How One Post Became 22% of a Client’s Entire Website Traffic (SEO Deep Dive!)
Content signals are 37% of Google’s Algorithm. Your site’s content must be engaging, fresh, and properly structured. Our process is driven by quality over quantity, and while it appears simple on the surface, we’ve packed it with years of curated strategy to deliver remarkable results.
Let’s take a look at how we optimized one article for a client, which became 20% of their site traffic (nearly double the traffic of the second-ranked page), increased by nearly 200% in CTR, and pushed their traffic numbers up, despite their other outdated content weighing the site down.
We break down content generation into three phases: content plan, page strategy, copywriting. And it’s not rocket science: let’s dive into how you can do it, too.
Content Plan
A content plan is a detailed breakdown of all the pages that exist on the site and that we intend to create, each of which are connected to target keywords and separated into topic categories. Creating a comprehensive and holistic content plan is essential to a strong SEO campaign. Here’s an overview on how we build a content plan:
Keyword Research: We begin with compiling a list with hundreds of keywords that competitors are ranking for and that are relevant to our clients’ products (using tools such as SEMRush, Ahrefs, and Google Trends).
Topic Clustering: This is where we review all of these keywords in our list and categorize them into separate clusters of keywords. For example, we grouped “muscles of the arm quiz,” “shoulder evaluation,” “shoulder dislocation rehab protocol,” among others together in an “arm” cluster.
Keyword Hierarchy: Once the keywords are matched together, we create a hierarchy based on the level of specificity each keyword targets with their user intent, while considering the ways in which these separate keywords topically support and relate to one another. In this case. “muscles of the arm quiz” was the most widely-encompassing topic, with the other keywords naturally fitting as sub-topics to this overarching topic (which we call a “cornerstone” article).
Pro Tip: the articles grouped together in a cluster should internally link to one another using relevant context to help users navigate to learn more about related topics. And they should all internally link to the cornerstone to reaffirm how that article is the top of the cluster hierarchy. This also passes PageRank to that page.
This graphic visualizes how a page plan can be used to create relationships between pages. Each pillar page (or cornerstone article) should contextually house more granular information in subtopic pages (cluster articles), and in some cases go a further level (which we call ancillary articles).
Page Plan: We consider this to be the hardest and most important part of any content plan — connecting the keyword targets to existing pages for optimization and defining where new pages are necessary. It’s crucial that each page target a unique search intent and that multiple pages do not overlap in targeting the same keywords.
Pro Tip: to determine where to split keywords into separate pages, look up the keywords on Google and check to see if there are at least 3 of the same results appearing. If the same 3 links appear for two keywords, odds are they target the same search intent and should both be targeted with one page.
Here is an excerpt of our page plan for this client. For our page plans, we also include the status of that page to ensure it also functions as a task list, alongside content notes and the level of optimization required for the page.
Page Strategy
Next in the process is to build out the strategy for the selected piece of content for optimization. This includes an even deeper level of competitive analysis to understand how and why Google rewards specific pages of content for the target keyword. The areas we find most integral to build content that satisfies the user and Google are:
Top 5 Competitive References: What are the top 5 websites (not including domain authority powerhouses) that rank for all three of the target keywords?
Target audience: Who are the people who are searching for these keywords (age, profession, interest groups)?
Readability level: How simple or complex should the content be for the target audience? (use https://hemingwayapp.com/ to determine readability score).
Search intent & content angle: What is the target audience looking for when they are searching for these keywords (Go into depth: If they are looking to buy, what do they want to know before purchasing? If they are looking to learn, what information satisfies their search?)
Page Call-to-Action: What do we want the target audience to do while/after reading this page?
Notes: What else is important to include? Should the content be structured in a specific way to represent information? Are there essential pieces of information that cannot be excluded?
For this particular piece of content, it required a deep level of technical research to understand each audience type and how to curate the content to answer their respective and overlapping questions. Here was our content brief for this piece:
Copywriting
The final stage of curating content is actually writing it. While AI has gotten pretty good at writing, we still determine the best course of action on a client-by-client basis. Since this client is in a deeply technical field where fact and field expertise are essential, we prioritized having a writer who could handle the material.
In addition to the content needing to factually correct and match search/user intent, it is essential that it aligns with and enhances the brand of the company we’re writing for. To write for our clients, we spend an incredible amount of time learning about the brand and engaging in strategic conversions from the beginning to determine which words to use/not use, ways of discussing the product and target audience, as well as spending the time to understand content feedback so that our future writing is even stronger every time.
The Results (~2,000% increase in traffic to the article)
They speak for themselves. The traffic to this article skyrocketed overnight. At the time this graph was screenshotted, it gained 1,867.9% traffic over the last 30 days compared to the previous 30 days, and now has gone on to be an increase of an over 2,000% increase compared to the period before it was optimized.
This graph showcases the user traffic to the article we optimized from February 1 to July 3, 2025. The stacked metrics on the right-hand side represent clicks over that period of time (from July 3, 2025 and backwards) compared to the previous period.
It became 22% of their entire site traffic!
This is why existing content optimization and user intent analysis is crucial.
While other content, which was slated for future projects, naturally decayed in traffic, our single page optimization boosted their traffic and became the clear breadwinner. Imagine what will be possible when all of the content is optimized!
This goes to show that, even if a site is declining in traffic overall, it is possible to turn the direction around with just one piece of evergreen & quality content.
This graph showcases the top 8 pages on the website by clicks (and overall site traffic/metrics in the bold bottom row for the 30 days leading up to July 3, 2025). The top article is the one we optimized, which became their top-performing article. It outperformed legacy articles that brought a majority of their traffic and their homepage.
Bonus Tip
Optimizing for Google’s E-E-A-T means proving credibility. Always feature your author and include a brief description of their credentials.