SEO and content marketing campaign for Kuraray Elastomer

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As part of the website relaunch, svaerm implemented a customized SEO strategy and year-round content marketing for Kuraray Elastomer.

On the Elastomer website, we pursue a contemporary, content-focused SEO approach. The main objectives are optimization for search intent of our target groups and Google E-A-T.

Search intent optimization

No one likes to read “keyword-heavy” texts – and they are certainly not in tune with what people expect today.

Google algorithm updates such as Hummingbird, Penguin, Panda and BERT reward content that meets the search intent of its target group by giving increased visibility. Websites that use the practice of “keyword stuffing”, on the other hand, lose visibility.

At svaerm, we therefore ask ourselves what our clients’ potential customers want to be informed about and in what order when they search for a particular term.

The underlying data for answering this question is provided by search intention hierarchy analysis (SIHA). The deconstruction of SERPs and competitor pages enables us to create SEO-optimized content briefs or “writing plans”. These are then converted into texts by specialist editors from our network.

With SIHA and the use of specialist editors, we are able to write SEO texts for any industry – even for complex niche sectors such as the Kuraray specialty chemicals company. In projects such as this we deploy individual specialist editors and dock them onto the project team.

Interested in an SEO brief as a pilot test?

Many potential clients find it difficult to imagine how svaerm creates an SEO text. As a pilot test, we are happy to offer you an SEO writing plan or a complete SEO text at a trial price. Please send a topic or keyword to our sales department and we will send you a non-binding quotation. → Contact

Keyword list and editorial planning

At the start of the editorial process, we hold strategic discussions with the client and request information on objectives, target groups and competitors. Based on this, we draw up a keyword list, which is agreed by both parties.

This list shows which keywords we optimize for. The process is based partly on seed keywords, i.e. keyword ideas researched by the agency or designated by Kuraray. It is also based on our competition and industry analysis.

All keywords are validated, i.e. we check whether the user’s search intent matches Kuraray’s products and specialist themes. Only if the match is close enough are we able to optimize our texts for these keywords and effectively integrate Kuraray as sender.

Monthly search volume in the target region, keyword difficulty (KD), cost per click (CPC) and SERP features are also considered when selecting keywords. You can read more about this in our guide to keyword validation: Finding the right keywords (article coming soon).

Content audit and re-optimization

In website relaunch projects it is important that your content marketing agency checks the existing content and gives recommendations for future action:

  1. Retain: If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.
  2. Optimize: The content is optimized but remains the same in terms of its basic content.
  3. Do a general overhaul: The content covers a strategically important topic, but the page needs to be completely redesigned to have a chance of ranking in Google.
  4. Develop new content: Certain content needs to be developed from scratch to cover strategically important topics that are currently not found on the website.
  5. Discard: Pages that are misleading, outdated or damaging must be deleted.

Individual pages such as Light Guide and Contact were retained. All other texts come from the svaerm SEO agency based in Frankfurt am Main.

About 10 pages were revised in 4 versions each for the purpose of regionalization (Europe, USA, Japan and China) and about 20 were generally overhauled. In addition, about 10 pages were created from scratch with no legacy text on the old website.

Backlinks and traffic on pages that were deleted or moved in the new navigation were transferred to a suitable place on the new website with a 301 redirect.

Content cluster

In the case of search terms where users are at the start of their search, Google prefers pages that have lots of useful internal links. Users who are particularly interested can click on the links to dig further into subpages and will ideally find everything they need on the same website.

Hub und Spoke Cluster

svaerm therefore divides pages into hub pages (entry page with many internal links) and spoke pages (in-depth sub-page). An example of a Kuraray hub page is our blog post “What is TPE“, which offers users an introduction to the world of thermoplastic elastomers and links to numerous spokes.

Google EAT

Google Search is constantly evolving. Google has to make sure that its algorithms do not contribute to the spread of fake news in order to ensure the company does not lose public confidence.

E = Expertise, A = Authority, T = Trustworthiness

Google’s response to this situation is a concept called EAT (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness). In a series of algorithm updates, Google has given certain websites more visibility. What these websites have in common is that they are authoritative experts in their field, they build trust and they show transparency.

Kuraray Elastomer has several EAT measures in place:

  • On the Executives page, users can find information about senior management.
  • Real people are shown here as contacts with their name, job title and profile picture.
  • Author pages with biographies show that the contact persons have many years of professional experience in the field of specialty chemicals.
  • kuraray.com lists backlinks from renowned specialty chemicals sites and trade fairs.
  • Modules for customer ratings and reviews are provided.

By implementing these and further measures, we are making the Kuraray Elastomer website fit for the present and the future. It is prepared for a possible audit by Google quality raters.

Project management with leadership

SEO processes and content marketing in 4 target regions (including Japan and China) require a high degree of coordination across many time zones.

Due to the complexity of the subject-specific content, there is an approval process consisting of at least 4 feedback loops:

  1. Conceptual feedback from the marketing team
  2. Content feedback from the subcommittee
  3. Japanese / Chinese translation handling
  4. In-house approval process

During this process, internal svaerm feedback loops between the specialist departments (SEO, Editorial, Artwork, Content Management and Programming) also take place. Our project management is the link between all target groups and seamlessly controls the process flow.

In order to ensure this, we create customized project and editorial plans that map the exact processes. Client and agency work together on these and record the most important status updates.

Regular project management calls ensure error-free processes – despite the complexity of such large projects.

Our editorial plan for Kuraray provides a structured overview on all stages of the project.

Contact for business

Would you like to benefit from our SEO services, content marketing campaigns or project management processes? We would be delighted to provide you with a non-binding, individual quotation.

Please contact us by e-mail or via the contact form. After this initial written contact, we will be happy to advise you by phone.

YOUR CONTACT

Maxim Bollig
Digital Marketing Manager
bollig@svaerm.com
+49 (0)69 9494 5 919-1