Case Study 5: OnlineSeats

"Page Traffic assisted Onlineseats in creating a new site and starting the business to establishing it in a market dominated by authority sites in record time. The client still maintains stable top rankings that continue to dominate page 1 for a range of most competitive terms. "

Situation

This project started as an idea, just an idea. There was no website, no mailing list, no launch pad.

The client wanted to set up a business in online ticketing, which was starting to look like a very promising industry in the US then. But given that there was no roadmap, everything had to be built ground up.

The project involved carrying out a market research, doing the competitive analysis, setting up a website and drive enough traffic and sales to make the business profitable. They mailed us, just like they mailed tens of others.

We didn't know what we will find, but we knew where to look. It was also the comprehensive and clear outline of our proposal and subsequent communications that helps us get the project.

Challenges

Setting up a new business in a new segment throws up unexpected challenges. There was no improved analytics or completion analysis tools in those days. So, a lot had to depend on solid strategy.

First of all, we had to build a website that was scalable and robust. Given that this was going to be a site that will see fresh additions of content, image and functionality on a daily basis.

Secondly, though the segment was not quite settled, there were a few big competitors who took an unfair share of the market. We had to have a strategy in place that could place our client in the big league real fast.

Thirdly, due to initial budget constraints, PPC was out of the question. This meant that we had to work on a brand new site and find ways of driving organic search rankings and traffic in less time.

Lastly, all the existing ticketing sites were exact replicas of each other. We had to create a differentiation to attract more visitors as well as to establish a long term brand identity.

Solution

On a project of this scale, implementation was going to be the deciding factor. A strategy on paper, no matter how brilliant, had to be executed right to deliver the results.

So to start with, we decided to develop the website on .net platform. It was stable, scalable and could be customized the way we wanted. Due to the extensive development schedule as well as the constant scaling up of the website, the client hired two full time developers who were working dedicatedly on his projects.

Once the site was complete, we quickly moved to the next step in implementing the strategy. MSN and Yahoo were established search engines but Google's rise was no longer a surprise. Rankings algorithms were clearly guided by content and links, though each search engine placed different amount of emphasis on each.

So, our strategy was to create content and links at a pace which was fast enough to deliver the rankings and avoid any penalty. While in terms of the task was simple, through extensive, it was content that posed a problem. There was no way we could add so much content on a ticketing site....unless we created unique descriptions of the events and artists that the client was selling the tickets for.

We had found the magic formula and it worked like one too. Soon, the client had five full time writers who created unique descriptions on a wide range of topics every day. The client loved it and so did the search engines.

It also made the site sticky. It soon became one of the most trusted and extensive resources for all sorts of information on artists, bands, sporting events, concerts and broadway shows. This had a direct and positive impact on the conversion and sales figures.

Within 6-8 months, we were on top of the search engine for the most competitive keywords. The client broke even and made his first profits within the first year itself.

Results

To sum up, Page Traffic assisted Onlineseats in achieving the following results:

* Establish business in a market dominated by authority sites in record time
* Stable top rankings that continue to dominate page 1 for a range of most competitive terms