Search Engine Optimization Case Study: Calla Gold Jewelry
The Client
Calla Gold Jewelry of Santa Barbara is owned and operated by jewelers Calla and Jeremy Gold. They design, repair, and sell fine jewelry and have been in business for over thirty years.
Unlike brick-and-mortar stores, they visit people by appointment at their home and offices. Besides the owners, Calla Gold Jewelry has two part-time employees and a gross revenue of approximately $500,000 per year as of 2017.
Background
Calla Gold Jewelry wanted to improve their site's SEO and have their social media accounts professionally managed. This included assistance in both writing and editing their blog as well as posting to their social media accounts.
Before they hired Gold Social Media in mid-March of 2013, callagold.com received roughly 9,000 visitors and 14,500 page views per month. This would normally be an unusually large number of visits for a company of their size, however, they had been posting high quality blog posts and educational articles on a weekly basis for over a year to get to this point.
Callagold.com averaging 9,175 visitors a month and 14,540 page views a month prior to GSM's hiring.
In an effort to both reduce the workload and break past 10,000 visitors a month, Calla hired Gold Social Media to take over the existing website and social media duties. After consulting with them, Gold Social Media was able to suggest a number of strategies and services in order to further grow web traffic and increase engagement with existing website visitors.
Services / Our Strategy
In order to improve the SEO for callagold.com the following strategies and tasks were used:
- Keyword Research: By looking at the analytics data of callagold.com I was able to determine which blog topics were driving the most traffic to the site; these included gemstone and metal comparisons, jewelry sizing information, and information about gold. I focused on keywords that were high-traffic and low competition. This was all done without the aid of any SEO tools.
- Content Development: With our list of topics and relevant keywords ready, we began the writing and editing process of new, original content. We saw immediate wins in the jewelry comparison blogs by using “vs”. For example, “CZ vs Diamond” as opposed to “The difference between CZ and diamond”. By the end of 2013 the five jewelry comparison blogs we wrote accounted for over 20% of the site’s total traffic that year.
- Social Media Promotion: All content was posted across all of Calla Gold Jewelry’s social media platforms. This allowed her followers to be aware of when new content was released while also making it easy to engage with and share with others.
- Analytics Tracking: Keeping a close eye on the site's analytics allowed us to measure the success of our strategies. We could stop what didn’t lead to results and focus more on what drove traffic and engagement.
- Email Marketing: Capturing emails by providing Calla's free E-Book, “The Language of Jewelry” provided us with a list of people who could be reached by email. We often promote blogs and events to this audience.
The Results
In Calla Gold's own words:
"I got three to four sales a year off my old website. Now, three to seven local people call me per week. Two to four people per week call me from out of town. My sales have been impacted greatly by these internet-driven clients. The sales from these calls vary from week to week but the total can be up to 50% of my business."
As of December 2017, callagold.com ranks number one on Google in over 300 jewelry-related queries. The company has experienced a 550% growth in website traffic over the last four years and peaked at 150,000 visits in a single month.
Our organic approach improved the SEO for callagold.com without the use of paid advertising. To this day the company doesn’t use search engine advertising and rarely runs social media ad campaigns.
Calla Gold web traffic from 2013 to 2017. Averaging 124% growth per year.
Testimonial: Calla Gold - Designer and owner of Calla Gold Jewelry
Gold Social Media has brought a variety of skills to the table and has helped us shape and change with the fast paced world of social media and SEO. Their focused and smart approach to achieving online social exposure is creative, always appropriate and effective.
Whether they are developing content, providing technical assistance, or providing SEO tips, I know they are forwarding our message in the best way.
Their strategy sessions have yielded doable steps that are correct for where we're at rather than tilting at windmills. Our results have been impressive. I highly recommend Gold Social Media.