61% growth in my first quarter, and a site Google could finally see
When I joined this ad tech company, the brand wasn’t ranking for the searches that mattered most to its business. When I left, organic traffic had grown 198%.
The company builds ad optimization software that helps publishers earn more from the ads on their websites. My goal from day one was to get the brand ranking for its most valuable keywords, especially in the top three positions, where most of the clicks go.
Who I was writing for
Our readers were publishers and ad operations teams. They run websites for a living. They know their numbers, they test everything, and they can tell within a paragraph whether a writer understands their world.
Ad tech also runs on jargon: header bidding, fill rate, eCPM. Experts searched those terms to solve problems. Newcomers searched them just to keep up. I made sure we showed up for both.
Where things stood
In February 2021, organic search brought in about 26,000 visits a month. Paid search was carrying a lot of the load, at nearly 19,000.
The site also had a problem underneath the content: slow page loads. For a company selling to publishers, who know that slow pages cost them rankings and revenue, that had to be fixed first.
What I did
Chose keywords by what they were worth, not how many there were. I focused our content on high-volume searches our buyers were actually making, rather than chasing long lists of small terms that looked good in a report but brought in few visitors. Every pillar page, blog and cluster was built to win one of those searches.
Fixed the foundations. I diagnosed the site’s page-load problems and drove Core Web Vitals fixes into the website revamp, working directly with web developers and technical SEO specialists. From then on, every page we published had a real chance to rank.
Built content pillars and topic clusters. I organized our content around the core topics our buyers cared about. Each pillar page covered a subject in depth and linked to supporting blogs on narrower questions, showing Google we had real authority on each topic.
Wrote for every stage of the buying journey. I built top-, middle- and bottom-of-funnel content for our core products: explainers for people learning the space, comparisons and how-tos for people weighing options, and product-focused pieces for people close to a decision.
Formatted content to win search features. I added structured data and wrote answers in snippet-ready formats: clear definitions, short lists and step-by-step sections. Our pages earned more ways to appear at the top of results, not just in the list of links.
Tightened on-page SEO across the site. Every page got a clear keyword target, stronger titles and meta descriptions, clean heading structure, and internal links into its topic cluster.
Made our content visual. I designed infographics and visual explainers to turn complex ad tech ideas into something readers could understand at a glance. Well-designed pages kept readers engaged for longer, and gave publishers and other sites something worth sharing on social and linking back to.
Built authority off the site. I ran a backlink program and published guest posts on industry sites, putting our expertise where publishers already read. I also built a glossary of the industry’s key terms, linked to our blogs on each one. It became one of our strongest assets, earning backlinks from other sites on its own.
Scaled output without dropping quality. I hired and managed external content writers, set the quality bar, and tied every piece to a keyword and a funnel stage. I promoted our content on social to get it read and shared faster, and tracked everything in Google Analytics, Search Console and Semrush to double down on what worked.
The results
In my first quarter, organic traffic grew 61%, from about 26,000 to 42,000 visits a month. Page-one rankings grew 34%, and top-three rankings grew 21%. That was exactly where we’d aimed.
By the time I left in January 2023, organic traffic had reached 77,500 visits a month, up 198% since I joined. Branded traffic doubled, so far more people were searching for the company by name. Organic had become the company’s main source of search traffic, bringing in 15 times more visits than paid.
The keyword strategy showed in the numbers. By the end, we ranked for fewer keywords overall, but the ones we held did far more work. Traffic per page-one keyword nearly quadrupled, from about 6.5 to 25 visits a month, because we’d won the searches with real volume behind them.
I was promoted from Content Writer to Senior Content Writer along the way.
What I’d do differently
I’d run a refresh program for top-ranking pages from the start. Winning top-three positions is one job. Holding them against competitors is another. Next time, I’d update our best pages on a regular schedule, before they have a chance to slip.
I’d connect content to signups from day one. I tracked traffic and rankings closely. Next time, I’d add conversion tracking to every piece, so I could show exactly which content brought in customers.
I’d use the product’s own data. An ad optimization platform sees patterns across many publishers that no single publisher can see alone. A regular benchmark report would have been content competitors couldn’t copy, and exactly what publishers want to read and link to.
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