My premium SEO training course, The SEO Playbook, is now open. Find out more about the course and see what current students are saying about it here.
Do you want to learn to rank #1 for high-traffic keywords in any niche?
In this SEO case study, you're going to learn the repeatable 6-step process one of my readers used to get his client to #1 in Google, outrank big name brands like Mashable, and increase organic traffic 11,065% in just 6 months!
He was able to do it in a niche industry without spending any money on paid advertising or link building.
Pretty cool, right?
It gets better.
Over an 18 month period this simple SEO strategy was applied to several posts across his client's site, generating 152,732 visits.
Every month, the organic traffic delivers hundreds of new email subscribers, affiliate commissions and potential business leads.
The best part?
Its a simple (and repeatable) SEO strategy any business can use to drive more qualified traffic from search engines.
Note: This a monster 8,000 word SEO case study, so I've included a table of contents below for you to easily navigate between sections.
Table of Contents
Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. I only promote tools I personally use to run my business. If you decide to purchase through one of my links I will receive a commission at no additional cost to you. This helps me continue to publish valuable content - thanks for the support!
Editor's note:
Need help getting more organic traffic, leads and sales for your business? Set up a free consult with me here.
SEO Case Study: The Step-By-Step Process Michael Karp Used to rank #1 and Generate 20,314 Organic Pageviews (With a Single Post)
Take it away Michael.
Today’s SEO case study features UAV Coach — a fast growing business in the commercial drone space:
A little background.
Alan Perlman started UAV Coach to help people break into the industry, and build a business around something he’s passionate about.
To do this, he needed to find a way to generate recurring traffic and leads.
I was contracted to help with this assignment.
I knew we needed to build an SEO strategy centered on evergreen content that would help generate long-term exposure, position the brand as an authority in the industry, capture leads, and ultimately convert them into paying customers.
The first post I created (and the focus of this SEO case study) for UAV Coach was called "How to Fly a Quadcopter — The Ultimate Guide":
It's an in-depth 4,400-word guide to safely piloting a remote control quadcopter.
The article ranks in position #1 for its target keyword “how to fly a quadcopter”, as well as over 1,300 other secondary keyword variations:
Organic Search Positions report for the quadcopter guide via the SEMrush SEO Toolkit (affiliate)
Keyword Rankings and Search Volume
Keyword: how to fly a quadcopter
Monthly search volume: 260
Keyword: how to fly a drone
Monthly search volume: 3,600
Keyword: how to fly a quadcopter in a circle
Monthly search volume: 50
Keyword: quadcopter
Monthly search volume: 18,100
The article has also landed 29 featured snippets:
Featured snippet results for quadcopter guide via Ahrefs Site Explorer (affiliate)
These rankings bring hundreds of visitors to the site every day:
In the first 6 months, the post brought in 21.4% of UAV Coach's total traffic...
Boasting an insane average time on page of 05:22:
Not only is the post bringing in loads of new traffic...
The traffic CONVERTS.
The post captured 2,335 emails, making it a top lead generation asset for the business.
How long did it take to reach the #1 spot in Google?
It took 3 months to hit the first page and 5 months to reach the #1 spot.
And, 6 months after publishing the guide it had generated 20,314 organic pageviews:
Needless to say, Alan (owner) was pretty happy with the results:
Alan Perlman
UI/UX Designer
While I’ve worked with hundreds of companies on their marketing and sales strategies, it wasn’t until working with Michael that I saw such rapid growth in organic, search engine traffic. Doubling our results month-over-month has not only helped us to grow our email list and generate revenue through our affiliate partners. It’s helped us to transform our mere industry blog into a real, thriving business.
The Repeatable 6-Step Formula Used to Rank Content in Any Niche
You're about to learn the EXACT process I use to create killer content, outrank global brands like Mashable and deliver thousands of targeted visitors to my client's websites.
The process works in ANY niche.
And is designed to maximize your effort-to-reward ratio by targeting keywords that are comparatively easier to rank for.
(i.e untapped keywords.)
Here's a snapshot of the steps we'll be walking through in this case study:
1. Keyword research and competitive analysis
2. Content creation
3. On-page SEO
4. List building
5. Content promotion
6. Link building
You’re probably thinking: "But Michael, that’s so simple.”
And you’re right: it’s not complicated, and that’s the beauty of it!
Let's jump in...
Step #1: Keyword Research and Competitor Analysis
While the drone space is a relatively new niche, competition is fierce. The SERPs are filled with big brand publications:
As well as hundreds of competing blogs:
We needed to be very strategic about which topics we targeted, especially as a smaller blog with relatively low domain authority (more on this later).
Our first step was to perform keyword research and uncover evergreen topics targeted to beginner pilots (our core persona at the time).
Editor's note:
If you want to learn the step-by-step keyword research process I use to scale organic traffic for my business and clients, check out my premium training program, The SEO Playbook.
Build a list of keyword opportunities
Head over to the SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool and type in some seed keywords related to your core product, service or content topic:
The Keyword Magic Tool makes it easy to filter the data using a number of different data points:
For speed, I’ll just sort the Volume from largest to smallest and export all the keyword data:
Next, review each keyword and tag the most relevant evergreen topic:
I decided to focus on the term “how to fly a quadcopter.”
Why did I start with this keyword?
- The primary keyword had solid monthly search volume (720)
- It's a topic our core persona (beginner pilots) would be searching for
- It was a topic I could easily research
- It had a large potential organic footprint (i.e. could rank for loads of secondary keywords)
Note: The final point in the list is often overlooked.
Many people make the mistake of only looking at the search volume associated with their core target keyword.
And, they miss out on a LOT of potential traffic.
While "how to fly a quadcopter" only receives 720 monthly searches, the article ranks for 1,331 different keywords:
SEMrush Top Pages report shows the number of secondary keywords the guide ranks for.
Click the Keywords link and you’ll many of the secondary keywords carry decent search volume as well:
In fact, the primary keyword drives a small percentage of the total organic traffic going to the article each month.
Find secondary keyword targets
Plug your target keyword into SEMrush and scroll down to the Related Keywords report:
You’ll see SEMrush kicked back 962 related search terms!
Scan down the list and place a checkmark next to any term closely related to the primary topic of your content:
Related Keywords report in the SEMrush keyword report.
Once you’re done selecting related keywords, click the green “Add to Export Manager” button at the top of the report.
Click the numbered box and export the keyword list:
In a matter of minutes you’ve compiled dozens, maybe hundreds of secondary keyword ideas.
Cool, right?
You're just getting started 🙂
Google “Searches related to…”
Install the free Keywords Everywhere chrome extension:
Next, perform a quick search for your target keyword and scroll down to the "Searches related to..." section.
You’ll see all the long tail keywords along with search volume, CPC and keyword competition data pulled from AdWords:
Tip: Take one of the keywords from the “Searches related to…” area, pop that into Google, and check out the “Searches related to…” results for that keyword. Rinse and repeat until you have a list of relevant long tail keywords to target.
Google autosuggest
Enter your keyword into Google and look at the other terms Google suggests:
Answer The Public
Manually entering keywords into Google can be very tedious and time-consuming.
Answer The Public provides an easy way to quickly scale this keyword research strategy.
The tool grabs information from Google Suggest, but what makes it unique is that it provides a mountain of keyword suggestions from entering a single term.
How?
It takes your seed keyword and appends every letter of the alphabet after it to produce hundreds of keyword suggestions.
For example, when you type the keyword "quadcopter" into Google you get a list of suggestions, like this:
But then when you enter your keyword plus another letter, Google Suggest will spit out a different list of suggestions:
Answer The Public will scrape this data and do all the heavy lifting so you don't have to spend hours manually entering keyword combinations like "quadcopter a", "quadcopter b", etc..
To use it, head over to Answer The Public and enter your seed keyword:
Click the “Alphabeticals” link:
This will return hundreds of potential new keyword ideas:
Turn on the Keywords Everywhere chrome extension to pull in search volume and CPC data:
Scan the results and add any relevant terms to your keyword set.
People Also Ask…
Enter your target keyword and scroll down to the “People Also Ask” box:
These are the exact questions your target audience is looking for answers to online.
These topics can provide ideas for new sections to add into informational blog content, or even use as FAQs on more conversion-based content such as product and category pages.
You’ll notice the People Also Ask box only shows a small handful of questions. But, if you click one of the questions the list will begin to expand:
Keep clicking until you have 20+ questions in the list.
