How Epic Reads Grew Sales 24% With Search-Driven Content

Identify What Customers Are Searching For

The first step was identifying what content Epicreads.com was missing that their audience was searching for.

A gap analysis revealed a clear opportunity. Epic Reads had limited content targeting "best books by genre" searches. The few pages that did exist were going after highly competitive terms and weren't performing well.

So instead of chasing competitive queries, I focused on topics they had a good chance to show up for. Things like "best time travel books," "best heist novels," and "best poetry books for teens." People searching these are actively looking for recommendations and are often close to making a decision. We made these types of queries the core focus of the content strategy moving forward.

Write for Readers, Optimize for Google

After identifying ~50 priority keywords based on search volume, conversion potential, and competition, I created detailed content briefs to guide the writing team.

Each brief acted as a precise blueprint outlining the topics to cover, content structure, page layout, metadata, internal linking opportunities, and clear paths to guide users to book pages.

The focus was on creating content that matched search intent and made it easy for readers to find and buy books.

Every article was optimized across key on-page elements:

• Title tags
• Headers and on-page copy
• Meta descriptions
• Internal links
• CTAs
• Image alt text
• Schema

Build Topical Authority Through Clusters

As we built out more "best books by genre" content, we organized it into a topic cluster. A central category page acted as the hub, with individual lists supporting it.

Internal linking connected the hub to each list and tied related pages together. Someone reading "best zombie books" could easily move to vampire, werewolf, or dark fantasy lists.

This structure helped build topical authority by creating depth across book genres and signaling clear relationships between pages. It made it easier for both users and search engines to navigate the content and reinforced the site as a credible source on the subject.

Track, Learn, and Adjust

Publishing was only the first step. After launch, I monitored traffic, click-through rates, and conversions for every article. Underperforming pieces were revisited by strengthening internal links from higher-authority pages, refining meta tags, reworking intent, expanding thin sections, adding visuals where engagement dropped, and more.