Company Name	Officecom Inc.
Target Product	Owned Media “Office no Gimon“ YouTube “Shigoto no Gimon Kaiketsu Channel“
Services Provided	SEO article creation, YouTube planning/production/management
Purpose	Expand media awareness and create value
Effect	Achieved high rankings for major keywords, doubled sales through articles

Wanting to Publish Truly Beneficial Articles for Readers

— Can You Tell Us About the Targets of Your Initiatives?

Mr.Hiroaki Komano (Mr.Komano):

One initiative is the owned media “Office no Gimon,” which aims to resolve users’ questions related to offices and work.

Our company runs an office furniture e-commerce site, attracting users with purchasing intent. To create more touchpoints, we launched “Office no Gimon.” This platform aims to provide useful information to answer users’ questions about offices.

The other initiative is the YouTube channel “Shigoto no Gimon Kaiketsu Channel,” which shares different information from the media. We handle everything from planning to video production for this channel.

Tetsuro Makino, CEO of Mass Driver Co., Ltd. (Makino):

We started our YouTube initiative in June 2022, and a few months later, we published new articles on the media side.

— What challenges did you face? 

Mr.Komano:

“Office no Gimon” was previously handled by a company that produced SEO articles cheaply. They wanted to produce cost-effectively and asked us to leave the content entirely to them, which meant we couldn’t incorporate our business insights into the articles.

During this time, an associate introduced us to Mr. Makino. After talking with him, I felt he had extensive knowledge and experience. I believed that by working with Mr. Makino, we could solve our problems, achieve our numerical goals, and develop a media platform that benefits users.

Makino:

Mr. Komano is very knowledgeable about SEO, which adds a certain level of tension to our work (laughs).

Incorporating “Business Insights” into Articles

— Specifically, what benefits do you mean for the customer?

Mr.Komano:

For example, when creating an article about recommended products, user needs suggest including keywords like “recommended office chairs” and showcasing popular chairs. However, as a business, we wanted the media to feature articles that are genuinely useful to users, highlighting affordable and accessible chairs.

Makino:

When I first heard Mr. Komano’s expectations, I felt it was a high bar to reach. While we could elevate articles featuring well-known chair brands in search rankings, the challenge was to also get users to view the product sales pages to drive purchases. This meant that we needed both the articles and the product pages to rank highly in search results.

Mr.Komano:

I understood the difficulty but believed that an ideal media would be one that benefits users and contributes to sales.

Makino:

We decided not just to increase media views but to use the media to boost the e-commerce site’s sales.

At the start, there were already around 200-300 articles. We rewrote them to improve overall comprehensiveness and expertise.

For articles like “How to Choose a Chair That Won’t Hurt Your Back,” we incorporated unique insights to create truly useful content for users. We took both macro and micro approaches, like fitting puzzle pieces together, to ensure all efforts positively impacted the entire business domain.

Aiming for a User-First Media

— What visible results have you seen?

Mr.Komano:

Thanks to the rewritten and highly specialized new articles, many keywords such as “manufacturer name product name” now appear on the first page. These articles have positively impacted the entire domain, contributing to higher rankings for sales pages.

Makino:

The specific measures include enhancing comprehensiveness and uniqueness, and adding links between articles. The most important thing is to highlight the strengths unique to Officecom.

— What are Officecom’s unique strengths?

Makino:

One strength is the ability to provide truly useful “professional reviews” for users. We continue to include this in the articles, conveying both the pros and cons of each product.

Mr.Komano:

Knowing both the pros and cons is beneficial for users.

Consistently Ranking 1-3 in SEO

— Can you tell us about the effects of the measures?

Mr.Komano:

We targeted major category keywords, significantly improving the ranking for “office chair” to 1-3. Although there were slight increases before, it took about six months for substantial improvements. Over the past 16 months, the ranking rose to 2-3 from November 2023, peaking at 1.9 in January 2024. Sales from article readers increased by about 1.3 times year-on-year, demonstrating the effectiveness.

— Were there any barriers to the measures?

Mr.Komano:

SEO often doesn’t go as planned. We were affected by Google’s 2021 update. Time management was also challenging, especially regarding the effort required for writing articles and balancing quality and speed, which we consulted with Mr. Makino about.

— What aspects of working with Mr. Makino are you particularly satisfied with?

Mr.Komano:

Many of Mr. Makino’s suggestions are logically sound, which provides a sense of assurance and is very helpful. As a business operator, I can only manage my own domain, but Mr. Makino brings fresh perspectives from his experience with various sites and industries.

Makino:

Mr. Komano is incredibly knowledgeable about SEO, which means he understands advanced concepts. This creates a productive tension that pushes us to improve.

Mr.Komano:

Because we operate using company funds, it’s important to deliver results, and I’ve learned a lot in the process.

Once a month, I report on the strategies to the executives, and if the results are weak, I conduct hearings to align our focus.

Expectations for Future Plans

— What are your plans for the future?

Makino:

I’d like to integrate YouTube strategies with “Office no Gimon.” By leveraging multi-channel approaches, we aim to use both videos and articles effectively to drive purchases, ideally creating a comprehensive strategy that leads to conversions.

Mr.Komano:

Our goal remains to develop a site that genuinely helps users by solving their problems and challenges. Incorporating business insights remains crucial. I believe sales will follow naturally from this approach.

Makino:

Officecom’s business is diverse, and optimizing across various service sites might be challenging, but we aim to achieve this positively. Even with different sites, we can enhance each site’s presence and traffic flow, integrating business design effectively.

Mr.Komano:

While managing different domains is challenging, there’s potential for our sites to achieve top rankings together if things go well.

— What are your expectations from Mass Driver moving forward?

Mr.Komano:

I expect strong planning skills. Given your high expertise in SEO and content, more planning and proposals would be welcome. We hope to challenge new initiatives incorporating business insights into strategies and directions.

Makino:

Thank you. We will discuss this internally!