About StudioHawk:
StudioHawk disrupts the confines of ‘digital marketing’; pioneering the depths and exploring the boundaries of SEO, all the while educating their clients on how they do it. Steep is the trajectory of this high flying Hawk, their story and success captured by such publications as; Forbes Magazine, BBC World News, Smart Company, and dozens of other publications. Collaborating with local and national businesses in an honest and transparent manner, they demand results through relentless efforts to find the client’s voice in a room full of competitors.
Business challenge: boost organic traffic, gain authority in digital landscape
WhichCar provides a network of professionalism on all things cars. Performance reviews, vehicle advice and nothing but pure entertainment for the engine encrazed diesel monkeys. But with every Tom, Dick and Harry building their own ‘handycam in the garage’ ‘do it yourself’ review websites, WhichCar started to notice a plateau in traffic.
So, they approached StudioHawk with a ‘problem’, yet the SEO team received it as a challenge: to help the company retain its authoritative edge in a digital landscape littered with competitors nipping at their heels.
StudioHawk set the following benchmark:
- Increase organic traffic coming to the WhichCar website by 25% within 12 months;
- Provide an immediate increase in organic traffic within three months of starting the campaign;
- Increase the total keyword base of WhichCar website by 25% within 12 months;
- Improve the SEO knowledge of the WhichCar writing team.
Solution:
StudioHawk devised a strategy that would help from the inside out.
WhichCar had a team of forty writers that strung together pages and pages of content, both digital and print. Though their content was strong, humorous, and entertaining, it came from a knowledge perspective without SEO taken into consideration, therefore Google struggled to see it. At that moment the StudioHawk team realized that in this specific circumstance, education was key.
So then, an SEO strategy was born, and it went a little something like this:
Step 1. Back to School
SEO is one side of a double-edged sword, the other, quality content. WhichCar had capitalized on quality content, but it wasn’t enough to win the battle. StudioHawk set out to educate the WhichCar writing team on all things SEO.
Previously at WhichCar, topics were chosen by matters of circumstance, for example, when a new model of Tesla was released, or the Grand Prix was on. The topics correlated with high search volume because it was always current. But there were truckloads of topics that consumers wanted to read about that WhichCar couldn’t see.
StudioHawk calculated that with three months of ‘Hawk Academy’ training and tutorials, they could educate the WhichCar writing team on the importance of search intent, Semrush SEO tools, and how to use them. StudioHawk put the Keyword Magic Tool and the Topic Research tool at the top of the priority list.
The Topic Research would help writers find the topics that didn’t directly relate to the current industry but had a high search volume regardless.
Once the writers had their topic, Keyword Overview and Keyword Magic Tool proved to be a significant stepping stone over the pond of success. Finding keywords with large search volume to fill articles selected both naturally and through the Topic Research tool would increase the organic traffic dramatically.
Step 2. Web Analysis | the Site Audit tool
StudioHawk used the Site Audit Tool to analyze the overall Site Health identifying the issues, errors and warnings within the WhichCar website. The StudioHawk team quickly realized a significant collapse in linking internally and externally. Other matters like; robot.txt, duplicate content, and uncached Javascript and CSS files were discussed via consultation with WhichCar web developers and resolved.
10000 pages crawled doubled after StudioHawk’s in-depth recommendations to web developers!
Step 3. Consultation and Maintenance
It was time for the WhichCar writers to fly the coop and put their new-found knowledge of SEO to the test. To ensure sustainability and avoid regression, StudioHawk set up a content checklist for the WhichCar writing team identifying the critical elements of writing for SEO.
StudioHawk didn’t take the training wheels off and send them down the main road straightaway; they knew that a consultative relationship was vital to the SEO strategy’s success. Through relentless Q&As and ongoing correspondence with web developers, WhichCar and StudioHawk worked together to iron out the kinks including page structure and web authority.
Step 4. Assert Authority
By step 4, WhichCar had started to see results. The writing team had adopted the SEO tools and techniques maintaining the standard of quality content; class dismissed… for now.
With the consolidation of several Bauer Media publications, including Wheels, Street Machine, 4x4 Australia, Unique Cars, and Motor into WhichCar, the foundation of authority was strong. To build on this authority, StudioHawk presented an Author Biography strategy.
The Author Biography strategy would help consumers trust and acknowledge the professional voice behind the words they were eating. The initiative struck loyalty and trust with readers alongside assisting Google to identify the page’s authority and industry know-how.
Results
After StudioHawk’s SEO strategy was complete, It wasn’t long before WhichCar started seeing results.
- A 24.66% organic traffic growth within three months of starting the campaign
- The total keyword base of WhichCar website grew by 19.6% within eight months (178,400 - 222,163 keywords)
- Improved SEO knowledge of the WhichCar writing team by successfully delivering a four-part SEO education series