Everyone can give advice, but living it? That’s a bit harder. That’s why I want to give you a peek into some of our metrics today.
Here’s the thing: There are a lot of SEO best practices, some of which don’t change too much and others which are based on more recent Google algorithm updates and even new systems (helllooooo, helpful content system). And while it can seem easy to shell out advice (especially if we ignore all the years of dedication and experience of those doing the advising), implementing it and making changes to our workflows is something else.
Here’s how we put our own advice into practice and how that’s helped us triple our page-one keywords.
The advice: Consistently follow SEO best practices. Create content that’s useful to your target audience. Integrate keywords into your content marketing strategy.
The Starting Point
In December 2022, we had 83 keywords in the top three and 669 on page one.
We’d already increased our publishing cadence a few months before — publishing two posts a week.
In 2023, we:
- Focused more on SEO topics rather than thought leadership.
- Integrated AI into our workflows.
- Expanded the content team.
- Increased our cadence to three posts on some weeks.
Here’s how each of those looked in practice.
Our Solutions: Content
More SEO Topics
We published a lot of pieces based on SEO keyword research last year. Rather than focusing on educational gaps in our content (like we did in 2021), we dove into keyword research like it was a refreshing pool on a 100-degree day.
If I came across an interesting topic while monitoring SEO news or came up with an idea, I jumped right over to Ahrefs to identify whether it was worthwhile (search volume) and whether we could rank for it (keyword difficulty).
If the topic hit the sweet spot (high search volume and low keyword difficulty) and was relevant to our offerings, I immediately added it to my content calendar.
If it didn’t quite hit the mark but it had potential, I tucked it away into my backlog. And if it really didn’t make sense to pursue, I closed the tab and moved on.
Did we only publish content based on our ability to rank for particular keywords? No. We still created plenty of educational pieces and some thought leadership. However, our focus on an SEO-based content strategy helped us build topical authority and increase organic traffic.
Integrated AI
November 2022 will be remembered as the month ChatGPT came onto the scene. What a magical time. While there was plenty of speculation about the future of search, lots of professionals began testing the waters of generative AI.
In 2023, I experimented with several AI tools with the goal of improving our workflows. I returned to ChatGPT time and again since it just worked better than anything else I tried. I used it to help flesh out ideas, create outlines, brainstorm headings, and more. Using ChatGPT allowed me to speed up content production without exploding our costs.
Expanded the Team
One of the best choices I made last year was hiring a freelance editor. I got pretty lucky — a creative writing graduate student with a history of working with digital marketing agencies. She has made it easier for me to turn around pieces more quickly and reduce the number of touches per piece.
I also started working with some new writers and hired someone to stage blog posts on the site. Scaling and growth require delegating, so I’m happy to have found some hardworking team members to collaborate with.
Increased Our Cadence
Thanks to AI and our team growth, we were able to increase our monthly publishing cadence. Rather than publishing about nine posts a month, we published 11 or 12 posts a month for most of 2023. This allowed us to target more keywords and publish multiple pieces on related topics (topic clusters).
Our Solutions: SEO
In addition to our content, we also maintained SEO best practices for the site. We try to be our own best customer, which means we partner with our SEO strategists to capitalize on the opportunities they spot and use our deliverables to enhance our search presence. We use the same services we offer to our customers to support our growth and business goals.
Refreshed Keyword Strategy
Search intent can shift over time, as can an audience’s search behavior. To stay on top of these changes, Victorious recommends periodically refreshing a keyword strategy. We refreshed our own in Q2 and then got to work updating page content.
Page Optimizations
Page content can go stale — and new keywords mean it’s time to reoptimize and freshen up copy. We used our updated keyword strategy to guide us through page optimizations. The strategy not only had refreshed themes, but it also provided new recommendations regarding competitive parity and referring domain needs.
Once we updated our pages, we asked Google to recrawl them through Search Console’s URL inspection tool.
Link Building
Off-page SEO is critical for gaining traction in Google Search — and too many people overlook it. Thankfully, our team recommends link velocity that’s in line with our industry and helps us understand which pages we need to build backlinks to. We use the same link building practices we provide our customers to improve our pages’ authority.
Additional Services
We also worked with our SEO team to implement deliverables like Featured Snippet Optimizations and Internal Link Analyses. These services help increase the chances of capturing a SERP feature and maximize our link equity. Our goal is to make it easy for site visitors to find the information they need — and to make crawling and indexing our site a breeze.Â
The Results
Before migrating to our new domain, we had captured 241 top-three keywords and 2004 page-one keywords.
This represents an increase of 187% and 200%, respectively, from December 12, 2022, to December 12, 2023.
These ranking increases reflect the hard work and dedication of our SEO and internal content teams and would not have been possible without collaboration. From my experience, our different SEO services not only work, but they lead to tangible results that can propel business growth.Â
Now that we’ve migrated to a new domain, we continue to use our own services to drive visibility and build its authority. I’ll report back on that soon!
Ready To Create Your Own Success?
These results aren’t an anomaly. They’re the product of integrating SEO into our content and partnering with a skilled SEO team to reach a shared goal. If you’re ready to improve your search performance and pen your own success story, speak to one of our SEO consultants today.
Want to check out more case studies? See how we’ve helped companies of different sizes in various industries build brand awareness, increase search visibility, and drive revenue.
