SEO

All You Need to Know to Get Them

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februari 7, 2023

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Do you want to jump to the first position in Google without building links or significantly updating your content? Featured snippets can help you with that.

Featured snippets are a special type of search result showing a quick answer to the search query at the top of Google’s results page. Google pulls this information from one of the top-ranking pages that then gets elevated to the top of the organic search results this way.

You may be wondering how that’s a good thing for the website that owns the featured snippet. Users see your content on the SERP, and that may mean losing clicks, right?

Well, yes and no. Check this example:

If this question were possible to answer thoroughly in a few sentences, most of us would be out of work. So while the snippet tells you the absolute basics, you still have to click to learn more.

That’s just one example. Featured snippets are one of the most prominent SERP features—and they’re evolving all the time.

Follow this guide to learn everything you need to know about featured snippets and what it takes to optimize for them.

There are five types of featured snippets that Google shows depending on the intent behind the search query:

Paragraph
Numbered list
Bullet list
Table
Video

Let’s check an example for each type.

1. Paragraph

This one is a bit special because Google sometimes combines featured snippets with People Also Ask (PAA) boxes. You can see additional questions related to the search query there and click on them to see more information. That often comes from a different source than the featured snippet itself, as you can see in this case:

2. Numbered list

Numbered list featured snippet — This is an interesting case of a featured snippet where Google shows only the first point along with its own numbered list.

3. Bullet list

4. Table

5. Video

It’s also important to note that there are other “snippet-like” results. You need to know about these to avoid any confusion:

Knowledge panel

Knowledge card

Entity carousel

These three SERP features have one thing in common. They don’t pull answers from just one of the top-ranking search results, as they’re based on entities in the knowledge graph. While they may contain a link to the source of information (song lyrics, for example), it’s never in the form of a clickable title as we have in featured snippets.

Google introduced featured snippets in 2014, and I would say that they’re one of the most prominent SERP changes of the past decade. There are quite a few things that featured snippets changed for both users and SEOs.

Shortcut to the top organic position

If your content is ranking on the first SERP for a search query that shows a featured snippet, you can “win” that snippet and shortcut your way to the top position. Let’s break this down.

Our study found that featured snippets come from pages that already rank in the top 10. Moreover, the vast majority of featured snippets pages rank in the top five.

In conclusion, the higher your content ranks, the more likely it is to get a featured snippet.

Getting to the first SERP is a more manageable goal than ranking number #1 for a keyword. But if that keyword triggers a featured snippet, it makes the first position a bit more attainable.

Fewer clicks… sometimes

In the past, the page owning the featured snippet would also be listed in the standard “blue link” search results somewhere on the first SERP. But in January 2020, Google introduced featured snippet deduplication.

Once your page gets elevated to the featured snippet, you lose that “regular” search result.

Besides the little traffic losses back then, some people also think that featured snippets reduce clicks on the search results. After all, if the answer to the query is on the SERP, why would you click on a result?

While this is the case for some queries, it’s certainly not the case for them all. It depends on whether Google can provide a satisfactory answer in the snippet.

For example, take a look at the featured snippet for this query:

Featured snippet with a straightforward answer

The answer is right there for most people. And that’s why there’s only a 19% chance, on average, that the search for this query results in a click.

Example of a keyword with low Clicks Per Search

Now take a look at the snippet for “how does the stock market work”:

Featured snippet providing only a basic answer

Because it gives a basic answer to the question, most searchers will probably want to know more.

That is most likely why, on average, 82% of searches for this query result in a click.

Example of a keyword with high Clicks Per Search

The takeaway here is that targeting keywords with a low number of Clicks Per Search (CPS) is rarely a good idea.

Pay attention to this when researching keywords in Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer.

Featured snippets as superb branding opportunities

Clicks aside, featured snippets are the first thing that users see in the search results if there are no search ads. They’re even more prominent on mobile devices where they’re often the only thing people initially see:

This is a very compelling argument in favor of featured snippets.

Increasing your share of voice on the SERPs is arguably one of the most important SEO KPIs. That’s because brand-building is proven to be the primary driver of long-term growth.

The more your brand is visible on the SERPs for relevant topics, the more you will be associated as a market leader.

You can opt out of featured snippets (don’t do that, though)

Cyrus Shepard led the way in experimenting with opting out of featured snippets after the SERP deduplication and discovered that it led to a 12% traffic loss.

That said, if you still want to opt out of featured snippets, Google offers various ways to do that. Just be aware that both nosnippet robots meta tags methods also block your content from appearing in traditional “blue link” snippets. I don’t recommend using those because Google could then only use your hard-coded title tag och meta description.

So the best way to remove your page from appearing in featured snippets is to include max-snippet robots meta tag. This tag specifies the maximum number of characters Google can show in the text snippets.

And because featured snippets are longer than descriptions in regular snippets, you can set the character limit to the usual maximum length of descriptions. That’s around 160 characters.

You’ll just have to paste this code snippet into the <head> section of the page that you wish to remove from the featured snippets:

<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:170">

While this method doesn’t guarantee not appearing in shorter featured snippets, it still outweighs the cons of using the more restrictive methods.

