📈50% increase in demo requests with SEO for cybersecurity

Cybersecurity company increases demo requests by 50%, builds >$7M in deal opportunities

Technical SEO

On-page SEO consulting

Editorial calendar

Content writing

The case:

Our client was relaunching its website and wanted to ensure it followed best practices in search engine optimization (SEO) for cybersecurity companies. They also needed a detailed, sales-aligned content calendar mapped to specific topics, structures and personas of influence in order to build SEO thought leadership, improve its organic share of voice and attract leads.

The solution:

Productive Shop reviewed wireframes to ensure the new website went live with the correct SEO structures, built a strategic editorial calendar targeting winning terms and output optimized content in coordination with the product marketing team. Our efforts in cybersecurity SEO helped our client to increase online visibility, nurture prospects and generate over $7M in deal opportunities from demo requests in the last 18 months.

The industry

B2B cybersecurity

Location

California, U.S.

Leveraging SEO to grow awareness of the expanding cyber threat landscape

Our top secret client gives organizations unparalleled visibility and risk management of all their devices. Fortune 100 companies trust their cybersecurity platform to passively and continuously see and monitor all their assets, including IT, cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), operational technology (OT), Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) and industrial control systems (ICS).

An effective B2B cybersecurity lead generation strategy requires continuously outputting high-quality content to build awareness of the growing cyber threat landscape. By educating prospects on how to address the challenges of an expanding cyber attack surface, this client increased thought leadership, organic demand and conversions.

199

First-page rankings for target keywords (Jan. 2023)

524%

Growth in non-branded organic impressions (from 81,758 in Nov. 2021 to 510,227 in Jan. 2023)

172%

Increase in non-branded organic traffic (from 545 in Nov. 2021 to 1,487 in Jan. 2023)

50%

Growth in organic demo form submissions to an impressive — and top-secret 🤐— total (from Aug. 2021 to Jan. 2023)

Performance results

Identifying and overcoming the barriers to organic share of voice

Technical SEO issues

Productive Shop ran a continuous SEO audit and identified technical website issues that were hindering user experience and negatively impacting rankings on the search engine results pages (SERPs). Our search consultants provided this cybersecurity company with fixes to address technical SEO issues.

Fierce competition for cybersecurity keywords

This client’s top competitors had a strong online presence, conquering the share of voice for target keywords. To beat the competition, they needed to discover winning keywords for cybersecurity companies and build structured thought leadership content around those topics. Productive Shop conducted deep competitive research to identify key phrases grouped into logical clusters requiring immediate attention to win rankings and grow website traffic as a result. Our writers worked closely with SMEs to output product-aligned B2B content that converts.

Low rankings for non-branded keywords

At the beginning of this project, in Q2 2021, this cybersecurity firm only had branded keywords in the top 3 search results — and 82% of website traffic came from users who already knew the brand and related it with popular topics such as cyber vulnerability research reports. Since then, this client has expanded its rankings for branded and non-branded keywords. Highlights include a 6X increase in top 3 rankings from Nov. 2021 to Jan. 2023, with this cybersecurity company becoming a thought leader in areas such as IoMT, OT network segmentation and ICS risk assessment.

Productive Shop provided a detailed editorial calendar to ensure we were in sync as to which topics to cover to improve the keyword base and rankings for non-branded terms. To increase lead generation potential, the cybersecurity content was mapped toward topics of influence and current industry trends.

Lack of SEO structure

Even though this cybersecurity company had in-depth content, the copy was not written with SEO in mind. To guarantee new copy followed SEO writing guidelines, Productive Shop empowered product marketing and content teams with training and support, including keyword structures and templates. We also provided them with educational reporting to better understand the results from optimized content.

Outputting search-optimized content to become a cybersecurity thought leader

Cornerstone pages, FAQs and on-page optimizations were the foundation of our efforts to grow our client’s online share of voice. By investing heavily in high-quality SEO content and competitor intelligence, they were able to build industry trust and nurture prospects. In fact, over the last year, 64% of leads coming from direct and organic traffic were qualified. A comparison with the results of paid ads — where only 12% of leads were qualified — shows the precision of their SEO efforts.

Creating cybersecurity cornerstones to nurture qualified leads

Well-researched and positioned cornerstones turn thought leadership content into a growth channel benefiting the sales, SEO, email marketing, social and paid advertising teams. Productive Shop identified top opportunities to create key pages around target clusters (which ones? Well, we can’t share all our secrets).

What we can reveal is this cybersecurity company increased its keyword base and rankings — and product marketing and sales teams successfully leveraged this content as a demand generation tool (in social media campaigns, webinars, demo calls etc) to attract, convert and retain clients.

Building an FAQ Center to educate researching prospects

Frequently asked questions (FAQs) are an opportunity to address common industry pain points and tailor this client’s cybersecurity solutions to each industry’s challenges. Productive Shop provided a complete listing of all relevant questions to help them build a knowledge base, position as industry experts and increase its chances of taking up more space on the SERPs.

This initiative helped them consolidate industry influence, grow its keyword base and increase SERP real estate via featured snippets for important queries.

Demonstrating the value of SEO for cybersecurity lead generation

First-page rankings for target cybersecurity keywords increased by

172%

This cybersecurity company has improved its keyword base and rankings by enriching existing pages and continuously writing new content tailored to growing demand and leads. With first-page rankings going up by 172% from Nov. 2021 to Jan. 2023, they have now about 200 target cybersecurity keywords ranking on the first page of Google. Ranking on the first page of Google is a competitive advantage because it establishes SEO thought leadership and boosts traffic as users are more likely to click on those results.

Monthly organic sessions improved by

38%

This client has increased monthly organic sessions by 38% from Nov. 2021 to Jan. 2023 thanks to improving its website performance and crafting high-quality, search-optimized content. Higher keyword rankings and SERP visibility contributed to a boost in non-branded organic traffic by 172% over the same period of time.

Demo form submissions drove

>$7M in leads

Higher rankings for long-tail keywords and an increase in qualified traffic contributed to a boost in conversion rates with a 50% increase in demo form submissions from Aug. 2021 to Jan. 2023. In order to encourage demo requests, our SEO strategy for cybersecurity also included landing page optimization and CTA enrichments. Critical to gathering information about prospects and qualifying leads, demo requests are this cybersecurity firm’s leading first touch campaign, driving more than $7M in deal opportunities in the last 18 months.

A trusted partner who understands our GTM strategy

Productive Shop showed a deep understanding of our go-to-market strategy, working closely with our PPM team to ensure alignment with our business goals. Their reports were clear, educational and highly informative, providing us with a wealth of market and competitor insights. A trusted partner in our demand generation program, Productive Shop is a responsive vendor, always available to answer our questions and bring us value. I highly recommend Productive Shop to B2B CMOs who want to drive impact and win marketing share of voice in a crowded market.

Chief Marketing Officer