A leader in the online vision care space, 1-800 Contacts had already built a robust content ecosystem featuring educational articles, detailed product pages, and user-friendly browsing experiences. Their focus on informative, top-of-funnel content had established strong topical authority and consistent organic performance.
But as Google evolved to favor experience-rich, helpful content — and users increasingly turned to platforms like Reddit and Quora for product comparisons — a new opportunity emerged: capture and convert mid-funnel searchers actively weighing their options. This case study explores how 1-800 Contacts partnered with Stellar to close that content gap and reclaim visibility in a critical part of the customer journey.
The Challenge: A Missing Piece in the Customer Journey
As a long-time content partner for 1-800 Contacts, Stellar had primarily focused on content execution. Over the years, the company built a strong content presence, featuring a wealth of educational articles on eye health, contact lens care, and product details. Its well-optimized category and product pages provided a user-friendly browsing experience for potential customers.
However, there was a critical gap in the content strategy, one that limited the company’s ability to capture mid-funnel search traffic and convert interested readers into customers.
Specifically:
- While some category and product pages ranked for comparison queries, they weren’t designed to answer those decision-making searches.
- Users looking for product comparisons turned to competitor sites and UGC platforms like Reddit, forums, and Quora instead of the brand’s content.
- Some third-party and medical sites did have dedicated comparison content. However, it was neither comprehensive nor user-friendly.
- Google’s March 2024 update reinforced its Helpful Content System, prioritizing well-structured, unbiased content — the kind competitor and UGC content was better positioned to deliver in this space.
Without a strategic approach to better capture and successfully convert these mid-funnel users, 1-800 Contacts was missing out on key opportunities for visibility, authority, and conversions.
The Solution: An Intent-Optimized Content Strategy
SEO Audit & Competitive Analysis
Before launching this initiative, Stellar conducted a deep-dive SEO audit and competitive analysis to identify ranking opportunities and content gaps limiting 1-800 Contacts’ visibility in comparison-driven searches.
Key Findings:
- 1-800 Contacts had strong authority and impressive topical coverage resulting from a historical focus on informational queries. However, more transactional product-specific comparison content was missing, a critical gap for users making purchase decisions.
- Competitor sites were ranking for product comparison queries, but their content was often poorly structured and incomplete. Many of these pages featured dense, unorganized text and lacked meaningful product differentiators like comfort, durability, or price — key factors influencing purchasing decisions.
- 1-800 Contacts ranked for some comparison keywords, but those rankings were tied to category and product listing pages, which weren’t designed to fully satisfy comparison intent.
- While the company’s product pages excelled in browsing and filtering functionality that often surpassed competitors, they didn’t compare those products in key categories to help users evaluate similar products.
Outcome:
This analysis confirmed the need for dedicated comparison content that could outperform competitors by providing structured decision-making support, positioning the brand to capture high-intent traffic and guide users toward conversion.
Intent Research: Understanding What Users Want
Stellar conducted a comprehensive intent analysis to understand how users searched for contact lens comparisons and why existing content wasn’t meeting their needs.
Key Findings:
- Search analysis confirmed that UGC platforms like Reddit, Quora, and niche forums consistently dominated the top results for comparison queries.
- This reflected a strong user demand for real-world opinions and unbiased insights, a trend reinforced by Google’s increasing emphasis on helpful, experience-based content.
- Some third-party resources, along with contact lens resellers and manufacturers, had comparison pages. However, these pages often compared products along technical specifications and didn’t feature all the information the target audience sought.
- Many featured simple product comparison charts but lacked a structured decision-making framework that would help guide users toward a confident choice.
- Google’s AI Overviews were already synthesizing structured answers for comparison queries by drawing on multiple sources. This reinforced the need for content that was comprehensive, clearly formatted, and aligned with real user questions. By producing pages that followed this structure, 1-800 Contacts increased its chances of being featured.
Outcome:
These insights confirmed the need for comparison content designed to:
- Mirror the language, topics, and questions users were actively searching
- Provide clear, digestible, decision-focused guidance
- Outperform both UGC and competitor content by offering structure, clarity, and comprehensiveness
Proposed Strategy: Closing the Mid-Funnel Gap
While 1-800 Contacts had a wealth of top-of-funnel educational content and well-optimized bottom-of-funnel product pages, a critical gap remained in the mid-funnel: content that helped high-intent users choose between similar products before purchasing.
Stellar identified comparison-focused content as the missing link between education and conversion. The strategy aimed to capture interested readers actively searching for head-to-head product comparisons while positioning 1-800 Contacts as the most authoritative and helpful resource in the space.
To achieve this, Stellar proposed creating a 10-article content cluster, with each article targeting a high-intent comparison query aligned with user search behavior and business goals.