Recommendation

If you’re thinking of opting out, it pays to first check which position your page would rank for the keyword without owning the featured snippet.

For example, here’s a featured snippet that we own:

Featured snippet for the keyword "h1 tag"

If we appended “&num=9” to the URL, preferably in Incognito mode, we can see where we’d rank if we weren’t in the snippet:

Seeing the true position of the featured snippet page

In this case, if we decided to opt out, we would be in the second or third position—depending on the page that would take over the featured snippet (you’ll see how to do that too).

Being in lower positions and opting out can hurt your traffic. You’ve been warned.

Google Search Console doesn’t show any information regarding featured snippets. You’ll have to use third-party tools like Ahrefs’ Site Explorer to dig into them.

Let’s stick with Site Explorer. Paste in your site, then head to the Organic keywords report to see the keywords you rank for, then filter only for those where Google shows your page in the featured snippet:

Filtering for your own featured snippets

As you can see above, Ahrefs’ domain currently ranks for 1,042 keywords with featured snippets in the U.S.

In the previous version of this article, I recommended filtering for keywords with the highest search volume and checking the most important featured snippets manually. That’s because Google sometimes pulls content that isn’t optimal, and you’d want these important featured snippets to be perfect.

However, Google is still improving. Now, I didn’t find a single keyword where I’d bother editing the section Google pulls it from.

While you may come across featured snippets that can do with a bit of polishing, I don’t recommend editing things unless Google pulls poorly formatted, misleading, or just plain wrong information.

It’s better to own an imperfect featured snippet than to risk losing it to a competitor by revising it.

Winning more featured snippets is a simple way to potentially increase organic traffic to your site. Below, we’ll discuss a few ways to do that.

Leverage content that you already have and rank for

Here, we’ll be looking at pages that already rank in the top 10 for a particular term yet don’t own the snippet. It’s possible to win the snippet just by making a few tweaks to your page.

How to find these opportunities? It’s easy.

Go to Site Explorer and filter keywords that trigger featured snippets where your website is ranking in positions #2–10.

This is an easy way to filter out the vast majority if not all the featured snippets that you rank for, since they’re predominantly ranking at the first position. There are cases where they appear at lower positions, but it’s rare these days. In fact, all of our 1,042 featured snippets are ranking at the first position.

In other words, we now have a list of low-hanging opportunities to steal featured snippets from your competitors. Let’s get you prepared for the heist.

We need to prioritize. Stealing 7,064 featured snippets at once is mission impossible.

I reduced the list to just 21 keywords by prioritizing those with higher search volumes where we rank in positions #2–5.

Filtering down featured snippet opportunities

Now things look much more manageable.

The search volume filter is an obvious one, as there’s no point in targeting long-tail keywords at this point. Regarding the positions and referring back to our study, the probability of owning a featured snippet increases with your organic position for that search query.

Again, these filters will be different for you. However, if you don’t rank for a substantial number of keywords already, I’ll suggest focusing on creating more great content och building links.

So we’ve got the list. What’s the battle plan?

In our case, I’ll prioritize further by manually checking for keywords with solid business value. Let’s take a look at some of those keywords:

Keywords with good featured snippet opportunities

For example, the search query “most searched thing on google” at the top is less valuable for us than “seo content” at the bottom even though the first has twice the search volume. People who want to learn about creating search-optimized content are much more likely to become our customers one day.

Taking that “seo content” query into account, this is what I see:

First thing I’ll do here is to check whether our page even qualifies for the featured snippet at the moment. That can dictate how big of a change we need to make. You do that by excluding the domain that ranks for the current featured snippet using the - search operator.

In this case, there’s no other page in the featured snippet “queue,” which is an indicator that we currently don’t provide a good, short answer to the search query in the eyes of Google.

Just so you know, here’s an example of a featured snippet that has other eligible pages in line:

Example of a featured snippet with a queue

After excluding the Coursera domain, we can see what Google considers as the second-best option:

And you can go on to even see the third domain in line, and so on. But back to optimizing for the “seo content” featured snippet.

We can clearly tell that a short, definition-style paragraph is the way to go here. Let’s check what we have in our content:

Featured snippet content section to be optimized

So the appropriate section exists; that’s a check. An interesting thing here is that Google ranks a page that targets the keyword in reverse order. Let’s see if other pages qualified for ranking there in the past by opening that keyword in Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer and scrolling down to the Position history:

Position history in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer

I only filtered for URLs that had the featured snippet at one point in the past two years. We can see that the rest targets “seo content” in the original order, and Backlinko claimed the first position for a long time. But we need to check whether Google was even showing the featured snippet back then.

You do that by scrolling further down in Keywords Explorer to the SERP overview. Select a date where you want to investigate the SERP for comparison. In this case, I need any SERP between July and September 2021:

Historical SERP overview for the keyword "seo content"

There it is: The featured snippet was there, claimed by another page. The last thing I need here is to check the section that was ranking back then by opening the URL on Archive.org after clicking on the caret:

And selecting a screenshot of that page during the time it was ranking for the featured snippet:

Historically ranking featured snippet section

We see three rather different definitions. There’s definitely room for the featured snippet optimization. I’d make our definition a bit longer, change the second sentence, and fit in the mention of keywords because I think that’s important. I’d change it from:

SEO content is content designed to rank in search engines. It could be a blog post, product or landing page, interactive tool, or something else.

