15X growth with a twist of experimentation

Experimentation in SEO is one of the most untapped growth levers most teams have at their disposal.

That, plus other content and CRO overhauls, allowed Tipalti to reach 15X growth. Logan Bryant is sharing the full story today.

Keep reading for a guide that covers what goes into crafting a strong product marketing strategy. We're also telling you how a Spanish agency expanded its services from SEO to CRO, UX, UI, and analytics, with the help of CXL training.

TODAY'S HOST

Logan Bryant, B2B SEO & Demand Gen Advisor

When I managed inbound marketing at Tipalti, we started an SEO and content overhaul that has since brought 15X growth for our non-branded traffic and 10X growth for our SQLs.

This was achieved through 6 strategic changes to our content game:

1. I set up the program’s foundational pieces and processes.

This included a buildout of the company’s Keyword TAM with focused keyword priorities, a technical audit, topic clustering, dashboard reports, and, most crucially, a process that I call our “Content Priority Log.”

This “Priority Log” became the foundation alongside the Keyword TAM for all our content creation endeavors.

Lastly, I set up an SEO Testing Dashboard to capture low-hanging fruit opportunities with SEO experimentation.

2. I applied fast wins ASAP with SEO title & featured snippet testing.

As the new guy, I needed to instill trust and buy-in from our team to grow, so I utilized title testing to get an injection of quick wins on the website ASAP.

Besides the fast ranking improvements this generated, the title testing also earned a lot of trust from leadership to place a big bet on SEO.

In addition to title tags, I also ran a few URL experiments and several featured snippet tests to maximize featured snippet traffic. More on the exact testing process can be found in CXL's Growth-Focused SEO Testing course.

3. We kick-started a content-driven SEO program centered on BOFU traffic targets.

Although we did increase our overall traffic with TOFU/MOFU articles, we invested most of our efforts into growing strategic, conversion-oriented BOFU keywords and rankings.

We did this by analyzing keyword modifiers that indicated a higher intent (‘global payments software,’ ‘global payments solutions’) and using those as the priority posts we wanted to create. Our traffic quality improved significantly after this, with 1200 acquired featured snippets.

4. We incorporated conversion-rate optimization enhancements and scaled even more SEO experiments

Traffic growth was very exciting, but it doesn’t always feed the sales team. So alongside our traffic growth, we had to rely on conversion-rate optimization in order to really grow leads and bring users further down the funnel.

We did this by pairing each of our content hubs (a.k.a. “topic clusters”) with the most relevant, most applicable gated lead magnet that we could find, thus creating a more personalized experience with our CTAs.

We also scaled up our SEO experiments, implemented more schema markup, added jump links, and improved our author profiles.

5. We backed up our SEO team with more hands.

Truly successful programs aren’t built with a one-man-band approach. We contracted and trained a virtual assistant with no experience to handle time-intensive projects alongside our freelance writers, whom we also trained extensively on SEO copywriting best practices.

As we continued prioritizing content projects according to opportunity size and impact, I owned brief creation and prioritization, the content writer produced the article, and the VA formatted it in WordPress.

By the four-month mark, we had doubled non-branded traffic.

6. We changed our approach to link acquisition.

Before I joined, Tipalti had been investing in links with various guest posting services without any real, measurable success. Most guest posts didn’t meet the quality standards we aimed for, and I encouraged the team to switch to a digital PR link acquisition strategy.

We sourced with an excellent Digital PR agency whose deliverables impressed our CMO, and the quality of our link acquisition outputs improved significantly. The agency earned us press coverage and brand awareness in addition to top-tier backlinks.

Tipalti’s strategy hinged on tightly-coordinated content processes, lots of experimentation, external contracting, and scaling executive buy-in and processes as we hired and trained new, incredible professionals.

If you enjoyed this read and would like to dive deeper, you can also check out my full case study write-up here.

I owe a great deal of credit and gratitude to my teammates and colleagues for their outstanding delivery. B2B SEO is not a solo sport.

Connect with Logan on LinkedIn.

Nailing your product marketing strategy: here’s what you need to succeed

ConvertKit launched in 2013 to face early-on-the-scene competitors like Mailchimp and Constant Contact.

Instead of quitting following a slow first two years, they doubled down on a niche: email marketing for creators.

Product marketing was the key to pinpointing their positioning and messaging, and evolving it into the specialized email marketing hub it is today.

Let’s look at how you too can craft a product marketing strategy as a roadmap for how you position, price, and promote your new product in the market.

Read the entire article.