Manifest Blog Post Ranking #1 in Google

Chances are you have heard either Phil or myself mention the importance of creating quality content as a integral part of any search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.

Recently we decided to take a better approach, and actually demonstrate the methods we use. Our goal was to illustrate how, by writing content targeted for specific keywords, you could take a top position in the Google search results.

Over the last few weeks I have been researching a hot topic… the economic downturn and what it could mean for small and medium-sized businesses. Knowing that this is a highly competitive topic, and the chances of our blog being found on a national level would be quite difficult. We decided to target all of Montana instead, allowing us to narrow our content to that specific region.

The top 5 key phrases we were targeting were:

1) Montana Recession Tips
2) Montana Recession Strategy
3) Survive a Montana Recession
4) Montana Recession Help
5) Recession-Proof Your Montana Business

I decided to name my blog post “Tips to Help Your Montana Business Survive a Recession“. It was first posted late at night on Wednesday 11/26/08. Once it was posted and live, I made sure to spread the word about the new blog post using some social media bookmarks – Stumble It!, Digg This, del.icio.us, and Yahoo Buzz. Phil also bookmarked the site on several sites as well to increase the exposure.

The results began showing up almost immediately! After just one day the blog was ranking well (first page of Google, but in the 10th position), and we were impressed. Still not completely satisfied and wanting more, we “tweaked” the content and edited some keywords and phrases within the post. That is when a scary thing happened… we couldn’t find the post in Google even by typing the exact name of the blog. I found out later, that this was because the blog was being re-indexed, and as a result it was temporarily “lost” in the vastness of the internet.

Over the weekend we breathed a sigh of relief when the blog showed back up on the radar, and all seemed well once again. Encouragingly it had even moved up a few spots (middle of the first page) on Google. On a whim, I then decided to submit the article to a few online media resources as a possible story submission. That was the last thing I did before heading for bed on Sunday night the 30th of November.

Then came Monday morning, December 1st… SUCCESS!!! The blog was holding the number one spot in Goggle for several of our targeted key phrases. Additionally I was quite excited to open my email program and find out that the post had been picked up and featured on a few Montana information websites… back-links included! Needless to say we were delighted.

As I write this message, we are happy to report that currently the blog post is doing very well, and traffic on the ManifestBozeman.com website has had a nice influx of new readers as a result. We wanted to share this with you as a case study of sorts, and we’d like to invite anyone reading this to cut and paste any of the five key phrases above into Google and see the results for themselves.

In conclusion, we couldn’t be more satisfied with the articles performance, as we have already far exceeded our expectations! That being said, we are happy to report that because the blog post was fairly comprehensive and touched on a number of topics it is ranking very well for a great many other unexpected keywords and phrases as well. We believe it a testament to the power of blogs, and more importantly an example of how publishing good content can play a key role in the success of your SEO strategy.

Thanks!