To something like this:

SEO content is content designed to rank high in search engines for a specific keyword. Creating it requires researching and covering what searchers would find valuable.

I can honestly say that I feel this definition is superior to the competing ones. That should be your ultimate goal when it comes to optimizing for featured snippets regardless of the format.

This was quite an interesting example. One last thing to note here is that your snippet-worthy information needs to be formatted in a way that Google can easily parse, understand, and interpret. A good rule of thumb is that if the reader comes across that information easily, then Google should be able to as well.

Create new content with featured snippets in mind

Let’s make one thing clear from the start: Scoring a featured snippet should be just the icing on the cake, not the main purpose of why and how you cover a certain topic.

The prerequisite for winning the featured snippet is ranking well, so that should still be the focus. For this reason, I investigate potential featured snippet opportunities only after selecting a topic.

Since the major factor of being successful in SEO is aligning with the search intent, you should always analyze the competing pages on the SERP. Let’s take our main topic here as an example because it doesn’t get better than optimizing content to win featured snippets for “featured snippets” keywords.

I have my “featured snippets” topic, and you should select yours based on your sökordsforskning. Look it up in Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer and scroll down to the SERP overview:

SERP overview for the keyword "featured snippet"

I see that the main keyword triggers a featured snippet, so I’m in the difficult position of trying to dethrone Google there:

Featured snippet for the keyword "featured snippets"

Honestly, this is a case of a bad featured snippet. It doesn’t really provide value to the searcher. I don’t learn what it is or how it works. Google has a clear advantage of coining the term, so it’s kind of a branded search. But I’ll try my best to create a definition-type paragraph that I think searchers likely want to see.

We already went through the process of creating content for the “seo content” featured snippet, so this is just a rinse-and-repeat process—provide the best answer possible using a suitable format.

Since pages can rank for thousands of keywords, there are naturally many more featured snippet opportunities than just the one for the main keyword. The easiest way to check these is to click through a few top-ranking pages to see all the keywords they rank for:

Checking organic keywords of the top-ranking page

And filter the report for keywords that trigger featured snippets and have a certain minimum search volume to make it worthwhile (as we’ve already shown earlier). I also included a “1–20” Position filter to make the list as relevant as possible:

Checking other featured snippets opportunities

Some of those keywords will be almost the same, having the same search intent and featured snippet. I don’t need to check the featured snippets for keywords like “snippet google” or “what is a featured snippet” because the answer and optimizing your content for them remain the same.

We’re looking for keywords that can trigger different featured snippets and are aligned with sections we cover in the article. There are a bunch of these opportunities around optimizing and getting featured snippets:

Look them up and see what Google shows there:

Featured snippet for the keyword "how to get featured snippet"

So if I want to have a chance to rank for this, I should include a straight-to-the-point paragraph on how to get a featured snippet instead of explaining the whole process across many pages. This looks like something that can fit nicely into the “Final thoughts” section to sum it up, so I’ll do that.

And since different pages rank for different keywords, it pays off to repeat this process for one to two more top-ranking pages. I found that I should also optimize for the “types of featured snippets” keyword here.

Even if you don’t end up winning the featured snippets, we’re still trying to answer searchers’ questions in the best way possible. That in itself is critical to your content’s success on the SERPs.

Here are a few copywriting tips for winning featured snippets to wrap this section up. You should:

Format and structure your content correctly (H1–H6, etc.).
Try to avoid overcomplicated sentences. Succinct explanations win.
Use the language of your audience. In the end, Google uses featured snippets as answers in voice search.
Använd ”inverted pyramid” method (where it makes sense).

pro tip

If your content includes sections that contain a sequence of steps to achieve a certain result or you have FAQ sections, use appropriate schema markup to highlight these structured sections for Google.

First, it’s a good idea to do so regardless of featured snippets because it can enhance your plain search result into a rich snippet. But I’ve also seen such pages dominate the combined featured snippets with PAA boxes where everything was from a single source.

Getting a featured snippet is equal to ranking first for a keyword. You may already be tracking keyword ranking positions, so let me help you expand it to tracking featured snippets.

Enter Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker.

First of all, I track all important keywords regardless of their SERP features. But we can begin by adding the most important keywords that also trigger featured snippets.

You can do that in a few clicks through the Organic keywords report we’ve already shown multiple times here. You just have to create a Rank Tracking project first for it to appear here:

Adding keywords triggering featured snippets to Ahrefs' Rank Tracker

You’re all set to see when you win or lose a featured snippet. Go to the Rank Tracker’s Overview report, click on the “SERP features” tab, and check the “Featured snippet” row:

As you can see, from the keywords I’m tracking, the project lost eight featured snippets, while 12 new ones appeared on the SERP over the tracked time period (last 30 days).

