How a Small Business Phone System Grew Traffic by 3,136% in 6 Months
https://linkedphone.com/
Stats
29.6K to 959K Monthly Visits
Industry
SaaS
Niche
Cloud Phone System
Reporting Date
October 2024
LinkedPhone is a virtual phone system for small businesses and entrepreneurs. It provides cloud-based business phone numbers that route calls to any internet-enabled device.
LinkedPhone was founded in 2017 but has recently reached a new era of online visibility in 2024.
Organic traffic skyrocketed from 29.6K to almost 1M monthly visits in a mere 6 months.
In this SEO case study, we'll dive into the strategies behind this remarkable growth and share tips for replicating them on your website.
In This Article
The Catalyst: How LinkedPhone Reached 959K Monthly Visits
1. Debuted Local Area Code Landing Pages
In August 2024, LinkedPhone debuted a new category on its website: local phone numbers.
This landing page highlights one of LinkedPhone’s offerings, which is to provide users with local phone numbers based on their geographic preferences.
Potential customers can browse area codes and view available phone numbers on this page.
Each area code has an internal link to a dedicated landing page for that specific area code.
For example, here we have the landing page for the 214 area code, a Dallas, Texas, phone number.
On these landing pages, LinkedPhone provides in-depth details regarding the area code, including its origins, related area codes for the same city, and more.
They also highlight the benefits of having a local phone number for small businesses.
Overall, they’re comprehensive resources that provide everything you need to know about a specific area code.
Currently, the website has around 190 area code pages, and their presence has been instrumental in LinkedPhone’s online visibility.
Keyword rankings more than doubled from before these pages were live on the site. In October, they reached 49.2K rankings, whereas they were at only 20K in June.
These pages generated 96.5% of all U.S. traffic by October. (The U.S. is LinkedPhone’s top traffic-generating country.)
Why this matters:
LinkedPhone's implementation of area code landing pages has transformed its online visibility.
By creating highly targeted content that caters to specific geographic needs, they've tapped into unique audiences across the U.S.
It's also unlocked a goldmine of new keyword rankings and organic traffic.
This approach highlights the impact of strategic keyword targeting and content optimizations.
Note: For another example of a website that used a similar content strategy, check out these SEO case studies of Clerk Chat and KrispCall.
How to find keyword ranking opportunities:
Before you can create posts or pages that generate traffic, you need to understand your audience’s interests and needs.
Keyword research will help you uncover this information.
Here’s a quick overview of how to do keyword research:
- 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, which are easy to rank for.)
- Enter your keyword into your chosen tool
- Find “easy” keywords. (Long-tail keywords are particularly good for this.)
- Align your content with the keyword’s search intent.
- Publish your new post or page.
Tools for keyword research:
All in One SEO (AIOSEO) allows you to perform keyword research directly in the WordPress editor.
It connects with your Semrush account, so you don’t have to switch between tools.
Once you’ve set a focus keyword on the page or post you’re working on in WordPress, click Get Additional Keyphrases.
AIOSEO will fetch related keywords from Semrush and present them to you in the editor.
(You’ll likely encounter long-tail keywords, which excel at driving targeted traffic to your site.)
Overall, this feature streamlines the keyword research process, allowing you to focus on what matters most: improving your SEO and growing your business.
2. Leveraged FAQs to Rank in People Also Ask
At the end of each area code page, LinkedPhone includes 15 FAQs.
Here’s an example of the first few:
Users can expand these questions to reveal the answer, as shown below.
FAQs are a great way to provide users with quick and easy access to helpful information.
In a business context, they can help reduce customer concerns and increase conversion rates.
And within the search engine realm, FAQs are prime content for ranking in Google People Also Ask (PAA).
The PAA box displays popular questions related to the user’s search query.
Like LinkedPhone’s FAQs, users can expand these questions to reveal the answer.
In October 2024, LinkedPhone had 5.4K rankings in the PAA box.
Here are a few tips for how LinkedPhone got PAA rankings:
- Included FAQs on every area code page
- Optimized each FAQ for that specific area code
- Used clear and concise language
- Implemented FAQ schema markup in the HTML code
Why this matters:
Ranking in the Google People Also Ask box brings heightened visibility for websites.
These results are featured prominently in SERPs, generating more brand awareness and clicks than standard search results.
They’re also a powerful means of building trust with new users or potential customers since Google prefers authoritative sources for the PAA box.
How to rank in the PAA box:
This tutorial shows you how to rank in the PAA box, but here’s an overview of the process:
- Use a keyword research tool.
- Identify question-based keywords. (These keywords may include modifiers like “what,” “why, “how,” etc.)
- Create people-first content that aligns with search intent.
- Use FAQ schema markup on your page.
- Check out the competition for more PAA ranking ideas.
Tools for PAA rankings:
AIOSEO makes it easy to write and optimize FAQs in WordPress.
Just locate the AIOSEO – FAQ box and add it to your post or page.
AIOSEO will format the FAQ schema markup for search engines, so you don’t have to worry about coding it.
3. Used Schema Markup to Get Review Snippets
LinkedPhone also ranked for another coveted SERP feature: review snippets.
Review snippets are enhanced search listings that show customer ratings and reviews.
For LinkedPhone, we see that it has an average rating of 4.7 stars based on 3,419 reviews.
