Zapier's programatic SEO approach that puts their partners as the hero

• Growth breakdown: How Zapier generates over 6 million organic search visits with their automated SEO strategy.

• Cool things I saw to take your growth to the moon.

• Top tools to level up your growth.

Zapier: Automated SEO machine worth millions in organic clicks

🏆 The one thing:

If you’re short on time, here’s the one thing to take away:

Approach your SEO strategy from multiple angles.

As generative AI is becoming a more daily part of our lives. Programmatic SEO is becoming more popular - and understandably so.

Programmatic SEO can be a great boost for early-stage startups to get the ball rolling while their blog is building traction and authority. And takes a fraction of the time.

But SEO has a lot more potential. The easier something becomes, the more it becomes commoditized. You need to blend in value-packed blog content to build off a programmatic base.

📚 The tactic:

A brief explanation of the tactic.

Last month Zapier brought in over 6 million organic search visits.

That’s impressive for any business.

But when you consider that the monthly search volume for “automation tool” (the core of Zapier) is under 10k. It’s like finding a different flavored Dorito in your packet. It’s awesome. But you’re also puzzled how it got here.

So how has Zapier done it?

By turning the focus away from them and onto their partners - the apps that Zapier integrates. Over 90% of those 6 million visits came from non-Zapier brand searches.

They have gone after their partners' use cases. Creating content on an almost infinite list of potential use cases for their Zapier.

“Best productivity app” - guess who pops up #1 organic on Google?

Zapier. Not Notion. Not ClickUp. Not Monday.

“Calendar apps”?

Zapier. Not Google Calendar. Not Fantastical. Not Hey Calendar.

“How to send Calendly bookings to Notion database”?

Zapier.

And the best part?

They’ve pretty much automated it all.

🎯 The execution:

3 actionable insights from the tactic.

🚪 1. The helpful backdoor

Zapier had to find a solution to the problem of low search intent for its core feature.

So instead of focusing on Zapier’s solutions, they focused on creating high-quality, unbiased, informational pieces that answered questions people were already searching for - ‘best’ lists, how-to guides, etc.

Then once they got people on the page, they delivered on the search’s promise, but also offered an alternative, better solution: Zapier. Opening a back door for user acquisition.

(three phases graphic)

Today their blog contributes over 67% of Zapier’s organic traffic. A huge driver for signups.

To make this practical, let’s look at a recent post: The best AI chatbots in 2024.

Zapier is not an AI chatbot. But it does provide integrations for a lot of them. And through the article, opens the back door to you becoming a Zapier user. Take this example with Claude:

A few clicks later and you’re creating an automation to write email responses.

These are often high-volume keywords that if you can rank high on Google, bring thousands of visitors per article.

The best example, Zapier’s hack with the ‘best’ format:

Ranking in the top 3 for 2,397 keywords with this ‘best’ pattern in the USA alone. And becoming a go-to source for unbiased product reviews and comparisons.

🛬 2. Intent-based landing pages

I know you’ve been here before:

You find a new tool. Fall in love with it. Can’t stop using it. But it doesn’t quite fit into your current tech stack. Why? It doesn’t have the native integrations for the tools you use.

So what do you do?

Well, you Google it - or maybe you use GPT or Claude.

Either way, you get the same answer.

Zapier.

Rather than trying to convince users on integrations and automation. Zapier targeted the specific use cases already being searched for.

They redirected their SEO focus away from Zapier and onto their partners - who were often already household names with a ton of brand value, or niche tools with not many competitors for search. Either way, a win.

To do this, Zapier automatically creates 3 tiers of integrations every time a new app joins their platform.

1. App landing pages (like this folk page). This is the start. It’s where all the integrations for a specific app can be found. Each page is generated to fit a template structure and layout.

2. App to App integrations pages (like this Typeform to folk page). This is where we start to see the mass scale. Stemming off the main app page can be hundreds of integration pages.

3. Workflow-specific pages (like this page on how to send new entries from Typeform to create new persons in your folk CRM). This branches off from each integration pair into the specific use cases. We’re again talking about hundreds for certain integrations.

Because of this programmatic (automated) approach, they can reach massive scale, with almost no human effort. And on top of this have created a content growth flywheel to automate sales:

More traffic and users → More apps want to join → More integrations → More landing pages → More traffic and users. And so it continues. Practically all on automation.

🔗 3. Links everywhere

One of the biggest things that stuck out to me about the Zapier website is just how connected everything is. They are masters of internal linking.

Let’s go back to the Claude example from above.

You see, it’s not just the backdoor that’s been opened. But also the door to the kitchen and lounge. Then you follow those links. And get to more suggested automations with Zapier. And you guessed it, more internal links.

Why does this work so well?

1. It keeps users on your site for longer. Which increases Google’s ranking of your site and increases the chance of conversion.

2. Provides more chances for someone to find a Zap that appeals to them.

3. Passes link equity between pages (Zapier uses pages that have a lot of backlinks to boost other pages)

But key to it all, is that Zapier’s content is information-rich and useful. People won’t buy from you if your content isn’t valuable.

My picks to take your business to the moon 📽️

• Codie Sanchez’s 32 rules to being a founder (link)

• How to conduct market research for your SaaS idea (link)

• Greg Isenberg’s playbook to become a 0.01% business (link)

Tools of the week 🔨

• Swell AI: Repurpose Audio or Video Content for Every Marketing Channel.

• Typedream: Plan & Build Your Website with AI

• HeyGen: Effortlessly produce studio-quality videos with AI-generated avatars and voices.