2016 Silver Best use of search, natural and paid for

Agency TMW Unlimited

Client thebar.com - Diageo

Campaign summary

How to make a number one ranking website

Campaign overview

thebar.com is the cocktail recipe site from Diageo, with planned, created, optimised and distributed content to inspire users.

As a result Diageo increased SEO visits, improved organic search visibility and rankings for generic ‘cocktail recipe’ searches and became the category leader - all in just two years.

Strategy

To attract relevant audiences at the right time through search and content, traditional SEO techniques were not enough.

The user-centric SEO strategy included all best-practice elements: keyword optimisation, ongoing content planning and development, influencer outreach and content distribution.

The content focused on individual recipes and collections. The timeline followed search seasonality, with editorial content about the history of the drink, ingredients, cultural references, different variations and alternatives.

After adding more than 400 popular recipes Diageo focused on the ways people look for cocktails. The findings were plotted onto the calendar and given a ‘delivery format’ to present the most relevant content each week. Diageo also added recipe video content for the most popular drinks, and rewrote metadata to include CTAs.

Creativity

Cocktails for every reason and season; summer cocktails, Halloween cocktails, Mexican cocktails, frozen cocktails, red and pink cocktails for Valentine’s Day, fruit cocktails, angostura bitters cocktails, lower calorie cocktails, martini cocktails, tiki cocktails, cocktails paired with seafood, vodka cocktails, layered cocktails, martini glass cocktails and more.

The content plan used two ‘delivery formats’: long-form editorial or more descriptive cocktail listing pages. Much of the content is featured on the homepage and other prominent sections. The campaign also identified top recipes and suggested ‘Vinelike’ recipe video content for them.

Diageo built search authority by adding offsite SEO and working with other Diageo brand sites, PR and executing an SEO influencer outreach program. The PPC team created separate ad groups and messaging for all new content, with a series of paid campaigns using the Outbrain content distribution networks to give content an extra boost at the most crucial time (e.g. lower calorie cocktails for January).

Results

The site is more visible for cocktails than Jamie Oliver’s Drinks Tube or BBC Good Food.

Monthly SEO visits have increased from hundreds in 2014 to tens of thousands in 2015 to hundreds of thousands in 2016. It has exceeded some of Diageo’s most challenging targets by 27%.

SEO increased visits from 11% in 2014 to 42% in 2015 and 68% in 2016. The site now ranks in the top 10 Google results for 9,102 keywords. SEO market share rose from a fraction of a percent in January 2014 to single digits in December 2014 and double digits in December 2015.

It is number one on Google UK for all the most popular industry keywords in the UK: cocktails, cocktail recipes, vodka cocktails etc.

More than half of referral visits now come from influencer activity and signposting on Diageo’s websites and SEO click-through rates have doubled.

Team

Artur Jach (Head of SEO)