With a selection of more than 200,000 distinct skus, Cabela’s was searching for a way to get more of their Web pages competing for unbranded “long tail” search terms. They first partnered with a SEO firm that optimized a handful of static category and product pages, but soon found that that was not enough. Their vast product selection and constraints of their dynamically-driven Web site called for a solution that was scaleable across their entire website and went far deeper into implementing best SEO practices.

In collaboration with Cabela’s, Netconcepts launched a search optimization solution in September of 2006 to gain greater visibility in the natural search results of major search engines.

Goals

• Free SEO efforts from IT dependencies
• Maximize natural search brand visibility
• Increase search traffic and revenue

Solution

GravityStream provides a simple to implement search engine optimization solution that delivers measurable results without requiring extensive IT resources.

Netconcepts initiated such a program for Cabela’s. They created a real time, crawler friendly version of Cabela’s ecommerce site, giving them the flexibility to optimize the existing pages of their website without having to rebuild their current site. With the addition of page optimization, Google’s PageRank is allowed to flow through the site and boost Google rankings on a wide range of relevant non-brand search queries.

Results

• GravityStream empowers Cabela’s marketing team with control over the natural search channel.
• GravityStream shattered indexation goals by 45%. This lead to 200% more traffic and 50% more sales.
• Cabela’s brand is well positioned in over 200,000 long-tail search markets, with over 40,000 pages driving traffic.

”We have seen an impressive 50% increase in year over year organic search sales using a powerful new approach to SEO. Best of all, we didn’t have to change our core website. GravityStream gives me the flexibility we need to systematically manage our organic search business.”

- Derek Fortna,
Marketing Programs Manager, Cabela’s, Inc.

TV shopping network HSN, a global leader of multichannel retail, and the online arm of TV’s 4th largest cable network, offers tens of thousands of compelling and innovative beauty, home, fashion and jewelry products online, including highly respected brands like, Gateway, Paula Dorf, Kodak and Cuisinart, as well as many proprietary brands.

Situation:

Although HSN offers tens of thousands of products online, only a small amount of unique pages were indexed in Google in early 2005. This level of visibility was primarily only generating search traffic for HSN-related brand keywords (such as “HSN,” “Home Shopping Network” etc). Unbranded “long tail” search terms however accounted for a very small percent of HSN’s natural search traffic. Upon investigation, it was discovered that many of the indexed pages consisted mainly of duplicates of similar pages, as well as article-related content, rather than unique product-related pages capable of attracting unbranded search terms and sales.

Challenge:

HSN’s strategy was to take steps to capture more unbranded search traffic by getting more product pages indexed. However the prospect of re-architecting the HSN.com website to accomplish this would require many hours of development time and would impact many website stakeholders. According to Rob Caiello, OVP of Online Marketing, “We knew we needed to take action quickly and that we did not have the internal resources to restructure the HSN.com website at the time. We needed to find a powerful and immediate solution to achieve greater visibility in the major search engines for unbranded keywords.”

Solution:

HSN decided to implement a faster, more robust, proven approach to capturing natural search potential, using a hosted, natural search proxy optimization technology developed by Netconcepts, known as GravityStream™. This patent-pending optimization technology provided HSN with a real-time proxy of the retail website for search engines and search engine users, with very little effort required upfront. Around 40 hours were required by HSN’s internal IT department to set up, test and launch the GravityStream proxy site.

The solution has also been resource-friendly after the initial launch. As a real-time proxy of the website, new pages and links are emulated and made crawlable automatically, requiring only a few hours of ongoing maintenance from the marketing team on a regular basis.

Results:

The results achieved speak for themselves. Within 12 weeks of launching the GravityStream solution, HSN’s indexation in Google had increased 1200% from previous levels, and included all tens of thousands of product-related pages. This newfound level of visibility instantly began delivering on the “long tail” promises with over 25% of unique pages yielding increases in unbranded natural search visitors. In fact, during the critical 2005 holiday season, this visibility led to an increase in nonbranded search sales of 150% over Q4 levels from 2004.

Kristina Stern, Online Marketing Manager of HSN.com stated, “When compared to other options, Netconcepts GravityStream proxy solution is a quick and effective way to get many, deeper level pages indexed on Google that can deliver incremental, unbranded traffic and sales.”

