Transforming OREAS’s Digital Presence into a Platform That Matches Their Global Leadership in Certified Reference Materials

When OREAS reached out to us in mid-2023, they faced a challenge we’d seen before in the technical space.

OREAS is a global leader in the manufacture and supply of certified reference materials (CRMs), for the mining and exploration industry. With a 35-year track record of industry engagement by some of the largest mining operations in the world, OREAS was already well-established in the market and had a stellar reputation.

However, their digital presence wasn’t doing justice to their 35-year track record of precision and reliability.

In addition, the company was looking to consolidate their digital platforms to present a united and strong online presence and streamline the shopping experience for customers globally.

We worked with the OREAS team to gain a deep understanding of ‘Certified Reference Materials’ and how mining professionals searched for them. With this knowledge, we conducted a comprehensive SEO audit which uncovered significant challenges, but also a plethora of untapped opportunities for OREAS.

Some of our audit findings included:

• A strong foundation for growth – OREAS had a strong domain authority, stronger than their competitors and even their parent company, Analytichem. OREAS had built an impressive domain authority (35/100) through their global network of distributors and high-quality backlinks.
• A dated interface and functionality – With OREAS’ recent rebrand, the website no longer reflected their brand and strong market perception.
• Fragmented digital presence – Operating both a global site and a separate North American platform with poor infrastructure, there was a disjoint in the brand’s online presence. Adding to that was a confusing shopping experience for the NA region.
• Poor technical SEO – the site wasn’t capitalising on keywords and had significant issues with technical SEO performance, missing structured data.
• Under-leveraged on-page SEO opportunities – while industry insiders colloquially refer to Certified Reference Materials as ‘CRMs’, this was not attracting searches due to other more common meanings for this abbreviation.
• Sparse content – Their website wasn’t telling the full story of why mining companies worldwide trusted OREAS. Information about their global supply chain and expertise, commitment to quality was hidden or hard to find.
• Unintuitive site architecture – A cluttered and unintuitive site architecture was making it difficult for users to find information, and Google to understand their pages.

From our findings, we devised a list of recommendations to help catapult OREAS’s digital presence.

The challenge? Implementing the digital strategy without disrupting their operations and CRM store. We carefully crafted an implementation plan to enable us to build on top of the existing infrastructure and improve it – without needing a complete overhaul.

First, we redesigned the website interface. Our research and understanding of OREAS’s key audiences and users – from lab technicians to procurement managers – guided our redesign. Our goal was to uplift the website to align to perception, carefully curated messages, imagery and brand elements to convey trust, precision and quality.

In tandem, our SEO audit and keyword research informed our strategic refresh of the content. In addition to incorporating high-volume target keywords that the site was not previously capturing, we brought key information that showcased their legacy and commitment to quality to the fore, further reinforcing their reputation.

Building on OREAS’ existing infrastructure which housed an extensive product catalogue and ordering system, we worked closely with their IT team to develop the new interface. From here, we implemented critical SEO technical fixes, which included:

• Restructuring the site architecture for a more intuitive navigation
• Updating headings, metadata and URLS to incorporate target keywords
• Adding structured data to enable Google to crawl the site for effectively
• Improving the conversion pathway through better UX and internal linking

Further to this, we consolidated their fragmented digital presence, bringing their global and North American platforms into one cohesive system.

The transformation paid off in practical ways. Since the implementation of the digital optimisation strategy, we saw:

• 122% increase in traffic to the “Certified Reference Materials” page year on year
• 99% increase in traffic to the “Gold CRMs’ page – year on year

The consolidated global platform brought consistency to OREAS’s digital presence. Whether customers are searching for CRMs from laboratories in Australia or mining sites in North America, there is now a centralised platform with a seamless user experience no matter their location.

More importantly, OREAS’s digital presence now properly reflects their position as a global leader in CRMs. Their technical expertise, quality standards, and global capabilities are front and centre – just as they should be for a company trusted by mining operations worldwide.

We’re proud of our ongoing partnership with OREAS to continue to grow their brand presence across global markets. Our brand work continues to stand out as a testament to the power of strategic digital transformation.