SEO
Grammarly’s SEO Strategy: 11 Interesting Insights
Grammarly is a writing assistant. According to our data, its website gets an estimated 22.2M monthly search visits across 2,468 published pages.
If Grammarly bought this same traffic via Google Ads, it would cost an estimated $5.1M per month.
In this post, I’ll share 11 takeaways from my deep dive into the company’s SEO strategy.
Grammarly gets an estimated 7.8M monthly search visits from search queries containing the phrase “grammarly.” That’s 38.6% of its total organic traffic.
Ironically, however, it gets at least a further 590K monthly searches for keywords containing brand misspellings.
Given that it has 30M daily users (by its own estimates), this is hardly surprising. In fact, there are over 37K queries in our U.S. keyword database containing “grammarly” with a total estimated monthly search volume of 3.1M.
Grammarly’s homepage gets an estimated 6.6M monthly search visits—almost a third of its total traffic.
Despite the company seemingly making some effort to target the keyword “writing assistant” on its homepage (it’s in the page’s title tag), almost all of its traffic is branded.
In fact, its homepage is responsible for 84.6% of all its branded traffic.
Just 277 of Grammarly’s 2,468 pages attract the bulk of its organic search traffic—20.1M monthly visits.
This traffic goes to a mix of free tools, blog posts, and its homepage.
Grammarly is far from the odd one out here. You’ll see a similar distribution for most websites, thanks to the Pareto principle (80/20 rule).
543 of Grammarly’s 2,468 pages get no organic traffic.
Here’s a quick breakdown of these pages:
- 360 blog posts
- 76 jobs pages
- 77 support articles
- 12 developer/API pages
- 12 PDFs
- 6 other
Blog posts aside, none of the other pages appear to have been created with attracting search traffic in mind. So it’s hardly surprising that they get none.
In fact, this is the case for some of the blog posts too.
For example, there are 48 posts with no traffic under the /business/ subfolder.
Most of these seem to be more thought leadership–type content than search-focused pieces.
Grammarly has seven free tools that cumulatively get over 3M estimated monthly search visits.
However, almost all traffic goes to just two of these tools: its grammar checker and plagiarism checker.
Interestingly, 77.4% of this traffic is non-branded. It comes from keywords like “grammar checker,” “plagiarism checker,” “spell checker,” and “punctuation checker”—all of which get tens of thousands of estimated monthly searches.
Do you want to use this SEO tactic for your website?
- Go to Keywords Explorer
- Enter a few “seed” terms related to your industry
- Go to the Matching terms report
- Add words and phrases like tool, tools, calculator, checker, and generator to the “Include” filter
- Select “Any word” on the “Include” filter
- Click “Apply”
For example, if you sell accounting software, you might enter seeds like “tax” and “salary.”
Grammarly is committed to blogging. 1,699 of its 2,468 (69%) pages are blog posts, which attract more than half (~11.2M) of its estimated search traffic.
Most of these pages (81.6%) get at least some search traffic, so it’s clear that Grammarly takes a search-focused approach to blogging.
In terms of what the posts cover, they’re mainly about grammatical terms like verbs, nouns, etc.
Most of these terms get tons of monthly searches, and Grammarly ranks #1 for many of them—hence why its blog gets so much search traffic.
Just 256 of Grammarly’s 1,699 blog posts get ~9.4M monthly organic search visits—almost all of its blog’s total traffic.
Once again, this distribution isn’t abnormal. It’s actually even more extreme on our blog, with 6.7% of our posts attracting 77.9% of our blog traffic.
However, we get nowhere near the amount of organic search traffic Grammarly gets.
This is partly because the terms Grammarly targets (and ranks for) are super popular.
For example, there are an estimated 151K monthly searches for “em dash” in the U.S. Grammarly currently ranks #6.
Grammarly has been blogging for a while. It published its first blog post on June 22, 2012.
If we plug that post’s URL into Ahrefs’ Content Explorer, we see that it probably didn’t take much effort to write, as it’s only 304 words long. Yet it still attracts hundreds of monthly organic visits to this day.
However, this is far from one of Grammarly’s top-performing posts.
If we look at posts getting 10K monthly search visits or more, only 24.2% of them were published in the last two years (since November 2020). Most of them were published in 2016 or 2017.
This just goes to show that SEO is not an overnight strategy. It can take years to experience the full benefit of a solid SEO strategy.
Most of Grammarly’s top-performing posts have been updated in the last few months.
For example, its post about contractions in writing was initially published in June 2016. But it updated and republished the post in August 2022.
If we search for Grammarly’s blog in Content Explorer, the “Pages over time” graph shows how its publishing and republishing strategy has changed over time.
