Background:
After operating for 8 years as a relatively small, but well-known gay and lesbian directory, I felt QueerSeek.com was in need of a major make-over. Traffic was steady but growth had stagnated. New visitors made up a diminishing percentage of traffic and the site lacked any form of social interaction, or a way to engage and involve people.

The Challenge:
The first challenge was to rebrand the entire site to the shorter, catchier name of BQueer, and moving the entire site over to the new domain name while working carefully within the search engine policies to protect the existing listings, history and page ranks QueerSeek had managed to build over the years.

An additional challenge was to build loyalty into the site by adding interactive elements, fresh dynamic content and other reasons for people to bookmark BQueer and return. Options which were looked at included transforming QueerSeek into a Facebook-style “community”, but it already been done-to-death. There was also the factor that the site had always been a GLBT resource directory and while I no longer wanted the web links to be the primary focus, I wanted it to remain an important element.

Actions:
In the summer of 2008 the transition began. Utilizing 301 redirects and XML sitemaps Google quickly recognized that a domain change had occurred and within weeks new listings under the BQueer domain began to appear in the search results. Initially there was a drop in the Google Page Rank from 4 down to 2, but that rebounded up to 4 within 3-4 weeks. There was no visible drop in traffic during that time.

Once I knew the domain change was successful I focused on optimizing the new site by working on both on-site and off-site strategies.

The off-site strategy included link building and link exchanges with carefully selected sites, as well as creating a presence in the larger social networking sites. New content partnerships were forged, providing more dynamic and current content – such as the BQueer Career Center.

Social networking was also used to address the interactivity and visitor loyalty concern. The new Google Friends Connect interface was integrated, replacing the built-in comment and review system for both sites and store products pages. In order to post comments or reviews visitors must “join” BQueer through either their Google, Yahoo or AIM accounts. This feature is new on the site. I have also been testing the Facebook Connect API, which is a similar socialization tool to allow people who post comments on BQueer share those comment with their “friends”.

Off-site promotion and networking has also been done through LinkedIn and the IGLTA.

Results:
By the end of 2008 organic search engine traffic was building. The growth through the 1st quarter of 2009 has been nothing short of amazing!

BQueer Organic Google Traffic Growth 1st Quarter of 2009

The above graph is taken directly from Google Analytics, and other than the numbers in red being added, is otherwise unaltered.

Comparing March 2009 to October 2008:
- An increase in total visitors of 233%
- Page views increased by 207%
- Organic Google traffic rose by over 1030%
- 8383 March Google hits came from over 6900 different keywords
- Organic Yahoo traffic up 74%
- AOL search traffic increased 1400%

Summary:
This is a perfectly executed domain re-branding using 301 redirects and XML submissions, and also shows the effectiveness of my Themed Holistic approach to optimization. Rather than trying to target content to a short list of keywords, content was developed and meta-tags designed to rank for as wide a range of possible searches as possible.

This case shows the possible impact of a comprehensive marketing strategy which goes beyond basic SEO and looks beyond the narrow-minded “rankings is all that matters” approach to optimization and traffic development.