How Zapier growth hacked SEO
The strategies used to grow from 0-600K users in 3 years
A thread👇👇
1) Zapier, founded in 2011 by CEO Wade Foster, lets you connect different web applications to perform certain actions without the need of a human (with automation)
2) Strategy 1: Observe Customer Hangouts
Foster interacted in product forums. Companies like Dropbox, Evernote, all had forums where customers could make product requests. Foster joined forums and found posts like “I love Evernote, but it would be great if it worked with Dropbox”
3) He would respond with solutions through available API’s or inform them that he’s working on a project to make integrations for their feedback, sending a link to find out more.
He got about 20 visitors per link, but had a 50% conversion rate saying they wanted his product.
4) When he had a functioning prototype, Foster Skyped with people, asked what products they wanted to integrate, and he would do it for them.
He provided the desired result (what people cared about) while also realizing people were looking for specific integrations
5) Strategy 2: Landing Page Hack
Rather than pitching users on the value of integration tools, they decided to leverage their app partners in their integration ecosystem, piggybacking their brands.
This became the focal point of their marketing success
9) Strategy 3: Scaling Content
Instead of writing all landing page content themselves, Zapier created a playbook for onboarding and launching new app partners. Part of this process was getting their partner apps to write the landing page content for them.
11) This freed up time (heaviest SEO investment) and generated the best content from people who have the best understanding of each apps use case (the creators).
Part of the playbook involved app partners writing a post on their blog which helped build backlinks, optimizing SEO
