Case Study: A User-First SEO Strategy That Generated +3700% More Traffic in < 12 Months

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Through the numerous core algorithm updates announced over the past few years (most recently in March 2024), Google has made it clear that its focus is on rewarding websites with helpful, user-first content. This means that if your website doesn’t think of your target audience first, you’ll struggle to rank. In this case study, you’ll learn how my team at The Search Initiative grew our client’s organic traffic by 3,773.46% from 1,040 to 40,284 monthly sessions by adopting a client-customized, user-first SEO strategy and implementing some out-of-the-box tactics. In this case study, you’ll learn how to: First, though, here’s some background about the site we worked on and the main challenges that we overcame during the campaign. The Challenge The client operates in the medical niche, offering a range of drug rehabilitation services and treatments, targeting the UK, Australia and the U.S.A. The main objective of the campaign was to improve the rankings for these service-based search terms, which are more likely to convert than informational queries. One of the main challenges was that the client’s key landing pages (i.e. the service pages) were missing out on ranking for key service-related keywords. This was due to the content not aligning with the user’s search intent for the target search term. This required analyzing the search intent for the keywords and then improving the landing pages on the site so that they aligned with what Google (and searchers) were looking for. Having created a bunch of new pages, it was important that Google crawled and indexed these URLs as quickly as possible. To help speed up this process, we used Google’s Indexing API and a plugin to crawl the new content on the site within a few hours of publishing. This is an easy process that can significantly reduce the waiting time for new content to be indexed by Google and appear in search results. Thanks to our efforts, the client had already started to rank for informational queries. However, their existing blog posts had no calls to action, which encouraged users to browse the key landing pages on the website or contact them. This was a missed opportunity to increase conversions, so we focused on optimizing the blog posts and the newly created landing pages with CTAs to drive more conversions. Finally, to build the site’s online presence, we focused our link-building efforts by using the client’s expertise in the industry to produce informational white papers that attracted backlinks organically. Find out how you can overcome these challenges for your website by following the steps below. User-First Content Plan If the content on a web page doesn’t align with what your intended audience is looking for, it won’t rank. It’s important to ensure that you’re providing users with the right content that will satisfy their search intent for their target keywords. How to Check User Search Intent Below, you will learn how to check search intent for a web page using a new Ahrefs feature and AI. But first, here’s a quick breakdown of the four main types of search intents: Informational Intent: Users are looking for information or answers to questions. They are in the research phase and might not be ready to make a purchase or take action yet. They’re simply seeking knowledge e.g. “How to make coffee” Navigational Intent: Users are trying to reach a specific website or page. They already have a destination in mind and use the search engine to get there more quickly e.g. “Starbucks menu” Commercial Intent: Users are considering a purchase or a specific action in the near future but are still in the process of researching and comparing options. They’re not quite ready to buy yet but are closer to making a decision than those with purely informational intent e.g. “Best coffee machines 2024” Transactional Intent: Users with transactional intent are ready to make a purchase or perform a specific action. They have completed their research and have decided on what they want e.g. “Buy Nespresso Vertuo capsules” Each of these intents requires a different approach in content creation and SEO strategy to effectively meet the needs of the user at their specific stage of the search journey. For example, if you’re targeting a keyword like “best coffee machines,” where the searcher is looking for reviews and comparisons, but you’re serving up a page that sells coffee machines, then the intent doesn’t match. Not only will Google not like the user signals that your content creates, but as a result, the potential client will leave your page in order to get a better answer to their query – from someone else. Chances are that when they’re ready to buy, they are going to go to the expert who gave them valuable information in the first place, not back to your sales page. Before running the checks, you’ll first need to identify a target keyword that you want to rank for so that you can grab the top-ranking competing pages (for ChatGPT). For this, you can grab the URLs by directly searching for your target keyword in Google. Ahrefs The tool automatically analyzes the search intent and types of content that the top-ranking competing pages have included. In the example, 57% of the users are looking for: “Guides on Growing Roses from Cuttings”. The top-ranking pages have included comprehensive guides and tutorials on how to successfully grow roses from cuttings. This is a quick way to find out what type of content you should consider including within your own web page. ChatGPT-4 You can also use ChatGPT-4 to understand and analyze the content fetched by WebPilot from a specific web page. “Use WebPilot to fetch content from [Competing Page URL] and analyze the user intent of its content. I want you to tell me: Content format (options are: blog post, guide, landing page, service page, category page, product page, homepage) Content Length Detail amount (score this out of 10, where 10 is very detailed and 1 is not detailed). Search intent (options: informational, navigational, commercial investigation, transactional) The heading structure How much rich media is used (this includes images, tables, videos etc). Here’s an example of the prompt being used for an informational article about growing roses from cuttings: And here’s an example of an output for a product page: You can now use the information provided by Ahrefs or ChatGPT to create the content for your own web page. Optimizing Content to Address Search Intent Having identified the search intent of your target keyword(s) and page(s), it’s time to optimize your existing content so that it aligns with what your audience is looking for. All of the below points have been integrated into the above prompt, but here’s some more context which explains why you should pay close attention to them: Analyze Content Types Analyze Content Structure Identify Gaps and Opportunities Following the above steps will ensure that the content on your website is optimized with the end user in mind. Google’s Indexing API Once you’ve created new content or adjusted old content, you want them to be crawled and indexed by Google as soon as possible, so that they can rank as soon as possible. There are several ways to help encourage Google’s crawlers to discover your content, but I’ll show you one of the most effective and efficient ways of getting your pages crawled and indexed by Google using its Indexing API. And it’s easier than you think to use. What is Google’s Indexing API? The Indexing API is a tool that allows you to directly let Google know when you want pages to be added or removed from its index. This notifies Google to schedule your pages for a fresh crawl, which can lead to higher-quality user traffic. That’s what the focus of this case study will be on, but you can also use the Indexing API to: It’s worth noting that Google says that the Indexing API can currently only be used to “crawl pages with either JobPosting or BroadcastEvent embedded in a VideoObject”; however, our tests (and many others) have successfully crawled and indexed all kinds of pages. I’ll show you how to use the Indexing API with RankMath’s WordPress plugin, but you can also use the API with any other CMS or framework. How to Configure the Indexing API Let’s start by configuring the Indexing API. You’ve now configured the Indexing API. How to Use the Indexing API With RankMath Our client’s website runs on WordPress, so we installed the RankMath SEO plugin which includes a feature dedicated to using the Indexing API, it’s called Instant Indexing. For example, if you select “Blog Posts”, then every time you create and publish a new post, the plugin will trigger an API call to Google’s Indexing API. This is how it should look when fully configured. And within hours, your page should appear in Google’s index. In our experience, 90% of the URLs are indexed without any issues within a few hours, but if you find that Read More Read More

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