NSO Landing Pages, Long tail search optimization

Customers searching very specific products did not necessarily think CustomInk first for their custom products.  Landing pages with content that spoke directly to the search term had higher conversion to website and checkout. The business also thrived on being the first search result when people were looking for “custom t-shirts”. By expanding the presence of CustomInk landing pages to cater to specific search terms, for example: “ Youth Girls Soccer Hoodies” those pages could capture more qualified customers, and increase the NSO/SEO presence of the company at the same time.

GOAL: Design a landing page system that could be adapted to any search term, and publish 1000+ pages

• Design landing page template that easily adaptable to all types of groups and messaging.

• Create production processes to ensure quick turn around for deployment of pages via CMS.

• Ensure Lifestyle and Product imagery is available and easily editable for production.

• Create design templates that can be easily edited to speak to all types of customers.

RESEARCH & PROCESS

It was understood from past projects that customers convert best when there is a product image and a lifestyle image expressing the value of the item and the emotion of the customer group. Customers could relate to the group seen in the photo, and having a specific product with a design that spoke to their need gave them confidence that they were purchasing from a reputable company.

So, we therefore needed 3 assets per page to best speak to the customer. A lifestyle image showing a group with the product, a product image that highlighted the specific product we offered, and a catered design on that product image that directly illustrated their search term.

I designed a modular header that would highlight these visual assets, while also elevating the specific copy that was searched. The aim was to have a layout that could be easily created by front-end developers, and work at all break points. Then a template would be created, and simply edited to include the catered imagery and copy.

The SEO team compiled a list of long tail search terms relevant to the business, and ranked them from most valuable to least. I reviewed that data looking for common themes and products, and then I reviewed our existing assets to see where the gaps in our photography and design would prevent us from making our goal.

Knowing we had limited resources, and time to execute the goal of 1000+ pages, we needed an efficient way to create imagery that would speak directly the search terms. We had a large library of existing lifestyle imagery that could be cropped and edited quickly, but we needed product images and product designs to really illustrate that our company could make the custom product customer were searching for.

I partnered with the photographer to style and shoot product images that were focused on highlighting the product, allowing space for a design. I also created a handful of simple designs that could be quickly edited with a new clipart and targeted word to speak to the specific search term. These files were then prepped for an efficient production process allowing the design team to work as quickly as possible.

FINAL DESIGN

The final design had to meet the needs of all stakeholders: SEO, Brand, and UX/Engineering. The teams often had conflicting priorities, but a thoughtful explanation of my design choices at both desktop and mobile breakpoints, allowed the Brand team and UX to feel supported in their goals for the project.
A valuable user experience that elevated brand awareness, and allowed the SEO team to gain more valuable traction in search results.

By focusing attention on how the design team would create and share assets for publication, and what the developers needs were - I was able create direction a team of production artists to build out assets weekly at a pace that was faster than expected. We easily reach our goal of 1000+ within a few months. The project was a success, driving more qualified customers to the purchasing funnel. It improved ranking of the company’s search results for niche groups and established the company as a go-to place for custom products.