A state-level government agency operating a public-facing Drupal website, our client provides citizens with vital information on governance, civic services, and legal resources. With constituents' increasing digital reliance, the client aimed to enhance discoverability on search engines, particularly for voice and zero-click queries. The objective is to evolve the platform into a high-performing answer engine while fully compliant with accessibility and data protection norms.
Client’s Objectives
- Optimize site content for featured snippets and voice search
- Improve organic traffic through better answer engine visibility
- Maintain compliance with WCAG, ADA, and data privacy standards
- Enhance site search for contextual, fast, and reliable information retrieval
- Upgrade editorial workflows for real-time publishing agility.
Client’s Challenge:
Transforming a traditional government portal into an answer-ready platform meant rethinking both content structure and technical architecture. Major hurdles included:
- Outdated content taxonomy: Inconsistent use of headers, metadata, and page structure limited eligibility for featured snippets
- Rigid CMS backend: Editors lacked tools to format content for search engines without development help
- Poor internal linking: Key pages weren’t being crawled effectively, hurting SEO
- Accessibility gaps: The site didn’t meet modern accessibility benchmarks, risking legal exposure
- Slow search performance: Constituents struggled to find answers quickly, especially on mobile devices
The Solution We Implemented:
To drive AEO performance, our Drupal team rolled out a complete transformation—from content strategy to AI-powered search. Here’s how we delivered results:
- Structured content for snippet optimization using semantic HTML5, schema markup, and optimized heading hierarchies
- Integrated AI-based search with NLP-driven faceted search and intent-based ranking
- Enabled content blocks using Layout Builder so editors could modularize information in question-answer formats
- Built a voice search-compatible knowledge base with expandable FAQs and structured Q&A sections
- Upgraded metadata and tags across key landing pages for better crawlability and SERP rendering
- Enhanced accessibility by aligning all page templates with WCAG 2.1 AA standards
- Rolled out editorial checklists and automated validations to keep content snippet-ready at all times
- Deployed server-side caching and compressed delivery pipelines to boost performance across devices
Impact on Client’s Business:
The results were transformative—not just in metrics, but in public access and digital trust.
- 60% increase in featured snippet wins, including "People Also Ask" and knowledge graph placements
- 30% uplift in organic traffic, particularly from mobile and voice queries
- Search session success rate improved by 2.5x, reducing bounce rates significantly
- Accessibility audit scores rose from 68 to 96, achieving full WCAG 2.1 AA compliance
- Page load times reduced by 40%, improving performance for underserved rural areas with low bandwidth
- Editor productivity doubled, thanks to intuitive blocks, templates, and snippet formatting options.
Closing thoughts
For government agencies looking to modernize citizen engagement, AEO isn’t optional—it’s essential. This client set a new benchmark in digital public service by transforming the Drupal platform into a search-intelligent, accessibility-ready answer engine.
Still serving static pages and outdated content structures? Let’s talk. We’ll help you turn your Drupal site into a high-performing answer engine.
→ Connect with our AEO experts at DrupalPartners.com