A case of mistaken identity
Here’s how we improved average rankings from position 15.9 to 2.8 across 36 agreed keyword targets in a matter of months and watched traffic climb.
The problem
Synergy Physiotherapy are a team of chartered physiotherapists, specialising in physiotherapy and sports injury rehabilitation and massage. They contacted us in 2015 and switched SEO providers after becoming frustrated with lack of improvement in their rankings and traffic.
Website audit
The first thing we did was a website audit, including a review of their visibility in Google and also their online competition. The audit threw up some critical and classic issues not understood by their previous SEO consultant.
Issue 1: mirror website
The most obvious issue was that they had two websites which were almost identical. One was hosted on www.synergyphysio.co.uk and the other on www.physiowoking.co.uk. They were both appearing in Google but not very prominently. They were of course a classic case of duplicate content and they were competing with each other.
Issue 2: customer confusion
Related to issue 1 above, is that their customers were probably confused by their identity and why they had two websites. Was this business called Synergy Physiotherapy, was it called Physio Woking or were these, in fact, two different businesses? You can be sure that this lack of clarity about identity was also confusing Google which isn’t the best way to get in Google’s good books.
Issue 3: Google confusion
The Google My Business listing had the business name registered as Physio Woking. Further confusion. This time, it’s not just the customers who are confused. Google doesn’t understand this business’ identity. And when Google doesn’t understand a business because of inconsistent data on the web about that business, Google can’t trust that business as much so won’t show it as prominently in its search results.
Issue 4: NAP data inconsistency
Consistency of NAP (Name, Address, Phone) data is one of the most important Local SEO ranking factors, especially for appearing in Google’s local pack. The local pack is the group of up to 3 businesses which often appears at the top of the free search results together with a map, map markers and links to website and driving directions.
The name of the business existed in many forms both on their own websites and also on other 3rd party sites on the web that had picked up their NAP data.
Synergy Physio & Rehab
Synergy Physio & Rehabilitation
Synergy Physiotherapy
Synergy Physio
Physio Woking
All in all, a veritable identity crisis!
Our approach
We knew we had to sort out the mirror site and then the rest of the identity problem which entailed the following:
1. Using 301 redirects on a page by page basis to redirect from the mirror site to the main site. This consolidated the ranking and indexation properties of both sites and eliminated one of the main sources of confusion at the same time.
2. Renaming and optimising the Google My Business listing.
3. Correcting any incorrect citations for this business out there on the web.
4. Embarking on a programme of acquiring further citations.
Additional location
Things were going so well for the business that they opened another practice in Egham to complement the existing one in Woking. We set up their Google My Business listing for the new office and also embarked on a citation campaign for it. The Egham practice started to appear in the local pack almost straightaway and we quickly achieved first in the local pack and also first in the organic results.
Local pack results
At the last test, Google showed 27 local packs for the 36 agreed keyword targets and Synergy Physiotherapy appeared in 17 out of those 27 local packs. We also track separately all those website visits arising from the local pack as distinct from organic results.
When we first started, we expected to achieve page 1 positions for “service + town” type searches like physiotherapists in Woking quite quickly but we also found we were able to achieve page 1 organic and also local pack positions for much wider “service + county” type searches like physiotherapists in Surrey which was very gratifying.
Quote from the business owner:
“Ewan at Adjuice has been helping me with our company’s SEO since 2015 when I switched over to working with him. From the start he did a complete audit of my site and we came up with a plan of how we would build our presence and rankings. He has offered me some great advice and has been able to isolate the key areas where we can make large improvements. Each month I get a report with suggested improvements which are quick and easy for me to implement. Since bringing Ewan onboard our traffic has improved markedly and I know it will continue to do so.” – Godfrey Critien.
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