According to a recent study by Netconcepts, and documented in the whitepaper titled “Chasing the Long Tail of Natural Search,” the average multichannel retail website has only a small percentage (usually under 5%) of its E-Commerce pages yielding traffic. For merchants utilizing Netconcepts’ GravityStream proxy technology, including HSN, over 20% of all unique pages are yielding unbranded natural search traffic. To get a copy of our “Chasing the Long Tail of Natural Search” white paper, click here or call a Netconcepts at 608-285-6600.

Problem:

Northern Tool recognized that very few of their products could be found via search engines. The company’s website was not compatible with search engine spiders and the site’s dynamic pages weren’t indexed by Google. “This basic inability to reach one of the largest online buckets of customers at Google, had frustrated us for years,” says Nathan Miller, eCommerce Manager at Northern.

Though the website offered over 14,000 products, potential customers could only find a few of them in search engines - a big problem, given consumers’ increasing reliance on search engines to find products they need. The company believed their site’s lack of search engine visibility was costing $100,000 - $250,000 per month in missed sales.

Northern Tool.com’s goal was to increase non-branded keyword sales, brand awareness, and acquire new customers by optimizing their website for Google. They wanted to expose their product catalog to the thousands of people using Google to find tools and equipment every day.

They wanted to act quickly and leverage end-of-year search traffic increases. However, their imminent holiday “code freeze” limited our options. Within a few short weeks we would be unable to affect changes to their website. Furthermore Northern Tool’s IT staff were extremely busy and unable to devote any significant time towards an URL rewriting project or other server-side solutions.

Solution:

Northern Tool.com turned to Netconcepts to optimize the website architecture for natural Google listings.

Given the timing issues of an imminent holiday code lockdown at Northern Tool, Netconcepts’ proxy-serving solution, gravityStream, was selected as the path forward, rather than implementing changes onto Northern Tool’s main web server.

GravityStream’s data-matching scripts enabled Googlebot and other search engine spiders to retrieve the site’s product content without significant changes to the website. Search engine users access the exact same page that they would if they clicked into the page from within the Northern Tool site and the page was generated for them - the pages are dynamic, remember. But gravityStream offers the page in a search-engine-friendly static form. You could call it re-presenting all product pages as landing pages.

So gravityStream turns Northern Tool’s dynamic product pages into search engine friendly landing pages and customer acquisition engines. Millions of search engine users are now exposed to the Northern Tool brand and product range every day.

And gaining this level of visibility was easy. Implementing gravityStream required only a few hours of Northern Tool’s time. “We just set up a sub-domain, added a link to our home page, and then waited for Google,” says Nathan.

Results:

Within eight weeks of launching gravityStream, 100% of NorthernTool.com’s product catalog had been spidered and included in Google’s index - over 14,000 products, many with great rankings. When searching Google for Northern Tool’s 600 category and sub-category pages:

• 32% are ranked at #1.
• 71% are listed on the first page.
• 77% are listed within the first two pages.

More importantly, NorthernTool.com has experienced tremendous gains in traffic and sales. GravityStream is now delivering 15% - 20% of total site-wide traffic. The first month of sales was in the 6 figures. GravityStream accounts for greater than 5% of total online sales. Approximately 80% of these orders generated were “new-to-file” - a critical metric to catalogers, as it is a measure of the degree of cannibalization there was of their other channels, most notably the print catalog.

Nathan Miller and his management team can see the bottom line value of the natural search visibility gravityStream offers: “With Netconcepts’ help we will continue to optimize our site to make the most of this giant opportunity for new customer acquisition in 2005.”

Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI) is a leading retailer of specialty outdoor equipment and clothing, with revenues reaching close to $1 billion a year. REI is also seen as a leader in multi-channel strategies, offering a consistent sales and brand experience to their members and customers — whether through the 70+ retail stores, REI.com, or their catalog business.

