Executive Offices Group: A Social Media Optimisation & Social SEO Case Study

Executive Offices Group
Social SEO Case Study

http://www.executiveoffices.co.uk
March 2010

Don’t Panic!
http://www.executiveoffices.co.uk/serviced-offices/
http://www.executiveoffices.co.uk/london-meeting-rooms/
http://www.executiveoffices.co.uk/london-virtual-offices/

Introduction
• Executive Offices Group is owned by Morgan Stanley Real Estate and operates four
unique serviced office brands: Argyll, Palladia, Corpnex, and Grosvenor

• We began working with them in August of 2009
• They provide London serviced offices, virtual offices in London and London meeting
rooms (plus the same services in other major cities)

• We provided an all-round Social Media and content optimisation package, including on-
page SEO work, content creation, content promotion and consultation

• All of the work described herein was executed in tandem with EOG’s web design and
implementation agency Catch Digital (http://www.catchdigital.com/)

• When we started, their search overall search visibility (how often and how high they
appeared in Google search results) was low and they wanted to improve their ROI for
organic customer acquisition from search and other sources

• In this report we will detail where they were before we started, what we did, and where
they stand now
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http://www.executiveoffices.co.uk/london-meeting-rooms/ 2

Our Brief
• To increase traffic
• To increase rankings
• To improve sales and ROI from the website
• To achieve this using on-page optimisation and
Social SEO techniques

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Our Strategy
• Identify best fit search and Social trends
• Improve on-page optimisation, Social content
and user experience

• Improve overall awareness and coverage of the
Executive Office Group brand

• Deliver relevant Social Media properties and
effectively use them to promote our content

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Achievements
• Online bookings of virtual offices, meeting rooms and serviced offices have
increased considerably since we started our work

• We took the EOG website from ranking for very few (and very specific) pages to appearing
in the top 50 Google results for over 50 terms, in the top 20 for 13 terms, and in the top 10
for 8 terms

• The site is now far more ‘discoverable’ and acquisition and conversion rates are increasing

• The site is also now appearing in more than just standard Google searches. It can now be
found through Google News, Blogs, Video, and Local searches. Traffic is now also being
driven from a variety of new Social Media sources

• Through creating useful, interesting and informative new (Social) content, users now spend
more time on each page, click through to view more pages than before and convert with
greater regularity

• The company also has a broad content footprint across the Social web, which has
increased brand visibility and provided customers and prospects with new opportunities to
engage. This content now acts as a traffic funnel - moving people from Social Media
platforms to key areas on EOG’s site
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Background
Why do ‘Social SEO’?

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Why Social SEO?
• In order to deliver a richer, more relevant service, Google is tightly integrating Social Media
content and ‘Social user behaviour’ into its its results

• Google's algorithm is becoming more complex, and taking more notice of social content when
choosing what it ranks. Different content formats - video, images, etc. - status updates,
reviews, and media/blog coverage are all regularly featured in Google search results. Owning
and optimising Social Media profiles which deliver content that is active, respected,
commented upon, shared and capable of ranking for these types of results is crucial

• Google is also taking more notice of user on-page behaviour and experience when choosing
pages to rank. Traffic, bounce rates, time on site and click-through rates are important. Thus,
on-page content and its effect on user navigation and ‘stickiness’ is important - and Social
Media-based content can be used to radically improve on-page user experiences

• Google has also started taking more notice of user search behaviour when choosing which
pages to rank. In this context, user brand awareness and search patterns are important

• As an example, if a person searches for 'Men's Clothing', but doesn't find anything useful in the
results that Google provides, then that same person might then search for a related, and more
specific term afterwards (e.g. 'Top Man'), and then click on the most useful result. In Google's
eyes, this page will then become a candidate to rank for the initial search (in this case, the 'Top
Man' page becomes a candidate for the term 'Men's Clothing'). These types of extended
search patterns can be influenced by using Social Media content to align brand-based content
with broader search categories

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Why Social SEO?
• Search Engine Optimisation and Social Media channels are complimentary, and mutually
beneficial

• On-page SEO increases the indexibility of a page
by providing Google with keywords and content

• Social Media is an effective channel for raising
awareness of this content and encouraging SEO
comments, conversations and links

• Google increasingly looks at traffic levels, Social
presence and branded searches when
considering the best pages to rank

• Effective use of Social content can increase Social
brand awareness, traffic levels, ‘footprint’, and
presence amongst branded search results

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Why ‘Social SEO’?
SEO Research
Keywords
Content / Metadata
Page Design
Indexing
Internal Links
Analytics

Comments / Sharing
Brand Awareness
Traffic
Social Presence
Mentions / Status Updates
Linkage
Reviews
Positive Sentiment
Social

