Project Duration: 2021
Industry/Vertical: Non-profit organization, part of the United Nations (UN)
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Services Provided: Technical SEO Audit for Website Migration, Keyword Research, Custom SEO Training
A leading enterprise UX agency based in Geneva partnered with SEO Transformer for their Search Engine Optimization, paid ads, and digital marketing needs.
The agency was chosen by a major non-profit organization, a joint organization of the WTO and the UN, to provide a UX redesign of its website. The objective was to deliver an entirely new user experience that catered to a diverse audience, including SMEs, policymakers, and funders. The site needed to have a young, fresh, and vibrant look and feel, while also adhering to SEO best practices.
Key Client Concerns
Redesigning and migrating a website can hurt SEO. High-performing websites can lose their organic rankings and traffic if a migration is done incorrectly. For the UX agency, delivering a website that was not only UX-friendly but also optimized for search engines and users was essential for a quality service.
Ensuring continuous UX and SEO implementation after the website migration was key to maintaining the quality and effectiveness of the service provided. Training the content writers, journalists, and all communication stakeholders on SEO practices was also necessary.
To support the in-house SEO efforts, a comprehensive keyword research plan that incorporated targeted search terms needed to be in place for the team to use.
Key SEO Objectives
Given the challenges of managing a large enterprise website with big in-house teams and specific UX requirements, SEO Transformer had to develop an effective SEO solution. The services provided included:
- Keyword Research: We defined user searches for core brand-related, short and long-tail keywords, as well as non-branded search terms, related topics, and frequently asked questions for the various target audiences.
- SEO Training: We delivered a custom SEO training for over 50 of the organization’s team members on how to write content for the web, optimize content for search engines, find targeted keywords, identify search intent, define content outlines, and optimize on-page elements.
- Technical Website Audit: We audited the website for the migration to ensure all SEO elements were properly in place.
Implementation
1. Keyword Research for the Non-Profit
Using keyword tools and historical website performance data, we aggregated keywords across non-profit brands to outline a landscape of relevant, high-potential search terms.
- We identified search terms where the organization did not rank in the top results, but where other non-profit and related websites did.
- We included mobile keyword rankings for top-performing websites.
- We identified branded terms and assigned search terms to content sections and subcategories with the highest search potential.
- We performed a target keyword analysis to understand trending topics and frequently asked questions to expand topics and reach wider audiences.
- We provided a comprehensive report of recommendations for key pages and sections, detailing potential impact and priority based on our analysis of SEO metrics.
2. SEO Workshop Training
Like any other big non-profit organization, this one had content production assigned to various departments and team members. To maintain consistency and continuous optimization, an SEO training was needed.
We conducted a custom SEO workshop over two sessions for more than 50 participants. The training was tailored to the organization’s content production plan, keyword research findings, and growth objectives. Additionally, we outlined the optimization process per role and content production stage, including translated and localized language versions, and provided a list of necessary tools for the team.
3. Technical Website Audit to Support UX Redesign and Migration
To guide a successful website migration, we provided support before, during, and after the migration. This included the following elements:
- Information Architecture Review: We analyzed the website’s Information Architecture for a clear and organized hierarchy for both users and search engines.
- URL Structure: We defined the optimization needs for the URL structure across main pages, tags, categories, and filters.
- Navigation and Interlinking: We reviewed the site navigation, menus, footer, and internal linking to improve user and search engine accessibility.
- Security Check: We flagged and recommended solutions for security issues or Google alerts to ensure website safety and user data protection.
- Crawl and Indexation: We identified issues with website crawling and provided guidance on indexing and excluding specific web pages or content sections. This included recommendations on canonicalization, sitemap updates, and robots.txt configurations.
- Mobile-Friendliness: We checked for technical issues and advised on mobile-friendliness, a key factor considering Google’s mobile-first indexation and the large volume of website traffic coming from mobile devices.
- Speed Optimization: We recommended site speed optimizations in accordance with Google’s “Core Web Vitals” ranking factor to enhance user experience.
- Broken Links and Redirects: We identified the website’s broken internal links and redirect issues to ensure smooth navigation.
- International SEO Setup: We audited the multilingual website implementation for Hreflang (missing return links, non-canonical URL use, etc.).
- Schema-Markup: We verified the use of structured data and schema markup and recommended optimization opportunities.
- Website Performance: We ensured proper Google Analytics tracking and monitored the website’s performance before and after the migration.
SEO Strategy Results
Combining SEO and UX expertise delivered a smooth website migration, increased keyword rankings and organic traffic, and improved user engagement and conversions. These outcomes all aligned with the non-profit’s initial objectives, showcasing the success of the tailored approach in the competitive non-profit industry.
