#111 Content marketing VIP newsletter
SEO case study: 4-step content update process helped increase 40% traffic in 3 months.
Hey, Rafiqul here. Welcome to the #108th episode of Content Marketing VIP, which delivers actionable insights, SEO case studies & free resources. First time here? Read past episodes.
1. Updating existing content helped us increase 40% traffic in 3 months (no new backlinks)
Recently, we worked with a US-based SaaS company operating in the property management and real estate niche with high competition.
Some background details about the website:
The website has published a total of 600+ articles over the last 10 years and most of the articles are user focused.
The brand value (~branded searches) is comparatively high as compared to any new competitor in the niche.
Domain rating (DR)= 40; Site traffic when we started our SEO campaign ~3,000/month
After 3 months of our SEO effort, we have grown the website traffic by 40%.
The simple secret was updating our existing pages with high business value and fixing technical changes to the site.
Here’s our content update strategy that helped us achieve this result:
1. Identifying pages that need content updates
First, we didn’t want to start updating pages randomly just for the sake of it. So, we created 3-data sources to find the pages that are worth a content update:
Pages with traffic decline in the last 3 months: (Go to GSC and see the last 3-month comparison report and sort the pages with traffic difference in negative)
Pages ranking for key search terms from 8-30th position: This helped us find the low-hanging fruit opportunities
Then prioritizing pages with business value: After following the above two methods, we found around 50+ pages worthy to update. However, we further prioritized our list by adding a business value column in the sheet. The higher the business value and sooner we update that page.
2. Identifying search intent
People often don’t realize that the search intent of keywords does change. So, instead of just adding more content or information gain, we first checked the search intent of the target keyword.
For example, we found that some keywords used to have the majority of the blog articles ranking on the first page→ which is now dominated by service pages.
This way, we skipped keywords that we weren’t able to match the intent.
3. Creating systems, SOPs, and content outlines
We spent days finalizing the custom SOPs for the content team and additional weeks creating the content outline for the first set of articles (~20).
Each content outline was created after deep research and understanding the keyword intent— in fact, some of our content briefs are so detailed that it may seem like a short blog post to the writer (~500+ words brief).
4. Creating and publishing content
Rest was handled by our in-house experienced writer who knows the product and industry well. Here are some quick points we checked before re-publishing any article.
Ensure the content has information gain
Add internal links
Contextually mention semantically related phrases (taken from GSC) in the article
Re-publish with the current date
Submitting the URL in Google Search Console so Google can notice the changes sooner
The result?
We immediately saw a jump in the traffic and impressions within 1-2 days after re-publishing the article.
Here’s an example:
TIP: Your writer must know every detail (features and benefits) of your product and how the industry works. Otherwise, the content outcome will be generic. This is why we always train our writers to know about the business before writing a single word.
Need help in your SEO projects? Learn about our process here.
2. Optimize your content for actionability
“Create quality content” — If you’ve been into SEO for some time, you know how often people give this advice.
But how do you even measure your content quality before publishing it on your website?
It’s hard.
However, one thing you can do that will stand out your content most of the rest is making your content as actionable as possible.
That means: instead of telling what it is and why it is important, show the readers how it’s done.
Here’s a content snippet taken from a Shopify article that shows how the content focuses on not only giving the right advice but also helping readers visualize the results or steps.
By adding screenshots of steps, simple graphics (flowchart, diagram, etc.) can make your content more actionable and useful to readers.
Here’s another example below:
While highlighting the job availability of Python developers on LinkedIn, it shows the screenshot of the actual data from LinkedIn— this not only makes it actionable but also more trustworthy content.
References you can share with your content team:
3. Aim for Low Time to Value
One of the ways to provide excellent content experience to readers is by reducing the time-to-value.
It is time a user takes to find the desired outcome (answer, solution, benefit) from the article/page.
Here’s what it means to follow the low-time-to-value approach or Inverted pyramid style:
WHAT TO LEARN: Follow the top-to-bottom hierarchy, saving less important information for last. The same approach can be followed for writing introductions (when relevant).
EXAMPLE 1:
Recommended:
WHAT TO LEARN: The above content example answers the question in the first paragraph.
Recommended:
WHAT TO LEARN: Some sections or headings may not have a direct yes/no answer— so you might need to answer other factors. The above screenshot is a good example of this scenario where the first sentence answers the question and later explains other factors.
Not recommended:
WHAT TO LEARN: The time-to-value for the above heading is low as it doesn’t answer the question in the beginning section.
The same goes for writing an introduction.
If the blog topic is in a quick question format like this one (Is SEO worth it?)
Then try to answer the question in the first paragraph.
Skip the long unnecessary intro as the user intends to always get the quick answer to the question.
Obviously, in the later section, you can mention other factors and subtopics but the intro should address the main problem.
That’s the wrap, guys.
See you next week :)