Background. Challenges

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1 URL: Product: banquet rooms, party rentals Campaign: Web Development, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, Local SEO, Content Management & Marketing Timeframe: June 1, 2011 November 1, 2011 Background The West Event Hall opened in an ideal location in February 2011 with 2 banquet facilities, and has since expanded to include a third facility. Offering a stainless steel kitchenette, advanced audio/video equipment, wireless Internet and a host of other amenities, the Event Hall can accommodate over 900 and allows the guest their choice of caterers and vendors. Challenges With a Grand Opening event and radio campaigns under its belt, The West Event Hall wasn t getting the attention it deserved! The wise owner knew the Internet was the way to go, and an employee contacted me about a Search Engine Optimization campaign. The Event Hall had an existing website (see Fig. 1) with all the pertinent info, but the site was essentially unoptimized and suffered from a few usability issues. The site was also running on a SEO-weak Content Management System (CMS). I decided to re-develop the site using a similar look and feel on Wordpress, an SEO-friendly CMS. The site was less than a year old and had healthy link popularity, but the following issues existed prior to redevelopment and optimization: Low number of indexed pages No traffic tracking had been implemented Sitemaps were missing Titles and Metadata were missing Images were not optimized Site was not optimized for geo-location Site resolution was causing cutoff on most monitors

2 Site Design: Before & After Figure 1 - Site Prior to Re-Development Figure 2 - Site after Re-Development

3 SEO Strategy Over the course of 1 month, the new site was optimized to include keyword-targeted titles, metadata, content and images; Google Analytics tracking was installed and the entire site was optimized for geolocation. Sitemaps were created and implemented as well. Over the course of the campaign, a comprehensive Internet marketing strategy was employed, blending aggressive content creation, varied link building and social media maintenance. Blogging began at the pace of 4 posts per week, with additional primary pages being created geared to specific events. A local vendor directory was created as a resource and as link-bait, causing several vendors to post links on social networks and on other sites. Link building activities included press release distribution, forum participation, directory submissions, webmaster outreach and local citation acquisition. Social media activities included Facebook page maintenance, building of fan-base, networking with vendors, implementing new Page features, creating a Twitter profile and building a network, and regular posting and correspondence through both channels. A Foursquare vendor account was also created, and all three social networks were utilized to market this very event! Results The campaign was a monumental success, enjoying gains in traffic, search rankings, and social followers. In 4 months, the site drove 50 form fills and 638 phone calls. That s over 150 conversions per month! Take a look at some traffic stats: Figure 3 - Traffic Source Breakdown over Life of Campaign

4 Figure 4 - Benchmarks and Nov 1 Comparison Figure 5 Search Traffic Increase throughout Campaign Figure 6 - All Traffic Increase throughout Campaign

5 Figure 7 - Concentration of Florida Visitors Figure 8 - Top Cities Driving Traffic in FL

6 Figure 9 - Keyword Ranking History in Google, Yahoo & Bing

7 Keyword Google Position Before Google Position After Page in Results banquet facilities West banquet halls West event hall event hall Palm Beach County event space West hall for rent Palm Beach County hall for rent West hall rental Palm Beach County hall rental prices West meeting space West party venues West reception hall West rental halls West wedding halls West Interested? Contact me through the channels below! Lauren N Bridges Internet Marketing Consultant [email protected] Skype: laurennbridges Search Engine Optimization Specialist Cell: (561)