Back to the October 2005 issue.

G & H Sports – An Ecommerce Story

(by Peter Bohenek, President)

G&H Sports is a unique business specializing in clothing and accessories for running, cycling, swimming, and equestrian disciplines in all types of weather conditions. Located in San Luis Obispo, California, G & H has a physical retail store location and an ecommerce website through which they offer their complete inventory of sports clothing and equipment.

G & H came to Rhythm Interactive in need of marketing services related to their online presence. After a thorough review of their website, Rhythm Interactive recommended site level improvements and the implementation of organic search marketing.

The site level improvements involved the optimization of the navigational system, making it easier for viewers to find specific products of interest. First Rhythm Interactive reviewed the path of travel from the home page into all product-related sections of the site. Category landing pages were reviewed for proper content and text headlines, and all product pages were examined for proper functionality. During this process, broken links were corrected, several content areas were rewritten, and the navigational system was reengineered and reprogrammed. Overall the site went through a minor overhaul to ensure the highest site usability to best support ecommerce sales.

The second step was the implementation of Organic Search Marketing. Rhythm Interactive worked with G & H to develop a preliminary list of keywords based on product line, target market and several other factors related to sales goals and objectives. Rhythm Interactive then spent several days researching the list both to confirm the selections and to identify other keywords that should be considered. A final keyword list was developed and submitted for final client approval.

Rhythm Interactive then optimized G & H’s website using its proprietary optimization formulas. In addition, file paths displayed in the address bar were reworked so that plain English was shown rather than database query code. After complete implementation Rhythm Interactive began to monitor the results.

Within 6 weeks, the website had been indexed by major search engines such as Yahoo, MSN, and Google. The results were astounding. Within four months, G & H website rankings included 38 number one (1) rankings, eighty-nine (89) rankings in the top 10, and site traffic had more than doubled. The best success came from web-based sales, which showed a significant increase during the same time period.

Please visit G & H Sports at ghsports.com.





Statistics Corner

Online advertising revenue for the first six months of 2005 hit $5.8 billion, a new record, and resulting in a 26 percent increase over the same period in 2004.

The paid local search advertising market is predicted to triple in 2006 to $907 million.

Ecommerce is predicted to experience a 14 percent compound annual growth rate over the next 5 years.

Online sales are predicted to top $100 billion for the first time by the end of 2005.

31 percent of online adults paid for content over the Internet. This is an increase of 5 percentage points from last year and is predicted to be a growing trend.

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