| SEO Case History |
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I have studied SEO since 2002. The subject is rather large and continually evolving. Search engines such as Google work constantly to improve the criteria by which they determine search results. It is said that Google has a team of 50 scientists who work full time to establish criteria by which Search Engines compute answers to search requests. Search Engine Optimization is one of the smartest marketing investments you can make because it enables qualified public to find your website. It works for local, national and international campaigns and here I will give an example of each. INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN |
| Search term |  | Total Number of Search Results |
| scientology | Page 1 (Related Link at bottom) | 4,640,000 |
| scientology cult | Page 1, Item 5 | 8,980,000 |
| miscavige cult | Page 1, Item 1 | 378,000 |
| miscavige crook | Page 1, Item 1 | 4,370 |
| miscavige porn | Page 1, Item 1 | 84,300 |
| scientology david miscavige | Page 1, Item 9 | 84,400 |
| scientology dictator | Page 1, Item 1 | 1,310,000 |
| scientology forced confessions | Page 1, Item 2 | 13,700 |
| miscavige ponzi | Page 1, Item 1 | 14,600 |
| scientology whistleblowers | Page 1, Item 7 | 523,000 |
| miscavige abuse | Page 1, Item 9 | 173,000 |
| miscavige forced abortions | Page 1, Item 1 | 6,530 |
| chairman miscavige | Page 2, Item 1 | 86,200 |
| miscavige | Page 5, Item 9 | 156,000 |
| david miscavige | Page 5, Item 8 | 111,000 |
NATIONAL CAMPAIGN
Break Thru Designs, 3-D Window Clings
BreakThruDesigns.com manufactures 3-D window clings and distributes nationwide. Their product has various applications including sports marketing, guerilla marketing, viral marketing and in fundraising.
The strategy in search engine optimization is to carefully select the arena in which one attempts to rank. The shorter the search term, the more competition. For example, the term "fundraising" produces nearly 35 million pages online and the top ranking positions are dominated by major players in the fundraising world. Besides the obvious futility of attempting to compete in such a market, there are other issues. Because the term is so unspecific, Google tries to supply what it guesses you are looking for. Is it cookie dough? Scratch cards? T-shirts? People looking for those items are not qualified public. And so the solution is long string search terms that will produce truly qualified sales prospects.
While the word "fundraising" produces 35 million results, "fundraising window clings" produces only about 32,000 results. That is still an enormous number, but it is a lot smaller than 35 million. Break Thru Designs is currently on page 2 of Google results for that phrase, and appears on page 1 of Yahoo and MSN. Those are excellent rankings by any standard, and over time they can be further improved.
Below are the results for all targeted search terms. As you can see, rankings on Yahoo are page one across the board. Within one week of completing SEO on Break Thru Designs, the company got it's first sale generated by their SEO, from a customer who searched for "fundraising window clings." These results are again spectacular and you can check them yourself by typing in any of the search terms as listed. These are the standings as of October 2008:
| Search term | |  |  |
| sports marketing window clings | Page 1, Item 1 | Page 1, Item 2 | Page 1, Item 1 |
guerilla marketing window clings | Page 1, Item 1 | Page 1, Item 1 | Page 4, Item 1 |
| viral marketing window clings | Page 1, Item 1 | Page 1, Item 1 | Page 1, Item 1 |
| fundraising window clings | Page 2, Item 5 | Page 1, Item 5 | Page 1, Item 3 |
| shatter ball window clings | Page 3, Item 9 | Page 1, Item 5 | No listing |
| custom 3D window clings | Page 1, Item 2 | Page 1, Item 2 | Page 1, Item 2 |
| 3D static cling window decals | Page 3, Item 2 | Page 1, Item 7 | Page 2, Item 3 |
| break thru designs | Page 1, Item 1 | Page 1, Item 1 | Page 1, Item 1 |
| breakthrudesigns | Page 1, Item 1 | Page 1, Item 1 | Page 1, Item 1 |
LOCAL CAMPAIGN
Sgt Poopers, Pet Waste Removal
When someone conducts a search, the results fall into two categories: organic listing and sponsored links (ads). Organic listings are are based on the content of individual websites. Sponsored links are simply pay-per-click ads. The target in all search engine optimization is to rank as highly as possible in a search engine's organic listing for all key search terms.
Sgt-Poopers.com is a pet waste removal company in the greater Dallas market. National franchises such as Pet Butler and Dooty Calls along with other well-established local companies monopolized search engine results to the point that prior to SEO, Sgt Poopers could not be found on any page in any search. By report, Sgt Pooper's competitors spend up to $26K a year on marketing, a figure Sgt Poopers was unable to match.
Sgt Poopers service area is the greater Dallas area; they don't do business in any other locations. Therefore they needed to dominate search results in the greater Dallas area and no where else. The objective was to rank as highly as possible in organic listing which includes mapped results since mapped results appear at the very top of the list.
A full SEO plan was put together for Sgt Poopers and implemented. Within a month, Sgt Poopers had surpassed nearly all their competitors for all key search term and as you can see in the table below. As of October 2008, Sgt Poopers achieved first page ranking for every key search term on Google, which handles the majority of search engine requests:
| Search term | | | |
| dog waste removal dallas | Page 1, Item 1 | Page 1, Item 1 | Page 1, Item 2 |
pet waste removal dallas | Page 1, Item 1 | Page 1, Item 4 | Page 4, Item 7 |
| dog poop removal dallas | Page 1, Item 1 | Page 1, Item 4 | Page 1, Item 4 |
| pet waste clean up dallas | Page 1, Item 1 | Page 2, Item 5 | Page 3, Item 5 |
| sgt pooper | Page 1, Item 1 | Page 1, Item 5 | Page 1, Item 1 |
Frankly, these are spectacular results. You can check them yourself by typing in any of the search terms exactly as listed.