Here are the key parts to keep an eye on:

Number of featured snippets you currently own (plus the +/- change in the selected period)
Number of featured snippets in total for the keywords you’re tracking (plus the +/- change for the period)
Percentage of all the featured snippets among the tracked keywords that you own (9%, in this example)

You can also change the view from “all tracked features” to “featured snippets” to see your progress over time:

Progress of featured snippets in Rank Tracker

To delve deeper into the specifics on the keyword level, select the “Featured snippet” filter:

Filtering for keywords that only trigger featured snippets

And scroll down to the keywords list to see the time comparison data (30 days, in this example):

Featured snippet changes over the past 30 days

We can see that the top keyword is among our new featured snippets. But it is more helpful to isolate the featured snippet movements only.

To isolate the winning cases, we’ll need to apply two filters:

Position – Improved (you rank higher than at the start of your selected period).
SERP features – You rank for the featured snippet.

Again, scroll down and see the featured snippet winners of the month (or whatever period you choose):

To see lost featured snippets, just apply reverse filters -> decline in positions in the top 10 and only show featured snippets that you don’t own. Unfortunately, you can’t currently isolate cases where you lost the snippet, so you’ll see all declines in the top 10.

Look for keywords that dropped from the first position, like these first two:

You may want to consider checking the position drops regardless of featured snippets anyway. Sort the table by traffic and pay attention to huge traffic drops.

Slutgiltiga tankar

You should now know everything necessary to win those coveted SERP jumps to the first position. To sum it up:

Optimizing for featured snippets is about providing a brief and valuable answer to the search query in the most suitable format. Getting the featured snippet involves following all the best SEO practices to make the content rank well for the target keyword.

If you have any comments or questions, don’t hesitate to ping me på Twitter.

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5 Ways Social Media Pros Are Safely Using AI Right Now

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4 timmar sedan

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mars 29, 2023

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5 Ways Social Media Pros Are Safely Using AI Right Now

This post was sponsored by Iconosquare. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Does social media management sometimes feel like 15 jobs rolled into one?

We know, the business of social media involves a lot of plate-spinning.

There’s strategy development, content creation, data analysis, copywriting, customer service, community engagement, client communications, trend forecasting, graphic design, influencer management, reporting, and on and on it goes.

What if some of your most repetitive social media tasks could be handled by AI?

Yes, you can give yourself more time to create even more powerful social strategies by allowing AI to perform tasks like scheduling posts, analyzing content, and writing captions.

With AI-powered content creation tools, you can spend more of your time working and thinking like a top social media manager.

So, let’s take a closer look at five ways AI-generated captions will change the game for social media managers.

And don’t worry, AI won’t replace your social media job.

1. Ideate Social Media Post Content Faster (And Easier)

If writer’s block tends to take up a large portion of your campaign execution time, this tip is for you.

And you’re certainly not alone – this is a common problem for tons of social media managers who are juggling multiple projects. Coming up with creative, engaging captions on the fly isn’t always easy.

With the help of AI, a month’s worth of content can be captioned and scheduled in a fraction of the time. Even if a caption isn’t 100% perfect the first time, all it requires is a quick edit instead of hours of creating the perfect message.

Compare this to the lengthy process of ideating, drafting, rewriting, and editing captions, and it’s easy to see how beneficial a social media AI caption generator can be.

2. Get Better Engagement With High-Conversion Algorithms

Many AI caption generators are programmed to create captions specifically for conversion.

They know how to:

This is music to your ears if you’ve been striving to increase engagement for your clients – particularly if they’re stuck in a creative rut or don’t enjoy the writing process.

3. Put Out More Social Media Content

Not only does caption writing get easier and faster with social media AI – it has a positive effect on other content, too.

Time previously spent staring at a blank screen trying to find the right words can now be spent on curating, creating, and editing other forms of content – for example, YouTube videos, TikToks, Reels, podcasts, and carousels.

4. Create Social Media Content In 70+ Languages

From Chinese to Persian, there are more than 70 languages available to choose from in Iconosquare’s AI caption generator.

This enables you to break through language barriers and reach new audiences for your clients without the need to invest in additional resources.

5. Gain More Time For Higher ROI Tasks

Imagine what you could do with the time you’ve saved not writing captions from scratch.

That’s the beauty of AI.

Social media AI handles time-consuming, low-level tasks and frees you up to focus on work that delivers meaningful results – not only for your clients but for your business, too.

A Step-By-Step Guide To Creating AI-Generated Social Media Captions

For this example, we’ll use social media AI for an imaginary interior renovation brand.

Step 1: Enter Your Social Post Topic Or Subject

Start by typing in the subject of your social media post.

In this case, we’ll use “kitchen renovation,” though we could go even more specific with this, e.g. “Kitchen renovation completed in 3 weeks.”

Step 2: Add Your Brand Name For Maximum Exposure

The next step is to introduce your brand to the machine learning tool.

In this example, we’ll use the fake brand name “Kitchenstar.”

However, if you want captions that are less branded and more focused on the content of the image, all you have to do is leave “Brand” blank.

Step 3: Select Your Industry For Accurate Keyword Inclusion

For this example, we’ll enter “interiors” as our industry.

