Challenge
The Vancouver Traditional Martial Arts Dojo teaches tai chi and karate in Vancouver, BC.
This optimization effort aimed to increase traffic to the website and generate more free trial class sign-ups for the tai chi, kids karate and adult karate programs.
Most of the on and off-page optimization was implemented in January 2024, and addition of optimized blog content started in April 2024.
The results below show the difference between November 2023 to January 2024 and February 2024 to April 2024.
What Was Done
A handful of martial arts clubs dominate the Google Maps pack and the top SERP rankings for local search terms on karate, kids karate, and tai chi. All of the websites were comparable to the Vancouver dojo website regarding content volume, keywords, long-tail keywords, domain authority and rate of update.
In fact, most of the top ranking competitors had a higher volume of positive Google reviews and more backlinks than The Vancouver Dojo.
Therefore, a general strategy was implemented: program pages were optimized including code and image optimization for faster load times. In addition, new content was added to the Google Business Directory over multiple months.
Notably, none of the top-ranking local sites were adding new content regularly. Most blog articles on the Vancouver Dojo website were not optimized and generated low organic traffic volumes.
In April 2024, new blog content was added to the website after research on relevant, low competition topics and were expected to rank quickly. The goal with this and future blog posts is the increase the overall domain authority of the website. This will allow future topics to be more specialized while still enjoying visibility and organic traffic. This will lessen the future need to appeal to low competition topics.
Facebook and previously inactive Pinterest accounts were used to share blog posts.
Results
Across all program pages—tai chi, karate and kids karate—there was a 5x or more increase in organic traffic.
5x
Organic traffic to the
Tai Chi program page
5x
Organic traffic to the
Karate program page
6.9x
Organic traffic to the
Kids Karate program page
The overall traffic increase was 23.8%. Most of the traffic increases are attributed to the above program page.
+ 23.8%
Overall organic traffic increase
Trial membership sign-ups and conversion rates increased.
+ 44%
Overall increase in free trial sign-ups for
karate, kids karate and tai chi programs.
3x
Rate of conversion from free trial to
paid memberships.
The Vancouver Dojo increased its ranking in the Google Maps pack. For some common local search terms on karate and tai, the dojo ranked in the top three.
Summary
While no one can say with 100% certainty that any specific change resulted in increased organic traffic or improved rankings in Google search results, these factors most likely contributed to the overall increase in traffic:
- On-page search engine optimization using keywords and long-tail keywords
- Addition of low-completion, fast-ranking content, with one article ranking in less than a week from the time of posting
- Local SEO keyword updates
The overall results with these updates outperformed all previous paid advertising efforts for traffic generated, trial class sign-ups and conversion rates from trial to paid memberships.
