HP DesignJet: A Multilingual SEO Program
While the details are sometimes sensitive, the picture painted in the following client success stories is one of quantifiable results.
HP Graphic Arts increases search referrals 10.2% and overall traffic by 300% in 12-month period.
The Challenge
KoMarketing was charged with increasing the website traffic and visibility of HP’s Graphic Arts portal website (and the predecessor HP Designjet Online website as well) while working within HP’s strict limitations of corporate guidelines set for both search engine optimization and website standards.
The program focused on SEO on a global scale. HP’s highly dynamic website serves content across fifty countries, ten languages, and ten vertical markets.
Program Implementation
After initial analysis, KoMarketing determined the website had three core issues which needed to be addressed immediately:
- A complex URL structure – Due to multiple reasons, the site’s pages weren’t being fully crawled or indexed.
- Poor keyword selection – Content needed to be built out around an new keyword list – including content in multiple languages.
- Improved link building – While the site had high visibility in terms of the links pointing to the site, KoMarketing identified a wide range of additional opportunities.
After this initial analysis, KoMarketing then began overseeing the tactical components of the SEO program, tailored to the client and its business goals.
Improved search indexing
One of the immediate issues that needed to be tackled was the highly complex URL structure of the site. Because the site serves content variations for all of the possible combinations of language, country, and vertical market, the complexity of the structure was hindering a full search engine indexing of the site.
This lack of full indexing prevented HP from gaining recognition in the search engines for the permanence of the URLs (thus preventing them from getting the best possible quality scores for each page).
The first step, then, was to completely restructure the URLs to display pages statically and provided unique URL destinations for each country and language combination. These improvements immediately facilitated a deeper crawl of the website and over time improved the quality scoring of the pages.
Create new website content, including multiple languages
Another item that needed to be addressed quickly was the keyword content of the existing website content. KoMarketing researched which keywords were currently driving traffic to the site and which terms could potentially drive more traffic, but did not yet exist in the content.
Based on these findings, KoMarketing recommended content revisions, new content additions, and also new ways to deliver content, such as training and support resources and FAQ pages. Many of these pages became primary search destinations for keywords that could not be incorporated into the traditional website content and improved the search engine optimization without disrupting the user experience.
Due to the multi-lingual nature of the website and the need for content translation, KoMarketing also developed keyword research and content creation training for each of the country managers responsible for localized content.
Increase link building
While the site had high visibility in terms of links pointing to the site, KoMarketing identified a wide range of additional opportunities to acquire additional high-value links.
Increasing active inbound links, especially from websites highly correlated to specific vertical markets within the client’s industry, and informational links from authority sites, simultaneously increased relevant user traffic and improved the website’s quality score.
With one tactic, KoMarketing created communication templates for the client to use in reaching out to other websites and bloggers to request inbound links and also put into place an approved process for which KoMarketing could request links for specific types of websites.
As more links were established and more users were able to find the site, the number of passive links also began a marked pattern of growth.
Incorporate Google Search Console
Komarketing created a Google Search Console account to monitor Google’s crawl of the website. We tracked the frequency and depth of the crawls, as well as where errors existed that prevented a crawl to certain pages.
We also created a XML sitemap to ensure that the full catalog of public pages on the site was being presented to Google for its crawl.
Results
- In one 12-month period we increased overall search engine traffic by 300%.
- Over the same period, search referrals grew to 16.5% from all traffic – up from 6.3%
- The search engine imprint increased from 190,000 pages indexed to 512,000 pages.
- The number of active links recognized by search engines increased from 29,000 to over 123,000.
- Keywords targeted for ranking improvements increased across Google, Yahoo, and Bing. In Google, the website moved from 44 keywords ranked in Top 10 positions to 75, and keywords not ranked within the top 50 results dropped from 32 to three.
Ongoing success
Due to the program results, and KoMarketing’s ability to achieve success within the limiting corporate guidelines for the website, KoMarketing exceeded the client’s expectations for program results.
As part of the client’s on-going monthly program, KoMarketing continues to provide content evaluation, recommendations for new content and new content types, identify new link opportunities, and manage the overall SEO program for the site.
We’ve worked with the client every month for over three years to continually improve website optimization, facilitating the steady growth of Website traffic and visibility.
“With other agencies, the tendency is to see a flurry of work initially, and then communication and accountability starts to fall off. Our KoMarketing account team is in contact with us almost daily – it’s like they’re sitting right here in our office. They’re truly an extension of our marketing team.”
