Project Overview
We’ve been collaborating with Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge in various capacities for nearly a decade. This time around, we were retained for ongoing WordPress management, as well as SEO services.
In 2023, we’ve seen significant growth in traffic generated from organic Google searches for MCI. Our success extends to original content creation; notably ranking for competitive national keywords in the top 2-5 positions of the search results.
During a 90-day period from late November 2021 to late February 2022, we observed a 23% increase in users when compared to the subsequent 90 days leading up to the end of May 2022. And while any traffic growth is encouraging, seasonal trends are typical for New England businesses that are climbing out of the colder months and welcoming summer tourists – so we continued pounding the pavement with content creation, anticipating more substantial results over a more prolonged period of time.
As we rolled into Q3 of 2022, our instincts proved correct:
PROJECT TYPE
WordPress management, SEO marketing, content creation
HIGHLIGHTS
Top 3 positioning for competitive national keywords
164% increase in user traffic YoY
168% increase in pageviews traffic YoY
148% growth in organic search traffic YoY
![maine coastal islands organic traffic increase growth yoy](https://seo.la/wp-content/uploads/elementor/thumbs/maine-coastal-islands-wildlife-refuge-organic-traffic-graph-qf3wcvpzf0svojlp09mm9kur7uyf4rtzi89wpk0w6s.png)
![maine coastal islands national wildlife refuge sem graph](https://seo.la/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/case-study-maine-coastal-islands-sem-results-all-time-growth-1024x298.png)
Organic traffic from Google searches started noticeably climbing in the fall of 2022.
When measuring the same 90 day periods one year later (late November 2022 through late February 2023 compared to late February 2023 through late May 2023) we observed a 60% surge in user growth, which is a 164% increase YoY.
Pageviews mirrored our user trend, exhibiting an increase in pageviews of 168% YoY when comparing the same time periods (60.76% compared to 23.01%):
![maine coastal islands wildlife refuge pageview growth graph](https://seo.la/wp-content/uploads/elementor/thumbs/maine-coastal-islands-wildlife-refuge-pageview-graph-qf3wgjbdztt0tyajnuidynnadsxt2eceoblvwalswg.png)
The SEO gains can largely be attributed to original content creation – typically in the form of educational blog content that’s relevant to the organization’s niche.
![maine coastal islands national wildlife refuge blog](https://seo.la/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/maine-coastal-islands-national-wildlife-refuge-blog-1024x585.jpg)
![maine coastal islands wildlife refuge blog](https://seo.la/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/seo-marketing-maine-coastal-islands-blog-v2-1024x585.png)
One of our more heavily trafficked pages is the direct result of organic Google traffic. For the keyword “puffin facts”, our blog post on the topic has consistently landed in the top 5 positions of the search results on an international level. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with big names like National Geographic and Wikipedia, this single keyword has been instrumental in driving thousands of organic visitors to MCI’s website.
![maine coastal islands seo results](https://seo.la/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/case-study-seo-results-maine-coastal-island-puffin-facts.jpg)
Organic Google search traffic increased exponentially, boasting 148% YoY growth (November 2021 – May 2022 versus November 2022 – May 2023).
![maine coastal islands organic google search growth graph](https://seo.la/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/maine-coastal-islands-organic-google-search-growth-2022-vs-2023.png)
![maine coastal islands traffic growth 2023 vs 2022 increase 148%](https://seo.la/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/case-study-maine-coastal-islands-traffic-growth-2022-vs-2023.png)
Google Search Console data gives a quick glimpse at our 2023 progress; highlighted by a 67% increase in organic search clicks over a six month period (1.99K over 1.19K):
![maine coastal islands google search console 2023 vs 2022 graph](https://seo.la/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/case-study-maine-coastal-islands-google-search-console-2023-vs-2022.png)