Insights

What Makes A Good Case Study Page?

Author - armstrong-admin
12.01.2022

If you want to clearly demonstrate the value you can bring to your customer then there are few better ways than a case study. Case studies can be put together in a variety of formats including brochures and videos but what makes a good case study page on a website? What are the key ingredients of a case study page that will help your business stand out from the rest?

Create your case study for your ideal customer

Sounds simple doesn’t it but one of the common problems b2b business owners face is low engagement on their case study web pages. Nine times out of 10 there will be a spike in traffic when the case study is launched and then virtually no traffic as the case study ends up in Internet oblivion.

Like any other page on your website, a case study should be an inviting page with enough engaging content to encourage users to spend longer than a few seconds on it. Often the opposite is true where there will just be an image or two of the work done and a couple of paragraphs explaining what was done with no particular targeting of a customer’s needs and wants.

Make it easy to read

Case studies can be a challenging read if they are full of inaccessible industry jargon. Not every potential customer is going to be up to speed with all the technical side of things, therefore it is important to write content in plain English rather than try to demonstrate intelligence with the use of lots of technical language. As the famous quote from Einstein says, “if you can’t explain it simply you don’t understand it well enough”. Using short paragraphs with headings to signpost key points will make content easier to read as will photos to illustrate stages in a process.

Is your case study telling a story? Follow a clear structure

Everyone likes a story and a case study is an opportunity to tell it. Good stories always have a structure to them and a case study should always include the following:

– What was the challenge for the customer?

– What did you do for the customer in the case study?

– How did you help them achieve their goal?

Using this simple 3 stage plan should make life easier when creating multiple case studies and within each section you can include a variety of different content types to get the story across including video to encourage people to spend longer on the page.   

Categorise your case studies and make them easy to find

Keeping your case studies visible is important for search engine optimisation. Case studies are an excellent way to target particular niches for example if you supply building products, you may want to target pages to particular industry sectors such as education or leisure. To help users find your case studies, create categories targeting the industry sectors your potential customers operate in. Make these categories visible to users to avoid the common mistake of creating endless case studies nobody can find.

Provide real accurate numbers

Depending on your product or service, a case study can be an opportunity to show off the benefits you brought to customers. This could be cost savings or contributions to profitability or any other measure important to customers. The best case studies make these a highlights so they are obvious. The more accurate the numbers the more convincing the case study will be.

Tracking Google Analytics

Lastly it is worth tracking how effective your case studies are at driving traffic and encouraging relevant website users to act. Are there calls to action encouraging people to enquire about your services included in the page? Is there a contact form for people to fill in to receive a brochure they can download? Lead forms are an easy way to capture customers many of which will be lost if there is no method to gather details.

Google Analytics can be a mine of information to see how users engage with your case study pages, so setting up and connecting Google Tag manager will enhance the data you receive and guide decisions on the best way to present your case studies.