However, if you want captions that are less industry-specific and more focused on the content of the image, all you have to do is leave “Industry” blank.

Image created by Iconosquare, March 2023

Step 4: Get High-Conversion Social Media Captions From AI

The three captions Iconosquare’s AI caption generator creates are upbeat and engaging.

Each generated post caption has a good hook:

Renovating your kitchen has never been easier!
A fresh start for your kitchen!
Our newly renovated kitchen using #kitchenstar products is something to write home
about!

And each one gets to the point without unnecessary fluff.

Image created by Iconosquare, March 2023

Step 5: Automatically Get Generated High-Conversion Hashtags

The first caption has a great hook and high-conversion hashtag suggestions.

Instead of broad, overused hashtags like #interiors or #kitchen, the AI caption generator has proposed more specific hashtags like #makingroomformemories.

Step 6: Make Any Manual Edits Necessary

The second caption is great and requires very little editing. I could add some more specific detail about what the renovation process entailed, otherwise this caption is good to go.

Image created by Iconosquare, March 2023

The third caption has that specificity – “quartz countertops, sleek countertops, and energy-efficient appliances.”

Even if these aren’t exactly right, you now have a template to use to write your caption without having to think about it.

If you’re not totally happy with the first three options, you can generate three more.

Image created by Iconosquare, March 2023

As for specific calls-to-action (CTAs) like “comment below” or “tag a friend,” you can easily add these to the finished AI-generated captions by selecting one of your “Saved captions.”

Why AI-Generated Content Won’t Make Your Job Redundant

If you’re worried about being replaced by AI, don’t worry.

Despite what you may read online, AI isn’t about to make your job obsolete.

Instead, AI is a great collaborator.

It automates repetitive tasks and sifts through millions of data points to produce actionable recommendations.

This frees up your time and empowers you and your team to create better content and campaigns that deliver their client results.

AI-powered social media tools unlock your potential.

Rather than wasting time and expertise on repetitive tasks like manually posting Rullar, you can focus on areas you’re passionate about and uniquely qualified to handle.

Even applications that aid creativity – like Iconosquare’s AI Captions – aren’t cause for concern about the future of your job.

Features like these only enhance and accelerate your creativity.

Again, AI social media tools are perfect for marketers who are juggling multiple clients and complex campaigns.

AI tools can’t replace the empathy, perspective, and storytelling that a human brings to marketing. And this is what it takes to truly connect with customers.

So, don’t worry about AI taking over the world – instead see these applications for what they are: an opportunity to make you an even better social media manager.

Want to try out Iconosquare’s AI caption generator for yourself? You can here!

Say Goodbye To Writer’s Block & Hello To AI-Generated Captions

If you’re ready to harness the power of AI-human collaboration, you have to try Iconosquare’s new AI caption generator.

It’s the perfect tool for generating engaging captions (for LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram) that are relevant to whichever brand you’re working on, whether you’re short of time or in need of a creative boost.

Just write out the subject of your post, brand name, and industry, and Iconosquare will generate a list of potential captions. You then pick your favorite and add it to your post in one click.

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Featured Image: Image by Iconosquare. Used with permission.

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SEO

9 SaaS Marketing Strategies for Sustainable Growth

Publicerad

5 timmar sedan

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mars 29, 2023

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EntirewebNewsBot

9 SaaS Marketing Strategies for Sustainable Growth

Sustainable growth for a SaaS company is about creating long-term value that is a) profitable and b) able to be maintained over time without compromising the brand’s reputation. In other words, by building growth, you’re building a foundation for more growth as you go.

We’ll talk about nine marketing strategies that are perfect for achieving and maintaining sustainable growth.

Product-market fit (PMF) is when a business has confirmed signals that its product can satisfy an existing demand in a market with high potential.

The usual sign of achieving PMF is when people are willing to buy the product (even if it’s not perfect yet), actively use it, and recommend it to others.

This is a sustainable strategy because it allows you to make sure you’re building something meaningful that will actually get paying users.

PMF automatically makes your messaging more effective. You’re promoting a product people want. And you already know who you’re talking to, so your marketing dollars are better spent.

Conversely, if none of your marketing efforts seem to work, the problem may be the product and not how creative or well funded your campaigns are.

You can find SaaS companies with product-market fit all around. These will be companies that still offer the same kind of products that made them profitable: Slack, Atlassian, Shopify, etc.

How it works

The general idea is to ship a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and iterate on it based on real user input until you see that people actively use it and recommend it.

There are five steps in the process:

Formulate the value hypothesis: Why is a customer likely to buy your product?
Specify the features of your MVP: The right quantity and quality of features needed to verify the value hypothesis.
Build your MVP: There are many ways to present your product to your audience; you don’t necessarily need to develop a fully functional product.
Test the MVP with real users: In other words, get feedback.
Learn from your users and iterate: Some ideas will need more work, while some are probably destined to fail. Gather your data and make the decision.

When you achieve PMF, it will be time to scale your company and marketing efforts.

