Microsoft Office Live is a group at Microsoft that operates three related domains that are separate from microsoft.com. Office Live’s Internet-based services are designed for individuals and small businesses to create websites or store and share documents online. Office Live is available in over 25 languages and has millions of users regularly accessing it for daily business needs.
“Optify has been a terrific partner for us in providing the expertise, software tools and guidance to improve our SEO performance. The numbers speak for themselves.”
Office Live Challenges
When Office Live approached Optify, the unit was ranking in the top 25 in search engines for branded keywords like “Office Live”, but was behind the competition for generic solution keywords they wanted to rank for, like “free website.” In order to promote the service, Office Live was spending more than $100,000 on pay-per-click keyword ads every month. The partnership between Office Live and Optify set two simple goals: (1) increase the volume of organic (or unpaid) search traffic and, (2) increase sign ups for Office Live services. Office Live also had a specific and measurable goal: be listed in the top ten listings on Google when searched under the keyword “free website.” At the outset, ranking for that keyword search was not in the top 100.
Optify Solutions
Optify provided a comprehensive SEO solution suite with which aided Office Live’s analysis, content adjustment and link modification strategy. Optify conducted a keyword analysis and site audit which resulted in Office Live adding new content and optimizing pages on its website for specific target keywords. Optify also discovered thousands of un-optimized inbound links from business development partnerships and assisted with modifying the directory structure of the URLs to expand the number of pages indexed by search engines worldwide.
The analysis, content adjustment and link modifications were made using, (1) Optify’s Keyword application which organizes and tracks ranking of focus keywords, (2) Optify’s Page Optimization application which applies on-site SEO best practices on an element-by-element and page-by-page basis to improve the keyword signals sent to search engines, and (3) Optify’s Link Analysis and recommendation engine for identifying opportunities to add more and higher quality inbound links. Office Live also used the Optify Reporting application to provide on-going tracking and reporting of on-site and key SEO metrics.
Results
Optify’s partnership with Office Live is an on-going process, but early results were strong and have sustained. Within five months, Office Live was ranked in the top ten on Google for the highly competitive term “free website.” Within six months, Office Live had reduced spend on keyword pay per click advertising by 95% while increasing traffic from organic search keywords by 94% while conversions from organic traffic increased by 169%. Over thirteen months, the improvement in organic keyword traffic was 189% while the increase in conversions from organic keywords was 214%.
In addition to dramatic improvements in rankings, organic keyword traffic and conversion Optify worked with the Office Live marketing, site management and editorial teams to incorporate SEO best practices into their site development and content creation process.
-
About this customer
Microsoft Office Live is a group at Microsoft that operates three related domains that are separate from microsoft.com. Office Live’s Internet-based services are designed for individuals and small businesses to create websites or store and share documents online.
-
Challenges
- Keyword Ranking
- Organic Search Traffic
- Conversion Rate
-
Solutions
- Site Audit
- Page Optimization
- Link Analysis
- Reporting Application
