Website copy and seo overhaul for expert answers
Sometimes you just need to burn it all down and start again. This was the brief given to me by Madre, an agency whose client had more broken links than they’d ever seen and website copy with classic blackhat SEO tactics circa 2009 all over it. So that’s exactly what we did.
When I say I help SMBs sort their shit out, this is exactly the sort of project I mean.
Who is Expert Answers?
Expert Answers is an online legal advice company headed up by two solicitors whose main mission is to make legal advice actually accessible to the people who need it. 3.6 million small businesses in England and Wales have unmet business needs. Something I learnt over the course of the project is that the UK is ranked 79th in the world for affordable and accessible legal justice. And just as the website copy says, enough is enough.
Frankly, I bloody love working with any company whose philosophy is basically “fuck the system” and who are on a mission to make the world a fairer place.
Where we started
When Madre first reached out to me about this project, I did what all good consultants do and combed through their client’s website. I ran it through Screaming Frog, read every page, and was so fucking ready to dig into it.
This is where Expert Answers was to start with:
- hundreds of broken links
- an unnavigable advice/blog section
- website copy that didn't explain anything
- low and consistently declining organic traffic
- penalised by Google through various spam and helpful content updates
- overly keyword stuffed copy that was written exclusively for SEO
- no consistent messaging as different chunks of copy had been written by different people
The screenshot above shows Expert Answers’ homepage, just below the fold, when Madre first reached out to me. When I say keyword stuffed, I really mean it.
In these 456 words, the same keyword is mentioned 32 times, there are 18 long tail keywords, and 9 brand name mentions.
I want to be so clear that while the folks who ran Expert Answers wrote the copy, it’s not their fault that they didn’t know any better. Sometimes, you just need an outside look and to bring in someone who is up to date with SEO best practices.
What we worked on to fix this
Due to the number of technical issues and the way the service works, there was a lot of prep work involved before I could dig into the copy.
Phase 1 – prep work
- thorough technical review of the site to understand all of the problems we needed to fix in the migration
- new sitemap design informed by current performance, backlink data, and ongoing business goals
- test run of their legal advice service so I could explain it in the copy from a customer perspective
- new structure for their free legal advice/blog section to make it easier to navigate
- dig through the back end of their website to check for broken links caused by posts/pages being unpublished without redirects
- allocating the new URLs for the sitemap (being sure to keep as many as possible the same) and all of the redirects to fix their hundreds of broken links
With the technical prep done, it was time to dig into the messaging and copy.
Phase 2: messaging development and website copy
- interviews with both of the founders to establish their vision for the business, what they were missing, and what they stood for
- initial test pages to ensure they were happy with the tone and messaging I had created for them
- writing the new website copy to fit their messaging, prioritise usability, and help them with conversions
Once the copy was reviewed and approved, we has one final phase to get through before the site could go live.
Phase 3- wireframes and migration support
- create simple wireframes to aid Madre in their build of the website. to make sure copy is translated properly into the design
- in-situ review of the copy with small edits to ensure continuity
- redirect implementation
The results
This is what the same section of their homepage looks like today. The difference is huge. The copy is clear as fuck and the design from Madre is slick. I worked really closely with Madre throughout this whole process to make sure all of the elements of the project were aligned and worked well together.
And the results are pretty banging too:
In the 6 months since the new website was launched we have seen:
- 182% increase in overall traffic (YoY)
- 924% increase in organic traffic (YoY)
Ready to get your shit together?
No clusterfuck is too big or too small. I bloody love detangling a messy website and there is nothing more satisfying than seeing those results go up and up after a site goes live.