SEO Portfolio
A process map demonstrating my approach to Search Engine Optimization
Understanding SEO
Search Engine Optimization is a process made up of many moving parts. Some of these parts are technical and related to your website build, while others are linguistic – matching the right phrases to your site and building rich content that people want to read and that search engines can understand.
Murdock Media Production provides outcome-based SEO services to match your brand with your content, and your results in search.
Keyword Strategy
We work with you to develop a keyword and keyphrase strategy to support each stage in the purchase process from inquiry to selection and on to brand affiliation.
Brand Alignment
Our approach aligns your strategy with your SEO strategy with your brand to maintain consistent alignment between brand position and brand presentation.
Content Creation
We create content with engagement in mind. Bypass generic keyword-stuffed content that results in visits but fails to provide quality in the content narrative.
Site Optimization
Image size, CSS and Javascript files can slow down the load time of your site. We reduce the likelihood of your site from being penalized by search engines. Fast load = easy access.
Link Development
Why rely on low quality links from sites that are virtually unreadable with decades old design? We work with quality websites to create quality links, from related content to quality design.
SEO Bursts
Some SEO providers tell you to wait three months to see results. They conduct research, then wait a month. We work in bursts to create content, get your pages listed, and rank quickly.
Case: House of Pixen
House of Pixen Site Migration and SEO Optimization
House of Pixen is a design house that designs and produces high-craft, high quality Christmas ornaments. They had an e-commerce integration that wasn’t working on their site and wanted to migrate to a new provider with better storefront service. They also wanted to create branded content and optimize it for search in order to increase organic results in the luxury Christmas ornament and decor category.
Identifying Branded Key Phrases
In an e-commerce environment a main strategy is to optimize for comparison and contrast between your brand and the competitors. We did a little of that, but it was more important to highlight topics that were truly unique to the brand. We created a story about founder Sam Hull, the designer behind the brand.
We also looked carefully at his design influences – historical hand crafted designs from around the world that created something truly unique. Phrases like “The History of Christmas” and “Art Deco Christmas” emerged as important long-form blog topics that have stood the test of time.
By creating high quality, SEO optimized content on the site we increased traffic year over year while significantly reducing the required effort on the part of Sam in motivating direct traffic to maintain energy around the product and brand.
Pixen top landing pages July 1 – December 12, 2023
Pixen landing page by source July 1 – December 12, 2023
One Year After Launch
The website previously received all of its traffic from social media posts based on a pre-existing audience. Optimized content brought a steady stream of visitors around these optimized narrative topics.
In the second year search exceeded direct visitors and diversified entry points to the site.
Pixen sales by source and sessions July 1 – December 12, 2022
Campaign Launch 2022
During launch Sam’s bio was the most important new piece of content. It created a narrative transition and was supported by outbound messaging including social ads and organic social posts.
Rather than simply promoting the product, it helped to build the story.
Case: Pip Decks
Use Cases for Story and Innovation Tools
Pip Decks are a set of tools created to help people in all walks of life to apply techniques common to the innovation, marketing, product development, branding, and business world to their own unique challenges.
The problem? They built their own brand on hype and youthful energy, despite the fact that their authors are seasoned journalists, web developers, product designers, and team leads. Their main messaging is “This stuff is GREAT! It’s going to make you an INSTANT GENIUS!”
Well, it can’t do that, but what it can do is actually pretty high quality, but they needed someone outside of their team who understood the product and took it seriously. I became one of those “down to earth” people who could explain it and demonstrate how it is useful.
Identifying Branded Key Phrases
Storyteller tactics was the second deck published by Pip Decks. The first was Workshop Tactics. We purchased was Storyteller Tactics. We became an affiliate, publishing reviews and use cases on Murdock Media Production. Our reviews received earned backlinks – links created by other people simply referring people to my content with a link.
Most of the people that read the reviews had seen promotional videos on Instagram or Facebook, but they didn’t know if they could trust the hype. The reviews included positives, negatives, and opportunities or gaps people might need to fill in with other tools. Th reviews quickly began showing up near the top of google search for “Pip Decks Review” or “Storyteller Tactics Review.” I continued creating content and backlinks to explainers on each of the main decks.
