Content marketing can be a bit overwhelming for small business owners just starting down that path. There are many elements to consider in order to get a respectable ROI for their efforts. What most of them fail to realize is that they can get results by simply implementing the right copywriting strategies.

Below is a case study of one client in a small-scale e-commerce business that already had all its ducks in a row. The site just needed the right strategy to knock them over. It is a good example of how to accelerate your content marketing efforts through copywriting strategies.

The Goals

• Increase search traffic to the site
• Generate more qualified leads
• Increase conversion rates

The Solutions

• Buyer persona mapping
• Content metrics analysis
• AIDA implementation
• Local SEO

The Results

• 43% increase in number of unique visitors
• 130% increase in qualified leads
• 12 page one rankings for location-specific relevant keywords
• 6.5% conversion rate

About the client

The client is a small family business selling handmade leather moccasins for toddlers online in La Jolla.

Situation

The company's founders wanted help with improving their ranking on search engines in order to get more qualified leads using content marketing.  Their website was well-designed and attractive, but there was a lot of competition for their niche market.

"We were small fish in a big pond, and we wanted some help to improve our chances of getting noticed."

Before consultation, the client's website pages performed poorly in a search:

• Page 1 ranking was elusive

The pages came out in the 5th and 6th pages at best in any relevant keyword search, significantly lowering their chances of attracting organic traffic and potential customers.

• Conversion rates were in the 2%

The company had a 1% conversion rate (1 out of 100 visitors made a purchase), which was below the average for retail ecommerce of 3%.

The client had recently had their website professionally designed to improve the structure for better SEO, and their next step was to engage in content marketing to drive more traffic to their website and increase conversions.

"We were also considering paid search campaigns, but we wanted to approach it systematically. We believed better content and SEO strategies would be a good place to start."

Our solutions

Laying the foundation for an effective content marketing strategy always starts with a thorough understanding of the client's business. An in-depth consultation with the client revealed that there were some large gaps in the research necessary for content marketing. The following were required:

• Buyer persona mapping
• Content metrics analysis
• AIDA implementation
• Local SEO

The client had no clear understanding of their target audience. It was a given that new parents would be their primary targets, but that unnecessarily limited their range of prospects. Two other buyer personas were created for the clients, which significantly expanded the scope of relevant content.

The next step was to measure the amount and type of traffic the website was already attracting from existing content, and the results analyzed. The following recommendations were proposed for improving the content:

More relevant information

The traffic metrics revealed that much of the organic traffic generated centered on pages that provided informative content. Visitors consistently spent the longest time on these pages. The clients needed to generate more informative content on the site.

Better keyword placement

The site pages did not include relevant keywords for search engines to index, which contributed significantly to poor ranking. A clear structure for keyword placement in the title, headings, and meta tags was provided for the client to follow when posting content.

Catchy and clear headlines

Content with catchy and clear headlines using relevant long-tailed keywords generated the most visits. The client needed to focus more on including targeted keywords in their headlines in order to attract more clicks.

Local content

Location-specific keywords were missing from the site. While the client delivered nationwide, location-specific keywords will help them rank higher because there was lower competition for them. Posting location-specific content will help boost the page ranking of the site overall, pulling up more generic content up the ranks. This includes implementing location-based off site optimization strategic plan.

Call to action

The site contents did not have strong call-to-action elements outside of the product pages. Including call to action statements and links in the non-product pages will increase the likelihood of converting visitors into subscribers or customers.

Images and videos

There were very few non-product images on the site, and no videos. Adding relevant images and videos to posts would greatly increase the site's attractiveness to visitors as well as search engine ranking.

The Results

The client followed the recommendations to the letter and posted a decided improvement in organic traffic and sales in the first quarter following the consultation. There was a decided increase in awareness and interest in the local community in the products, which helped push the site up the rankings. In six months, the following improvements were measured:

• 43% increase in number of unique visitors
• 130% increase in qualified leads
• 12 page one rankings for location-specific relevant keywords
• 6.5% conversion rate