Helping an experiential business shift toward virtual offeringsWatson Adventures
For the leading experiential scavenger hunt company in the U.S., a new website looked great and functioned perfectly, but a decline in traffic translated into a decline in revenue. And then a global pandemic hit.
Watson Adventures turned to Kelly Campbell for SEO consulting to restore search visibility, attract prospective corporate clients, and increase overall sales.
Challenge
While domain age, trust, authority‚ and a previously optimized site had kept the company in the good graces of Google for two decades, a different approach to a website overhaul caused some issues. Having worked with this client back in the days of running her digital marketing agency, Kelly’s consulting work addressed three critical challenges for Watson Adventures:
• Assess issues and determine priorities:
Kelly started with a technical site audit to gain insight into the issues that were most critical and would need to be addressed first. With that data in hand, she mapped out a three-phase plan to address all issues in a way that would yield the greatest impact in the shortest amount of time — and lay the foundation for the larger modifications that would be needed to surpass new competitors in the space.
• Create and optimize individual pages for hunts:
On the recommendation of a previous SEO consultant, the new website consolidated public, private and corporate scavenger hunts on a singular page for each city. Knowing how well individuation resonated with prospects in the past, she worked with the leadership team to determine the top 125 best-selling hunts, and then optimized them for the exact match, location-based phrases that were being searched (with the intent of hiring a company to host and run said hunts).
• Assist with a fast pivot toward virtual offerings:
As soon as COVID-19 forced all experiential offerings to a grinding halt across the country, Kelly and the Watson team collaborated daily on keyword research, changes to navigation, titles for new hunts, blog posts, and more. When people began searching for virtual alternatives to corporate team-building, summer picnics, city tours, graduations, family celebrations and more, Watson Adventures was there to help connect people safely from within their own homes.
Solution
Kelly combined keyword research based on prospect intent, competitive analysis, and best practices in on-page SEO. Then, she kicked into full throttle when her client needed her most. The solution has consisted of three phases and remains ongoing:
• Phase I: clean up all errors reported in Google Search Console, implement necessary 301 redirects, and address site load speed
• Phase II: create and SEO 200 new pages for individual hunts
• Phase III: ongoing strategic SEO and CRO consulting, including a major pivot during COVID-19 to virtual tours, trivia games and scavenger hunts for team-building, social events and more
Results
In less than one year, Watson Adventures was able to surpass its previous site’s monthly traffic, lower bounce rate and increase conversion rate from public, private and corporate hunts alike. Instead of struggling during the pandemic, the company is thriving — surpassing the prior year’s revenues. Due to the successful pivot, they’ve attracted press attention from the likes of NBC and other top media outlets. Visit watsonadventures.com.
Never have I worked with an SEO and marketing consultant as proficient, whip-smart, and delightful to work with as Kelly Campbell—and my company, Watson Adventures, has been in business since 1999. Her samurai skills proved especially valuable when the pandemic put a complete halt to our real-world team building scavenger hunts and other games. We pivoted furiously into virtual games, and thanks to Kelly’s guidance our website and other marketing efforts rapidly adapted to attract weaves of new clients with new needs, while getting a fresh look from past clients. We’ve reached new markets and have restored vigorous growth to our bottom line. I can’t recommend Kelly too highly.
Are you looking to pivot or scale your creative agency? Do you want greater visibility, more ideal clients, higher profit margins, and a more integrated lifestyle? Let’s set up a time to talk.