Murdock Media Production Traffic April 10, 2023 – April 9, 2024
Murdock Media pages views April 10, 2023 – April 9, 2024
Traffic diversification
In the reports snapshot above, you can see peaks and valleys. The highest peak was actually in the prior year when Storyteller Tactics was new.
To maintain even traffic, as seen in the report above, we can’t rely on trends to carry us through. A variety of topics is necessary to maintain traffic. In fact, sales trends don’t follow the traffic spikes. Sales have increased between January 1 and April 1, 2024 as credibility has lowered as a question and adoption has become the norm.
Traffic results
Organic search significantly increased around these topics. From the page and screen report you can see that Storyteller Tactics became the highest viewed page. The second highest viewed was the site’s home page (the second two rows). Brand tactics and Team Tactics took third and fourth place.
In terms of traffic, the goal is to have a variety of destinations, each optimized around content that is meaningful to the audience. Over time we evaluate what people are responding to and scan discussions for new topics.
Case: CLBI
The value of long-form content in SEO
The Commercial Loan Broker Institute (CLBI) is a training program for those who want to launch a commercial loan brokerage without having to purchase a franchise. The program provides training in pitching financing services, matching businesses to lenders, and packaging loans.
In this instance, a major provider in the industry was advertising heavily, but they provided lower levels of service in many areas, despite charging a higher price for entry. CLBI was able to offer lower costs by using SEO optimized long-form content to answer questions that prospective students would google after learning about the industry leader. CLBI came off as more credible in the end to many students, allowing CLBI to grow.
Choosing and Optimizing Keywords
Our first step in creating high-performing content was to assess other training programs in the sector. We reviewed their websites, noting any key phrases that stood out as potential primary sources of traffic as well as any underutilized, but potentially high-value topics that were mentioned off-hand. We compared the list with the language we already were using to identify opportunities to expand or create new pages.
We then evaluated the phrases for their level of “competition,” meaning that phrases that others are already pursuing and that have a lot of activity around them will take more time, effort, and cost to compete for high rankings.
We selected the terms we wanted to work on, then categorized them around page topics, outlined the pages, and then wrote.
What you see to the right is about one-third of a top-performing page on the site. The page is a high-level look at what is necessary to become a commercial loan broker. Each section is optimized around a meaningful phrase. That provides many varied search options that could result in a visit to the page.
Isn’t it nuts to showcase your whole program?
You’d think so, but in this case, it serves an added purpose. Standing up a business from zero to go is a lot of effort. The program covers things like website, CRM, social media, blogging, opportunity discovery, financing insights, connections with lenders, and business registration, but it can’t give people the purpose, focus, and drive they need to push the entire stone wheel up the hill. By giving a real-world picture up front, the program has attained a high completion rate. There are very few people that start that don’t have an operating business structure by the end of their program.
From the report above, row 4 is the page in question. 1 and 3 are home page views and row 2 is unknown. 6,777 people visited the page 8,758 times in one continuous year May 16, 2023-24 resulting in an average of 1.29 views per person. These visitors spent an average of 1 minute 31 seconds on the page. CLBI wants 1 minute 30 seconds as an average on long-form content, assuming that those not really interested will exit while those committed to working in the industry will read more than one page on the site.
This site has done a lot of proactive link-building to increase traffic, which is one reason the time on the home page averages 17 seconds. More traffic doesn’t mean visitors will stick, but those drawn to high-value content will remain long enough to receive your main messages.
Conclusion
SEO content, keywords and metrics ultimately meaningless unless they are realated to your mission and the goals you intend for your website. For example, the CLBI site needs very high traffic to capture the interest of those really committed to working in their industry. Pip Decks requires a lot less traffic because the price point is much lower and the conversion rate is much higher.
Matching your objectives with the right language and then structuring it properly on the page is the first step in achieving outcomes through the use of Search Engine Optimization.
