How We Accidentally Figured Out SEO

This the story of our serendipitous SEO success, where a simple website tweak launched a national digital marketing journey. Find out how accidental discoveries transformed our approach to marketing ourselves and our clients.
Words:
Scott Hoek
Published:
April 18, 2024
Category:

You Don't Know What You Don't Know Until You Know

It's funny how much you don't know you don't know until someone slips you a cheat sheet.

Before we launched Unnamed Media and were just operating as UnnamedFilms, we were blissfully unaware of the intricacies of marketing. We had a website. Calling it “functional” would make it blush.

The website was loaded with videos and examples of our work. I liked to think users could navigate it intuitively, but without optimized copy it didn’t rank on Google Search; it lurked. Finding us organically was like finding an unbiased recommendation in a sea of affiliate links–technically possible, but incredibly unlikely.

The Plot Twist

Then, something changed. Not out of brilliance, mind you, but sheer, dumb luck.

We needed more space to talk about our event videography services, but our page was already bursting at the seams. So, I split it into separate pages for different types of events and detailed the process for each.Plus, I had recently learned the very basic rule “multiple H1 tags bad” from a marketing buddy, so I made sure to organize the new pages with some semblance of structure.

We hit "publish," leaned back, and returned to editing our 55 summer weddings. Over the next few months, slowly but surely, the calls began—and they didn’t stop.

As it would turn out, we had accidentally stumbled across the concept of“landing pages” and had happened to use the right keywords in the right place to rank ourselves #5 for “Event Videography” on Google.

The problem was, dear reader, we didn’t hit this ranking in just GrandRapids, nor just Michigan. We were number five across the entire United States.Yes, a tiny outfit from Grand Rapids was suddenly a national player. But here's the kicker: we didn’t really want to be. Handling nationwide gigs? We barely wanted to cross the street. And after fielding the fifth call asking us to film a funeral in northernCalifornia, we decided we needed to figure out why this was happening.

Down the SEO Rabbit Hole

After much research (and a few beers with my marketing buddy), we learned what we had done by accident and how we could apply it to our other services intentionally. This is how we discovered that playing with marketing strategy was actually a lot of fun.

Applying these lessons became our bread and butter, allowing us to help not only ourselves, but our clients, clump the search ranking ladder.

Fast forward to the present day.The algorithm has changed a lot since then, and a lot of the reasons we accidentally ranked so high back in the day wouldn’t likely help as much now. But we’ve kept on top of the SEO game, constantly experimenting with new strategies. We've made a few discoveries and honed our skills to adapt to these changes effectively.

Our new adventure

But this story isn’t just about how we stumbled into SEO, It's about how that discovery led us to launch Unnamed Media.

Inspired by our accidental love story with SEO, we expanded our horizons. We dove into the marketing deep end—crafting email campaigns that people actually read, designing PPC ads that don’t annoy, and other wizardry that taps into the consumer psyche. After practicing on our own businesses for many years, we're now ready to take our refined techniques to our clients.

Let's Make Magic Together

If you’re struggling to get your website out of the internet's back alleys and into the limelight, or if your marketing campaign is more "miss" than "hit," let us lend you our accidental expertise. At Unnamed Media, we turn flukes into fortunes and navigate the complexities of digital marketing for you.

Ready to make some less-than-accidental magic? Contact us, and let’s start climbing those Google ranks together!