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

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 **** 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:

1. 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”
2. 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”
3. 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”
4. 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:

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 your pages aren’t showing up, you can simply resubmit the URLs.

A quick way to check whether a page is indexed is to do a site search on Google: site:yourdomain.com/url.

If the page is indexed, it’ll appear like this.

Sidenote: I should also mention that the plugin also lets you remove pages from Google’s index. Follow the same steps by pasting in the URLs that you want removed, but this time, select “Remove URL” under the Action.

If your website isn’t on WordPress, you can still use Google’s Indexing API, but it’s a bit more technical as it requires hard coding the requests to use the API. You can find out more about how to use the API in these cases in this guide from Google.

CRO Optimization: Focus on CTAs

Producing high-quality content that ranks and attracts organic visitors is one part of the game. The other is turning those visits into paying (or converting) users.

This is something that our client hadn’t focused on, despite having decent organic traffic for informational queries, and as a result, struggled to generate leads before joining.

To fix this, we needed to optimize and create new calls to action, so that users landing their content were compelled to utilize their services.

By doing so, we were able to more than double the number of conversions on the site from 158 to 337 per month.

What is a Call to Action (CTA)?

A call to action (or CTA) is a prompt that encourages users to take a specific action, having consumed content on your website.

In the context of SEO, CTAs are most commonly seen in the form of links, buttons or forms with the aim of turning organic visits into leads written through action verbs like “Learn More” or “Add to Cart” to encourage the desired action.

Sometimes, CTAs are designed to create a sense of urgency to motivate the audience to act promptly, for example, “Sign Up Today” or “Buy Now”.



Examples of Calls to Action

Here are some common types of CTAs that you’ll likely have come across:

Submission Forms

Submission forms are a common CTA that allows you to collect information about your audience, such as enquiries (through a contact form), newsletter signups, subscriptions, etc.

Buttons

Buttons are used to provide more emphasis to a particular user action, such as “Buy Now” or “Add to Cart” for eCommerce websites or “Sign Up” or “Contact Us” as part of form submissions.

Here’s an example of a permanent button that appears in the header of a website.

Links

Hyperlinks to other pages or material on websites can also be used as CTAs. Below is a subtle example of a hyperlink used as a CTA in the footer, encouraging users to sign up to the site’s newsletter.

You can add a Related Articles section at the bottom of a blog post, which encourages users to stay on your website and read other articles.

Meta Description

Another type of CTA on your website that may not be as obvious is the meta description.

It’s displayed to searchers in Google’s search results pages and is your chance to persuade users to click through to your page instead of your competitors.

Before you learn how to create effective CTAs for your website, let’s briefly understand why you should do so.

Why are CTAs Important?

CTAs offer a range of opportunities for you to turn clicks into conversions.

4 Effective Tactics to Optimize Your Calls to Actions

Now, let’s look at how you can achieve all of this by looking at some of the best practices for optimizing the CTAs on your website.

Use Clear & Snappy Language

Write calls to action that are clear and concise: let the user know exactly what you want them to do and (ideally) what they can expect when they perform the desired action.

If your CTAs are longer than five words, they’re probably too long and unclear.

Inspire Action & Create a Sense of Urgency

A call to action, as its name suggests, is designed to drive some sort of action from your audience. Therefore, you should aim to include language that inspires action.

The key here is to use verbs and picture the phrase “I want to…” before the text when

To compel users to take action immediately instead of putting it off for later, add a sense of urgency.

Here are some action words that you can use:

And some phrases/words that you can pair them with to create a sense of urgency:

Don’t Overdo It

It’s quite common to have multiple CTAs on a page, but having too many can distract and confuse users. It can ultimately lead them to making a different action to what you really wanted them to take, or, taking no action at all.

From the below example, which CTA is most important?

When it comes to choosing which CTAs to include on a particular page, go back to the phrase from earlier, “I want to…”. For example, on a product page, you probably aren’t too interested in users signing up for your newsletter. Instead, you’re more interested in them adding the product to their cart.

