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The most powerful SEO strategies aren’t always the most complex.
While some brands chase algorithm changes with sophisticated content plans, European HR software provider Personio has quietly built an SEO empire with a refreshingly straightforward approach.
Their secret?
A laser focus on one content type that many B2B brands overlook: the humble glossary.
The results speak for themselves: 95% of Personio’s organic traffic — an impressive 400,000+ monthly visitors representing $3.3 in annual traffic revenue — comes from their glossary subfolder, /hr-lexicon/.
In today’s deep dive, we’ll examine how this HR platform for SMBs transformed a simple glossary content strategy into their greatest marketing asset, and what you can learn from their approach.
How Personio Powers Their Organic Traffic Engine
Personio, founded in Munich in 2015, is Europe’s leading HR software provider.
The company serves approximately 14,000 businesses across countries and various sectors, offering customers full suite of HR tools:
- Core HR products: Time tracking, Absence management, Workflow Automation, People Analytics
- Talent Management: Recruiting, Workforce Planning, Performance & Development, Compensation Management
- Employee engagement: Surveys, Whistleblowing
- Payroll: Complete payroll services
While direct search accounts for roughly 40% of Personio’s web traffic, its organic search — driving 26% of all traffic — reveals the most interesting story.
Every month, Personio attracts 442,000 organic visitors through search traffic. But what’s remarkable is where this traffic lands: 95% of these visitors (about 400,000 people) arrive through their /hr-lexicon/ subfolder, looking for HR-related information.
Meanwhile the brand and product related parts of Personio’s website — the homepage (13.7k), ‘About’ subfolder (6.5k), and ‘Product’ subfolder (576) — account for only 5% of total organic traffic.
Now, putting nearly all your ‘organic traffic eggs’ into one content basket might seem risky, but as we’ll see, the massive scale of this subfolder creates an SEO moat that fortifies Personio’s search traffic kingdom.
The Strength of Personio’s Glossary Strategy
The /hr-lexicon/ subfolder is massive — consisting of over 540 pages that cover a wide range of informational HR topics.
This powerful moat of content helps establish Personio as the authoritative leader for HR, especially among businesses in the early stages of building their human resources functions.
By targeting glossary terms, Personio casts a wide net to capture a broad range of relevant keywords that their audience regularly searches.
Just look at the breadth of HR topics and related keywords Personio targets with this strategy:
- Recruitment and selection: Candidate sourcing, recruitment methods, shortlisting, job offer letter
- Employee lifecycle: Onboarding, offboarding, employee life cycle, exit interview
- Performance management and talent development: Performance review, performance improvement plan, 360 feedback, KPI and metrics
- Psychological Theories and Models: Adams’ Equity Theory at Work, Goleman Leadership Styles, Nudge Theories, Ulrich Model, Kirkpatrick Model
- Organizational Culture and Employee Engagement: Company core values, corporate culture, recognition and rewards, employer branding
- HR Strategy and Processes: HR Strategy, HR for small businesses, employee assistance programme (EAP), Workforce planning and tools
- HR Tech: HR management system, AI in HR, HRIS Software, Cloud HR Software
- HR Data, Analytics, and Metrics: Attrition rate, absenteeism, eNPS, productivity improvement measures
- Compensation, benefits, and payroll: Net pay, salary benchmarking, bonuses & incentives, Remuneration, overtime calculator
The results?
The /hr-lexicon/ subfolder ranks for over 80k keywords, holding a top ten SERP spot for 11 thousand of them and top 3 position for over 6.5 thousand.
The strategic brilliance of glossaries is that they provide a legitimate framework for targeting an extensive range of relevant informational keywords. For B2B companies like Personio, each new glossary entry widens the top of their marketing funnel.
Better yet, glossary content is a perfect example of evergreen content. Unlike trend-focused listicles that quickly become outdated, the definitions of “performance review” or “employee onboarding” aren’t likely to change, making them low-maintenance but consistently valuable content assets.
The combination scope and stability explains why the glossary approach has become a common feature across enterprise SEO — from other HR platforms like BambooHR to analytics companies like Databricks.
But unlike these other approaches, Personio elevates the traditional glossary by targeting a unique set of terms. And the results are impressive.
Regional Targeting for Specific HR Terms
One page in Personio’s HR Lexicon stands out above the rest: their UK bank holidays content, which generates over 146k monthly visitors — and that’s with holding just the 4th position for the “uk bank holidays 2024” SERP.