Problem

While REI.com had developed a successful online store, they knew their limited search engine visibility represented a key missed opportunity to drive additional traffic and sales. REI.com didn’t rank well in search engines for many of its top products and the majority of its web pages and products weren’t getting indexed, resulting in greatly reduced visibility. UJ Cha of REI Online said: “it was a problem we wanted to address right away”.
While REI has a great range of products, its website suffered from several problems that were causing many of these products to never appear in search engine indices. The dynamic URLs that were used across REI’s online catalog were a big part of the problem, resulting in the site never being fully spidered. Their natural search visibility problem was compounded by small but significant issues with page titles, site structure, page content and link text, for example.
Understanding they had a problem, REI chose to work with Netconcepts to address its natural search challenges.

Solution

Netconcepts produced an audit report on REI’s website listing the problems and making recommendations on how to optimize the site. Realizing that this task involved a significant amount of work, REI engaged Netconcepts to help make the changes. We began by simplifying the URLs to make them more accessible to search bots and then worked on refining the REI site. As UJ Cha states, “The site in general needed optimizing for search engines” and work was undertaken to ease navigation, focus on keywords and make the site more search engine friendly.
Along the way Netconcepts took the time to help REI’s staff learn more about SEO best practices. As REI changes and updates their website, this training will help them keep REI.com search engine optimal. Netconcepts continues to work with REI to assist with seasonal keyword targeting and further SEO refinement.

Results

UJ Cha comments: “Netconcepts’ work has been very helpful, so far we have been very happy with all the work we have done together in 2004. We have been able to achieve full indexing in Google and we have had a measurable natural search traffic and sales increase.”
UJ Cha continues; “We received more than a 200% gain from overall natural search sales and more than a 250% gain in “non-branded” natural search sales since the start of the engagement with Netconcepts. Having a successful natural search strategy nicely complements our already successful paid search campaigns”.
In fact, the full indexing by Google means thousands of REI’s products are now visible to web consumers that were never visible before. REI’s site visibility has increased by 1000%, increasing overall natural search sales.
“We have decided to renew our contract with Netconcepts for 2005. Netconcepts has opened our eyes, not just on the importance of many of these elements but on specifically how to implement best practices.”

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figleaves.com, is the global leader of multi-brand intimate apparel etailers. The figleaves.com website features 250 brands and more than 30,000 items of lingerie, swimwear, sleepwear, activewear, menswear and hosiery. Brands range from designers such as La Perla and Andres Sarda to basic Playtex and Wacoal. Additionally, figleaves.com provides quality service to over 70 countries worldwide.

Challenge:

After establishing a headquarters in the United States, figleaves.com came to the realization that if they wanted to compete in the global market, they would need an expert SEO company. They had already engaged another search marketing company to help them with aspects of SEO, but figleaves.com wasn’t reaping the benefits that they expected and were starting to experience a decline in natural search traffic. figleaves.com was seeing moderate traffic for a variety of keywords but not seeing the natural search conversion they expected. They wanted to increase natural search traffic to the most relevant pages without making visitors dig through pages of results.

Solution:

Knowing the reputation of Netconcepts and the work of their president, Stephan Spencer, figleaves.com chose to consult with Netconcepts to complete a Natural Search Audit of their E-Commerce site. “Netconcepts’ audit process showed us all the areas of our site that needed attention, and helped us understand how to prioritize them to achieve a search optimized site,” stated Richard Brooks, Search Manager at figleaves.com. Netconcepts prescribed an initial focus on resolving structural barriers like URL structure, linking, and navigation before moving on to content optimization and other SEO tactics. “Netconcepts really helped us to clarify what our priorities should be,” stated Richard Brooks. “Netconcepts’ expert analysis and prioritization of our SEO issues helped us rally the support we needed in our organization to make some real SEO progress.”

Results:

Netconcepts provided the SEO methodology and program structure figleaves.com lacked internally to fully capitalize on their natural search potential. Within the first months of implementing Netconcepts’ recommendations, figleaves.com had already experienced a 40% increase in their natural search traffic. “We now rank on page one on Google for three of our most important keywords: “swimwear,” “underwear,” and “bras,” stated Richard Brooks. One of the most important influences in increasing rankings is the acquisition of back-links. Already, figleaves.com has more than doubled their number of back-links. Indexation alone has risen over 15% across Google, Yahoo, and MSN to top 300,000. Ed Bussey, Senior Vice President and Head of figleaves.com US had this to say, “We got great buy-in during our discussions and have seen great results from your recommendations. When we want to improve our SEO strategy further, we will come back to Netconcepts.”

