Better content leads to more visits, more sessions and a 655% increase in traffic

The Challenge

How do you optimize content effectively to deal with Google's own card results? 

The Met Office faces competition from sites like the BBC and Accuweather for key forecast affiliated queries and all of these brands are aiming to be the search result that appears in Google's Weather Box.

In light of such stiff competition, the Met Office needed a strategic solution to attract new users. Having worked with them on a number of projects aimed at broadening their audience base - including a social insights project that drew thousands more followers to the brand - we were keen to maintain our successful streak.

The solution

Rather than relying on the quality of their headline weather forecast information, we advised the Met Office to adopt a long tail content strategy to attract a wider base of people looking for more specific information. By focusing in on long tail search terms, assessing query demand and developing content around these themes, we predicted that a broader swathe of visitors would be attracted to the site. 

Areas of the site where the most gains could be found included ‘Holiday weather’ so we worked with the Met Office to implement content recommendations. 

The results

While there's still a long way to go to action out content recommendations, the first three months of the launched campaign yielded a 655% traffic increase compared to the previous year. During the same period, the Met Office saw an 781% increase in new users and 17% uplift in new sessions.

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