Article's Content
Article's Content
Does quality actually matter?
In an internet increasingly filled with low-effort content cranked out by underpaid workers misusing AI, it’s easy to get the impression that it doesn’t.
But what happens if you do put in the effort?
Are there proportionate benefits to writing high-effort, deeply-researched content?
Well, let’s put in the effort, do the research, and find out what that did for Zendesk.
Plus, in the end, you’ll find out how a fake indie rock band from Seattle helped Zendesk bump its alternatives down a couple of SERP ranks.
How Far Zendesk’s Content Strategy Leads Its Competitors
A great way to get a sense of how Zendesk’s doing is to compare its blog to its competitors’. Taking a sample of three of its top competitors’ blogs, we can see just how far ahead Zendesk is:
On average, Zendesk’s blog is getting seven times the monthly traffic of its closest competitor in this set. It leaves the others in the dust.
But not all traffic has equal value.
For example, keywords that signal intent to make a purchase are much more valuable than those that signal informational intent. That makes it especially important to see the value of the keywords these blogs are targeting–maybe Zendesk is getting a lot of traffic, but it isn’t actually that valuable.
Not even close. Zendesk is getting 12 times the value of its closest competitor.
All that adds up to make a pretty picture for Zendesk’s SEO. Its content marketing arm is bringing in almost $1 million per month in traffic by itself.
But it isn’t doing that with pure volume. Where some content marketing strategies, like the creation of industry glossaries, rely on a high volume of pages, Zendesk actually has fewer pages than its largest competitor.
Zendesk’s Top Posts Are Better
It could help to get a little more granular with how Zendesk’s blog posts perform. Zendesk’s closest competitor, Zoho, has a blog post that gets about as much traffic as Zendesk’s best post.
If Zoho has more blog posts, and its best post does just as well as Zendesk’s, why does Zendesk’s blog perform so much better than Zoho’s?
Well, let’s look at how many keywords Zoho’s top ten highest-traffic posts rank for and compare that to Zendesk. As the chart below shows, almost all of Zendesk’s top posts rank for more keywords than Zoho’s.
Zendesk ranks across a much wider range of keywords, even on its lower-performing posts.
Why Zendesk Is Hard to Beat
With Zendesk outcompeting others so handily, you have to wonder how hard it would be to bump them from their top spot.
As it turns out, Zendesk has made that extremely difficult by ranking near the top of extremely difficult keywords.
Its blog posts rank at the top of results for 17 keywords with a keyword difficulty of 80 or more. Let’s talk about what that means in more practical terms.
If you’re launching a Zendesk competitor, you might want to rank for a keyword like “self customer service” which has a keyword difficulty of 88. If you want to be in the top ten results for that keyword, you’d need about 619 backlinks from other websites.
Remember, that’s just to be in the top ten. Zendesk has the number one result, taking a large chunk of the 6,100 searches people make for that keyword.
That makes Zendesk extremely difficult to push from its position at the top of these search results. It has built posts that compete for very difficult keywords and will be hard for competitors to displace.
Zendesk’s Five Core Content Strategies
Now that we know how well Zendesk’s blog posts perform, it’s time to look at how they got there. There are five core strategies Zendesk has followed to make its blog stand head and shoulders above its competitors.
Hub-and-Spoke Structure
The hub-and-spoke is one of the most common structures for a B2B SaaS blog, and for good reason.This structurecenters on a single article on a core topic, supported by adjacent articles that dig into the details of certain sub-topics.
For example, Zendesk’s top-performing article is on a very general topic: the definition of customer service. With a topic that broad, readers correctly expect that it won’t discuss every detail of the subject.
Instead, it links out to those more detailed subtopics within the article. Some of the subtopics this hub article on customer service links to are:
- Objectives of customer service
- Types of customer service
- Trends in customer service
- Omnichannel customer service
- Definition of knowledge bases
All of thse are related topics, but they merit their own in-depth discussion. This is similar to NerdWallet’s SEO cluster strategy.
If you’re looking to build your own hub-and-spoke structure, consider mapping out your central and related topics with the chart above. That should help you structure your blog so that both search engines and readers can easily map it.
Long, In-depth Posts
Zendesk’s top-performing article has another interesting feature on top of being a hub post: it’s over 3,000 words long.
Most of Zendesk’s competitors keep their blog posts in the 1,000 to 1,500-word range. That’s perfectly normal for the type of post they’re creating, and it likely keeps costs down. But it comes with its own cost: the inability to discuss topics in depth.
Longer articles give more opportunities to answer questions, link to other articles, naturally include keywords and create images and tools others find useful. Those are all things competitors attempt, but Zendesk gives itself more opportunities to succeed with longer articles.
That doesn’t mean you should stuff your articles with fluff. Instead, make sure that you cover every topic in depth and give reasonable examples. You can also include FAQ sections in your articles to answer common questions.
When you revise your articles, make sure they meet each of the 4 E’s of Content to fully capture your audience’s attention.
Backlink-able Content
Creating content that invites backlinks is an art, but it’s one that Zendesk has mastered. There are a few different kinds of content that people love linking to:
Most content gets 0 backlinks.
No one references it. No one talks about it.
Want to create content worth linking to? Try this:
– Create a tool
– Share breaking news
– Offer industry awards
– Create evergreen content
– Conduct & publish research
– Embrace backlinks outreach pic.twitter.com/UdtLi4rnTV— Ross Simmonds (@TheCoolestCool) October 7, 2021
Zendesk makes a lot of these regularly. Some of their best backlinks come from evergreen content, tools, and research. One of the most common ways that other sites will backlink to Zendesk’s blog isn’t even by using a specific statistic, but by borrowing a chart from the blog.
