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Inbound Marketing + SEO Case Studies
Kern Media has had the pleasure of providing SEO consulting for many incredible brands, ranging from small businesses to larger corporations. What became evident is that every single website needed to be further optimized for proper search engine optimization and conversion optimization. Here are some of our most interesting SEO case studies that led to increased traffic and revenue for the brands (of all sizes) that we’ve worked with.
Knotty Tie: Meta Title Optimization for New Products
Ecommerce SEO Case Study
Knotty Tie, a Denver-based company who manufactures custom ties, scarves, and (now) Knotty Tie face masks, began working with Kern Media in April 2020. The company intelligently re-tooled their manufacturing facility to make masks in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and our team was quick to keyword-research their various face mask pages and provide better-optimized metadata, H1 titles and keywords to use in body content.
While “existing content optimization” is a common tactic that we do for all of our clients, what was special about this effort was that the optimization of page titles included keywords (variations on “Made in the USA”) that were not registering in SEO tools at the time. Furthermore, since we knew that potential customers were not only concerned with where the product was made, but also when they would receive it, we used the client’s own shipping time-frame in the page titles to create very attractive Google SERP listings. These optimizations resulted in numerous page 1 Google rankings for keyword terms determined through both keyword research and our own intuition/general marketing expertise. The resulting CTR is also quite notable. See for yourself. Note: Click and impression data hidden for confidentiality.
Bridge Education Group: Website Migrations, Technical SEO & Content Marketing
Traffic & Lead Generation Case Study
Bridge Education Group, an industry-leading TEFL provider, came to Kern Media in late 2017 looking for help with website migration strategies to ensure organic search traffic and rankings would not suffer, and help with technical SEO and content marketing and optimization. Kern Media conducted a thorough SEO Risk Analysis and Migration Strategy for various migrations (domain consolidation and HTTPs migrations) over the course of the first year, expanding into technical optimization, content auditing and content optimization guidance in subsequent years. We worked closely with both editorial and development teams to ensure positive growth over the years, and we continue to see growth to this day. Note: Consolidating domains allowed us to grow the link profile of the client’s primary domain resulting in higher link profile authority to further assist with keyword ranking improvements on page 1 of Google.
Customer Communications Group: Content Strategy/Optimization & Link Growth
Traffic & Lead Generation Case Study
Customer Communications Group (CCG) is one of Kern Media’s earliest clients and continues to see consistent traffic and conversion growth to this day. Early in the engagement, we provided an SEO Migration Strategy for the client’s website redesign efforts. This involved content auditing and content optimization. Much of the website’s older content was pruned and remaining content was enhanced and optimized, along with the optimization of new content for the initial launch. After launch, Kern Media assisted the client’s editorial team with SEO training and on-page optimization guidance for regular blog post efforts. A key to our success with CCG was not only topic research but also the client’s own efforts and abilities to learn on-page optimization and embrace a more in-depth approach to blogging. Over time, we have helped the client with selective guest post efforts, where the focus has been establishing relationships with industry publications who seek expert content from industry leaders (like the executive team at CCG). We are proud to continue to work with CCG as we watch organic search traffic metrics continue to grow. See for yourself.
Linford & Company, an external IT auditing firm, came to Kern Media in 2016 for an SEO Audit & Strategy. Six months after delivery, the client was not seeing the growth that they wanted. Why? They did not have an SEO-focused process for their weekly blogging efforts. After hiring Kern Media on to a monthly consulting retainer, we implemented a content marketing process that focused on targeting specific keyword topics in their weekly blog posts, and even more importantly, a content brief process that ensured attention to on-page optimization. Along with some ongoing education for the staff about tactics like natural keyword usage, avoiding content duplication, and identifying un-tapped keyword topics for new blog posts, this process helped the company realize impressive traffic and lead growth over the years. See for yourself.
Writer’s Digest: SEO Training for Editorial Teams
Publisher SEO Case Study
Founded in 1920, Writer’s Digest has been at the center of the Writing community for nearly a century. In 2012, we began SEO training for the editorial team (5+ writers), who learned how to use keyword research to optimize their articles and drive their content strategy. The two-month training process consisted of requiring the editors to read a guide on SEO, and then take a quiz that we had created to ensure that they understand the basic principles of on-page optimization. Once the quiz was passed, the editors then researched keywords for their next articles, and shared them with us along with a draft of the blog post. We reviewed their next few articles to point out where they could improve their optimization efforts, and ensure they were optimized. With this approach, we were able to quickly grow organic search traffic beyond expectations. Just see the results below (ignore the red line from SEMRush).
Writer’s Digest achieved consistent organic search traffic growth by empowering its editors with proper SEO training. The results are undeniably amazing…and very profitable!
Here’s what the Online Product Director, Winter Thielen, had to say about overseeing this transformation.
Winter Thielen, Product Director/Manager
I had the privilege of working with Dan for five years where he helped transform the way the company thought about and utilized SEO and inbound marketing.