Editor's Note:
Use the free Scraper chrome extension to scale this form of question-based keyword research.
Right click on one of the questions in the list, and select the “Scrape Similar” option:
This will open a window with the question and answer you clicked on:
Since we want to scrape ALL the questions, you need to navigate over to the left side of window and remove the [1] from the x-path query:
Click enter and the Scraper extension will pull in all the questions and answers from the expanded “People Also Ask” list:
Copy the data to your clipboard and paste it into a spreadsheet. Remove all the answers and you’ll be left with a long list of question-based topics to target. I cover this process in greater detail here.
Starting to see traction...
You’ll notice a lot of the related and long tail keywords collected in the previous steps were targeted with dedicated sections in the guide:
After a few months the post started to rank for a lot of these different secondary keywords:
A couple interesting things to note here:
- UAV Coach was able to rank for hundreds of different subtopics with a single article. (eg: they didn’t have to write a separate post for “how to rotate a quadcopter” and another for “quadcopter controls”)
- UAV Coach was able to land loads of featured snippets by using dedicated sections in the article to provide direct answers to very specific search queries. Learn more about getting featured snippets.
Ok:
Now that you have a solid list of primary and secondary keyword ideas, the next step is to qualify the terms you can realistically rank in the top 5 positions within the next 3-6 months.
There are two primary elements you need to pay attention to:
- Domain and page-level authority
- SERP and content types
- On-page/ quality signals
By doing competitive analysis, you can save a lot of time and effort that would’ve been wasted trying to rank for impossible keywords.
Let’s start by looking at the authority of competing pages in the SERPs.
How to analyze your competition (in 15 minutes or less)
First, install the free Ahrefs SEO Toolbar and do a quick search for your primary keyword.
Launch the extension by clicking the icon in your browser bar (make sure it’s light blue):
Click the gear icon to configure which Ahrefs metrics get pulled into the SERPs.
Head back over to the search results and you should see all the domain and page-level metrics showing below each search result:
The Ahrefs Toolbar shows:
- Ahrefs URL rating
- Ahrefs Domain Rating
- Ahrefs Rank
- Number of Backlinks
- Number of Referring Domains
- Estimated Organic Search Traffic
- Number of Ranking Keywords
Each of these metrics is helpful for getting a top-level view of the organic traffic potential and difficulty to rank for a given search term.
Click a link in the toolbar and you’ll be taken to a report for that URL inside the Ahrefs application:
Assessing link metrics
Editor's note:
Ahrefs studied the correlation of backlink factors across 2 million keyword searches and found that page-level link metrics had a stronger correlation with search rankings:
As a general rule, you’re looking for domain and page authority similar to or lower than that of your site/page:
For example:
All the competing assets have low URL ratings and few referring domains pointing to them:
This looks like a promising keyword to quickly rank for.
But, you're still not done.
There are a couple other SERP elements to consider in the keyword qualification process.
SERP and content types
This is one of the most overlooked steps in the keyword qualification process.
Before you decide to target any keyword or topic, determine which specific content types are ranking in the search results.
Are they blog posts? Videos? Category pages? Product pages? Government resource pages?
Typically, there will be a single content type displaying in the top 10 results. Basically, this is Google telling you what users expect from a given search query.
Our quadcopter is a simple example:
The “how to” modifier in the search string indicates that this an informational search, so it’s no surprise all the results are blog posts.
But, not all cases are this clear cut:
Editor's note:
I was working with a SaaS company that had an interactive content marketing platform.
The client was trying to rank for product-related terms such as interactive infographic. When I started working with the company they could not get their product page to rank for the term.
Initially, this seemed a little odd. The page had a high URL rating (authority), quality content, and a healthy number of quality backlinks.
It wasn’t until we analyzed the SERP content types that the reason they were having such a hard time ranking became clear:
All the ranking assets were long form listicle blog posts.
(i.e. they were simply trying to rank with the wrong content type).
So, we built out a massive listicle post which now ranks #1 for the target search term and drives a lot of targeted organic traffic to the site each month:
In the same 12 month period the product page brought in 366 organic visits compared to the blog post with 9,565 organic visits.
On-Page SEO Competition
Studies have shown that on-page SEO has a relatively small impact on rankings these days:
While backlinks seem to have a much higher correlation, on-page SEO should not be ignored.
Think about it:
Backlinks can take months/years (and a lot of resources) to build. Meanwhile, key on-page elements can be analyzed and optimized in a matter of minutes.
Editor's note:
If you want to take a deep dive into how to optimize your on-page SEO, check out this massive 19-step on-page SEO checklist. It also comes with a Google Sheets template that will help you automate a lot of the more tedious on-page analysis tasks:
Prefer video?
Watch over my shoulder as I walk you through the automation template:
I always like to look at the on-page SEO for each competing search result. Specifically, I like to see how they are using exact match keywords in the:
- Title tag
- URL
- Heading tags
- Meta descriptions (to help improve CTR)
Fortunately, the Domain Rating, URL Rating and link metrics were on our side. The competition in this area was pretty weak.
However:
Almost every article on the first page was well-optimized for the target keyword:
You’ll also notice that some of the articles are using jump links to sections in the post optimized for secondary keyword variations.
(i.e. all the competitors were doing a solid job optimizing the on-page SEO)
If these pages had solid backlink profiles and high page/domain authority too, I would have wasted a lot of time creating, promoting, and building links to this article with very little return.
It might seem small, but don't skip this step!
Check how well optimized the top 10 pages are for your target keyword.
Content Quality
This is the final step in the keyword qualification phase.
I typically assess content quality by looking at the following:
- Content length
- Multi media (images, video, infographics, gifs)
- Secondary keywords
- UX (readability)
- Format (list post, expert roundup, interview, case study, how-to etc..)
- How up-to-date is it
- Social media optimization
Editor's note:
If you want to learn the exact Content Layering framework I use to crush competitors in the SERPs, check out the Quick Wins Playbook in my new SEO training course here.
For example:
After examining a few of the top ranking pages, I knew there was an opportunity to crush them in a number of areas.
The top ranking article at the time had very thin content:
The entire article was only 303 words (compared to the 4,000+ I wrote for UAV Coach).
Most of the others posts ranking on the first page were also short and offered surface-level information. Very few posts used any type of multi media - images or videos - to supplement the writing.
Editor's note:
Check out this SEO copywriting guide to learn how to make your articles more sticky, improve time on page and convert more readers.
So, what did I learn about my target keyword?
- High traffic potential
- Relatively weak competition
- Opportunity to create a dominant piece of evergreen content
- Perfect keyword for our target audience
I had a great list of keywords and a solid foundation for the rest of the SEO campaign.
Note: Add the terms into a keyword rank tracking tool to monitor position and visibility over time.
Time to create EPIC content!
Step #2: Content Creation
The content playing field has become a red ocean. Articles are longer, better researched, and formatted for user experience:
Today, Google’s first page search results average close to 2,000 words in length.
When creating content, there’s one mentality everyone should adopt:
“I want to create the best piece of content on this topic — period.”
Editor's note:
Your content should provide the cumulative value of the existing top
10 results. It should be a definitive resource in every sense of the word.
Michael will dive into this a bit more below, but if you want to learn the Content Layering framework I use to rank clients for some of the most competitive terms online, check out my premium training course, The SEO Playbook.
Having a great piece of content makes content promotion and link building much easier.
Take the time to write something that will blow your competition out of the water.
It took me 3 days to research and write the quadcopter guide. I covered every inch of the topic and the article now tips the scales at 4,774 words:
It includes in-text links for easy navigation:
Note: This is a smart move for any long-form content, because Google will often take display jump links in the SERP:
This can help your post stand out in the SERPS and increase click-through rates (now a behavioral ranking signal within Google's algorithm).
I also included definitions for readers, such as how to fly safely, a pre-flight checklist, novice skills, beginner skills, advanced skills, and much more.
I looked at everything the top articles were doing and did it better.
Then I looked at everything they weren’t doing, and did that too. This is the stuff that will ultimately make your content stand out from the competition.
The result was a 4,774 word guide that was clearly better than anything else out there.
As a general rule, make sure your content is:
- More in-depth
- More up-to-date
- Provides a better user experience
- Actionable
Important: Try to beat your competition on every level - length, current information, design.
This is exactly what Robbie did to increase his traffic 272% in 30 days.
Ok:
You now have a great piece of content. The next step is to optimize on-page SEO.
Step #3: On-Page Optimization
On-page factors are the elements of a webpage that influence search engine ranking.