House of Travel partnered with Netconcepts to drive phenomenal growth in online sales.
Netconcepts’ deep understanding of online marketing and online consumer behavior drove a 6 fold increase in marketing-related website sales for House of Travel.

House of Travel is New Zealand’s largest privately owned travel firm, competing in a highly competitive travel booking market. In late 2004 the company launched an innovative revamped website www.houseoftravel.co.nz enabling consumers to compare and book fares across a range of airlines.

Challenge:

House of Travel’s new website was functionally revolutionary. It allowed customers, for the first time, to compare the airfares - including specials - of all carriers flying the domestic, Trans-Tasman, and South Pacific routes.

The challenge was to market its sophisticated features to online travel buyers in a way that would effectively drive traffic to the site and, most importantly, generate strong sales growth.

Solution:

House of Travel engaged Netconcepts to undertake a comprehensive review of all website marketing, and suggest and implement strategies to boost sales through the site.

Using their deep understanding of e-marketing, search engine optimization, e-commerce and online consumer behavior, the Netconcepts team implemented a number of programs and strategies including:

• A Search Engine Optimization audit to assess the search engine friendliness of www.houseoftravel.co.nz to provide a baseline for improvement with action plan and proposed strategies to equip the site to take advantage of natural search opportunities.
• A content optimization training program for House of Travel’s online writers
• A travel blog to help build House of Travel’s online community blog.houseoftravel.co.nz
• A banner advertising program management strategy – involving media planning, buying, placement, reporting and analysis
• Pay Per Click (PPC) program management services – including development and execution of a keyword and bidding strategy, keyword selection, copywriting of PPC text ads, Ad group creation, management of PPC bids within allocated budget, performance monitoring, analysis and reporting
• Text Link advertising program management – including media planning, buying, placement, reporting and analysis. PageRank was also considered within the Text Link advertising objectives
• Ongoing performance measurement and analysis - using its proprietary GravityTrack product, applying comparative analysis across the suite of online media channels to measure and optimize performance

Results:

The Netconcepts team’s deep understanding of consumer web behavior, combined with their ability to track, analyze and report results, provided House of Travel with powerful insights which have driven significant improvements to the functionality and performance of the company’s website.

By implementing Netconcepts’ strategies — with an unwavering focus on evaluating the resulting effect on sales — House of Travel has experienced phenomenal growth of sales through the website and a significant increase in return on its e-marketing investment.
Specific results have included:

• A 2 fold increase in total website sales between July 2005 and March 2006
• A 6 fold increase in website sales generated as a result of online advertising over the same period
• A near doubling of overall return on investment in online advertising, from 6.7:1 in mid-2005 to an average of 12.2:1 in early 2006
• Specific targeted email campaigns have generated a return on investment of up to 55:1
• Netconcepts have helped House of Travel clean their email list, and implement best practice processes, to ensure that their mailing list is now 100% double opt-in permission based
• A significant skills transfer to House of Travel staff in areas including effective web content development as a result of expertise shared by senior Netconcepts personnel
• On 6 April 2006, the House of Travel website was named one of New Zealand’s top websites in the NetGuide People’s choice Web Awards, with www.houseoftravel.co.nz being awarded the 2006 title of ‘Best Travel Site’

“We are very happy with the growth in sales online, and Netconcepts’ management of our online media campaigning and paid search program has been a key driver of that. Being based in New Zealand and the US, they are able to tap into a lot of experience that not many agencies can.

Netconcepts have very strong core competencies around the technical aspects of web
development and search engine optimization, and it is rare to find this level of experience in New Zealand. They’ve given us a lot of valuable guidance in this area as well.”

- Charles Coxhead, Online Marketing Manager, House of Travel

Problem:

Netconcepts.com is a typical corporate website, with a portfolio, testimonials, case studies, an article library, bios of the company’s executives, services, etc. As an industry innovator, it is important that we at Netconcepts practice what we preach. We knew our website was performing well, but we also knew we could do better. We wanted people to be able to see Web 2.0 principles applied to a corporate website, and to see the commensurate increase in traffic and improving search engine visibility because of it.