This outlier spotlights two critical insights:
- A single strategic SERP ranking can dramatically transform your organic performance
- Personio is deliberately targeting HR-related terms in specific geographic markets
Looking at the top ranking pages in their subfolder, 3 of the top 5 follow the same type of format of [Location] + [HR Term] + [Date]:
These region-specific pages target terms with significantly higher search volumes than typical HR keywords like “types of communication” or “quiet quitting.”
Of the 540 pages in /hr-lexicon/ there are just 48 that contain either UK or Ireland in the URL — yet they attract 210,000+ monthly visits. The Personio team aims to make inroads with SMBs in these two markets and it’s working.
But traffic acquisition is only half the battle. Once visitors (or web crawlers!) land on a page, the content must immediately deliver the information they’re looking for.
More on that next…
Answering Search Queries with the Bottom Line Up Front
Both searchers and search engines have something in common: they want relevant information immediately.
Content that buries key information beneath paragraphs of context creates a weak user experience and makes it harder for web crawlers to identify relevance.
Personio cements relevance in their glossary content through a combination of explanatory images, key takeaways, and strong introduction sections to provide the reader with the main points of their query.
Take Personio’s guide on Quiet Quitting as an example. Immediately after the title, you’ll find an image with a clear definition of the term, followed by two alternatively-worded explanations in the introduction and key takeaways section.
This strategy pays dividends in search visibility with Personio’s glossary content appearing in featured snippets for hundreds of queries, including “what is quiet quitting.” This format also performs well in Google AI Overviews, with similar glossary snippets populating top results for multiple queries.
How Personio Optimizes Their HR Glossary for Conversions
Despite targeting primarily TOFU informational terms, Personio doesn’t skimp on conversion opportunities. Every glossary page in the /hr-lexicon/ subfolder contains multiple, strategically placed calls to action (CTAs).
Embedding multiple CTAs on every page reflects the reality of modern B2B buying journeys where, according to HockeyStack Labs research, buyers need an average of 71 touchpoints before purchasing — a rise from 54 in 2023.
To convert engaged visitors, Personio integrates various CTAs:
1) Sticky sidebar CTAs (typically for a free product demonstration) follows readers as they scroll through the page, attached to a scrolling sidebar that moves down once they pass the introduction section.
2) Inline CTAs appear throughout the content to provide readers with access to gated assets, templates, and product demos when they’re most engaged.
3) Product demonstrations are strategically placed. For example, in their popular UK Bank Holidays 2024 post, readers encounter a module showcasing Personio’s Absence Calendar feature. When clicked, visitors move through a series of 7 screenshots with explanatory pop-ups detailing how Personio’s system “simplifies policies and time-off requests.”
4) Multiple conversion points are standard practice. The UK Bank Holidays post alone contains 8 CTAs: 2 above the fold (with one following the reader down the page), 3 placed mid-post next to a product demo feature, and 3 at the conclusion.
The multiple-CTA approach is a systematic element across the entire /hr-lexicon/ subfolder. When adding the number or leap capture opportunities in other top traffic-earning glossary pages, the pattern is clear:
- UK Minimum Wage Rates in 2024: 5 CTAs
- The Four Key Types of Communication To Know: 4 CTAs
- Quiet Quitting: A proper guide to a very real trend: 7 CTAs
- Bank Holidays in Ireland for 2024: 9 CTAs
- What Is Work Ethic & What Goes Into a Great One?: 4 CTAs
The bottom line is that Personio isn’t shy about CTAs.
While this might seem aggressive, it’s a calculated response to the extended B2B buying cycle. With hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors landing on these pages, Personio needs to maximize every opportunity to convert information-seekers into potential customers
Capture Traffic and Convert Leads with Your Own SEO Moat
Personio’s approach offers several valuable lessons for any B2B company looking to build a stronger organic presence:
- Don’t underestimate the power of simple strategies executed well
- Regional targeting can supercharge results
- Structure content for both humans and search engines
- Every informational page is a conversion opportunity
While not every company needs to go all-in on glossary content, the principles behind Personio’s success are universally applicable: identify high-value keywords your audience searches for, create comprehensive content that answers their questions better than competitors do, structure it for optimal user experience, and include strategic conversion paths.
Ready to apply the lessons from Personio’s playbook in your own SEO moat? Get in touch with our team of B2B marketing experts today and start delivering value to your business for years to come.