Between June 2016 and June 2017, it published 529 new posts but didn’t republish a single post. Compare that with the period from June 2021 to June 2022 when it published 185 posts and republished 29 (13.5% of all posts during the period).
Many of these updates have had an incredible impact on search traffic too.
For example, it republished its post about participles in July 2022. Shortly after, organic search traffic shot up from ~1.5K to ~16K per month.
Grammarly’s support subdomain only gets around 0.7% of the company’s total organic search traffic. But this is quite impressive when you consider how little content there is.
Right now, according to the Site structure report in Site Explorer, it has 399 pages.
But the impressive part is that it took minimal effort to get this traffic, as much of this content is super short.
For example, according to Content Explorer, the top-performing support page gets an estimated 26.8K monthly visits despite being just 77 words long.
In fact, 76.5% of the support section’s organic search traffic comes from just 20 articles comprising 4,023 words in total.
Pretty much all this traffic comes from branded search (e.g., “add grammarly to word”). But that’s to be expected, as content on this subdomain answers questions about the tool.
Grammarly has recently started creating short introductory guides to topics that link to related blog posts, otherwise known as content hubs.
Here are the four “hub” pages it currently has:
It seems to be working well so far. Most of these pages are already attracting a few thousand organic search visits per month.
Final thoughts
Grammarly’s search performance has been on an upward trajectory for years, and there’s a lot to learn from it. It will be interesting to see where its SEO team goes from here.
Got questions? Ping me on Twitter.
SEO
Google On Hyphens In Domain Names
Google’s John Mueller answered a question on Reddit about why people don’t use hyphens with domains and if there was something to be concerned about that they were missing.
Domain Names With Hyphens For SEO
I’ve been working online for 25 years and I remember when using hyphens in domains was something that affiliates did for SEO when Google was still influenced by keywords in the domain, URL, and basically keywords anywhere on the webpage. It wasn’t something that everyone did, it was mainly something that was popular with some affiliate marketers.
Another reason for choosing domain names with keywords in them was that site visitors tended to convert at a higher rate because the keywords essentially prequalified the site visitor. I know from experience how useful two-keyword domains (and one word domain names) are for conversions, as long as they didn’t have hyphens in them.
A consideration that caused hyphenated domain names to fall out of favor is that they have an untrustworthy appearance and that can work against conversion rates because trustworthiness is an important factor for conversions.
Lastly, hyphenated domain names look tacky. Why go with tacky when a brandable domain is easier for building trust and conversions?
Domain Name Question Asked On Reddit
This is the question asked on Reddit:
“Why don’t people use a lot of domains with hyphens? Is there something concerning about it? I understand when you tell it out loud people make miss hyphen in search.”
And this is Mueller’s response:
“It used to be that domain names with a lot of hyphens were considered (by users? or by SEOs assuming users would? it’s been a while) to be less serious – since they could imply that you weren’t able to get the domain name with fewer hyphens. Nowadays there are a lot of top-level-domains so it’s less of a thing.
My main recommendation is to pick something for the long run (assuming that’s what you’re aiming for), and not to be overly keyword focused (because life is too short to box yourself into a corner – make good things, course-correct over time, don’t let a domain-name limit what you do online). The web is full of awkward, keyword-focused short-lived low-effort takes made for SEO — make something truly awesome that people will ask for by name. If that takes a hyphen in the name – go for it.”
Pick A Domain Name That Can Grow
Mueller is right about picking a domain name that won’t lock your site into one topic. When a site grows in popularity the natural growth path is to expand the range of topics the site coves. But that’s hard to do when the domain is locked into one rigid keyword phrase. That’s one of the downsides of picking a “Best + keyword + reviews” domain, too. Those domains can’t grow bigger and look tacky, too.
That’s why I’ve always recommended brandable domains that are memorable and encourage trust in some way.
Read the post on Reddit:
Read Mueller’s response here.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Benny Marty
SEO
Reddit Post Ranks On Google In 5 Minutes
Google’s Danny Sullivan disputed the assertions made in a Reddit discussion that Google is showing a preference for Reddit in the search results. But a Redditor’s example proves that it’s possible for a Reddit post to rank in the top ten of the search results within minutes and to actually improve rankings to position #2 a week later.
Discussion About Google Showing Preference To Reddit
A Redditor (gronetwork) complained that Google is sending so many visitors to Reddit that the server is struggling with the load and shared an example that proved that it can only take minutes for a Reddit post to rank in the top ten.
That post was part of a 79 post Reddit thread where many in the r/SEO subreddit were complaining about Google allegedly giving too much preference to Reddit over legit sites.
