SEO Case Study The Ineffable SEO Strategy Performance: Look What We Made Us Do
Case #11111: Emptech; a powerful workforce management tech company and our beloved long-term client and partner.
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Warning: The Numbers May Shock You
Any SEO agency you hire will provide you with an SEO strategy (we guess), but how can you tell if it’ll bring you the ROI on SEO that you so yearn for or if it’s just another spreadsheet game (on your feeble heart)?
In a sell-sell-sell world full of buzzword promises of instant rankings and quick fixes, it’s hard to find a trustworthy SEO partner. This is why we’ll let you see us at work before we sell-sell-sell to you. (One might say we’re in our Reputation era.)
Organic Search Traffic
162%
Total Growth of The Top 10 Keyword Rankings
3980%
Total Growth of Sales Qualified Leads
195%
Monthly Value of Organic Traffic Acquisition
$61.1K
*We'll dive deeper into these figures later, breaking down how each milestone was achieved and the impact it had on Emptech’s business.
You’ve been warned.
In a strategic overhaul aimed at placing Emptech at the forefront of the workforce management industry, we implemented a comprehensive approach, combining an SEO and content strategy, a CRO strategy tailored to each service line, and incorporating UX and UI to tie it all together.
Let’s get into it!
About Emptech
Emptech was a trailblazing workforce management SaaS startup that excelled in technological solutions, data security, and customer relationships.
Despite being a small company competing with market giants such as Equifax (yeah, the ones who leaked your data), their client list held the household names of the tech world: Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, etc., and they managed to offer their clients tailor-made solutions while still hitting impressive profit margins.
Emptech’s problem lay in the fact that their online brand has been left behind in Y2K, with a non-converting Labyrinth of a website: their online presence didn’t match their tech advancement, and a $4k retainer with an SEO agency didn’t yield any results. Frustrating, right?
While with us, Emptech captured companies such as Facebook, Tesla, and many other Fortune 100 companies through their website and went on to sign them as their clients (and we like to think we had a little something to do with that).
In 2021, Emptech was acquired due to its modern appeal, fantastic software, and fascinating client list and became part of Experian Employer Services.
*THE* Goal
What Emptech wanted was a bold and palpable web presence that reflects their technology solutions. They wanted to get on board the digital marketing train (though we’re not digging this metaphor) and get a feasible ROI on their SEO and marketing investment.
We sat down with their team and set the following goals:
- Build a contemporary website built on great UX and SEO principles
- Create effective online conversion funnels for their service lines
- Establish brand awareness and thought leadership
- Get ahead of their competitors on SERP
Of course, we then dissected each of these items to set concrete, trackable goals (also known as SMART goals), but that’s not for everyone’s eyes, wink-wink.
And we decided to measure them through:
- Organic SEO performance
- Lead generation and conversion rate analysis
- Tangible ROI on SEO
We addressed this with a website redesign based on a comprehensive SEO and CRO strategy and then continued to implement, track, and optimize our efforts to fine-tune our performance (or to translate these buzzwords: we were actively engaged and always finding ways to be better). Let's break down the key components of our transformative SEO strategy, segment by segment.
How Did We Do With Organic Search Traffic Acquisition?
a.k.a. guess who was all the talk on Google!
Average YoY Growth of Users
162%
19x more users in 3 years
Average YoY Pageviews Growth
112%
9.5x more pageviews in 3 years
Total Growth of Organic Users
1.767%
A 3-year growth period
Total Growth of Organic Pageviews
855%
A 3-year growth period
Source: Google Analytics
Before our strategy, Emptech's SEO efforts, though existent, were falling short. The year 2018 was ground zero for us. Their website was generating some traffic, but most of it was direct traffic from existing users.
So how did we do this?
Building from the ground up, we created a comprehensive SEO strategy. We began with a complete website redesign to make it more intuitive, engaging, and aligned with the expectations of both search engines and users.
Our SEO strategy involved thorough keyword research, historical content optimization, major technical SEO improvements, and diligent high-quality content production; we implemented the semantic SEO principles, tested various approaches, followed Google’s best practices, and made most of our clients’ incredible industry knowledge and honest desire to help their target audience.
Our CRO strategy backed these efforts by ensuring a smooth user journey and maximizing the chances of conversion.
The data expressed in percentages is neither here nor there (what we mean by this is it’s easily manipulated), so let’s take a look at some actual numbers:
We launched the redesigned website in October 2018; this is how the number of users acquired through organic search channels grew year over year.
Even though we significantly cut the number of main web pages, scaling down from 7-10 pages per product line to only one, this is how our organic search pageviews acquisition progressed year over year.
The outcome of our SEO strategy wasn’t just a rise in traffic, but also an increase in meaningful engagement—turning visitors into leads, and leads into customers. Honestly—yay!
(Oh, and we also threw in a seamless rebranding, simplifying the logo and introducing a new color palette and a series of custom illustrations that reflected the brand more accurately, appealing to the target audience and creating a solid base for website accessibility. But—that’s a conversation for another time.)
When we started working on Emptech’s SEO, they had one very informative, educational, and well-performing blog post. And that was it. Their landing pages held useful information, but being split into 7 different pages per product, they were difficult to navigate and even more difficult to rank.
Their blog held a myriad of posts—a lot of them only serving as 200-word notices and updates, but a solid portion of them had good potential, however, they were outdated and lacked SEO optimization. Consequently, their keyword performance was underwhelming, reflecting the site's lack of clarity and value.
