Back to Case Studies

How a Business Messaging Platform Grew Traffic by 1,083% YoY

https://clerk.chat/
SEO case study of Clerk Chat.

Stats

190.1K to 2.2M Monthly Visits

Industry

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Niche

Messaging Platform

Reporting Date

July 2024

Clerk Chat is a business messaging platform that uses AI to streamline customer interactions.

Recently, they've experienced extraordinary organic growth, skyrocketing website traffic by 1,083% year-over-year (YoY).

This brought their monthly visits from 190.1K to a remarkable 2.2M. (Had Clerk Chat acquired this traffic through paid ads, it would have cost approximately $984K.)

Growth chart of Clerk Chat's organic traffic.

In this SEO case study, we'll explore the growth strategies that propelled Clerk Chat to increase its traffic—organically.

You'll also learn how to replicate these strategies on your website for more clicks and conversions.

The Catalyst: How Clerk Chat Reached 2.2M Monthly Visits

1. Published Local Area Code Landing Pages

Between July 2023 and July 2024, Clerk Chat expanded a specific corner of its website: local area codes.

On these pages, Clerk Chat addresses specific area codes within the United States and Canada.

It shares details like the zone that area code covers, relevant cities, and an invitation to sign up for a local number via Clerk Chat.

Local Kentucky area code landing page on Clerk Chat.

While Clerk Chat has been producing these pages since 2023, 2024 is when they really started to gain traction on the SERP.

Coupled with the fact that Clerk Chat published around 50 additional area codes this year, keyword rankings experienced a significant boost.

They went from 9.9K in July 2023 to 39.5K by July 2024.

Growth chart of Clerk Chat's ranking keywords.

What’s even more impressive is that this content has become the top traffic-generating pages for the website.

And the numbers they bring in are nothing short of outstanding.

List of the top 5 organic pages and traffic for Clerk Chat.

In July 2024, local area code pages generated 98% of all site traffic, making them a valuable addition to Clerk Chat’s content portfolio.

Why this matters:

Clerk Chat's local strategy is a masterclass in audience segmentation.

By creating dedicated landing pages for specific area codes, they've tapped into unique audiences across the U.S. and Canada.

And ultimately, a goldmine of organic traffic.

This approach highlights the potential of strategic keyword targeting and content customization.

By understanding what your audience is looking for and providing tailor information to their needs, you can significantly boost your website's visibility and attract more qualified visitors.

How to find ranking opportunities for your website:

Before you can create content that brings traffic to your site, you need to determine what your audience wants.

Keyword research is the process that unveils your audience’s interests and needs.

Here’s a brief overview of how to do keyword research:

  1. Pick a keyword research tool. (If you’re a small business owner, I highly recommend LowFruits. It’s beginner-friendly and helps you uncover low-competition keywords, meaning they’re easy to rank for.)
  2. Enter your keyword into your chosen tool
  3. Find “easy” keywords. (Long-tail keywords are particularly good for this.)
  4. Align your content with the keyword’s search intent.
  5. Publish.

Tools for keyword research:

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) makes it super easy to get keyword ideas directly in the WordPress editor.

It connects with your Semrush account, so you don’t have to jump between tools.

Once you’ve set a focus keyword on the page or post you’re working on in WordPress, click Get Additional Keyphrases.

Get additional keyphrases button in WordPress.

AIOSEO will fetch related keywords from Semrush and present them to you in the editor.

(You’ll likely encounter long-tail keywords, which are great for driving targeted traffic to your site.)

Keyword ideas from Semrush in WordPress.

Overall, this feature streamlines the keyword research process, allowing you to focus on creating high-quality content that ranks.

Now, let’s see how Clerk Chat uses its content to rank in Google’s People Also Ask.

2. Mastered Google’s People Also Ask

The People Also Ask (PAA) section of the SERP is one of the most desirable areas to rank.

It presents users with related questions to their original query and appears relatively high in the organic results.

Here’s an example:

Google people also ask section with a question about where the 530 area code is from.

Now, here’s the interesting thing about Clerk Chat’s PAA rankings: they all come from the local area code pages.

Every single PAA result is for an area code page despite Clerk Chat having other content on its website.

Not to mention, there were a lot of PAA rankings in July—7.5K. (This was a significant increase over the previous year’s 553 rankings.)

People also ask keyword rankings for Clerk Chat.

So, how did Clerk Chat get this sudden influx of PAA results?

That’s the power of smart content optimizations.

Here are some of the strategies Clerk Chat used to rank in Google’s PAA box:

  • Targeted the right keywords.
  • Answered user queries directly in the body copy.
  • Organized its content with clear subheadings.
  • Implemented schema markup to help search engines understand the page.

Why this matters:

By securing multiple PAA rankings, Clerk Chat has increased its visibility and authority in the search results.

