171%
increase in leads from Google Ads
107%
increase in organic search traffic
227%
increase in organic search visibility
About Zest
Zest are an estate agents in Bath established in 2008, by Glen Perry, who runs it with his wife Beth. They have since achieved a Gold award at the British Property Awards, three years running, and been voted as Business of the Year by Best of Bath.
Zest were very interested from the outset in what we could achieve for them, especially in light of the results we’ve achieved for Bristol based letting agents, Hopewell.
The Challenge
This wasn’t going to be a small website design project as the site had to integrate seamlessly with Vibra Alto, Zests’ in-house property management software. Having used the fantastic Property Hive suite of plugins on previous projects this was our go to choice for Zests’ new website.
In addition Zest required additional functionality, including an integration with Locrating, a tool that displays local amenities, sold prices, transport links and local school information such as catchment areas and Ofsted reports.
Zest has an increasing portfolio of student properties to let, so it was important to be able to display these on the website clearly. To that end we created a separate section of the website aimed at students and with distinct branding.
After the website build, we were tasked with growing the website’s search presence across a number of property related keywords in Bath. In a highly competitive and lucrative property market like Bath, that meant a lot of work to do.
What We Did
The website was a custom design and WordPress build, based on Property Hive’s standard framework, that gave us the code with all of the hooks that we needed to integrate with their property management system. Once this was done we then set about importing the data and testing the site to make sure everything was working as it should.
With Zest’s local SEO strategy baked into the web build at the foundational level, all the initial keyword research and on-page optimisation was complete, meaning we were able to start writing additional content to go up on the new site, during the build phase.
Being involved at the web build stage allows us to really craft solid optimised websites that hold up really well and see immediate bounces in ranking when they launch (just of the many benefits of having an SEO agency build your website).
The Results
As well as creating their beautiful new website, the real benefit to Zest has come from our ongoing digital marketing work, specifically organic SEO and Google Ads. The results here have been excellent, with the site now ranking second for the coveted “letting agents Bath” keyword and getting onto page one for “estate agents Bath”.
Between the new site launching in August 2022 and January 2023, we saw a 60% increase in organic traffic, compared with the previous six months. Comparing the most recent data, from 2023 with 2024, we have seen these results really accelerate:
- 1,316% increase in sessions on the homepage
- 107% increase in organic search traffic
- 227% Increase in organic search visibility
- 71% Increase in organic search leads
- 171% increase YoY leads from Google Ads
- 60% Reduction in cost per lead
