MGWM

CaringBridge

How CaringBridge grew user acquisition with a holistic search strategy

CaringBridge is a nonprofit which offers free online health journals for sharing health updates with family and friends all at once. In 5 years partnered together, Uproer has been able to steadily increase organic and paid search conversions at a significantly lower cost CPA with a holistic search strategy.

Our Search Strategy

From the beginning, CaringBridge has been driven to build a community of support online. Their Resource pages present inspirational stories from real people going through health journeys. Because of this, we created a search strategy that began with SEO content and expanded into paid media over time. 

We supplemented that with a more refined non-brand strategy that leveraged a free Google grant for upper funnel awareness. We explored low-funnel keywords for patient websites, feature-focused keywords, and other high-potential keywords. And through that process, we grew performance to some of the highest levels in account history!

  • Discovered that the CaringBridge audience is largely cancer and caregiver focused, and that sites are started by both patients and family members. 
  • Created “health journey” topic hubs, starting at the Discovery stage to Coping & Healing stages. 
  • Targeted high-volume keywords from the family and friends perspective, with topics like “What to Say to Someone With Cancer.”
  • We leveraged $40,000 in grant spend for top-of-funnel, traffic-driving efforts. 
  • We financed brand spend with a free Google grant for nonprofits.
  • We tested new initiatives with the free money before we brought them into our out of pocket account.
  • Wrote prompts for each article that were shared via the CaringBridge Facebook page. 
  • Collected responses and stories from the prompts on Facebook and incorporated them into articles. Used responses as a source for content ideation and a way to tap into the CaringBridge audience. 
  • Used new blog comments to refresh existing articles.
  • We tested keywords like “patient websites” and “caregiver calendar” to highlight key features and encourage users to start a CaringBridge site.
  • We took a long-run toward improvements and worked with internal data teams to demonstrate the value of our efforts.
  • We collaborated as a team to support our SEO efforts with content-focused campaigns.
  • Created a sign-up form CTA box and added to all blog posts to capture leads. 
  • Linked to other high-converting landing pages like “How it Works” in each blog article.
  • We conducted regular tests to demonstrate the incremental value  of non-brand search.
  • We measured the overlap between new efforts like performance max and our existing brand and non-brand campaigns.

“I have worked with Uproer for almost 2 years now and I could not be happier. This agency is smart, talented, efficient and knowledgeable. Couldn't ask for a better partner!”

— Beth Betcher, CaringBridge

+250% increase in Paid Search conversions

By increasing search marketing performance holistically, CaringBridge saw significant growth in conversions at lower acquisition costs.

  • 1,200% increase in SEO blog traffic throughout the engagement
  • 53% Y/Y increase in conversions across SEM & SEO

Want to work with Uproer?

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MGWM

Sr. Manager, SEO & Operations

Dave Sewich

dave sewich

Dave made an accidental foray into digital marketing after graduating from the University of Minnesota Duluth and hasn’t looked back. Having spent the first part of his marketing journey brand-side, he now works with the Uproer team to help clients realize their goals through the lens of search.

When not at work, you’ll find Dave staying active and living a healthy lifestyle, listening to podcasts, and enjoying live music. A Minnesotan born and raised, his favorite sport is hockey and he still finds time to skate once in a while.

Dave’s DiSC style is C. He enjoys getting things done deliberately and systematically without sacrificing speed and efficiency. When it comes to evaluating new ideas and plans, he prefers to take a logical approach, always sprinkling on a bit of healthy skepticism for good measure. At work, Dave’s happiest when he has a chance to dive deep into a single project for hours at a time. He loves contributing to Uproer and being a part of a supportive team but is most productive when working solo.

Founder & CEO

Griffin Roer

Griffin discovered SEO in 2012 during a self-taught web development course and hasn’t looked back. After years of working as an SEO consultant to some of the country’s largest retail and tech brands, Griffin pursued his entrepreneurial calling of starting an agency in May of 2017.

Outside of work, Griffin enjoys going to concerts and spending time with his wife, two kids, and four pets.

Griffin’s DiSC style is D. He’s driven to set and achieve goals quickly, which helps explain why he’s built his career in the fast-paced agency business. Griffin’s most valuable contributions to the workplace include his motivation to make progress, his tendency towards bold action, and his willingness to challenge assumptions.