The person who did the test (gronetwork) wrote:
“…The website is already cracking (server down, double posts, comments not showing) because there are too many visitors.
…It only takes few minutes (you can test it) for a post on Reddit to appear in the top ten results of Google with keywords related to the post’s title… (while I have to wait months for an article on my site to be referenced). Do the math, the whole world is going to spam here. The loop is completed.”
Reddit Post Ranked Within Minutes
Another Redditor asked if they had tested if it takes “a few minutes” to rank in the top ten and gronetwork answered that they had tested it with a post titled, Google SGE Review.
gronetwork posted:
“Yes, I have created for example a post named “Google SGE Review” previously. After less than 5 minutes it was ranked 8th for Google SGE Review (no quotes). Just after Washingtonpost.com, 6 authoritative SEO websites and Google.com’s overview page for SGE (Search Generative Experience). It is ranked third for SGE Review.”
It’s true, not only does that specific post (Google SGE Review) rank in the top 10, the post started out in position 8 and it actually improved ranking, currently listed beneath the number one result for the search query “SGE Review”.
Screenshot Of Reddit Post That Ranked Within Minutes
Anecdotes Versus Anecdotes
Okay, the above is just one anecdote. But it’s a heck of an anecdote because it proves that it’s possible for a Reddit post to rank within minutes and get stuck in the top of the search results over other possibly more authoritative websites.
hankschrader79 shared that Reddit posts outrank Toyota Tacoma forums for a phrase related to mods for that truck.
Google’s Danny Sullivan responded to that post and the entire discussion to dispute that Reddit is not always prioritized over other forums.
Danny wrote:
“Reddit is not always prioritized over other forums. [super vhs to mac adapter] I did this week, it goes Apple Support Community, MacRumors Forum and further down, there’s Reddit. I also did [kumo cloud not working setup 5ghz] recently (it’s a nightmare) and it was the Netgear community, the SmartThings Community, GreenBuildingAdvisor before Reddit. Related to that was [disable 5g airport] which has Apple Support Community above Reddit. [how to open an 8 track tape] — really, it was the YouTube videos that helped me most, but it’s the Tapeheads community that comes before Reddit.
In your example for [toyota tacoma], I don’t even get Reddit in the top results. I get Toyota, Car & Driver, Wikipedia, Toyota again, three YouTube videos from different creators (not Toyota), Edmunds, a Top Stories unit. No Reddit, which doesn’t really support the notion of always wanting to drive traffic just to Reddit.
If I guess at the more specific query you might have done, maybe [overland mods for toyota tacoma], I get a YouTube video first, then Reddit, then Tacoma World at third — not near the bottom. So yes, Reddit is higher for that query — but it’s not first. It’s also not always first. And sometimes, it’s not even showing at all.”
hankschrader79 conceded that they were generalizing when they wrote that Google always prioritized Reddit. But they also insisted that that didn’t diminish what they said is a fact that Google’s “prioritization” forum content has benefitted Reddit more than actual forums.
Why Is The Reddit Post Ranked So High?
It’s possible that Google “tested” that Reddit post in position 8 within minutes and that user interaction signals indicated to Google’s algorithms that users prefer to see that Reddit post. If that’s the case then it’s not a matter of Google showing preference to Reddit post but rather it’s users that are showing the preference and the algorithm is responding to those preferences.
Nevertheless, an argument can be made that user preferences for Reddit can be a manifestation of Familiarity Bias. Familiarity Bias is when people show a preference for things that are familiar to them. If a person is familiar with a brand because of all the advertising they were exposed to then they may show a bias for the brand products over unfamiliar brands.
Users who are familiar with Reddit may choose Reddit because they don’t know the other sites in the search results or because they have a bias that Google ranks spammy and optimized websites and feel safer reading Reddit.
Google may be picking up on those user interaction signals that indicate a preference and satisfaction with the Reddit results but those results may simply be biases and not an indication that Reddit is trustworthy and authoritative.
Is Reddit Benefiting From A Self-Reinforcing Feedback Loop?
It may very well be that Google’s decision to prioritize user generated content may have started a self-reinforcing pattern that draws users in to Reddit through the search results and because the answers seem plausible those users start to prefer Reddit results. When they’re exposed to more Reddit posts their familiarity bias kicks in and they start to show a preference for Reddit. So what could be happening is that the users and Google’s algorithm are creating a self-reinforcing feedback loop.
Is it possible that Google’s decision to show more user generated content has kicked off a cycle where more users are exposed to Reddit which then feeds back into Google’s algorithm which in turn increases Reddit visibility, regardless of lack of expertise and authoritativeness?