The approach included:
- Extensive keyword and intent research to prioritize topics based on:
- Search volume as an indicator of demand
- Cost per Click (CPC) as an indicator of conversion potential
- Keyword difficulty as an indicator of competitiveness and ranking feasibility
- Topic mapping by intent groups to avoid overlap and ensure complete coverage across related product comparisons
Each article would follow a repeatable framework focused on search visibility and user engagement, including:
- Product definitions introducing key features
- Side-by-side comparisons highlighting similarities and differentiators
- Dedicated sections on decision factors like comfort, price, and durability, depending on the product and audience
- FAQs and Related Questions aligned with real searches to strengthen Snippet potential
- Internal linking strategies connecting comparison pages to relevant product and category pages, creating a considerate buyer journey that reduced the number of actions users had to take to find the information and product they sought
The goal wasn’t just visibility — the content was purpose-built to bolster authority as well as guide ready-to-convert users directly to product pages, creating a smooth path from research to purchase.
The client reviewed and immediately approved the strategy and the project moved into full execution.
Execution: From Strategy to Live Content
The transition from strategy to execution hinged on one key step: Stellar’s proprietary content briefs. These were not just guidelines but fully strategic blueprints designed to translate high-level vision into structured, optimized content ready for production.
Strategic Brief Creation
Each brief served as a comprehensive guide for writers, editors, and QA reviewers, aligning every stage of production with the strategic goals. It included:
- Search intent alignment to ensure the content directly answered user queries
- Structural guidance outlining headings and comparison flow
- On-page optimization details covering target keyword use, interlinking, and Snippet opportunities
Content Production & Quality Control
With a clear strategy approved, Stellar moved into execution, ensuring each piece was structured, optimized, and seamlessly integrated into the client’s content ecosystem.
- Writers developed drafts based on the briefs.
- Editors refined clarity, tone, and factual accuracy while ensuring alignment with brand voice.
- QA specialists conducted final reviews, optimizing for search performance and double-checking adherence to SEO and content guidelines.
- Client review and revisions completed the process to ensure each article met business needs and branding standards before publication.
Deployment & Publication
Unlike traditional content rollouts, the 10 comparison articles were published gradually between August 2024 and January 2025. This phased deployment allowed for:
- Indexing and rankings to emerge at different times across articles based on the order of publication
- Performance monitoring at each stage to refine future releases if needed
- Seamless integration with existing product and category pages to strengthen conversion potential and improve the overall buyer journey
Link Building Approach
Rather than engaging in active link-building campaigns, 1-800 Contacts chose not to focus on building backlinks but to let the content acquire backlinks organically. This was in part due to the exceptional quality, helpfulness, and value of the comparison content.
Results: Rapid Rankings & Competitive Gains
The comparison content delivered immediate and measurable results, with all 10 articles starting to capture keywords and rankings within days of publication.
Within the first month:
- 9 out of 10 articles ranked in the Top 10 of Google SERPs.
- Half reached Top 3 positions, securing some of the most authoritative positions in search.
- Every article attracted an average of 50 brand-new organic visitors within weeks.
- 7 articles captured Featured Snippets, further elevating their presence in search results.
- 4 articles appeared in AI Overviews, reinforcing 1-800 Contacts as a trusted, authoritative source.
- The content also earned organic backlinks without a dedicated link-building campaign.
Beyond rankings, the new comparison pages helped create a more seamless content-to-conversion journey, giving users clear pathways from research to purchase.
Competitive Impact: A Shift in Search Authority
Before this initiative, 1-800 Contacts relied on informational articles and product pages, leaving mid-funnel comparison searches dominated by competitors and UGC sites.
The new content shifted that dynamic, allowing 1-800 Contacts to:
- Dominate the top 3 most visible positions in search results (AI Overviews, Featured Snippets, and the Top 10 results) to drive impressions, traffic, and authority
- Displace competitors in highly visible Snippets and SERP positions
- Expand its presence in AI Overviews, reinforcing topical and brand authority
- Establish lasting search visibility for queries it previously didn’t rank for
This shift not only improved competitive standing but positioned 1-800 Contacts as the go-to resource for product comparisons, keeping more users on-site during key decision moments.
Conclusion: A Case Study in Strategic SEO Execution
This initiative redefined how 1-800 Contacts competed for mid-funnel traffic, turning a previously overlooked content area into a high-performing SEO asset.
By combining intent-optimized research and helpfully structured content, the brand:
- Captured high-ranking positions, including Featured Snippets and AI Overview citations
- Strengthened topical authority in product comparisons, a space historically dominated by competitors and UGC
- Closed a critical content gap, creating a direct path from research-driven queries to conversions
- Increased organic traffic and engagement, with each page contributing lasting value to the site’s overall search performance
Most importantly, the brand reduced reliance on third-party sites for comparison-driven searches and reinforced its authority as the go-to resource for contact lens buyers — exactly where it should be.
