During the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Fender saw an increased interest in people wanting to learn how to play guitar. The following story outlines their keyword rankings and traffic improvements over a 9-month period thanks to their usage of the seoClarity platform.

Background

Fender is an American manufacturer of stringed instruments and amplifiers. They provide their customers with a blog series of evergreen guitar learning articles targeting beginner and intermediate guitar players.

In 2020, Fender experienced the highest guitar sales in their company’s history, and with an increased interest in people searching for learning how to play guitar, they recognized an opportunity to create more optimized content for their audience. 

Challenge: Top Ranking Positions With Little Traffic

Looking at their 2019 trends, Fender ranked in Position One for many of their target terms but lacked correlative traffic and conversions on their existing content. Because of seoClarity, they recognized this was partially due to the crowdedness of the SERP. 

Fender also noticed within seoClarity’s Rank Intelligence that other brands offered video tutorials and these videos appeared above the fold (and in many cases in the video carousel in “Position Zero”) for many of their top target terms.

The articles contained information about basic skills beginner guitarists need to know (e.g. “guitar chords”), but few of these articles included video content needed to earn Position Zero video SERP features or featured video snippets.

Fender recognized this as a challenge because the learning space was dominated by video results and people seeking guitar playing insights and free guitar lessons.

Furthermore, with in-person lessons on hold during the pandemic, Fender saw an opportunity to provide virtual guitar training to their target audience. They decided to make their Fender Play app available for free for all users for three months.

With an increase in traffic to drive new customer acquisition, they wanted a way to support the conversion to new account acquisition. 

Solution: Optimized Editorial Content Using the Entire Content Marketing Workflow from seoClarity

Fender leveraged the seoClarity platform in the following ways: 

  1. Keyword research and discovery with Search Analytics
  2. Research competitive wins and insights with Content Gaps
  3. Optimized and created authoritative content with Content Fusion

Recommended Reading: A Lightning-Fast Guide to the AI Content Marketing Workflow

Using the Google Search Console integration into seoClarity’s Search Analytics, Fender used the groupings of topics and overall traffic-driving keywords to determine their audience was at the beginner level. This led them to focus on three key tactics as part of their SEO strategy: 

  • Include their beginner and intermediate guitar lessons into guitar learning articles
  • Optimize their existing guitar tutorial content around the video tutorials
  • Create new content based on recommendations from the seoClarity platform to help them rank on their target terms. 

They identified specific categories of their guitar tutorial content when they leveraged Content Gaps and Content Ideas within seoClarity to recognize which content would drive the most traffic to their site: 

  • Guitar scales: articles about different chord positions, song usage, and tips for practice
  • Guitar tuning: how-to articles about alternate tunings and songs you can play that use them
  • Guitar chords: articles about chord positions, including tips, practice, and song usage 

In each of these article categories, the Fender team first made sure the written copy was optimized for their target keywords. For example, in one article about the topic of “A-minor guitar chord”, the Fender team used Content Fusion to write 500 words of copy in addition to the video content they created. This strategy led to an increase in customer acquisition.

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Results: 235% Increase in Impressions and 173% Increase in Organic Traffic on All Guitar Learning Articles YOY

Over the course of their efforts, Fender captured more traffic in position one and position zero than they had initially forecasted. This led to impressive increases across the board. 

They saw the biggest increase in YOY traffic growth from their main strategy of optimizing their existing content around their ungated videos once they were included into their guitar learning articles.

After a few months of work, Fender identified impressive YOY growth across all guitar learning articles and in their target categories. 

Overall, they experienced: 

  • A 235% increase in impressions YOY for all guitar learning articles
  • A 173% increase in organic traffic YOY for all guitar learning articles

Additionally, Fender saw impressive growth in overall traffic to their specific blog categories.

For the articles about guitar chords, there was a 339% increase in organic traffic and a 34% increase in global search interest. In one example, Fender saw a 389% increase in estimated traffic over a 6-month period for an article about the DM7 guitar chord

For articles about guitar scales, there was a 168% increase in organic traffic YOY and a 75% increase in global search interest. In one example, by adding video to their article about harmonic minor scales, Fender experienced an 88% increase in traffic over a 6-month period.

For articles about guitar tuning, there was a 31% increase in organic traffic YOY and a 21% increase in global search interest over the same period. In an optimized article about Open D tuning, Fender experienced a traffic increase of 281% over a 6-month period.

Conclusion: Optimized Content Gives Way to Position Zero and Established SERP Features

Offering videos within their beginner-to-intermediate content in the guitar learning articles that were already ranking well offered a positive user experience for their target audience of individuals looking to learn how to play guitar during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Fender leveraged the data and insights from seoClarity to improve their position in the SERP and further optimize their existing content. They also identified new content opportunities through Content Gaps. 

In completing these tasks, Fender effectively updated their editorial content to offer a new type of media for their users. This allows them to continue to rank above their competitors and reach the coveted Position Zero in the SERP so that their videos receive clicks. Through this opportunity, Fender continues to drive customer acquisition.

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Interested in learning how to play guitar? Whether you’re looking to improve your abilities or get started learning the basics, Fender’s guitar learning articles have everything you need to elevate your rock star status.