Improving Website Rank with Original Content
West Wood Realty came to Ad House Advertising in the summer of 2013, concerned about a recent slip in online ranking after having launched a new WordPress website not long before, and a contact form that was not functioning. After fixing the contact form issue, we discovered that their slip in ranking was likely caused by having no original content on the new site at all. It was simply pulling content from a regional property listing database, causing West Wood to be punished by search engines for duplicate content. We advised them to be the primary source of their own content and began creating a new, fully responsive Joomla website with original, relevant content for the property listings.
Before our new site was launched, traffic to the West Wood Realty website was about 50 visitors per week, with an average visit duration of one minute, an average of less than 3 pages per visit, and a bounce rate of 44%.
After the first 6 weeks following the launch of our new site, visits to their site had increased to more than 175 per week. The average time on site had grown from 1 minute to more than 5.5 minutes per visit, with an average of 4 pages per visit. The bounce rate was down to 10%. They also had a large increase in returning visitors to the site, another strong indicator of usability among very interested prospective buyers. The initial quality score for the original site was 54; less than 6 months later, it had grown to 72.
In the months since launch, their new site continues to see positive results and an increase in ranking by search engines, as well as a user-friendly platform that they can manage themselves. This goes to show what a well created website with original content can do!
