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B2B Tech Client Immediate Visibility Gains from Keyword-Stuffing Analysis and Correction

B2B Tech Client: Immediate Visibility Gains from Keyword-Stuffing Analysis and Correction 2

CLIENTA B2B tech company selling to enterprise-level clients.

CHALLENGEThe client was embarking on a new product release, which yielded the opportunity to overhaul one of its key pages. This page is optimized for a high-search-volume keyword theme that plays a critical role in the site’s organic visibility; starting in July 2018, it had experienced drops in organic rankings, organic impressions, and average position for these keywords.

The client proceeded with major content changes, which included an updated Page Title and H1 – both of which are ranking factors in organic search. Under the premise that longer-form content tends to perform better, the client increased on-page copy length by over 3x, while dramatically increasing density of the primary keyword theme.

Unfortunately, this over-optimization for the page’s primary keyword theme had adverse affects on the page’s organic visibility.*

* All of the following results and charts are from Google Search Console.

B2B Tech Client: Immediate Visibility Gains from Keyword-Stuffing Analysis and Correction 3

Once these changes went live at the beginning of August, Average Position for the primary keyword mapped to the page began to decrease dramatically.

• After ranking on Page 1 consistently, Average Position bottomed out at Position 25 by early September.

Impressions also began to follow the same trend.

• After Average Position fell to Page 2 and beyond in organic search, it averaged fewer than 150 impressions a day, minimizing opportunities for organic visibility.

1.8K

1.2K

600

6/1/18 6/14/18 6/27/18 7/10/18 7/23/18 8/5/18

Average Position for primarykeyword drops from 10 to 25 with a

general trend decline

August 2, 2018: New Page Titles,H1s, and overoptimized body

content are published

8/18/18 8/31/18

0

0

10

20

30

Impressions

Total Impressions Average Position

Position

1

B2B Tech Client: Immediate Visibility Gains from Keyword-Stuffing Analysis and Correction 4

WHAT WE DIDIn order to understand what opportunities to address, the 3Q SEO team leveraged SearchMetrics to evaluate the new content. This evaluation analyzed:

1. Length of body content

2. Usage of keywords in the Page Title and H1 tag

3. Comprehensiveness of keyword topic coverage throughout the page’s body copy

WHAT WE FOUNDThe content evaluation tool provided recommended usage of keywords related to topic themes that we chose.

The tool confirmed that the primary keyword was utilized throughout the copy in a repetitive, often unnatural manner. We could see that the keyword stuffing was having an adverse impact on organic visibility.

Our primary keyword

B2B Tech Client: Immediate Visibility Gains from Keyword-Stuffing Analysis and Correction 5

SOLUTIONAfter sharing this analysis with the client, 3Q worked with the client’s content team to make the following adjustments:

• Revert the Page Titles and H1s back to their pre-content overhaul versions.• Eliminate as much repetition and overuse of the primary keyword as possible.

Our content tweaks resulted in nearly halving the usage of our primary keyword, which addressed the copy’s readability and over-optimization.

Our primary keyword

B2B Tech Client: Immediate Visibility Gains from Keyword-Stuffing Analysis and Correction 6

RESULTSWhile updating the Page Title and H1 tags resulted in some initial improvements, addressing the page’s over-optimization via copy updates played a significant role in helping the client regain visibility for one of its most critical keyword topics.

• The primary keyword immediately rebounded from a Page 3 ranking.

• Impressions began to improve as well. The challenge presented, and the solution implemented, prove that overuse of keywords can have a negative impact. We will leverage these insights as we look to make further updates to content on this page, as well as to other core organic pages across the site.

1.5K

1K

500

0

0

10

20

30

Impressions Position

7/30/18 8/13/18 8/27/18 9/10/18 9/24/18 10/8/18 10/22/18 11/5/18

1

Page Title & H1 Update in mid-September results in a short-livedimprovement in Average Position

New Content is updated andAverage Position and Impressions

improve the next day

Total Impressions

Average Position

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