Pebble Indexing Strategy
170% increase in organic traffic YoY
CTR increased 26% YoY
The Client:
Pebble, a booking platform and marketplace for finding activities for kids online, is revolutionising the childcare and activities space, making it easier for parents to book ad hoc childcare and find activities in their area.
They’ve created booking software for children’s activity providers, nurseries and childcare providers that makes it easy to advertise their activities online, reducing the hassle of admin. They’ve also created a platform for parents to easily discover activities for kids in their local area, giving parents a one-stop place to search for activities, classes and childcare.
The Background:
When we started working with Pebble they had seen some good improvement YOY for organic traffic. However, we could see that this traffic was starting to stagnate and even drop as when compared against the previous quarter, there was a decrease in traffic. The drop wasn’t massive but it was telling that the previous quarter they were comparing against included Christmas, which is a natural seasonal lull for them due to a drop in demand. So we could see that they were struggling to grow organic traffic, despite huge organic opportunity.
This wasn’t an issue with their brand demand, as traffic coming through from brand keywords was increasing. The issue was with generic traffic and, ultimately, the previous approach to growing generic traffic.
The Challenge:
They had created blogs to target terms such as “gymnastics class for kids” or “dance class for kids” etc. These blogs would tackle questions such as what to bring to a gymnastics class, and what age is a good age to start going to gymnastics. This is really valuable content, but it would rank well for a short period of time before dropping off. When you search online for “gymnastics class for kids”, you’ll see local classes offering gymnastics classes. You’re very unlikely to see a blog about gymnastics classes for kids. And so, despite having some great content, they hadn’t catered to the search intent behind the term. What they were seeing was a temporary increase in traffic before dropping and then another increase before another drop. This undulation in traffic was caused when one blog would rank and then drop off, then another blog would rank and again drop off.
The problem is that people searching for “gymnastics class for kids” are generally looking to book gymnastics classes for kids near them rather than learn about them.
The Strategy:
Build a scalable solution for creating indexable activity listing pages.
We realised that a completely different type of content was needed in order to rank for terms like this. Pebble had search pages which would show people activities in their area, but these pages weren’t indexable and there were no controls on how many URLs would be generated.
We realised that an indexing strategy was needed to index and optimise some of these pages, based on where there was demand.
We ended up creating indexable pages by location, where there was demand and enough activities to create a strong page. For example, we created an indexable activities listing page (ALP, think PLP but for activities) for “activities for kids in Camden”, which had an optimised H1, ALP text, activity cards and a map to show people where the activities were. This page type allowed them to rank well consistently when people are searching for activities for kids in their local area. We also indexed and optimised the activity pages and the supplier pages, which also had demand behind them but weren’t previously discoverable by Google.
The Results:
As a result, since we started working with them, Pebble’s YOY engaged sessions increased by 170% and we’ve only just gotten started, having launched this project in October.
170% increase in organic traffic
26% increase in CTR
Testimonial:
"Emma's SEO expertise has been invaluable for Pebble. Her strategic approach helped us optimise page indexing and significantly improve our search engine rankings. Emma's dedication and deep knowledge of best practices is remarkable. I'd definitely recommend her SEO skills for any business looking to boost their digital presence." - Sonia, Head of Growth, Pebble.