This strategy doesn’t need an introduction. We’ve all used product trials and free tools. That said, this strategy can be looked at from different angles. What’s important from a marketing perspective are these three benefits:

Reduced friction – This means there are fewer objections to trying your product.
Time to experience the value of the product and get hooked – Reading about a product on a landing page is not the same as experiencing it. Your potential customers will likely expect the possibility to put their hands on the product before they buy.
Direct marketing channel – You can ask users to sign up for a newsletter or send them messages concerning the product.

For instance, HubSpot carves out parts of the platform for free usage (e.g., CRM, CMS). It does this, as it explains, to increase the force of its marketing flywheel. Or in other words, to propel its entire business model.

Artikel om varför HubSpot erbjuder gratisprodukter

How it works

Start by weighing the pros and cons of free and freemium products.

Pros	Cons
Less friction with getting people to use your product.	Harder to manage expectations. People may expect to get more things for free.
Bigger user base.	More server load and possibly more queries to support.
Works well with growth loops (more on that later).	Offering something for free may reduce its perceived value.
Direct marketing channel to signed-up users (content distribution and upselling).
More feedback.

Getting users in front of free products is only part of the job. The harder part is getting them to upgrade.

First off, you need to set the right expectations—you won’t convert all of them. For the ones that are “convertible,” here are some tactics you can use:

Never stop improving customer satisfaction. What your product does and how it does it is absolutely fundamental.
Educate users about the product. Use blog posts, videos, or quick in-app tips.
Offer limited access to all newly developed features. For instance, you can allow everyone to use each new feature for five days for free.
Provide excellent customer service.
Offer flexible payment options.

When looking for ideas for free products that will generate traffic, try a keyword research tool like Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer. You can:

Enter features of your product.
Go to the Matching terms report.
Använd Include filter with keyword modifiers pointing to tools, for example: “tool, check, checker, finder, analyzer, builder, free.” Set to “Any word.”

Sökordsforskning för gratis verktygsidéer

To illustrate, our free website traffic checker tool generates an estimated 33.4K organic visits each month from ranking for keywords like “website traffic checker” or even “website traffic.”

Organiska sökord fångas av ett gratis verktyg

Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing content to attract and retain customers.

If you add search engine optimization to the equation, you get a framework for creating content relevant to your business och the reader. You also get a built-in distribution engine that generates almost free traffic.

SEO is one of the most sustainable marketing strategies because it generates passive traffic that accumulates over time and can generate traffic even years after. To put it differently, SEO results are continuous—and you don’t get that with all marketing strategies.

SEO-resultat är kontinuerliga, medan PPC-resultat kan slås på och av

Our blog is an example of such a strategy. It brings an estimated 628K organic visits each month, worth around $860K in ad money, through regular publishing of SEO content.

How it works

SEO is generally worth it if at least one of these is true:

People are searching for what you sell or do.
People are searching for solutions to problems your business helps to solve.
You can give a better solution than the conventional one people are searching for.

In any case, the core of this strategy is to find relevant keywords with traffic potential. The right keywords can connect you with your target audience and create an opportunity to pitch your product. And if you’re not ranking for these keywords, your competitors will.

The process of finding the right keywords for your website is called sökordsforskning. Here’s a quick rundown:

Go to Keywords Explorer
Enter industry-related seed keywords, e.g., “seo, digital marketing, keyword, backlink”
See keyword ideas in the Matching terms report
Use the filters to refine results if needed (e.g., look only for low-competition keywords or keywords with a certain minimum traffic potential)

Sökordsforskning, en snabb sammanfattning

Other elements of the SEO process are building a sound technical foundation, creating optimized content, and building links. You can learn how to start with the entire process in our beginner’s guide to SEO.

A user community can help your SaaS product in a number of ways:

It helps to make the product better through feedback.
It helps to spread word of mouth about the product even if the community is exclusive.
It offers added value to the user—they can learn from others in the community and network.

Building a user community is a sustainable strategy because it leverages existing customers and can help facilitate long-term engagement with the product.

A famous example of a community with a price tag on it is Behance, acquired by Adobe for $150M. It generates over 10M search visits each month and allows the parent company to bring the design community very close to its product.

Adobe's varumärke på Behance går inte att missa — Adobe’s branding on Behance is unmissable.

How it works

In a nutshell: create a place where people can meet online, build a constant presence there, and animate the community (feature launches, discussions, polls, etc.).

For example, at Ahrefs, we offer access to our exclusive community, Ahrefs Insider, with every subscription. All we needed to start it was a regular community feature on Facebook. Now it gathers a total of 17K registered users.

Earned media is publicity gained organically from promotional efforts, like press coverage, social media mentions, and search engine rankings.

Earned media is a sustainable form of marketing for these reasons:

It’s cheaper in the long run compared to advertising (sometimes even free).
It’s long lasting.
It earns your brand awareness and credibility.

Here’s an example that checks all three boxes. A while ago, we published a data study showing that 90.63% of content gets no traffic from Google. This article was mentioned by multiple reputable websites, including NY Times, Forbes, and main SEO blogs. All of that coverage gave us free brand exposure and backlinks.

