Although the client wanted to rank nationally, the nature of the keywords made this a local SEO project, just at massive scale. We needed to rank in nearly 200 cities around the United States, and do it as fast as possible.

We had to figure out a strategy that would achieve our goal as quickly as possible within a reasonable budget. We can’t share all the details of that strategy, but keyword, intent, and user research helped us hone in on exactly what type of content would be most likely to rank. On-site PageRank flow optimization ensured the pages we wanted to rank were the most likely to rank in each locale.

In 2020, COVID-19 began and for a period, everybody quit buying everything. Not only did sales plummet 60% practically overnight, but supply chains were interrupted, making it challenging to source…anything really.

As PPE became harder to come by, customers started asking if Blade + Blue sold masks. We didn’t want to exploit the situation, but there was an opportunity to meet our customers’ need. In less than a month, we quickly spun up an advertising plan while Blade and Blue worked with the factory on mask production using excess material.

At the same time, advertisers began hoarding PPE and and charging exorbitant prices. Google and Facebook quickly shifted their guidelines to ban all mask ads, meaning we needed to shift quickly, too.

We tested various ideas, including influencer marketing, but none were as effective as the ads. Through creative messaging and video tactics, we were able to communicate that we had masks without violating platform rules against PPE advertising. This allowed us to more than replace lost revenue with mask sales.