But, here’s the thing:
As we saw earlier, on-page factors often get overshadowed by off-site factors such as domain and page-level authority:
While on-page elements have a relatively small impact compared to link metrics, they still influence rankings and have a big impact on user experience.
It tells Google:
1. What your page is about (relevance)
2. What keywords you want to rank for (targeting)
3. How valuable your content is (quality)
On-page SEO is quick to implement and within your direct control. Compared to off-page efforts such as link building which take months or years to execute and come with a lot of moving variables (eg: who will respond to your outreach email?).
So, what are the most important on-page SEO ranking factors?
Here’s what the same Ahrefs study found:
You have very little control over the first two factors:
- Keyword in domain name;
- Age of the page
So, you’ll want to focus most of your attention on the other elements listed in the graph.
Editor's note:
We’ll cover some of the core on-page optimizations in this case study, but if you want dive deeper, check out this in-depth on-page SEO checklist.
I’ve also provided a template to help you troubleshoot and automate some of the most tedious on-page optimizations.
Ok:
Let’s start with the quickest optimizations: strategic placement of primary and secondary keywords.
1) Target keyword placement
Title Tag: Your title tag is the most important on-page SEO factors when it comes to keyword placement. Try to get an exact or semantic keyword variant close to the front of the title tag.
If you’re using WordPress, it’s easy to place your keyword in the SEO title, URL, and meta description.
First, install the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin.
Open the page editor and scroll down to the “Yoast SEO” box.
Adjust the SEO title/meta description and get a preview of what your SERP will look like.
URL: Make sure you have a short, descriptive URL.
Google has stated the first 3-5 words in the URL is weighted as a search ranking factor. If possible, include exact match keyword at the beginning of the URL.
In addition to helping search engines understand your content, descriptive URLs will also increase the likelihood users click on your search result.
Check out this URL:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/67291.php
At face value, you have no idea if the content has anything to do with what you’re looking for.
Now look at this one:
It’s a descriptive URL that tells you exactly what to expect on the page - a guide about how to fly quadcopters.
Editor's note:
There are a couple things to consider here:
1) What if I’m trying to relaunch an existing asset and the URL does not contain the keyword?
Keep the URL the same. In my experience, the risk outweighs the reward when it comes to changing URL paths for the sole purpose of keyword placement.
2) What if your current permalink structure doesn’t accommodate descriptive URLs like this?
Don’t worry too much about this. Just keep the URL as short and descriptive as possible.
I believe that is a very small ranking factor. So it is not something I’d really try to force. And it is not something I’d say it is even worth your effort to restructure your site just so you can get keywords in your URL.
First 100 words: Include your target keyword (or a close variant) somewhere in the first paragraph of your body copy:
Heading tags: Make sure your blog post title is wrapped in an H1 tag. Google views the H1 tag as your post headline, and helps bots quickly understand the topic of your post.
Try to include sematnic and secondary keyword variations in H2 and H3 tags within the post.
Also - sprinkle them throughout in-text navigation links:
Google cannot read images, so include target keywords in image alt text so Google can understand what they are about.
Note: Do NOT stuff keywords in alt text. Instead, write the alt text in a way that accurately describes what the image is about. Keep it natural.
And finally, place keyword variations a few times throughout the body content.
2) Secondary keyword variations (LSI)
LSI keywords are synonyms Google uses to determine page relevancy (and sometimes quality).
Including LSI can not only help boost relevancy, it can also help expand your keyword footprint and organic traffic potential.
For example:
"How to fly a quadcopter in a circle” versus “how to fly a quadcopter.”
Note: this section of the post also includes variants such as clockwise, counter clockwise and rotate.
Even if keyword research tools don’t show any search volume for the variations, you should still place them in the content for relevancy and to make sure you’re not over-optimizing exact match keywords.
If you write long form content, chances are you'll naturally include LSI keywords in your content.
Next, make sure to include the related keywords you want to rank for.
Place each of them once or twice in the body content:
Subheadings:
And in-text navigation links:
3) Multi media
Text can only do so much.
Engaging images, videos, screenshots and other multi media can increase time on site, scroll depth and decrease bounce rate: three behavioral metrics Google uses to measure content quality.
Multi media will also increase the perceived value of your content: which means more people sharing or linking to your content.
Make sure your are including helpful images:
And videos:
4) External links
Not linking out to (quality) external resources is a common on-page mistake. Many people fear doing this to avoid “leaking authority”, when in fact linking out to related content is a relevancy signal Google.
It can signal to Google that your content is a hub of quality information related to a given topic.
Note: adding links to quality external resources of specific topics in your article is also a great way to improve the user experience.
When optimizing the quadcopter guide, I noticed many of the top ranking competitors weren’t linking out to any other resources.
I did the opposite 🙂
Go through your content and find a few places to link out to the most relevant articles ranking for your keyword.
Note: Reach out to each of the sites referenced in your article. Since you gave them a link, they will likely reciprocate by at least sharing your article with their audience.
5) Internal links
Adding internal links is one of the easiest ways to funnel traffic and authority to new content:
Editor's note:
Here are a couple quick ways to find high-value internal link opportunities:
1) Traffic: Go to the Behavior > Site Content > All Pages report in Google Analytics:
This report will show the individual pages on your site that have received the most traffic over a specific time period. Add an internal link towards the top of the asset to drive some of that traffic to your new piece of content.
2) Authority: Enter your domain into the Ahrefs Site Explorer and navigate to the “Best By Links” report:
Sort the Referring Domains (RDs) column in descending order to find the most authoritative pages on your site. Scan the list and look for related content where it would make sense to add an internal link. This is a quick way to give page-level authority a quick boost.
6) Site/ load speed
Ever clicked on a search result and the page takes an eternity to load?
It’s one of the fastest ways to get potential readers to hit the back button and return to the SERP to read a different result.
In fact, Google found that 53% of users will abandon a page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.
Google monitors this behavior and has been using it as a ranking factor since 2010.
And, in July this year Google announced it would finally start using mobile page speed as a ranking factor in mobile search results:
SEMrush conducted a study and found three of the top four ranking factors are directly related to a user’s experience on your site:
User experience and rankings aside, slow page speed is a HUGE conversion killer.
SOASTA found that a one second delay in page response can reduce your conversions by up to 27%:
To improve page speed, use the free Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to analyze your page and identify areas for optimization:
Here are a few simple things you should do to improve page load speed:
1. Compress images: use a plugin such as WPSmush or Shortpixel to automatically compress images and reduce file size without losing quality.
2. Use a CDN: use a free tool like Cloudflare to host your content on geographically dispersed servers so people anywhere in the world can quickly access your content:
(Source)
3. Enable caching: use a free plugin like W3 Total Cache to create a static version of your content that the web browser can load fast. Check out this guide for setup instructions.
7) Formatting and readability
Which piece of content would you rather read?
No brainer, right?
The first example breaks up the text with formatting best practices such as shorter sentences, lists, and different font sizes to create a more “scannable” piece of content.
Every chapter in our quadcopter guide uses similar best practices to increase the readability:
Ok:
Once the on-page SEO is fully optimized, it’s time to shift your attention towards converting all the new organic traffic into email subscribers (leads).
Step #4: Turn traffic into email subscribers
Building an email list should be your #1 priority.
Why?
Because 98% of visitors will leave your site without converting.
And the average consumer will have 7 touch points with your brand or product before buying.
Building an email list is critical if you want to be able to continually re-engage your audience, establish a relationship and eventually convert them into paying customers.
Here’s the simple 3-step formula UAV Coach used to collect thousands of email subscribers:
1. Create a lead magnet
2. Configure list building tools
3. Set up automatic delivery
1) Create your lead magnet
A lead magnet is when you offer something of value to a reader in exchange for their email address.
Some common examples:
- Free ebooks
- Free trials
- Checklists
- Mindmaps
- Infographics
- Short videos
In this video, Robbie shows how to turn old content into a high-converting lead magnet in 13 seconds:
Here is the PDF version of the article we used as a lead magnet:
Nothing fancy, but as you’ll see below, it worked VERY well!
2) Optimize your website for lead capture
This step involves strategically placing opt-in forms at high-visibility touchpoints across your site.
There are many different form types to use for this:
- Popups
- Scroll mats
- In-content
- Two-step lightboxes
- Header bars
- Lead boxes
And more…
Editor's note:
If you’re looking for a solid list building tool that will allow you to quickly set up, test and integrate all these form types with your email marketing software, I recommend the following tools:
Thrive Leads: My list building tool of choice. I’ve used the WordPress plugin to collect thousands of email subscribers over the last 3 years. Check out my full review here.
