Forensics Analytics Crime Lab, Hayward CA
Complex Cases, Comprehensive Results
Client: Forensics Analytics Crime Lab (FACL) is a private crime lab specializing in helping law enforcement and attorneys nationwide with the most-hard-to-solve cases. Their ability to handle complexity has helped exonerate 50 death row inmates who were wrongfully convicted.
Challenge: The FACL logo and website were both outdated and easily confused with their competitors. The FACL marketing was limited to two things: industry trade shows and presentations to police departments and defense attorneys. They knew their marketing needed a major reboot of fresh design and strategy.
As mentioned above, FACL possesses the expertise to test the most complex evidence. Additionally, it offers multiple services such as DNA evidence testing and analysis of crime scenes evidence such as guns and pathology. The complexity they address, as well as their multiple of service offerings, needed to be communicated clearly to drive more leads.
Approach: My initial role was to lead the web design, curate images and develop new text as needed. My in-house team and I designed the new dynamic website. For example, we used a microscope as the hero image to represent the crime lab industry. Immediately below that we used titles and images to emphasize the three main disciplines of the crime lab and serve as portals to the main services FACL offers. Further down the page we placed a section naming up to a dozen different services with a graphic icon for each. I developed content for the homepage and several of the inner pages such as About, History, Disciplines, Staff and Contact forms.
In early 2019, the website had great traffic and more leads were coming in. I was called back to help implement the comprehensive marketing brief. The CEO and I identified priorities and set to work on the email marketing component, redoing the brochure and the trade show booth, and fine tuning the SEO.
Results: The multiple marketing changes made during 2018 and 2019 have kept the crime lab busy. I am supporting their new email marketing and blogging commitments. They are setting up a CRM to better manage their sales pipeline and follow up with more leads.
Team of 4: Joining me on the marketing team were Sandy Barger, (CMO of Chief Outsiders) and Richard Bernius, (CEO of FACL), and a WordPress web designer / web programmer. Sandy created a comprehensive marketing and branding brief while the implementation of the brief was a smooth collaboration among the three of us.
Marketing Assets:
New Website, FAcrimelab.com
Content Development Collaboration
Redo Brochure and Trade Booth Content
Email Newsletter Consulting and Editing
2019 & 2020 Marketing Planning
2019 SEO Review, Internal Linking and Performance Analysis
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Document
Forensics Analytics Crime Lab Keyword Report
Brief Summary: Website keyword performance was researched via Ahrefs. This report summarizes the findings from Ahrefs and provides recommendations at the end.
My #1 recommendation was to enhance the top performing pages by expanding their content or word count and adding links to other pages from the FACL site’s most popular pages.
Originally 5 Ahrefs Reports Were Attached, Including:
- Top FALC Performing Pages
- Top FALC Performing Keywords
- Custom Keyword Research Report
- Keywords used by Competitors / Similar Crime Labs
- Backlinks Identified
Top Five Performing Pages:
key: page name, % of traffic, top keyword
Home — 61%, Forensics Crime Lab
Forensic Pathology — 14%, Forensic Neuropathologist
Lab Team — 14%, top keyword Kenton Wong
Contact Us — 3%, Forensic Analytical Sciences
History — 2%, Paul Kirk Forensics
Top 1-5 Keywords:
forensic neuropathologist
forensics crime lab
forensics analytical
forensic analytical sciences
kenton wong
Next 5-10 Keywords:
forensic lab
private forensic labs
forensic crime lab
private crime lab
alan keel
Promising or Recommended Keywords:
Most Terms have 500+ searches and all have low competition.
Keyword, Search Volume
(If some of these terms are not relevant or usable, please mark as N/A and get it back to me.)
DNA Terms:
DNA Evidence, 23,000
STRS, 19,000
DNA Fingerprinting, 13,000
short tandem repeats, 4000
STR Analysis, 1500
DNA Forensics, 600
DNA Profiling, 3500
Forensic Pathology Terms:
forensic pathology, 6700
forensic dna analyst, 1000
criminal pathology, 300
Criminalistics, Fire Arms, and Ballistics Terms:
gunshot residue, 1200
forensic ballistics, 600
firearms testing, 200
Backlinks Comment: You have 100’s of backlinks from forensic sites and blogs which reinforces your keywords. The Eucharist one is your second most valuable link because the linking site is high ranking. If it bothers you, you can ask them to remove it, but it isn’t hurting your ranking in my opinion.
Recommendations for FALC websites:
Look at Top Performing Pages:
1. Increase the strength of existing pages that bring in the most traffic now.
Action Item: Add additional relevant copy and internal links to the top performing pages. Lengthen them by 2-4 paragraphs by paraphrasing and reposting copy already on the site. Add 3-5 keyword rich internal links to other areas of the site.
2. FACL gets a lot of searches for variations on forensics crime lab and private crime lab.
Action Item: Let’s add a few internal links for these terms from the inside pages to the homepage, to reinforce and enhance those variants.
3. FACL is getting traffic for 455 different keyword terms!
Action Item: Add additional recommended keyword terms under the appropriate disciplines. i.e., add the keyword “DNA evidence” to the DNA & Forensic Biology page and integrate it into the existing content.
4. I checked the keywords on http://www.forensicdnacenter.com/ and found these STRS terms are popular in search.
Action Item: If appropriate, add a section for STRS and STRS analysis, etc.
5. FACL links to the Innocence Project in your blog and perhaps elsewhere.
Action Item: Ask them to reciprocate by linking to your site, also known as “backlinking”. They have an established and reputable site, so this would be a valuable link.