Snyder's Antique Auto Case Study

Natural Search Engine Optimization Case Study

Services: E-Commerce, Search Engine Optimization, Customer Conversion

Product: Antique Ford Parts

URL: www.snydersantiqueauto.com

Report Date: June 2004

Money talks...and, in this case, screams at full lung capacity.

If Henry Ford was alive, he certainly would be proud. As the key founder of assembly line practices and interchangeable parts in his Ford Motors factories, Ford understood innovative techniques to push a company ahead of its competition. And, 57 years after Ford's death, Snyder's Antique Auto Parts and The Karcher Group have continued those revolutionary ways. A few years ago, Snyder's decided to contact The Karcher Group about selling its Ford Model A and Model T parts online. In November, 2001, the site went live and...well, take a look at the numbers:

Monthly Report Stat	May 2002	May 2004
Total Monthly Sales	$38,927.01	$227,734.65
Total Orders	444	539
Avg. Order Amount	$87.67	$465.72
Unique Visitors	2,376	5,802
Search Engine Refferal Rate	19.99%	62.48%
Search Engine Referrals	475	3,626

In May 2004, total online monthly sales for Snyder's were $227,734.65. During this time, nearly 6,000 unique visitors accounted for more than 22,000 user sessions at the site. Even more impressive, over 62% of the site's visitors are referred by a search engine. The conversion rate hovers around 10%, which is far above the industry average of 1.8%. In addition, each visitor spent nearly ten minutes on Snyder's site - and, in total, they placed 539 orders in May. So, if you're looking to improve your site and see great results, The Karcher Group can do it.

So, how exactly did this all happen?

From Bricks to Clicks: Snyder's Meets the Web

In the beginning, Snyder's was an established brick & mortar manufacturer of Model A and T Ford parts. They were making a profit by providing quality products and excellent customer service. What else could a company ask for, right? After all, customers were happy and they were making a profit.

Instead of settling for status quo, Snyder's decided to shake things up a bit by taking its catalog of Ford parts online with the help of The Karcher Group. They hired us to develop their entire e-commerce system (shopping cart, credit card acceptance, etc), optimize their site for search engines and improve customer conversion. And that's precisely what happened. Snyder's Website went live on November 11, 2001, and by February 2002, it generated more than $15,000 monthly in online sales. With top 10 rankings in the popular search engines for keywords such as "antique auto parts" and "Model T parts," Snyder's was well on its way to previously unattainable profits. And how was customer conversion? Better than 11%! More than 1 out of every 10 visitors to the site was making a purchase, totaling 189 orders in February alone!

And, as you know, through constant improvements, The Karcher Group and Snyder's grew those numbers to its current sales of hundreds of thousands of dollars per month and thousands of visitors.

LIKE Grandpa's ears, it keeps growing

Still, despite this success, we are constantly "tweaking" Snyder's site in order to improve the ROI. Currently, SnydersAntiqueAuto.com ranks in the top 10 at Yahoo!, Google and MSN for such keywords as "antique auto parts," "antique ford parts," and "model a ford parts." The 60% of search engine referred visitors are not already familiar with Snyder's; they are new customers, which is important to any company.

The Karcher Group is dedicated to producing solid results for all of its clients. We want to see your online sales skyrocket, just like Snyder's. And, by trusting us with your site and SEO, you can make it happen.