When you know that your site and blog aren’t quite living up to their full potential, it can be overwhelming to know where to start.

Do you revamp your existing content? If so, how do you determine what to keep and how much to update? Or do you start fresh with new content, hitting the ground running with as many new posts targeting as many new keywords as possible?

The answer is ultimately, “it depends.” The existing content, including page rankings and keywords indexed, directly influences what steps you should take.

And in many cases, both updating existing content and adding new, well-optimized content to your blog is a solid strategy. 

That’s the approach we took when working with Remote, and it allows us to increase keyword visibility across their site by 96.15% (and index an additional 12,961 keywords) in just six months. And in this case study, we’ll show you how we did it. 

The client 

Remote is an HR and employment platform for global businesses, offering team management, hiring, payroll, and financial management features for both employees and contractors. 

Remote targets enterprise businesses with international HR needs, and has a roster of impressive clients like DoorDash, Loom, Burger King, and more. 

The challenge

When Remote first got in touch with Codeless, they knew they wanted to increase their organic rankings and overall visibility. 

They were already indexing for around 8,000 keywords on their blog alone and over 12,000 on their site overall. Despite this, they were struggling to get visibility, partially because they’re in an extraordinarily competitive online space discussing remote work, HR processes, and payroll.

Organic traffic had plateaued in November of 2022, so their team sought a path to accelerate growth and get back on the right track.

The solution 

Codeless started working with Remote in April of 2023. At that time, we developed a customized strategy for Remote that would allow us to revisit older content with solid performance while also generating new content that was well-optimized for long-term performance and results. 

This is the process we used. 

1. We assessed their blog 

Remote was already indexed for thousands of keywords on their blog alone when they first came to us, and they had plenty of content that had low- to mid-first-page rankings in the SERPs. That meant they were doing something right and just needed a few tweaks.

As a result, we determined that updating some existing high-performing content already on the front page would increase visibility, but new content was also needed to continue boosting visibility amongst new personas that Remote wanted to target long-term. 

2. We determined which content to update 

Codeless’ strategists reviewed all the existing content on Remote’s blog to determine which posts to update. They looked for content that was:

• Ranking on the first page of the SERPs, but not in the top three searches
• Targeting keywords that could attract users at different stages of the sales funnel
• Relevant to the brand’s target audience

3. We updated and optimized older content

After keyword and topic research, we created briefs that our expert team of writers used to create newer and often expanded versions of the posts we were updating.

These briefs included all the new keywords to include in each post, along with specific topic and word count requirements based on our extensive research process.

Refreshed blog posts included up-to-date and relevant content, new keywords, and additional, refreshed SEO and strategic optimization based on current best practices. Not only would these posts ideally rank higher and for more keywords, but they’d also be more likely to drive clicks and (hopefully) conversions. 

4. We started creating new content 

As our team updated existing content, we also started creating a library of new content for Remote’s blog. 

We knew we needed to create new and unique content for the audience personas Remote was targeting long-term. This meant creating content they hadn’t been focusing on yet, so they could expand their keywords and topic portfolio significantly while leveraging the content and SEO power they’d already worked hard to build.

Our team conducted extensive SEO research to determine which topics and keywords to write about, looking for high-volume keywords that Remote could realistically rank for. 

Once we did this, we organized the keywords and topics into distinct briefs for our writers. Each writer received detailed briefs in addition to training on Remote’s product, audience, and business objectives. This allowed them to create actionable, high-performing content that customers and Google alike appreciated.

It’s important to note that all content goes through a diligent editing and revision process before our clients ever see it. If they need revisions, we can accommodate them, but all content they see is ready to publish according to strict internal quality standards. 

The results 

We started working with Remote in April of 2023. In six months, we helped them increase their number of keywords indexed significantly:

• There were an additional 12,961 keywords indexed to the site, bringing it up to a total of 25,423 keywords indexed. 
• 8,835 new keywords indexed to the blog, bringing the total number of indexed keywords to 16,098.

The overall site had a 96.15% increase in keyword visibility. The blog had an 82.20% increase in keyword visibility. 

When it comes to specific results, plenty of new content ranks high on the second page of Google after the initial publication dates, which was an initial solution proposed by Codeless. 

Two pages were optimized by Codeless’s team which now accounts for 25% of the total site traffic driven from search. These two pages previously accounted for around 7% of traffic before Codeless’s contract with Remote. 

Codeless optimized this blog post to add 1,000 words, and there are now 645 new keywords visible on this page to date. The page is now ranked in the top spot in the SERPs and accounts for 14% of traffic driven from search. 

We also optimized this page, adding another additional 1,000 new words. It also jumped up two ranked spots in the SERPs, and now accounts for 10% of total traffic driven from search. Before Codeless’s optimization, the page did not drive meaningful traffic percentages. 

Conclusion 

Content marketing and SEO can be a marathon and not a sprint, but in just six months, we’ve doubled the amount of traffic that one page was bringing through search, and put another on the map, so to speak.

The doubling of keywords indexed for both Remote’s blog and website— and the increased search visibility as a result— have significantly impacted ranking potential and traffic, allowing them to leverage momentum to get on the other side of that content plateau they felt stuck in before.

Ready to learn how we can develop a custom strategy to take your content to the next level? Get in touch here.