A special case of SEO promotion: we get a natural increase in traffic from 0 to 200,000 monthly
Do you want your sites to get higher positions in Google search results?
How can I blame you?
If the work is done without errors, SEO will become an exchange game …
Your projects are the leaders of delivery for key queries.
Customers are looking for you, not the other way around.
Products are sold at the speed of sound.
If you've never dealt with a CEO before, though, the path to promotion there may seem very hazy…
...this is the reason why we wrote this manual - a complete step-by-step SEO study about our work with Tallyfy, a software package that manages SaaS processes, from
~8000 visitors per month up to 200,000 for a period of less than 2 years.
SEO case study - chart of the monthly increase in traffic.
To date, Tallyfy content is ranked by a number of keywords, including:
SEO Case Study: top successful keywords based on semrush rating data
... as well as a number of other highly convertible keywords with a high level of PDA…
Keyword Volume CPC Rating
Business Process Analysis 720 1 $7.32
BNR 8,100 4 $12.28
Business Automation Software 70 1 $25.12
BPM solutions 590 3 $20.13
Business Process Modeling 1,600 2 $14.43
So, if the guys from Tallyfy focused their advertising campaigns on the entire list of keywords that they have evaluated to date, they would have to fork out more than $369,000 daily.
Well. Are you wondering what secret sauce we used to achieve such high results for Tallyfy?
Well, We are happy to share this step-by-step algorithm with you:
Analysis of old principles of working with keywords.
Analysis of the content.
Developing a new content marketing strategy.
3.1. Creating an outline of content.
3.2. Creating instructions for the author.
Constant linking.
Optimization of the usability and visual component of the blog
5.1. Expert recommendations on the process
5.2. Linking CSS
5.3. Technological frameworks
Work on optimizing headers
Continuous monitoring and optimization
But first, let's get something straight...
SEO Case Study - a few words about Tallyfy
Tallyfy, a SaaS startup headquartered in St. Louis that creates production and business process management (BPM) programs.
The Home Page Tallyfy
At the beginning of our work on the Tallyfy project, the development of the site was in a difficult state. Their number one goal was to release a killer product aimed at getting users delayed in the future.
And in the BPM niche there were a lot of keywords with excellent conversion and excellent level of transitions…
Business process management - 4400 clicks per month.
Sop - 49500 clicks per month.
Workflow algorithm - 3600 transitions per month.
Process monitoring - 2900 clicks per month.
Reformatting business processes / BPR-8100 + transitions every month.
Algorithms of optimization of the processes - transitions 480 every month.
Program that manages production processes - 880 transitions per month.
And so on.
So, SEO promotion has become the optimal channel for marketing promotion.
It is worth noting that by the time our specialists started working on the Tallyfy project, they had already acquired an SEO promotion strategy.
They already had a keyword monitoring whitelist that looked something like this…
Example of a keyword monitoring whitelist. As well as the author's team working on creating content.
It is worth noting that in General they had good initiatives, but at the same time, there were a lot of points that were worth working on in order to improve their SEO promotion strategy. And now it's our turn to get to work.
After all, that is what Talley pay us the money…
Monitoring keywords and checking your content creation strategy
Monitor your team of remote writers and make sure they make a ranked product.
Create and publish up to ten content units over the course of a month.
... Initially, we set a goal of getting 50,000 visitors a month or a little more than a year (we exceeded this plan twice). And this is how we managed to achieve this...
By the way, if you need help with process automation, pay attention to tallyfy's business process management software. Perhaps now is the time to test it in a few steps.
Checking the current tactics for working with keywords.
It was mentioned a little above that at the beginning of our cooperation with the guys from Tallyfy, they had already done an audit of keywords. As a result, they identified about 300 of these words that affect a couple of different categories. Here are the most relevant ones:
project management;
process management;
process control;
And others, which are not so much:
content marketing;
SEO
Computer science
So, our first step was to eliminate all unnecessary keywords. All information not related to process management should have sunk into oblivion.
