SEMrush Case Study Stories with Chris Beck of Internet Marketing Inc

How I Improved a Client’s Rankings by Over 1400%

By: Chris BeckSenior SEO Strategist

2SAN DIEGO | LAS VEGAS | INTERNETMARKETINGINC.COM | (866) 563-0620

My Work Experience

• 2 Years in SEO at Red Ventures• Managed SEO for a start up

company in Charleston, SC for a year

• Years of Consulting for link building and SEO agencies such as SkyRocket SEO

• Years of Contract SEO Consulting

• Senior SEO Strategist at Internet Marketing Inc.


Introduction

• SEO seems to be an evolving game of cat and mouse • There’s an evolving trend online that SEO is dead• Since the dawn of businesses, people have had a need to be found, as

long there is a need to be found there will need for industry experts to help those people and businesses get found.


Some Background Client Information

• Client is in the small business lending space• They offer small business loans, working capital, equipment leasing,

merchant services and more. • The business was primarily driving leads through email, direct mail

campaigns, and paid ads but were practically invisible within the SERPS.

• Only 6 of their target keywords were ranking in the top 5 within Google• Only 11 in the top 10 and 23 within the top 50.• Compared to their competitors they were far behind when in came to

SERP real estate which is where we come in.


Campaign Goals

• Increase Organic Traffic• Increase Organic Revenue• Increase Keyword Rankings• Increase overall conversions and conversion rates from Organic Traffic.

SEO

On-Page

Server Settings& Code

Web Designers, Web Developers,

Network Administrators

Content

Writers

Off-Page LinksBuzz Makers,

Viral Marketers, Content

Promotion

SEO Diagnostics

Content Marketing

Foundational

Continuous

Content Marketing

SEO Diagnostic

s

SEO Overview

Search Engine OptimizationNon-Branded KeywordsSocial MediaYoutube VideoContent MarketingPay Per Click

Search Engine OptimizationSocial MediaWebsitePay Per ClickDisplay AdvertisingLanding Page

RetargetingBranded SearchEmail Marketing

CREATIVE

CRO

SEO Conversion Funnel

SEO• Differs in Search

Intent• Differs in

Optimization• Keyword Research• Keyword Mapping• Content

Optimization• Content Marketing

Introduce Influence Close


Strategy

• Perform a detailed audit including keyword research and on-site content analysis.

• Complete an in-depth on-page technical SEO audit and optimize page titles, meta descriptions, header tags and image alt tags. Clean up internal linking and navigation and develop new copy for category and product pages on a monthly basis.

• Execute off page efforts including link profile analysis of healthy and toxic external links and fix broken or toxic links. Give 301 redirect recommendations for 404 pages.

• Create branded content marketing pieces including infographics and articles to increase authoritative links back to the website and boost engagement through social media.


Strategy Continued

• Build out new landing pages with content that targets industry keywords that the company wasn’t currently targeting.

• Increase the hierarchy of the pages that were targeting some of their high volume search terms.

• Eliminate unnecessary subfolders, allowing more authority to fall to the pages that specifically targeted relevant keywords.

• Optimize the architecture of the site through internal linking and on-site navigation to improve crawl-ability and enhance user experience.

Strategy Implementation

Penalty-Like UpdatesPandaPenguinContent Related UpdatesHummingbirdOlder But Important UpdatesAuthorshipRich TextMicroformats

Quality Content

Quality Natural Links

Leveraging Authority, Credibility

& Trust

Displayed Tagged Content

Details in SERPs

Detailed Long Tail Content

Pushes Down

Ranking

More Ranking

Potential

Improve SERP

Appearance

Increase CTR

Occupy Screen

Real Estate

Google Updates


Content Audit Discoveries (Content is Still King)

• Lots of thin content throughout the site, especially on local pages• Implemented atleast 500 words of content for each page that had thin

content then moved on to the pages that had less than 300 words and made them have around 500 words of content as well.

• Optimized meta data for each local page (Keyword | City, State |Brand)• Implemented over 100 pages of content through out the site (This

satisfies Google’s content needs but also give the huge ranking signal to Google that the client is updating and refreshing their content) • Ideally you want to add 30% new content/pages per year.

What New Pages Should I Add?

Long Tail Keyword Distribution

Long Tail Keyword Advantage

Fat Head Long TailSearch Volume High Low

Keyword Variations Low High

Search Engine RankingHarder to rank.

Takes longer to rank.Easier to rank.Faster to rank.

Competition Larger Smaller

Conversions Less Likely More Likely

Amount of Research Work

Less More

Fat Head Long TailSearch Volume High Low

Keyword Variations Low High

Search Engine RankingHarder to rank.

Takes longer to rank.Easier to rank.Faster to rank.

Competition Larger Smaller

Conversions Less Likely More Likely

Amount of Research Work

Less More


Content Audit Continued

• Updated meta data throughout the site• Client had improperly targeted keywords throughout the title tags and

H1’s, we corrected that. • Several over optimized pages were also corrected. • Sought out content ideas from competitors and implemented and

updated them for the site.