Sumo: Another great list building tool. I use the free version to capture my first 4,635 email subscribers.
ConvertKit: This is the tool I use to manage all the email marketing sequences and automtions for my business.
Full disclosure: I am an affiliate for each of the tools mentioned above. I only promote products I personally use to run my businesses. If you purchase a subscription through one of my links I will receive a commission at no additional cost to you. This is one of the ways I fund running this blog.
For the quadcopter article we chose two tactics:
1. Popup
2. Lead box
First, we used the Sumo List Builder app to create this pop-up form:
As you can see, our value proposition is joining the community and receiving a free PDF of the guide.
It pops up 12 seconds after a visitor arrives, and doesn’t show to the same visitor more than once every 24 hours:
And it converts at 5.12%:
We then used the Sumo Leads app to create a leadbox that delivers the PDF inside the content.
When readers click on the button:
An opt-in box pops up:
It converts 20-50% of the people clicking on the button:
3) Automatically deliver lead magnet to new subscribers
I've got good news and bad news.
The good news:
Someone entered their email address to access your lead magnet.
The bad news:
They aren't on your email list yet.
You still have two things to do after a reader hits the "Sign Up" button:
1. Get them to confirm their email address (double opt-in)
2. Deliver the lead magnet
Luckily, you can automate this entire process.
Here how it works:
Subscriber enters email and is redirected to a custom confirmation page like this one:
The goal of this page is to make sure people are clicking the link in the confirmation email you send them:
Confirmation email sent via ConvertKit after someone joins The SEO Playbook waitlist.
This will ensure they are double opted in.
Once the reader clicks the confirmation link they are redirected to a page where they can view or download the lead magnet:
Landing page built with the Thrive Content Builder WordPress plugin.
Step #5: Content Promotion
Depending on the level of competition, it can take months to hit the first page.
In the early stages, it’s important to spend time promoting your content in order to generate some initial traffic, engagement and (potentially) links.
Here are four actionable tactics UAV used to promote the quadcopter guide:
- Quora
- Forum marketing
- Social media automation
- Scoop.it
Let's drive some traffic…
1) Mine Quora Questions
Quora is a massive Q&A website, and one of the most visited on the planet.
It’s also one of our top sources of referral traffic:
Quora threads can stay active for months or even years, driving a passive stream of organic traffic to your content.
Here’s how to drive traffic from Quora:
First, head over to Quora and create an account. Fill out the profile - headshot, description, interests, etc:
Do a search in the top bar for a topic related to your niche. This will bring up a list of threads that contain your keyword:
Click through to any threads where your content could help answer a question.
Write up an in-depth answer with a link to your content at the end. Frame it as a resource that can fully answer their question.
Here is one of Alan’s Quora answers that received over 4,800 views and sent a lot of targeted referral traffic to the quadcopter guide:
In-depth answers are trusted more and typically work better than only posting your link.
Keep joining discussions and answering questions for different search terms, and you’ll drive consistent traffic to your article!
The first week after publishing, we spent 1-2 hours a day promoting the guide in relevant Quora threads. And, we continue to look for new threads to promote it each week.
Editor’s note: Large Q&A sites like Quora have threads that rank in the top 3 positions for millions of high traffic keywords:
You can piggyback off the rankings and drive loads of targeted referral traffic back to your site.
Here’s how to do it:
Go to SEMrush, enter quora.com in the search box, then go to the SEO Toolkit >> Organic Research >> Positions report:
You’ll see that Quora ranks for over 29M different keywords!
But:
Most of these keywords are either irrelevant or don’t rank in the top 5 positions.
To ensure you’re targeting conversations that are (1) relevant and (2) have traffic potential, set the following filters:
This returned 364 different Quora threads related to the drone topic that are currently ranking in the top 5 search positions:
Start with the most relevant and high traffic threads, and work your way down the list.
2) Leverage Forum Marketing
Just like Quora, forums are packed with people discussing different topics.
They’re perfect places to promote your content.
Use these search strings to find forums in your niche:
“Keyword” + “forum”
“Keyword” + “powered by vBulletin”
This should bring up a list of forums to choose from
Go to a relevant forum and use the following stats to gauge activity (and traffic potential):
- Discussions
- Messages
- Views
- Replies
Higher engagement = great traffic potential.
Create an account and edit your signature:
Write a compelling description about your page that entices the click.
Next, go through the forum threads and answer related questions (similar to Quora).
Except this time, you don’t have to link directly to your article because it’s in your signature:
As you become an active member, you’ll start to position yourself as an authority.
3) Set Up Social Media Automation
We configured Buffer to share the guide twice in the first week on each of our main social media channels - facebook and Twitter - and once a week for a month afterwards.
Here’s how to do it:
First, sign up for Buffer and enter your account:
Click inside the “What do you want to share?” box. Write a tweet (or another type of social post) and include a link to your article at the end:
Click the arrow next to “Add to Queue” and “Schedule Post”:
Create another post, change up the text, and schedule it again for some time that week.
Rinse and repeat once a week for a month afterwards.
This should help you get a steady stream of traffic and social signals to the page.
Note: if you have a long form guide with multiple sections, chapters or tips, promote each one as a standalone social media post to get more mileage out of your content.
For example:
Ahrefs does this a lot with their articles:
Each tip is shared as a separate post, but still directs users to the same post. This helps avoid message fatigue.
We used this same strategy with the quadcopter guide by promoting each of the 17 chapters as a separate social post.
4) Submit content to Scoop.it pages
Scoop.it is a content curation platform. People create their own pages to gather the best content they find on a given topic/industry.
Most pages have a “Suggest” feature:
You can suggest a piece of content to the owner, and if they like it they’ll share it on their page.
These pages are visited regularly by hundreds of industry enthusiasts wanting to stay up-to-date with the latest information (and share it with the platform's built-in social media integration).
Here’s how we promoted the guide on Scoop.it:
Create an account and do a search in the top bar for a term related to your content:
The default result is a list of “Scoops” or specific posts, but you want “Topics”:
This will bring up a list of pages related to your primary topic/keyword. Hover over the results to see the number of views.
Click through to any that seem relevant and look for the suggestion box:
If it’s not there, the host has decided not to accept suggestions. Move on to another page.
If it is there, copy-paste your URL into the box and hit “Suggest.”
Adjust the image to the size you want (I like to go full size):
That’s it! The page owner will review your post and decide whether or not to feature it.
Rinse ad repeat until you reach the daily suggestion limit (7).
Scoop.it is a quick and easy way to build links and get initial exposure for your content.
Speaking of links...
The final part of this case study is going to break down how we built backlinks to the quadcopter guide, which helped push it to the top spot in Google.
Step #6: Build Backlinks (4 Actionable Tactics)
A study of 1 million SERP results found the number of domains linking to a page correlated with high rankings more than any other factor:
Google has also confirmed this.
We knew that if we wanted to reach the #1 position we had to build quality backlinks to the guide.
So, we focused heavily on this for 90 days after the guide went live:
Ahrefs SERP overview report showing link metrics for the top 10 ranking articles.
We’ve built almost links from almost 100 unique referring domains and established a 34 URL rating.
Both of these metrics are higher than any other result in the SERP, and is the main reason why the guide ranks in the top spot.
Here are four strategies we used to quickly build links:
1. Reverse engineered competitor link profiles
2. Identified competitor link gaps
3. Pitched weekly roundups
4. Pitched resources/links pages
Let’s take a closer look at each one…
1) Reverse engineered competitor link profiles
We set out to find all the sites linking to competing (inferior) content and pitch our content to them.
The idea here was that if a site had linked to a related piece of content in the past, they would be more likely to our content as well.
Note: We followed many of the steps listed in Robbie’s extensive competitor backlink analysis guide. Instead of repeating all of it here, I recommend you check it out for more in-depth instructions.
First - enter your primary keyword into the Ahrefs Keyword Explorer and scroll down to the SERP overview report:
Look for results with a minimum of 20 referring domains.
Click on the Backlinks number and it’ll take you through to this report:
Set the following filters:
- One link per domain
- Dofollow
- Language (English in our case)
This will give you a solid list of outreach targets.
Repeat the process for all the results with a minimum of 20 referring domains and add all the backlinks to a master list.
Editor’s note: Scale this strategy by mining the SERP results for secondary keyword variations.