When starting SEO optimization, we advise our clients to focus on 1-2 areas and no more.
Undoubtedly, ranking by SEO topics would bring Tallyfy a slight increase in relevant transitions, but the chances of ranking by these keywords would be scanty.
Google strictly controls the niches of your projects. Do you often write about project management (RM)? You probably have a project management blog.
Your posts can be ranked superbly, but if you post a SEO message out of thin air, it won't be ranked.
Another problem we identified was the mutual eating of certain keywords by each other.
It's about this.
The guys from Tallyfy created 3-4 variations of the "process management" keyword, each for a separate publication.
Business process management
Process management
BEATS PER MINUTE
All of them have the same semantic meaning and the search engine understands this perfectly.
That's why Googlebot wanders through the pages of the site during its visit to the site, completely not understanding which of the publications to consider the main one. And which one to send to the index?
And to avoid this situation in the future, we have combined all the keywords into one main one.
In the above example, we created the most complete instructions for managing business processes. In addition, we created 301 redirects from other publications to this page.
PROFESSIONAL TERMINOLOGY
Do you know what a 301 redirect is? Now explain.
There are two types of page redirects:
301 is a permanent redirect. Google knows that the page is no longer there, and all backlinks that lead to it will now be counted for the page that is now being redirected to.
302-the redirect itself is temporary. Let's say you are A / B checking two pages by redirecting half of the traffic to another page. Therefore, when distributing posts on blog pages, you want to use the 301 redirect.
When we finished correcting the white list of keywords, we started to audit their competitiveness.
So, let's go... Process.st, Kissflow and a dozen other competitors were checked through SEMrush. This allowed us to extract 100-200 new keywords…
Based on the results of the work done, all the keywords were divided into three priority categories...
Easy-to-promote keywords are those with medium and high query levels, low competition, and high CPC levels. These components of the content was a priority and needed to write in the first place.
Rewarding challenges - these keywords are harder to rank, but the result can be staggering. They are also characterized by medium and high levels of transitions, as well as high CPC, but their competitiveness is much higher (they are difficult to rank by newcomers to SEO). In fact, their priority is secondary.
Good-for-the-haves-almost everything else goes here. But these keywords are worth paying attention to, but they are not as important as the previous two types of keywords. As a rule, they are characterized by a low or medium level of relevance.
Content Audit
As mentioned above, at the time of our introduction to Tallyfy, they already had a team of authors working on creating content.
They have already published about a hundred blog posts, and the authors created new content weekly.
Therefore, then we had to check all the existing articles and see if we were going the right way.
It became clear to us that the content had a number of major problems…
The text was not formatted for easy keyword search. For example, the keyword was taken "business process management" and the meaning of the article was reduced to the advantages of business process management in General terms.
A number of materials were written as opinions (without a training component). As a rule, Google does not pay attention to such materials.
Let's say your goal is to rank by the "Resume"keyword. Therefore, if you want to achieve ranking, your keyword must be either a resume Builder or a resume guide. And to avoid ranking - this should either be an opinion on ways to misspell a resume (use this instead).
So, our next steps were to find out the further action plan for all this content in order to get the maximum effect from their implementation.
We monitored all published blog posts and divided them into these categories:
Excellent - these posts are extremely correct, they probably only needed to make minor edits.
Salvageable-articles that are not likely to be ranked by keywords, but can be improved (or some of their parts can be used when writing new content).
Unsalvageable-part of its content does skip the label, and cannot be reused.
We saved all the" big "pieces of content, and eventually updated everything that was “saved".”
As for the ” lost " parts of the content, they were either rewritten or used in the best parts of the content.
New content marketing strategy
So, having completed the verification of all the material written on the site, we wanted to be sure that from now on The tallyfy team of authors will write content of higher quality.
In this regard, the main problem was that none of the authors was a SEO specialist: they were able to create great texts, but such material is not always great SEO content.
And in order to correctly Orient them, we have armed ourselves with two strategies:
Creating an outline of content. Each article that the author took to work was accompanied by a plan drawn up by us. It contained the entire main body of information that should be presented in the publication. The authors were given recommendations containing a set of basic requirements for creating excellent SEO content
And all this was done like this...
