Yard Digital are finalists for 12 awards

We’re Yard Digital, a digital marketing agency — here’s a brief introduction into who we are and our journey with the UK Search Awards 2022.

It’s fair to say that it has been quite a remarkable year for us. The team has rolled out some fantastic campaigns both for our clients and the company. Finding out we were shortlisted for 12 UK Search Awards felt like a testament to the brilliant work produced over the last twelve months.

Here’s what’s happened over the past year or so:

• We’ve evolved our service offering — including the introduction of a strategy division — to meet market demands.
• Our digital PR team has grown from zero to a team of four superstars (more on that later!)
• We’ve created some of our most successful campaigns to date; for clients and our own agency.

We’re so proud of the team for contributing towards the growth of the agency; 2022 has been a great year for us.

Here’s an overview for some of the projects we’ve been shortlisted for.

Yard Digital & VisitScotland – Braw Beginnings

We’ve worked with VisitScotland for almost 4 years, during which time we’ve developed a strong partnership. We were delighted to find out that our campaign was nominated in 4 categories: Best Use of Search – Travel / Leisure (SEO), Best Use of Search – Third Sector / Not for Profit (SEO), Best Use of Content Marketing and Best Local Campaign (SEO).

We were engaged by VisitScotland to create a digital PR campaign that would generate high authority links to their site which would drive traffic and boost SEO rankings as part of their wider ‘Year of Stories’ project. The Scots language is often considered as a dialect of English, rather than being recognised as the full and complex language that it is. Conversations and celebrations of Scots have begun in recent years and with 1.5 million speakers, we wanted to be a part of this celebration on behalf of those who might’ve suppressed their Scots skills because of such societal norms.

Our response was to create Braw Beginnings, which involved translating the first line of some of the most famous novels; celebrating the Scots language along with iconic literature that had drawn inspiration from Scotland. We chose books and authors with links to Scotland to drive home the message of just how awe-inspiring Scotland is. For example, Peter Pan’s JM Barrie is Scottish, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is inspired by Slains Castle and George Orwell wrote 1984 while staying on the island of Jura. The campaign quickly became the most successful VisitScotland campaign to date!

Yard Digital & ROX – Top of the ROX

Our relationship with ROX Luxury Jewellers has blossomed over the 6 years we’ve worked together. We’ve delivered projects in a number of areas of search — from technical SEO, to content and digital PR. This campaign was a joint effort from our entire search team, leading to a nomination in the Best Use of Search – Retail / Ecommerce (SEO) category.

Engagement rings are a core part of the ROX online market. ROX had seen their ranking URL for the primary keyword “engagement rings” fall from position #5 in April 2021 down to #24 in early October 2021 following Google algorithm updates, site issues and competitor improvements. We employed a multi-faceted approach that contributed towards significant keyword ranking improvements, as ROX ranked #1 for “engagement rings” for the first ever. We knew that content optimisation, digital PR and technical SEO all had an important role to play in improving ROX’s overall search visibility. Our search strategy and insight contributed towards ROX achieving a record Christmas in 2021 for sales. ROX have also seen strong increases in market share in a competitive market place.

Yard Digital & Wealthify – Breaking Dad (and Mum)

Our digital PR team excels at creating campaigns that achieve results in the long-term. Their reactive approach to existing campaigns means that our clients can achieve linked coverage months after the campaign goes live. This project was a collaborative effort between Wealthify and our team, so we’re delighted that our campaign was nominated for Best Use of Search – Finance (SEO).

We were engaged by Wealthify to create a campaign that would generate high authority links to their site to drive traffic and boost SEO rankings. Our response was to create Silver Spoon — a thought-provoking piece of research delving into the challenges faced by parents when it comes to saving for their children’s futures — a hot topic during a cost of living crisis. We asked parents about how much they save for their children for key milestones, including buying their first car, higher education, first homes, and weddings. We knew our surprising findings would appeal to a wide range of top tier publications as well as niche and regional media. This campaign has smashed all our objectives and continues to do so, as we find new opportunities to showcase the research.

Yard Digital – Just Plane Wrong

Earlier, we mentioned that our digital PR team has been together for around a year — this campaign is an example of just how brilliant they are. We set out with the target of creating high authority backlinks to the Yard site with zero budget. Our campaign was nominated in five categories: Best Low Budget Campaign (SEO), Most Innovative Campaign (SEO), Best SEO Campaign, Best Use of Data (SEO) and Best Use of PR in a Search Campaign.

The campaign came about after Kylie Jenner hit the headlines in July 2022 after posting an image of his-and-hers matching private jets captioned “you wanna take mine or yours”. After seeing this, we wanted to understand just how much of impact celebrity jets have on our planet. Yard wanted to reach a wider audience, tap into an important social issue and show new business opportunities the power of data-led campaigns. After scraping data from the flight tracking Twitter account @CelebJets, we were able to estimate the CO2 emissions each jet was pumping into the atmosphere. By tapping into what was already in the news cycle, using our ingenuity and writing up a compelling story, we went on to break the internet. Our viral campaign added to an important conversation on a grave social issue.

The results are quite something:

• We achieved 4,712 pieces of coverage, including 4,448 backlinks. Our outreach targeted relevant media websites, initially securing coverage in The Tab and The Metro. Our campaign had natural pick up in top tier publications globally, including The Independent, The Guardian, Vogue Japan, France24, The Washington Post, and beyond.
• We’ve been approached by various publications for comment on sustainability issues as well as securing coverage on podcasts and news channels, including Fox News and E! News.
• YOY we saw an increase in page views from 4,343 to 40,521.
• On Twitter alone, our campaign spurred over 84k original posts, that we’re aware of, and landed us a feature on the trending topics section.
• Representatives from Taylor Swift and Jay-Z responded to the research.

Rising Star – Emma Malcolmson

Of all of the campaigns we’ve mentioned above, a certain Yardie played a key role in all of them.

Emma started her career with us in April 2021, and what she’s achieved in that short time has been nothing short of brilliant. Emma is an absolute all rounder and superstar in the making. Despite being new to the industry, she showed no hesitation in her approach, instantly taking the responsibility for the success of the client’s, delivering results that are directly responsible to the growth of the agency.

Some of the wonderful things Emma’s achieved are:

• Managing the partnership with VisitScotland — during which time they have seen their most successful digital PR campaign ever.
• Creating a topical campaign for Wealthify — tapping into a broader social issue to deliver results in both the short and long term.
• The ideation and creation of the celeb jets campaign — spotting an opportunity within the social realm to create a campaign that would resonate with the target audience.

We’re incredibly proud to have been nominated in 12 categories — especially given the fact that we entered 12 categories! Winning would round off a truly superb year. Bring on the 30^th November!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/YardDigital

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/weareyard