Florame Organic Aromatherapy: Boosting Search Rankings and User Engagement
In March 2007, Florame Organic Aromatherapy, a France-based company specializing in high-quality, purely organic aromatherapy products, sought our expertise to enhance their UK search engine presence. Despite offering premium products, their website was either non-existent in search rankings or buried so deep that potential customers rarely discovered it. Our challenge was to not only improve their SEO but also refine the user experience to increase sales.
Diagnosing the Key Issues
Upon investigating the website, we uncovered several critical issues that were negatively impacting both search engine rankings and user engagement. These problems needed to be addressed urgently to prevent missed opportunities for sales and brand growth.
- Poor Navigation: The site’s navigation system frequently overlapped content, making it difficult for users to distinguish between menu options and text.
- Cumbersome Menu Design: The dropdown navigation was inconsistent and unintuitive, often leading users to unintended pages or causing them to abandon the site.
- Misleading Shortcuts: A key tracking insight revealed that over 80% of homepage visitors clicked on the “Free” link (for free shipping on orders over £30), only to exit shortly afterward, highlighting a poor user journey.
Implementing Strategic SEO & UX Fixes
Although a full design overhaul was outside the project’s scope, we made targeted modifications that would directly improve SEO and user experience:
- Reworked the Menu System: We replaced the inaccessible navigation structure with a search-friendly and user-friendly alternative, ensuring search engines could crawl all pages effectively.
- Improved Page Layout: By applying structured styling, we visually separated menu options from content, making navigation clearer and enhancing accessibility.
- Refined the User Journey: We strategically adjusted the placement and language of shortcuts to guide users towards more relevant pages and increase conversions.
Enhancing the E-Commerce Platform
The website was built on OSCommerce, an open-source e-commerce system we had experience with. We implemented key modules to enhance its functionality:
- Encouraging Customer Purchases: We integrated proven modules designed to drive engagement and increase basket size.
- Expanding Market Reach: We connected the product catalog with Froogle (now Google Shopping), ensuring greater visibility in search results.
- Streamlining Checkout: We made backend adjustments to improve the purchase flow, reducing cart abandonment.
The Results: From Invisible to Dominating Search Results
The impact of our SEO and UX refinements was immediate. Florame’s website climbed from near-invisible rankings for “organic aromatherapy” to consistent 3rd/4th placements, with frequent appearances in 1st place for relevant terms.
Beyond these initial wins, Florame saw the value in ongoing improvements and signed up for a monthly service level agreement. This allowed us to:
- Continuously optimize the website in line with evolving SEO trends.
- Provide ongoing system support and technical enhancements.
- Expand search rankings for additional organic and aromatherapy-related terms.
Conclusion
By addressing both technical SEO shortcomings and user experience flaws, we successfully transformed Florame’s digital presence. Traffic steadily increased, and the brand established itself as a leader in organic aromatherapy within the UK market. This project demonstrated that even with a limited scope, strategic improvements can deliver substantial growth and visibility.
The team at The Site Doctor is professional, efficient, friendly and patient! They understand what’s required and just get on with it. No job is too much trouble for them which leaves us time to focus on the rest of the business.
Rocky Husain | Managing Director, Florame Organic Aromatherapy