Solution:

In August 2006, just in time for the Search Engine Strategies conference, we rolled out a site revamp which included table-less CSS-based layout, the popular blogging platform WordPress as our new CMS (content management system), RSS feeds, and tagging (e.g. tag cloud and tag pages). Tagging, in particular, was this corporate site’s secret weapon.

First, every testimonial, every portfolio entry, every press mention, as well as each bio, article and case study, was broken out into a separate post. Then, each post was tagged with appropriate keywords. For example, all the testimonials are tagged with the word “Testimonials”. So instead of having a single testimonials page as we used to, we have a testimonials tag page that spans three web pages (at 10 posts per page) and each of the 30 testimonials is a separate web page now too. In other words, we went from 1 page to 33 pages; that’s a lot more search engine fodder, all with different keyword foci!

Spiders can find and index these tag pages through the text links contained within the tag cloud on the home page, through text links underneath each post, and through links to “Related Tags” on each tag page. Related Tags are determined from posts that have the tag (from the tag page in question) in common. So, for example, because we have posts that are tagged with both “SEO” and “Testimonials”, “SEO” then appears as a related tag on the Testimonials tag page and “Testimonials” appears as a related tag on the SEO tag page. We display links not just to the related tag pages, but to conjunctions between related tags. So, for example, you will find on our Testimonials tag page a number of Related Tags in the right hand column, all with “AND” and “OR” links adjacent to each one.

Let’s restate that a little bit differently just to clarify… All our SEO-related items (testimonials, case studies etc.) are tagged with “SEO”. Consequently, there is a tag page that relates to “SEO” and a tag page that relates to “testimonials”. There’s even a tag page that relates to “SEO testimonials” — the intersection of those two tags. That makes for ‘boatloads’ of tag pages, considering how many different permutations there are for various combinations of tags being “ANDed” or “ORed” together.

By moving to a more modular structure (based around Posts rather than Pages) along with the large inventory of new pages, that allowed us to capitalize on the “Long Tail” of natural search in ways we couldn’t dream of with our previous incarnation of brochureware.

Above the “Related Tags” you will see a RSS button which leads to a RSS feed specific to that tag page. We use that RSS feed to pull the latest articles, testimonials, seminars etc. and feature them as related content on the right column of our Services pages. For example, our Email Marketing page lists Related Articles on email marketing, because we’ve specified that the topic of the page is “email marketing” (in other words, the tag that it relates to). We use that information to grab RSS feeds of tag pages for email marketing + articles, email marketing + testimonials, etc.

Besides tagging, we have also employed many other blog SEO tactics, a number of which I detailed in my article for MarketingProfs, 10 Tips to Help Your Blog Soar in the Search Engines. This includes use of sticky posts, adding buttons to add a post to del.icio.us and various other social bookmarking services, and linking to a “Top 10″ list of sorts — namely, under “Free Stuff” on the home page, some of our best content from the past year or so.

To our knowledge, this approach for search engine optimizing a corporate site has not been done before, particularly the aspect of breaking up all the discrete bits of content (each testimonial, each portfolio item, each FAQ, etc.) into individual posts and tagging all them, and then relating that tagged content with the appropriate Services pages and highlighting those as related content.

And, last but not least, the new redesigned site, although it doesn’t look markedly different from the old site, is better designed with XHTML and web standards in mind. No more tables for layout! That was long overdue.

Results:

It is amazing what can be achieved in regards to SEO just by reaching into the Web 2.0 toolkit. A corporate brochure is about as Web 1.0 as one can get, yet even brochureware can be transformed in ways one may never have thought possible and boosting search visibility in the process. In the space of just a few months after relaunch, the site went from about 100,000 pageviews per month to 390,000 by the end of October 2006. We saw a marked increase in visitor numbers as well: from about 28,000 to about 60,000 in that same timeframe.

Note in both of the above graphs the traffic trend was quite flat throughout the summer before it ramped upward starting in mid-August after the revamp launched.

Thanks to the site’s new content structure, indexation in Google increased from 300 pages to 4,800 pages, including 2,640 tag pages. Stephan Spencer, founder and president of Netconcepts, explains:

“I equate indexed web pages with a ‘virtual sales force’ that works hard to bring in traffic from the search engines for us. By adding thousands more web pages to Google’s index, we significantly expanded our ‘virtual sales force’, and because of it, our opportunities to rank well for relevant Long Tail search terms have multiplied.”