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Why ‘Social SEO’?
• Google regularly includes Social content in search results

• The results below appear for London-based searches:
Maps and Images News Results

Blog Posts and Images Video Results

Timeline Results

• Creating this content - and submitting this content to Google in the relevant format (e.g. XML
sitemaps) - will help content to rank and increase traffic levels
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Our SEO Tactics and Results for EOG

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Page Optimisation
Optimised URLs
and meta data
Blog
Optimised copy
and page headers

Embedded
videos

Embedded Social Useful content
profiles (Google Maps)

Optimised Social profiles
linking to pages

Rich (Social
Optimised links Media) content
to key pages

Fresh RSS content

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Rankings Before...
• When we started working with EOG, the website had a very low level of search
visibility, appearing in the Google top 50 only for the term ‘Serviced Offices’

Old Terms and Rankings
• This table shows the terms that EOG
was optimised for at the time and where Keyword Position Monthly Searches
Serviced Offices 8 49,500
they ranked for those terms. Terms that Virtual Offices +50 14,800

sit outside of the top 50 are generically Virtual Office +50 60,500
Virtual Offices in London +50 390
recorded as +50 London Office Address +50 9,900

• The website had a relatively low number of incoming links (679), a metric by
which Google judges the popularity and relevance of a site

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Rankings Today...
• In order to get the site ranking, we carried out extensive keyword research. We found that the
terms that EOG had been working with for were not optimal, and they should be focussed with a
more specific ‘London’ slant

• We selected our own key terms based on
analysis of search volumes, trends over time New Terms and Rankings
and overall competitiveness
Keyword Today Monthly Searches
Serviced Offices 10 49,500
• With these new terms, their website now ranks London Serviced Offices 8 8,100
in the top 50 for over 50 targeted, highly London Serviced Office 12 4,400
searched terms, and on the first page for 7 of Serviced Offices in London 5 1,000
19 6,600
these terms Serviced Office Space
Virtual Offices 16 14,800
London Virtual Offices 8 3,600
• The table on the right indicates the terms that London Virtual Office 16 8,100
the site now ranks for in the top 20 of Google Virtual Offices in London 6 390
London Office Address 12 9,900
UK
London Office Space 18 49,500
London Office Location 4 1,000
• In order to improve these rankings, we London Office Locations 4 720

overhauled key site pages and produced
original content that was optimised for key
terms

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Rankings
Top 10 rankings over time Top 20 rankings over time

Before After Before After

1
7 1 13

• Search rankings have increased dramatically since we began work
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Backlinks
• Over the course of 6 months, we have more than doubled the amount of backlinks to
Executive Office Group’s website, and radically improved the quality of those links

• When we started, the site had 679 backlinks

• There are now 1,295 links to the site. This is very important, as the number of links to a
site is one of the main metrics by which Google judges where to rank a page

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Page Improvements
• Time spent on key pages that feature new content has increased, and continues to rise

• This metric is one that Google is considered to factor in when ranking pages alongside other user-
experience metrics such as click-through rates, traffic to pages and bounce rates

• Therefore, improving user-experience - using Social content - also helps to increase rankings

• We have increased positive on-page user experience and continue to do so. This improvement has
contributed towards an increase in rankings

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Page Improvements
• By optimising internal links and making pages more attractive to the user, the percentage of users who exit the
website from key pages has decreased

Site Overlay Data

• This means that people are exploring more of the site and clicking through to deeper pages. In this case, it
means that people are clicking through to look at the specific office locations under each category

• This was achieved by pushing location specific (and content-rich) aspects of the brand: we created an improved
Google Map content area and overhauled the page design so that users could see the office and local area
before visiting

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Content Improvements
• As well as focussing on SEO actions, we also made individual pages more attractive and useful for
users. By producing engaging and informative content, we hoped to increase the amount of time a
user spends on a page, decrease bounce rates, increase revisits and increase the likelihood that
the user would want to share or link to page

• We produced visual content in the form of videos hosted on YouTube and images on Flickr (as
shown above). These were then embedded on the page, so that clicking on them would keep the
user on the site, rather than directing them away from it

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Local Listings
• We optimised submissions to Google Local business listings and other niche Google services. This
means that anyone searching for terms such as ‘Virtual Offices London’ will see results for EOG
not only on standard web page results listings, but also on the ‘local business’ map results as
displayed at the top of the results page

• In some instances this allowed us to deliver up to four first page results (as above)

• Combined with other web page (and other content format) results, this means that EOG can
appear 5 or 6 times on a single Google results page

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Social SEO Tactics and Results for EOG

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Channel Overview
• We used the following Social properties:

