Content Refresh

As B2B marketers for clients across industries — from cybersecurity to fintech to compliance — we’ve seen first hand how our services have contributed to our clients’ success.

Search engine optimization is among the many services we offer. We help our clients discover the right keywords to rank for and re-write content to improve their chance of discovery. We noticed an opportunity to apply this strategy to our own work.

The Challenge

About three years ago, we wrote a post to help new marketing directors create a 30-60-90 day plan to get off to a fast start in a new role. We also made a template as part of the post, and some budgeting templates that would be an added bonus after reading our article. The post was doing increasingly well in search with visibility on Page 1 and 2 for a variety of keywords, but we thought it could be even better and get us even more contacts from a key persona for us: the B2B marketing director.

We decided to revisit this blog and give it an SEO facelift to keep our rankings and search volume from slipping. While the original post included valuable and insightful information, we also felt we could rewrite a few sections and add up-to-date info to stand out from our competitors who were writing on the same topic. 

Finally, to drive new contacts, we added conversion-optimized CTA buttons within the blog to encourage readers to download our 30-60-90 day plan and marketing budget templates right within the post.

What We Did

Beacon Digital optimized the blog post in August 2020. Below are some of the optimization strategies we relied on to improve the blog performance. We updated:

• Target keywords based on what the original post was ranking for
• Metadata including meta title, description, URL, and image alt text to incorporate new keywords
• Header tags to include new keywords and improve readability

We also added:

• CTA buttons to download our 30-60-90 day plan and marketing budget templates
• An entire section about measuring the success of your 90-day marketing plan
• Copy to reflect Google’s Featured Snippet, as demonstrated below:

What Is a 30-60-90 Day Plan?

A 30-60-90 day plan lays out your path of action for the first three months on the job. The goal is to help you make a smooth transition by establishing concrete goals and action steps that set you up for success and that help you make a good first impression.

Why this was important: Featured snippets are selected search results that are featured on top of Google's organic results below the ads in a box. Featured snippets aim to answer the user's question right away (hence their other well-known name, "answer boxes"). This can improve brand exposure and establish a business as a thought leader.

The Result

After we optimized the blog post, we noticed an almost immediate increase in page views. In July of 2020, there were only 991 organic searches that drove people to our blog.

In August, just weeks after the optimization, there were 1,552 organic searches that led people to the blog post — a 50% increase in traffic.

In addition to an increase in organic traffic, we also saw a sharp increase in new contacts originating from this bloat post, utilizing a first-touch attribution model, as shown below. New contacts were created from readers that downloaded our templates or subscribed to receive blog updates. 

Not only has the optimization contributed to more organic traffic for the blog post, but it has also contributed to more organic traffic to additional pages on the Beacon Digital website. This allows us to be able to stand out as a leading B2B digital marketing agency and continue providing thought leadership that grows our reputation and reach.

Are you ready to develop a strong SEO strategy that will help your business generate more leads and get found by potential customers? Contact the SEO and content specialists at Beacon Digital today.