How it works

Earned traffic covers a wide range of marketing tactics, so there’s no silver bullet here. Besides SEO content, which we already touched on, the tactics that are repeatable and will probably have the most impact over time are:

When vetting which site to pitch your product, story, or quote to, you can use Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar. For instance, say you’re looking for websites that review SaaS products like yours. Just search for your competitors’ reviews in Google and look at the metrics to see which sites can send you stronger links and considerable traffic.

SEO-mått, via Ahrefs' SEO Toolbar — Sites with low DR are unlikely to boost your SEO. This site has 0 organic traffic, so you probably won’t be getting much referral traffic from it.

Multi-channel marketing is basically about interacting with your audience using different marketing channels: social media, search, podcasts, email, etc.

Using multi-channel marketing will have the following advantages:

A broader reach.
Channels can work to support each other. For example, social media can help you to get links to websites and boost your SEO.
You create convenience for your audience to interact with the brand.
There’s less risk, thanks to diversification.

The idea behind this strategy is that your audience is likely scattered across various websites and social media platforms. So even if one marketing channel works exceptionally well, you probably shouldn’t drop all other channels.

How it works

Here are some ideas on how to find the best marketing channels for your business:

You can see where your competitors promote.
Do keyword research to estimate organic traffic for relevant keywords (we discussed it in point #3).
Use audience research tools like SparkToro. Below, you can see a screenshot showing what kind of data about your audience the tool can provide.

Furthermore, using multiple marketing channels allows you to distribute content more effectively. You can:

Repurpose content into other formats and platforms.
Build an audience to distribute content directly (for example, grow your email list).
Promote the content via ads or sponsored newsletters.
Syndicate articles to other websites.

Here’s an example. Our thoughts on using ChatGPT for SEO were used in a YouTube video, on our blog, and on social media. While there may be some overlap between these audiences, they are definitely not identical. So by using the multi-channel approach, we were able to get more eyes on our content.

Here are the nine best use cases of ChatGPT for SEO (and four suboptimal ones):

— Si Quan Ong 思权/思權 (@siquanong) March 2, 2023

A growth loop is a system where new user input creates an output that drives product demand.

To illustrate, here’s how Notion used a product feature to activate and retain users (courtesy of Foundation).

Growth loops are a stellar example of a sustainable marketing strategy because the whole model creates a loop. The more you grow, the more users you get, and so the more you grow.

Furthermore, this strategy gives your marketing budget more “power” since each dollar invested in acquiring a user is also invested in the users generated via the loop.

How it works

The simplest (but super effective) form of a growth loop is making your product outstanding. When your customers love the product and recommend it to others, you start growing on word of mouth—you acquire users you spent nothing to get.

Hur mun till mun fungerar — Example: A user subscribing to Ahrefs based on a recommendation from a friend.

In some types of products, it’s possible to go beyond word of mouth and create a typical growth loop. It all depends on your product and your creativity. Here are a couple of levers you can pull:

Make it easier for users to share their work publicly like Adobe with Behance
Devise a referral program like Dropbox
Create a marketplace for apps like Atlassian or WordPress
Release an API like OpenAI
Encourage user-generated content like G2
Allow for free product usage after creating a free account like Figma or Loom
Allow users to invite others to their workspaces like Slack or Miro

Revenue expansion is the additional revenue you get from your existing customers through upselling, cross-selling, and add-ons.

It’s a strategy that has proven to work for decades in multiple industries. For instance, this is why when you order a regular pizza, you’re offered to get a bigger one, get a drink with it, or add some extra ingredients.

And here’s an example from the SaaS world. When subscribing to HubSpot, you’re offered to upgrade by increasing the limit of contacts and also to purchase add-ons.

HubSpot erbjuder merförsäljning och tillägg

According to a correlation study published by ProfitWell, SaaS subscription-based companies should aim for 20% to 30% expansion revenue in their overall revenue in order to succeed.

You’ve probably heard that it’s better to retain a customer than to get a new one. That old business adage still holds true. According to this 2016 survey, SaaS companies spend an average of $1.16 to earn $1 on new annual contract value but only $0.27 on upsells and $0.20 on plan expansions.

How it works

If you offer additional value to your satisfied customers, there’s a good chance those customers will be happy to buy more from you. Here are some ideas for creating value for revenue expansion:

Offer premium features on higher plans
Offer a per-seat model to cater to both small and large companies
Add a custom/enterprise tier for the most demanding customers
Offer priority support

For example, when design tool UXPin developed a way to design with production-ready components, it decided to offer that as a premium version of the product with an almost 80% higher price tag than the UXPin Standard version.

Att uppnå expansionsintäkter genom att erbjuda en premiumprodukt

But how to know when and if your customers are willing to expand? Here are some signals:

Customers often reach their usage limit.
Customers express interest in additional features or higher tiers.
Your competitors offer a successful expansion system.
You’ve got an awesome idea for a premium feature.

Growth marketing is the process of increasing a company’s revenue by applying an experiment-driven and integrated approach to all stages of attracting customers.

To understand this type of marketing better, let’s compare it to traditional marketing and growth hacking (the close variant I don’t recommend).

