SEO / Usability / PPC Management Case Study

ShoeMania.com SEO / Usability / PPC Management Case Study
Date: January 4th, 2008


VisiSeek was contracted to do on-site optimization for www.ShoeMania.com. Onsite code improvements, a complete graphical makeover, and a usability focused redesign of the checkout page led to marked increases in traffic and conversion rate.

Site Redesign and code optimization improves traffic

VisiSeek undertook a complete graphical redesign of the site, which focused not only on improving the look and feel, but also on making the site more navigable and usable. The old site is on the left, and the newer on the right. An analysis of the sites backend database and server architecture revealed inefficiencies in the dynamic page generation. An optimization of the menu structure and code led to a 5-8X decrease in page load time. This yielded a 30% increase in page-views and a 50% increase in total time on site. Also, the new, more search engine friendly design led to a 130% increase in Google traffic.



Old Site

Redesigned Checkout improves conversion rate by 250%

VisiSeek provided a complete redesign of the checkout process, focused on improving user experience. A detailed review of the analytics data revealed that at each of the three pages/steps of their current checkout, Shoemania was loosing about 25% of their customers. Because of this, less then 25% of costumers placing an item in their shopping cart eventually purchased shoes from the site. Central to alleviating this problem was the move away from a three page checkout to a single page option, as pictured to the right. This tightly designed, custom built single-page option, combined with decreases in page-load time, improved their current conversion rate of roughly .79% to 2.01%, with spikes as high as 3.91% through the holidays. This increase directly and immediately increased the value of each hit to their site by 250%.

Search Rank Improvements

A #5 ranking was achieved for designer shoes online
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=designer+shoes+online

A #8 ranking was achieved for discount shoes
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=discount+shoes

A #6 ranking was achieved on buy shoes online
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=buy+shoes+online

A #2 ranking was achieved for online shoe deals
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=online+shoe+deals

A #3 ranking was achieved for shoe deals online
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=shoe+deals+online

A #2 ranking was achieved for womens shoe deals
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=womens+shoe+deals

A #3 ranking was achieved for mens shoe deals
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mens+shoe+deals