This prime real estate not only increases organic traffic but also positions brands as trusted experts in their industry.

Ultimately, PAA rankings can lead to increased brand awareness, higher clickthrough rates (CTR), and potentially more conversions.

How to optimize for Google’s People Also Ask:

This tutorial shows you how to rank in the PAA box, but here’s a quick recap of the process:

  1. Use an SEO tool with keyword research capabilities.
  2. Identify question-based keywords. (For example, keyphrase with “what,” “why, “how,” etc.)
  3. Create people-first content that aligns with search intent.
  4. Use FAQ schema markup on your page.
  5. Check out the competition for more PAA ranking ideas.

Tools for People Also Ask Rankings:

Of the above steps, one of the most important for PAA rankings is implementing schema markup on your site.

More often than not, FAQ schema is the most appropriate for content that ranks in the PAA box.

That’s because FAQs follow a question-and-answer format, which naturally lends itself to the PAA structure.

Adding schema markup requires some coding knowledge if you’re performing it manually.

But if you hate the idea of touching code (a common feeling among business and website owners), there are SEO plugins that can do it for you.

Take AIOSEO’s Schema Generator, for example.

This tool is as easy as picking the schema you want from a catalog.

In the example below, I’ve highlighted the FAQ option, which you add by clicking a button.

FAQ schema markup in the AIOSEO schema catalog.

Once selected, the plugin will automatically format the schema markup for search engines. And you don’t have to even think about the code.

Now, let’s check out another SEO win from Clerk Chat’s content optimizations.

In addition to PAA rankings, featured snippets are another type of SERP feature that website owners love to get. (And users love to reference.)

Featured snippets are the top organic result on the SERP. They answer the user’s query directly in search results.

They appear above all other organic listings in what SEOs refer to as position zero.

Google featured snippet for the 301 area code.

Due to their prominent positioning on the SERP, featured snippets are one of the most coveted search results.

SEO statistics suggest that featured snippets have the highest CTR at 42.9%, making them extremely valuable for your website’s traffic and overall business.

As for how Clerk Chat gets this type of SERP feature, it’s a little more indirect than other optimizations.

Google generates featured snippets on a per-search basis, meaning there’s no perfect science to getting them.

However, Clerk Chat adheres to a few SEO best practices to increase their chances of featured snippets, such as:

  • Using strong on-page SEO
  • Implementing schema markup
  • Creating a logical, organized content structure
  • Adding internal links with optimized anchor text
  • Writing user-centric content

These optimizations proved fruitful in July 2024, with Clerk Chat winning 2.4K featured snippets.

Growth chart of Clerk Chat's featured snippets.

Why this matters:

Securing a featured snippet is the SEO equivalent of hitting a home run.

Not only does it skyrocket your visibility, but it also positions your brand as the ultimate authority in your industry.

Users trust featured snippets, which can nurture a positive reputation for your brand.

They also can pique a user's interest to explore the source and visit your website, generating organic traffic for your business.

This article does a comprehensive breakdown of best practices for getting featured snippets.

Here’s an overview of the recommended steps:

  1. Add schema markup to your website.
  2. Optimize the content structure for featured snippets. (Like PAA rankings, you can use a question-answer format.)
  3. Include a table of contents in your post.
  4. Write the best piece of content on the subject.
  5. Scope out competitors ranking for your desired featured snippet.

Crafting content that secures a featured snippet isn't an easy feat.

It requires a deep understanding of your audience and creating the best piece of content that fulfills their needs.

Luckily, there are tools that can simplify the process.

TruSEO is a content optimization tool for WordPress.

It helps you maximize your content's reach using on-page SEO checks and content readability suggestions.

TruSEO provides these insights as action-oriented checklists.

For example, the Focus Keyphrase Checklist reminds you to include your primary keyword in critical areas, like subheadings.

Focus keyphrase checklist from TruSEO.

And the Readability Checklist lets you know when there’s room to improve the user experience.

TruSEO readability checklist in WordPress.

Ultimately, these recommendations can make the difference between your content outranking a competitor for a featured snippet.

Standout SEO Wins

Before we conclude, there’s an additional SEO technique worth highlighting at clerk.chat.

They implement self-referencing canonical tags.

Canonical tags tell search engines which URL you prefer when pages have similar content.

This helps avoid duplicate content issues and lets search engines know, “This is the page I want you to serve in search results.”

However, when you don’t have similar content, many website owners think it’s unneccessary to include canonical tags.

After all, when there’s nothing to pick between, surely search engines will know which URL to rank, right?

Most of the time, yes, but a self-referencing canonical provides an additional layer of clarity for search engines.

It explicitly communicates how you want search engines to handle your website's content and provides insights into its structure.