Most of these pieces of anchor text indicate that the article is using a statistic, chart, or research from Zendesk’s blog. The “download now” anchor text usually refers to one of Zendesk’s ebooks with in-depth research on the topic.
If you want to create backlink-friendly content for your own blog, you need to create quality resources that other sites can use. That means research, images, and tools that others will find interesting and useful.
Actionable Advice
Much of Zendesk’s content includes actionable advice that its intended audience can use right away. That usefulness makes it a great reference for people to keep coming back to and cite in their own work.
For example, this article purports to simply answer the question, “What is customer service?” But it actually does much more than that.
The second subhead in the article is a “how-to” guide on improving your customer service program. Later, the lists of 12 customer service traits and 4 examples of customer service are punctuated with examples in every sub-point.
That makes the article’s advice much more actionable. People can bookmark this article and refer back to it for the helpful advice they got. What the article offers is much deeper than what it suggests in the headline.
If you want to make the advice you offer in your own content more actionable, put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Consider their needs and whether you’ve clearly illustrated how to implement what you’re suggesting. That should help you make more concrete suggestions.
Low-difficulty, High-volume Keywords
As discussed above, Zendesk is great at digging itself into some incredibly difficult keywords. But it also identifies keywords that aren’t difficult to rank for, but have many people searching for them.
Low-difficulty, high-volume keywords come about when many people are looking for something, but few offer the answers those people are looking for. That creates an SEO gap that clever marketers can fill.
It looks like Zendesk’s content team has actively targeted this type of keyword. As a result, the Zendesk blog ranks in the top 20 results for almost 22,000 keywords with a difficulty under 50.
For example, the term “consumer services” gets about 79,000 searches, but only has a keyword difficulty of 17. This is well within Zendesk’s target niche, and it’s a great opportunity to easily rank for high-volume searches. That expands on Zendesk’s already sizable SEO moat.
Many people waste effort targeting difficult keywords. But sometimes awkward phrasing or less common word orders are great opportunities to meet a lot of traffic with less difficulty.
The Three Tiers of Zendesk’s Persona Targeting
But those strategies aren’t the only way that Zendesk’s content stands out. It also takes its blog up a notch by targeting a wide range of personas.
The same hub-and-spoke structure mentioned above allows Zendesk to create content for different types of readers. Its “hub” content tends to be more general and strategic in view. As the spokes get more granular, their advice becomes more useful for mid-level management and then individual contributors.
High-level Strategic Content
Some of Zendesk’s content tackles difficult, broad questions. Articles like this one break down topics that are useful for founders, executives, and VPs taking a closer look at their customer experience programs.
It’s useful to note that the author of this article has a senior-level title. This creates a sense of trust: it’s an expert article, for leaders, by leaders.
The article also includes sub-topics with hard examples, statistics, and links to more detailed articles. These provide necessary context without getting bogged down in details. They also remain focused on the strategic objectives that executives are more likely to find important, for example, the customer retention statistics cited here:
If you want to target executives with your content, consider the needs they’re trying to address. Think about what metrics would speak to them, and create an argument about how they can hit those goals more effectively.
Mid-level Content for Directors
While executives have strategic goals like improving customer retention, mid-level management like directors will be in charge of implementing those strategies. This audience will want content that balances strategic vision with practical advice.
Zendesk creates excellent content for mid-level management. For example, this article could help a director or senior manager consider how to best lead their department through a period of change.
Mid-level management is less likely to have the experience to be self-reliant in these types of situations, and will want a jumping-off point with more information on management models. The information here is more granular than executive content while remaining focused on a broader vision.
Essential Guides for Individual Contributors
Executives and managers may want a better understanding of their strategic vision, but individual contributors care much more about executing their day-to-day tasks as well as possible.
Guides like these cold-calling scripts are the meat and potatoes that individual contributors will trust. This is immediately useful advice that readers can take action on right away.
A guide is at its most useful when it’s well-organized, it defines any confusing terms and jargon, and it isn’t afraid to get into gritty details. If you make your guides easy to navigate and readable, your audience will pay you back with traffic and backlinks.
BONUS: ZENDESK ALTERNATIVE
No discussion of Zendesk’s content marketing can be complete without mentioning their most innovative content marketing tactic: the creation of Zendesk Alternative.
Zendesk Alternative is an indie rock band founded in Seattle in 2016. They claim a long list of collaborations and worldwide tours, but the most interesting fact about them is that they don’t exist.
Instead, Zendesk Alternative’s website was a decoy set up by Zendesk in order to take SERP ranks away from its actual alternatives. Does it work? Well, Zendesk Alternative is in the top 10 results for six keywords, including “zendesk alternative.” Not too bad for a prank!
Credit: @zendesk_alt on X (formerly known as Twitter)
What Zendesk Could Improve: Up Its Social Media Game
While Zendesk’s content marketing far outpaces that of its competitors, it could certainly improve its social media presence. Its Instagram account has fewer than 40,000 followers, and its X has about 100,000.
Its interactions on these accounts are surprisingly low, with likes in the hundreds on its Instagram posts and rarely breaking a dozen on its posts. On the other hand, Zoho’s 60,000 Instagram followers give its posts thousands of likes, while its smaller number of X followers provides a higher number of interactions.
Wrap-Up: Yes, Quality Does Matter
As it turns out, the quality of your content matters. Zendesk based its content marketing strategy on building detailed, useful articles using original research. Its audience saw the quality and learned to trust Zendesk as a reliable source of information.
Now, Zendesk is embedded at the top of the SERP results for some of the most competitive keywords in its niche. It’s far ahead of its competitors in traffic and traffic value, despite having fewer pages of content.
Zendesk’s content strategy is a great learning opportunity for other B2B SaaS companies looking for success in content marketing. If you want even more insights like this, feel free to sign up for the Foundation Newsletter.
