SEO Case Study | Brewery Equipment Manufacturer
Problem:
A startup brewery equipment manufacturer came to IAC aiming to build brand awareness and gain market share in a very competitive and fast-growing industry. As a newly created company, the client was ready to grow but needed to be found by customers unfamiliar with their brand name.
Solution:
The first step to breaking into a new market is understanding the clientele. Through campaign discovery meetings with the client, IAC created customer profiles of the client’s ideal buyers. Straightaway, IAC strategists performed keyword research to identify how buyers were using search to find manufacturers. Competitors research identified existing strategies that peers were using as a means of capturing that search activity.
After identifying the primary keywords where the client should compete, on-page keyword optimization began. Supporting informational content was created for a backlink-building campaign to boost domain authority and increase the crawl frequency of their site.
Key distinctions were made to target ideal buyers and avoid traffic from poorly qualified searchers. The explosion of the craft brewing market corresponded with an explosion in home brewing among beer lovers. Previously, before working with IAC, the client frequently was found by brewers looking for amateur-grade equipment rather than commercial operations looking for industrial-grade machinery.
Consequently, instead of choosing the term “brewing equipment,” which carried much higher search volume, IAC chose to target “brewery equipment” with confidence that this pool of searchers would contain more qualified prospects for their products.
Results:
After the client’s first six-month campaign, the site reached the second page of search results for cornerstone keyword, “brewery equipment.”
Their domain authority, benchmarked at the lowest possible score of 1 from ranking outlet Moz, grew to 17 due to the supporting backlink-building campaign.
After two years of work with IAC, the company’s monthly session count from Google/organic traffic grew a staggering 4,595%. This increase in traffic volume was accompanied by an increase in session duration and a 1,700% increase in goal completions.
Ongoing Success:
Just like digital marketing as an industry, brewing is in constant evolution. Thus, the client’s business goals evolved with it. This demanded that our strategies also evolve to match shifts in buyer behavior.
To position the client for success, IAC started by discovering search behaviors surrounding terms in emerging market segments such as kombucha, coffee & tea, cannabis-infused beverages and ready-to-drink cocktails.
The client’s website lacked landing areas that could rank in search results for the chosen target keywords. IAC designed and deployed an Industries category on the website to give search engines pages for searchers to land on. The pages featured relevant machinery in the client’s product line that applies to the visitor’s industry.
The client now ranks in the Top 3 of Google search for keywords targeting kombucha, tea and infused-beverage brewing. Note how the target keywords select for searchers who are not home-brewers of these beverages.
Since their creation, these pages have driven more than 3,200 organic sessions and 80 qualified inquiries.
Conclusion:
Through its partnership with IAC, the brewery equipment manufacturer is now expanding commensurate with the industry itself. As new classes of brewed beverages enter this high-growth market, they easily capture attention of brewers who need equipment for their own expansions.
