Testimonials and Case Studies

“For every dollar invested in Yellow Pages, we get a return of $1.92. TV returns $2.48 per $1 invested, and for every dollar invested in Internet Marketing (with WCR), we get a return of $24.83!”
Alan Carol, Manager, Perth 2008 (www.bamboozle.com.au)

“Charles and Eran are totally switched on operators, from the beginning they took the time to learn and understand our business which is one of the keys to creating a successful campaign.   They have spent more time on our campaigns than any other company we have ever used, and we cannot speak highly enough of their services.”
Jill Kammer, CEO, Rome Italy (www.italy-accom.com)

“Since the launch of our new CMS website, Charles and Eran have managed all aspects of web marketing, including our SEO work.  Our business, being in Travel is highly competitive and they have never made promises to us that cannot be fulfilled, but have however always given us cautious and realistic targets which is not what what we have previously experienced with other SEO companies  we have used.”
Jill Kammer, CEO, Rome Italy (www.italy-accom.com)

Travel Industry Case Study

The Client: www.Italy-Accom.com
Italy-Accom.com are a specialist short-term accommodation agency based in Rome, offering over 500 apartments and villas for rent across Italy to holiday makers and business travellers. They offer a very popular alternative to booking a hotel for visitors to Italy's many popular tourist destinations.

The Challenge:

With over 5 years operating experience in the tough Italian accommodation market, Italy-Accom approached Clue Design to redevelop their websites and together with WCR as outsource partner to provide search engine marketing services. Italy-Accom had been using an Indian SEM provider followed by an Australian specialist firm in Melbourne, but we still loosing ground to an ever overcrowded and competitive market, particularly in organic Google. This placed an increasing burden on Google AdWords. While their sites were being rebuilt as SEO friendly and equiped with an SEO friendly CMS, Italy-aAcoom requesting help in managing their large spend Google AdWords PPC campaign, looking to increase the quality of bookings/sales enquiries and reduce cost-per-conversion.

The Results:

So far, we have reduced Italy-Accom's AdWords cost/per conversion by 26% (in an ever-increasing competitive market), while increasing the quality of booking enquiries. We were able to reduce the number of non paying enquiries/bookings made on their websites significantly with changes to page design and more accurate geo-targeting (and time scheduling) in Google AdWords, thereby saving operational time for staff.  When the recession hit, we were able to scale back expenditure proportionately and more-or-less run the system on auto-pilot during off season.  The considerable research data over 2 years in Paid media was fed back to the organic ranking campaign.  In the 6 months since July 2008, we were able to switch the organic versus paid visitor percentage from around 35/65% to a more balanced one of 55/45%. With over 10,000 keyword phrases now ranking somewhere in the first 3 pages of Google et al, left or right, it is quite a quite a buzz!

Looking Forward:

While Google AdWords is a great tool for Italy-Accom and brings in a significant number of new clients every day, we are working closely with them to broaden their marketing channels so as to not have all their eggs in one basket. This of course also includes more SEO efforts and the constant synergy adjustments between marketing channels.  Furthermore, we now are spending more time listening to the global market conversation and contributing to the the conversation, through blogs, social networks and the like.

Choosing Your Internet Marketer

Choosing a provider for Search Engine Marketing ( SEO or PPC advertising management) can be a very important decision for your business. Get it right and the ROI effects could be business-transforming, although we hasten to add that results vary greatly between industries. Get it wrong and you might as well have gambled your search marketing budget at the casino.

For business consumers, search marketing is a highly-specialised and complicated field so it can be difficult sorting through the various sales pitches.  So here is a little help with the basics:

• Shop on return on investment (ROI). If you opt for the cheapest possible quote, then you will probably get what you pay for. Achieving good search results in competitive fields requires a lot of work by the SEO firm and costs are reflected in quotes. You should assess the cost of the service against the potential long-term ROI for your business. A cheap service that delivers nil ROI is a poor marketing investment.
• Measure the results over the long term. Search marketing – and SEO especially – should be a long-term investment. That means a minimum timeframe of 12 months to see good rankings for new websites and less for established ones. Be aware that good organic rankings may be hard to achieve in competitive industries. But good search rankings frequently remain for years after they have been first achieved. In other words, your return on SEO is being earned over years not weeks or months. Other advertising forms are one hit wonders – once you stop advertising, there is no ongoing ROI. Natural search traffic is ongoing.
• Don’t expect ranking “guarantees”. No honest SEO company can possibly guarantee you #1 in Google rankings for a given keyword. The only people capable of guaranteeing you a #1 organic ranking is Google themselves. Their search positions are not for sale. Google’s website says it plainly: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google”. If you’re speaking to a firm that does offer a SEO guarantee, ask a lot of questions about that guarantee or simply walk away.