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Kues
SEO
WordPress Releases A Performance Plugin For “Near-Instant Load Times”
WordPress released an official plugin that adds support for a cutting edge technology called speculative loading that can help boost site performance and improve the user experience for site visitors.
Speculative Loading
Rendering means constructing the entire webpage so that it instantly displays (rendering). When your browser downloads the HTML, images, and other resources and puts it together into a webpage, that’s rendering. Prerendering is putting that webpage together (rendering it) in the background.
What this plugin does is to enable the browser to prerender the entire webpage that a user might navigate to next. The plugin does that by anticipating which webpage the user might navigate to based on where they are hovering.
Chrome lists a preference for only prerendering when there is an at least 80% probability of a user navigating to another webpage. The official Chrome support page for prerendering explains:
“Pages should only be prerendered when there is a high probability the page will be loaded by the user. This is why the Chrome address bar prerendering options only happen when there is such a high probability (greater than 80% of the time).
There is also a caveat in that same developer page that prerendering may not happen based on user settings, memory usage and other scenarios (more details below about how analytics handles prerendering).
The Speculative Loading API solves a problem that previous solutions could not because in the past they were simply prefetching resources like JavaScript and CSS but not actually prerendering the entire webpage.
The official WordPress announcement explains it like this:
Introducing the Speculation Rules API
The Speculation Rules API is a new web API that solves the above problems. It allows defining rules to dynamically prefetch and/or prerender URLs of certain structure based on user interaction, in JSON syntax—or in other words, speculatively preload those URLs before the navigation. This API can be used, for example, to prerender any links on a page whenever the user hovers over them.”
The official WordPress page about this new functionality describes it:
“The Speculation Rules API is a new web API… It allows defining rules to dynamically prefetch and/or prerender URLs of certain structure based on user interaction, in JSON syntax—or in other words, speculatively preload those URLs before the navigation.
This API can be used, for example, to prerender any links on a page whenever the user hovers over them. Also, with the Speculation Rules API, “prerender” actually means to prerender the entire page, including running JavaScript. This can lead to near-instant load times once the user clicks on the link as the page would have most likely already been loaded in its entirety. However that is only one of the possible configurations.”
The new WordPress plugin adds support for the Speculation Rules API. The Mozilla developer pages, a great resource for HTML technical understanding describes it like this:
“The Speculation Rules API is designed to improve performance for future navigations. It targets document URLs rather than specific resource files, and so makes sense for multi-page applications (MPAs) rather than single-page applications (SPAs).
The Speculation Rules API provides an alternative to the widely-available <link rel=”prefetch”> feature and is designed to supersede the Chrome-only deprecated <link rel=”prerender”> feature. It provides many improvements over these technologies, along with a more expressive, configurable syntax for specifying which documents should be prefetched or prerendered.”
See also: Are Websites Getting Faster? New Data Reveals Mixed Results
Performance Lab Plugin
The new plugin was developed by the official WordPress performance team which occasionally rolls out new plugins for users to test ahead of possible inclusion into the actual WordPress core. So it’s a good opportunity to be first to try out new performance technologies.
The new WordPress plugin is by default set to prerender “WordPress frontend URLs” which are pages, posts, and archive pages. How it works can be fine-tuned under the settings:
Settings > Reading > Speculative Loading
Browser Compatibility
The Speculative API is supported by Chrome 108 however the specific rules used by the new plugin require Chrome 121 or higher. Chrome 121 was released in early 2024.
Browsers that do not support will simply ignore the plugin and will have no effect on the user experience.
Check out the new Speculative Loading WordPress plugin developed by the official core WordPress performance team.
How Analytics Handles Prerendering
A WordPress developer commented with a question asking how Analytics would handle prerendering and someone else answered that it’s up to the Analytics provider to detect a prerender and not count it as a page load or site visit.
Fortunately both Google Analytics and Google Publisher Tags (GPT) both are able to handle prerenders. The Chrome developers support page has a note about how analytics handles prerendering:
“Google Analytics handles prerender by delaying until activation by default as of September 2023, and Google Publisher Tag (GPT) made a similar change to delay triggering advertisements until activation as of November 2023.”
Possible Conflict With Ad Blocker Extensions
There are a couple things to be aware of about this plugin, aside from the fact that it’s an experimental feature that requires Chrome 121 or higher.
A comment by a WordPress plugin developer that this feature may not work with browsers that are using the uBlock Origin ad blocking browser extension.
Download the plugin:
Speculative Loading Plugin by the WordPress Performance Team
Read the announcement at WordPress
Speculative Loading in WordPress
See also: WordPress, Wix & Squarespace Show Best CWV Rate Of Improvement
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