Plank Hardware - Case Study

Plank Hardware | Getting to Position 1 of Google in Just 5 Months

In a Nutshell:

  • During the five months we’ve worked with them, we’ve got Plank Hardware not just onto page 1, but to position 1 for the highly competitive, hugely relevant and high search volume term, ‘handles’ (5.4k average monthly searches) more than doubling organic revenue generated from this page
  • We also landed Plank Hardware coverage in their dream publication, Ideal Home

B Corp certified Plank Hardware designs stylish hardware products in high quality materials, all manufactured responsibly with their international supply chain partners.

One of their best-selling ranges is their handles, perfect for upcycling projects. Within our immersion call with the Plank team, they told us about their dream publications to land in, including Ideal Home. Here’s how we secured them a link in their dream publication and got them onto position 1 of the SERPs with one single campaign.

What did we do?

We undertook an analysis of potential keywords to target within our DPR campaigns, which are highly relevant to Plank Hardware and have a high average search volume which would be hugely beneficial for Plank to rank for.

These included:

  • ‘handles’ (5.4k average monthly searches)
  • ‘kitchen handles’ (5.4k average monthly searches)
  • ‘kitchen mixer taps’ (9.9k average monthly searches)

Within their initial immersion session, the Plank team had mentioned that their handles were one of their best-selling product ranges, but they didn’t rank well for this term organically. In fact when we checked, they didn’t rank organically at all for this term, and so were relying on direct, social, PPC and other channels for visibility. We wanted to change that.

‘Handles’ is a highly competitive search term, with a high average monthly search volume of around 5.4k. It’s also highly relevant for Plank Hardware’s product offering, so we set about gaining links using this keyword in press releases to build authority.

 

What outcomes were achieved?

Using the word ‘handles’ and other relevant keyword clusters in our press releases meant that we could build relevant links to Plank Hardware’s site, as well as increase the off-site ranking signals for the keywords we’d selected.

We gained two links within the first month from Ideal Home (one of the client’s dream publications as identified in our initial ideation session!) and Indian House Design, both pieces using quotes from Tom, Plank Hardware’s co-founder, giving his expert quote about handles and how to choose the perfect kitchen cabinet handles for your specific kitchen design.

Google then understands in context that these high DA sites are talking about handles, and linking to Plank, therefore passing on authority.

We also helped the content team at Plank Hardware optimise their on-page content for the handles collection, so that the on-page keywords would impact the ranking too.

This coverage and optimisation led to speedy keyword movement, positioning them higher than many of their main competitors for this keyword.

February – not ranking
March – position 14
April – position 11
May – position 6
June – position 3
July – position 1


As with all things SEO, it’s typically a bit of a long game, and we wouldn’t expect to see such strong results in such a short space of time (3-6 months for initial movement is usual), especially for such a competitive term so this is something we are hugely proud of!

 

Final Thought:

If you think your business could benefit from increased search engine visibility, or perhaps you’re unsure that you’re getting the most from your current digital PR campaigns, book a FREE 30-minute consultation with one of our experts.

Alternatively, if you want to discover more stories on how we’ve helped other clients, see more PR and content marketing case studies here.