Reaching New Audiences

Using technical performance enhancements and content strategy to supercharge sales

Project:: Reaching New Audiences in the Wellness Niche
Services:: SEO, Conversion Rate Optimisation
Industry:: FMCG

Founded in 1706, Twinings hold a Royal warrant to supply tea to the Royal Family, reflecting hundreds of years of brand heritage. Now owned by Associated British Foods, Twinings has a grocery division turnover of £1.6bn with sales around the globe.

Brief:

2019 and 2020 saw the expansion of Twinings’ new wellness ranges; Super Blends and Cold Infuse. Our mission was to extend Twinings’ reach to their new, wellness-conscious target audiences while growing revenue across their classic ranges. We put together a strategy that blended content expansion with widespread technical and on-page improvements to grow Organic traffic and most importantly, revenue. And we wanted to do all of this while using as little development resource as possible.

Increase visibility and awareness of their health and wellness teas
Introduce new customers and revenue to the brand
Driving traffic organically rather than through paid media

The Solution

We came up with a three-pronged strategy;

Ensure the site was as technically sound as possible (while using minimal development resource) to enhance the performance of existing product ranges.
Widespread on-page improvements, driven by updated keyword research that reflects current industry trends.
Develop a content strategy that would increase Twinings’ visibility in the wellness niche.

How we did it

1. Keyword Research

We analysed competitors, other wellness brands, relevant forum discussions (e.g. microniche-specific areas of Reddit and Quora) to identify content gaps and opportunities. Allowing us to pursue areas of interest in both the wellness niche and across existing product ranges.

We then used the data to produce an extensive content strategy, which we worked with product specialists in the Twinings team to implement over the coming year. To support existing product ranges, we created new product category pages to target relevant long-tail keywords.

2. On-Page Improvements

Using our keyword research, we identified key opportunities with pages that were currently ranking position 3-20 and analysed the SERP to find on-page opportunities.

We prioritised URLs according to search volume and competitiveness, before making widespread improvements to content structure, internal linking structure, page titles and alt text to name a few.

3. Technical Housekeeping

While our brief was to utilise as little development resource as possible, we performed a lightweight technical audit to identify areas that we could directly influence. Allowing us to pursue technical fixes without dev intervention.

Using this information, we then tackled internal redirects, broken links and duplicate content.

4. Content Strategy

Having produced an extensive list of new content suggestions, we worked with Twinings’ internal team of experts to produce content that would extend Twinings’ reach into their new niche and resonate with their new target audience.

We also wanted to support sales of their existing product range, so we worked to understand how Twinings’ customers searched for products and how those habits were evolving over time. This led us to create new product sub-categories to target desirable new search queries.

5. Structured Data

We knew that Twinings had a lot of great content that ranked well, but didn’t yet have a SERP feature (such as a featured snippet). We believed that adding structured data to these pieces, we could win SERP features and drive increased brand visibility and click through rate.

With limited development resource, we drew up a prioritised list of articles we’d like add structured data to and implemented with Google Tag Manager.

We delivered a 150% increase in organic transactions YoY

This project focussed on low-resource, high-reward activities that would drive significant ROI. As a result, Twinings not only saw widespread ranking and traffic uplifts, but also gained visibility for keywords in their new niche. Providing them with access to new customers and additional revenue for the business.

From Jan 2020 to Jan 2021, they gained rankings for around 800 new keywords (an 11% increase) and also the number of keywords ranking in the top 3 positions by a whopping 350! (Around a 37% increase).

*According to the SEMRush database.

146% Increase in featured snippets

37% Increase in top 3 keywords

11% Increase in ranking keywords

56% Increase in organic traffic

156% Increase in organic revenue