Thread by @RyanMcCready1

Zapier drives 5+ million sessions to its "Best Of" listicles each year.

It's a super impressive metric.

But that doesn't mean anything if they CAN'T convert those readers.

Zapier has that figured out too.

And every great content writer should want to know their secrets...

🧵

Over the past 5+ years, Zapier has built an incredible SEO moat with these listicles.

These ~100 listicles currently drive over 455k sessions per month & rank on 287k keywords.

From the best note-taking apps to the best URL shorteners, they have a listicle for it.

They rank in the top spots for things like:

🔗 URL Shortener - 85k searches/month
✅ To-Do List - 54k searches/month
💻 Link Shortener - 49k searches/month
📆 Calendar App - 10k searches/month

Yet, they don't produce any apps that are related to those keywords.

Now why would a brand want to rank on 200k+ keywords that are outside its niche?

It doesn't make a lot of sense at first.

But once you look at the content, it's perfectly clear.

Zapier offers integrations with literally ALL of those apps in the listicle.

This is a very strategic move to get their integrations, recipes, & “magic moments” in front of more people.

Let’s use the listicle about the best time tracking apps to explain that concept.

Zapier doesn't make any time tracking app, that I know of.

But they rank on 3.5k keywords & drive about 16k sessions per month.

That listicle ranks in the first spot for:

⏰ Time tracking app - 3.1k searches/month
⏰ Tracking my time - 2.8k searches/month
⏰ Timing app - 2.8k searches/month.

So it’s safe to say that this article is going to be seen by people looking for help tracking their time.

Listicles appeal directly to those people & Zapier has positioned the content specifically for those readers.

The searchers know they want to find an app to improve their time tracking, but have no idea what is available.

Zapier has also outlined what makes a “great” timing app in the first main section of the listicle.

This approach helps legitimize Zapier as a reputable source of information in the eyes of these searchers.

Next, Zapier takes a deep dive into what makes each of the products amazing & worthwhile to a new user.

The EAT signals are strong in each review section which shows Google that this content is valuable.

As you can see, each section is stuffed with long-tail keywords too.

Now up until this point, the content is very informative & doesn't even mention Zapier.

I feel like Zapier wants to sell someone on signing up for a new app.

And then show how Zapier can help them take it to the next level with their integrations.

This simple addition to each section is how Zapier converts hundreds of thousands of readers into users.

Each person that clicks on the CTA is taken to highly optimized landing pages.

Either a sign-up page or an LP that lists all the integrations with an app.

And, it’s the main reason they have invested so much into listicles.

But why wouldn't they just send people to those integration pages?

Why create all these listicles?

Well, getting those integration pages to rank is almost impossible.

According to Ahrefs, there are about 35k pages on the /apps subdirectory, which is where the integration pages live.

Those pages drive around 100k monthly sessions and rank on 200k keywords.

These numbers translate to about 3 organic page views per page...

Zapier has found that it’s much easier & more effective to rank on hundreds of thousands of keywords with these ~100 listicles

Instead of trying to get thousands of their highly specific integration pages or app landing pages to rank.

This might sound backward to many marketers, especially because there's an extra step added to the marketing funnel.

But Zapier has found this to be a very lucrative way to push 100k+ readers to their more conversion-optimized landing pages.

Even if a fraction of the searchers signs up for Zapier...

It’s still more than they would EVER get targeting “automation software” or other related terms.

So do you now see why they would invest so much in a bunch of listicles?

GOOD!

Now if you want to learn more about how Zapier gets those listicles to rank.

Or how they use each listicle to test new integrations before launch.

First, follow @FoundationIncCo & then check out the whole teardown here: foundationinc.co/lab/zapier-lis…