Case Study: How We Took Our Blog From Overlooked to Overachieving
Have you ever heard the saying, “Do as I say, not as I do?” Well, Growth Machine accidentally followed that adage for a few years. As a scrappy SEO content agency, we devoted all of our resources where they mattered most: to our clients. Marketing ourselves—including writing SEO-friendly content—was on the back burner. We had brands to save, after all!
Before Q3 of 2022, the Growth Machine website received an average of 2,900 monthly sessions. That’s decent, but we knew we needed to do better, not only to grow our business but also to show clients we were willing to walk the walk.
We stopped our previous willy-nilly posting schedule and got serious about writing SEO content. After composing an average of five blogs a month for a year, Growth Machine increased traffic to 4,800 monthly organic sessions (a 65% increase). We also got a 55.96% engagement rate, a 26% increase in organic sessions, and a 28% increase in new users.
Curious how we did it? Check out this case study to see how we applied our own processes and resources to amplify Growth Machine’s presence in search.
The Problem: Not Following Our Own SEO and Content Advice
As an SEO content agency, Growth Machine got great results for our clients. But our own website? Not so much. It was the age-old issue of focusing on our clients rather than actually practicing what we preached. We helped clients save time by handling everything for them, but should have done the same thing internally all along.
Before Q3 of 2022, Growth Machine’s website didn’t have much of a content strategy. We didn’t optimize content for keywords. We didn’t post regularly—we only posted blogs when employees experienced a sudden surge of inspiration to write them (a familiar story for most of our clients). We wrote one-off pieces responding to trending topics and common client questions to help the sales team, but there wasn’t much direction. We tried pay-per-click (PPC) ads and even podcasting, but not consistently. It didn’t help that Growth Machine had no full-time internal marketer, so we shuffled content responsibilities among the team when folks had capacity.
We had nothing consistent or substantial on the site to show clients we knew what we were doing. Sure, we had case studies, but how could clients trust us to do an excellent job with their content if our own content was so-so?
The website got an average of 2,900 monthly sessions without much effort. That wasn’t too shabby, but as a content agency, we knew we could do much more. The Growth Machine team knew this wasn’t a good look. It was time to turn over a new leaf.
The Strategy: Post Keyword-Optimized Content Consistently
We needed to do something about our blog content, pronto. The Growth Machine team set out to prove we knew what we were talking about. Our goal was to show potential clients that we have standout SEO pros, editors, and writers who know how to create rankable content.
Paid media might get results quickly, but they rarely last. Growth Machine focused on organic content to gain traction in search while showing clients we knew what we were doing.
The Sweet Spot? 5 Posts a Month
Around Q3 of 2022, we put our plan into action, but it was far from perfect. We started to be more intentional with content planning and published more consistently. First, we did six articles a month, then 10 articles a month. That was … a bit much (we didn’t have a full-time marketer, remember?), so we dialed it back to five posts per month, which turned out to be the sweet spot.
Streamlining Topics and Target Keywords
At first, Growth Machine content focused heavily on case studies and agency-related content. We went after high-competition keywords like “content marketing agency” to put our brand in front of more potential customers. However, it was soon pretty apparent that we needed to stop chasing white whales and focus on more targeted, helpful content.
First, we covered essential topics that answered basic client questions. We created content on how long SEO results take, common SEO problems, Google Analytics guides, and link building FAQs.
Next, we performed a gap analysis to see what content our competitors were writing about that we might have overlooked. We wanted to compete with content machines like Ahrefs and Semrush, so we switched gears toward more authoritative SEO and marketing content.
Honestly, we had to get a little scrappy to pull off the ambitious plan of five posts a month. Growth Machine editors and project managers took on Growth Machine as a regular “client,” using our internal expertise and hiring some of our best writers to leverage our own work processes for our brand.
By the end of 2023, Growth Machine finally had a regular content cadence. Since then, we’ve posted (roughly) five articles a month without burning out the team. Today, our goal is to create content that answers common SEO questions and highlights our expertise. It’s our own process, so as our client procedures change, we’ll continue to tweak and refine Growth Machine’s content processes, too.
The Results: 65% Increase in Organic Sessions and Double the Clicks
Look, everything takes time in SEO. It took several months of faithfully creating content before we saw a measurable increase in performance. But it really popped off! In June 2023, Growth Machine’s keyword rankings started to move upwards. We secured top keyword spots for “how can I be on the first page,” “finding niche keywords,” and “people also ask.” What a win!
We saw an average of 4,800 organic sessions per month, but the biggest spike was 5,900 organic sessions in January 2024. Impressions from December 2022 to April 2023 was 2.71 million, but impressions from December 2023 to April 2024 were a whopping 8.02 million! Clicks nearly doubled (7,300 to 15,600+), and engagement from organic search increased to 55.96%. Growth Machine also saw a 26% increase in organic sessions and a 28% increase in new users.
Go From Overlooked to Overachiever—the Growth Machine Way
The results were so impressive that we couldn’t believe we didn’t take action sooner. As soon as we applied our own processes to our brand, we saw results—even in a super competitive space like marketing.
The Growth Machine content strategy has been a huge success. It allowed us to use our own brand as a test subject for our processes, showing we put our money where our mouth is. We reaped the benefits of what we preached, boosting authority in our space, increasing site sessions, and equipping our sales folks with helpful resources.
The Growth Machine blog is the most visible example of our work. Investing in this space builds trust with prospective clients, especially when the blog is their first touchpoint. It was so exciting to prioritize the Growth Machine website in a way we didn’t before.
The Growth Machine blog strategy is still alive and well to this day (poke around and see what else you can learn!). It’s our goal to provide head-turning content that helps businesses get ahead in search through honest, no-nonsense content strategies.
Ready to put this strategy to use for your brand? Contact us now to apply the Growth Machine blueprint to your website.
