Adobe Substance 3D is a toolset for creative 3D solutions and is a part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud. Substance empowers 3D design, enabling intuitive workflows and connections with other Creative Cloud apps like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Substance 3D’s suite of apps (3D Modeler, 3D Stager, 3D Painter, 3D Sampler, 3D Designer & 3D Assets) gives users one connected experience- an experience that is familiar too many thanks to other popular Creative Cloud apps.
1 year after launching on Adobe.com, the Substance 3D URLs were not meeting non-brand organic search expectations internally. While Substance did have foundational content to leverage, the various product pages did not have the content depth or authority required to meet customer intent for the thousands of 3D design/modeling/rendering/animation keywords that users were searching for.
The Adobe team wanted to position Substance 3D as the global authority in creative 3D solutions. In late 2022, Adobe partnered with NP Digital (NPD), we were tasked with 3 specific goals:
Our methodology was to increase on-site relevancy for 3D queries, improve off-site page and brand authority, and enhance the technical page health for the entire Substance 3D site-section.
In-depth research helped us to better understand user intent, competitiveness, and to identify and prioritize gaps in both content and organic search visibility. We developed quick win recommendations and implemented optimized page <title>'s, header tags and body content for the primary Substance 3D pages that were already found on Adobe.com.
Next, we implemented our proprietary “6R” Content Audit. This audit told us what to do with the rest of the current Substance pages. What should be “reformatted”, “repurposed”, “refreshed”, “retired”, “redirected”, or what content should just “remain” as-is to meet intent for different search queries. Research showed us that Google was rewarding (better rankings) different types of content for the various keywords that we wanted to target- bulleted lists, image-rich pages, videos tutorials on 3D design, content written by other modelers and trustworthy authors. We needed to make sure that our website pages were able to match that intent.
Research also uncovered opportunities to create new content, pages that could capture incremental search demand. New AI features in Answer The Public, our proprietary search discovery platform, helped us identify trending 3D topics and track changes in user search behavior. 3D Design, 3D Modeling, 3D Rendering, and 3D Animation had 34,500 keyword variations totaling 2.3 million monthly searches.
We developed and launched new content clusters that were deployed on Substance 3D’s Discover Platform. Substance 3D Discover is a curated collection of 3D articles, white-papers, assets, and tutorials. On a monthly basis we developed and launched in-depth articles, guides, how to’s, what is and answers to frequently asked 3D questions. While we were trying to create relevancies for all stages of the funnel, our primary focus was on top-level informational content. This helped to expand our keyword universe and develop the critical E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) signals that both Google and potential customers are looking for.
We leveraged existing relationships with publishers and influencers to spread the word and promote our new content. Riding the current “AI Revolution” wave in the media, we placed high-quality content in publications such as Engadget, Envato, and Sketchfab. Each of the 270 placements outlined Substance 3D’s differentiators, value proposition, features, and unique approach to the 3D experience. The average Domain Authority of these placements was 54.
Lastly, to ensure maximum SERP exposure, we aligned to technical SEO best practices. Given the global nature of the Substance 3D pages on Adobe.com, hreflang attributes were assigned in 101 different country and language combinations. This ensured that the proper language page was showing up when users were searching internationally (French searcher on Google.fr, for example). Core Web Vital fixes helped to improve the overall user-experience, schema implementation helped to trigger more featured snippet results for the keyword queries that we were targeting, which inevitably increased organic click-through rates and traffic.
Our in-depth research, on-page optimization, targeted content development, Digital PR, and the implementation of technical SEO best practices resulted in significant increases for all of Adobe's KPI's:
