An Evolving Partnership

Introduction

Kuno Creative has worked with Inspirus, a leader in employee rewards, recognition and engagement, for many years in various capacities: website redesign, branding, user experience (UX), content marketing, paid media, marketing automation, sales enablement support, RevOps strategy and more.

Recently, our partnership expanded to include advanced SEO services with the goal of increasing organic traffic, driving qualified leads and supporting ongoing growth over time.

SEO Goals

More Traffic, More Opportunities

Inspirus is the go-to source for employee engagement and recognition solutions, which requires a strong online presence and high visibility in search results. They turned to Kuno Creative to drive more traffic to the website and improve search rankings for critical, competitive industry keywords.

The ultimate goal in increasing website traffic is to gain opportunities with more qualified leads. To add to the challenge: paid advertising was reallocated, so results from organic search mattered more than ever.

A Winning SEO Strategy

Advanced SEO

Kuno implemented a multi-faceted strategy to achieve these goals, focusing on advanced SEO techniques and robust content marketing.

This strategy focused on execution in several key areas:

Kuno implemented a multi-faceted strategy to achieve these goals, focusing on advanced SEO techniques and robust content marketing.

This strategy focused on execution in several key areas:

Kuno implemented a multi-faceted strategy to achieve these goals, focusing on advanced SEO techniques and robust content marketing.

This strategy focused on execution in several key areas:

• Technical SEO On-Page Fixes
  

Kuno started by optimizing technical aspects of Inspirus' website, ensuring it was fully optimized for search crawlers.

• Titles and Meta Description Optimization

Each page’s titles and meta descriptions were reviewed and updated as needed to be compelling and keyword-rich to improve clickthrough rates from search engine results pages (SERPs) and align with the broader SEO strategy. 

• Toxic Backlink Monitoring and Disavowal

By monitoring Inspirus’ backlink profile, Kuno identified and disavowed any toxic links that could negatively impact SEO performance, ensuring that only high-quality backlinks contributed to site authority.

• Monthly Blog Optimizations 

Kuno optimized four existing blog posts each month, a process that included content updates, refined keyword placement, improved internal linking structures and updated meta titles and descriptions. 

• Keyword Management and Visibility Reporting 

Regular visibility analytics and reports, as well as managing approximately 100 keywords, meant Kuno was consistently monitoring progress and making data-driven adjustments to the strategy to align with emerging search trends, changes to search algorithms and new opportunities. 

• Schema and Markup Coding for Google Features

To improve search visibility and increase the likelihood of appearing in Google’s rich results, Kuno implemented structured data for products, classes and other relevant features.

• Backlinking Strategy and Mention Management 

Kuno supported strategic backlinking throughout a domain host migration. Once the migration was complete, the team implemented a comprehensive backlinking plan to increase domain authority, earning mentions from high-authority sites across the web. 

• Pillar/Cluster Strategy and Execution

The SEO team created highly optimized outlines using specific keyword clusters in order to create monthly pillar pages and four supporting cluster articles.

Content Marketing

The collaboration between Kuno’s content marketing and SEO teams and Inspirus' marketing team was essential for success. New content was both optimized for search engines and crafted to resonate with Inspirus’ target audience, providing value and increasing engagement that spurred action.

A key component of the SEO-content collaboration was the pillar-cluster strategy.

This involved creating comprehensive pillar pages that are authoritative hubs for key topics, targeting broad, high-volume and highly competitive keywords. These pages were supported by a network of cluster blog content targeting striking distance keywords, with strategic interlinking between clusters and pillar pages.

• Brainstorming Topic Clusters

The content and SEO teams regularly met to brainstorm topic clusters based on keyword research, audience pain points, ideas from the Inspirus team and timely, relevant topics. 

For example, particularly successful topic themes included employee recognition messages around the December holidays and employee engagement tied to Employee Appreciation Day in March, which naturally resonated with the audience’s seasonal searches.

• Content Planning and Keyword Strategy

We developed a thorough content calendar, incorporating these topic clusters into a coherent, actionable strategy. This included SEO-focused outlines for one new pillar page per month and four supporting blog posts on subtopics. 

• Research, Writing and Optimization 

Each piece of content was carefully researched and crafted to match identified keywords and address the target audience's needs while remaining on brand in terms of voice, tone and style. Kuno’s content team wrote, optimized and edited the material, which was then designed and developed to be engaging, informative and rank on search engines.

• Continuous Content Optimization

In addition to creating new content, Kuno regularly revisited and optimized existing content to make sure it aligned with current SEO best practices, refining on-page elements like headers, keyword placement and internal linking. 

Through this integrated approach, combining advanced SEO techniques with strategic, value-rich content, Kuno drove significant growth in organic traffic almost immediately. 

Search Engine Optimization Key Wins

Organic Traffic

After a year of working with Kuno on search engine optimization and content marketing, Inspirus has seen incredible organic growth driving qualified leads – despite reallocating their digital paid advertising budget.

The first SEO campaign pillar page and supporting blog posts were published at the end of July. At that time, Inspirus was averaging approximately 1,200 organic sessions per month. 

Less than five months later, that had jumped up to 17,636 organic sessions per month (a 13.7x increase). That growth continued and, at the 12-month mark of working on this initiative, there were 22,866 organic sessions. That’s more than an 18-fold increase in monthly organic traffic in just one year!

Employee Appreciation Day

Let’s take a closer look at traffic around Employee Appreciation Day in March, a key date for Inspirus.

In February, Inspirus averaged 175 daily sessions. After March 1st and Employee Appreciation Day, they saw 280 per day. This is a considerable increase that speaks to dedicated efforts around this time-sensitive campaign.

Keyword Rankings

Prior to Kuno’s concerted SEO efforts, Inspirus ranked for 86 keywords on Google’s first page: that is, the top 10 positions of organic search results. 19 of those were in the top three positions.

A year later, Inspirus ranked on the first page for almost 2,000 keywords – including 773 keywords in those coveted top three positions.

SERP Features

SERP features are short snippets of text or other elements that appear at the top of Google’s search results, quickly answering the question in the query. When our SEO efforts began, Inspirus had 24 SERP features. A year later, that number jumped to 1,542 – a 6325% increase!

This includes SERP features for highly competitive, valuable keywords like “employee appreciation day,” “employee retention,” “employee rewards programs” and hundreds more.

New Organic Contacts & Opportunities

In just one year, Inspirus saw a remarkable surge in new business opportunities with a total of 183 new contacts generated from organic traffic. Additionally, 16 opportunities came exclusively from organic – a significant increase compared to the year before.

This outstanding performance showcases incredible return on investment, while also highlighting the long-term value of exceptional informative content combined with an intentional approach to improved visibility and brand awareness through a strategy that continues to pay dividends well beyond our expectations.