Creating an outline of the content
The fundamental difference between SEO content and regular content is that the first version is written in order to attract users.
You must understand that the search engine produces results based on queries created for any keywords. And it is based on this feature that authors create content.
But, the authors mostly do not know the features of SEO promotion create chaotic content. They will search for articles and believe that this material should be ranked regardless of users ' search preferences.
And this is the mistake that the Tallyfy team of authors made.
In order to fix it, we started creating contours for each keyword. The sketches contained information about the range of topics that the author should cover in the framework of his publication, in order to successfully rank it.
And for a better understanding of the type of our sketches, see the example that was created for the keyword " Technical SEO:”
Link.
The creation of a manual for writers of
The sketches helped to create the concept - we made sure that the authors began to create the right materials for the relevant search queries of users.
In addition, we had to be sure that the content was written correctly. That is, it is readable and interestingly written, optimized for search queries and the like.
For this purpose, we have created a list of recommendations for authors to give them an idea of how to write correctly…
Tallyfy's authors ' guide
Paragraphs of the article should contain no more than 3-4 sentences. Such content is better perceived and easier to read.
Try to use inserts from visual content. Use charts, graphs, and other illustrations.
Forget about using stock photos (where employees in the office are smiling). They do not carry a semantic load and dissipate attention.
When choosing an article to write from the SEO list, set the following priorities:
easy victory;
award challenges;
nice to the haves.
When creating each element of the article, strictly follow the terms of reference. Do not remove or add sections.
If possible, do not use passive speech.
Don't forget who you are writing the article for.
Most of them are middle-aged managers who read BPM or BPI. Therefore, stick to a semi-official serious tone.
Don't be categorical in your judgments. The reader understands what you are writing about and can easily expose the fiction.
If possible, use custom formatting (process boxes, pro tip boxes, interlinking CSS, etc.).
For SEO, follow YoastSEO's recommendations in T.
When you're done writing the article, check it out through Hemingway and Grammarly.
Often, we advise our clients to develop their content marketing strategy with a list of recommendations for authors.
This is a guarantee that the authors you hire understand what you need from them.
Of course you can attract the cooperation of authors from the exchanges, but they must clearly understand what it is you want them to do.
The constant linking
Proper linking is a mandatory component of all SEO strategies.
New to SEO?
Internal links are links that link different internal pages of the same site. These are the same backlinks, only from your site to it.
You will ask :" is it that important?"
Yes. Thanks to this, NinjaOutreach received a 40% increase in their natural traffic only by optimizing internal links on their site.
Because our goal at Tallyfy was:
make sure that new articles link to real posts;
optimize the internal layout of written posts and existing pages;
to ensure that new posts are referring to older episodes of content.
Performing the first part of the task was not difficult - we just marked it in the instructions for authors…
"Each new part of the content was provided with a link to other Tallyfy thematic publications. That is, if the topic of our article is devoted to BPM, then we refer to related topics.
Business process optimization
VRM tools
Comparison of processes
and the like…"
In order to verify that the authors have done this correctly, we provided them with a list of keywords that should have been used (as well as a link to) in each publication.
Well, then we had to start solving problem # 2-to establish cross-reference links between all the pages of the site. And we decided to give it to this step by step algorithm…
select publications to link to. For example, you can take "business process Optimization .”
Google will find it on the Tallyfy site thanks to the keyword for such a request:
Gsite:tallyfy.com “[keyword]”
And, of course, in our situation, this:
Gsite: tallyfy.com " business process improvement”
3. Take a look at all these pages and establish a link to the publication that you are currently linking to. This time we would find the phrase "process optimization" in each publication using the Ctrl+F command and put links to an article related to process optimization.
4. Perform these actions for all linked phrases. For example, synonyms for the phrase "business process optimization" are the terms "improve process" and "BPI".
Then, after completing the initial linking process (that is, all the articles posted in the blog were correctly linked together), we started setting up the linking of fresh articles.
