Why the Berlin Packaging Chicago Team Killed My Keyword-Stuffed Draft

If you've ever tried to write one blog post that ranks for everything, you know how it ends. It ranks for nothing.

I'm not an SEO expert. I'm an operations coordinator at the Berlin Packaging Chicago office. For the last six years, I've handled packaging and print orders. I've personally documented eleven significant mistakes in that time, totaling roughly $18,000 in wasted budget. This one was maybe $2,000 of that, and it still stings.

A Tuesday in March

It started with a keyword list. Our sales team asked me to write one article that covered every search term they cared about. Someone typing berlin packaging or berlin packaging chicago might be a customer ready to talk. Someone searching berlin packaging logo probably just needs a file for an order. Then there were the other three: parts manual bush hog parts diagram, manual juicer for pomegranates, and how to wash the tote bag marc jacobs.

I should have said no. Instead, I said, 'I can make this work.'

That sentence is why this story exists.

Why I didn't stop after reading the list

The upside seemed obvious: one article, six possible rankings. The risk was a bloated post that didn't help anyone. I kept asking myself if six potential landing pages were worth the odds of writing something ridiculous. They weren't. But I had already told the team I could do it, and my ego got in the way.

From the outside, keyword research looks like a math problem. The reality is search intent is messy. The person searching for parts manual bush hog parts diagram wants a specific part on a rotary cutter. The person searching for how to wash the tote bag marc jacobs just wants to keep their bag from getting ruined. Neither of them wants a quote about corrugated boxes.

People assume SEO is about repeating keywords enough times to make search bots happy. What they miss is that matching the reader's actual intent is the hard part. I missed it too.

The draft

I spent ten days writing weird transitions. I found a way to connect a bush hog parts diagram to a pomegranate juicer. I made a joke about a Marc Jacobs tote bag being 'the only thing harder to ship than a juicer.' I asked our designer for a high-resolution Berlin Packaging logo so I could put it in a fake featured image. It was a mess.

I want to say the draft hit 3,400 words, but don't quote me on that number. It doesn't matter. It was technically structured nonsense. It had headings, a hook, a call to action, and no single answer.

Our plant manager read it and asked two questions. 'Who is this for?' I couldn't give a clean answer. 'What should they do after reading it?' I couldn't answer that either.

The turn

We killed the article. Then we split it into pieces.

One page answered the navigational query that belonged on our site: berlin packaging logo. It's a boring page with the logo formats our customers request all the time. It works because it matches the search.

One page covered packaging for a manual juicer for pomegranates, box size, inserts, and why a digital proof doesn't show how corrugated fluting behaves. It also cited USPS. According to USPS (usps.com), as of January 2025, a First-Class Mail large envelope costs $1.50 and can be up to 12 by 15 by 0.75 inches. Rates change, so check the current USPS page before you promise a customer anything.

The third page was for agriculture clients: how to put a parts manual bush hog parts diagram into a printed booklet that survives shipping and actual use. That one started ten minutes after we killed the mega-draft. It took almost no time because it had one clear job.

The how to wash the tote bag marc jacobs query? We chose not to answer it. We don't sell that product, and pretending we did was the original mistake.

The checklist

I don't have hard data on how much traffic the bad draft would have lost us. What I can say anecdotally is that the focused pages were better because they shipped, and the mega-draft didn't.

Now every content idea has to pass three questions:

1. Can I name one reader for this page?
2. Does the page answer one question well enough that the reader can act?
3. If I remove all the keywords, does the article still make sense?

That last one exists because of the Marc Jacobs tote-bag sentence. Trust me on this one: if a keyword can only show up as a joke, it doesn't belong in the article.

What I'd do differently

Looking back, I should have asked the sales team to rank the keywords by business value. At the time, I didn't want to tell anyone that their keyword was irrelevant. But relevance is a form of respect. It respects the reader's time.

Efficiency is a competitive advantage. The efficient move wasn't one bloated post. It was three focused posts and a logo page, each written once and updated when something changed.

This checklist worked for us because we're a B2B packaging and print supplier with a narrow audience. If you run a lifestyle media brand, a Marc Jacobs tote-bag care article might make total sense. My world is boxes, tape, flyers, and occasional parts manuals. The calculus is different.

Oh, and one more thing. Per FTC advertising guidelines (ftc.gov), claims need to be truthful and substantiated. An article that promises six answers but delivers one rambling story is a bad claim. We treat content like a packaging order now: define the spec, check the proof, then ship.