Future PLC’s content marketing agency, Future Fusion, has won the International Content Marketing Association Award 2020 ‘Best Use of SEO’ award – here, we take a closer look at the SEO content strategy that saw its client’s paid traffic from Display dramatically reduce, replaced with Organic Search traffic soaring 120% month-on-month in 2019.
SEO content strategy results in summary:
- UVs were up 30.9% year-on-year
- Returning users rose 51.8% year-on-year
- Time on page rose to a remarkable average 7 min 19 sec
- Critically for business success, product page click-throughs rose 61%
Brand background & brief
Canon has long been an innovator in the imaging industry. Over an 87-year history it has launched game-changing cameras, lenses and accessories, nurturing thousands of photographers on their creative journeys, and even turning a generation of photographers into videographers with products such as the Canon EOS 5D Mark II.
But over the years, aggressive competitor marketing was attempting to take market share in the mirrorless marketplace – Canon sought to change its ‘sleeping giant’ stance in the industry and defend its market-leader position.
In response to a brief stating its new aggressive stance in the market, Fusion proposed a content strategy that relied on its SEO expertise to grow organic, meaningful traffic that would convert sales increasingly over time – to reduce the reliance on paid media promotion.
Future Fusion’s SEO-First Strategy
Fusion implemented an SEO-first approach for Canon Europe that aimed to increase Organic Traffic but also sought to purposefully engage with photographers and filmmakers at each stage of their purchase journey in a way that would maximise click-through-rates.
The content created by Future Fusion takes buyers from social top-of-funnel content, to the inspiration, the buyer’s guides, and the in-depth research and product information that gives them the confidence to buy the product as their next step.
What’s more, every single piece of content is conceived and created with SEO – and our KPI targets – in mind. Before any article is created, our content team performs keyword research on the products and themes being written about, and writers are briefed with a list of keywords to include in the headline and body copy. Our production team uses this research to suggest optimal URLs, and places product links to drive referrals to product pages.
On key content we embed related videos and podcasts, or image galleries, to increase dwell time. And regular updates of core content, such as Canon EOS R FAQs, keeps Canon’s content fresh in the eyes of Google. This regimen takes on an even greater importance in the wake of Google’s core algorithm update in May 2020, which prioritises content that is regularly updated and kept relevant for readers.
SEO content strategy results
It’s been another standout year for the Canon Europe Pro website. Unique visits, total users, returning users, average time on page and product page click-throughs all rose significantly year-on-year (see figures above).
Fusion has delivered an ROI of £4 on £1 for Canon Europe Pro. Demonstrating the SEO strategy at play, content for product launches (initially buoyed by launch interest and paid uplift) is generating long-term traffic: Maintaining the momentum, an article published six months after the product launch, an EOS R FAQs SEO-driven article, had 11,332 unique page views and an average time on page of an astonishing 17:34 (with a 9.4% click-through rate to the EOS R product page).
Testifying to the effectiveness of the Future Fusion SEO-first content strategy, in December paid traffic from Display fell but traffic from Organic Search soared 120% month-on-month from 25,086 to 55,441. Logged product page visits also reached 8,774 in December – the highest ever Organic on record.
