It’s no secret that content is critical if you want to succeed in SEO – but what the heck does that actually mean? How exactly do you use content to deliver search success? Former journalist Danny Blackburn, Content Director at digital agency Stickyeyes, will walk through a comprehensive blueprint for content which helps you identify the strategic levers you need to pull to deliver killer results in organic search.

1. A content blueprint to drive
serious SEO success.
June 2017.
Danny Blackburn, Content Director.
@danny_blackburn

3. This is not that talk.

4. Content
is King?
FFS...

5. Content?

6. Content is a toolbox.

7. Insights:
Diving into the data.

8. Content powered by insight.
Performance
Insights
Audience
Insights
Brand
Insights
What do we need
to do to drive SEO
performance?
What makes your
brand special,
different, better?
What does your
audience want
and need?
X
Content

9. Performance
insights.

10. Technical
Proficiency
Relevancy
Authority &
Trust
User
Engagement
User Experience
Technical
Optimisation
Functional
Content
Engaging
Content
Marking
Comms.
UX
Optimisation
CRO
Mobile
Optimisation
SEO performance is
driven by
proficiency in five
key areas.
Content has a major role
to play in four of these.
Key performance factors
Research & strategy
Strategic components
Measurement & refinement
Technical
Proficiency

11. SEO proficiency scorecard.
56%
66%
63%
61% 60% 59%
56%
0
30,000
60,000
90,000
120,000
150,000
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Myprotein Bodybuilding.com Authority Nutrition Men's Health GNC iHerb Men's Fitness
Visibility
ProficiencyScore
Visibility Authority Relevancy Engagement UX
Brand X

12. Then…
We need
content
that will resonate.

13. Audience insights.

14. Our target demographic is
female, 22-35, married with
kids, with a household income
of £25k to £35k.

15. It’s a great start.
But there’s more
to it than that.

16. Who are they?
Where are they active?
Why are they interested?
When are they online?
What do they want from you?
Key digital audience questions:

17. Introducing Pinpoint.
Harnessing big data to generate insights into
your online audience.
Join the dots between
multiple data sources
to produce fully rounded
audience insights.
In-depth audience profiling –
demographics, location,
politics, professions,
disposable income etc.
How does your audience
behave online? Device usage,
social network preference,
time spent online etc.
Other insights - hobbies,
activities, outlook on live,
brand role preference,
values etc.
Sources include: Global Web Index / Proprietary Data Sets / Social Network Insights / YouGov / Experian / Hitwise

18. BEWAR
E

19. Brand
insights.

20. What does my
brand stand for?
What does my audience
care about?

21. Example: American Express
Success
Fulfilment in
their careers
What does my
brand stand for?
What does my audience
care about?

22. From insights
to strategy.

23. The internet is a brilliant
place to hide content.

24. Step 1.
Content
distribution:
Pushing content
to the audience via
owned, earned
and paid channels.
Content
discovery:
Creating content in a
specific way to make
sure people find it
when they’re looking.

25. Owned
Paid Shared
Bloggers & vloggers
PPC
Social media
Paid partnerships
Display
Email
Homepage
Communities
YouTube channel
Social media (organic)
Store/POS
Earned
Brand advocacy
Media outreach
Placed content
Influencer outreach
Blog/Hub
Apps
Specialist websites
Native ads
Content networks
Sponsored content
Brand ambassadors

26. Make sure
your
distribution
solution is fit
for purpose.

27. Micro-Moments.
“Micro-moments occur
when people reflexively
turn to a device —
increasingly a
smartphone — to act
on a need...
“They are intent-
rich moments when
decisions are made
and preferences
shaped.”
- Google

28. Joining
the dots.

29. Content structure.
Hero
Hub
Hygiene
‘Go Big’ content campaigns.
Regular engaging content.
Content people
search for.
Distribution
Discovery
Delivers authority,
awareness & engagement
Improves awareness,
engagement & UX
Boosts content
depth & site
relevancy

30. Case study

31. The objective:
Grow organic search traffic,
reservations and revenue for Hertz
Europe across all markets.

32. Barriers to success
Back in 2012, our performance insights
pointed to four key strategic challenges we
needed to pull to drive Hertz’s SEO
performance across Europe.
• Poor content depth & relevancy
• Weak on-site engagement
• Modest authority from links & citations
• Technical SEO issues

33. Our audience
insights revealed
what makes Hertz’s
customers tick:
They’re interested in
in travel, science,
nature & property…
Audience insights

34. …they’re
independent &
hardworking…

35. …and they believe
that family is
more important
than
anything.

36. Different locations, different customers.
By analysing local rental data we were able to understand
more about the people who rent in specific locations.
London Heathrow Palma de Mallorca
Typical rental duration (mode) 0-4 days (60%) 5-9 days (52%)
Bookings where child seat is requested (%) 2% 6.1%
International bookings (% of known data) 67% 88%
Most popular car model (% of rentals) Ford Focus Renault Captur
Typical milage (mode) 100-200 200-300
Top sources of international rentals (% of total) USA (42%) Germany (53%)
Source: Hertz customer data.

