Customer Story
Sonova is a leading provider of innovative hearing care solutions, from personal audio devices and wireless communication systems to audiological care services, hearing aids, and cochlear implants. Headquartered in Stäfa, Switzerland, Sonova operates through four businesses – Hearing Instruments, Audiological Care, Consumer Hearing and Cochlear Implants – in more than 100 countries.
Within its Audiological Care business, Sonova wanted to solidify its digital search presence and drive sales through its online retail sites.
In 2019, their SEO team noticed that the Search Engine Results Page was evolving. Google was adding more search features and enhancements. They saw this as an opportunity to increase their visibility on search and provide more appealing results for strategic queries and product pages to their potential customers.
However, Sonova’s Audiological Care business did not have a centralized Schema Markup solution. With 19 retail sites and domains, some country teams had implemented their own local Schema Markup and weren’t seeing significant results. They were also about to launch blogs on their sites and wanted to get rich results for the articles that were meant to attract organic traffic.
Sonova’s Audiological Care business wanted a company that was able to support them in adding structured data on their websites to increase organic traffic and awareness. They needed a scalable solution and found that Schema App’s tools and expertise support were what they needed.
They decided to start with two countries as part of their pilot project with Schema App. When Laura Losito stepped into her now-current role as SEO & Content Manager for Sonova’s Audiological Care business, she was tasked to manage the pilot project with Schema App.
During the pilot project, Sonova focused on achieving FAQ rich results for their newly launched blogs, and the results were impressive. “We saw that we were getting much better results than the markets that added the markup locally. That’s why we decided to extend our contract with Schema App to all our domains last year,” said Ms. Losito.
This was when the real challenge started.
Implementing a global structured data strategy across 19 retail sites was no small feat. Ms. Losito had to get buy-in from different country teams, work with content in various languages and keep track of various issues across all the sites.
Even though Sonova’s Audiological Care business only had a handful of templates created using the Schema App Highlighter, many of these templates were deployed across all their domains. They had to ensure that any structured data changes they made to their Schema App Highlighter template were standardized for all the sites and subdomains.
The content on a page can make or break a Schema Markup strategy. However, each country team had the final say on the content on their site. As a result, Ms. Losito often had to wait for each country team to update their content to be eligible for specific rich results.
Despite the number of websites and subdomains under Ms. Losito’s jurisdiction, she was well supported by her dedicated Schema App Customer Success Manager (CSM).
The Schema App CSM would help strategize and add the most relevant markup on strategic pages using the Schema App Highlighter and keep track of all changes and issues on each site. On top of the Product rich results, Schema App also helped Sonova’s Audiological Care business achieve Review Snippets, HowTo and FAQ rich results across their targeted pages.
During the Quarterly Business Reviews, the Schema App Customer Success Manager provides the customer team with the latest performance data on their Schema Markup strategy and timely news about changes in Schema Markup. Ms. Losito can then share the results with her team and showcase the ROI of Schema Markup to different stakeholders.
Our customer success manager, Ruby, is very responsive and helpful whenever we find errors in Google Search Console or see a decline in certain metrics. She’s always able to assist and willing to investigate the issue and provide explanations or solutions.
Laura Losito
SEO & Content Manager
Sonova Group
Review Snippets
Product Rich Result
How-To Rich Result
FAQ Rich Result
Sonova’s Audiological Care business was able to successfully implement their global Schema Markup strategy and drive results with the help of Schema App.
“We have got a number of rich results for all our websites and e-commerce. In some cases, this led to an increase in CTR and organic traffic,” Ms. Losito commented.
In Q3 2022, they saw an average of 127.4% YoY growth in clicks and 82.41% YoY growth in impressions from Product Rich Results across all their eCommerce sites. Similarly, they saw an average of 501.45% YoY growth in clicks and 532.16% YoY growth in impressions from FAQ Rich Results across all their sites.
On top of the spectacular growth, Ms. Losito enjoys working with Schema App because of the relationship she’s developed with her Schema App CSM.
“Technical SEO can be frustrating, and I need to work with someone that I can trust and who is willing to help and support me. Someone who is also curious and excited about the subject and unafraid of the changes that Google implements,” said Ms. Losito.