Deliver Big Results

Small Changes to a WordPress Theme to

@liamdempsey



Hi! I’m Liam

• Marketing and design consultancy with LBDesign
• LBDesign works with businesses and non-profits to bring strategy and structure to marketing efforts
• Mostly, we create websites and help clients market themselves through those sites

Tell me about yourselves!

• Who works in marketing?
• Who builds websites?
• Focuses specifically on SEO?
• Does a number of these and related services?

What’s the context of this talk?

• As a small business owner, looking to provide more value to smaller clients
• As a small business owner, looking for ways to sell further to existing clients
• Looking for realistic projects that deliver money in our pockets while delivering bigger returns in those of our clients

THIS IS A CASE STUDY

With lessons that can be applied to lots of projects

The client

• Very small law firm in the midwest in a town of 100,000
• Provide primary estate planning services

Our work with the client

• Working together since 2010
• Built a child-theme
• Rebuilt the same design with ACF and responsiveness in 2015
• Edit monthly blog posts for style and SEO
• Basic WordPress maintenance and updates

The state of the client site

• A conversative, but clean design
• A brochure website – little interactivity
• Not focused on visitor engagement

The state of the client’s digital marketing

• Organic SEO for estate planning related words and phrases
• Relying on monthly blog posts to improve SERP placement
• Client-managed Google AdWords on an as-needed basis

LOOKING FOR MORE VALUE

For both the client and for my business … or what we did that worked well for both our client and for us.

Getting into that “value” effort

• Early 2018 chatted with client about SEO audit
• Used that audit to suggest further work
• Rolled out the site updates
• Watched the results flow in

Conducted an SEO audit

• Used an audit format and template report from Rebecca Gill
• Used SEMrush and ScreamingFrog
• Produced a basic report that highlighted suggested edits
• Only charged for 4 hours – spent 6.5 hours

Reviewed Google Analytics

• Looked at traffic for the entire previous year (2017)
• Picked out key data and trends – did not study everything

Top findings from research

• Identified simple ways to improve the SEO of the site like better meta-descriptions, use of categories and category pages
• Identified top performing blog post pulled in ~2400 visits of a total of ~11,000 across the entire site

Pitched updates to client

• Create customized calls-to-action for blog posts
• Create call-to-action specific landing pages
• Detailed Google Analytics tracking on call-to-action activity like button clicks, form submissions, and thank you page hits

Client approvals

• 34 hours of work for us
• Rejected pop-up functionality

WHAT DID WE DO

Let’s get into the specifics

That call to action (a)

• Custom theme with Advanced Custom Fields plugin
• Using ACF, created two pre-set calls to action
• First CTA: focused on the topic from that most visited post
• Second CTA: general CTA about the clients area of law

That call to action (b)

• Third CTA: totally customizable on a post-by-post basis

CTA on the front end

CTA on the WP dashboard

CTA on the WP dashboard

Landing page on the front end

• Same template as from previous 2015 update
• Customized messaging for each of the two default CTA
• Same Gravity Form
• Could add additional custom landing pages for customized CTA

Post form submission

• Details fed into the WordPress database
• Client sent the submitted details
• Form submitter sent an auto-responding thank you email, with the submitted fields attached
• We were sent an anonymized version of the form – basically a notification about which CTA/form have been completed

HOW DID IT ALL WORK OUT?

Let’s chat about the wins for the client and the wins for us.

The client’s wins

• In 9 months after launch of upgrades, the client picked up 300% of the project cost in new business via the new calls-to-action
• The forms converted: 50% of submissions of the first form became clients; 75% of submissions of the second form became clients
• Forms continue to bring 1-2 leads per month

Our wins

• 34 hours of billable work to an existing client
• A very happy client
• A continued relationship where we edit blogs every month
• Great case study for other sales efforts

QUESTIONS

@liamdempsey | @LBDesign

What can I answer for you?