Challenge
In early 2020, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) noticed a downward trend in its organic traffic. While there were plenty of external factors to consider, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and a dramatic shift in content consumption, a look at reporting numbers revealed that the drop started back in 2019.
Following an in-depth audit of the website, we identified several technical and content issues contributing to the drop, including keyword cannibalisation, broken internal links, large-scale 404 errors, and content sorting, which negatively impacted search rankings. The sheer volume of content and research that WGEA had published over the years presented a unique challenge in sorting and developing a framework.
The site provided a less-than-ideal on-site experience for users, with click-depth, content structuring, and poor site navigation making it difficult to access relevant information. Addressing these challenges required a collaborative approach with WGEA’s extremely capable content and marketing team and buy-in from developers.
In early 2020, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) noticed a downward trend in its organic traffic. While there were plenty of external factors to consider, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and a dramatic shift in content consumption, a look at reporting numbers revealed that the drop started back in 2019.
Following an in-depth audit of the website, we identified several technical and content issues contributing to the drop, including keyword cannibalisation, broken internal links, large-scale 404 errors, and content sorting, which negatively impacted search rankings. The sheer volume of content and research that WGEA had published over the years presented a unique challenge in sorting and developing a framework.
The site provided a less-than-ideal on-site experience for users, with click-depth, content structuring, and poor site navigation making it difficult to access relevant information. Addressing these challenges required a collaborative approach with WGEA’s extremely capable content and marketing team and buy-in from developers.
Solution
Safari Digital took a multifaceted approach to WGEA’s SEO strategy to ensure that we addressed the existing technical and content issues and provided a framework for the internal content team to work with going forward.
- Fix technical issues, including broken internal and external links, orphan pages, and widespread 4XX errors across the website.
- Implement a redirect strategy to recover lost link equity and improve crawlability
- Replace outdated static XML sitemaps with multiple dynamically updated, categorised sitemaps.
Address keyword cannibalisation and consolidate competing content on the website - User experience testing and reporting (Hotjar) insights to optimise site navigation
- Restructured site navigation to improve user experience and reduce click depth to critical content resources.
Implemented changes to the URL structure that limited multi-level navigation hierarchies to a maximum of four.
Safari Digital took a multifaceted approach to WGEA’s SEO strategy to ensure that we addressed the existing technical and content issues and provided a framework for the internal content team to work with going forward.
- Fix technical issues, including broken internal and external links, orphan pages, and widespread 4XX errors across the website.
- Implement a redirect strategy to recover lost link equity and improve crawlability
- Replace outdated static XML sitemaps with multiple dynamically updated, categorised sitemaps.
Address keyword cannibalisation and consolidate competing content on the website - User experience testing and reporting (Hotjar) insights to optimise site navigation
- Restructured site navigation to improve user experience and reduce click depth to critical content resources.
Implemented changes to the URL structure that limited multi-level navigation hierarchies to a maximum of four.
Results
At the end of our 6-month engagement with the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), the website saw significant growth across all key SEO metrics.
- 76% increase in organic clicks
- 41% increase in organic visibility
- 27% increase in organic click-through rate (CTR)
- 16% improvement in average rankings
Additionally, training sessions with the Safari Digital team empowered the WGEA content team to take charge of their content strategy and work within a newly established framework for the future.
At the end of our 6-month engagement with the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), the website saw significant growth across all key SEO metrics.
- 76% increase in organic clicks
- 41% increase in organic visibility
- 27% increase in organic click-through rate (CTR)
- 16% improvement in average rankings
Additionally, training sessions with the Safari Digital team empowered the WGEA content team to take charge of their content strategy and work within a newly established framework for the future.