Here are a couple quick ways to find additional competitors to mine for link opportunities:
1) SERP top keyword report:
Navigate to the right side of the SERP overview report and you’ll see the Top Keywords column:
This shows the keyword bringing the most traffic to a URL. Often, there are many different secondary keyword variations in here that will return new competitor link targets.
Repeat the process outlined above and add to the master backlinks list.
2) Have Same Terms report:
Enter your primary keyword into the Ahrefs Keyword Explorer and navigate to the “Having Same Terms” report:
Click “View All” an you’ll be taken to a list that contains all of the terms in your query (in any order):
Click the SERP dropdown to see the top 10 results for that keyword:
Note: while these articles might be targeting a different topic, I still consider them good secondary link targets. I.e. anyone linking to an article on “how high can you fly a drone” could also be interested in reading (and possibly linking to) a comprehensive guide to flying quadcopters.
Use the two tactics shown above to build out a list of 20+ articles to mine for link prospects.
Download the tracking template and outreach scripts below, and kickoff your link building campaign:
2) Identified competitor link gaps
We used the Ahrefs Link Intersect tool to find all these websites linking to one or more of our competitors.
The idea:
If a website linked to multiple competitors, there’s a good chance they would consider linking to us too.
Here’s how it works:
Grab up to 10 competing domains/URLs from the Prospects tab in the Tracking Template (shown above) and paste them into the Link Intersect tool.
Add your domain/URL under the “But doesn’t link to (optional)” section:
Find competitor backlink gaps with the Ahrefs Link Intersect tool.
Note: Select the “Any of the below targets” from the “Show me who is linking to…” drop-down at the top of the table.
Click “show link opportunities”.
The report will show you all the websites linking to one or more of your competitors, but not your domain/page.
By default, the domains are ordered by # of link intersects (from highest to lowest), but you can sort the results by Domain Rating to quickly surface the most authoritative domains linking to multiple competing domains/ URLs:
Click the link under each of the URLs to view the URLs and anchor text:
Scan the list and add any relevant, high-quality link prospects to the appropriate tab in the competitor link tracking template:
Model the scripts in your outreach campaign.
3) Pitch weekly roundups
Weekly roundups are articles that curate the best content of that week into a single post.
The publisher spends the week reading and looking for awesome articles to link to in the post.
It's a win-win. You provide a great resource for their audience and get a quality link in return:
All you have to do is find blogs that publish weekly (or monthly) roundups and pitch your content to them.
Here’s how to do it:
First, use these search strings to find roundups in your niche:
“Keyword” + “weekly roundup”
“Keyword” + “link roundup”
“Keyword” + “weekly link roundup”
“Keyword” + “best articles of the week”
Click “Search Tools” → “Any Time” → “Past Month”:
This will return actively updated roundups:
Once you’ve found some roundups, head over to the site and find the publisher’s contact information.
Send them an email like this:
Hi [NAME],
My name is [YOUR NAME], and I'm on the team at [WEBSITE].
I'm writing to make a possible article suggestion for your next weekly [TOPIC] roundup.
I came across your roundup yesterday and got a ton of value out of it. Nice work!
We recently published an in-depth guide to [TOPIC]. It takes people through 18 chapters of step-by-step training, in the hopes that by the time they apply each step, they'll be well on their way to [RESULT].
Here's the link to the guide: [URL]
Either way, just thought you might like to consider it for your next roundup.
Keep up the great work!
Cheers,
[YOUR NAME]
If the publisher likes your content, it will get featured in the next roundup:
This got us some great contextual links on high authority sites.
4) Pitch Resource Pages
This is the strategy where we got most of our initial links.
(And it’s also how I built one of the best links I think I’ll ever build.)
Resources and links pages are similar to roundups, in that they link out to lots of useful content.
Many sites publish them to expose their audience to related content they don’t offer on their own website.
Once again, these publishers are all looking for one thing:
Valuable content.
Alll you need to do is reach out and pitch it your content.
Here’s how to do it:
First, do a search in Google for these strings:
“Keyword” + “resources”
“Keyword” + “links”
“Keyword” + “intitle:resources”
“Keyword” + “intitle:links”
“Keyword” + “inurl:resources”
“Keyword” + “inurl:links”
“Keyword” + “intitle:resources page”
“Keyword” + “intitle:links page”
Unlike weekly roundups, you don’t need to filter the results based on date. Since these pages are evergreen, it doesn’t matter when they were published.
Next, head into each website and find their contact information. Then send each website owner an email like this:
Hi [Name],
I was checking out [SITE NAME] just now and found your excellent [TOPIC] resources page.
I’m on the team at [SITE NAME], and we just published an in-depth guide that helps people [BENEFIT].
Here’s the link: [URL]
I wanted to ask if you wouldn’t mind including us on your resources page: [URL of THEIR PAGE]
We’ll be improving it continuously to provide people with the most up-to-date information as the industry evolves.
Either way, keep up the great work 🙂
Cheers,
[YOUR NAME]
This strategy landed us a lot of excellent links on highly relevant sites in our niche.
And on some high authority sites, including a DA 96 link from MIT!
(Couldn’t believe that one.)
With our strong on-page signals and these links coming straight to the page, Google propelled us to the first page for our target keyword.
We stayed in positions 4-10 for a few months, but I’m sure you’re wondering how that we hit position #1.
Let’s break it down:
How UAV Coach Hit the #1 Position in Google
The quadcopter guide eventually leapfrogged massive sites like Mashable and landed in the #1 position.
The initial content promotion and link building campaigns pushed the article onto the first page for its primary keyword, along with hundreds of additional long tail keywords.
This got the guide some great natural mentions and links:
The strong on-page signals crushed all the other competing assets too.
This article deserved to rank #1.
It was the most in-depth and up-to-date, had the best multi media mix (screenshots, images and videos), and it was highly optimized for the target keyword.
As time went on and the backlinks were crawled by Google, the page began to increase in authority and gradually climbed up the SERPs.
It now ranks in the #1 position for 205 different keywords:
Organic Keywords report in Ahrefs.
Along with 29 featured snippet placements:
This shows just how much Google trusts the page, sees it as a top resource, and wants people to read it.
A Key Takeaway From This SEO Case Study
This is a scalable SEO strategy you can use to rank in ANY niche.
We have repeated this process for many other important keywords with similar results:
And the site now ranks in the top 3 positions for over 3,000 keywords!
Now:
You probably won’t rank #1 for every article you publish.
But, by following the steps outlined in this SEO case study you’ll be able to quickly find (and rank) more target keywords on the first page of Google.
Got questions? Looking for advice? Let me answer them in the comments below 🙂
Robbie, this is the best SEO case study i have ever read. The way you illustrates your time consuming research in a post is much appreciated. You are an inspiration. Keep it up man!
Thanks Fahad, means a lot! However, in this case most of the credit should go to Michael 🙂
Thanks for the kind words Fahad. Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
Looking forward for great tutorials/case studies here:) Great work Micheal 🙂
Thanks Fahad! Glad to have you as a reader. I’m working on a new case study as we speak 🙂
Love reading case studies like these. Thanks so much Michael and Robbie. I’ve noticed that Quora has really picked up in popularity and is a good place to invest your time in. It’s also a great way to ask questions to get feedback or input to use as a research tool, something that I’m currently doing for some upcoming posts. The step by step process you used for keyword research was really insightful too. Thanks for an epic post.
Awesome, glad you enjoyed the article Shae! Quora is definitely a major untapped resource. It can be leveraged for traffic in pretty much every niche out there 🙂
Thanks Shae. Robbie and I love putting them together 🙂
Totally agree with you on Quora. Like any traffic generation strategy, the more time you put into it the more you’ll get out of it.
Thanks for stopping by!
Awesome article! I used the exact steps in my projects. This tactic provides an excellent result.
Thanks, Michael and Robbie for this blog post.
I’d like to add that you can get backlinks by stealing them from your competitors. Check out who is linking to your competitors and try to place your links there. SEMrush and Ahrefs are the best tools.
Cheers Michael! Glad you enjoyed the article.
Great point about stealing competitor backlinks. Actually wrote an article on that exact topic last year: https://www.robbierichards.com/seo/steal-competitors-backlinks-rankings/. Prob needs some updating 🙂
That’s a great strategy Michael. If our rankings start dropping it’s one of the ones I’ll turn to first.
a rare thorough content maketing case study.. on the level of backlinko (the standard).
