Commute.org - Search Portal Optimization Study

Bio

The Peninsula Traffic Congestion Relief Alliance ("Commute") is a joint powers authority of 15 cities in San Mateo County dedicated to addressing the challenges involved in getting to and from work in San Mateo County. The primary mission of the Alliance is to reduce the number of single occupant vehicles traveling to, through and in San Mateo County, while reducing vehicle emissions to improve the air quality.

Luscious Design & Research is a strategic communications firm with strong digital and print design capabilities.

Commute.org is to be an online destination site. In order to achieve this, Luscious collaborated with Spark Internet Marketing to deliver enhanced visitorship and viewership to Commute's website.

Internet Marketing Initiative

Commute's agency of record, Luscious Design and Research, re-developed the website for greater appeal, aesthetics, usability, and organization. Luscious Design and Research's greatest achievement for commute.org was to enhance its functionality.

As part of their re-development, Commute saw the need to further enhance its relevancy and site focus to capture consumers using search portals to find information on Commute's site. Commute quickly realized that the previous visitorship to their site was unfocused and not the target audience they were striving to serve.

Strategy and Execution

Through consultation with both Commute and Luscious Design and Research, Spark was engaged to deploy search engine optimization strategies to focus Commute.org for relevancy and to enhance its indexation by the search portals.

Spark carried out an online Marketing Analysis to determine how their target audience is using search portals to source out Commute's commuter and carpool information. Commute.org's information was then re-focused to adapt to their consumer's search behaviour and motivated interest. As part of a comprehensive program, technical enhancements were applied to Commute.org to ensure its full indexation by the search portals for relevant content.

Results

Spark, along with Commute and Luscious Design, measured the results of the search portal optimization through extensive web-analytics for Commute.org. After two full quarters of analysis, Commute's site visitorship showed a dramatic improvement when compared to a benchmark based on their previous site's performance. When compared to the old site, the people referred through the search portals were targeted and motivated as demonstrated in the search terms used to find Commute.org.

At the end of the first quarter, Commute enjoyed a modest 28% growth in overall unique visitors, a significant 57% growth in search-referred visitors, and a 20% growth in visitor sessions.

By the end of the second quarter, the results were far more dramatic and marked: 83% growth in unique site visitors, 149% increase in search referred visitors, and 80% climb in visitor sessions.

Commute enjoyed a significant return on investment in search portal optimization. Their site can now be easily found by online consumers, and meet their online mandate to deliver alternative commute information to the interested masses.

"Search engine traffic is very important for our small and medium-size business clients as they don' t have the brand recognition to attract shoppers of their own. Spark really impressed us with their knowledge of the search engine arena. In dealing with Spark, we have found their service to be professional, comprehensive, enlightening and responsive."

Nelson Ho
Art Director, Partner
Luscious Design + Research, Inc.,
San Francisco, CA