The result
Seventeen new pages that can be found when searching for fossil free, sustainable energy. From useful articles about how to make your home climate neutral, to informative texts about different heat pumps - all according to the new Vattenfall brand guidelines and their latest SEO copywriting protocol. Articles that use the right keywords in the right places, have relevant internal and external links and proper (sub)headings. But more importantly: articles match the visitor’s search intentions.
The result? The first victories have already been celebrated. Vattenfall has leapt into the top 10 results for the query ‘climate neutral renovation’! The SEO specialists built a dashboard to measure long term success because especially in such a competitive market such as the energy market, it takes quite some time before you start seeing major position increases.
Would you like to know what one of these articles looks like? You can find an example on the 'climate neutral renovation’ page (in Dutch).
“Adeline started her assignment when Vattenfall was going through some turbulent times. But with her flexibility, eagerness to learn and her structured way of working, she delivered high quality content. She also helped with other activities. And we’re really happy she did!”
The situation at Vattenfall
At the end of 2019, Dutch energy provider NUON started using Vattenfal, the brand name of their Swedish parent organisation. In October, their restyled website went live. After that, the company entered into a rebranding phase during which all their pages were redesigned according to the Vattenfall guidelines. Each page got a new tone of voice, new visuals and a new layout. A successful transition, but it did result in an expected dip in organic traffic. That’s why they asked me to focus on improving growth. As of now, organic traffic is back to its original level.
Vattenfall’s ambition is loud and clear: enabling fossil free living within one generation. Switching to green, sustainable energy supplies together. Topics, such as solar and wind energy, heat pumps, wind turbines and climate neutral houses play an important role in reaching this goal. With its sustainable ambition comes a SEO ambition: Vattenfall wants to have to top position in Google on search terms related to fossil free living.
The aim
Part of the SEO strategy was to write some brand new content. On behalf of Crossphase, I started as a SEO copywriter at Vattenfall. My goal? Create content to make Vattenfall easier to find in Google and get more people to visit the website. I worked closely with two SEO specialists, Anne Rakhorst en Eduard Blacquiere.
The way of working
Step 1: keyword research
The first step in creating these articles was to do a keyword study. Many people use search engines to find information on topics related to Vattenfall’s ambitions, such as ‘how does an air/water heat pump work’, or ‘how to make a house climate neutral’. Only, Vattenfall could not be found using these queries. This provided us with input for creating pages that were optimised to these search terms.
Step 2: Writing process
After we did our keyword study, I focused on the writing process: writing articles related to these queries. We got help from internal stakeholders who were content experts on these subjects, because these articles were quite technical in nature. I always sent the first draft to the stakeholders for feedback to make sure that all the information was correct. After that, I did a rewrite and a second SEO check and once that was done, I put the articles in CMS. Of course, I also made the URL, title tag and meta description SEO-proof. And once that was done, it was time to go live!
