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Gevril and Haurex Italia dinner during Baselworld in March 2011 with Larry Brauner standing in the background.
Baselworld 2013 is taking place April 25 to May 2 in Basel, Switzerland.
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Fascinating Social Media and SEO Case Study
Filed Under Case Studies, Facebook, Measurement and Tracking, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Search and Social, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Web Analytics, Web Marketing, Website Traffic
The four-day International Watch Fair on Facebook, which begins Tuesday, is a free Facebook page event that’s open to the watch industry, the media and the public. Several hundred will attend this unique event at which luxury, fashion and sporty watchmakers will display a wide variety of timepiece collections. You’re welcome to join me there.
The objective of this Facebook watch fair is to increase Gevril Group page membership and member engagement. Importantly, however, the fair is just one of many web-based strategies and techniques I’m using to build the company’s brand. My strategies include search engine optimization, social bookmarking, business networking and email campaigns, as well. It’s the synthesis and synergy of all these strategies that create an ever-growing buzz around the brand.
Since launching the Gevril Group website this past December, the company’s online presence has grown considerably. During the nine-month period since the launch, there were 53,128 visitors to the site and a healthy number of inquiries from consumers, job applicants, the trade and the media. At the same time, I’ve drawn conclusions I shall share with you.
Overall monthly visits grew from 2,221 in December to 8,572 in August as illustrated below:
| Gevril Group Website Visits Months 1-9 - All Traffic |
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| Click to Enlarge |
Initially, there was substantial traffic from social media, particularly StumbleUpon. However, during the nine month period, social media traffic failed to increase:
| Gevril Group Months 1-9 - Social Media vs. Non-Social Media Traffic |
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| Click to Enlarge |
Facebook traffic grew from 113 to 338 monthly, but while a remarkably useful networking tool, Facebook hasn’t yet become an important traffic source for Gevril Group:
| Gevril Group Months 1-9 - Facebook vs. Search StumbleUpon Traffic |
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| Click to Enlarge |
Unlike social media traffic, SEO traffic grew exponentially from 119 to 4,979 monthly and now accounts for 58% of all monthly visits:
| Gevril Group Months 1-9 - Search vs. Non-Search Traffic |
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| Click to Enlarge |
Search traffic for Gevril Group related keywords grew from 51 to 343 monthly as the company became better known. However, search traffic for other keywords grew much faster from 68 to 4,636 thanks to the ongoing addition of rich content to the website:
| Gevril Group Months 1-9 - Gevril Group vs. Non-Gevril Group Search Traffic |
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| Click to Enlarge |
Since the inception of the Gevril Group website, 19,591 visits were from SEO; 16,894 from social media; 8,548 from browser bookmarks, links in emails, typed in URLs and untraceable social media; 8,095 from referrals from other non-social websites:
| Gevril Group Months 1-9 - Traffic Types |
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| Click to Enlarge |
These data are consistent with something I’ve known for a long time. The greatest source of website traffic is search engines, and if a site’s pages are optimized for relevant keywords, search visitors will find those pages’ content relevant. Social media helps to build and solidify relationships, but SEO will attract more traffic in the long run.
Hope you’ll join me at the International Watch Fair on Facebook this week. 
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6 Responses to “Fascinating Social Media and SEO Case Study”
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Interesting! Your traffic results show why we should utilize more than one method for gaining traffic and branding. Thanks for sharing.
Wow. You have had super success and you have the analytics to show it.
Outstanding analysis, Larry! I plan to include your results at my next SEO workshop. Great stuff!
Kudos for coming up with such a brilliant plan! For some reason, even the veteran brand specialists haven’t really ventured into free events. It’s surely less costly and still highly targeted.
Social media traffic can be hard to get; have you added a blog to the site as well? Great job in increasing the SEO traffic; it’s the main reason I keep saying that content is really what helps sites get better rankings as they push forward.
These are fascinating! I was impressed with Gevril Group and Stumbleupon traffic! Thanks for sharing.