The Challenge
Kyle Fretwell acquired TruckInfo.Net, a leading online portal for the trucking industry, in 2022. Established in 1995, the site had become a leading source of information for truckers and transportation professionals looking for products and services to run their business.
But after almost 20 years in operation, it was time to innovate the site's distribution strategy to reach new audiences and boost brand authority in an increasingly competitive industry. TruckInfo.Net needed to improve results in search via a lot more high-quality referral links, and they knew that Stacker would be the best resource for them.
The Solution
During their first year as a Stacker client, TruckInfo experienced substantial improvements in downstream SEO and keyword rankings, in close correlation with new inbound authority signals. This led to a notable rise in organic traffic, which subsequently created revenue opportunities for the company.
By the end of 2023, they opted to explore alternative strategies to determine if they could replicate or exceed the success they had with Stacker. However, a year later, Kyle Fretwell, the Owner of TruckInfo.net, chose to return as a client, confident that Stacker would deliver the highest return on investment for their earned media initiatives.
"Stacker provides both speed and quality when it comes to third party referrals and brand authority," says Kyle, "You can't find this amount of earned media value anywhere else on the market right now."
How It Works
Stacker combines an innovative earned distribution platform with human editorial expertise to enable the creation, optimization, and syndication of engaging stories from brands to a network of local and national news outlets.
TruckInfo.net initially selected Stacker's Connect+Studio product, a newsroom-as-a-service offering which pairs turn-key distribution with custom content production. With the Studio service package, TruckInfo.net got to select from a curated list of unique, newsworthy story angles relevant to the insurance industry, leaving the rest of the storytelling process to the Stacker writers and editors.
After leaving for a year to try other initiatives, and having acquired new knowledge on how to craft brand editorial content from the Stacker team, Truckinfo.net came back with a much stronger library of content that was immediately eligible for the Newswire.
As part of their new partnership with Stacker, they chose Stacker's Connect product, which distributes brands’ editorial content to thousands of publishers on the Stacker Newswire. With Connect, Stacker's team ensures that each story meets journalistic standards, and is optimized and timed to maximize reach and engagement. After distribution of each story, Truckinfo.net receives detailed and real-time insights on the performance of their stories - and how many publications picked them up - via a self-serve reporting dashboard.
With Stacker, TruckInfo.net was able to distribute stories like The most dangerous roads during Thanksgiving, which earned 346 placements in partner publications. This coverage enabled TruckInfo.net to drive more than 1,600 high-quality backlinks, which was one of their main initial objectives.
The Results
Within 9 months of working with Stacker, TruckInfo.net started seeing positive growth across all SEO metrics, with organic traffic showing particularly explosive growth.
9 months after distribution of TruckInfo's first story on Stacker:
|
+1
Point increase in Domain Rating, from 70 to 71
|
+6,500
Increase in organic traffic
|
+90
Keywords in Top 3 position
|
By utilizing Stacker, TruckInfo.net also received the ability to tailor stories for local markets, enhancing local authority while simultaneously securing earned links in both local and national markets. As a company providing localized services, this was something they needed and could not find anywhere else.
TruckInfo.net crafted and distributed 7 stories within a year, reaching over 880,000 new readers throughout the US.
Conclusion
As a returning client of Stacker, Truckinfo.net aims to keep leveraging the platform to enhance its brand visibility and authority, with the added benefit that their own content is now being distributed. Kyle can continue investing time and resources to create highly valuable editorial for truckers and transportation professionals, while Stacker ensures that content is distributed widely and reaches as many people as possible.
"In 2023, Stacker exceeded our expectations in terms of brand authority and earned media reach," says Kyle. "However, after a year, we wanted to submit our own content to the wire, which Stacker didn't allow at the time. Now, with Stacker Connect, we can submit our own reviewed content to the wire. This is a game changer, and I'm eager to see our growth at both local and national levels."
