Client: PPL PRS

Spreading PPL PRS’ love of music with 10x content almost immediately ranking in position 3

11

new keyword rankings for different national anthems

position 3

ranking for national anthem lyrics

6m 56s

average page engagement

(the average for wider blog content is 1m 30s)

7k

page views (in 12 months)

PPL PRS are the guys who issue and collect fees from The Music Licence. The PPL side represents performers and music publishers, and the PRS side is a society for songwriters, composers, and music publishers. The ultimate goal is to make sure copyrighted music is played legally in public spaces, e.g., offices, shops, bars, and dentists, and those who create the music are paid accordingly. In summary, they’re good guys. 

Content that sings loudly about the power of music

The PPL PRS blog features content that highlights the benefits of music in many different scenarios, such as how music can boost the mood in community spaces and how different music can skyrocket sales for businesses, small and large. In addition to spotlighting PPL PRS’ roster of experts who lend their expertise.  

Introducing 10x content to maximise visibility 

Our brief was to come up with a highly topical (and even better if it could be evergreen) on-site asset to maximise online search visibility to launch alongside the – at the time upcoming - Commonwealth Games.  

After some digging, our research revealed a correlation between sport and music around national anthems. 

Do you know the lyrics? 

Our idea was to introduce people to the variety of UK anthems they may never have heard of before. So, we created a highly linkable asset, designed with findability in mind, which showed all the relevant information – including the anthem lyrics – in a visually appealing way. 

An infographic highlighting the British national anthem, 'God Save the Queen.' It includes the lyrics of the anthem, noting its historical significance since 1745, and mentions its use over centuries. The infographic also states that the melody has been used by over 140 composers.

What we did for the blog:

We created four images as our asset. The first is the lyrics to ‘God Save the King’ with pullouts from sentiment analysis and the history behind the songs, producing an informative image that also lets readers learn the lyrics. We then highlighted the countries that make Great Britain's anthems. Scotland, Wales, and England – sans Northern Ireland.

For England and Scotland, we just put the lyrics of their anthems in PPL PRS colours, making sure the words were easy to read. For Wales, we added translations from the Welsh lyrics to make the anthem more accessible to all readers, whether they can understand Welsh or not. 

To host the asset, we created SEO-optimised blog content. We used tools like MonkeyLearn and Lexicool to conduct sentiment analysis and check word frequency on anthems across the Commonwealth to see which had the most positive tone to their lyrics.  

Image of the lyrics of the national anthem of England, with a blue background and a white rectangle containing the text. The lyrics are in black, and the title 'England's National Anthem' is in bold blue font at the top. The logos of The Music Licence and PPL PRS are in the bottom right corner.
A webpage showing the Scottish National Anthem lyrics with two columns on a blue background. The first column has the title in bold blue letters, the second column contains the lyrics. Logos for TheMusicLicence and PPPLRS are in the bottom right corner.
Two pages of the Welsh National Anthem lyrics, with the title in bold blue text, and the lyrics in black and pink text on a white background, set against a blue border with a logo at the bottom right.

What we did for the irresistibly linkable offsite media story:

We created a ranked list that could also be used to pitch to relevant target media. Throughout the text, we wanted to highlight Great Britain’s anthem as our main asset was a lyric analysis of ‘God save the King’ (previously ‘Queen’).  

We made use of in-house expert Marianne Rizkallah for a comment on the power of music as a community. Because, the media, and Google, both love a touch of authority. 

Approaching the evergreen challenge

To add longevity to the story, we made sure to mention other key, future sporting events to rank for those, such as the six nations rugby competition that will happen in February.  

Now, only the Royal Family and Classic FM rank higher than PPL PRS for national anthem lyrics, ranking higher in the SERPs than the likes of Wikipedia, BBC Music Magazine and Encyclopedia Britannica.

Sold?

Let’s talk.

hello@wearebottle.com