9 Surprising Takeaways From Analyzing HubSpot’s SEO Strategy

HubSpot is simply a publically traded company, with implicit $614M successful yearly revenue, a legendary presumption among marketers, and an alleged acquisition connection from Google for conscionable capable wealth to nonstop a tiny squad of the champion of america to the Moon oregon lick satellite hunger for a mates of years.

They person a peculiar spot successful contented selling and SEO history. They were among the aboriginal champions of inbound and contented selling and surviving impervious that SEO is simply a large selling tactic. Just copying what they bash for SEO would beryllium capable for a implicit SEO playbook, particularly for SaaS.

I dug heavy into Ahrefs information to stock these 9 astonishing takeaways from their strategy.

We each cognize that the prima is big, but erstwhile you spot 1 of those at-scale depictions of the star system, you instantly recognize that “big” is an understatement. The aforesaid is existent of HubSpot’s blog.

I recovered nary bigger firm blog than HubSpot’s. If you cognize one, bash fto maine know, and I’ll beryllium much than blessed to instrumentality this back: HubSpot’s blog is the biggest firm blog ever regarding hunt traffic.

Their blog generates an estimated 8.2M integrated visits per month, worthy implicit $5.3M successful advertisement money. Just a fewer months back, it was adjacent larger — implicit 10M visits.

And since this is however HubSpot’s “solar system” looks…

We request to question to different “system” to find bigger blogging stars. We request to look astatine blogs in wide to the constituent wherever it’s unclear whether these are inactive blogs oregon news sites.

So, HubSpot’s blog isn’t arsenic large arsenic Mashable, and Health.com, but it’s bigger than Harvard Business Review, RollingStone, Coindesk, The Verge, and comparable to Wired. And these are each businesses of their own.

In lawsuit you’re wondering however large the blog is, it’s implicit 18K pages with 148 blog posts published successful May 2024 alone.

You astir apt expect their best-performing posts to beryllium astir selling oregon sales… and you’d be wrong.

“Shrug emoji” and “famous quotes” unneurotic relationship for astir 10% of each blog traffic, and determination are galore much topics like that.

Now, it’s communal consciousness this is low-intent, unqualified postulation they won’t person quickly, if ever. But it’s besides communal consciousness that the much traffic, the better. So which communal sense wins?

Naturally, this is nary mishap that HubSpot fights for these loosely knit keywords. If you effort to outrank them, they volition combat you, due to the fact that they’ve been warring with Goodreads for “famous quotes” for years.

Ahrefs’ Page Inspect instrumentality shows that they’ve been making immoderate large changes to support this leafage ranking.

Why fuss with these topics? Because erstwhile you’re the size of HubSpot and you stock their freemium model, you’re going to request “irrelevant” postulation much than tiny companies. We’re explaining this improvement successful much item successful Why Big Companies Make Bad Content.

Good luck copying this stunt:

Why is this a large deal? Because it’s very, precise uncommon to fertile doubly connected the archetypal leafage of Google with the aforesaid benignant of contented (blog posts successful this case). I wrote astir this successful Keyword Diversification: Cannibalization’s Good Twin (SEO Study).

Is this 1 of those “too large not to rank” situations? Why bash we request to beryllium told what HubSpot thinks merchandise selling is twice? When Ahrefs ranks 2 times connected leafage one, we astatine slightest springiness you 2 antithetic things: cognition and a tool.

Maybe it means that there’s thing breached with Google? If you inquire me, that 1 SERP is simply a large taxable for 1 of those panels wherever hunt engineers stitchery to speech astir the prime of the ranking systems.

HubSpot tried to fertile for “crm” (183k monthly measurement and 85 KD) with a emblematic merchandise leafage https://www.hubspot.com/products/crm (green line). They ne'er got to that #1 spot.

So, years after, they made a leafage successful a much acquisition benignant https://www.hubspot.com/products/crm/what-is, catering to a purely accusation hunt intent and it worked (blue line).

All it took was explaining connected that leafage the definition, who should usage it, when, and a spot astir however they developed it. What a large acquisition astir search intent.

Interestingly, it’s not a occupation for Google that the leafage starts with a merchandise pitch. Which is weird due to the fact that the H1 refers to accusation but visually, everything leads to that sign-up button.

I conjecture it’s bully capable for Google, since the leafage says “sign up oregon learn”; Google sees the full text, the quality eye, the representation and the buttons.

Actually, that dual intent whitethorn adjacent beryllium an vantage — searchers don’t request to instrumentality to the SERP to hunt again, each their needs are served via that landing page.

Another absorbing happening — they didn’t nexus from the crm directory to what-is-crm. Once you’re connected the archetypal page, you’re not expected to find the second one.

Every twelvemonth HubSpot publishes an manufacture study astir the authorities of marketing. For this, they canvass their assemblage astir blistery selling topics and spouse up with different large brands similar Wistia oregon Litmus. I’m definite you’ve seen it astatine least once.

Here’s wherefore this is simply a backlink goldmine. Not lone the landing leafage for this study gets tons of backlinks but besides each different leafage they rotation retired of that report.

To illustrate, present are their astir linked pages: their homepage, ineligible page, and the yearly State of Marketing twice.

Combined, these 2 pages unsocial earned 88,892 backlinks from 21,496 domains, and determination are a fewer much pages like that.

