Archived case study · 2016
Archived case study: Diwali 2016 event blog (on-page & off-page)
An archived 2016 case study of a seasonal Diwali blog — the keyword, on-page and link tactics used then, with notes on what no longer applies.
- Client
- Founder's own project (event blog)
- Sector
- Seasonal content publishing
- Published
- by Prithvi Somavarapu
Figures as originally reported
- Page views (reported)
- 22,27,087
- As published in the original 2016 post (Indian digit grouping; ≈2.23 million)
- CTR (reported)
- 8.21
- As published; the original did not state whether this was search or ad CTR
- Revenue (reported)
- ≈ US$6.5k
- AdSense earnings reported by the author for Diwali 2016
Summary of the original post
In 2016 the author and a partner built a seasonal blog around Diwali. The original post reported that the blog earned about US$6.5k from Google AdSense during the 2016 festival, with 22,27,087 page views and a CTR of 8.21. It ranked first for most of its targeted long-tail keywords and in positions two to three for main keywords, behind authoritative news sites.
The approach as described in 2016
On-page
- Register the domain about six months before the event.
- Begin publishing content early.
- Research long-tail keywords with Google Keyword Planner and KWFinder, because short-tail terms were highly competitive.
- Target 10–15 long-tail keywords per article and add internal links in the first month.
- Avoid keyword stuffing, which the author observed produced only temporary rankings.
Off-page
- Start building links from the second month, from sites with few outbound links.
- Prefer fewer quality links over hundreds of spammy ones.
- Point optimised anchor text at the long-tail keyword pages.
- Add sitewide links about ten days before the event to sustain rankings.
- Use a mix of link sources (comments, Web 2.0, profiles, forums).
Monetisation insight
Diwali-related keywords had low CPC overall (the post cites roughly US$0.09–0.12), but longer, more specific phrases — the example given was “diwali greetings messages english” versus “diwali greetings” — had higher CPC. Targeting long-tail phrases therefore improved both rankings and revenue per click.
What still applies — and what doesn’t
Still sound: planning seasonal content months in advance; organising content around specific long-tail questions; avoiding keyword stuffing; internal linking between related pages; understanding the commercial value of different queries.
No longer appropriate: the original post suggested publishing “spun” content and building comment, profile, forum, Web 2.0 and sitewide links. These are covered by Google’s spam policies today and would put a site at risk. They are not part of how Prisol works.
For the modern approach to the same problems, see off-page SEO today and our SEO service.
Related: Search Engine Optimization