// THE STORY
Viroqua, WI, is a town brimming with stories just waiting to be discovered. Nestled in the heart of the Driftless Area, Viroqua showcases its historic charm and rich narratives through its vibrant town square, a testament to the community’s past and the tales still unfolding today. With many wonderful, locally owned shops, an award-winning farmers market, and James Beard-nominated eateries adding to its unique character, Viroqua is not only a delightful destination for visitors but also a wonderful community to call home.
// THE CHALLENGE
Viroqua Chamber Main Street needed a new logo and their own website to move away from having a joint site shared with the city government. After developing the new website for the Viroqua Chamber, McD built custom pages for valuable website content like Itineraries and Blogs to help improve SEO and user experience. High-quality photography and videos were then added to improve website content and provide a visual basis for digital marketing post launch, which was needed to start promoting the community to the surrounding overnight market.
// SOLUTION: After supporting Viroqua Chamber with the development of their own logo, McD Digital launched the first version of the Viroqua Chamber website. Search engine optimization (SEO) started in May 2024. Since then, McD Digital has tracked website performance and made improvements in measurable goals like keyword trends. McD also scheduled and completed a two-day video and photo shoot in Summer 2024— and in the process, assembled a visual asset library for use on the website and in digital marketing. Photos and videos are key to the tourism effort, and the McD Creative team has acquired these assets to build the visual storytelling for Viroqua.
// RESULTS: After launching Facebook/Instagram marketing in July 2024, Viroqua digital marketing campaigns achieved a click rate that far surpasses industry benchmarks and a cost per click of well below the industry standard. Posts have brought in more than 25,000 new visitors to the Viroqua website! Potential visitors from as far as five hours away are seeing and interacting with these posts.
CPC: $0.10 per click (compared to avg at $1.32)
CTR: 1.11% (compared to avg at 0.83%)
// SEO: Over the last year, the Viroqua website experienced solid growth in organic website traffic with a 175.8% increase in organic new users (23,767) and a 175.1% increase in organic active users (24,210). The homepage, Explore landing page, and Events Calendar were the most popular landing pages, with the Farmers Market event page seeing a 193.8% increase in views.
The most significant traffic sources were social media (primarily m.facebook.com with a 3,804.3% increase), followed by Google (up 193.4%) and direct traffic (up 554.7%).
There were also big gains in keyword performance with a 323.4% increase in total organic keywords (20,300). Clicks increased by 548.5% to 28,000 and impressions grew by 482.6% to 1.3 million. The site maintained an average position of 12.2 with a click-through rate of 2.2% (up 11.3%).
The highest-performing keywords were location-specific terms including "viroqua farmers market" (43.44% CTR, position 1), "things to do in viroqua wi" (21.76% CTR, position 2.09), and "Viroqua chamber" (56.18% CTR, position 1.29). Mobile users accounted for 63.8% of traffic.
McDaniels has been a strong marketing partner for the Viroqua Chamber and Viroqua Tourism Commission. They have brought a modern marketing mix that has helped to amplify our community and create a sense of place worth visiting, for folks who have no idea who we are. They are very easy and enjoyable to work with. – Aaron Aslin, Interim Executive Director