An SEO Marketing Case Study: a success story of epic proportions

SEO? Exciting? Surely they're mutually exclusive I hear you wail (I imagine you're wailing anyway, but perhaps not!). 

Well in this case there is good cause to get excited as the growth and subsequent success of this particular campaign has underlined the power of SEO when done correctly over a highly focused, and tightly targeted subject. As for proof, just Google 'verruca treatment'... third one down (at the time of writing).  

So this campaign then. What was the brief? What were aims? And lastly, what were the KPIs attached to it? 

With the client holding a strong position in the B2B sector for products that aided verruca removal, a move into the B2C marketing presented a number of challenges.  Not least of which is the immense competitiveness of this area. Verruca removal products from companies such as Bazuka, SuperDrug and Boots dominate market and these giants coupled with NHS, Bupa and Scholl mean that space on the first couple of page's on Google (let alone the first page) is tight to say the least! 

Bazuka's marketing campaigns (bazuka that verruca) have been going strong for over 10 years (now doesn't that make you feel old...!), so understanding whether inroads could ever be made into this market was a primary concern.

SEO Strategy 

As with all SEO campaign's, our first port of call is to understand exactly what people are searching. With a healthy client budget of 8,000 monthly searches in the UK we began delving into the keywords for which the site already ranked highly for, and the relevancy that Google gave the site for keywords around verruca / verruca removal / and verruca treatment. 

Understanding exactly which changes a site needs to ensure our link building programme has maximum impact is crucial for any SEO campaign. Outlining any tweaks that a site's content needs is fundamental to the success that link building can have. If your on-page content is not in-line with Google's best practice, you may as well not do SEO at all! 

Once our on-page audit was complete, we turned out attention to the wider concern of the keywords we should be targetting using our tried and tested keyword research methods.

Using the industry recognised KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) we are able to get an indication of the opportunity – and likelihood of success – for each keyword based on: search trends; search volume; and keyword competition. The higher this number, the more likely we are to be able make a good impression within Google.

With auditing and on-page tweaks done, and recommended keywords selected, our attention turned to the main focus of this campaign: getting users to purchase the product. With the site not set up for e-commerce we looked to direct users through to an independent provider whereby they could purchase the product.

By designing, writing and creating a landing page to Google's best practices, providing both useful information regarding the product and satisfying a keyword density of around 1-3%, the page was perfectly optimised to 'capture' and direct users (using compelling Calls-to-Action) towards purchasing the product. 

All landing pages should house a number of key features of which Google will look at when deciding on the relevancy of a page for its searchers. This includes, but is not limited to, whether the keyword appears in; the URL; the heading (H1); the meta title; and the throughout the page's content. By following our own advice we give any link building the best chance of success.

Growing, Growing, GROWTH

Using Google recognised methods, we begin a process of improving the page's authority in Google with both a programme of content writing, and internal and external link building. The link juice that is passed via anchor text meant that a page's authority and 'trustworthiness' is allowed to grow organically.

Growing authority organically like this, means a client's content is more likely to become associated with other useful, relevant information. This indicates to Google that the content on this landing page is not only relevant to its searchers but is trustworthy and backed up by other, heavily fact-checked, sources. 

By creating useful, search engine friendly content, any link building programme will merely enhance the brilliant content that you have already created. The more useful Google deems your content, the more often it will show it (Impression) to its searchers. Simple.

Once in place, these methods become self-perpetuating as the more searchers Click on your page and engage with your content, the more trustworthy and relevant Google will deem you page... and so on! 

Although an initial struggle, the competitiveness of this sector and market became a blessing once our foot was in the door. The huge monthly search volumes around the topic or verrucas and how to get rid of verrucas has meant that the sky is the limit with regards to growth; 'verruca' for example has a monthly UK search volume of 40,000...

In a 6-month period - still considered early stages of SEO campaigns - we have seen this one landing page go from appearing just 700 times in a month, to now (Nov. 17) appearing well over 4,000 times a day. The last 30-days have heralded a staggering 88,000 Impressions and 1,574 Clicks across 684 keywords, all of which appear with an average position of 9th! 

Want to see a full break-down of the campaign results? Click here to download our review!  

Takeaway? 

Yes it's a Friday (at the time of writing) so that's on the cards, but what can be learnt from such straightforward, and relentless success? 

Although undoubtedlybenefiting from the shear volume's at stake here, we can certainly attribute the sharp and focused growth to the simple fact that this campaign has never strayed from its KPIs or target market.

By focusing solely on one tightly packaged subject, we have been able to grow links and write content for just one perfectly optimised landing page. It is this that has led to the immediate recognition and growth within Google's SERPs. CRO

Here is our latest version of the
Campaign Snapshot Review!