Corks and Clicks #2: How Maker Wine’s “Stealth” SEO helped them take on White Claw
Disclaimer: Maker Wine is not and has never been a client of Alignment Content Marketing.
Suppose you swing by the store after work on a Friday and notice a special on White Claw. Since you’re on a diet, you pull out your phone and Google “white claw carb.”
You learn the carb content, but the information might not come from White Claw. The top search result (as of this writing) comes from a blog post written by Maker Wine.
Sure, a page from White Claw is the second result. But how and why is a canned wine brand even competing with White Claw for long-tail SEO keywords the hard-seltzer titan should dominate? Why is another hard seltzer brand (Corona, Truly) not in the mix?
The answer boils down to Maker Wine’s super smart content strategy, which uses something I call “stealth” SEO.
In this edition of Corks & Clicks, I’ll unpack stealth SEO, explain why Maker Wine uses it, and help you decide whether it’s right for you.
What is Stealth SEO?
Stealth SEO is not a technical term within the SEO community. It’s my expression for using content gap analysis — that’s a technical term — to “steal” ranking opportunities from your competition.
Here’s how it works:
1 - Use Ahrefs’s Organic Competitors report to figure out who’s trying to rank for the same or similar organic keywords as your brand. Note: If you’re starting from scratch and have little or no indexed content, this report won’t be useful. But keep reading! You can still be stealthy.
2 - Sure enough, White Claw shows up as one of Maker Wine’s organic competitors. According to the report, the brands share 943 ranking keywords.
3 - White Claw ranks for more keywords overall (11,465), so the next step for Maker Wine is to run a content gap analysis in Ahrefs. The goal is to learn whether White Claw has any relevant keywords that Maker Wine can “steal” by creating better content around them.
4 - Google’s algorithm favors better, “more helpful” content, ranking it higher in search results. If a piece of content from Maker Wine ranks higher for a keyword, it will steal the eyeballs that would have settled on similar White Claw content.
5 - The content gap analysis raises an interesting opportunity for Maker Wine:
6 - “Low carb seltzer” has a keyword difficulty level of 3 (easy) and monthly search volume of 800. White Claw claims the 82nd spot on Google Search for that keyword. Low difficulty and solid search volume means that Maker Wine has the potential to rank for it.
7 - Maker Wine could target “low carb seltzer” with a blog post titled “Is Maker Wine better for dieters than low carb seltzer?” They could feature a quote or two from a dietician (authority) and show how their wine is a better option for weight-conscious drinkers.
Maker Wine obviously ran these reports months or years ago in order to be competing with White Claw today for so many keywords.
Now we’ll dig deeper into Maker Wine’s content strategy and explore why they’d want to take on White Claw with stealth SEO in the first place.
But who is Maker Wine?
Maker Wine was founded in 2018 by two Stanford Business School grads, Sarah Hoffman and Kendra Kawala. They source premium wine from the West Coast and package it not in bottles, but in cans.
Why cans? They’re more portable, less snobby, and more environmentally friendly than bottles. The Alliance to End Plastic Waste ranks aluminum cans second in their list of most sustainable drink containers. (Recycled aluminum cans are number one.)
Glass bottles? Dead last.
Today, Maker Wine is winning Best in Show awards at the annual International Canned Wine Competition. Better yet, the global market for canned wine is booming. Straits Research predicts it will be worth $593 million in 2031, up from $213 million in 2022.
While the future looks bright for Maker Wine, they had several challenges at the outset. One was convincing consumers that canned wine can also be premium wine. Another was competing with the dozens of other canned alcoholic beverages, especially hard seltzer.
Maker Wine vs. White Claw: The Content Strategy
Maker Wine’s overall content strategy targets Millennial drinkers who share these characteristics:
Those who care more about enjoying affordable wine and supporting small producers than chasing critics’ scores; and
Those who are open to trying canned wine but might have a few reservations.
One of these reservations, Maker Wine theorized, is how canned wine’s ABV and calories stack up to White Claw’s. Many Millennials — who would otherwise drink wine — might drink White Claw only because they think it’s “healthier.”
