A content-led SEO strategy to build relationships for The Accountancy Cloud

The brief

The Accountancy Cloud initially engaged Salad to build a new website to launch their existing brand. As an important source of enquiries and a powerful vehicle for brand exposure, they also wanted to maximise traffic from day one. Whilst the broader market is a relatively competitive space, The Accountancy Cloud has a niche offering and a specific target market. With an ambition to become the go-to brand for tech start-up expertise, the goal was to raise and sustain high ranking search positions for keywords and phrases. With modest budgets, we had to invest in the right areas to achieve demonstrable ROI.

The solution

We started with the low hanging fruit, identifying quick wins such as expanding landing pages where content was too thin, and spreading content across the site to capitalise on specific and long-tail search terms. We also identified the most popular blogs and explored ways to maximise reach and sharing potential. This included reaching out to industry-related networks, content publishers and relevant resource hubs that produce credible backlinks. We then turned to the highest value products and services and built a priority keyword list to focus organic optimisation, maximising enquiries in this area. The research led to ideas for whitepapers and interactive online tools, helping potential customers to self-assess their eligibility. Not only did these provide a great opportunity for data capture, it also helped irrelevant leads self-disqualify, saving the team valuable time. We also focused on deepening relationships with existing customers by maximising cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. We now manage the monthly Newsletter which offers a regular opportunity to leverage the content created as part of ongoing SEO efforts. This helps to inform customers of wider products and services with minimal effort. Engagement analytics are monitored and fed back within a monthly SEO performance report.

The result

So far, the strategy has demonstrated a significant impact across the board including:

• 18.27% increase in organic traffic year on year (Nov 17-Jan 18)
• 50% increase in referring domains year on year (Nov 17-Jan 18)
• 44% increase in newly-tracked conversions from organic traffic (Jan 18 vs Jan 17)

The newsletter now has a growing list of customers and partners and on average achieves a 33% open rate and a 4% click rate. Salad also arranged for The Accountancy Cloud to guest blog for Startup Donut and thanks to an engaging and timely choice of topic, the blog was selected for the weekly newsletter which was sent to 21,000 subscribers.

The reaction

“Our relationship with Salad continues to evolve. From initially being our web build agency, we now engage with them on everything from design and copy support to digital marketing, SEO and wider strategic advice. Salad invest the time to understand our business and our ever-growing ambitions. The team are proactive with ideas and responsive to our questions. Reports are timely and insightful, and we’re delighted with the results they’ve achieved through SEO investment and data-informed content ideas. Getting our blog selected for Startup Donut’s newsletter was brilliant and we’re looking forward to seeing what the team suggest next!”
Wesley Rashid, Co-founder at The Accountancy Cloud