One Simple Change That 12Xed Ahrefs Organic Traffic

368,064!

That’s the estimated number of “organic visitors” that discover the Ahrefs website every year from the “backlink checker” page.

That stat is from Semrush’s organic research tool, BTW.

Now, here’s a (fun yet interesting) fact:

Ahrefs has long maintained position number 1 for this page’s primary keyword.

But guess what?

This has not always been the case.

For many years, the company grappled with the challenge of ranking past position number 5 on Google for the keyword.

Until they made a single yet profound change.

So, what exactly did Ahrefs do, and how did they fix this common SEO mistake that most startups make?

That’s precisely what I’ll be sharing with you in this email, and how you can apply these insights to your own SaaS startup's SEO strategy.

My promise is that after reading and implementing what you learned in today’s email, your content will rank higher on Google.

Which will help you get more visitors to your website through organic search.

Before we continue, here’s a message from this week’s sponsor.

Now, back to the email.

Before we get to the Ahrefs story, let me ask you this question…

Why do you create content for your SaaS startup?

If you’re like most people, your answer could be any of the following:

• Build brand awareness

• Educate your target audience

• Become a niche thought leader

• Drive user signups

• Acquire more leads

• Grow MRR and ARR

Here is the thing…

 Your target audience must find your content to make any of these possible.

Otherwise, no one will know it exists, even if you create the best content piece in the world.

Of course, there are different ways to distribute your content to reach your target audience, such as:

• Paid Ads (social and search)

• Newsletter Sponsorship

• Slack communities

• Facebook groups

• Email marketing

• Organic social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok)

• SEO

The downside of most of these channels is that the results aren’t typical, even if you do everything right.

Here’s what I mean by that…

Let’s say you created a Twitter thread to promote a recently published blog post.

There’s no guarantee that your thread will go viral, so more people will see your content and know your brand.

Even if you have thousands of followers, the algorithm might not favor you that day.

Let’s assume your thread went viral, and more people in your target audience saw it.

In most cases, everyone would have moved on from your content within 24-48 hours (or a maximum of a week).

The same can be said for other distribution channels as well.

This is why SEO is the best distribution channel for SaaS startups.

With SEO, you’re guaranteed to get people to visit your website if your topic has a decent search volume and you rank high on Google.

But here is the problem with SEO.

Most searchers only click on the top-ranking pages on the SERPs.

Hence, the lower you rank on the SERPs, the fewer visits to your website.

A recent study by First Page Sage shows that the number 1 position on the SERPs gets 39.8% of the clicks from Google searchers.

The second and third positions get 18.7% and 10.2% of the clicks, respectively.

According to the research, if you rank at the bottom of the first page, you’ll get 1.6% of the clicks.

What happens if you rank on the second or even tenth page of Google? Chances are that no one will know that your content exists.

Let’s use an example to make this real:

Say you’re a B2B SaaS startup in the email marketing niche trying to rank for the keyword “email marketing tools,” which has a search volume of 1,900, according to Keywords Everywhere.

Using the study above, here’s a breakdown of the estimated website visitors that the top ten pages on Google for this keyword would get.

As you can see, for a keyword with a search volume of 1,900, the number one ranking page receives 756 organic traffic visitors, while the page on the bottom of the first page receives just 30 website visitors from the search.

What does this show?

You can 25X the visitors to a page from Google by ranking higher on the first page.

Of course, there are other factors that might impact a page's CTR in the SERPs, but at least this gives you a picture of what’s possible.

Which brings us to the big question…

How can you rank higher on Google and get the coveted top spot on the SERPs?

Before diving deep into the answer, let’s return to the Ahrefs story.

As I mentioned previously, they were struggling to rank first for the keyword “backlink checker.”

So, what happened?

Let’s use the before and after of the “backlink checker” page to answer the question.

According to the Wayback Machine, this is what the page looked like when it was first published in 2017.

And this is what it looked like in 2021 after they initially updated it.

So, what changed?

It’s simple.

The positioning.

As you can see, the first version was a landing page prompting the reader to start a free trial of the tool.

The page was gated in this case, and only those who paid could see how it worked.

The second version is an ungated tool that anyone can use for FREE to analyze the backlinks of any page and see how Ahrefs works in action.

And what does this have to do with ranking higher?

Here is it...

The key to ranking higher on Google is ensuring that your content perfectly matches the search intent of the keyword.

In the case of Ahrefs, they found out that most users searching for that keyword wanted a free tool. 

So, they built exactly that and now occupy the top spot on Google and 12X organic visitors to the page. 

That’s different from what you’ve probably heard about acquiring more backlinks to outrank your competitors.

You see…

Backlinks are essential for ranking high on Google, especially in competitive niches. But that doesn’t mean you can’t rank high on Google without them.

However, neglecting search intent when creating content is one guaranteed way to ensure that it doesn’t appear on the first page of the SERPs.

And this is the biggest mistake I see many startups making with SEO.

Truth is…

You can create the most comprehensive content on a particular topic. However, if it does not match the search intent, Google will not rank you for that keyword.

Now you may be wondering...

How can you ensure that any content you create matches the search intent?

It’s simple.

Put yourself in the shoes of your potential readers.

Ask yourself this question.

If I searched for this query on Google and came across this page, would I continue to read (consume) it?

If the answer is no, then you’ve not matched the search intent. But if it’s a yes, then you’re good to go.

While that’s largely subjective, you’ll mostly get this right if you have deep expertise in your niche.

Another recommended way (which works well) for confirming search intent is to perform a manual search on Google for the keyword you’re targeting.

Here is an example…

Let’s say you want to go after the keyword “project management software.”

A quick Google search shows this:

Here are some of the common themes here: 

• The best free

• The 15 Best

• Best 

• 2024

What does this show?

The search intent here is a listicle mentioning the “best project management software” and its features.

And if your listicle is updated for 2024 and includes free project management software, that’ll go a long way.

So, if you create an article about “what is project management,” you’ll struggle to outrank these pages.

Here is another example…

Let’s say you want to target the keyword “broken link building.”

A quick Google search shows these top-ranking pages on the SERPs:

The common themes in this case are:

• The complete guide

• What is

• How To

• In-depth guide

What does this show?

In this case, the searcher is looking for informational content about “broken link building.” So, creating an in-depth guide is the surefire way to rank for a keyword like this.

Here's one final example before we wrap things up.

Let’s say you’re targeting the keyword “Transcribe Video to Text.”

Here’s what the SERPs look like:

The common themes here include:

• Transcribe video to text

• Convert video to text for free

• AI transcription software

• Video to text converter

• Transcribe video to text free online

Notice the difference between the top-ranking pages here and the previous ones?

In this case, you’d see no article ranking here.

This shows that the searcher seeks a free tool to transcribe video to text. If you create a blog post targeting this keyword, your chances of ranking are slim.

Your best bet is to build a free tool to meet the search intent here.

To recap… 

Search intent is an important ranking factor that most people ignore. To get higher rankings on Google, ensure your content matches the search intent.

Hope you found this helpful and valuable.

To your startup success,

Shehu AbdulGaniy 

Founder, Your Content Mart

P.S: If you learned something new from this week’s email, do not hesitate to invite your colleagues and friends to join The SaaS SEO Insights today through this link. Counting on your support 🤝.