From the magic of conversion: Insights into hurra.com™'s victory in the SEO contest

Hooray! It is with great pleasure that we announce our victory in the highly competitive SEO contest. In an exciting 4-week race for the top position in Google, we were able to hold our own. After a showdown with a crime thriller character, the SEO team from hurra.com™ finally took first place in the Google ranking and in the overall ranking of SEO competition by Agenturtipp.de secured.

The victory in Germany's biggest SEO contest is a complete team success. The joy is particularly great because hurra.com™ took part in this competition for the first time. The SEO contest is organized annually by Agenturtipp.de to identify the best SEO's in the country. With 154 registered participants in 2023, it is the biggest contest in this country.

Even during the mid-term analysis, which was carried out by the organizer together with an external SEO professional (Arne Harkensee from iGaming), the hurra.com™ website was the focus of the jury. Content, strategy and links were analyzed and discussed on Google's top-ranked sites.

In this article, we have summarized how we were able to stay in places 1 to a maximum of 4 weeks and prevail against dm-drogerie markt in the final.

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5 steps that led to SEO success:

1st SEO Contest Strategy Planning//April 22

Together as part of the SEO team, we have laid the foundations of our strategy. We planned important steps in advance, such as publishing PR reports, building the first backlinks and, where possible, Implement everything with artificial intelligence. The use of tools was also researched in advance and discussed in the team.

2. SEO + content adjustments to the website//April 24

We also got our website developers on board early on and briefed them about the necessary SEO adjustments to the website. After all, technical problems, restrictions or even failures during the SEO contest are a disaster. This made it possible to prepare hurra.com™ for the contest and to be able to act and adapt quickly later.

3. Content through AI +//April 25

On April 25, at 11 o'clock, the fictitious search term “Conversion Magic” was published. The goal now was to be fast and be the first in Google's index. We then used various AI tools to prepare content. Here is an excerpt of tools that we have used, among others:

• KI Xovi AI writer (Xovi) — Create a table of contents with suggested content
• ChatGPT4 (Open AI) - Creating individual wording that met our expectations. We wanted magic, magic, leads, wit and some story time in the lyrics. When we had fine-tuned the prompts (commands for artificial intelligence) so far, the results were quite entertaining. We fine-tuned the texts ourselves.
• FROM E2 (Open AI) — image generation from text descriptions
• Synthesia — Create AI-generated video content with avatars as speakers
• ElevenLabs — AI for natural-sounding speech synthesis
• Pictory — AI-generated videos that automatically create videos using voice and video scripts

4. Backlink building//April 25

Immediately after publishing our Contest landing page, we've started building backlinks. In doing so, we paid particular attention to the order of quality of the pages. In the beginning, 1, 2 high-quality links combined with our content were enough to immediately elevate the page to page 1 in Google.

Over the entire period of 4 weeks, we built up further backlinks. Sometimes from strong and high-quality pages, sometimes from less high-quality pages. “Conversion magic” was always used as link text. Admittedly, we would advise against the money keyword method over longer periods of time.;)

5. Press relations and news reports//April 26

Just 2 days after the start of the contest, our press releases were indexed and displayed by Google. Based on our analyses, we were therefore the first to be found in the press. Press releases are an advantage, especially at the beginning.

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Final spurt against drugstore market//May 18

Over the entire term, we were particularly in a duel with DM for first place in the Google rankings. Against your strong domain www.dm.de We only had a little to do. On the other hand appears www.hurra.com Like David versus Goliath. DM's content was also great, as dm had positioned products from the areas of magic and magic on the landing page, among other things. Chapeau, a great move! These products were thematically close to the contest keyword and therefore worked well on Google. So we had to come up with something that was not only different but even better.

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Streamlining and focus

We used the options that a small website like ours sometimes offers: We were able to adapt the page almost as we wanted without waiting for developer resources and hierarchical approvals. Our early planning was rewarded here.

So we streamlined the main menu and adjusted the content. The agency logo was no longer linked to the homepage, but directly to the same contest page. With measures like this, we have tried to strengthen the relevance of “conversion magic” vis-à-vis Google. These measures then brought us firmly to position 1 in Google for the time being.

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conclusion

At the end, i.e. on the last deadline, Google played our page and dm's page alternately to position 1. These were nerve-wracking last hours for our SEO team. In the end, it was enough. Yess's. Victory!

The combination of early planning, content, backlinks, good timing, SEO skills in the team and, of course, a good pinch of luck were decisive for this victory. In addition to winning, we were also able to learn a lot of new things and try out and prove new things. Such as the use of artificial intelligence. The use of AI is hotly debated, particularly in the SEO and content scene. Nobody really wants to believe that AI generates better results than a copywriter, editor or SEO.

Today we know: With AI and hurra.com™, an even better result can be created that also works on Google;)