I know its beyond the scope of this post but paid traffic (ie: reTargetting pixeling on fckbk, ggle-display) and email-sms-snailmail drip sequences for reEngagement on both link partners and consumer followup would be a wonderful addition.
keep up the steller work.
Hey Amul, always nice to be compared with Brian Dean. I’ve read and learned a lot from his content. I’m experimenting with some paid ad strategies right now on personal and client projects. So, I’ll try and put something together in the near future. Any specific area you’re most interested in – retargeting, facebook ads, google display, email automation? I’m hands on with this stuff every day. But, I’d like to focus on one area at a time 🙂 Cheers!
PLAS, PLAS PLAS
In Spain we say “plas, plas, plas,” when we applaud a artwork.
Congratulations for the excellent article.
Thanks
Haha thanks Laura! Glad you enjoyed the article 🙂
Cheers Laura!
This is phenomenal! Thank you. My goal is to get back to producing content on my own site and driving traffic there. You did a terrific job of walking us through how to do it.
Thanks Jen! Glad it sparked a little motivation. Let us know how you fare with it all. Love to here how it goes 🙂
Hey Jen, I’m in the same boat 🙂
Good luck!
Michael and Robbie,
As a marketer, following along with both of your guy’s blogs I’ve learned a lot from these long posts. It’s always cool to see how comprehensive they are that a beginner could jump in, but they also teach more advanced marketers a thing or 2.
It’s one thing to talk about a tactic, but totally different to put your money where your mouth is and show how it worked in a case study.
Keep it up guys. Always super helpful.
Cheers, Travis! Means a lot. Totally agree, the real value comes through application and sharing the results and lessons learned. Much more actionable (and valuable) that way.
Thanks for the comment Travis. Couldn’t agree more.
What I’d like to see are more case studies published in other niche’s, in the form of personal stories, triumphs, etc. I think they’re really underutilized.
Untapped keywords is very, very key. Can’t emphasize enough how much this is such a high ROI activity.
Having said that, these are all great ideas, many of which I haven’t seen consistently trumpeted around other parts, quite original.
Thanks!
Absolutely, Alex! Untapped keywords are usually the easiest to rank for and generally convert better. Why make this SEO thing harder than it has to be, right?! 🙂
Exactly. I’m very big on front-loading the work. Spend time finding untapped keywords, collect backlink opportunities, content promotion opportunities, a list of people to reach out to.
If you gather all of this before even publishing your content, you’re almost guaranteed to have a successful post.
Hi. Many thanks for your article, a great read and I’ve taken away a couple of things that I hope to apply. I have a quick question, you mention that within your content that you include external links to high value related content. I just wondered if you use a nofollow for those links or not? Thanks again
Hey Lucilla,
My external links are followed for sure.
Thanks for the kind words Lucilla.
And I leave them followed as well.
Incredibly inspiring case study Robbie.
I think thats probably the most detailed case study I have ever read.
Some really good takeaways.
Cheers, Paul! But, in this case, most of the credit goes to my friend Michael 🙂
Thanks Paul. Glad you got a kick out of it.
And a BIG thanks to Robbie for letting me showcase it here 🙂
Wow what an amazing case study Robbie,
So much take aways from this post. I can’t thank you enough for this one! Definitely gonna use it for my future posts. Let the traffic journey begin:)
Cheers,
Yordi
Hey Yordi, glad you enjoyed the post. Follow along with it and I’m sure you’ll see some great results! Come back soon and let us know how you go. Also, don’t forget to check out Michael’s infographic. Great quick checklist to follow.
Hey Robbie,
Amazing case study and you again encourage all marketers.
We have launched new website that is about “Web hosting” and I will sure implement this strategy into my task.
Thank you so much for the great strategy.
Awesome, Sarfraj! Let me know how you go.
Hey Robbie,
Awesome case study and a great strategy which can be done by any SEO guy without spending much.
Shared & bookmarked.
Thanks Ruben! That’s the beauty of this case study, Michael really does break everything down in a way that pretty much anyone can take the process and apply it quickly to their own blog.
A brilliant article, I can say that it’s a timely content for me. I follow the 2nd part of this case study, But now understand I’ve to work on the 1st part too. Grateful to you Robbie.
Cheers! Let me know how go.
Hi Robbie,
Thanks for such a wonderful proven track you have share with us, I really mean it. I appreciate Michael too because of their major role in this. Now I’ve a reason, visible track & most important things is result oriented approach, now I’m going to work in a way which mean something & I hope I’ll get my desired result soon.
Thanks,
Aslam
Follow the process Aslam and I’m sure you’ll see some great results 🙂
Hi Robbie,
I love reading long and detailed post. Well, I must say that this one of the detailed post about seo case steady. Loved the minute details. This clearly explains the time you took to publish this.
Many hours went into this post. But, the positive feedback makes it all worth it.
Excellent case study.
A great reminder of the power of directories, resource and round up links.
Thanks,
Sam
Thanks Sam! Yes, those link sources are often overlooked, but provided a lot of powerful backlink opportunities. Resource pages in particular, as evident in Michael’s case study.
Hi Robbie,
This case study is the best thing i have read this week. The way you are guiding shows your command on Inbound Methodology but also your sincerity to give some thing worthy to your readers.
I am truly impressed by your efforts and i am expecting more informational posts in future.
Keep It Up !
Plenty more to come Kashif! 🙂 Credit goes to Michael on this post. We try to make everything 100% actionable for our readers. Glad to see that coming through in the comments.
Robbie,Just finished an epic guide it’s really great and actionable.I feel comfortable while reading the post and also apply for own site as well. Again thanks for sharing such an amazing piece of content.
Thanks Bilal! Glad you found it helpful. Let me know how the strategies work for you.
Hello Robbie, thanks for your step-by-step guide in ranking website, I will use the strategy for my website http://www.pandapaperroll.com right away, hope it can work out. Cheers.
Awesome Frank! Let me know if you have any questions along the way. Cheers!
Excellent article. This is something I honestly wish I would have put to market first. If I may add one aspect of honorable mention, it’s what I call “binding keywords”. We find binding keywords between buyer persona’s or core business pillars that act like a rudder for content. The idea behind the method is using Home Depot as an example. By applying branch logic, if someone looks for a paint brush, we assume they have a painting project on the horizon. We would offer them content regarding paint and paint rollers, however we would label “paint” as a binding term and delineate content according to the content that fits into the same bucket. Further, we determine which buyer personas fill the need for the specified bucket of content, then apply cross linking between content offers AND workflows, segmenting to multiple lists. Assuming we view the process like a grid, this allows us to engage all three axis of content engagement, rather than two. This is wonderful content. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the insight, Brad! Much appreciated. I take a similar approach when planning my content strategy for clients and personal projects. I refer to it as siloed content. Placing content into related buckets and then mapping the intent of those keywords different stages in the buyer journey.
I was just running through links from my old company and re-read this article. What is truly amazing, is your forethought in the article, which holds water 1.5 years later. I’ve shown this article to multiple clients as an example of how to keep their content on track for their designated verticals and content publishing. Thanks again for the great content.
Awesome Bradley! It’s an oldie, but a goodie 🙂 Glad it’s been helpful.
Thx so much for all of the tips. I found this article on VCB and glad I read it through (in doses). I had never throught about directory submissions for my blog posts and just submitted one to give it a try. And, I went back to scoop.it which I hadn’t used for a while.
I love the weekly or roundup idea, but I have not yet been successful in finding that for my area (hardwood flooring). But, I have hooked up w/ a few realtors doing some of these.
Awesome, glad you’re finding the case study helpful Debbie! Let us know if you have any questions.
Hi.
Thanks Michael and Robbie for this epic post. The key take away for me is the ease with which you turn what could be called “boring niche blog posts” into lead magnets. Many niche bloggers rarely collect emails but you have made email marketing seem very simple.Your conversion rates are much higher than IM industry average of 3% conversion. That is incredible. You have lit some light bulbs in me, now over to Scoop it which I have neglected for so long. I got a link from R-TT after reading backlinko (Brian Dean). Will surely check your other directory links. Keep up the good work.
Awesome, glad you got some motivation/ ideas from the post Tom! Let me know how it goes. Here is a short tutorial to really ramp up your list building efforts: https://www.robbierichards.com/email/popup-upgrades/
Robbie, great article, and that UAV site is really next level. Impressive work dude, thanks for sharing.
Thanks Mursel!
Hi Michael,
This is an epic post with so much to digest. There are so many gems here I feel like a fossicker who has just discovered buried treasure.
