Ryan McCready Profile picture
Sr. Demand Gen @Whimsical Follow if you want to learn about content & how not to kill plants. Formerly @Reforge @Venngage, @FoundationIncCo & @SketchDeck.

Aug 17, 2021, 14 tweets

With one tool, @Shopify has been able to:

✅ Rank on 18k+ keywords
✅ Capture $6M in yearly traffic
✅ Drive 400k organic sessions/month

AND convert qualified users.

So how did they do it?

It's crazy simple.

In fact, your brand could probably copy it in a few hours.

🧵

This tool is their Business Name Generator!

You enter a keyword & it will show you a list of potential business names.

Like I said, it's super simple.

But it's not about the features, it's how they have positioned it.

And it drives HALF of the traffic of their whole blog!

Trying to build out a ~Business Name Generator~ might sound silly to some.

But the rewards are HUGE!

Just ranking in the top spot for ""business name generator” will drive about 100k sessions a month.

That means that there are a ton of brands trying to capture that traffic.

So how did they beat out the competition?

They diversified, hard.

Going from a handful of landing pages for their Business Name Generator earlier this year.

To 200+ individual keyword-optimized landing pages almost overnight.

These 200+ pages weren't randomly created.

Each targets a specific long-tail keyword using a subdirectory page.

Now there are name generators for health brands, clothing stores, and even a bread business.

If there are people searching for it, Shopify wanted to be there.

Best of all, every page shares the EXACT same layout.

The only thing that changes is the main keyword & copy.

The tool even functions exactly the same on every landing page.

This has allowed Shopify to go after keywords that they couldn't with the main name generator. "

It’s almost like Shopify took 200 different masks & slapped them on top of the main Business Name Generator.

As simple as that sounds, it works.

This repeatable page layout allows them to spin up any new landing page in a matter of minutes & respond to new trends.

For example, with Clothing Store Name Generator they now rank in the first spot for:

👕clothing line names
👕clothing brand name ideas
👕clothing brand name generator

These drive ~3k sessions per month, which might not seem like a lot.

But with 200+ other pages, it adds up.

Most of the traffic goes to the main Business Name Generator.

But direct traffic wasn’t the goal.

Each subdirectory page shares the same ranking factors of the original domain.

So a link on a subdirectory would send “link juice” to the main Business Name Generator page too.

Structuring pages like this allows Google to better understand your site structure & better rank your content or landing pages.

So when you launch a new page, your content will rank faster in search results because of all the other pages & content already ranking.

One final thing that I love about these pages is that Shopify includes links to all their other niche landing pages on the main Business Name Generator page.

This internal linking structure is another signal to Google that Shopify that these other smaller pages are important.

This is likely why a page with less demand, like Craft Business Name Generator, can rank well, even without many backlinks.

Without this internal linking structure, Shopify would be leaving a lot of ranking opportunities on the table.

When it comes time to release a new page, they can use the power of the original name generator landing page, to boost the new page to the top of the rankings.

All of this is very simple, & other brands can copy it, but the way they execute it is very impressive.

Now if you want to learn more about how @Shopify built this massive SEO moat & took over an entire niche, be sure to follow @FoundationIncCo.

And subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to see this FULL TEARDOWN when it goes live tonight!

⬇️ ⬇️

content.foundationinc.co/insights-1

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