Table of Contents
One of the most fundamental things that we know in marketing and business is understanding the target audience and how to reach them.
There are three questions that every business needs an answer to; “Where is our target audience?” “Are we present there?” and “Can they see us?”. Answers to these questions provide clarity in the marketing strategies and the actionable steps we must follow.
This is the digital day and age. Our target audience is out there on the internet and searching for the products we serve.
Hence, not having a website is not an option; you need it. The reason behind this is simple, presence. But building a website and launching it is not a cakewalk.
A website brings with itself a lot of challenges. But challenges bring forth opportunities for growth. Efficiently overcoming these challenges is what a business should strive for. And that is what this case study is all about.
Introduction
Supercreator is a young brand that provides professional content writing services to businesses. We had been establishing a presence and generating clients through offline channels primarily before we decided to move online.
Having a team of content marketers and SEO experts with a collective experience of 10+ years, we understood the importance of digital presence. And having a website was inevitable for us.
Thus, we finalised our branding and positioning after careful brainstorming. Once we had our brand identity and voice established, we were all set to launch.
The Supercreator website went live on 31st August 2021.
Our Challenge
When we launched the website, a major challenge lay in front of us.
According to Technavio, the global content marketing industry is projected to have an annual growth rate of 16 % until 2022. This signifies that the demand and competition for professional content writing services are also rapidly growing.
As a result, many agencies and brands are competing to establish themselves as industry leaders.
From a customer perspective, they have many options for a very similar service. This means that it is quite easy for young brands like Supercreator to get lost in the noise.
It is not surprising because businesses would rather trust brands with authority and have been in the game long enough. It makes their decision-making process easier.
Moreover, we did not have a content strategy or blog articles. Growth was the main objective, and an absence of strategy meant a lack of direction. And to reach our destination, we needed a roadmap.
The situation was quite simple; we were out there, but we were invisible. We had something to say, but nobody could hear us.
We needed to change this dynamic. We wanted visibility, and that was our challenge.
SEO Is The Solution
Visibility simply means that our customers can find us when they search for the services or products we serve. And the most common platform for search is Google.
Hence, we needed a solution that would allow us to have higher Google search rankings. With that, we knew there would be a growth in organic traffic and an increase in brand awareness and credibility.
And the duration didn’t matter to us as much as the certainty and sustainability of the growth.
Our specifications made it very clear to us that SEO and content marketing is going to be our way forward. And that this was our direction.
In the simplest terms, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is creating or making changes to a business’ website and its content to increase relevancy. This process helps Google ranks such pages at higher positions.
Now, we had an understanding of the direction as well as the approach. However, knowing the direction is not enough to reach a destination. We were still lacking a proper roadmap. This meant the next thing for us to do was add a stepwise process and an actionable strategy to it.
After rigorous planning and strategising, we came up with the below 5-step strategy for implementing SEO and achieving visibility.
Step 1- Keyword Research
Setting the foundation is the most important step in anything we build. And for SEO, that foundation is keywords.
The first step to our SEO strategy was finding the right keywords. But keyword research isn’t easy. It requires in-depth research efforts, something possible only with a certain methodology.
The keyword research methodology that we implemented for Supercreator is as follows:
1. Identify Seed Keywords
The seed keywords were identified according to the content writing industry, and what we found was “ghostwriting services india” was a pillar and a niche keyword. This made it something we could aim to rank for.
2. Use Keyword Research Tools To Expand List
The above image is only for ghostwriting services. Google keyword planner was one of the tools used to expand the keyword list and identify all possible keywords under the main seed keywords.
3. Categorise The Keywords
The keywords were then categorised into different pillar topics and further as the head term, middle and long-tail keywords.
4. Prioritise The Keywords
Next, we prioritised keywords on the basis of competition index, ranking potential, monthly searches and average CPC.
5. Finalise Keyword List And Refine
The Keywords list was then finalised. However, this keyword plan would be refined every quarter depending on search or keyword queries.
Now that the keywords were ready, we moved on to the next step.
Step 2- Initial Setup For Growth
This step entailed setting up the website for growth and following the best SEO practices. In addition, all the necessary SEO tools were put in place.
SEO Tools By Google
Below are the SEO tools we used throughout our SEO campaign and are using currently:
- Google Analytics (GA): GA allows us to track our growth and the traffic that comes to our website.
- Google Search Console (GSC): GSC allows us to interact with Google search and keep a check on our keywords and rankings.
SEO Audit
We conducted a comprehensive website SEO audit once the SEO tools were set up. The SEO audit focused on the technical and on-page SEO of the website, and the improvements were listed down.
These changes were converted into an audit tasklist and were shared with our developer team. Moreover, the content requirements with the keywords were shared with our content team.
The above screenshot shows the initial meta-tags delivered by the content team and then shared with the developer team.
The tasklist was executed, and we had our website in place to rank for our target keywords in Google.
We decided on a sustainable frequency of a full SEO audit every quarter and a brief SEO audit every month moving forward.
