Case Study: SEO Blogging Increases Traffic by 747% for Candle Company
Beginning in a small town with a big idea, Kalamazoo Candle Company was founded on a simple premise: You deserve a better candle.
In 2013, KCC founder Adam McFarlin started making candles and ignited a passion for perfecting the process. He wanted to create clean, long-lasting candles that smelled good and lasted a long time. Not only did he want to craft a quality artisan product at a fair price, but he wanted to do it as sustainably and authentically as possible. And he and his team did just that!
The Problem
The lack of brand awareness in a small town meant the company needed help with its Shopify visibility.
Adam wanted his company to rank first when people searched for ‘Michigan candles’ on Google. But how could he get his website to that top spot in search engines? As a small business owner with a growing family, he wasn’t quite sure he had the time or the insider knowledge to start on his own.
Enter Emerald Creative Content.
Our Method
Emerald Creative Content operates in five stages for its SEO strategy:
SEO auditing
Content calendar creation
Content execution
Data monitoring
SEO Auditing
We began by conducting a holistic audit of the client’s website.
This audit includes assessing copy quality, user experience, and technical aspects like site speed and broken links.
We also analyze traffic, top-performing pages, and current keyword rankings to establish a baseline for how their client’s website is performing. As part of that audit, Emerald looks at how much traffic the client gets each month, which pages perform best, and what keywords our clients currently rank for.
Keyword Research
After the audit, we conduct keyword research focused on expanding existing content clusters or identifying easy-to-rank keywords for newer websites. No matter our client’s authority score, we can find relevant and descriptive keywords to fit every client’s niche.
Competitor analysis is a big component of this step. We identify successful tactics to mimic and find gaps in the market so we can make content to fill it. If a competitor has a strong SEO strategy, they can inspire new keywords that Emerald will use in its content calendars.
Content Calendar Creation
After the audit and keyword research, Emerald creates a content calendar based on that research. Within the content calendar, we develop content clusters that target our client’s specific niche. A typical content calendar will include 4 optimized pages or blogs per week.
The calendar is then updated every six months to incorporate new keyword opportunities.
Content Calendar Execution
Emerald likes the hands-on approach in executing the content calendar.
It's not just the content that Emerald optimizes, it's also how that content is presented on the website. Executing this strategy includes repurposing or deleting low-performing pages to improve engagement rates.
Part of hiring Emerald means that the team goes into the website and publishes, which means we can ensure images, headers, and links are fully optimized with competitive keywords to improve SEO performance.
Data Monitoring
The best SEO strategy is one that makes decisions rooted in data. If a page or post is ranking for a few keywords but could do more heavy lifting, Emerald will revamp and optimize the content, republish it with those updates, and go from there. Rinse and repeat! Or, in candle-making terms, dip, dry, and then dip again.
The Solution
Before Emerald’s content strategy rolled out, the blogs Kalamazoo did have on the website weren’t working hard enough. Emerald made an SEO-focused marketing plan that would help the website work for Adam so he could focus on expanding his business.
We saw opportunities to add keywords, organize content clusters, and find a unique voice that matched the KCC brand.
The strategy began with writing informational keyword-optimized blog posts to establish KCC’s authority as candle experts.
KCC’s unique selling proposition—made-to-order candles handcrafted by experts in Michigan—was a good place to start. Kalamazoo Candle Company also offers candle-making classes, so the earlier content emphasized this unique offering.
Once Emerald established KCC through those initial optimized posts, the strategy moved to commercial blog posts to meet his new goals of increasing foot traffic in-store and raising online sales.
These roundups and listicles led customers directly to specific product pages via internal links.
Top-selling candles promoted in these posts include the Balsam and Cedar, Apple Harvest, and Pumpkin Patch scents. Since April 2022, Emerald Content created or optimized posts per month—an estimated 81 pieces of content for Kalamazoo Candle Company in just over two years.
The Results
Since partnering with Adam in April 2022, Emerald’s weekly blogs posted to Kalamazoo Candle Company’s website yielded a 747% organic traffic increase—from less than 2,000 visitors to 16,945 visitors per month as of July 2024. As a result of Emerald’s SEO strategy, YOY online store sessions increased by 54%. In the last year, 161,226 visitors browsed the website.
Emerald’s SEO strategy doubled search traffic from July 2023–2024, which saw a 95% increase from 34.7k to 67.5k search sessions. Traffic source data was pulled from Shopify in July 2024.
On the candle collections page, Emerald Content’s SEO call-to-actions and internal product links increased organic search by 833%.
In July 2024, Kalamazoo Candle Company ranked for 4,581 niche keywords in its industry. Of those keywords, 517 ranked in Google’s top ten search results. Emerald Content achieved these organic results for Kalamazoo Candle Company by growing niche keyword rankings—an essential strategy in Emerald’s SEO content marketing.
Get the Most Bang for Your Buck
Since 2013, Kalamazoo Candle Company has added over 1,000 retail partners across the country, established their own retail stores, and expanded their production facilities. Major retailers like Whole Foods and Fresh Thyme partner with Kalamazoo Candle Company to bring their customers candles crafted with care in the Midwest.
In Adam’s words on working with Emerald’s CEO:
“Amanda makes it easy. Her communication is great, and we don't have to spend money on Google ads (which have a mixed bag of results to begin with) because of the work that Amanda is doing with Search Engine Optimization. There's not a lot of people that can just take ownership over something and make it good—and I think Amanda's the latter. I have to put out random fires all day long. So not having to think about something and not having to worry about something is different and greatly appreciated.”
Through Emerald Content’s blogs and SEO strategy over the last two years, Adam achieved his goal: to rank in the first organic Google search result when users search ‘Michigan candles’.
Ready to get more eyeballs on your website?
Don’t burn the candle at both ends while you run your business. Explore our SEO services and book a free SEO audit with us today and let’s discuss how Emerald can help your website grow!