20m daily visitors* 5m daily visitors

800k daily visitors 1.7m daily visitors

• Accounts on each profile were optimised for key search terms, with optimised
content and links back to key site pages

*figures from Google Trends for Websites and Compete.com

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Social Optimisation
• Each Social Media profile was optimised based on the search terms we
identified. Links were also included to key pages on the EOG site

Optimised video titles
(video tags also optimised)

Optimised video title
Optimised video
description

Link to EOG site

• This encourages content to rank for search terms and increases the traffic to and
visibility of key EOG pages
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Executive Offices Group: YouTube
• The existing Executive Offices Group
YouTube channel was optimised with our
keyword recommendations to increase
search visibility

• The property is the main place on the
web for all video content produced in the
course of our content actions

• Housing video off-site in this way
increases visibility of both brand and
service offerings, as well as giving the
individual videos the opportunity to rank
in relevant Google searches

• This content is also re-aggregated on
EOG web pages to enhance on-page
optimisation

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Executive Offices Group: Flickr
• EOG has a large volume of images
produced for brochures and promotional
packs

• This content was previously only
available in limited amounts and
locations on the main website

• Hosting the images off-site increases
chances of brand and service offering
exposure, particularly in such a
community-focussed site like Flickr

• Flickr images can also rank in relevant
Google searches

optimisation

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Executive Offices Group: Scribd
• There is a large volume of promotional
and informative PDF content hosted
externally, greatly increasing visibility
for both brand and service offerings.
Previously all PDFs were on-site, with
extremely limited exposure

• These documents attract traffic on the
Scribd platform through sensible
keyword optimisation in descriptions
and title copy

• PDFs can also appear in relevant
Google searches

optimisation

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Executive Offices Group: Slideshare

• Slideshare houses the three main
service offerings as PowerPoint
presentations for EOG

• These presentations previously had no
online exposure at all

• In the same way as Scribd, this platform
offers increased chances of brand and
service offering exposure through
searches both on Slideshare and Google

optimisation

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Social Media Bulletins
• As well as producing on-site content, we also create supporting content in the form of Social Media
bulletins

• These bulletins announce company news and feature embedded videos and links to the site. They are
viewed in relatively large volumes and serve as a very effective way of increasing brand presence

Press Releases

• A key reason for the high number of views for these Social Media bulletins is that ‘shareability’ is built in:
using publishing services like PitchEngine, users can tweet a link to the release from the page itself

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Social Search Results
• In addition to the EOG pages ranking well, we produce content that has begun to
rank well within Google Search Engines (such as Google News)

News Content Video Content

• When external pages rank, it can also encourage traffic to key site pages
through links, helping to increase rankings

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Blog Content
• As well as producing video content, Social Media bulletins and press releases, we created
a new ‘London Hotspots’ blog to allow the brand to deliver even more valuable content in
relation to its office location, such as travel, shopping, eating and drinking reviews and
information

• The page is structured like a
traditional blog, with regular posts,
categories and tags - all keyword
rich sources of indexable content

• It gives users of the EOG
site a reason to come
back after their first visit,
and also invites sharing
and user comments

• A prime function of the blog is to
allow us to optimise and rank for
‘long tail’ (i.e. very specific) search
terms such as “virtual offices in
Mayfair” Don’t Panic!

Future Content
• We plan to optimise the EOG site even more over the coming months, in order to enhance user experience,
coverage, mentions, traffic, backlinks and - ultimately - rankings

• One such development is the integration of Google Streetview embeds, which will be added to key pages
and promoted in influential Social Media hubs

• This will help SEO by increasing the usefulness of the page, and increasing positive user experience such as
time on page - metrics that can be used by Google to rank pages

• Users will also be more likely to link to the page if it’s useful, and we can link to the page when promoting
new page developments

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Conclusions
• Online bookings of virtual offices, meeting rooms and serviced offices have
increased considerably since we started our work

• Through identifying relevant and highly searched for key terms, the EOG website now appears in
Google with much more regularity, outranking previously better positioned competitors on a larger
number of search terms

• The number of inbound links to the site has doubled over the six months that we have been working
with them

• EOG’s brand presence has increased dramatically through use of Social Media properties such as
YouTube, Scribd, Slideshare, Flickr and PitchEngine

• Their website now offers reasons to return after the first visit, with regularly updated blog posts and
videos, and a resources hub for City business people

• Through creating useful, interesting and informative new content, users now spend more time on
each page and click through to view more pages than they previously did

• All of this information is viewed as positive by Google, and has contributed to the site ranking highly
for a much wider range of search terms than before

Don’t Panic!

Executive Offices Group: A Social Media Optimisation & Social SEO Case Study

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