Denver marketing company Webolutions® completed a website redesign for the US Potato Board and launched the new desktop website and mobile website on December 28, 2013. On March 13, 2013, Webolutions Director of New Media Strategies Mike Hanbery delivered the performance results of the first two full months of the new website. It was Hanbery’s second consecutive appearance at the annual meeting, which is held at the Broadmoor Resort Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Webolutions started ongoing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts for PotatoGoodness.com in 2011 and achieved incremental improvements in keyword rank and website functionality. In 2012, efforts shifted to take advantage of Webolutions’ Enhanced WordPress Platform™, a component of the Denver marketing company’s Performance By Design™ approach.
Incorporating the existing SEO web design architecture achieved amazing immediate and drastic results, including:
• An 87 percent increase in unique visitors to the website.
• A dramatic increase in engagement as evidenced by a 114 percent increase in page views (approximately 300,000) and a 75 percent increase in time spent on the website (approximately six minutes) per visitor.
• A 38 percent increase in e-newsletter signups—a principal Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for the project.
The most dramatic improvement was seen with the mobile website, which showed a 370 percent increase in unique visitors over the same period in 2012.
The website features a leading-edge potato recipe search that enables users to rate, comment on and share recipes through Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and 340 additional social media networks. The recipes featured in the recipe database have achieved improved ranks, as have multiple pages on the website for targeted keywords including Google Page One rankings for short-tail terms such as cooking potatoes (60,500 searches per month, 53.6 million possible results) and potato types (165,000, 24.8 million).
Hanbery also reported to the Board that the redesign had reduced ongoing development budget needs by 25 percent and introduced the ability to easily conduct A/B and multivariate testing on the website. The website’s first A/B test is currently underway.
“A website of this size and scope requires a lot of client involvement,” said Hanbery, “and the US Potato Board should be commended for its inclusive approach and ambition. This is a wonderful partnership and we look forward to generating continuous improvement on the results achieved to date.”
