Sands Whitewater & Scenic River Trips SEO Case Study

Overview
Sands Whitewater is one of the largest rafting companies in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and has taken tens of thousands of rafters safely down the Snake River. Sands recently celebrated their fifth decade in service and is one of the most seasoned rafting companies on the Snake today.

Sands Whitewater was intent on increasing organic traffic to their website with the end goal of significantly boosting visibility for top keywords, driving qualified traffic and generating online reservations using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies. Formic was challenged with researching the competitive landscape, crafting SEO recommendations and generating an increase in visibility, traffic and sales. A comprehensive research phase laid the groundwork for the successful launch of Sands Whitewater's highly visible, search friendly website in April 2010.

Objective
Formic's objective was to research, plan and launch Sands' SEO strategy to deliver an increase in organic visibility, qualified traffic to the website and generate online reservations.

Challenge
Initial website design limitations hindered the potential for organic visibility. As part of the Research phase, Formic performed Site Performance and Site Optimization Audits & Plans to recommend improvements to the searchability and functionality of the Sands website.

Strategy
Formic's SEO strategy focused on competitive research, visibility benchmarking and tactical recommendations which were implemented by Sands Whitewater to effectively capture a wider more qualified audience through enhanced keyword visibility that would in turn generate online reservations.

Results
By executing a comprehensive SEO strategy complete with keyword research, competitive benchmarking and customized site optimization recommendations; Formic was able to produce the following SEO results for Sands Whitewater in just three months:

• 72% increase in organic website traffic from month 1 to month 3
• Organic traffic achieved the lowest bounce rate across all traffic mediums with 23.21% after three months
• Post website redesign, organic traffic delivered qualified visitors who viewed 16% more pages per visit (on avg.) and spent 20% more time on site (on avg.)

URL
Sands Whitewater & Scenic River Trips