In January of 2018 Brafton[1] began a massive organic keyword targeting campaign, amounting to over 90,000 words of blog content being published.
Did it work?
Well, yeah. We doubled the number of total keywords we rank for in less than six months. By using our advanced keyword research and topic writing process published earlier this year[2] we also increased our organic traffic by 45% and the number of keywords ranking in the top ten results by 130%.
But we got a whole lot more than just traffic.
From planning to execution and performance tracking, we meticulously logged every aspect of the project. I’m talking blog word count, MarketMuse performance scores, on-page SEO scores, days indexed on Google. You name it, we recorded it.
As a byproduct of this nerdery, we were able to draw juicy correlations between our target keyword rankings and variables that can affect and predict those rankings. But specifically for this piece...
How well keyword research tools can predict where you will rank.
A little background
We created a list of keywords we wanted to target in blogs based on optimal combinations of search volume, organic keyword difficulty scores, SERP crowding, and searcher intent.
We then wrote a blog post targeting each individual keyword. We intended for each new piece of blog content to rank for the target keyword on its own.
With our keyword list in hand, my colleague and I manually created content briefs explaining how we would like each blog post written to maximize the likelihood of ranking for the target keyword. Here’s an example of a typical brief we would give to a writer:
This image links to an example of a content brief Brafton delivers to writers.
Between mid-January and