Search engines ban them, we rebrand them.

It started with a phone call from an online ad network. “We have a major problem: one of our publishers just had 85% of their traffic disappear.”

Apparently, the World Atlas website had been developed in a prehistoric language and over time the optimization tactics became dated. Google now viewed the site as unethical, therefore they banned it from the search engine listings and the traffic and ad inventory vanished overnight.

Discover, repair, and optimize.

Our search team immediately identified the issues by recreating the scenario on one of our internal websites. A thorough overhaul of the website’s SEO fundamentals was put into place and we started our journey.

Within 30 days and an intense amount of work to the 8000+ static page website, we were able to return the website to its original website traffic levels.

Through a thorough SEO analysis of the website and the search landscape, we discovered areas in which we could build traffic even further. With 18 months traffic has grown from 800,000 unique visitors to as high as 3,000,000 unique visitors.

Could we go any higher?

We believed it was possible, but the site needed to become a destination rather then a waypoint.

We started with an identity refresh to give the site a brand that could be carried out of the website, or even out of the web. Next up was user experience design. We noticed that the website wasn’t attracting repeat visitors. Its navigation was cumbersome and the architecture and design left much to be desired: the site was well over 9000 pages, with scattered information spread out across 1400 unique layouts.

We began revising the site and within 3 months grew to 4,000,000 visitors. Repeat visitors are up already, even with some of the new design not quite implemented throughout the site.

We added a feedback form for the users to tell us what they thought and the reports were overwhelmingly positive. Nearly 99% of all comments said that the site was refreshing and fun to stay on.

We are pleased to say that time on the website has increased by 30 seconds per visit.