Expat Living
Restored Expat Living’s search rankings by building a better foundation.
Expat Living is a Singapore-based media company that provides information and resources for expats in Singapore, including a monthly print magazine and website.
Expat Living approached Chillybin to rebuild their website after experiencing a significant drop in their search rankings as a result of a previous developer's work. We conducted a thorough audit of the website, identifying technical issues that were impacting site stability and SEO performance. These issues included fundamental structural and redirect issues caused by using an off-the-shelf theme that was not fit for purpose, causing inconsistent URL structures.
To address these issues, Chillybin rebuilt the site using the Genesis Framework, implementing best practices to improve the site's stability and SEO performance. This included implementing a complete restructure of the site's URL architecture, post types and theme template files.
Throughout the project, we worked closely with Expat Living to ensure that the site was meeting their needs and aligned with their brand. The resulting website was faster, more stable, and better optimised for search engines, resulting in improved search rankings and increased traffic almost immediately on launch.
Ultimately, the project was a success, and Expat Living was able to climb back up the search rankings quite quickly. We stayed on to consult for a number of months afterwards to make sure Expat Living was able to better serve its audience in Singapore.
Our Approach
Chillybin takes a strategic approach to website development, prioritising stability and search engine optimisation to ensure that our client's websites perform at their best.
When Expat Living approached Chillybin after experiencing a significant drop in their search rankings, we knew that a comprehensive approach would be necessary to restore their website and improve their SEO performance.
We began by conducting a thorough audit of the website to identify technical issues that were impacting its performance. This audit was a critical first step, as it allowed the team to gain a deep understanding of the site's existing structure and identify areas where improvements could be made.
The Problem
As a result of our technical audit, we identified one of the major issues was that their previous development team had used page templates instead of creating a custom archive/category template, resulting in an inefficient configuration that was causing a substantial amount of additional processing and an infinite number of 301 redirects.
To address this issue, we created a custom template that enabled the site to efficiently display archive/category pages, significantly improving its performance and eliminating the processing issues that were causing the SEO problems.
From there, our team set to work implementing best practices to improve the site's stability and SEO performance by restructuring the site's URL architecture.
Before
After
The Solution
To restore Expat Living's search rankings and improve its website performance, our team implemented a comprehensive solution that addressed the technical issues and SEO problems that were holding the website back.
First, we rebuilt the website on a stable Genesis Framework, ensuring that it was optimised for speed and performance. We also conducted a thorough audit of the website's content and structure, identifying areas that needed improvement.
One of the main issues we identified was the inefficient configuration of the archive/category pages. To address this, we created a custom template that optimised these pages for search engines, making them more visible to users and reducing the amount of processing that was required. This eliminated the issues that were causing the infinite 301 redirects and improved the overall site stability.
We also implemented best practices for SEO, including optimising the site's meta tags, image alt tags, and internal linking structure. These changes helped to improve the website's search engine rankings and increase its visibility to users.
Thanks to our comprehensive solution, Expat Living's website saw significant improvements in performance and search engine rankings.
The site is now more stable, faster, and better optimised for search engines, enabling it to better serve its audience in Singapore.
