The Situation
Content Camel is a SaaS sales enablement startup that offers content management solutions to better organize, manage, and collaborate on internal and external sales resources.
They came to PureSEM with an actual “cold start,” meaning there was no domain authority and little traffic.
After implementing a strong SEO-focused inbound strategy from 2023-2024, we’ve achieved:
- A 94.9% increase in MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue), driven entirely from Organic
- A 300% increase in Organic traffic
- Hundreds of keywords on page one of Google search results
- 307 search features like featured snippets and site links
- A substantial rise in leads that have turned into a growing customer base
“Working with PureSEM has been critical to our success in building our strategic inbound pipeline.
It’s a partnership we’re really excited to expand”
- Dave Shanley, Founder, Content Camel.
The Challenge
Content Camel was a small company with the potential to become a significant disruptor in the industry. Still, they were competing against an oversaturated industry filled with giant whales of established brands backed by substantial venture capital.
Meanwhile, Content Camel was starting cold. Before they came to us, their site had no domain authority, no ranking content, and, perhaps most significantly, no traffic. Overall, there was no momentum.
Before working with PureSEM, their little content needed to be better targeted and generate traction. The site’s domain authority was too low to gain organic rankings, and paid advertising was too expensive.
It was clear that inbound, content-focused marketing was the only way forward. Still, facing up against enormous established brands with sky-high domain authorities and name-brand recognition, Content Camel had an uphill battle.
"the most successful model is to have an internal owner
plus an agency as the horsepower backing up the internal marketing team."
After a previous experience in another company that struggled with SEO despite having an internal marketing team, Dave knew that working with an experienced external agency was the key to success.
“The pain that PureSEM solved was in a specialized technical area – determining what content to write based on real data, how to write it, optimizing it, and distributing it to drive more valuable traffic and leads.
At a previous company, we had a team of 12 marketers and an internal SEO person. Our agency didn’t really back us up and the team wasn’t on top of things like Google updates.
I firmly believe the most successful model is to have an internal owner plus an agency as the horsepower backing up the internal marketing team.
If you try to do it alone, you won’t be successful, and if you try to do it by shoving it over the wall to any SEO agency, that won’t work either. Businesses of all sizes can use improvement here – even if you are a 50M or 100M business, there is an inbound opportunity. Do it right, and you address buyers’ pain points and speed up the sales cycle lifting your bottom line.”
-Dave Shanley, CEO and Founder of Content Camel
The SEM Solution
Implemented PureSEM SEO Framework
The PureSEM SEO framework is a systematic approach we customize for each client to improve search engine rankings and inbound performance. It includes:
- Keywords
Identifying the key topics and the keywords within them that the client’s target audience searches for that have a solid search volume - Content
Create content based on data-driven SEO Content Briefs to best answer the users’ search intent, and structure the site with Content Hubs - Links
Compare the client’s domain authority and inbound links against direct competition to predict and quantify the requirements and identify link-building opportunities - Code
Identify and prioritize potential issues in the site code, that could prevent crawlability or other ranking factors
We conduct extensive research for each client we work with to ensure we understand their target audience, their product, and the content and SEO landscape in which they’re competing.
So what did we do, specifically?
Developed a Custom Keyword Universe
With thorough keyword research, competitive analysis, and a little paid testing, we developed a keyword universe. This custom database contains every possible keyword related to the business and the pains potential customers are trying to solve. We organized the universe by many dimensions, such as topic, sub-topic, paid campaigns, keyword cluster, and whether it’s a primary or secondary target.
Layered with metrics such as search volume, your paid and organic impressions, clicks, and conversion rate, it became the go-to source of content and optimization opportunities, becoming the most important business asset for developing the inbound marketing campaigns.
Developed an SEO Content Roadmap
This roadmap identified immediate and long-term priorities for the content marketing strategy. It focused on “how to” for Jobs to be Done, alternative queries that Content Camel could realistically rank for immediately, and a longer-term focus on high-converting bottom-of-the-funnel keywords.
Our team of experts created SEO Content Briefs based on intensive keyword, topic, and competitor research. These data-driven briefs provided clear instructions for our writers and additional third-party writers and allowed Content Camel’s founder to weigh in with expert insights to ensure we delivered something unique.
Developed Content Hubs
Once content production was in full swing, we created content hubs around key topics like “Sales Enablement,” “Sales Content,” and “Google Drive,” serving as resources that would attract readers and create topical authority. These pages were a central part of our work for Content Camel.
Created a Comprehensive Link Building Strategy
We knew an internal and external link-building strategy was essential for Content Camel to compete with already established brands. We offered support with outreach for guest posting, directory listings, and featured mentions in listicles on third-party sites.
Implemented PureSEM Software
PureSEM’s search attribution software helped identify where Content Camel’s most valuable leads came from and made it possible to determine what content was introducing, influencing, and converting new software trials.
We discovered that certain content was attracting higher-value leads, allowing us to focus future content creation efforts on what would drive the most business value.
Content Camel Achieves 300% Organic Traffic Growth
- After implementing PureSEM’s SEO Framework, traffic grew by over 300%.
- We now have page-one visibility for over 600 keywords, with many competitive keywords in the top three positions
- Acquired over 300 enhanced Search Features, such as featured snippets and site links
- Content Camel now has over 900 customers driven entirely by inbound marketing
Content Camel now ranks on page one for over 300 keywords, and there are an additional 300 special features in the search results.
We also successfully identified which content topics and keyword segments drove the most traffic and conversions. We doubled down on high-performing content segments to capitalize on what was already working.
Assessing content performance by total impressions and sessions help us identify high-performing topic segments when re-assessing the SEO strategy.
“With past companies and advising other startups, I’ve seen a lot of cases where agencies didn’t work out, and organizations struggled to generate meaningful revenue as a result. Working with PureSEM has been critical to our success in building our strategic inbound pipeline. It’s a partnership we’re really excited to expand” - Dave Shanley, Content Camel.
Final Thoughts
Starting a new website and brand is always a challenge. Still, it becomes monumentally more difficult when you’re up against investor-backed competitors with a foothold in the industry.
In the last year alone, our work with Content Camel significantly drove increases in traffic year-over-year, creating sustainable and long-term results that they’re still benefiting from today.
Using a solid foundation, data-backed SEO frameworks, and the right technology allows us to create an effective strategy that changed the game for this small startup.
Ready to grow your organic traffic, build sustainable and evergreen libraries, and attract higher-quality leads—even if you’re facing tough competition? We can help. Contact us for a free 30-minute call today.