For example, in the screenshot below, Clerk Chat is telling search engines that it wants them to crawl and serve the following URL for relevant queries: https://clerk.chat/carriers/proximus/

There’s no room for misinterpretation.

Screenshot shows the URL and canonical tag for one of Clerk Chat's pages.

For good measure, even Google’s John Mueller recommends using self-referencing canonical.

You can watch his take on the topic in the video below.

Tool: Canonical tags don’t have to be intimidating when you have the right tools. In AIOSEO, you can customize and manage canonical URLs easily.

Takeaways

In our analysis of clerk.chat, several key strategies emerge as drivers of their impressive organic growth.

To replicate their success, focus on these core areas:

Top 3 Strategies to Emulate

  1. Align your content with audience interests and needs. Understanding your audience is the first step to any successful business. This is particularly true for organic search. Knowing your audience's preferences and pain points allows you to tailor your content to their needs. You can provide genuine value that users want to read and search engines want to serve.
  2. Optimize your content for SERP features. SERP features give you additional visibility in search engines. They're more eye-catching, generate more clicks, and increase the organic traffic to your site. You can get them by implementing SEO best practices, such as targeting relevant keywords in your content and using schema markup. These strategies increase the likelihood of winning SERP features like PAA rankings and featured snippets.
  3. Implement canonical tags on your website. Canonical tags help search engines understand which page is your preferred version of content. Using them on your website is crucial for avoiding duplicate content issues and ensures your preferred page is served in search results. You should also use self-referencing canonical, like Clerk Chat, to add an additional layer of clarity even when no duplicate content is present.

Bottom 3 Strategies to Reconsider

  1. Writing non-descriptive anchor text. For the most part, Clerk Chat writes clear alt text that describes the content behind a hyperlink. However, when I ran an SEO audit of the site, a few links were flagged for being non-descriptive. Non-descriptive alt text can diminish the user experience and hinder your SEO efforts. It's important to use anchor text that describes the link and provides insights for readers and search engines. You can use a WordPress tool like Link Assistant, which generates linking suggestions and anchor texts for you.
  2. Neglecting content readability. A few of Clerk Chat's pages are considered “difficult” to read. Content readability measures how easy it is for users to read and understand a page. When your content readability is difficult, it can deter users from engaging with your site. To improve content readability, use clear headings, concise language, and an organized format. This will help users and search engines under your content more easily. The TruSEO tool checks content readability and gives you action-oriented items to improve it.
  3. Exceeding meta title character limits. Exceeding metadata character limits can result in truncated titles on the SERP. This can lead to incomplete information, which can decrease the efficacy of your titles and impact clickthrough rates. Try running your page title ideas in a SERP preview tool to ensure they fit on the SERP. You can also use an AI title generator to write unique page titles for you.

Steal Our Winning SEO Strategy: A Checklist for Your Website

Download A Free SEO Checklist

Access our comprehensive SEO Checklist with a single click. We'll deliver it straight to you, putting actionable items with SEO tools and tutorials right at your fingertips.

Enter your name and email to download a free SEO checklist.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

Unlock More Rankings and Traffic With AIOSEO

Want to replicate Clerk Chat’s extraordinary traffic growth on your website?

All in One SEO has the tools you need to succeed in the organic search landscape.

All in One SEO homepage, the best WordPress SEO plugin.

More than 3 million users trust AIOSEO to streamline their SEO efforts in WordPress. You’ll get a comprehensive suite of tools that make SEO accessible to all and get results.

Here are a few of our favorites:

  • Semrush Keyphrase Suggestions: Perform keyword research directly in the WordPress editor. AIOSEO connects with your Semrush account to generate and serve keyword ideas for your content.
  • Rich Snippets Schema: Win more SERP features with AIOSEO’s user-friendly schema generator. Just pick the schema type you want, and we’ll format the structured data properly for Google.
  • TruSEO Score: Level up your content and go beyond a simple pass or fail. TruSEO analyzes your on-page SEO, giving you actionable insights to maximize your content's reach.
  • Robots.txt Editor: Control how bots crawl your site with the Robots.txt Editor, which allows you to override default WordPress settings. This tool makes it simple to view your robots.txt file and manage rules.
  • Link Assistant: Get link suggestions, edit anchor text, and add internal links to your content in just 1 click. Link Assistant helps you effortlessly build a better linking strategy.
  • AI Title & Description Generator: Save time writing SEO titles and meta descriptions with the help of AI. With just a click of a button, you can generate unique metadata for any page on your website.
author avatar
Gabriela Jhean SEO Specialist
Gabriela is a creative and results-driven SEO specialist dedicated to helping small businesses stand out online. She contributes in-depth SEO case studies at AIOSEO Trends to reveal the winning strategies of top-ranking websites. In her downtime, Gabriela enjoys treasure hunting for antique jewelry.