Internet Marketing : In The Swim
The Opportunity
A classic American success story, In The Swim began in 1982 as a husband and wife team selling pool supplies from their garage. With the advent of the Internet, their business took off. Now, they are America’s number one direct source for pool supplies.
Success online didn’t come without a dedicated effort, however. When In The Swim first approached VKI Studios in April, 2004, they were being battered by competitors for popular key phrases like “pool supplies”, and no longer appeared on the first page of Google search results. They knew that to retain market leadership, they had to firmly establish themselves on the first page of Google search results.
The Solution
Our first step was to conduct exhaustive industry research, to determine the actual keyword phrases potential customers entered into search engines when shopping for the types of products the client carries. Due to the broad selection of products offered, and different terminologies used by different shoppers, this research was a massive undertaking. In the end, we identified over 400 keyword phrases that could help drive traffic to the site.
The next step was to optimize the website’s title tags, based on the keyword research. VKI optimized all pages in the top three levels of the site’s navigation. For pages beyond the top three levels (for example, the individual product pages) VKI supplied the client with detailed guidelines as to how they themselves could optimize the title tags for existing and future products.
VKI then developed a marketing website, LearnAboutPools.com. This site is a customer information resource on all matters relating to swimming pools. Its marketing purpose was to drive targeting traffic to InTheSwim.com, which it accomplished with hundreds of links.
Finally, VKI provided ongoing reporting and consulting services to the client.
The Results
With three months of implementing their SEO campaign, In The Swim was back on the first page of Google – as well as Yahoo and MSN – for the key phrase, “pool supplies”. They were also ranking well for other important search terms, such as “pool accessories” that they did not rank well for in the past.
| Key Phrase | Before (April 2004) |
After (July 2006) |
|---|---|---|
| "pool supplies" | 14 |
4 |
| "automatic pool cleaner" | 12 |
4 |
| "chlorine tablets" | 8 |
1 |
| "pool accessories" | 17 |
2 |
