I started working with Charlotte at Karen Rhodes Weddings and Events in July 2020. This was towards the start of the Coronavirus pandemic when the family-run business wasn’t able to run due to lockdowns and restrictions. They were looking ahead, planning for when they would be able to operate again, and considering options for diversifying their offerings during the pandemic.
Goals
Charlotte was keen to increase brand awareness in more areas, to increase the number of corporate bookings, and to double the number of weekly weddings they were catering (from 2 per week to 4 per week).
During the pandemic, the company also started offering a ‘Dine at Home’ experience where customers could order restaurant-quality meals to be delivered to their homes. Karen Rhodes would prepare the meals and provide easy instructions for cooking and serving. As a new service and their only source of income for many months, this needed to gain visibility quickly.
SEO and PPC Audit
At the start of our work together, I did an in-depth analysis of the Karen Rhodes website to identify areas of improvement. The website already had a good presence, ranking well on Google for brand searches and local phrases. However, a number of improvements were identified that would help them rank better for a broader area and corporate searches, in line with the goals. This included optimising title tags, adding missing meta descriptions, and making improvements to boost page speed.
Implementation and Improvement
Work on the website began in earnest in August 2020, with a number of actions taken to first ensure the site was in line with SEO best practices. Research was undertaken to identify a number of popular keywords, and to analyse their competitiveness and relevance, in order to create a plan for the website. This keyword research was to inform the updated content of the site and to increase visibility in priority areas.
Pay per click ads were also implemented in August, with two campaigns focusing on Weddings and Events. In September, further campaigns were added to promote the home dining service.
Throughout the next 12 months, work included:
- Optimisation of content to target key search phrases
- Implementation of additional goals to track conversions
- Suggestions for PR opportunities on high-domain sites
- Analysis and reactive optimisation to changing trends
- Providing recommendations for new content based on keyword research
- Working with the website developer on technical improvements
- Continuous optimisation of Google ads
Results
In the three months from July 2020, the website saw a 68% increase in traffic compared to the previous three months.
In the first 6 months of 2021, the website saw over a 400% increase in traffic compared to the same period in 2020. This was an average of 890 visitors per month, compared to just 165 in the previous period. Organic traffic alone increased by 415%. The majority of visits in this 2021 period were to the Dine In pages, which was in keeping with the immediate goals.
Traffic from Ads during this period made up around 20% of all traffic. Traffic the year before was minimal.
Currently (October 2021), Karen Rhodes is running up to 10 weddings per week and is fully booked with events for the 2022 season.
Find out more about Karen Rhodes’ wedding and event services at www.karenrhodes.co.uk.
