strategy: identified high-value low-competition keywords that could be targeted to help Indow earn a “Featured Snippet” in Google SERPs.

UpBuild also provided Indow with a series of step-by-step recommendations that would help them optimize their page titles, metadata, blog content, homepage, landing pages, and more. Each document clearly explained how Indow could improve their organic search presence and build towards success.

“UpBuild has mastered SEO,” Sam smiles. “They steered us to the actions that would generate the biggest impact on our search results, and they helped us attack all of our technical issues in a systematic way.”

Every strategy UpBuild created was comprehensive, actionable, and focused on augmenting the on-site user experience. The difference between their old SEO and UpBuild was palpable—working with UpBuild felt like having an in-house SEO on their team.

Sam says, “Implementing all of their suggestions was a lot of work for our team but UpBuild provided continuous feedback and consistent advice throughout the process.”

“They rate projects, so you can prioritize each task. They also score your ranking compared to other sites, so you can see specific areas that need improvement. Following through with the next step of the action plan is easy when everything is so concise,” Kristina adds.

Results

Sustainable increase in organic user growth

UpBuild helped Indow develop and implement twelve different technical SEO initiatives from April–October 2017. By early 2018, Sam and Kristina were noticing the results.

“We had seen organic traffic go down by 5% year-over-year at the beginning of 2017, which is why we were looking for a better solution,” Kristina reminds us. “In just the first three months of working with UpBuild, we saw a 13% increase in organic traffic and our conversion rate shot up by 75%.”

If Sam and Kristina had any lingering doubts about implementing UpBuild’s strategies, they were quickly erased as the long-term sustainable benefits of good technical SEO continued pouring in.

“Six months after bringing in UpBuild, our onsite organic traffic was up 54% and our conversion rate had grown by 98% over the previous year,” Kristina says. “And we’ve continued to sustain 50% user growth to the present, so all-in-all it’s been pretty remarkable. That data speaks for itself.”

“These results came at a time when it was becoming difficult for us to earn high-quality inbound links through traditional earned media. UpBuild’s work played a big role in generating these results,” Sam adds.

The new strategies have given Indow a clear roadmap to success. Kristina now knows exactly what needs to be accomplished and what she can do to make it happen—and she knows that UpBuild is always there to offer additional help and support if she needs it.

“It can be difficult for small businesses to invest in consulting, but we can definitely say it’s been worth it. We’re so glad we pulled the trigger,” Kristina says.

Indow has since moved forward with plans to redesign their website (with UpBuild’s help) and focus on even stronger SEO strategies that will help them dominate SERPs and deliver an unparalleled user experience.

“We decided to invest more into SEO and redesign our site based on the stronger SEO strategies UpBuild brought to the table. They were instrumental to that project, both in helping us plan our strategies and in executing them,” she says.