Our approach went way beyond standard content creation: we designed a deeply researched SEO strategy that encompassed:
- SEO-heavy landing pages that were written to rank and designed to be skimmable and easy on the eye,
- a detailed historical content optimization project within which we restored all the content on their website that showed signs of life,
- and a comprehensive new content strategy that was segmented by product lines and buyer personas, built on a topic cluster approach and backed by semantic SEO principles.
Featured Snippets
60
keywords
People Also Ask
348
keywords
Quality Backlinks
73
keywords
Source: SEMRush
We saw Emptech’s keywords rise, capturing top spots in search results where they previously had minimal presence. Targeting long-tail keywords through consistent content production pushed Emptech’s top sales keywords to the top of search engines. We saw extraordinary expansion in the number of top-ranking keywords, significant appearances in Google's Featured Snippets and 'People Also Ask' SERP features, and a noticeable increase in organic backlink generation.
Not to toot our own horn, but—ingenious, right?
Most Importantly: CRO Strategy & Lead Generation
Relax, we know you’ve been waiting for this one the whole time. Maybe you even skipped right to it. No hard feelings.
Emptech's previous website made it difficult (if not almost impossible) for users to find what they need and convert. It neglected Google’s E-E-A-T (or at that time, simply E-A-T) and lacked strategic form placement. Users were left with fragments of information and had no place to call home convert.
We implemented a Conversion Rate Optimization strategy through content and UX/UI: easy navigation, clear messaging, strategic button placement, no distractions, and straightforward conversion forms that seek just the right amount of information. Simply put: we cleared the path.
The sales cycle in the workforce management industry, especially on the enterprise level (where Emptech operated), lasts for up to two years, and once we captured a lead and nurtured it to the SQL level—the rest was (mainly) out of our control. So we tracked our performance by isolating the number of sales-qualified leads: the ones that were truly interested, able to pay, and fit the profile that Emptech wanted to pursue and add to their portfolio.
Many of these leads eventually became Emptech’s appreciated and satisfied clients and partners, making Emptech even more attractive to corporations looking to acquire startups.
Finally, Optimizing for Performance: Technical SEO
Did our beloved clients struggle with page speed? Why of course – it’s more common than a cold!
An outdated server combined with dozens of embedded YouTube videos and other unoptimized multimedia, not to mention the code itself, resulted in a whopping 22.5-second loading time (at this point, we weren’t even sure we could call it page speed). Adding a heavy page size and a large number of requests to this saw our client’s performance score beg for a passing grade.
Page speed is the main indicator of technical website performance, heavily influencing SEO results, user experience, and conversions (you read that right).
How Did We Fix Tech SEO Issues?
We did some damage control by changing the server, optimizing multimedia size, and implementing lazy loading techniques early on, and this got us a C. Not too shabby, but not enough for peaceful sleep either!
The true magic happened when we (and when I say we, I mean our dev team – I would never) rewrote the code and implemented UX/UI best practices and accessibility standards.
So, let’s take a look at the before and after of our technical SEO optimization:
Tech SEO Optimization Results
BEFORE
Tech SEO Optimization
Website Performance Score
E (50%)
Full Loaded Time
22.5s
Page Size
2.06MB
Number of Requests
209
AFTER
Tech SEO Optimization
Website Performance Score
A (100%)
Full Loaded Time
2.0s
Page Size
429kB
Number of Requests
18
If Zlurad were a person, it’d be the one to ask the teacher: “Just curious, is there an A+?” But we’re cool, we’re cool. Cool-cool-cool-cool.
A Sneak-Peek into The Core Web Vitals Post-Optimization
We can’t stress enough the importance of core web vitals—luckily, Google did it for us a couple of weeks ago when they officially announced that Core Web Vitals are, in fact, a ranking factor.
After performing a thorough technical SEO optimization, we kept diligently tracking our clients’ website performance to ensure we caught and fixed any issues right away, keeping the core web vitals stable. Maintenance, people!!
Let’s feast our eyes on these gorgeous numbers described as “nothing to do here” by GTMetrix (this means the world to us!):
emptech.com’s Core Web Vitals Post-Optimization
Speed Index
0-3.4s - fast
908ms
Largest Contentful Paint
0-2.5s - fast
883ms
Total Blocking Time
0-200ms - fast
0ms
First Contentful Paint
0–1.8s - fast
883ms
Cumulative Layout Shift
0-0.1 - good
0ms
Time to Interactive
0-3.8 - fast
883ms
Editor’s note: Your website sets expectations for your SaaS. Being a trailblazing tech company should be reflected in your website performance—build that credibility each step of the way!
But What Does Emptech Say about It All?
We knew you’d ask. And we couldn’t be happier to share our dear clients’ words.
Working with Zlurad was transformative for our organization. After working with numerous SEO and online marketing firms we began working with Zlurad. As a result of their hard work and dedication, we achieved a web presence that was cutting edge while surpassing the web traffic of our largest, most sophisticated industry competitors. A key factor to our success was the team's deep understanding of analytics, allowing us to meet our goals. We recognize Zlurad's team and the impact they had in the successful sale to a top 100 public company. I would absolutely recommend Zlurad!
Jeffrey Aleixo
former CEO and President
Emptech
(now part of EES)
"We have worked with Zlurad for many years on everything from business strategy, front end, design, and SEO. Everyone does a deep dive to understand all aspects of the business, competition, and has made decisions with our clients' best interests in mind. Excellent leadership and workflow always bring the best product forward. Zlurad helped us tremendously in growing our business at a critical time and went above and beyond to assist in our sale and acquisition. Highly recommended.”
John Morris
CTO
Emptech
Cherry-Picked SEO Solutions, Not Cookie-Cutter Fixes
Don’t know about you, but we sure do love our food puns.
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