Full-service SEO

How Stonly saw a 986% increase in qualified traffic with a full-funnel strategy

In 10 months, Stonly went from flying below Google’s radar to appearing in the top 3 search results for 38 keywords and winning the SERP battle against giants like Zendesk and Freshworks.

by Maeva Cifuentes – November 8, 2023

620%
growth in SEO-sourced conversions

938%
growth in traffic

1373%
increase in number of ranking keywords

4
different languages

“I would highly recommend others working with Flying Cat Marketing. It has a good team of smart, personable people and deep SaaS SEO experience.”

Alex Friend Head of Growth, Stonly

Challenges we faced

The challenge: Create top-class sales content in the middle of a funding round to beat giant SEO competitors

Stonly is a B2B SaaS company based in the US. It creates interactive knowledge bases, in-app digital onboarding, and custom step-by-step guides for software companies to support the users navigating their platforms.

Everyone at Stonly loves that they can deliver a super simple solution directly within their customer’s apps, reducing their support tickets by up to 25%.

What they didn’t love is how difficult it was for them to speak to so many different ICPs and compete with competitors like Zendesk and Intercom to bring in qualified traffic.

On top of that, their Series A was right around the corner meaning they needed to stand out ASAP. The team needed to do two things:

1. Get Stonly noticed by Google

The first challenge was working out how to beat giant competitors in the SEO arena. Stonly’s differentiation was clear: it’s a tool focused on customer adoption that aims to reduce support tickets at reasonable prices. The problem was that Google didn’t know about it because Stonly had a very weak topical authority. It needed to cut through the noise in the SERP, reach its target audience, and beat major competitors that were using very similar keywords and ICPs.

2. Strategically create content to convert multiple targets

Stonly had been publishing content already, but the resources were scarce, and time was running out. It needed assets that would be educational and easy-to-digest but at the same time powerful enough to help the sales team close more deals faster. But there was a problem: there was no in-house SEO team to create them.

Opportunities we seized

A full funnel approach with a sales-enablement angle

Stonly reached out to Flying Cat looking for expert B2B content writing services to ramp up their production without sacrificing quality. And it needed to see fast results if it was going to keep up with rapid growth and begin the hunt for Series A investors. We had to roll up our sleeves and find the shortest path with the best outcome. Here’s what we proposed:

1. Build topical authority with long-tail keywords for every part of the funnel

At Flying Cat, we usually start with BOFU content to maximize conversions and drive revenue. However, the bottom-funnel keywords in this space were far too competitive for a newcomer with no topical authority.

In order to claim Stonly’s seat at the SERP table and show Google their topical expertise, we agreed to create content across the entire funnel for multiple use cases, one cluster at a time. We also created a series of competitor comparison pages, targeting keywords like “HelpHero alternatives”, to introduce Stonly into the narrative within organic search.

2. Create content to attract qualified traffic (while helping sales close deals)

There’s a common perception that you can either create “content for SEO” or “content for sales”. But Stonly knew that wasn’t the case: there’s no reason long-form SEO content can’t have more than one purpose.

Addressing multiple use cases and providing genuine insight was key to showing prospects that Stonly is the right solution for their specific needs.

Together, we set up workflows to get Stonly’s subject matter expertise. That meant our content was valuable enough to get seen by qualified eyes and help support sales conversions.

Results

An increase of 986% qualified traffic growth in 10 months

You’ll hear Flying Cat talk a lot about why you shouldn’t only focus on boosting traffic: SEO should be one element of your growth strategy, never simply a goal in itself.

Our work with Stonly was a cog in a much bigger wheel. This client needed SEO to drive qualified traffic growth in order to reach its overall business goals. And that’s what it received.

Stonly traffic growth over a 12 month period

That growth was also tied to the improvement of keyword rankings, which went from 175 to 2,577 keywords. That’s 1373% more than the baseline.

The high quality of the content and the strategic approach to intent led 38 keywords to rank in the top 3 search results on Google. The baseline for this was zero.

growth in number of ranking keywords in a 12 month period

Stonly’s decision paid off: Getting rewarded by Google core updates

With every new update, Google is trying harder and harder to make the search experience more valuable for the user. It consistently rewards good, well-researched content and topical authority.

During Stonly’s first year working with Flying Cat. it was hit with not one, but two of these updates. But that was great news. As you can see in the graph below, any updates in the algorithm meant more traffic for Stonly, not less.