Ett diagram över skillnaderna mellan traditionell marknadsföring, tillväxtmarknadsföring och tillväxthackning

While the obvious solution for more sales is getting more visitors, this is not always the best one. If the product lacks competitive features and if there are obstacles on the path to purchase, money spent on getting more people through the door will always lead to low conversion and high churn. This is where growth marketing comes in.

A great example of growth-oriented thinking is LinkedIn’s Reconnect Flow. It’s a nickname for the early onboarding process where new users were asked questions about their personal experiences and offered connections to existing LinkedIn users based on that. This simple tactic engaged both new and old users.

Another interesting growth tactic LinkedIn used in the early days was encouraging users to import their email contacts (not a common thing back then). It was enough for 7% of new users to import their contacts to increase the overall number of invitations to 30%.

How it works

The idea behind growth marketing is based on the scientific method: propose hypotheses and validate them through experimentation. In marketing, it’s known as the growth hacking cycle.

Ett diagram över tillväxthackningscykeln

The whole cycle starts by gathering data on the buyer’s journey. Next is generating ideas on how to improve and then testing those ideas (for example through A/B testing).

It may seem like an obvious way to do marketing. But it’s not always that easy: Some tests may be hard to perform, and discipline is required. Also, it’s always faster (but not better) to go with your gut.

An important part of the growth mindset is the ability to analytically break down big problems into smaller pieces. This approach allows for setting more achievable goals.

For instance, a goal to increase sales is too vague because sales rely on many factors and not all of them are controllable. Instead, growth marketers may want to discover what “moves the needle.” Depending on the product, this may be encouraging the user to perform specific actions in the product or gearing pricing and communication toward a new audience.

Slutgiltiga tankar

Sustainable growth doesn’t rely only on the strategies or tactics you choose. You need to give them time to work out the returns. You also need to experiment with them to see what works best for you.

There’s a great talk by Rand Fishkin on the concept of the flywheel in marketing; how the first push is the hardest, but it builds momentum that makes things easier in the long run. Sustainable growth strategies are just like that. As you build more value into your product and your brand, you gain momentum that acts as a multiplier for every new thing you do.

Har du frågor eller kommentarer? Pinga mig på Twitter eller Mastodont.

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About This Author, Diverse Views, + More

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About This Author, Diverse Views, + More

Google is improving how it helps searchers evaluate information and discover different viewpoints.

Finding accurate and reliable information can be daunting as the internet grows and evolves.

In response to this challenge, Google is taking the initiative to provide users with new tools.

Google has announced the following updates are rolling out to search results:

Introducing ‘About this author’
Expanding ‘About this result’
Easier access to ‘About this result’
Adding diverse perspectives to Top Stories
Advisories for information gaps

This announcement comes ahead of International Fact-Checking Day on April 2, emphasizing the importance of information literacy and reliable sources.

About This Author Provides Author Background

Google is growing the “About this result” feature to include a new element called “About this author.”

By tapping the three dots on any search snippet, you can access more information about the background and experience of the authors whose content appears on Google Search.

Google’s announcement doesn’t specify where it gets the author’s information. I’ve contacted a Google representative for clarification and will update this article with more details.

This feature will be available on search results in English globally.

About This Result Feature Goes Global

Google’s “About this result” feature will soon be available in all languages where the search engine is accessible.

Users can tap the three dots next to search snippets to learn more about the source of information and how Google’s systems determined its usefulness.

Detta sammanhang kan hjälpa användare att bestämma vilka webbplatser de ska besöka och vilka resultat de ska lita på.

Ny perspektivfunktion erbjuder olika vyer

Google introducerar en ny funktion som heter "Perspektiv", som kommer att visas under Top Stories och visa insikter från olika journalister, experter och relevanta röster om sökta ämnen.

Funktionen syftar till att ge en mängd olika unika synpunkter på nyhetsämnen, som kompletterar den auktoritativa rapporteringen som redan finns i Top Stories.

Den här karusellen kommer snart att lanseras på engelska i USA för stationära och mobila enheter.

Om den här sidan blir mer tillgänglig

Google gör informationen "Om den här sidan" lättare att komma åt.

Användare kan nu skriva in en webbadress i Google Sök och information från "Om den här sidan" visas högst upp i sökresultaten.

Funktionen är nu tillgänglig globalt på engelska.

Innehållsrådgivning Adressinformationsluckor

Google Sök visar automatiskt innehållsmeddelanden när ett ämne utvecklas snabbt eller när Googles system saknar högt förtroende för kvaliteten på tillgängliga resultat.

Under de kommande månaderna planerar Google att utöka dessa råd till nya språk, inklusive tyska, franska, italienska, spanska och japanska.

Sammanfattningsvis

Googles engagemang för att ge människor verktyg för att bedöma och förstå sökresultat är viktigt i vår digitala tidsålder.

Genom att göra funktioner som "Om det här resultatet", "Perspektiv" och "Om den här författaren" bättre och mer spridda, kan användare göra smartare val om vad de läser online.

Källa: Google

Utvald bild: Skärmdump från blog.google.com, mars 2023.

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