This case study examines the journey of growing a local business website from no traffic to achieving a significant milestone of 1,000 visits.
It highlights the strategies, challenges, and key lessons learned along the way.
Background
The website serves as a community hub, promoting local businesses, activities, and events in an area with a population of approximately 60,000.
The objective is to position the site as a go-to resource for locals and visitors, covering:
- Things to do,
- Where to find the best services, and
- Updates on local happenings.
Step 1: Setting Up the Website
The first step involved choosing a domain name and designing a logo.
Once I got done with that, the focus shifted to building a strong website foundation to ensure scalability. Key tasks included:
- Using WordPress CMS, along with plugins and themes for performance, SEO, and security.
- Planning site architecture and mapping pages for logical navigation.
- Setting up tools like Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and performance enhancers (e.g., CDN, image compression, and CSS/JS minification).
- Implementing on-page SEO, including structured URLs, sitemaps, and optimizing headings (H1-H6).
The design and functionality were inspired by successful community websites.
Step 2: Conducting Keyword Research
With the website structure in place, the next focus was identifying opportunities to drive traffic.
From the keyword research, I can see quite a bit of low-difficulty key phrases with monthly search volumes ranging from hundreds to thousands.
The difficulty score is also rather low, meaning it may not be too hard to rank these keywords. Key is to have content that answers search intent well.
I finalized the 1st round of keyword research with a list of 50 transactional and commercial intent keywords. These were grouped into major content clusters:
- Services
- Activities
- Food & Drink
- Stay
Step 3: Producing High-Quality Content
During the content creation phase, I prioritized strategic planning and optimization:
Keyword and NLP Analysis: I perform SEO NLP analysis on the top 10 pages on search results, before beginning writing. This helps me to produce articles that addresses search intent.
AI-Assisted Writing: I leveraged AI to help with the content creating process. I however, ensured articles remained under 40% AI-detection levels using GPT Zero.
SEO Optimization: Articles were optimized to outperform competitors’ scores on critical metrics. Tools like Hemingway simplified language for better readability, indirectly supporting higher rankings.
Visual Enhancements: I added images, some were created using Canva, while some were used under Fair Use rule, and I credited the owner.
On-Page SEO: I optimized and only published articles after I optimized them to 80+ in SEO optimization.
Internal Linking – I also try to place internal links, connecting “trunk” articles to supporting “branch” articles within and across silos.
Over three months, I published around 20 well-optimized articles, across all categories.
Step 4: Optimizing Based on Results
Post-launch efforts focused on refining site performance:
- Speed Optimization: Improvements guided by PageSpeed Insights enhanced site loading times.
- Performance Analysis: After two weeks, Google Search Console (GSC) began reflecting data. I identify high-performing articles, and try to link them to less-performing ones to boost overall rankings.
- Headline Tweaks: I identify headlines with Click-through rates (CTR) lower than average, and adjusted them to see if I could improve them.
Results
Three months post-launch, the site achieved:
1,000 total visits, with an average SERP position at the lower end of Page 1 and a CTR of 1.8%.
1,000 monthly organic visits a further two months later, with slight improvements in CTR.
Future Growth Ideas
To sustain and enhance growth, the following strategies are recommended:
- Content Expansion: Publishing additional articles targeting new keywords could accelerate traffic growth.
- Lead Generation: Implementing an autoresponder system could support monetization and traffic generation.
- Social Media Presence: Building a stronger presence on social platforms and forums could boost social signals, aiding rankings.
- Backlinking and Off-Page SEO: Establishing quality backlinks would enhance the site’s authority and visibility.
This journey demonstrates how strategic planning, consistent effort, and data-driven optimization can transform a new website into a valuable community resource.