Is It a Bad Idea To Copy HubSpot’s SEO Strategy?

HubSpot currently has about 18,600 pages indexed on Google.

😮

What does this mean?

On average, they publish about 1033 articles on the blog every year since the company was founded.

Which translates to about 2-3 articles every single day.

And guess what?

According to Semrush, the blog currently ranks for over 1.7 million keywords on Google, bringing in an estimated 4.7 million organic traffic visitors monthly.

So, if they were to pay for this amount of traffic with Google Ads, they’d spend around $13.7 million per month.

What does this show?

HubSpot is one of the few SaaS brands that get SEO right.

But guess what?

Attempting to replicate their SEO strategy as a SaaS startup could lead to failure.

Yes, you read that right!

Now, you may be wondering…

Why is that so?

That’s precisely what I’d be uncovering in today’s email.

After reading this post, you’ll learn two things that HubSpot does SEO-wise that you shouldn’t attempt as a SaaS startup. 

In my next email, I’ll share one SEO strategy they pioneered that could be a game-changer for your SaaS startup.

Before we proceed, here’s a quick announcement:

Now, back to the email.

What are the two things HubSpot does that you shouldn’t copy as a SaaS startup?

1) Targeting High-Volume Low-Intent Keywords

According to Semrush, these are the top 5 pages from HubSpot’s blog that drive the most traffic to its website.

After analyzing these top keywords, I found a common theme.

Which is…

They are top-of-the-funnel keywords with high search volume.

Here is what that means…

Most people searching for these keywords don’t know if they have a problem that HubSpot can solve.

Instead, they search for information to meet their immediate needs on Google on Google.

Take the keyword “famous quotes” as an example.

Now, put yourself in the shoes of the person searching for it on Google. 

What exactly do you think is going on in their mind before Googling that?

Most likely, someone is randomly looking for quotes they can use to impress their friends on social media.

Do you think the person is interested in learning about CRMs, why they need tools to manage them, and what a solution like HubSpot can do for them?

Most likely, no.

So, what’s the end goal of spending time and resources to rank on Google for a keyword like that?

I leave HubSpot’s marketing team to answer that.

Another interesting observation about these keywords is that the Cost Per Click (CPC) is low.

Here’s a breakdown of the CPC of these keywords based on the data from Keywords Everywhere.

On average, the CPC of the top-ranking pages on HubSpot’s blog is $0.23.

What does this show?

Most of these keywords have low buying intent, so most advertisers don’t spend money, time, or resources bidding on them.

Now, make no mistake about it.

HubSpot (already a $2B+ ARR SaaS company) can go after these keywords and their likes.

If you’re a startup, you have no business targeting them.

So, what you should do instead?

Focus on the intent behind the query and not the search volume of the query.

To do this well, you MUST understand your audience’s pain points and Jobs To Be Done.

That’s how to identify buying intent keywords that resonate with people like them and drive conversions from organic search instead of traffic.

2) Creating a Subdomain For Its Blog

Here’s what the URL structure of the HubSpot’s blog looks like.

https://blog.hubspot.com/category/target-keyword/

As you can see, it has three (3) major parts:

• Subdomain

• Category

• Target keyword

For a big company like HubSpot, measuring and reporting on its several marketing efforts will be difficult without a structure like this.

Likewise, HubSpot has several subdomains in its resources section like:

• Academy

• Blog

• Community

• Knowledge

With this arrangement, it’ll be easy to track how the content from each subdomain performs.

Also, the blog serves several categories, such as:

• Marketing

• Sales

• Service

• AI

• Website 

Now, is there anything wrong with this?

For the categories, I’ll say it’s generally okay (especially if you publish thousands of blog posts on your website).

However, for the subdomain, you must be careful before copying something like that into your SEO strategy.

The reason is simple…

There’s a lot of debate in the SEO world about using subdomains or subdirectories on a website.

Here’s what I think…

Google treats a subdomain as a different entity.

Let’s say your website is xyz.com, and you created a subdomain like blog.xyz.com.

Google treats the subdomain as another independent mini-website on your website.

This means your subdomain won’t benefit from the backlinks and authority you’ve built for the primary domain over the years.

So, if your primary domain, xyz.com, has garnered 500 backlinks from 200 referring domains.

Your subdomain blog.xyz.com won’t benefit automatically from the efforts you’ve put in over the years.

Instead, you’d have to build the subdomain's authority from scratch, which might take time and resources.

So, my general recommendation is that you shouldn’t use a subdomain for your blog as a startup.

In conclusion, while HubSpot's SEO strategy is effective for its established position, it may not be suitable for startups.   

So, how can you win at SEO as a startup if you don’t copy HubSpot’s strategy?

Simple…

Look at successful companies similar to you or a step ahead of you to know exactly what they’re doing right.

This works well because of these reasons:

• They’re facing the same challenges as you are right now. 

• They have the same authority as yours.  

• They have access to resources similar to yours.

If you model what works for these smaller companies, there are high chances it’ll work for you.

This is one of my core focus at Your Content Mart.

I want to show SaaS startups how small and regular brands like them do SEO and drive impressive results.

Truth is…

Copying HubSpot is the easiest solution, but it will not take you to your destination.

This is why I’m excited about The Underdog SEO workshop, which I’m hosting next Wednesday. 

If you’re a SaaS Founder or Marketing Lead struggling to drive signups from your SEO efforts in 2024, this is where you should be. 

Simply reply to this email with “I’m in” or “I’m interested,” and I’ll share further details.

Hope you found this helpful and valuable.

Before you go, kindly share your honest feedback on today’s email below.

To your startup success,

Shehu AbdulGaniy 

Founder, Your Content Mart

P.S: If you learned something new from this week’s email, please invite your colleagues and friends to join through your referral link below. Counting on your support 🤝.