With the revamped site now powered by WordPress, a popular blogging platform, it qualifies as a blog. As such, our corporate site now enjoys visibility in the blog search engines and directories. And, because WordPress comes with RSS feed capability built in, visibility in the feed search engines and directories came too. Netconcepts.com doesn’t offer just one RSS feed, but many — grouped by topic (e.g. SEO, email marketing) and by type of resource (e.g. articles, testimonials) — all accomplished through the use of tagging.

Stephan continues:

“Since switching over to WordPress, we were also pleased to find visitors started participating on our site through comments, trackbacks, and pingbacks. Check out our SEO Title Tag Plugin page for a great example of this in action. The conversation there is still ongoing. This, happily, encourages more backlinks to our site!”

Homestead.com is more than your typical web hosting company. They have a WYSIWYG tool for constructing the website as well. It is an all-in-one solution. The company hosts over 12 million members who use their service

Challenge:

Homestead.com had no visibility in Google or Yahoo! in the natural unpaid search results for search terms like “web hosting”, “website hosting”, or “web site hosting”. Homestead recognized that the traffic and sign-ups coming through search engines were nowhere near what they should be or could be. They approached Netconcepts after attending a session given by our President, Stephan Spencer, at Internet World in 2003.

There were several key constraints that Netconcepts and Homestead had to work within. First, the website was encapsulated within their Site Builder software platform and they wished to continue using this platform, one we were unfamiliar with. Second, they wanted their internal IT team to do all of the implementation work, so we had to do a complete ‘knowledge transfer’ (think: Vulcan mind meld) to a team of very competent technologists who, although very savvy with web technologies, were not up to speed with the latest search engine optimization best practices. Third, no significant changes to the look of the home page were allowed, at least not at this early stage. This was a tough constraint for us to work within, as their home page had very little room for content. Home pages with much more content have a distinct advantage in the search engines. So, not being allowed to add much content to the home page nearly hamstrung us.

Homestead recognized that web hosting was one of the most competitive markets as far as search engine marketing was concerned. It was going to be hard work to get on to page 1 when there were 12 million other pages in the search results to compete with.

There were already competitors to Homestead who were old pros when it came to search engine optimisation and to pay-per-click. Trumping them would be no small matter. Indeed some of the bigger players in the hosting business were willing to pay unsustainable sums of money to attain top rankings (for example, as much as $10-12 per click for visibility in the paid search results).

Homestead’s site was in frames, which posed a real problem considering the degree to which search engines have problems with framed websites. Indeed Google cautions against the use of frames on their Information for Webmasters page, stating “Google supports frames to the extent that it can.”

Solution:

The engagement with Netconcepts involved an in-depth search engine findability audit that included strengths, weaknesses, missed opportunities and recommendations in areas covering URL structure, content, HTML, internal linking structure, and analysis of keyword markets.

We prepared a 50-page audit document that also took into account: usability, design, style, accessibility, and other core issues that contribute to a website’s commercial success.

We then presented our audit findings, conducted a training intensive with their IT and marketing teams, and then returned for a second training intensive later that month.

This was followed by six months of ongoing support, where we guided them through the process of implementation.

The Stage 1 mild re-design of their site still used frames, and shortly after the six-month engagement, they launched a larger scale re-design of their site that was, thankfully, frame-free.

Before

After

Results:

Within eight weeks of the launch of their mild re-design they were on page 1 for “website hosting” in Google.

With our audit as a blueprint, later that year Homestead launched an internally built complete site re-design which landed them the #1 Google position for “website hosting,” which they have since sustained almost continuously over the course of the past 12 months. Not bad, considering very little additional SEO work has been rolled out on the site since early 2004.

Ken Chen, Marketing Director of Homestead states: “We are an internet company and there was considerable resistance in hiring Netconcepts. Some here felt that they knew everything there was to know about Search Engines. But, the fact is that the Search Engine industry is changing so quickly and is growing so quickly that a company like ours cannot possibly stay on top of it all. Netconcepts did an excellent job of training us on what is really critical in the world of search engine optimization. They have a great framework and philosophy about what works that is very much in line with how Google and the others are thinking. We paid for their expertise in an area where we didn’t realize we needed help. And, they delivered great recommendations and we saw immediate results. From my point of view, it’s been a great investment.”