Back to the Basics

• To really improve rankings, you must first get the basics down• Many SEO’s skip the basic on page factor of SEO and go straight to the

more aggressive tactics such as link building. We need to understand the wins we can make from simple getting the basics down first

On Page Elements and Site Architecture

Diagnostics

- Crawlable- Indexable- Visible- Keywords- Taxonomies- Microformats- Page Speed

ContentMarketing

- Informative- Valuable- Interesting- Resource- Intriguing- Inspiring- Up-To-Date- Useful- Funny- Controversial

Link B

ait

Passes Link Juice

Improves

Ranking

Site Architecture & SEOIntroduc

eInfluence Close

Site Architecture & SEODiagnostics

- Crawlable- Indexable- Visible- Keywords- Taxonomies- Microformats- Page Speed

ContentMarketing

- Informative- Valuable- Interesting- Resource- Intriguing- Inspiring- Up-To-Date- Useful- Funny- Controversial

Link B

ait

Passes Link Juice

Improves

RankingTargets more general fat

heads

Targets related keywords Branded

Search

Targets more specific long tails

Introduce Influence Close


Hierarchy

• Take away unnecessary subfolders (they had their small business loan page tucked into the working capital subfolder)

• Raised target keyword pages in the hierarchy of the site and gave them a spot in the main navigation bar

• For Example:• Raised /working-capital/small-business-loans to /small-business-loans


URL Structure

Optimized the URL structure

• Made sure the target keyword was in the URL (Yes, Google has mentioned that this isn’t a ranking factor… But do any search.. The top results that you see will have the keyword in the URL, Title Tag, Meta, and H1) This is clearly a ranking factor

• Optimizing URL structure alone can lead to gigantic wins • We noticed rankings making aggressive moves after optimizing URL structure

alone• Make sure that once you update something like URL structure or content

that you update the sitemap and resubmit it through Google Webmaster Tools. (You can also do a fetch to each individual page that you update which will heighten your chances of Google crawling and indexing the changes quicker.)


Site Architecture

• You need to have a strong internal Site Architecture• We optimized the site architecture within our client’s site

• Drove more internal links to pages we wanted to deliver more authority too• Made sure that every important page was clearly linked within the site’s

navigation• Made sure that the flow of the links on the page heighten user experience• Also the flow helps to ensure that Google is properly crawling your site and

crawling it the way that you want them to crawl it.

An optimized site architecture is one of the biggest wins you can make as an SEO. However, be careful, playing around too much with your site architecture can mess up your rankings just as quickly as it can help.


Keyword Map

• Built out an extensive keyword map of over 100 pages• Included recommendations of the following:

• Resource Pages• Resource Hubs• Glossary of Terms Page• Libraries of business terms• Loan Calculators

(If a high ranking competitor was doing it, we were going to build it too)

The Results


Organic Traffic has seen not only in increase in month over month but year over year traffic as well (An average of between 13-20% year over year growth every month)

Organic Traffic


• Increased for 6 target keywords ranking in the top 5 to over 120• Gone from 11 keyword ranking in the top 10 to over 170• Increased from having just 23 keywords in the top 50 to over 350

Rankings


Most Significant Keyword Movements

• For the term Small Business Loans, searched over 33,000 times per month, we went from not ranking to a position in the top 10.

• For the term Working Capital, searched over 22,200 times per month, we went from ranking outside the top 50 to ranking in a top 5 position.

• For the term Working Capital Loan and the term Working Capital Loans, which are search 590 and 490 times per month respectively, we went from ranking outside the top 50 to now holding a top 5 ranking for both terms.


Keyword Movements Continued

• For the term Business Loan, searched 6,600 times per month, we went from being unranked to on the second page, and for the term Business Loans, searched 18,100 times per month, we went from being unranked to the second page as well.

• For the term Equipment Leasing, which is searched 1,900 times per month, we went from ranking on the third page of the search engine results page to the within the top 5 positions on the first page

• For the term Merchant Cash Advance, which is searched 3,600 times per month, we went from being unranked to consistently holding a top 5 ranking. The client has been as high as position two, but have yet to fall out of the top 5 since establishing the ranking.


Traffic Increases

• Working capital page has seen increases in organic traffic of 163.71% year over year.

• The equipment leasing page has seen increases in organic traffic of 147.66% year over year.

• The merchant cash advance page has seen increase in organic traffic of 408.60% year over year.

• The small business loan page has seen an increase in organic traffic of over 50%.

• The types of leases page has seen an increase in organic traffic of 335.51%.

• The credit card processing page has seen an increase in organic traffic by over 50%.


Revenue Increases

• Organic visitors increased 147.56%• New organic visitors increased 151.24%• Organic goal completions (web form submissions) increased 62.30%• Organic Responses increased 76.37%• Organic Submissions increased 165.91%• Organic Fundings increased 33.33%• Organic Deals Funded Total Amount increased 14.53%• Organic Deals Funded Total Margin increased 18.5%


Finishing Thoughts

• Again, these results were achieved through 100% white hat SEO tactics.

• Content, site architecture and an in-depth technical diagnostic was the cause for all the improvement. Very little link building went into this strategy.

• The client is now one of the top organic competitors in the small business lending space and continues to see improvements not only in rankings, but conversions as well.


Conclusion

• Importance on On-Page SEO and a good site diagnostic• Importance of Content (Content is King)• White-Hat SEO can still lead to quick wins• The importance of understanding your competitors and what you can

learn from them• The importance of understanding that SEO is not dying, it’s rather

evolving


Contact Info

Linkedin.com/in/chrisrbeck

Twitter.com/beckcr6 OR @beckcr6

Email: [email protected] OR [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


THANK YOU.