And here’s an excerpt of that schema markup in the page’s source code:
So, what is schema markup exactly?
And how did it help LinkedPhone get multiple SERP features, including review snippets?
Schema markup is a type of structured data that lives within a web page’s HTML code.
It communicates important details about your page in a way that’s easy for search engines to understand.
In return, search engines can use this information to generate an enhanced listing in search results.
In the above example, we saw how software schema and rating schema resulted in a review snippet in SERPs.
This strategy proved effective for LinkedPhone, generating 38.2K review snippets by October.
Why this matters:
According to SEO statistics, rich snippets get 58% of all clicks.
This is significantly higher than standard search listings, which have a 41% clickthrough rate (CTR).
Schema markup contributes to getting rich snippets, making them a valuable tool for website owners.
How to implement schema markup:
This tutorial shows how to add product review schema using a WordPress plugin.
If you don’t have a schema markup plugin, you can also add schema manually.
Regardless of which method you choose, it’s important to select the most appropriate schema type for your page.
For example, LinkedPhone uses SoftwareApplication schema (which includes review schema attributes) to highlight its SaaS offerings.
If you have an eCommerce site, you’d likely use Product schema, which also has review attributes.
To help choose the appropriate schema type for your site, visit Google’s structured data page.
Tools for schema markup:
AIOSEO’s Schema Generator allows you to add schema with the click of a button.
(It offers both schema types discussed above—product and software.)
After selecting your schema, it has user-friendly fields for entering your review details.
Once you’ve added all the details, click Add Schema, and the plugin will format the structured data for Google.
Standout SEO Wins
Before we wrap up, there’s a final SEO win I’d like to highlight at LinkedPhone:
Ranking in Google AI Overviews
AI Overviews are a new SERP feature in Google.
They appear at the top of search results and use generative AI to answer the user’s query directly on the SERP.
Users can click Show More to get a more in-depth answer and see the sources Google used to create its response.
Ranking in this area of the SERPs is somewhat more allusive than other SERP features, but it comes down to adhering to SEO best practices.
This includes:
- Understanding search intent
- Creating high-quality content
- Organizing content for readability
- Optimizing for search engines
- Implementing technical SEO
Overall, LinkedPhone upholds these best practices and search engines reward them for it.
In October, LinkedPhone ranked for 2.6K rankings in AI Overviews.
Tool: AIOSEO recently updated its plugin with a new Writing Assistant. This tool connects to your SEOBoost account and provides real-time content optimization suggestions in WordPress. It can help you throughout every stage of the content creation process, from generating topic reports to suggesting related keywords, as shown below in the Optimization Wizard.
Takeaways
In our analysis of LinkedPhone, we've uncovered the strategies behind its impressive growth.
Now, let's recap how you can implement these strategies on your website and others to reconsider.
Top 3 Strategies to Emulate
- Leverage the power of local SEO. Even though LinkedPhone is a cloud-based service, its customers have specific geographic needs. LinkedPhone taps into these local needs by creating area code landing pages that target specific areas in the U.S. They use local keyword targeting to ensure maximum reach for each of these pages. This ensures they appear in relevant local search results and generate traffic across the U.S.
- Prioritize high-quality, informative content. LinkedPhone's new content provides a comprehensive overview of every U.S. area code. This approach helps users get all the information they need from a single page and reduces the need to visit other websites. LinkedPhone also strategically includes FAQs to provide this information in a format that's easy to digest. By creating valuable content that addresses user needs, search engines may reward your site with higher rankings, as they did for LinkedPhone.
- Use schema markup to win enhanced search listings. LinkedPhone implements schema markup generously across its website. This helps search engines understand their web pages more easily and encourages SERP features. There are several schema types, so it's important to select the most appropriate one for your content. For example, LinkedPhone uses FAQ schema on pages with FAQs and SoftwareApplication schema as a SaaS company.
Bottom 3 Strategies to Reconsider
- Not writing image title tags. Image title tags are often overlooked, but they play a crucial role in image SEO. Image titles appear when users click or hover over an image. They provide additional context for users and search engines about the image's content. For your website, you can use an image SEO plugin to write image titles automatically for you.
- Exceeding metadata character limits. While it's important to provide detailed metadata for your pages, exceeding character limits can lead to truncation. Try to keep your page titles 50-60 characters and meta descriptions 150-160 characters. This will ensure your full title and description appear in search engines, leading to a more positive user experience. You can check your metadata in a SERP snippet tool to make sure it fits before publishing.
- Having thin content. A few of LinkedPhone's pages were tagged for having low content, which are web pages under 200 characters. After investigating these pages, it was within an appropriate context (like a contact page). However, it serves as a good reminder for website owners to make sure each page provides value or, at the very least, serves a distinct purpose. AIOSEO's Writing Assistant allows you to create Overview Reports, which show the average word count of top-ranking content for your focus keyword. This information can help you determine how long you should make your post or page.
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- Local SEO: Boost your visibility in local searches and rank higher in Google Maps with this local SEO tool. It implements local business schema for you —no coding required.
- Rich Snippets Schema: Win more rich results with AIOSEO’s intuitive Schema Generator. Just pick the schema type you want, and we’ll format the structured data properly for Google.
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