A year of steady blogging and it's finally starting to pay off
It took almost a year of consistent work, but we're finally starting to see a steady stream of leads through our content efforts now.
We work with a lot of startups who are hoping to use content to grow quickly, but that's not typically how it works. Content is a flywheel - it takes a long time to ramp up but it's really sticky once it does.
Here's the approach I took to go from 0 to 82,000 monthly impressions in Google every month:
1. Create a lead magnet
Unfortunately, most search engine traffic isn't going to be a potential buyer, so you need some way to filter leads from passers by.
I worked with Rachel Kraft to put one together. Our goal was to make something super valuable to Draft's potential customers that would help us qualify readers who weren't actually in our target market.
After downloading the lead magnet, readers were added to our weekly email list and I would reach out personally if their email address was at a company we might work with.
2. Tackle keywords intentionally
I wrote a few early pieces about our process and philosophy, but these had to come from me, so they were really hard to scale.
The gamechanger was going after specific, high-volume, low-difficulty keywords. This allowed us to work with external contributors, so even though the content is less focused, it brings in a much greater volume of traffic and it's scalable.
3. You're not done after you create the content
We do a lot of social media promotion, but also reach out directly when an article mentions someone. Social was over half our traffic until last month when organic search finally started to eclipse it.
4. Linkbuilding doesn't have to be scummy
Finally, you don't have to spam people to build links. Write guest posts, join HARO, get creative! Then use your domain authority and internal links to help content rank faster.
So is Content Worth It
Is SEO a viable strategy for a bootstrapped company?
Yes.
Will it be the place you get your first 10 customers?
Not likely.
Building a content flywheel takes time. If you can't wait 6 months for results, your better off starting with other channels.
But, once it gets going, content is a sustainable, valuable asset.
