183 % more organic users in one year

When companies plan to exhibit at trade shows or other events, they typically require suitable technical equipment such as displays, touchscreens, laptops, or tablet PCs. XChange Technology Rentals - known as XTR Global - specializes in renting out technology for B2B events. Based in Hasselroth near Frankfurt am Main, the company rents out almost everything needed for technical event setups. XTR Global also assists with the setup and configuration of devices, providing comprehensive customer service.

At the start of our collaboration in March 2021, the company's website structure resembled an online shop. There were product detail pages with individual URLs where customers could gather information about the offered products and add them to a  sort of shopping cart. However, this setup presented a problem: Many contents were outdated, and the website had several technical errors. The most significant issue was that the site was not responsive on mobile devices. There was only a desktop version without responsive design or a separate mobile version. Especially considering Google's "mobile only" update in 2021, urgent action was needed in this regard.

Website relaunch with restructuring

A website relaunch aimed to address the outlined issues. This was carried out in collaboration with the agency "Die Schittigs" from Aschaffenburg, with Sunlab providing support in the SEO domain. Contrary to our recommendation, XTR decided to no longer have detailed product pages in order to minimize maintenance efforts. They also opted to discontinue having a magazine or blog. The new plan was to have category pages only, where users could view a list of products available for rent. Instead of a shopping cart, there would be an inquiry form.

This presented us with the following challenges: The original website, filled with product pages, ranked for product names such as "fujitsu primergy tx1320 m1." Eliminating the product pages raised concerns about losing most of the rankings, even with proper redirection. 

However, the user's search intent, who is searching for something like "fujitsu primergy tx1320 m1," should not be ignored. Typically, this user intends to purchase the product, not to rent it, which doesn't align with XTR's target audience, which focuses  on rental services.

Keyword optimization of category pages 

Our goal was to optimize the category pages for relevant keywords and strengthen the rankings for those keywords. Prior to the relaunch, XTR Global barely ranked for terms like "rent display," "rent PC," or "rent touchscreen." According to our keyword research, these were terms that XTR's target audience used to find technology for trade shows and events.

Furthermore, the post-relaunch website was designed to have significantly fewer pages, leading to a substantial reduction in the number of indexed pages. Consequently, it was anticipated that the number of users redirected through organic Google search would temporarily decrease after the relaunch. Existing rankings would be lost, and building new rankings for relevant keywords would take time.

This projection proved accurate: rankings dropped immediately after the relaunch. However, over time, new valuable rankings were gradually generated for more relevant keywords. This success can be quantified: the new site went live in mid-May 2022. By comparing it to May 2021, there was already a 24.75 % increase in organic users.

More relevant keywords for the audience

As planned, the new keywords appeared to be significantly more relevant to the target audience. We were able to increase the number of impressions, according to Google Search Console, by 58.61 % in July 2022 compared to the previous year. During this period, clicks increased by a substantial 157.61%. Consequently, our search results are clicked on significantly more often, which speaks not only to the design of our snippets but also to the fact that we are now reaching the right audience.

Following the successful SEO collaboration, XTR Global decided in the spring of 2022 to also engage with Sunlab in the realm of SEA (Search Engine Advertising). XTR Global had not been active in this area for several years.

In addition to the ongoing support in the SEA area and managing Google Ads, our goal is to further improve rankings for existing keywords in organic Google search results. Furthermore, we are working towards appearing and being found for additional relevant search terms in the future.