Reaching 9.6M in yearly traffic under 12 months w/ a SaaS tool

Flick is an Instagram hashtag manager and analytics tool that helps agencies, social media managers and content creators grow their clients’ Instagram accounts.

After consulting several SEO agencies, Flick settled on Embarque to handle their SEO needs. They decided to use our services due to our fair pricing and successful track record:

“We interviewed a few SEO companies and Embarque's past client roster and the cost are what made us decide to work with their team.”

In this case study, we'll explore how we helped Flick reach 9.6 million in annual organic search traffic in less than 12 months and become one of the biggest Instagram marketing platforms on the web.

The Problem - No Blog Presence

When Flick came to us, their primary source of traffic was hashtag-generator landing pages, such as this one. The issue with these pages is they simply don’t convert. People use them to generate hashtags, and once they obtain them, they leave.

Consequently, Flick had a high bounce rate and low conversion rate. However, during this time, they realized something that later proved to be a pivotal moment in their marketing efforts: their blog had a much higher conversion rate. The problem? Their blog was generating little traffic.

This is when Flick reached out to us to see how we could help them increase their blog traffic through SEO:

“Embarque was brought on to help us with our SEO strategy. We needed someone to help with optimizing past blog content, while also creating new content, landing pages for our website, and helping with getting more backlinks to our website/blog. Our main goals were to rank on the first page of Google.”

The Solution: Optimizing and Creating High-Quality Content

We started by doing comprehensive keyword research to find high-volume, low-competition keywords relevant to Flick’s target audience. From there, we created an optimization workflow, consisting of:

  • Devising a content calendar. We tackled different core topics related to Instagram growth. These core topics centered around their paid tools: hashtags, analytics, and scheduling. This made it easy to direct users to relevant landing pages and push them into the sales funnel.
  • Producing top-notch articles that Google loves. Our articles focus on one primary keyword with high search volume and various semantically related keywords that comprehensively answer the main query. Consequently, our content engaged users and left them eager to try Flick’s services.
  • Strategically using internal links. This helped improve Flick’s site architecture, guide users to money pages, and increase their overall rankings in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
  • Updating existing content. Flick had a lot of pages that were ranking on the second page of Google. By updating these pages, we were able to quickly push them to the first page, giving Flick an instant surge in traffic/conversions.
  • Building high-quality backlinks. Through cold email outreach, we were able to secure ten 30+ DR backlinks each month. We made sure to diversify the anchor text with a mix of branded, generic, and keyword anchors to push Flick’s most valuable pages to the first page of the SERPs.

We also held biweekly meetings with Flick’s team to discuss upcoming blog posts, landing pages, and backlinks — and answer all their questions.

“They communicated with us well… We met once every two weeks to go over keywords and blog content for the next two weeks.”

The Results - Reaching 9.6 million yearly organic search traffic in under 12 months

In just under six months, we helped Flick accomplish the following:

  • Their blog is now their most valuable asset in terms of traffic and conversions
  • Their average time on page is 5 minutes on the blog, compared to the industry average of just 66 seconds
  • Overtake hashtag pages in terms of traffic
  • 9.6 million yearly organic search traffic
  • 60+ Domain Rating (DR)

Check out the growth they’ve experienced:

Flick has been quite happy with the progress, saying, “Since implementing the SEO strategy with Embarque, we've noticed a significant improvement in our rankings on Google.”

"We've been steadily increasing our monthly web views—compared to 2021 Q3 to 2022 Q2, we've seen a 178% increase in our blog traffic."

Takeaways:

  • Topical authority helped us rank faster. By creating high-quality blog posts on a weekly basis, we were able to establish Flick as a leader in the Instagram marketing niche. This started with targeting the right topics, followed by providing as much value as possible.
  • Backlinks increase ranking velocity. By building relevant, contextual backlinks from high DR websites, we were able to push Flick’s most valuable pages to the top of the SERPs. Our backlink approach prioritizes quality over quantity, which is how we helped Flick outrank competitors so quickly.
  • High-quality content leads to high time on page. Time on page is a valuable metric to determine how engaging your content is. The more time users are spending on your website, the higher the likelihood they’re converting.
  • You need quality traffic that converts well. Although Flick was already receiving traffic from their hashtag landing pages, they weren’t garnering high-quality traffic. Once we started publishing value-based content, their conversion rate saw a significant jump.

Scale your SEO content marketing strategy with Embarque

Flick is still rapidly growing and remains one of Embarque’s most loyal clients.

Despite the extraordinary growth, this is only the beginning for Flick. There are still numerous keywords we plan on targeting, along with new backlinking opportunities. 

Interested in a tailored content marketing strategy to grow your organic traffic? Email our founder today and see how we can help your business: julian@embarque.io.