Maker Wine takes on this reservation in a single blog post. And thanks to stealth SEO and a razor-sharp understanding of their target audience, the post currently garners more than 4,000 organic visits per month. Let’s audit the post itself.
Maker Wine deploys appropriate keywords.
As we explained above, stealth SEO depends on targeting competitors’ keywords. And while Maker Wine’s keyword strategy in its White Claw post isn’t 100% clear, we can work backwards and learn a few things.
Based on the H1 and slug, the primary keyword is “White Claw vs wine.” (White Claw doesn’t rank in the top 10 for it. Maker Wine ranks first.)
If Maker Wine uses Ahrefs, they would see that the parent topic for this keyword is “alcohol in White Claw.” This means Maker Wine can include content and keywords related to “alcohol in White Claw” and still rank for “White Claw vs wine.”
Later in the post, Maker Wine includes this sentence:
“And ‘White Claw alcohol content,’ ‘White Claw calories,’ ‘White Claw nutrition,’ and ‘how many White Claws does it take to get drunk’ has tens of thousands of monthly Google searches.”
This sentence lets Maker Wine:
Include secondary (related) keywords like “White Claw calories” Google uses to better understand the content of a page; and
Reference subjects related to the parent topic.
Not to mention these secondary keywords are “easy” to rank for (according to Ahrefs) and have monthly search volumes ranging from 250 to 7,500. Maker Wine and White Claw are neck and neck for two out of the four.
The writer has an original angle on the topic.
The success of Maker Wine’s post is due to more than keywords. It also satisfies Google’s criteria for “helpful content,” a key ranking factor. Google frames these criteria as questions to ask about a piece of content.
Among other questions, Maker Wine’s post is a resounding yes to “Does the content provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond the obvious?” This is where their original angle comes into play.
The post’s “obvious” angle would be to show that wine has fewer calories and less alcohol than White Claw. So when you’re staring at the store shelf, you reach for wine.
Maker Wine throws a bit of a curve ball. They admit that White Claw has slightly fewer calories and less alcohol per serving. But it’s also not “Made Pure.”
Maker cites White Claw’s artificial flavors and sweeteners, and that White Claw drinkers on average consume 2.8 cans in a sitting.
For these reasons, wine is the more sensible and enjoyable path to a social buzz:
You tend to drink less of it in a sitting for the same effect.
It tastes better.
It has one, all-natural ingredient: grapes.
Maker Wine never claims wine is “healthier.” They reframe the argument from “Which is healthier?” to “Which is the better indulgence?”
The post’s call to action is clear.
Of course the ultimate call to action is to buy Maker Wine. But the White Claw post doesn’t feel salesy because the writer makes such a strong case for wine.
Thanks to the post, a reader on the fence about whether to buy White Claw or wine must deal with these realities:
White Claw isn’t as “good for you” as you may have thought.
It’s owned and produced by a large corporation.
Like White Claw, Maker Wine is vegan and gluten-free.
If you buy Maker Wine, you’re supporting a small, women-owned business and dozens of small, independent growers.
So if you buy Maker Wine, you can enjoy your social buzz knowing you’re doing some good in the world.
The article is easy to digest and yes, fun to read.
Pop culture references (Friends TV show), skimmable charts, conversational language — Maker Wine makes a convincing argument in a satisfying fashion. The article is as much entertainment as education, and it pulls in Maker’s target audience.
More technically, it satisfies Google’s “people-first” content requirement, another ranking factor. After reading the post, it’s hard to answer “Will someone reading your content leave feeling like they've had a satisfying experience?” with a no.
Use Stealth SEO to Supercharge Your Content
It’s one thing to use stealth SEO to pull in competitors’ traffic. It’s something else entirely to keep them on your page and convince them to engage with your brand. Maker Wine does both.
And with thousands of wine brands competing for a dwindling number of wine drinkers, stealth SEO is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s now a critical piece of your content marketing strategy.
If you’re not sure how to incorporate stealth SEO into your content strategy, reach out to me here for a free consultation.