Swyft Filings is a Houston-based company that helps entrepreneurs navigate the complexities of business filings, from incorporation documents to registered agent compliance. After years of supporting thousands of business owners, Swyft Filings enlisted Optimal to develop an SEO strategy that would increase their online brand authority in an increasingly crowded landscape.
Challenge
In recent years, the online business filings landscape has become increasingly more competitive. Therefore, many of the target keywords that are core for these businesses, such as “LLC filing,” are difficult to rank for in the SERPs. They’re so competitive, in fact, that simply focusing on a single SEO tactic (e.g. robust content) is not enough to set a website apart. For a business in this industry to stake its place online, it must differentiate itself in a sea of similar companies. You can have the best content in the world, but if you’re not seen as a leader in the field, it’s an uphill battle to secure top ranking for these aggressive search terms.
Optimal was challenged with establishing Swyft Filings as a thought leader in a crowded industry, all while anchoring those efforts in SEO best practices that would benefit both their reputation and visibility in the SERPs.
Approach
The Optimal team knew that for Swyft Filings to stand out in the SERPs, it would be necessary to offer fresh angles and information that no one else in the space was talking about. Going up against well-established companies with global recognition warrants an out-of-the-box approach. The team executed a unique, comprehensive SEO and digital PR strategy: leveraging Swyft Filings’ proprietary business filing data to create robust, pitchable content that would increase both brand awareness and domain authority.
Step 1: Creating Strong, Unique Content with Proprietary Data
Optimal began by gathering and analyzing proprietary data from Swyft Filings’ database of business filing records. The resulting asset became the State of Swyft Business Insights Report.
Given the large volume of Swyft’s proprietary data, the team had to determine the most interesting and relevant trends to share, highlighting information that isn’t easily accessible elsewhere to tell a unique story. They ultimately landed on business incorporation trends segmented by industry and U.S. state. This information provided a birdseye view of which industries and states were seeing the strongest business growth year-over-year.
Once the team had analyzed the business formation trends, they then had to create quality content to thoroughly share the information in a tangible way. Ranking the industries by percentage formation growth made the data more digestible. To provide more context for the trends surfaced in Swyft Filings’ data, the team conducted additional research regarding various occurrences, such as natural disasters or an influx of disruptors, impacting industries at a state and national level. For example, the team was able to tie a large volume of new entertainment businesses in the state of Georgia to an increase of movies being filmed there. They knew that going the extra mile to share this context would help to highlight why reporters should care about the data when it came time to pitch.
As the copy was being written for this report, it became clear that it was going to be a very long piece of content. Therefore, the team collaborated with graphic designers to create an aesthetically pleasing, easy-to-follow report that used graphics to break up large blocks of text, as well as jump-to links for easy navigation. Charts summarizing high-level formation data were also designed as a useful asset for the media.
Step 2: Driving Backlinks and Online Mentions with Digital PR
This piece of content provided a unique opportunity to cast a wide net for pitching. Optimal always strives to ensure that every pitch that goes out is relevant and useful to the reporter or blogger receiving it. To do this, the team created a wide variety of media lists and custom pitches for all of the 18 industries included in the State of Swyft report, and also for nearly every U.S. state. Optimal aimed to make sure that pitching this content would result in the biggest bang for the client’s buck.
Approaching PR Through an SEO Lens
When building our media lists, the team was highly cognizant of targeting publications that were not only relevant but authoritative. Using Domain Authority (DA) as a marker, the team only targeted online publications and websites that would lend authority to the Swyft Filings site.
While the mere mention of a business on other reputable sites does provide some SEO value, the golden rule of approaching PR with a SERP-minded lens is to gain a dofollow backlink from the other website, directing both referral traffic and authority back to the Swyft Filings site. While many online outlets don’t link back to other websites by default, Optimal actively contacts reporters to obtain links when possible.
Step 3: Expanding the SEOStrategy to Secure Additional Coverage
Drawing on the initial success of the first State of Swyft report, Optimal created secondary pieces of content that delved further into industries for specific states (for example, taking a closer look at the top-performing industries in Texas). These pieces of content ultimately became the largest drivers of organic traffic to the Swyft Filings blog.
Optimal also leveraged the report to gain guest contributor opportunities, which involved writing a shorter, unique piece of content for a website based on findings from the report. The team helped to ghostwrite this content on behalf of the Swyft Filings owner, who would receive the byline for the article. Not only did this help to establish Swyft Filings as an authority in the space, but it also opened the door for future guest articles.
Results
The State of Swyft has become a cornerstone of Swyft’s content strategy and is re-created annually. With 23 earned press hits and eight guest articles on reputable sights, Optimal contributed to a 26% increase in domain authority. This ultimately led to ranking for net new keywords related to industry trends, securing Swyft Filings’ place as a leader in the business filings landscape. Ranking for these keywords drove a significant volume of organic traffic to the website, accounting for 30% of organic visitors to the Swyft Filings blog over the course of three years. The report continues to earn new online mentions and backlinks, perpetuating a healthy brand authority for the client.
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