Netconcepts developed and maintains this site as a free service to the writing community. Essentially a searchable directory of writers, editors, agents and publishers, an active discussion forum has made this site a popular point of contact for the literary community. It contains entries for literally thousands of well-published writers with a well patroned (and very entertaining) discussion forum.

Challenge

Founded in 1994 by Stephan Spencer, also Netconcepts’ Founder and President, WritersNet was started as a labor of love because he and his wife were both writers. However, in order to devote resources to maintaining and expanding the WritersNet site, it needed to be a viable business model.

Of the 30,000 writers who have profiled themselves on the site, how many of them would pay an annual subscription to post their listing to use the discussion forums? Probably not very many. Therefore we needed a creative solution to keep the site free for visitors but generate revenue for Netconcepts.

Solution

The solution lies in Google’s AdSense program. By placing Google ads throughout the site we were able to monetize a loss-making site and turn it into a profit center. Through some automated SEO techniques, we were also able to enhance the tens of thousands of pages of user-generated content to make it more search engine optimal which really ramped up the traffic levels. Furthermore, Netconcepts optimized the Google ad placement, sizes, fonts and so forth to maximize the clickthrough rate.

Results

The site now regularly generates over $5000 per month in Google AdSense revenue, and that is with just a handful of hours spent each month maintaining the site. The community of users continues to build content. Every day new search engine friendly forum posts are posted and make it into the search engines along with new writers’ directory listings.

The site boasts over 80,000 pages in Google and traffic levels are in the hundreds of thousands of visitors per month.

“My staff at Netconcepts have really risen to the occasion on this site, taking my pet project that I started when I was still a graduate student and turning it into one of the most visible and most respected online communities of published writers on the Internet. One staff member in particular, Hamish Gilbertson, really rose to the occasion and nurtured the community and took the site to new heights, even spearheading the development of a printed anthology of WritersNet authors. On top of it all, the site makes a healthy profit each month. Who needs clients when you could be your own client and have a site as successful as this? We still love our clients by the way!”

InnSite is one of the leading bed and breakfast directories on the Net. Founded in 1994, it is also one of the longest standing ones. The directory covers 68 countries, all 50 US states, all 12 Canadian provinces/territories and detailed directory listings number over 12,000. Selected by Yahoo! Internet Life magazine as “Best Inn Directory” and reported on in the Wall Street Journal.

Challenge

Since its inception, InnSite has been a free service to both innkeepers and travellers. The site is actually owned by Netconcepts which gives us a lot of lattitude. As a free service the challenge for us has been to make InnSite a profitable venture for us, one that warrants our continued focus. The site was well search engine optimized and had a significant amount of traffic, in fact it is one of the highest trafficked websites of all the sites that we host. However all that is of no consequence if the site is actually a loss-making venture. So we were looking for a way to make money without adding significant overhead or drastically changing the business model. That is not to say that in the future we won’t decide to charge innkeepers a subscription fee, but at this point in time we have opted not to.

Solution

Thanks to Google’s AdSense program we had a path forward. Using a number of techniques to optimize the Google ad clickthrough rates, including such things as placement, colors, sizes, and keyword foci, we were able to turn InnSite into an ongoing revenue stream. Further search engine optimization of the site pages gave us a further lift.

Results

InnSite went from being a loss-making venture to one of our most profitable web projects. Our Google AdSense revenue regularly exceeds $10,000 per month and, considering the handful of hours that we put into maintaining the site each month, it offers quite a lucrative profit margin.

Stephan Spencer, founder of InnSite and of Netconcepts has this to say:

“My staff’s superb understanding of SEO and AdSense optimization saved this little pet project of mine and turned it into a viable part of Netconcepts’ business and for that I am grateful. The bed and breakfast industry is one that is close to my heart.”

For the future, we intend to continue developing InnSite, using it as a test bed for Web 2.0 search engine optimization approaches. Stay tuned, and hopefully in the not-too-distant future you are going to see such things as tagging and blogs incorporated into InnSite!