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#smarterworkspaces
The SEO work optimised the website thoroughly and made the most of Woodhouse’s #smarterworkspaces initiative and wider marketing drive, giving the content a clear idea to rank around.
Case studies · Property & built environment
Property and built environment: high value leads from search
Three businesses with very different briefs: an office design and fit-out firm up against London's best known names, a mixed-use development that needed tenants and residents, and a global construction consultancy with a lot of expertise to organise.
01 / Office design & fit-out
Woodhouse Workspace
Woodhouse is a renowned Cat A and Cat B office design and fit-out firm based in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Its projects include workspaces for Dr. Martens in Camden, easyJet at London Luton Airport, DHL, Ocado, Groupe Renault, Maersk, Global Radio, Hollywood Bowl Group and Entain.
I worked on the account from around 2013 to 2017, while at the agency I was with at the time, covering SEO across the website and Google Ads promoting the design and fit-out services to their core UK regions.
- Period
- 2013 to 2017
- Channels
- SEO, Google Ads
- Tools
- Lead Forensics, Hotjar, Semrush
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A tightly refined ads account
Campaigns were built around design and fit-out terms. On phrase match, related searches were watched closely, and a highly populated negative keyword list was kept on top of the extensive list loaded before the ads went live.
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Standing out in a crowd
A competitive space, with established London design and fit-out firms such as Oktra, Loop Interiors and Morgan Lovell bidding on the same terms, so the ads had to stand out rather than simply appear.
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Getting smart with tools
Lead Forensics showed which B2B companies the ads were bringing to the site, supported by Hotjar and Semrush. The sales team followed up on those leads, including a very high value project in Gerrards Cross that came through Google Ads.
The result
On a Google Ads budget of a couple of thousand pounds a month, one signed agreement was guaranteed to be worth a few hundred thousand pounds in revenue to Woodhouse.
“Owain is a very proficient digital marketing specialist and helped my marketing strategy no end.”
Director, Woodhouse Workspace
02 / Mixed-use development
General Projects, Greenland Place
A purposely shorter term project over eight months, with great results. The brief was to build awareness among entrepreneurs and existing businesses to let the commercial space at Greenland Place, and to attract residents to the new build flats in the Canada Water area.
Working with the team at General Projects was great.
- Duration
- 8 months
- Channels
- SEO, Google Ads
- Platform
- Squarespace
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SEO on Squarespace
Content written by me and meta optimisations across the Squarespace site delivered strong organic results.
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Google Ads
Search and Demand Gen campaigns within Google Ads built awareness in specific London postcodes, reaching people living nearby, within a reasonable commute, or in the areas people would realistically move from.
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Occupancy up
Enquiries had not been coming in before the campaigns ran. Once they were live, occupancy levels shot up.
03 / Construction & property consultancy
Gleeds
Gleeds has been independent since 1875 and has grown into a global property and construction consultancy, with around 80 offices in more than 28 countries across six continents. Its projects include 40 Leadenhall in the City of London, One Nine Elms and Birmingham's Beorma Tower.
This was a short term project to optimise the website from an SEO standpoint. An enjoyable one, with a very impressive firm and a great story to tell.
Splitting expertise into dedicated areas
A firm with this breadth risks one generic page trying to rank for everything. The SEO work separated the expertise into dedicated areas, so each service and each sector has a page that answers the searches made for it.
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Services
Disciplines such as cost management, project management and building surveying each given their own dedicated page.
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Sectors
Sector expertise, from commercial and residential to healthcare and education, set out so clients find the experience relevant to them.
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The story
A 150 year history and a global office network used as proof of standing, not left buried in an about page.
Next step
Work in commercial property?
Long sales cycles, a handful of high value deals a year and larger competitors outbidding you on the obvious terms. The answer is tighter targeting, a disciplined negative keyword list and tracking that shows which companies are actually visiting, so your sales team follows up the leads worth having.
A thirty minute call is usually enough to see whether search can do that for you.