Taming an ill-timed migration
A site migration is like moving house. L'Officiel du déménagement has conducted a study with the Opinion Way institute on the subject of French people's stress when it comes to moving home. In 2019, 81% of respondents said that moving home is a source of stress for them. In fact, 14% said it had encouraged them to postpone their move, and 11% had already given up(source).
The importance of Editorial & Technical synergy for an optimal content strategy.
We don't work for the beauty of the gesture, but to help our customers grow in the long term.
But what are we talking about? It's not clear.
In Web projects, it's not so different. A site migration can be justified by a number of factors: the desire to change brand, the complete restructuring of a tree structure, a merger with another market player, the switch to a new CMS, etc. For our part, when we hear talk of a site change, we get all fluttery. This type of project is so important (for its opportunities and risks) that it's even one of the first questions asked when meeting a new prospect or customer: "Are you planning any major changes to your site? In fact, it's always a good idea to ask for company news on a regular basis.
The problem of a migration planned too quickly is identical to that of a move not taken seriously. You realize that you don't have enough boxes, that Jean-Charles lost the last points on his driving license when he parked in the middle of the road in front of a bakery last Saturday, and that nobody thought to ask the town hall for a parking reservation. What's worse, some boxes get lost in the meantime, and others are moved anyway, even though we wanted to throw them away. Does anyone know where the roll of tape is?
Today, with the agreement of Birdee.cowe'd like to present a case study of an intervention after redesign and migration. And we're rather pleased with the result.
What is Birdee.co?
Birdee offers a responsible investment solution. All the investment funds on offer are SRI-labeled (fight against global warming, reduction of social inequalities, promotion of a fair and sustainable economy). Where funds normally available to consumers are required to have a minimum SRI content, the funds in the Birdee offer are almost exclusively SRI, excluding polluting industries.
Find out more : Why choose SRI investment?
Agency initially approached for content marketing
Although ASSONANCE.agency is often called upon for SEO services, it's often through content marketing and content writing that the first contact is made.
Before we start developing new content, we make sure we have a stable foundation... and a reliable one! Of course, if every site were technically perfect, we certainly wouldn't have any work to do, and there's always room for improvement. However, the history of Birdee.co at the time of our first meeting encouraged us to propose a phase oftechnical audit. We felt this was essential before embarking on any new editorial projects. The rest was a matter ofoptimizing the schedule. It was a question of moving the editorial part forward in the background, so as to be ready to go online as soon as the technical fixes implemented.
Excerpts from the first points that encouraged us to study the site from a technical point of view.
Thetechnical audit led to the delivery of a backlog of technical corrections to be implemented. 23 technical optimization projects to correct errors and prevent further losses in SEO. In the process, we also improved a number of points relating to the user experience. Let's not forget that taking care of technical SEO is also important to ensurecontent accessibility for search engines (and users). It's out of the question for us to put the technical side completely aside. Even if you ask us, we're likely to keep bugging you on these subjects.
Preparing and deploying a content strategy
Unsurprisingly (if you know us), we first studied the existing situation to take stock of what could be optimized first and most cost-effectively for our customer. Classic elements included setting up Title and Meta descriptions adapted to our new strategy, and correcting or investigating everything we could.
At this point, it's essential to find out about the technologies used and their possibilities. Is it possible to set up a breadcrumb trail via a simple CMS configuration, or will this generate additional costs on the customer side due to the need for development? To maximize the profitability of our actions, we attach great importance to analyzing the feasibility of each point in order to prioritize actions.
Even if, in the best of all possible worlds, something might seem to be a priority for the beauty of content marketing... We sometimes have to adapt our schedules to take care of what's possible with the resources available. Life is like that: we don't always do what we want!
Keyword Research: detecting opportunities
By cross-referencing different sources of information to analyze and prioritize them, we have identified 19 major themes and 126 topics with traffic & conversion potential. These different axes have been classified to propose 5 different editorial projects. Each project has its own objective and role within the content strategy.
From a global point of view, we can identify 3 axes:
👋🏼 enrichment of existing, under-used pages,
⚙️ optimization of existing pages (technical and/or editorial),
📝 the creation of new content.
The roll-out of a dedicated glossary for first-time investors was one of the major themes of this newly-deployed strategy. The glossary offers several advantages. On the one hand, it enables us to make direct use of the customer's business knowledge, thus adding value and providing the best possible raw material. On the other hand, it's a very interesting editorial medium for providing quick, useful answers to web users. Especially for financial issues (YMYL)it's essential to reassure end customers or future end customers with relevant content.
The schedule was roughly as follows:
How about it? We want the results!
The recommended work on the site took place over the last quarter of 2021, then the new content began to be rolled out at the very end of 2021. We continued to progressively feed the site with new content and implement optimizations as needed.
Changes in site visibility and intervention periods
September 2022: Technical audit + Deployment of the first technical Quick Wins on the Birdee.co website.
October 2022: Completion of technical audit + Keyword Research and definition of content strategy.
November 2022 - December 2022: Deployment of technical patches.
November 2022 and crescendo: Integration of new content.
We have no regrets about implementing technical optimizations first. Because even though we gently began some semantic optimizations in the last quarter of 2022, the results were visible before any new pages appeared. Above all, our newly designed glossary was not available until late 2022-early 2023.
Of course, to achieve this result you also need a bit of know-how and tools. For our part, we use YourText.Guru for which we are certified, and we use our magical powers as Web editors to propose formats adapted to SEO.
Gradually, the new elements implemented and the development of content are bringing results in terms of traffic. Above all, we have been able to halt the decline in performance since the redesign in order to clean up the site and enable Birdee.co to continue its communication strategy to promote responsible investment.
Evolution of SEO performance from redesign to spring 2023
SEO performance over the last 12 months (to limit the distortion of the graph due to the scale.
SEO performance: spring 2023 vs. spring 2022 (dotted line)
Do we need the same strategy?
First of all... we've still got some work to do! An improvement in the click-through rate won't do us any harm. We still need to conquer new territories and try to gradually improve the experience on the site. It's all a question of timeand planningand prioritization... as with any project!
For the rest, you don't necessarily need a glossary on your site, blog articles or perhaps your pages are already splendid with perfect structured data markup. The famous adage "it depends" applies here.
The Web is all about combining skills and professions. How frustrating it would have been if we had immediately implemented a strong content strategy without a technical optimization phase! And how can we analyze or justify results that are completely skewed by technical factors when we're only entrusted with the editorial side?
Obviously, everyone has their own scope of action and expertise.
We also see it as our role as consultants to note any technical points that might influence our content marketing strategy. We don't work for the beauty of the gesture, but to help our customers sustainable growth.