I’ve downloaded the ebook and will devour every morsel.
Thanks Robbie for featuring Michael’s richly detailed tutorial
Kim
.
Thanks Kim! Glad you enjoyed the post. Let us know how you go with it all.
Absolutely Fabulous !
I have only One Question if u dont mind …
I heard and Learned from many sites around that Link Building Strategies had been changed over a year or two. Its now a days called PBN Era. If some people may not have enough money to buy a PBN or make it then the Online World is a waste of time for them ?
Hey Usman, definitely not a waste of time. PBNs are just one way of building links and authority. But, be careful, if done incorrectly you can do more harm than good. Check out Matt Woodward’s PBN course if you want to go that route. He has a lot of success with that strategy.
Wow, I was searching for a pragmatic guide from keyword research to building links and I stumbled upon this. I believe I can really implement this strategy and rank for my desired keywords.
I just got hit by a Google Manual Spam action and need to get out of it. This guide will surely help me to excel in my niche.
Great post, you’ve earned yourself a hardcore subscriber 🙂
Cheers Sohaib! Glad you enjoyed the post. Mind if I ask how you got the manual penalty – duplicate content? Links?
Thin content. Actually it was an old site with reviews of 500 words each. I guess those days are over.
I am now building sites from scratch with 2000+ reviews.
and yeah I am eagerly waiting for your December post :-).
Happy New Year Rob. Have a Blast.
New case study going live on Thursday, Sohaib 🙂
Robbie, This is what actually I’s looking for. Believe me, You just changed my whole mind 😀
Now, I think, I can pay with the million Dollar niches 😀 And oh yes, I’m going to take a challenge today. I will update with every month (Hope, you will see me). I’m going to take action end of this year.
Look forward to hearing about your progress, Tonmoy 😉
Solid post pal, it definitely shows that relevancy is everything these days, whether it’s onpage or offpage. I’m also starting to do more again with blog comments, forum posts, high TF category pages on web directories and resource page links, in addtion to PBN links 😉
Cheers Dennis! I’ve had a lot of people mention they were focusing more on the PBN route. Very interesting. I’ve spoken to Matt Woodward about it a little. He swears by it, and after seeing some of his results, I can understand why.
Very good article. Congratulations!
Thanks guys! Glad you enjoyed the article.
Amazing post,
I hope you will find the time to write more articles per month because they are terrific.
Bye
Stefano from Italy
Thanks Stefano! I appreciate that. I have actually set a goal to write at least 300 words a day for the next 12 months straight. This should help me double or triple the content production.
Hey Robbie
Good stuff, I read this article a few weeks ago. I have got a question, I see that you are doing article submission and posting comment. My question is are there any SEO value in it or you are just doing for eyeballs?
Comment posting is definitely more of an “eyeballs” strategy. Most links in the comment section these days are nofollow so they won’t pass much link equity. However, commenting properly on large sites can definitely get you some targeted referral traffic.
Hi Robbie,
Wow, Great! I’ve really enjoyed your post. 🙂 I’ve some questions please:
• Did you run any social media ads for that post?
• Did you build any backlinks from your competitors backlinks?
I am eagerly waiting to hear from you. Again, thanks for sharing the great experience. 🙂
Saddam,
No social media ads.
No link building (yet) 🙂
Your screenshots and explanation are just awesome. This is the best case study i read in recent days.
Thank You!
Great post, but this spammy window!
Hey Karol, thanks for stopping by the blog. Just to clarify, by “window”, are your referring to the opt-in popup form?
Great post/case study Michael! love the in depth look at what you actually did to achieve results instead of the vague aerial view other guides give. I guess that’s why Robbie shared it here! Personally I like to use Long Tail Pro for my keyword research. It makes it a lot easier and more efficient to find related keywords that aren’t too competitive.
Cheers Dominique! I’m starting to test out Long Tail Pro as well 🙂
Action requires knweoldge, and now I can act!
Hi Robbie,
In what case do you have to follow Tiered backlinking. Please suggest, we are operate a digital marketing company.
Thanks
Quadrigo, I don’t really worry about tiered link building.
I found your case study through some other guide on a blogging website and I can say it’s one of the best case studies I ever read. Giving out the URL and the exact strategies is one of things that people don’t do. But you did it. I took few lessons from this post. thanks.
Hi Robbie,
i was amazed by the content you created. i’am an experienced marketer from a big marketing Brand in Holland but, this post really gave me some insight. Just wanted to thank you for this.
BJ
Cheers BJ! Glad you enjoyed the post.
Wow, this is a great resource! I already have the Moz Chrome Extension, but I have never tried Ubersuggest. I’m going to head over there and play around with it. 🙂
Wow, this is such an amazing article, the info and tips are pure gold, a million thanks for sharing this Robbie!
Cheers mate! Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
wow, i was searching for SEO Case study on Google and landed to this page, this is one of the best Guide, thanks for sharing.
Hi Robbie and Micheal,
This is exceptional, really useful case study. I had to bookmark for later reading.
Quora is sure an invaluable resource place for uncovering your audience pain; I started a blog recently and so far I have had just five posts on it.
All posts are direct answers to users questions asked on Quora. And from what I can tell, the result as been fair to say.
The post are getting trickle traffic from search engine and some significant impression. Consider that this is a blog less than 3weeks old with no links pointing to it.
Thanks Micheal, you’ve share something really good with us.
how much backlinks you made for single post?
I’ve built some articles that have over 200 RDs.
Wow! Robbie, Hats off to you and your posting. This is just amazing. Never seen such detail post ever as to Organic Link Building. This is so precise and descriptive that every SEO builder will be benefited. Thank you so much for this great post and awesome knowledge sharing.
Thanks Harry. Credit to Mike Karp.
Brilliant case study Robbie, even though it was published in 2015 which is a while in the world of SEO, there is still loads to learn there. Cheers for sharing the good content!
Shaun
Thanks Shaun!
Terrific case study. It would take several days or perhaps a week for me to create page like this one. Will certainly try to copy few things in my niche. Thank you very much 🙂
Robbie, really amazing case study, ever step is actionable, but I have a few questions, how do you write the article? can I outresource the article? how can I do that?
Hey Ken,
This particular article was written by a friend of mine – Michael Karp. He is a great writer, and available for hide. You can find Michael on Twitter here @_MichaelKarp
Dude, great case study. This shows that the steps above work in every niche and you only need hard work to make it possible.
THis is the longest article that I ever read! :O seriously! anyway what you said about kw research and etc. are true, but to make very very long content! i think its not to important, as long the content are unique and giving differentiation and value to our reader is more than enough , cause I heard some ppl giving suggestion its better to make 3-4 pages, rather than dump all article in one page! I think they right, because it’s to long 🙂
It can work to create a multi page post like Brian Dean did with his keyword research guide. It also depends on the niche. But, for the most part you’re not going to get the high rankings with anything under 1500-2000 words. Especially if looking at more top-mid funnel keywords.
Ohh, I’m new SEOER, I was searching for SEO Case study and landed to this page, this is one of the best Guide, I will try it. thanks for sharing.
Let me know how it goes, Felix!
Robbie, this is awesome the SEO case study, the best SEO case study I have ever read. The way you explanations, hat off!! man, your time consuming research in a post is much appreciated. You are an inspiration. Keep it up man!
Cheers mate! Appreciate the feedback. Makes the late nights worth it 🙂
Hi Michael and Robbie
Thanks for sharing such an amazing guide.
I was searching for a step by step SEO case study. I stumbled here to find two amazing blogs.
Got to learn about keyword research, on-page SEO etc from this awsome article.
I was researching about creating my own SEO strategy for all the blogs I handle.
It would be great if any one of you can write a full step by step SEO template or system which people can follow as a protocol.
Thanks Again
Regards
Rafe
Hey Rafe,
Thanks for the kind words. Funny you mention that. I’m actually working on a course concept right that aligns very closely with what you just described. I’ll let you know when I have that finished.
Hey Robbie, really enjoyed with this case study and uncovered couple of tips which I have never tested for content promotion (scoop) and Link building (Submiting On resources; weekly round ups). WoW great tips, gonna test them out, I hope it will work more or less for me as well. Thanks for sharing these Tips. Keep up the Great work if you have any other blog post similar to it about the same topic let me know, would love to dive in that.
Cheers!
Thanks Konstantine! You might want to check out the latest blog post too 🙂
All my life I’ve been creating content but not able to drive quality traffic, thanks to this comprehensive guide of yours Robbie. I will practice the way how you create content and will definitely replicate this case study in no time. Again hats off to you for sharing this stuff and I’ll starting doing my research now so that I could create a good quality content.
