What are the Best SEO Case Studies?
Fresh research and stats are critical in any professional realm - especially if you’re in a field that changes as quickly as SEO. What worked a few months ago is no longer effective, which is why a SEO professional’s abilities depend on their willingness to keep up with the latest changes and updates.
1. White Hat SEO Case Study: 348% More Organic Traffic in 7 Days
Have you ever heard anyone use the phrase “just post great
content, and people will come?” Brian Dean did, too, which is why he
used that tactic for his blog. It worked well, but not brilliantly. It
wasn’t until he leveraged some very white hat tactics, including social
outreach, to promote his blog that his traffic exploded.
2. Benchmark Report: 2012 Search Marketing - SEO Edition
MarketingSherpa is one of the best-respected names in
modern marketing research. Their annual report promises “research and
insights on creating and capitalizing on a rich end-user search
experience” - and it definitely delivers. Whether you’re preparing a
presentation for executive buy-in or training a new hire, it’s among the
best reports in it’s class.
3. Nike Golf SEO Case Study
Nike had a traffic and leads problem? Well, probably not,
but SEO is a practice of continual improvement. Learn how the sportswear
giant balanced their innovative UX with a need for improved SEO through
intelligent updates to their company website.
4. Research Report: How Manual Tasks Sabotage the Potential of Natural Search Marketers
Do you know how much of your daily work load is automated,
and how much is manual? Everyone wants to make their job a little
easier. While this research report doesn’t offer the secret to keeping
your inbox under control, it shares insights on just how much SEO
professionals can streamline with the help of the right tools.
5. Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert Documents
Within the academic framework, some articles are referred
to as “seminal,” because their insights are so rich they effectively
change dialogue around a topic. This report, prepared by a Professor of
Computer Science and Google Researcher is much the same. Learn how they
approached the idea of writing a quality-based algorithm, and there’s a
good chance you’ll leave with a far better understanding of what Google,
Bing and Yahoo are looking for.
6. Avella Specialty Pharmacy Optimizes Patient Health
Local SEO is an entirely different animal, as I’m sure you
know. This isn’t the most in-depth case study on the list, but it goes
to show the incredible improvements both local and national brands can
accomplish through simple identification and correction of minor SEO
issues.
7. MTV Networks Identifies and Discovers Power of Social Media Influencers
This particular case study is more a tale of a brilliant
inbound marketing strategy than pure SEO work, but it’s still worth
mentioning. The social graph only continues to become more important to
SEO-focused brands, and this particular case also deals with concepts of
co-branding, digital influencers, and other concepts that are
continuing to matter more and more.
8. Enterprise SEO Tools: The Marketer’s Guide
What’s an SEO without the right platforms to measure,
automate, and engage in the right actions? The importance of tools only
increases as you work with larger and larger brands. While this report
is targeted towards enterprise-sized companies, it’s got vendor profiles
and insights around 10 of the best-known organizations, including
gShift Labs, BrightEdge, Conductor, Blueprint and more.
9. A History of Search Engines: From 1945 to Google Today
If you only read one report, this should be it. Originally
published in The Atlantic, this article places modern concepts of search
engines within a larger historical framework, including a glimpse at
the pre-Internet days when some of the smartest minds were focused on
purely conceptual solutions.
10. SEO for Small Medical Practices
This page actually offers four case studies in one - all of
which surround small medical practices, which range from a plastic
surgeon to a hand and wrist specialist. If you needed any evidence that a
one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work in SEO, it’s here. While these
companies focuses are similar at a high level, the SEO methodology that
lead to their success certainly wasn’t.
11. Combating Web Spam with TrustRank
This paper isn’t for the faint of heart. In fact, you
probably need a graduate degree to fully understand it. If you’re brave
enough to plunge into it’s pages, you’ll emerge with a better
understanding of the basic tactics used by search engines to sniff out -
and punish - black hat SEOs.
12. Kauai Vacation Rentals Case Study
Have you ever had a client - or employer - who’s seemingly
stuck on the 3rd, 4th, or 5th page of Google and won’t budge? Of course
you have. Kauai Vacation Rental’s problem isn’t unique, and neither is
the root issue of their SEO woes - Google penalties for accidental
issues for their website. Learn how they fixed the problem, and soared
to the first page of SERPs in almost no time.
13. The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
If this title makes your eyes glaze over, take heed and
click over anyway. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, and
join me in a resounding chorus of “awwwwww” over the author
pictures of a very young Lawrence Page and Sergey Brim. Yup - this SEO
research report was authored by the co-founders of Google, back when
they were fresh-faced graduate students at Stanford University. It’s a
treasure.
14. The Seven Ages of Information Retrieval
This paper is another doozy, pure and simple. It’s an
academic work which places search marketing at the heart of what it
really is - a very complex, knowledge management issue. This paper is
about the academic, historical, and technological context that surrounds
SEO as we know it.
15. Information Retrieval Data Structures & Algorithms
Do SEO professionals really need to understand data
structures, or can they leave that to the geniuses in Google’s labs? To
answer your question, you can probably do brilliantly without really
understanding things like lexical files, but think of all the power
you’ll hold if you do. You can impress your dates, your boss, or bore
anyone to sleep who dares ask. I’m joking (of course), but this paper is
another incredible tool for SEOs seeking to strengthen their
professional knowledge base.
What are your favorite SEO case studies and research reports to add to this list?
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