We started small in the beginning with Dan teaching the online editors about keyword research and how powerful it could be. Dan worked with them for a number of months and what transpired was truly amazing.
Normally editors are very focused on their thoughts and the topics they want to write about. However, after learning and practicing this “secret” they not only started to optimize posts on topics already in the works, but took it a step further and used keyword research to determine what topics they should be writing about in the first place! Traffic skyrocketed, increasing 7x over the course of six months. Friendly competition also started to brew immediately between the editors to the point where they would ask each other what their traffic and revenue numbers were on the first of every month.
While we had a very healthy revenue stream from editorial product suggestions within our original content, we took the learnings from Dan to another level when we incorporated them into actual product development. We had a ton of information around our current consumers and which of our products they were purchasing from us. However, there was a huge gap on new trends bubbling up in the marketplace. Arm Knitting, for instance, became a huge fad. Since we didn’t currently have any products on the topic, it would be missing from our research on what topics to create products around. Keyword research helped us to stay on top of emerging trends so that we could capitalize on them with the passionate early adopters and early majority instead of coming to the market late where we would end up promoting to the less passionate late majority and laggards.
Overall, the habits Dan instilled in the team helped transform the business in a very positive way in some high profile areas. To this day, everyone from my original team still uses these skills in their new roles and (for some of us) at new companies.
North Light Shop: Optimizing Ecommerce Product + Category Pages
Ecommerce SEO Case Study
As an industry leader in fine art educational material and supplies, North Light Shop (NLS) offered an incredible canvas for optimization. The big win with NLS was growing ecommerce revenue through increased organic search traffic. The initial focus was on technical SEO and optimizing category pages with keyword-rich page titles, meta descriptions, and introductory descriptive content. These efforts began to grow traffic and increase revenue, however the biggest achievement came when we began rewriting and optimizing product pages in order to make them in-depth and unique from any other site on the web. NLS was feeding their product descriptions to sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online vendors…who all had higher domain authority than NLS. Once the product descriptions on NLS were made unique, and properly optimized, organic search traffic and revenue increased tremendously (organic search revenue doubled within a year!). Why? They gave Google a reason to rank them higher by making their content uniquely valuable. Just take a look at the results.
North Light Shop grew its organic search traffic and revenue by a very large margin after optimizing category pages and rewriting product pages to ensure unique content.
Costa Rica Escapes: Travel SEO / Content Marketing for Lead Generation
Traffic & Lead Generation Case Study
One might think that a boutique travel agency can’t quite compete with the big vacation planning companies, especially with a destination as attractive as Costa Rica. However, with some SEO prowess and strategic content marketing, Costa Rica Escapes (CRE) was able to grow beyond their expectations and even drop their Google Adwords budget. Initially, the existing taxonomy was reworked to better align with target audience’s search behavior and then optimized to target the ideal keywords (considering both search volume and competition level). Once complete, the efforts moved toward content marketing and link building. Insightful articles were created about topics that potential travelers were searching for when planning their trip. Links were naturally acquired by creating this helpful content, and some industry peers also began linking to CRE’s content as they began making waves. By focusing on high-quality content (including professional video), better-engaged site visitors and produced the natural signals that Google was looking for. CRE began ranking well for some relatively competitive terms and the efforts (and investment) have really paid off. See for yourself.
Costa Rica Escapes competes with the big vacation planning companies with Kern Media’s strategic approach to SEO and brand-building through high quality, educational content.
Curious about CRE’s lead generation growth? Have a look for yourself.
Through seasonality trends, leads continue to grow for Costa Rica Escapes, even after putting pricing on their itinerary pages in order to better qualify the leads.
Here’s what John Rabenau, Co-Founder of CRE, has to say about his ongoing working relationship with Kern Media.
Kern Media has provided only positive results for Costa Rica Explorations & Escapes since beginning our working relationship several years ago. Dan continues to exceed our expectations on a daily basis as he works tirelessly to keep up with industry trends and keep our site optimized. He always provides new ideas and creative solutions to keep our website a step ahead of the competition. If you want to increase your positive exposure on the internet, or looking to maximize your business’ leads and SEO, Kern Media is highly recommended.
Kern Media specializes in inbound marketing and SEO consulting for lead generation marketing, Ecommerce marketing and online publishers. Regardless of your website’s purpose, if you’re looking to increase traffic to achieve new goals, we can help. Request a free phone consultation. Remember, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. If you’re not achieving the results you’re looking for, we need to talk.
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Knotty Tie, a Denver-based company who manufactures custom ties, scarves, and (now) Knotty Tie face masks, began working with Kern Media in April 2020. The company intelligently re-tooled their manufacturing facility to make masks in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and our team was quick to keyword-research their various face mask pages and provide better-optimized metadata, H1 titles and keywords to use in body content. 