Step 3- Creating SEO Content
Next came one of the most important steps in our SEO strategy, creating content that was search engine optimised.
The SEO content strategy and implementation is a foundational step as it determines all the content that we will be putting out moving forward. So, we needed to get it right.
We went about SEO content as follows:
1. Content Analysis
We conducted a competitor analysis and understood the content that our competitors and industry players are creating. This allowed us to find a content gap and figure out how to provide value to the people we serve.
The main objective of the content we create is always to make a difference and be of service to those searching for that piece of content.
2. Topic Cluster Map
We had an idea of the direction in which we wanted to create content. The next step was to set up a strategy in place that would allow us to categorise and give a structure to the content. We decided to use the “Topic Clusters” strategy for creating SEO content.
Topic Clusters are a long-term content strategy recommended by Hubspot, whose primary objective is to build authority over a certain broad keyword with high competition.
The reason behind it is that as the topical authority of a site gets built up, the domain authority of the site also improves.
3. Choose SEO Topics
With the pillar topics ready, we needed to come up with SEO topics that had ranking potential.
We decided that the first set will comprise 15 SEO topics. And these topics were shortlisted using Google intuitive search, long-tail keywords and extensive brainstorming.
4. Decide Posting Frequency
One of the most underrated aspects of any SEO strategy is sustainability. SEO is a long-term marketing strategy which means the activities involved in it must also be achievable and consistent.
Therefore, we finalised a sustainable and regular posting frequency of 1 blog article per week or 4-5 blog articles per month.
5. SEO Content Execution
We have an extensive content writing process that allows us to factor in SEO and always deliver quality content. And we implemented the same approach towards our SEO content.
The following SEO aspects were implemented in the content we created:
- Target Keyword
- Word Count
- Secondary Keywords (to support the primary)
- Ideal Keyword Frequency
- Maximum Keyword Usage (to avoid stuffing)
- Readability
- Heading Tags
- Image Alt Tags
We conducted SEO-checks on all the articles before publishing them on our website.
This is how we created SEO content during our campaign.
Step 4- Building Backlinks
With the SEO content strategy in place, the next step was to build backlinks.
Backlinks are an essential part of the SEO strategy because they are a huge influence towards improving domain authority. It implies to Google that we are trusted, and we have credibility.
We went about building backlinks as follows:
1. Backlinks Analysis
We conducted a competitor analysis and gained an understanding of the backlinks that they were creating. This analysis also showed us opportunities of creating high-quality backlinks.
2. Formulate Backlink Strategy
Once we had an idea of what our competitors were doing and the opportunities were identified, we formulated a backlink strategy accordingly.
We knew the number of backlinks we make is not as important as the number of referring domains we make them from. Hence, we decided to have our primary focus on the latter.
This is what our MOZ backlink overview looked like within 5 months of launch, with a frequency of 60+ backlinks per month.
Step 5- Consistency Is Key
With all foundational steps of strategy in place, then came the final step- consistent execution.
As mentioned before, one of the most important aspects of SEO is sustainability and consistency. It makes sense because SEO, by its nature, is a long-term process for growth.
We set up an actionable strategy and made an SEO tracker. The purpose of this tracker was to ensure the strategy stayed on track and the complete team was on the same page.
Now, all that was left was execution. And that is what we did, consistently.
We knew that the results would take time to show, and it was very important for us to be patient with our campaign.
We regularly tracked the traffic for improvements and updated the interaction with the Search Console.
This is how we made SEO the solution to our challenge of visibility.
Results
Our website was launched on 31st August 2021. And we started with nothing in place and no numbers to show.
As of 1st December 2021, which is within 3 months of our launch, we were ranking on Page 1 for our target keyword, “ghostwriting services india”.
We were also able to land 211 new users on our website organically, get a total of 1720 page views and generate 4 purely organic leads.
During these 3 months, we have seen a total of 1359 times in the search results. And the trends show that it is consistently growing.
The fact that we had an SEO website and rankings to show allowed us to generate many more leads. It helped us acquire clients through other online and offline channels as well. This shows the true potential of SEO and the credibility it can bring to a brand.
We have experienced all the benefits that SEO delivers in one way or another in a short period. This was only possible because of consistent SEO content, backlink execution and a strategy built on a solid well-researched foundation.
Conclusion
In this digital era, people spend the majority of their time online. Hence, a digital presence is crucial for a business to grow and prosper. If the people we serve cannot find us when they search for the kind of services or products we sell, it does not make for good business.
Therefore, visibility is a necessity.
We understand that and, thus, decided to face this challenge for our website using SEO. And in a competitive industry like content writing, we were able to rank Supercreator for its target keyword within 3 months.
The SEO strategy that we implemented is extensive and consistent. It has proven to work for us. And we aim to replicate this strategy for our SEO clients and be a part of their growth.
To conclude, SEO is a sustainable long-term process, but it drives significant results. And the outcomes that we have seen and continue to see are witness to the fact.
