How Construction Book Express won the battle against Amazon.com

Construction Book Express

Construction Book Express is one of the largest mail order book companies in the United States, providing a national ordering service to more than 100,000 customers. The company offers a collection of reference materials, videos, and software for architectural, engineering, and construction professionals. The 60-page Construction Savvy catalog was established in 1998 and is mailed out monthly. Construction Book Express launched its website (www.constructionbook.com) in 2001 in order to cost-effectively increase its customer database and simultaneously target a new market.

The Challenge

Having outgrown the limitations of their previous website, the folks at Construction Book Express needed to expand their web presence and promote their product line via search engine marketing. Amazon.com, a major competitor, had recently launched a new line of books that Construction Book Express also sold on their website. Hence Construction Book Express' main objective became surpassing the competition. A new marketing approach was needed.

The Solution

A sophisticated website with search engine compatibility could help Construction Book Express to achieve the top rankings they needed to rise above Amazon.com. In order to increase the amount of visitors to the Construction Book Express website, we developed a search engine marketing plan that consisted of free listings as well as paid advertising on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. We also redesigned the entire website in order to optimize all of the new category and product pages. We performed careful research into relevant search terms with the goal of obtaining higher conversion rates. Next, descriptive copy was written for the entire website as well as each of the online ads. We then re-submitted the optimized site to all major search engines, including Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Lastly, we developed custom website traffic software to track ROI for each campaign.

The Results

Construction Book Express established a stronger web presence with its new and improved website and Google, Yahoo, and MSN pay per click advertising campaigns. Our meticulous research resulted in a keyword list of over 16,000 search terms that greatly increased targeted traffic to the site. The results were astounding.

  • Unique visitors to the Construction Book Express site increased nearly 4000%.
  • Website sales grew 3000%.
  • The website achieved 3,761 first place rankings - a remarkable 4,760% increase in the free listing rankings!
  • Conversion rates drastically increased and Construction Book Express obtained higher rankings than Amazon.com, a competitor several times its size.

Posted on February 19, 2007