Have you ever tried one of those letter search grids that has an “M” in every row and column, and you have to find the one “N” somewhere among the “M”s? You look and look, but all the letters look exactly the same. Once you find the “N” once, it’s ultra-easy to find it again.
That is exactly the problem I encountered when I worked with one of my B2B clients that offer metal stamping services. Would you believe that the words “metal stamping” get lots of hits locally and nationally?
My dilemma was how to come up with a way to get “metal stamping” to rank in the top results for the main service he offers. If I were to be successful in this, in addition to increasing the keyword ranking and traffic, my results would increase his brand and authority for metal stamping.
In starting this project, I decided to focus on creating a pillar page that would target the keywords “metal stamping.” My initial keyword research looked like this:
Yikes! I realized that metal stamping, as an exact match, is very competitive.
What to do Next?
I decided to go for a long-tail keyword user-intent or question keyword. After thinking about it, I thought my best bet was to find a question that my client could answer well as a business owner expert to leverage leads.
Here’s What I Found:
Most of the question queries that contain “metal stamping” have high competition. I decided on a simple question with an easy-win keyword:
“What is metal stamping?”
My Analysis:
The keywords scored 0.25 for competition, which is low. I wasn’t as concerned about the low volume because my client has a niche service. In the B2B manufacturing industry, the search volume typically runs low. My main goal was to get the top result for this topic using content only and no backlinks.
My Process:
1.Understand the Topic
I dedicated some time to learn more about metal stamping; this entailed doing some online research and discovering some related pages. My intent was to learn more about the competition and see if I could detect their weaknesses. Discovering weak content in the competitor pages was the key to outlining better content than what was already existing online.
Based on my online research, I knew what I needed to add to my page to compete. So, I created a draft outline with the sections I wanted to add such as:
- Introduction—What is metal stamping—the basics
- Types of metal stamping
- Metal stamping tools
- Industries—custom metal stamping
2. Review Your Work with a Critical Eye
I decided to explore my client’s site with a fresh eye. I wanted to view the site as a user—someone who was interested in the topic of metal stamping. I discovered that I had some related pages that I could use, but I wasn’t ready to stop there. (I love to play the user game—you know, as SEOs, we tend to look at things differently!)
3. Use Tools to Take a Deeper Dive
I crawled the website using SEMrush-Projects-Audit. I found that I already have a page related to metal stamping, and it contained weak content.
Taking Action:
I used the existing page that I found in the audit and revamped it by adding videos and better content. This page went from 400 words to over 1600 words. Here’s where the magic begins! I used the existing content to rank my client's main service "keyword" number one on Google.
Using the content audit and searching for pages that were relevant to my sections, I was able to use the topic cluster approach. The cluster pages would improve the results of the pillar page. Old pages that Google had already crawled would give SEO weight and a solid boost to my newly revamped page.
I also found 10 good links and provided them to the writer. I asked her to add some sentences to the content that would mesh naturally within the existing content.
I also added the case study page to reinforce the authority of my client’s company within the industry.
Just to clarify—I found many more links, but I opted not to use them because it doesn’t make sense to insert internal links that don’t provide value. For the length of my article, 10 links were enough to get the results I was looking for…and they did it!
What About Anchor Text?
I don’t follow any rules here. Diversification is the name of the game. I used a variety of anchor text for my internal links such as:
Metal stamping/High Volume Production Metal Stamping
Fourslide Metal Stamping/Fourslide Metal stamping
Grinding/Stamped Metal
The Results:
Ta-Da! Today, the page is in position 1 for the keyword:
"What is Metal Stamping"
This is also the page that gets more traffic and generates leads.
Also, Position #1 for:
- Metal Stamping Manufacturing Process
- Metal Stamping Process Flow
My client also acquired many more keywords on page #1:
63 keywords that include "metal stamping":
This revamped page now ranks for 503 keywords.
The main keyword phrase on this page is “what is metal stamping”:
By ranking this page in position 1, my client has reached the search volume of the main keyword almost 10 times more than before! Essentially, 64% of his overall traffic originates from this one page.
The traffic from this page yields over 900+ visits per month. I earned position one on Google within a week of publishing the page in 2018, and the traffic has only grown even larger since then.
My Conclusion:
I highly recommend using this strategy because it’s more effective than creating more content and allowing it to compete with existing content. It’s like finding that elusive “N” in a sea of “M”s.
Simply revamp an old page by adding content and leverage internal links with existing content. Shoot for easy-win keywords to earn sexy top rankings, and then rest easy as Google rewards you with even more related keywords that will set you on a course for improved traffic.
A content audit is a great ally for this process. Take your time, work with passion, and enjoy the win!