And subsequently, with the appearance of each new publication, the linking process was performed relative to this material.
BEST PRACTICE
A two-year inspection was performed to make sure that the linking Was done correctly. In other words, all publications were checked, and it was proved that they have links to all existing articles.
Improving The Visual Elements Of The Blog And Readability
It is extremely important to the readability of the materials.
As a result, even the most brilliant material you wrote in your blog can look like this…
Image caption: Image courtesy of Planet UX.
No one in the world will read this.
Prior to our collaboration with Tallyfy, their blog posts were quite primitive.
Huge arrays of text accompanied by mountains of stock photos only spoil the reading.
We have taken two steps to fix this problem...
Forbid authors to use stock photos, let it be better to use tables, charts and graphs, etc. That's why we have adopted Draw.io (for creating graphs and charts), and Canva (for creating other graphical elements).
We also created user css fields. These were graphic fields created using CSS, and they were supposed to make the text more readable. Look at a couple of examples...
Expert advice on the process
These blocks are intended to mention random (but important) facts related to the topic that do not violate the main idea.
You can also use styles to highlight key information that you want to draw attention to.
Linking CSS
Previously, we have already noted the importance of linking.
In order for our top publications to get more clicks, a custom linking option was created. This is a simple style editor that helps you highlight offers by adding an icon that changes the font size and style.
We used this format in specific cases. For example, in the situation mentioned above, the BPM and workflow programs were involved.
By the way, dear readers, You will find instructions for comparative analysis with different VRM tools on the pages of the Tallyfy blog.
This option is much more clickable than the standard binding of "BPM tools" to one of the random instruction pages.
Process Boxes
Most of the new publications abounded with practical examples of real processes.
Therefore, to improve the readability of bulleted lists, a custom flex-box was created with styles in which they would all be placed. What's better? He responds well.
It looks much better than bullets, and besides, it was used by us as an apsell for the Tallyfy software.
Monitoring and optimizing headers
Publication titles are also very important in ranking content. And it works like this…
For example, your publication is in fourth place with an average CTR of 20%.
Google evaluates your average CTR relative to one of your competitors from the same rating. Thus, the rating of your publication # 4 has an indicator of 20% CTR, and at the same time it is 12% for your competitors. That is, your content has a higher level of relevance, which means that it will be ranked higher (with other SEO indicators being equal).
Therefore, we checked CTRs using the Google Search Console and made changes if necessary.
This happened when the CTR for any of the articles fell below the average CTR...
Influence of data-CTR organic search queries on the rating.
We rewrote the headlines and watched for 2-4 weeks, trying to figure out if there would be quality improvements. In the case where there were no changes, we searched further for new titles until we found the key to success.
Continuous monitoring and optimization
You can't just "stop" SEO promotion.
It is necessary to constantly monitor your progress and develop, change as much as possible.
We have monitored all our ratings to make sure that the materials we publish are ranked.
And if the links or articles were not ranked, we searched for the reasons for what happened according to the list.
Was the meaning of the article complete enough? Can I add something else?
If there is nothing to add, you should refactor the material and improve it. That is, to increase its visibility, coverage, provide it with additional data, etc.
Whether the meaning of the article coincides with the keyword by which it is ranked. In the event of a discrepancy between the article needs to be rewritten so that the key word was noticeable.
Is your content linked throughout the site?
No? In this case, you should re-link the article.
Is the title of your article clickable?
No? In this case, should I check all other headers?
Are there backlinks of sufficient quality and quantity?
If competitors have more than 500 links on a page, and our site has a little more than two, we will not see a ranking.
Take care of backlinks for your articles.
Conclusion
And this is a wrapper!
I hope that you liked this SEO case.
It's easy, isn't it?
Our actions are not higher mathematics.
We have only adopted the best practices from all the leading industries. They also helped us to achieve significant achievements for the Tallyfy.
Do you want to make effective SEO promotion for your business? We will be happy to help you!
Contact us via the feedback form.
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