As a premium connected TV (CTV) advertising platform, Madhive wanted to be known for “CTV advertising”.
But their website didn’t rank for the term at all. Or much of anything else, for that matter.
In fact, 99% of Madhive’s organic search traffic was coming from four branded keywords (e.g. madhive, mad hive, etc.). Their blog had been built on Medium instead of madhive.com, and their content was not optimized for search — none of it was doing much for them.
The Madhive marketing team was in the midst of updating their brand and relaunching their website, so it was an ideal time to build a new resource center. But they needed a content lead that could put together a content strategy and produce content their audiences would enjoy — while also ranking well in search.
🙋🏼♀️👋👋
Without further ado...my first B2B SEO case study.
The plan of attack
We knew it would be difficult to rank for “CTV advertising” out of the gate with a low authority website. And Amazon was ranking #1, to boot (not an easy competitor to beat).
We decided to take a hub and spoke approach.
The hub (or pillar) page would be a comprehensive overview of the CTV advertising topic. The spokes would be supporting topics that would target related keywords. The hub links out to the related spoke content, providing breadth and depth on the topic. The spoke content links back into the hub, adding authority to the piece.
This internal linking structure is critical to SEO content performance.
Creating the “CTV advertising” hub page
To rank better than high-performing search competitors like Amazon, you have to thoroughly understand what these competing sites are providing — and then do better.
So, we closely examined the top three search results, cataloging what each contained in a Google Sheets template. The template contains fields for:
URL
Title
Current Rank
Intent (e.g. informational, commercial, transactional)
Type of Content (blog post, product page, etc.)
Text Style (long-form paragraphs, bulleted lists, etc.)
Images?
Video?
# Words
Components (headings and subheadings)
Other top 20 keywords
(Grab a free copy of the search audit template if you want to try it out — use File > Make a Copy).
A quick note on components: This section is to document the headings and subheadings on the page, sort of like a table of contents.
For example, Amazon’s page components:
What is connected TV (CTV)?
What is streaming TV?
What is connected TV advertising?
Advantages of connected TV advertising
CTV metrics and measurement
CTV advertising benefits
CTV advertising on Amazon
Amazon's top-ranking page did not have much content (<900 words). It also didn’t include any images or videos.
The second page had a more thorough overview of the topic (~1500 words), but a lot of the content fell into an FAQ section at the bottom of the page. The remainder of the page seemed more like a product page than an educational article. The page contained some images, but still no videos.
And the third page consisted of a ~1400-word blog post, no images, no videos. While the first two pages focused mostly on a topic overview, this post focused on how to use CTV advertising to drive leads.
Based on this review, we identified several opportunities for Madhive to differentiate its content. I created an outline that hit on all of the basics covered by other top pages, while adding content to take advantage of the opportunities — then worked with the Madhive team on creating quality content to fill it.
While building out the content, it was important to use plain language to accurately explain the concepts, and we included several case examples throughout the piece.
I worked with Madhive’s team to create a variety of images to include throughout the post, visualizing definitions and processes. We also embedded a related video from a Madhive subject matter expert and included quotes from several SMEs.
Each section of the hub page gave an overview of the sub-topic without covering it in too much depth. Most of the sections would later link into related spoke pages to provide more detail.
The finished product: CTV Advertising—What It Is and How It Works
Creating the spoke pages
Hub page? Check. Now onto the supporting spokes.
How did we decide what else to write about? What other keywords to target?
Since we knew the hub page was tackling a difficult keyword, the spoke pages needed to be able to rank a bit easier. We chose keywords that had a balance of:
Search volume
Relevance to the brand
Low keyword difficulty/competition
Once we identified keywords that fit the bill, we decided on an angle for each piece that would serve Madhive’s audience. Then we used a similar approach to draft each of these supporting spoke pieces as we used for the CTV advertising hub.
We’ve since created nearly 20 pieces of spoke content for the “CTV advertising” hub, most of which is search optimized.
#nailedit with this B2B SEO case study
As expected, Madhive did not rank well for “CTV advertising” right off the bat. But the brand did quickly start ranking for other target keywords.
The new website launched with a variety of new content pieces in September 2022, and organic rankings grew steadily for the next 6 months.
Keywords ranking in the top 10 Google results are up 3200% (from only 3 in September 2022 to 96 in April 2023). The mix of branded and non-branded traffic reached a more balanced breakdown, too. Non-branded traffic grew from only 1% to 46% of Madhive’s organic search traffic.
Monthly engaged sessions on Madhive’s website driven by organic search are also up — almost 1500% between October 2022 and April 2023 (Madhive did not have GA4 set up prior to October).
Did we sacrifice quality? Nope. Average engagement time is also up 78%.
The “CTV advertising” hub page first showed up in Google’s results mid-October, and finally hit # 1 in early March, beating out Amazon. With a few small blips, the page has been sitting pretty at the top of the SERP since.
So, in only about 6 months, Madhive achieved the following:
1 ranking plus featured snippet for “CTV advertising”
3200% increase in top 10 keywords rankings (3 to 96)
4600% increase in non-branded search traffic (1% to 46%)
1500% increase in engaged website sessions
78% increase in average engagement time
Next steps
Madhive is better known for CTV advertising now, but they aren’t done building yet. You can expect to see Madhive create several new content hubs in the near future — but we’ll keep those under wraps for now.
Beyond search, Madhive is also working to build out the middle and end of the buyer’s journey by publishing a variety of guides and vertical-specific case studies.
Need to build out your own content hubs — that rank AND engage your audiences? Let’s talk (I love this stuff).
Or check out some of my other content:
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