We’ve had an amazing year of growth, and here is a content marketing case study of our top 5 blog posts in 2014. In addition to their names and links to to them, we’re including the reasons why they did well and how you can use the insights we’ve gained.
Top Post #5: 4 Ways to Forecast ROI from SEO
Ranking for a couple important key words such as SEO Forecast and SEO Traffic Estimator, this blog post demonstrates how to pinpoint a specific need in the SEO industry and write a compelling article about the underlying strategy. Spend some time researching a subject you’d like to know more about and tell people what you’ve learned. They’ll pay attention to what you’re saying as long as it helps them better their current situation.
There’s already countless posts similar to this on the web, but competitor content was thin and could have been written with a more powerful message – so we beefed up the article with first-person experiences, supplying our unique insights to SEO. When you’re searching for content ideas, take a look at existing content on your site or competitor’s sites. Sometimes the best ideas are already right there in front of you. You may have even created them yourself.
For this post, most of our traffic came from Google organic search. Not surprisingly, many people are searching for information on such a tricky and compelling subject. Don’t forget the importance of keyword research. No one reads what no one is searching for.
You can read that article here: 4 Ways to Forecast ROI from SEO
5. Use the principle: Find a blog post that’s doing really well but perhaps needs better research. Check out what your analytics tell you. Rewrite a better version with your unique insights.
Top Post #4: 7 Experts reveal today’s SEO Dream Team
This post received a ton of organic traffic – but Google search isn’t what spiked our Analytics account. The SEO Dream Team post was created to drive Twitter interaction, on account of all of the featured experts within the article. Our web strategy expert, Griffin Roer, reached out and curated some original opinions from SEO experts who know a thing or two about driving traffic and creating conversions.
It’s a niche article, but it was successful because of how people interact with web content – especially on social media. People love promoting projects and ideas that they were part of. When you include industry influencers (whether large or small) in your content and give them a voice within your article, simultaneous promotion takes place. The next time you’re creating a content article, determine industry professionals that may be open to offering an opinion or blurb – contact them via LinkedIn or email if you can find it. Don’t worry, people are receptive when you offer free promotion. They just may be flattered.
You can read that article here: 7 Experts reveal today’s SEO Dream Team
4. Use the principle: Reach out to influencers in your industry with a compelling idea for an article and ask for opinions; enable them to promote the content by linking them to the published piece.
Top Post #3: 4 Spot-On Predictions for SEO in 2014 that Have Already Happened
This post really received that delightful wild card in the form of a Moz.com guru Rand Fishkin retweet. If you’re lucky enough to have an expert in your industry retweet or tweet about your article you’ll have a serious spike in traffic. Beyond that, it was included in a Search Engine Land round up and generated other high-quality backlinks.
The results of this article’s success might be well worth reaching out to ask for retweets if you have a high-quality piece of content. If you have influence via social, set up a reciprocal relationship with other social media influencers whereby you occasionally share each others content. Sharing is caring – and if you’re passionate about a piece, other professionals will care as well.
You can read that article here: 4 Spot-On Predictions for SEO in 2014 that Have Already Happened
3. Use the principle: Don’t be ashamed to ask for a retweet. Email the individual you mentioned or collaborate with other social media-minded people to develop a reciprocal relationship for sharing each others content.
Top Post #2: 10 Reasons Why Your Business Should Accept Bitcoins
People really love these numbered posts. “10 Reasons Why Your Business Should Accept Bitcoins” was written in early 2014 and – simply put – was well targeted towards a niche market. This happened to make it highly accessible to industry leaders and was picked up by many leading bitcoin websites. We are frequently posting our content on Inbound.org, a site for content marketers to share relevant high-quality content. We also post on relevant reddit channels, in this case it was reddit for bitcoins. This is where the “early-adopters” hang out. Find where the influencers are and you’ll be well on your way to creating a high-traffic blog post.
The point is: Making your article full of valuable information and targeted at a niche interest group, or giving it a particularly compelling subject you will see the rewards via organic sharing. Tons of natural backlinks were directed to our site because people found the article interesting and relevant, sharing it to their audiences and spreading the knowledge.
2. Use the principle: Target your content at a very niche interest group, get ahead of the curve on newsworthy items and post on relevant forums about the topic. Don’t follow buzz – create buzz.
Top Post #1: 10 Tips To Skyrocket Your Pinterest Sales
This one really takes the cake, and for whatever reason makes for a little bit more of a mystery. It’s hard to pinpoint at what point this post went from being a moderate success because of our diligent hard work at promoting it through Inbound.org, Twitter, Facebook, etc., and when it grew legs of its own and took off running. From what we determined, it struck a certain chord for people as Pinterest has been one of the most successful social media channels for driving sales. Beyond this it looks like it was picked up by ‘Buffer‘ (A tool for scheduling social media posts, and getting ideas) as a piece of suggested content and the tweets have just been steadily rolling towards us since.
You can read that article here: 10 Tips To Skyrocket Your Pinterest Sales
1. Use the principle: Leverage what seems to be being shared alot on social channels and what your audience wants and needs. Make it compelling, give it the best push you can, track results.
Honorable Mentions:
Our ‘How Pinterest Drives Online Sales in 2014’ Infographic earned us a backlink from Shopify, which isn’t a bad indicator of trust from a reputable source to help give us more credibility in Google’s algorithm.
Our numerous guest blog posts on reputable industry blogs, (Crazy Egg, Advanced Web Ranking, and Kiss Metrics) primarily attributed to our Strategist Griffin Roer, gave Snap credibility by readers and on social, and earned backlinks from great reputable sources.
Numerous experiments were conducted, such as our nonsense word website where we optimized two pages for the same (previously unlisted on Google) nonsense keyword, and changed only one page variable (such as paid for backlinks, or multiple H1 tags) and compared versions. We built our SEO Game of Chutes and ladders, that in the end failed to make the mini-viral splash that we had hoped for. We also had a “Blog Blitz” where we mobilized our entire team to contribute blog posts on a weekly basis, driving up general website content considerably.
All of our experiments including, this content marketing case study, helped us learn, and in the end they made for an extremely successful year as far as growth in traffic, web leads, and overall business success at Snap. Thank you for reading our blog and being part of the journey to better digital marketing strategy.
Other awesome content marketing case studies:
Brafton: Case study: Content marketing consistency wins long-term results
E-Consultancy B2B SEO demystified: a content marketing case study
Newscred & Pepsi Pepsi: Entertaining global audiences with local content
Moz: Case Study: 5 Steps to Create a Killer Content Marketing Strategy