Are You OK Website SEO
SEO Success Story: Elevating the Are You OK Website
Somar Digital partnered with the Ministry of Social Development’s (MSD) Help Portal and Social Actions teams to enhance the SEO performance of the newly redesigned Are You OK website. This platform provides vital resources for individuals impacted by family violence in New Zealand and those supporting them.
With the goal of improving the website’s visibility and accessibility, Somar Digital implemented a comprehensive SEO strategy that addressed key pain points and optimised the site for maximum impact.
About the Are You OK Website
Are You OK is an essential resource developed to provide clear and accessible information for people experiencing or concerned about family violence in New Zealand. The website serves as a supportive hub for individuals seeking to understand their situation and find pathways to immediate help. It includes unique tools, such as the ‘Check it Out’ tool, allowing users to assess the safety of their relationships. To ensure inclusivity, the site is available in both English and te reo Māori and offers translated content for non-English speakers.
Key Challenges and Client Needs
During the initial discovery session, the MSD team outlined their needs, which included:
- Ongoing monthly SEO support.
- Strategies to increase keyword (KW) rankings and overall search visibility.
- Comprehensive analytics to understand user behaviour and track engagement with tools like the ‘Check it Out’ feature.
Pain points identified included surface-level analytics that did not provide deep insights, and the need for a robust keyword strategy to support the addition of new content.
Somar Digital provided a thorough SEO enhancement plan that focused on both technical and content-based strategies.
Recommendations and Implementation: Keyword Strategy and Content
New content was developed to cater to various communities, ensuring the website provided tailored support to diverse groups. This included pages like:
- Support for ethnic communities.
- Support for Pacific communities.
- Support for disabled people.
- Support for Takatāpui and Rainbow communities.
These pages were optimised with a focused keyword strategy to improve their discoverability in search engines.
Recommendations and Implementation: Technical SEO and Best Practices
Somar Digital’s developers collaborated closely to ensure SEO best practices were embedded throughout the site. Key technical implementations included:
- Schema markup to enhance search result visibility.
- Technical scans and fixes to address potential performance issues.
- Seamless integration of the English and te reo Māori versions of the site, supporting multilingual SEO.
Recommendations and Implementation: Analytics Implementation and Reporting
To provide MSD with deeper insights, Somar Digital implemented advanced analytics tracking and built interactive Looker Studio dashboards. Monthly reports were delivered to track performance metrics and user engagement, ensuring continuous improvement.
Outcomes
Two examples of significant improvements that Somar Digital’s SEO work led to include:
Domain Authority
The website’s Domain Authority (DA) score, a metric that predicts how well a site will rank on search engines, rose to 37.
This Domain Authority score solidifies its status as a trusted source of information in the family violence support space, reflecting its increased credibility and relevance to users and search engines alike.
Keyword Rankings
The site now ranks for 246 keywords in the top 10 of Google SERPs, a 423.4% increase from the previous 47 keywords.
Securing rankings in the top 10 is crucial, as these positions drive the majority of organic traffic and significantly boost visibility, ensuring the website reaches its intended audience effectively.