Case Studied: Vol 67. Zapier: Scoring with SEO 🔎

For some brands, finding your target audience is straightforward. If you’re a car brand, someone who needs a car can search for exactly that and probably find your product. 

But for other brands, like Zapier, customers may not be searching for your specific product, even when the need for it arises. So to get in front of them, it takes some creativity. 

This week, Case Studied explores how Zapier increased its organic traffic by 300% over three years using SEO

The Brief:

Zapier calls itself an online automation platform. What does that mean? In practice, its products enable users to connect various apps in order to automate workflows and routine tasks online. 

So if you need information from one platform, like HubSpot, to connect or auto-populate with information from another platform, like Quickbooks, Zapier helps you do that by “zapping” the data over. 

Though their product has clear value, driving organic traffic in the saturated SaaS space is extremely difficult. Plus, even when there’s a clear need that Zapier could solve, not many folks are searching for “automation platforms.” 

Recognizing that their potential users probably aren’t searching specifically for an “automation platform”, Zapier tailored its SEO strategy around the pain points their customers would search for instead. 

The Execution:

To target users looking to connect their apps, Zapier took a few key steps. For starters, they created strategic, SEO blog content that didn’t speak directly to their product but provided an opportunity to promote it nonetheless. 

This took the form of “best of” articles, like “Best note-taking app.”

Even though Zapier doesn’t sell or offer these apps, they do integrate with them and the articles gave them a chance to showcase that capability. And if a reader used or started using one of those apps, they may also be looking for ways to automate their workflow with them as well. 

The CTAs strategically pointed to readers to Zapier’s capabilities, using language like:

• “Turn ideas into action”, “Automate your note-taking”

• “Once you’ve picked a note-taking app, check out our favorite ways to use automation to improve how you put your notes to work, track action items from meetings, and put an end to regular copy-paste actions.”

• “Related articles: How to automate your note-taking app with Zapier”

These articles earned high-quality backlinks from hundreds of referring domains. In fact, if you searched for the best note taking app right now, Zapier’s blog would likely be in your top five results. 

But Zapier didn’t stop with high quality blog content. They created landing pages on their integrations that targeted users looking to connect different apps. They tiered these pages to capture a wide range of search intent:

Tier 1 showed each individual app they integrate with

Tier 2 showed app-to-app integrations 

Tier 3 showed three-way app-to-app workflows 

With this approach, Zapier could target a wide range of keywords and high-intent searches, all focused on integration. As a result, their reach across customer bases was massive, giving them the opportunity to rank for a large amount of long-tail queries. 

But how did Zapier create such a large volume of landing pages? The platform connects with over 6,000+ apps and when you factor in all the different combinations, it’s an insane amount of pages. 

Programmatic SEO made it possible. Zapier used this to create a range of optimized pages at once using existing data and pre-programmed rules. They simply chose their data points—basic stuff like a description of each app, a CTA, related blogs—and let programmatic handle the rest. 

Lastly, Zapier leveraged partner marketing very strategically. With so many integration partners, this was a low-hanging opportunity that the platform took advantage of. This takes the form in many ways—blogs, onboarding emails, social posts, leveraging relationships with their partners to maximize the impact of their efforts.

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The Results:

As of 2023, Zapier has 6 million backlinks, and 1.4 million keywords in the top 100 organic search results. And of that, 42.8k are in the top 10. 

They tripled organic traffic in three years from 1.19 million users per month in 2020 to 4.8 million in 2023. That year, Zapier’s website was pulling 4.8 million monthly visitors. 

Key Takeaways:

Zapier’s strategy offers a lot of learnings about SEO and get your brand in front of the right people. Here are a few lessons you can take with you:

1. Target Pain Points, Not Products

   Zapier recognized that potential customers weren't searching for "automation platforms" even when they needed one. Instead, they targeted the specific pain points and integration needs their audience was actually searching for. By creating content around the apps people use rather than focusing solely on their own product, they captured relevant traffic that could be converted.

   
   

   As a marketer, focus your SEO strategy on the problems your customers are trying to solve rather than just your product features. Identify the actual search terms your potential customers use when they have the problem your product solves. This shift in perspective can open up enormous organic traffic opportunities by aligning your content with your customers' actual search behavior.

2. Create Strategic Content Hierarchies

   Zapier built a multi-tiered content strategy with blog posts and landing pages designed to capture different levels of search intent. From general "best of" articles to specific app integration pages, they created a comprehensive content ecosystem that captured traffic at various stages of the customer journey.

   Your brand should implement a similar tiered content approach. Start by mapping out content that addresses broad industry topics, then create more specific content that naturally leads users toward your solution. By developing content at each level of specificity, you can capture traffic from a wide range of keywords while guiding users toward conversion opportunities that showcase your product's value.
   

3. Leverage Programmatic SEO and Partner Marketing
   
   Zapier scaled their SEO efforts through programmatic page creation, allowing them to generate thousands of optimized landing pages using templates and automation. Additionally, they strategically leveraged their integration partners for backlinks and cross-promotion opportunities, creating a network effect that amplified their reach.

   
   

   Consider how your brand can use automation to scale content creation while maintaining quality. Identify data sources that can be templated into valuable pages at scale. Simultaneously, map out your ecosystem of partners, suppliers, or complementary services and develop systematic approaches to create mutually beneficial marketing opportunities. This combination of programmatic efficiency and strategic partnerships can dramatically increase your organic visibility without proportionally increasing resources.

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