On a blog post or landing page, however, the desired action may be different, or, you may have multiple desired actions like in the example above.

The key takeaway is to have a clear idea of what the desired action is for each type of page on your website and build your CTAs around that.

Make it Visible

You want your CTAs to stand out and catch the user’s attention without overpowering the overall experience. This is because, although you want to drive the conversion, you don’t want to put users off by displaying a massive CTA that essentially detracts from what they likely originally landed on the page for: the content.

Here are a few ways that you can help make your CTAs more visible without overwhelming your target user:

You can see that Adobe has used the same blue for all of their CTAs to stand out against the rest of the content. This immediately tells the user that when they see this color, they’re expected to perform some sort of action.

Importantly, notice that there are two CTAs here: one for the free trial and one for buying the product outright. The free trial CTA is purposefully in the same white as the rest of the text so that you are instead drawn to the blue “Buy Now” button.

To ensure the call to action stands out even more on the page, it’s important to use a color and font size that is large enough to command attention.

Here’s a great website that lets you pin two colors against each other to see how well they contrast. This might be especially helpful if you’re building a brand-new website and haven’t settled on a color scheme.

You can also improve your score by clicking “Click to enhance,” which gives you the option to automatically adjust the color of the text, the background, or both to improve the contrast.

It’s good practice to include a CTA above the fold, where it’s immediately visible to users without scrolling. You’ve already seen examples of this above, but here’s one more:

Additionally, place CTAs strategically within your content, aligning them with relevant information and at natural breaks to capture attention.

The sidebar navigation is also a common area to place your CTAs.

You can also place CTAs within the footer – but remember, not everyone will reach the bottom of your web page, so avoid including your most important CTA here.

Remember to ensure that all of your CTAs are also prominently featured on mobile devices, considering the smaller screen size. For example, the CTA that appeared above the fold on Mildreds’ website for desktop users is now displayed at the bottom of the screen for mobile users.

By implementing these tips within your own CTAs, you’ll make the most of the organic visitors that land on your website.

Publishing White Papers to Attract Organic Backlinks

As our client operates within a great website niche (these are topics that could significantly impact someone’s health, financial stability, safety, or well-being), it’s even more important that the content produced conveys accurate information from a trustworthy source.

A great way to achieve this while also creating an asset that attracts backlinks is to publish white papers.

Because white papers contain original research and are very much more in-depth than any blog article, they can be used as references by journalists, bloggers, social media posts and anyone else who wants to reference original, valuable information. Becoming a source for this type of information makes you an expert in your niche.

Shortly after the publication of our client’s white paper, they gained many top-quality links from websites like Wikipedia and Yahoo.

What are White Papers?

White papers (see example) are authoritative documents that provide comprehensive information or solutions to a particular issue, often in a persuasive and educational format. They are typically longer than blog posts or articles and delve deeply into a specific topic, presenting detailed research, analysis, and insights.

Their informative nature and in-depth content make them valuable resources for professionals seeking reliable information and solutions.

Most of the time, white papers are available for download via PDF. In a lot of cases, they are accessible only after the user inputs their contact information, along with other data (job title, niche, etc.)

The downloadable PDFs are presented with branded, professional designs that can also optionally be printed as a booklet. Here is a sample of what these might look like:

Example 1:

Example 2:

Your white paper format might depend on factors like goals, budget, or how you plan to approach your link campaign.

How White Papers Can Improve Your SEO

Publishing white papers on your website has many SEO benefits:

How to Write White Papers That Attract Backlinks

Writing a white paper might sound intimidating, but don’t worry. You don’t need to be a professional researcher. You just need a good plan to follow.

Existing resources are your friends!

Leverage industry reports, articles, and even competitor materials to gather the information you need. By focusing on clear communication and a well-structured plan, you can create a compelling white paper that informs your audience without getting bogged down in complex research.

Follow the steps outlined below to write and publish white papers that attract backlinks.