37. And it all had to be 100% on brand:
Professional
Polished
Personable

38. So how did that help us grow organic
traffic, bookings and revenue for
Hertz?
And how did the insight help us
engage with the audience?

39. Our approach:
Reaffirming the important things in life.
Hertz customers are
defined by what’s
important to them.
It’s about getting
out and about
and doing things,
together.

40. Content campaigns
‘City Swap’
‘Road Trip’
Hertz Together blog
‘Michelin Star Restaurant Map’
‘Understanding London’s
congestion charge’
Location pages
‘Car Hire London’
Content is ‘pushed’ to
relevant target audience.
Audience ‘pulled’ into
content from search.
Hero
Hub
Hygiene
‘Go Big’ content campaigns.
Regular engaging content.
Content people
search for.

41. Hertz Together blog
‘Haunted places to visit in the
UK’
‘Understanding London’s
congestion charge’
Content campaigns
‘Quality Time’
‘Road Trip’Content is ‘pushed’ to
relevant target audience.
‘Go Big’ content campaigns.
Hero
Hub
Regular engaging content.
Location pages
‘Car Hire London’
Audience ‘pulled’ into
content from search.
HygieneContent people
search for.

42. 12,000 location pages.
12 languages.

43. Turning
this…

44. …into this.

48. Content campaigns
‘Quality Time’
‘Road Trip’
Hero
‘Go Big’ content
campaigns.
Content people
search for. Hygiene
Location pages
‘Car Hire London’
Hertz Together blog
‘Haunted places to visit in the UK’
‘Understanding London’s
congestion charge’
Hub
Regular engaging
content.
Audience ‘pulled’ into
content from search.
Content is ‘pushed’ to
relevant target audience.

52. We’ve built in the functionality to display related
blog posts that answer related search queries for
each location.

53. UK Michelin
Star Map

54. We’ve seen great success with simple,
tactical pieces designed to capture the
attention of websites and press that Hertz
customers are most interested in and sites
that hold significant authority.
Our Michelin Star Map, Bond Locations and Star
Wars pieces allow us to secure top-tier
coverage with focused, simple stories.
Tactical authority building.

55. Tactical authority building.
It’s about a steady flow of simple content to keep
quality links and authority flowing into the site.

56. Content people
search for. Hygiene
Location pages
‘Car Hire London’
Hertz Together blog
‘Haunted places to visit in the UK’
‘Understanding London’s
congestion charge’
Hub
Regular engaging
content.
Audience ‘pulled’ into
content from search.
Content campaigns
‘Quality Time’
‘Road Trip’
Hero
‘Go Big’ content
campaigns.
Content is ‘pushed’ to
relevant target audience.

57. Campaign:
City Swap
The focus of this campaign was on the unique
experience the car rental helps you have… getting
out and about in a new city to explore things you
can only get to by car.
We matched online travel writers, journalist and bloggers from different
parts of the country for a weekend city swap in a car provided by Hertz.
Each person prepared an itinerary for their counterpart and then visited
that city and experienced everything it had to offer.

58. Coverage was secured across over 25 top-
tier websites across Europe.
The participants in the campaign documented
their journeys on their websites and linked
back to the central City Swap resource,
relevant location landing pages and the
homepage.
Content was also posted on YouTube and
Instagram to further document the campaign
in all six regions the campaign was active in.
Coverage secured included:

60. The tool was shared on owned and paid
channels and we worked with our
partner PR agencies to outreach to
relevant sites and influencers
Case study

61. Rankings.
Keyword Ranking
american road trip planner 3
usa road trip planner 3
america road trip planner 3
us road trip planner 4
road trip planner usa 4
plan a road trip usa 4
road trip usa planner 5
america road trip planner 6
road trip america 7
how to plan an american road trip 8
roadtrip planner 8
road trip planner 8

62. The results.

63. 148%increase in traffic from organic
search across Europe

64. 0
2,000,000
4,000,000
6,000,000
8,000,000
10,000,000
12,000,000
14,000,000
2013 Q1 2013 Q2 2013 Q3 2013 Q4 2014 Q1 2014 Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2015 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015 Q4 2016 Q1 2016 Q2 2016 Q3 2016 Q4 2017 Q1
Hertz EU organic search traffic growth across European domains

65. increase in sales from organic
search across Europe
173%

66. So that’s the blueprint.

67. The answer is simple.
Put the right content
in front of the right people
in the right places
at the right times.
Of course, simple isn’t necessarily easy.

68. The right data.
The right ideas.
The right results.

69. Thank you
Danny Blackburn, Content Director.
@danny_blackburn
stickyeyes.com/searchleeds