I worked at Far Reach, a custom software development company, for five years. I loved it. I got to help clients with their digital marketing and software strategies.
From there, I went out on my own to be an independent content marketing writer. Far Reach joined me as my first client, for which I’ll be forever grateful. I got to continue working in an industry I know and love, and started my business with a solid foundation.
In the 10 years I’ve been working on Far Reach’s marketing, a lot has changed in terms of strategies and best practices. I’ve worked to adapt right along with them.
Why Content is Important for Far Reach
Far Reach is a small development company—around 15 people—and their custom software development services are, well, custom. They don’t work on any old software system or with any old client. They find right-fit clients who need unique software systems built and enhanced over time. They’re not working with hundreds of clients at a time—they focus on quality systems and long-term relationships with a small group of ideal clients.
The company is also fairly passive in its approach to sales. They’re not going to try to sell custom software to someone who doesn’t need it. They choose to have sales conversations with potential clients when they have a project in mind and are ready to start talking about what that process might look like.
All of this, plus a long sales cycle and 5- to 6-figure contract price tag, makes content marketing an important part of Far Reach’s marketing strategy. By creating high-quality content and sharing it with their audience, Far Reach can:
- Educate potential clients and others in the industry
- Share their expertise and knowledge
- Help people self-select if Far Reach’s message resonates with them or not
- Give insight into the software development process
- Be positioned as experts
- Show client successes
- Share the company’s strong culture
Clients are ready to work with Far Reach when they’re ready. When someone has a custom software project in mind, we want Far Reach to be top of mind and feel approachable for potential clients. There will be no hard sell, just a conversation. There will be transparency, honesty, and everything else Far Reach stands for.
Content marketing allows Far Reach to tell its stories with authenticity. Yes, it’s marketing and we want to get more clients, but it also comes from a genuine place. For Far Reach, content marketing is a much better investment than search ads, social ads, print ads, postcards, and other such marketing tactics.
Shifting to Pillar-based Content Marketing
As Far Reach’s marketing director, the marketing team and I ran the blog for the five years I worked there full time. We used best practices at that point (2013) and shared short, easily-digestible posts on distinct topics.
Now as an independent marketing contractor for Far Reach, I still manage the blog—outsourcing B2B content marketing can be a great arrangement. Over the last few years, best practices in content marketing have changed to put more focus on long-form content grouped around broad topics of expertise. So in January 2021, we started moving Far Reach to a pillar-based content marketing approach. This process involved:
- Cleaning up the blog archives to remove, update, or combine old posts
- Organizing blog posts around 5-10 pillar topics
- Identifying content gaps within those pillars
- Building out a pillar page and value-add content download for each topic pillar
- Configuring analytics to track organic traffic and downloads
- Creating an editorial calendar for top-priority blog topics
Building out the pillar pages and downloads took about eight months, but we worked on the highest-priority topics first. And the results were surprisingly fast—organic traffic, downloads, and other site metrics increased each month starting about three months in.
Pillar Pages and Downloads
Search engines (cough, Google, cough) like to see long-form content that shows expertise in a topic. Pillar pages allow us to create a “home base” for a topic and then build out blog posts that fit within that topic.
Pillar pages can be robust while still allowing blogs to be more digestible.
Here is Far Reach’s “Custom Software Development” pillar page:
We created a side nav to help make the content more skimmable, the value-add download is front and center, and case studies and related blogs are linked to throughout the content.
This pillar page is about 1500 words, whereas most blog posts are in the 800-1000 word range. Each blog post under the “custom software” pillar links back to this page, building an internal structure that shows search engines (Google) that this is the overarching topic page. Examples of blog posts under this pillar include:
- Pros and Cons of Custom Software Development
- Bidding Custom Software Projects
- Our Custom Software Development Process
The download on this pillar page, which is also embedded on all pillar-related blogs, is a guide that helps companies evaluate if custom software might be the right move for them. Not every company needs custom software—many are best off starting with off-the-shelf and SaaS platforms—so this value-add download helps them look for signs that might point to custom software.
Bi-weekly Blogs
The pillar pages are built out and remain relatively static, other than adding links to new blog posts and case studies. But we’re continually putting out new content on the Far Reach blog. We run a schedule of posting a new blog every other Thursday. Those blog posts are then shared on company social media, team member social media, and to Far Reach’s email list.
Our goals for blog posts are to:
- Educate clients and potential clients
- Share client successes and the work we do
- Write about topics our audience is searching for
- Put out engaging, helpful content
- Show both Far Reach’s expertise as well as their culture
We also include download calls to action in relevant posts. In blogs about custom software, for example, we include the aforementioned custom software guide download. And each blog post links to pillar pages and many other blogs, further building the intra-site web of links that display topic expertise and content structure. Web, hmm, maybe that’s why it’s called the world wide web.
The Results
Since switching to the pillar-based content marketing strategy, Far Reach’s website traffic has grown consistently. And while it wasn’t exactly static prior to this switch, I do believe this change has had more of an impact than if we had continued using the previous strategy.
The following screenshots are from about a year after the first pillar page went live and all the blog enhancements were done.
From January 2021 to February 2022, all key website metrics improved, including users, sessions, and pageviews.
Website conversions also increased. Previously, only contact forms were conversions. Adding the value-add downloads increased site conversions drastically and grew Far Reach’s email marketing list.
Now, two years into implementation, stats continue their upward trajectory. The site is getting more visitors, they’re visiting more often, and they’re staying longer.
Organic traffic has also continued to increase. This chart shows search engine traffic from January 2020, where numbers were fairly flat, through February 2023 where we can see more ebbs and flows and general increases. Peaks and valleys tend to happen as Google makes algorithm changes—something seen more drastically on sites with strong search engine optimization (SEO).
Organic traffic and sessions have both increased 40+% since February 2021 when we started implementing the pillar strategy.
As with most B2B companies, Far Reach can’t tie 1:1 leads and sales to content. That’s not how it works. We put out content to increase touchpoints with leads and to help new leads find us. We help educate them and stay top of mind for when they’re ready to look at building a custom software system.
In the last few years, however, Far Reach has been at capacity with client projects—working with a balance of long-term existing clients as well as with new clients and systems. Without a focus on sales, the content marketing does the heavy lifting alongside referrals, community engagement, and industry involvement.
“Megan’s content strategy and copywriting expertise have been invaluable to Far Reach over the last decade. She’s gone out of her way to understand us—our voice, our brand, our process, and our goals—and, as a result, she crafts strategies and content that allow us to effectively reach our desired audience.”
– Kate Washut, CEO, Far Reach
Iterating on the Strategy
The pillar content strategy is our foundation, but we continue to iterate on our content and adjust to best practices as they change. Here’s how we keep fresh content on the blog and other platforms:
- New blog posts every other week
- Balance word count and readability
- Mix of topics from pillars, client case studies, and culture
- Optimizing top-performing posts
- Monthly analytics reports to see what’s performing
- Updates to pillar pages as new blog posts go live
- Send each blog to email marketing contacts
- Include blogs in each monthly newsletter
- Share posts on social media when they’re published and throughout the year
Far Reach is a company focused on continuous improvement, and their content marketing is no different. We have a strong cadence for consistent content, but we’re always looking for ways to improve that content and share Far Reach’s story.