Part of the crushed wherefore those numbers are truthful precocious is that they support the study nether the aforesaid URL, truthful each twelvemonth a caller batch of backlinks travel to fundamentally the aforesaid page. And they get immoderate high-profile links this way:

Backlinks are not the lone payment here. That report, its spin-off landing page, and articles heavy drafting from the contented of the report, each get integrated traffic.

For example, here’s the State of Marketing ranking lone #10… but that’s good due to the fact that a spin-off ranks #3.

There are 3 things that are for definite now: death, taxes, and that HubSpot is going to people the authorities of selling study next year.

HubSpot has 8 free, stand-alone tools that enactment arsenic pb magnets. One of them intelligibly stands retired successful SEO terms: the Email Signature Template Generator.

“Email Signature Template Generator” — these 4 words marque up astir the full contented of the page.

But it’s capable for the leafage to fertile for 5.9K keywords, bringing successful 134K of escaped postulation from Google each month, and it adjacent earned 22.7K backlinks.

This postulation is worthy $172K successful advertisement wealth that HubSpot doesn’t person to walk (instead they “only” walk an estimated $2.6K connected hunt ads—more connected that later).

Why bash those fewer words enactment truthful well? It’s surely hunt intent. Most radical looking for assistance with their email signatures simply privation a instrumentality for that, not a guide.

And here’s a extremity for Ahrefs users. You tin usage the AI Identify intents diagnostic successful Keywords Explorer to spot what benignant of intent could get you the astir traffic.

HubSpot has 5 large contented hubs which you tin spot close distant erstwhile you look for the astir interior links to pages connected the site:

These hub pages are each linked to from ~36,000 places connected the HubSpot blog.

But they’re obscurity to beryllium recovered erstwhile you look for pages with the astir integrated hunt traffic. Which is simply a shame due to the fact that their respective people keywords would bring tens of thousands monthly visits:

It’s impervious that you shouldn’t expect contented hubs (aka topic clusters) to fertile astatine each times. And it’s benignant of ironic that it comes from a marque identified with this contented selling tactic.

That said, these hubs are astir apt large for UX (and driving referral traffic), and could beryllium helping different pages rank, arsenic HubSpot’s article connected the maneuver suggests.

While browsing done the data, I recovered that Hubspot has an antithetic fig of lost pages.

I’ve cleaned the information a spot and recovered retired that they are nary alien to pruning content. At slightest 84 pages person been redirected to different pages connected the aforesaid oregon akin topics betwixt April and June 2024.

Why? I deliberation they bash it to assistance immoderate much promising pages rank. I’ve seen this connected immoderate different pages, and it worked.

For example, https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-create-embed-codes-generator-infographic-content-ht, with each of its 102 backlinks from 75 domains, was redirected to https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-add-html-embed-codes-ht.

That past leafage really ranks (unlike its donor).

Smart. Something you whitethorn privation to try, too, if you person a ample contented inventory.

I’ve precocious collected opinions of 100 markers, SEOs and concern owners connected the value of SEO, and astir of them said this: SEO is wealth amended spent compared to hunt ads. And galore markets bash SEO alternatively of hunt ads. But not HubSpot.

Despite the immense measurement of escaped traffic, they inactive bargain a information of their postulation from Google. According to Ahrefs, they’re bidding connected 2367 keywords, with CPC from $0.01 to $45.7.

These are the types of keywords they pay for:

• Keywords they already fertile for like “free crm”. Probably to unafraid adjacent much SERP existent estate. Classic.
• Branded keywords like “hubspot pricing”. Possibly to halt competitors from eating their lunch. Classic.
• Other people’s branded keywords like “less annoying crm”. Just arsenic competitors bid connected their keywords, they bid connected theirs. Classic, c’est la vie.
• Keywords hard to drawback different like “website shaper free”. And this is the astir absorbing category.

So let’s instrumentality this leafage for example: 7 Best Free Website Builders to Check Out successful 2024 [+Pros & Cons].

Initially, they created the leafage earlier offering a CMS. When they introduced the CMS aboriginal successful 2022, they had find a mode to thrust much postulation to pages that mentioned that feature.

Unfortunately for them, arsenic you tin spot connected the integrated postulation illustration below, since they added that diagnostic (arrows) the postulation has been rather volatile.

The volatility is caused by keyword rankings they support gaining and losing. The much established website builder tools get them, astir apt due to the fact that of their authorization successful that area.

Here’s an example: “website shaper free” with 2.5K measurement and 98 KD. Below you tin find their ranking history.

And present you tin spot their ads presumption past chart, showing the constituent wherever HubSpot astir apt realized buying those keywords would beryllium a amended idea.

And it worked. Looks similar they’re squeezing immoderate postulation retired of that keyword after all.

I deliberation it’s a astute move. Some keywords are conscionable excessively hard to catch. When your SEO tricks don’t work, but the keyword is inactive worthy it, bidding connected it becomes much tenable than wasting clip devising clever tactics to rank.

Final thoughts

A tiny bonus for Ahrefs users: if you privation to gain a nexus from HubSpot, assistance them region immoderate of those 3080 breached outer links. Head implicit to Site Explorer > Outgoing > Broken Links (and work our usher connected broken nexus building).

Want to stock an absorbing uncovering astir HubSpot SEO strategy? Have comments? Let maine cognize connected X oregon LinkedIn.