Business Overview
James Agency, established in 2005 as edwardjames, is a creative agency specializing in marketing and property development. With over 20 years of experience, the agency rebranded in 2019 to James Agency, symbolizing a shift in their working style and client offerings. Under the leadership of James Dykes, a seasoned expert with over 25 years in the industry, James Agency continues to deliver innovative and effective creative solutions.
The Challenge
Despite having an exact match domain (https://james.agency/), James Agency faced a critical technical SEO issue: the website was not ranking for its own brand name “James Agency”. More alarmingly, the site was not appearing in the top 100 search results for brand-related queries, even though it was indexed by search engines. This issue was severely impacting the agency’s online visibility and potential client acquisition.
The root causes of this problem were identified as:
- TLD Confusion: The “.agency” top-level domain (TLD) was confusing Google’s algorithms, making it difficult for the search engine to determine the actual business name.
- Problematic Schema Implementation: The existing schema markup, implemented through the Yoast SEO plugin, was potentially harming the website’s search performance instead of improving it.
Strategy Implementation
To address the challenges, we implemented the following strategies:
- SEO Plugin Transition:
– Switched from Yoast SEO to Rank Math, an advanced SEO plugin offering superior control over on-page SEO settings.
– This transition allowed for more effective optimization and leveraging of advanced features such as improved schema markup and enhanced keyword optimization.
- Advanced Custom Schema Implementation:
– Manually implemented advanced custom schema markup across the website.
– Focused on clear and accurate representation of the business entity, its services, and local information.
– Ensured the schema explicitly defined “James Agency” as the business name to eliminate any confusion caused by the TLD. - Citation Building on Top Authority Websites:
– Built high-quality citations on authoritative websites.
– Emphasized consistent use of “James Agency” as the business name across all citations.
– This strategy helped reinforce the brand name and improve the website’s credibility in search engines’ eyes. - Internal Linking and Meta Optimization:
– Optimized the internal linking structure using brand-specific anchor texts.
– Revised meta titles and descriptions to prominently feature “James Agency”, ensuring clear brand representation in search results.
Results
The implementation of these strategies led to significant improvements:
- Brand Visibility: The website now ranks #1 for the brand term “James Agency”, solving the primary issue.
- Improved Search Engine Understanding: The custom schema markup and consistent branding across citations helped search engines correctly identify and categorize the business.
- *Enhanced Overall SEO Performance: The transition to Rank Math and the optimization of on-page elements led to improved visibility for other relevant search queries.
Conclusion
This case study highlights the importance of addressing technical SEO issues, especially for businesses with non-traditional domain extensions. By implementing a tailored strategy focusing on clear brand representation through schema markup, citations, and on-page optimization, we successfully resolved James Agency’s critical visibility issue. This underscores the need for businesses to regularly audit their technical SEO setup and adapt to the evolving search engine landscape.