Thread by @RyanMcCready1

With 2 simple tools, Ahrefs drives:

🔎 520k organic sessions
💰 $320k in traffic value

That's more than their entire blog!

How is this possible?

It's actually pretty simple.

Let's break it down.

🧵

Over the past few years, @Ahrefs has been giving away their best tools for free.

They have used that strategy to build a $10M content moat & an unmatched acquisition channel.

With just 13 of these SEO tools...

They drive around $858k in traffic value each month.

And rank on 532k diverse keywords!

These tools also drive about 40% of all organic sessions

And almost 50% of all traffic value to the Ahrefs domain.

And like I said above...more traffic than the entire blog.

This isn't an easy feat either.

These tools are ranking on EXTREMELY difficult & mature keywords.

Most of the primary keywords have an 80+ difficulty.

Right now “keyword generator” has a 97 for keyword difficulty!

So how was Ahrefs able to dominate such difficult & diverse keywords?

I think it comes down to 3 simple things:

✅ One path of success
✅ Built for the right users
✅ Actually provides value

✅ One path of success ✅

It means that you should eliminate unneeded distractions on a landing page.

And make it VERY easy for a user to find success or value.

For example, if you want someone to sign up for your SaaS from a certain landing page.

Make sure that is the ONLY thing they can do on the page.

If you don't make that SUPER obvious, they will likely not sign up.

The Keyword Generator tool is a great example of this idea.

You know exactly what to do when you land on the page.

And with a single click, you can generate a list of keywords in a few seconds.

Once you start looking at each of the Ahrefs tool pages, you can see this in action.

Each of these tools does one thing REALLY well & a user can quickly see that value.

Look at all these keywords!

There aren't popups or lead capture forms that could pull the user away from gaining value from the tool.

Almost all of the other tools follow this approach too.

Instead of overwhelming a new user the tools just provide immediate value to a user.

✅ Built for the right user ✅

I'm a huge fan of Ahrefs and have been using it for the past 5+ years

I understand how powerful the platform can be.

Not every marketer, content creator, or manager needs such an advanced SEO tool for their day-to-day work.

But what if they do need something a bit more powerful than Google Keyword Planner?

Well, Ahrefs has taken the time to make sure those tools are easy to find.

And in just a few seconds, these tools make a marketer feel insanely powerful.

With just a few clicks, you can get search data on a popular keyword.

See what is ranking on a certain SERP.

And a VERY thorough backlink report!

All for FREE! No sign-up, no lead generation trap, nothing.

Ahrefs is giving pure value to the user in a few seconds.

And that is exactly who these tools are built for.

People who know that SEO is important but aren't experts, yet.

Ahrefs is playing the long game with these users.

Instead of just chasing a quick conversion...

These free tools are a fantastic way to build brand loyalty before you've converted someone into a customer, as well.

That’s likely why so many marketers are advocates for Ahrefs from day one.

✅ Actually provides value ✅

As you can see above, I kept mentioning that Ahrefs provides immense value with each of these tools.

The Broken Link Checker…checks broken links with a single click.

The YouTube Keyword Tool…finds keywords for YouTube with a single click.

The Website Authority Checker…checks the authority of websites with a single click.

It's that simple.

Did I mention all of these tools are free?

Like, they are really free.

No sign-in, no freemium service, no demo, nothing!

These tools might not break your brain with their functionality, but they work & provide value every time.

Now every time a new marketer needs a keyword or backlink report, they will come to Ahrefs.

By providing consistent value to these people.

Ahrefs is building an army of brand advocates & future customers.

They might not convert today, but they likely will.

And I think this is exactly why they have invested so much in each of these tools.

Because ranking at the top of so many competitive keywords is not an easy, or cheap, job.

So they have to know that investment will pay off in time.

Want to learn more about Ahrefs tool strategy?

And how they rank #1 with all these tools, even in such a competitive niche?

Check out the full post here: foundationinc.co/lab/ahrefs-acq…