Our client in this case study is a leading network services company that provides data center management solutions, edge routers, and cloud software services. They hired First Page Sage for a full SEO and PPC advertising campaign covering all of their core offerings that has lasted three years. Over the course of this campaign, we crafted a purpose-built strategy that combined SEO and PPC advertising to improve their brand visibility among IT and tech leaders across a wide variety of institutions.
Although our client’s array of services is more comprehensive and compatible with varied hardware than other options on the market, prior to partnering with our SEO agency, they had not seen enough organic traffic to their website to create a steady flow of leads. The network services market isn’t particularly saturated, so their potential for a successful SEO campaign was high, provided they had a sound strategy. Their strategy was crafted to affect the KPIs that mattered to them: Organic traffic, MQLs, and closed organic sales. PPC advertising was used to provide a more immediate boost of leads in the short term to allow more time for the long-term SEO results to develop.
The Opportunity
Our client offers some of the most comprehensive network services on the market, serving a wide span of firms, including school and government campuses, first responders, and internet service providers. They were consistently outranked by key competitors for a number of their highest-value keywords.
After a deep dive into their position in the network services market and their unique advantages, they decided to work with First Page Sage to accomplish four goals:
- Create a comprehensive SEO campaign strategy targeting keywords that inform, generate industry authority, and demonstrate value to their target industries.
- Create and publish SEO-driven content written and vetted by medical device experts that will rank highly and convert diabetes patients into customers.
- Improve overall brand awareness and organic traffic, generating a steady flow of leads and– eventually– closed organic sales.
- Leverage PPC advertising to compensate for the long-term nature of SEO and the seasonality of some of the industries that commonly purchase their services.
Through intelligent keyword targeting, and by implementing SEO best practices in all content, our team would accomplish all three of these goals over the course of our campaign.
The Solution
Out of the gate, our assigned SEO and PPC strategists worked with their subject matter experts to craft a comprehensive SEO-driven keyword strategy that targeted moderate volume, easily rankable keywords in “IT infrastructure management”, “edge computing”, and “network management” topic areas. We leveraged this same strategy for PPC ads with slight adjustments since competition doesn’t factor in as much when ad placement is guaranteed through payment. For both, we leveraged in-house expertise in IT and networking, which improved over time as we worked with the client to fill any gaps in knowledge.
This group of tech SEO writers then created informative and transactional thought leadership content and assisted in creating compelling PPC ad copy for high-quality keywords targeted by our strategy team. This content drove significant traffic to the client’s landing pages and contact forms, leading to a sharp increase in revenue from organic traffic.
Our strategy of targeting search terms that reflect the most common pain points of both IT leaders generally, and those in more niche industries, allowed us to establish a broad presence for the client throughout all of their target industries. Our writers used their in-depth research skills and experience in the technically complex field of IT and network management to deliver informative, expert-level content that provides actionable advice and offers a comprehensive and scalable solution—which is exactly what Google wants to serve to this audience. The extent of the campaign also played a role, as SEO’s effectiveness compounds with each year a campaign persists.
The Results
This client’s campaign was a clear success in regard to both PPC and SEO thought leadership. We will break down the results into two sections to make clear what results belong to each.
SEO/Thought Leadership Content
Our SEO content creation resulted in a substantial upward trend in total keyword rankings and first-page rankings, as shown in the graphs below:
Organic Traffic
This organic traffic data from the three completed years of SEO thought leadership content represents exceptional SEO success. While the results don’t appear as sharp and immediate as paid ad results, the SEO thought leadership content created reliable improvement and site traffic that was sustained over time, creating a standard that nearly doubled what they expected the year prior.
Search Placement Data for Target Keywords
The data on the client’s Google Search placement data for their most valuable keywords exposes the source of the above-mentioned organic search data. Not only did total keyword rankings improve, but the majority of the growth is concentrated on front-page placement, specifically top 3 placement. This is massively important, as the top 3 results on a Google Search are by far the most valuable in terms of total clicks.
Organic Conversion and Revenue Data
This client works in a highly technical field requiring in-depth planning and extensive deployment procedures. As a result of this, and the long business cycles of the industries they serve, Years 2 and 3 were where the rubber met the road in terms of revenue-generating conversions– with Year 3 being especially notable. While Year 2 still provided significant revenue, the nature of this client’s services concentrated most of the financial return in year 3, with a revenue increase of around 300% YoY.
PPC Advertising
This client utilized PPC advertising in tandem with their SEO campaign as a way to provide some short-term results while their search presence improved over time. Paid advertising results beginning in Year 2 are demonstrated below:
Year 2: Click-Through Rate (CTR) and Overall Ad Traffic
Upon beginning a PPC campaign with this client, the primary goal was to set a new standard for click-through rate and overall ad traffic. The client had dabbled PPC advertising without expert guidance in the past, and FPS’s guidance in this campaign showed massive improvements in the effectiveness of each individual ad, as well as overall ad effectiveness.
Year 3: Cost Per Click (CPC), Total Ad Conversions, and Leads
Establishing effective, compelling ads that generate clicks increases the total money spent in PPC advertising. As a result, the priority in Year 3 shifted to improving the ROI of those clicks and ensuring that they generate revenue to justify continued investment. This involved creating new landing pages, conducting thorough keyword audits, updating ad copy variations, and leveraging new platform-learning tools for conversion optimization.
As is made clear by the data, FPS’s PPC ad campaign for this client led to a significant reduction in cost-per-click and an increase in total conversions and MQLs, taking PPC ads from an inconsequential tool in their marketing arsenal to a significant driver of revenue.
Future Outlook
SEO content marketing and PPC advertising have both played vital roles in this client’s marketing strategy, and the company is continuing to work with FPS as a result. When given this amount of time to work with a client, we learn more every year about what their target audiences respond to and what will ultimately drive conversions.
Additionally, long-term consistent performance in Google Search improves a client’s domain authority, opening up keyword opportunities that were occupied by sites they previously could not compete with. This gives us an endless list of ways to improve a campaign year after year.
Our SEO strategy for this client going forward will focus on:
- Ensuring new content utilizes page types and formats that their audience responds to well, like comparison pages
- Refreshing old content that doesn’t convert as well and leveraging the page types we have identified as strong performers in the industries the client serves
- Target a select few new market subjects that the client has identified as valuable to them and that we have found room to compete in now that their domain authority has improved
Our PPC strategy going forward will focus on:
- Continuing to test and deploy new ad copy variations based on performance
- Continuing to improve overall conversion optimization on the client’s site
- Creating conversion-optimized landing pages for all new target markets and subjects
We are confident these strategies will continue to build on this client’s success, providing lasting growth in both organic and PPC ad traffic, conversions, and revenue. While we have covered the general concepts leveraged in this campaign, it has involved countless hours of trial and error, many changes to their pre-existing website and digital presence, and a constant cycle of auditing and testing every change we make to ensure that we meet their goals.