Photo: Courtesy Easterseals DuPage & Fox Valley / Rich Howe Photography
Case Study: Easterseals SEO Audit and Strategy
Sector: Nonprofit Project: SEO Audit, SEO Strategy, Keyword Research, Local Search Audit, SEO Copywriting, Building Strong In-House Teams
Within two weeks of implementing new focus keywords and other recommendations from our nonprofit SEO audit, Easterseals DuPage & Fox Valley saw improved organic and local search rankings, which will help them serve more local children and their families
The Challenge
Easterseals DuPage & Fox Valley helps children with disabilities and their families, no matter whether they need a little or a lot of support.
The team came to Sarah Best Strategy to review and improve their website for organic search engine optimization and local search. This would empower the organization to reach potential client families, within the organization’s current business goals.
Main goals:
The team came to Sarah Best Strategy to review and improve their website for organic search engine optimization and local search. This would empower the organization to reach potential client families, within the organization’s current business goals.
Main goals:
- Improve organic (unpaid) search engine rankings for the Easterseals of DuPage & Fox Valley website
- Accurately present information and available services on multiple brick-and-mortar locations
- Provide support during the implementation phase of our work together, making on-page optimization changes, creating new SEO-friendly landing pages, and communicating needs with national technical team
- Create an effective, clearly prioritized implementation plan and timeline for making changes
- Empower Easterseals DuPage & Fox Valley’s in-house team to continue implementing and measure our work beyond the scope of our engagement
The Idea
We made improvements to Easterseals' Google My Business Listing.
The work had several components: assessing where the organization is at, working with them to determine where they would like to go, and then creating a prioritized and realistic plan of how to get there.
To assess where the organization is at, we:
To help the organization achieve their goals, we:
To assess where the organization is at, we:
- Sat down with key marketing and development staff to learn about the organization’s business, marketing, and fundraising goals.
- Reviewed branding and marketing documents.
- Evaluated whether the organization was currently ranking for wishlist keywords.
- Completed an assessment of the organization’s key SEO metrics and website analytics.
- Evaluated what keywords their competitors and peers were ranking for.
To help the organization achieve their goals, we:
- Determined how current client parents are searching for Easterseals' services.
- Identified opportunities for improving search engine ranking by looking for areas where Easterseals DuPage & Fox Valley should have been ranking but wasn’t.
- Evaluated the website against a series of best practices to troubleshoot any potential problems and make improvements to organic search results.
- We considered ways to improve the on-page optimization for competitive keyword phrases and then implemented those changes.
- We identified a clear process for tracking success, troubleshooting issues, and how to iterate upon success.
- We established follow-up check-ins to address staff questions after our scope of work is complete.
The Results
- Within the first two weeks of the implementation process, we went from not ranking at all with our wishlist keywords to ranking #1 and #5 in certain organic results.
- Because SEO best practices are also closely aligned with best practices for website accessibility, we identified and implemented accessibility improvements to the national website related to how content was structured on the webpages.
- We implemented new location-specific pages for all three brick-and-mortar locations, leading to positive early improvements in local search results.
- We wrote and implemented new condition-focused landing pages (such landing pages for families seeking ADHD therapies or Down syndrome therapies) to reflect how parents are currently searching for services.
- The national website is now ranking for “services for children with disabilities” in our target search area, after not previously ranking in our area for that term.
"Sarah is an incredibly knowledgable and effective SEO expert. I was blown away by her thorough research and well--planned approach. She was responsive and patient--always taking time to answer our questions, and empowering our team with tools and tips that have greatly aided our SEO efforts. She is accessible, responsive and drives results.
- Kelly Moreland, Director of Development & Marketing for Easterseals DuPage & Fox Valley
"Sarah was a terrific asset to our small marketing team! She helped us master some SEO basics and gave us great feedback and content for our website and blog. I appreciate her work and organization and felt she was a perfect extension of our team. I hope I have opportunities to work with her again.