Cheers Vinson! Glad you’ve found it helpful. Reach out if you have any questions! Glad to help 🙂
Hi. Many thanks for your article, a great read and I’ve taken away a couple of things that I hope to apply. I have a quick question, you mention that within your content that you include external links to high value related content.
Hi Mahesh,
Yes – I link out to helpful resources where it adds value. What’s your question?
Hey, Robbie
Cool case study. I really like the content creation part of the article
Also wanna add,
– Your content should be better than all #1 page contents.
Haha cheers mate! Appreciate that.
Hi, It’s a brilliant article. Great work. Thanks a lot.
Hello Robbie,
The SEO Case study is really amazing thank you so much for sharing this information it’s useful for me.
Impressive stuff Robbie! I think using Buffer for social media posting offers slightly extra seo weight than ordinary posting. Worst thing about SEO is that it takes a lot of time and your post shows there’s truth in that!
Thanks Joe. Curious to hear more about your point of using buffer to get extra SEO weight from social?
Hey, Robbie – Thanks for putting together a great article. Love the topic of drones as well!
I have never seen such an excellent article written on Digital Marketing. As a beginner, reading through this material was a great learning. It increased depth of my knowledge and really inspired me.
Thanking you for an excellent piece
Glad it was helpful, Arpit!
One of the best SEO Case Study I’ve ever read. Thanks for sharing and revealing your site mate.
I’ve got some ideas, Gonna Implement them.
Awesome – thank you! Let me know how you go 😉
Printed out this bad boy!
Thank you for creating such an amazing resource for the community to learn from.
P.S.: I believe this is 11 thousand words long.
Thanks Idris! You’re prob right 😛 It’s a monster! Hope you get some value from it.
Sweet case study. Curious how things are holding up now being a few years later. I know the drone niche as exploded in the last year.
Also on another note, how is the Sumo Welcome Mat working for ya? I’ve been seeing it everywhere recently.
Hey Julian,
Thanks for reaching out. I plan on updating that article in the near future. Keep an eye out 🙂
As for the Welcome Mat. It’s by far one of the best list building assets I have. It beats popups easily. But – if you have couple it with a content upgrade, not just a generic offer, it converts gangbusters!
Thanks, I’ll have to give it a try!
Thank you for your gracious case study Robbie. I am new in this field and learnig from you very much. Thank you
your backlink strategies ebook can not be downloaded sadly 🙁 can you fix it or send me a copy of that ebook please?
Hey there! Which link building ebook are you referring to? I have a few different resources out there now.
I mean this one :
https://www.robbierichards.com/ebook-link-building/
To be honest, I need to take that one down and update the ebook. I recommend reading the following posts for now:
https://www.robbierichards.com/seo/13-killer-link-building-strategies/
https://www.robbierichards.com/seo/steal-competitors-backlinks-rankings/
Those posts will give you a ton to get started with!
No doubt this is the best case studies I have ever seen. I really like the way you covered each and every important factor of SEO. Great work. Keep it up.
Cheers
Thanks Sabeeh!
Hello Robbie,
I read your sharing a to z you are just amazing man <3 I read deeply on-site details and its really amazing, I am going to follow your all steps and will share my stats, I am new in Blogging hope so you will share more Off page methods 🙂
Keep it up!
Thanks
Hello Robbie,
This is the best ever SEO case study ever i read. It’s simply amazing, keep up the great work.
Thanks Jithendar!
Hi Robbie,
This is one of the best SEO case studies that I come across lately. This case study purely reflects the amount of energy and passion you have for this domain. Keep inspiring us with your in-depth case studies 🙂
I would like to know how has been your approach for product/informational pages of the website. I would be glad if you can help me understand your seo strategy for the same
Thanks Musadiq! Noted. I will be covering that topic a lot in the new Playbook in my SEO training course 🙂
Hi,
I’ve been doing SEO for a while and not getting proper results. Your article has inspired me, it is really one of the best case-studies I’ve seen.
Thanks,
Kevin
Awesome – pumped to hear that 😉
You nailed it bro! This is the best SEO strategy that is going to work for me Lol! Thank You (Y)
Thanks mate! I think the post is due for a little update soon 🙂
I think after Neil Patel, this is the first article I have seen who have put so much effort into preparing the post. Like literally including every screenshot and publishing this post is a hectic job! I really appreciate your efforts here.
Glad you enjoyed the content, Kevin! I just update it too 🙂
Thanks for sharing the best SEO strategy. No one share in that much detail. As the case study post is a bit old so I suggest adding some more powerful points into this or by creating a new post.
Updated 🙂
Great 🙂
Hi Robbie.
Incredible piece of content man. The amount of value I got from it is insane. Most people just write a blog based on a topic and think they need to make it 2000 words to rank well.
Love how you made it strategic and practical to implement.
Definitely sharing this with my team.
Thanks again, keep up the good work!
Awesome – thanks Jandre! Appreciate the kind words, and glad you got a ton of value from it 🙂
Michael and Robbie – thanks for the great post. The big question for me, and likely for a lot of content marketers, is time. Many of us are built on producing content on a regular basis – 1-2 posts per month. These are longer, in-depth posts – not quite a 4k monster, but beefy for sure.
However, what we don’t have is the link building and outreach that comes with promoting the post. Can you give me a rough estimate of time required for this? I’m not exactly asking for a number, more like a ratio. If we spend 10 hours creating the post, how much time should be budgeted for link-building and promotion? This will have a big impact on our model moving forward.
Greg
Hey Greg! In an ideal world, I’d say spend at least as much time promoting as producing the content. But, for these long pillar guides that take 20+ hrs to produce, it’s really not feasible. In this event, I’d recommend 1:3 ratio. That is, if I spend 10 hours on a piece of content I’m definitely going to spend ~3hrs promoting it.
Critical to have some SOPs in place for this. Here are a few I run through every time (understanding it will different depending on the niche, client etc):
>> 3-5 internal link opps (Ahrefs best by links report)
>> Scheduled a post in QuuuPromote
>> Pin to Twitter, facebook and share on LinkedIn
>> Reverse engineer links to competing (inferior) content and have a VA prospects contacts. 2 rounds of outreach through Mailshake to try seed a few quick links.
>> Share the content in a couple online groups I’m a member of
>> Send to email list
>> Send to email non-openers a week later (if it is a REALLY good piece of content)
I have a checklist like that I run through for most posts. Since the VA handles the prospecting, the rest of it I can run through in a few hours pretty easily. That will usually seed some initial traffic, links and engagement.
I love this post ! i red your blog fairy often and you’re always cominig with some great stuff i shared this on my facebook and my followers loved it Keep up the good work 🙂
Thanks John! Glad you enjoyed the case study 🙂
you’re very welcome
Hi Robbie, I am big fan of your blog. Because you give lot of actionable tips and amazing post like this!
I have seen lot of seo people talk about ranking a blog post. Please share some tips on how to increase the landing page ranking and how get backlinks on them.
Superb article. I’m new to blogging and slowly learning how to do it like a pro. I have learnt a thing or two from this article.
Thanks John!
I really enjoyed your blog its exceptional great insight here and thanks for guiding us.
This is a detailed SEO case study which involves the mostly used online tools nowadays (of course with great subscription plans). I enjoyed the keyword research part which I thought easy but indeed there are other things to consider such as related keywords to have your site get recognized by search engines fast. I’ll refer on these methods for my own blog. Thanks!
Thanks Marvin!
One of the best and highly informative case studies I have read about link building.
The cool thing about this is how it can be replicated across any niche. It’s about being smart and working hard.
Thanks Umair!
Hi Robbi
I was reading your other case study which is On Page Seo, I have downloaded the On-Page SEO Template which is locked, can you kindly unlock it for me please ?
I really enjoy your blog, looking forward to see more case studies like this,
Kind Regards
Rashmy
Hi Rashmy,
Are you not able to make a copy of the template?
WOW! this is the best case study, something no body talks about. You really shared a great knowledge covering various aspects on optimizing a site with SEO. I am interested to go along and will input this knowledge into work. Also i would like to know about the SEO playbook course, when it is going to be launched? As i noticed, i have to be in the wait list. Can’t wait to learn more and do awesome things like this. Thanks for this great case study.
Thanks Surya! Glad you enjoyed the content. The SEO Playbook will likely relaunch again in a couple months.