Choose a Relevant Topic

Select a topic that resonates with your target audience’s pain points, preferences, and challenges. Identify a particular problem or obstacle your potential customers or audience encounter and offer a solution that highlights your unique value proposition.

Now, let’s say you have a software company that creates AI tools. One of these tools automatically creates assets for all social media platforms, i.e., TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X (formerly Twitter).

Here are more examples to the above questions, from another point of view:

If you’re struggling for inspiration, you can look at what kind of topics have already been covered.

In the case of the software company that creates AI tools in our example, there are some white papers already that we can use for brainstorming:

The topics that will be a good fit for the example software company will depend on the target audience they are trying to reach.

A simple Google search can do the trick – search for: “[your industry/niche] white papers”, i.e. “social media marketing white papers.”

Browse the topics covered by other businesses and publications.

Ultimately, you know your business and customers better than anyone else, so answering these questions should help you come up with a topic that will be useful and relevant to your audience.

Write an Engaging Title

The title of your white paper plays a vital role in capturing attention and generating clicks.

Craft a title that is:

You also want your white paper to rank for keywords, so think about what kind of terms or phrases your audience would be searching for. In our example, our audience is likely searching for AI tools for social media marketing and AI tools for social media content.

A search on Ahrefs Keywords Explorer shows that these keywords have search demand.

Based on the above, here’s a relevant title for our imaginary AI software company’s white paper: “AI Tool for Social Media Marketing: Maximizing Engagement Across Platforms”.

Do Your Research

Once you’ve settled on a topic and title, the next step is to gather data, statistics, case studies, and other supporting evidence to back up your arguments and recommendations. Ensure your white paper offers credible and authoritative information that adds value to the reader.

Here are a few ways that you can achieve this:

For our AI software company example, this would mean including successful social media campaigns where the AI-generated social assets drove more engagement for our “clients”.

By employing these research methods, you can gather robust data, statistics, case studies, and other supporting evidence to enhance the credibility and authority of your white paper, ultimately adding value to the reader.

Develop a Clear Structure

Here’s what you’ll need to include in order to develop a clear structure for your white paper:

For our example, this would mean explaining how, without an AI tool, marketing managers and social media managers would have to manually create and recreate the same asset for different social media platforms.

How you format your white paper is just as important as the contents itself. The design is the thing people will form their first impression on about your paper, so consider getting a designer to reformat your content to look the part.

Create A Well Designed Landing Page

It’s time to publish. To grab attention, your white paper needs a clear, keyword-rich title and a description highlighting benefits.

Make it easy to find with prominent placement and a strong call to action. Finally, use visuals to entice readers and ensure easy readability with clear formatting.

In order to market this content and start getting organic links, you still have some work to do.

After publishing your white paper on your landing page, proactively promote it across your website, blog, social media platforms, press releases, email newsletters, and relevant industry publications.

Encourage your audience to share it to broaden its exposure and attract backlinks from credible sources.

Your landing page should have the following:

A great tool to help create beautifully designed landing pages is Shorthand. It allows you to create highly engaging, interactive web pages without the need for any coding.

If you don’t want your white paper to be publicly accessible and instead want visitors to download it as a PDF, you should have a simple and visible form that asks for the key pieces of information that you’d like to collect about your visitors i.e. their name, email address, company, etc.

The Results

Within 12 months, the organic traffic grew by 3,773.46% from 1,040 to 40,284 monthly sessions.

The number of keywords that the site ranks for in the top 10 positions of Google increased to an all-time high of 693 keywords in the past twelve months.

This is also true for the site’s overall keyword visibility, where they’re now ranking for 10,792 keywords within the top 100 positions.

Conclusion

In this case study, I’ve shown how you can take newly optimized content and get it indexed using Google’s new Indexing API.

You’ve learned how to:

If you’re looking for help with your site’s SEO, get in touch with my team at The Search Initiative.

Matt is the founder of Diggity Marketing, LeadSpring, The Search Initiative, The Affiliate Lab, and the Chiang Mai SEO Conference. He actually does SEO too.