How I Helped PrettyBoy Boost Revenue by 88% with Blog Content
The Numbers:
232% increase in organic traffic
88% increase in revenue from organic search
247% increase in total organic keywords
The Challenge
From day one, PrettyBoy wanted to show guys that they don’t need a 17-step routine and a second mortgage to get good-looking skin. Unfortunately, between sponsored TikTokers and sketchy subreddits, the internet is an ocean of skincare B.S.
As a newcomer to the $14 billion men’s skincare industry, we had no room for error if we wanted to steal traffic from competitors with exponentially bigger budgets.
The Strategy
Like it or not, many guys aren’t comfortable asking their friends, significant others, or even their dermatologists about skincare. But they’re definitely comfortable asking Google. Accordingly, we turned PrettyBoy’s blog into a hub for men’s burning questions about skin issues.
But instead of simply answering those questions, we also wanted to pitch PrettyBoy as a skincare Swiss army knife. Essentially, we’d fuse traditional SEO with conversion copywriting.
Consider this blog about aftershave. We clarified that aftershave does more harm than good for your face. But we followed that up by noting that PrettyBoy’s moisturizer is a smarter alternative for post-shave care.
By applying the same strategy across dozens of topics, we would accomplish two things:
Tap into valuable search traffic
Teach Google that PrettyBoy is an authority on skincare
The Content
Most blog content from skincare brands sounds like it was written by robots—because it probably was. On top of being optimized to rank on Google, the PrettyBoy founders wanted our blog content to stay on-brand so it could be syndicated via email, social media, and SMS.
Before publishing our blogs, I ensured they met three criteria:
Make it feel like a group chat, not a lecture hall
Support our claims with science, not slogans
Don’t hold any punches, even if it means making enemies
From a technical standpoint, each blog contained at least 3 links to PrettyBoy products and at least 5 links to related blog posts. Over time, these internal links helped Google understand the site, which in turn boosted our rankings.
The Results
PrettyBoy picked up early wins after just a few weeks. But a year of sticking to the strategy, the blog turned into a traffic and revenue machine. Here’s a breakdown of the progress:
88% increase in revenue from organic search
232% increase in organic traffic
247% increase in organic keywords
Outperforming brands with multi-million-dollar marketing budgets is pretty sweet. But PrettyBoy has no plans to go on cruise control. Moving forward, we’ll keep building topical authority, attacking weak points, and refreshing old content so we can keep the traffic (and revenue) coming.