Bridge Education Group, an industry-leading TEFL provider, came to Kern Media in late 2017 looking for help with website migration strategies to ensure organic search traffic and rankings would not suffer, and help with technical SEO and content marketing and optimization. Kern Media conducted a thorough SEO Risk Analysis and Migration Strategy for various migrations (domain consolidation and HTTPs migrations) over the course of the first year, expanding into technical optimization, content auditing and content optimization guidance in subsequent years. We worked closely with both editorial and development teams to ensure positive growth over the years, and we continue to see growth to this day. Note: Consolidating domains allowed us to grow the link profile of the client’s primary domain resulting in higher link profile authority to further assist with keyword ranking improvements on page 1 of Google.
Customer Communications Group (CCG) is one of Kern Media’s earliest clients and continues to see consistent traffic and conversion growth to this day. Early in the engagement, we provided an SEO Migration Strategy for the client’s website redesign efforts. This involved content auditing and content optimization. Much of the website’s older content was pruned and remaining content was enhanced and optimized, along with the optimization of new content for the initial launch. After launch, Kern Media assisted the client’s editorial team with SEO training and on-page optimization guidance for regular blog post efforts. A key to our success with CCG was not only topic research but also the client’s own efforts and abilities to learn on-page optimization and embrace a more in-depth approach to blogging. Over time, we have helped the client with selective guest post efforts, where the focus has been establishing relationships with industry publications who seek expert content from industry leaders (like the executive team at CCG). We are proud to continue to work with CCG as we watch organic search traffic metrics continue to grow. See for yourself.
Linford & Company, an external IT auditing firm, came to Kern Media in 2016 for an SEO Audit & Strategy. Six months after delivery, the client was not seeing the growth that they wanted. Why? They did not have an SEO-focused process for their weekly blogging efforts. After hiring Kern Media on to a monthly consulting retainer, we implemented a content marketing process that focused on targeting specific keyword topics in their weekly blog posts, and even more importantly, a content brief process that ensured attention to on-page optimization. Along with some ongoing education for the staff about tactics like natural keyword usage, avoiding content duplication, and identifying un-tapped keyword topics for new blog posts, this process helped the company realize impressive traffic and lead growth over the years. See for yourself.
Founded in 1920, Writer’s Digest has been at the center of the Writing community for nearly a century. In 2012, we began SEO training for the editorial team (5+ writers), who learned how to use keyword research to optimize their articles and drive their content strategy. The two-month training process consisted of requiring the editors to read a guide on SEO, and then take a quiz that we had created to ensure that they understand the basic principles of on-page optimization. Once the quiz was passed, the editors then researched keywords for their next articles, and shared them with us along with a draft of the blog post. We reviewed their next few articles to point out where they could improve their optimization efforts, and ensure they were optimized. With this approach, we were able to quickly grow organic search traffic beyond expectations. Just see the results below (ignore the red line from SEMRush).
As an industry leader in fine art educational material and supplies, North Light Shop (NLS) offered an incredible canvas for optimization. The big win with NLS was growing ecommerce revenue through increased organic search traffic. The initial focus was on technical SEO and optimizing category pages with keyword-rich page titles, meta descriptions, and introductory descriptive content. These efforts began to grow traffic and increase revenue, however the biggest achievement came when we began rewriting and optimizing product pages in order to make them in-depth and unique from any other site on the web. NLS was feeding their product descriptions to sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online vendors…who all had higher domain authority than NLS. Once the product descriptions on NLS were made unique, and properly optimized, organic search traffic and revenue increased tremendously (organic search revenue doubled within a year!). Why? They gave Google a reason to rank them higher by making their content uniquely valuable. Just take a look at the results.
One might think that a boutique travel agency can’t quite compete with the big vacation planning companies, especially with a destination as attractive as Costa Rica. However, with some SEO prowess and strategic content marketing, Costa Rica Escapes (CRE) was able to grow beyond their expectations and even drop their Google Adwords budget. Initially, the existing taxonomy was reworked to better align with target audience’s search behavior and then optimized to target the ideal keywords (considering both search volume and competition level). Once complete, the efforts moved toward content marketing and link building. Insightful articles were created about topics that potential travelers were searching for when planning their trip. Links were naturally acquired by creating this helpful content, and some industry peers also began linking to CRE’s content as they began making waves. By focusing on high-quality content (including professional video), better-engaged site visitors and produced the natural signals that Google was looking for. CRE began ranking well for some relatively competitive terms and the efforts (and investment) have really paid off. See for yourself.
Kern Media has provided only positive results for Costa Rica Explorations & Escapes since beginning our working relationship several years ago. Dan continues to exceed our expectations on a daily basis as he works tirelessly to keep up with industry trends and keep our site optimized. He always provides new ideas and creative solutions to keep our website a step ahead of the competition. If you want to increase your positive exposure on the internet, or looking to maximize your business’ leads and SEO, Kern Media is highly recommended.
