20 SEO Playbooks CEOs Used to Generate 100m Clicks Free

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How Top Software CEOs Use Organic SEO to Drive Millions in Revenue

In this article, you will discover how SaaS founders are leveraging organic search to fuel incredible growth, attract thousands of new users, and add millions to their annual revenue—all backed by real-world examples from the CEOs who made it happen. By creating valuable, targeted content and building free tools, these leaders have turned search engines into powerful, automated customer acquisition engines. You’ll get the 6-part playbook to launch your own Organic SEO strategy, complete with dozens of case studies you can use as inspiration.

These examples are from top Founders like Eric Siu at Single Grain, Sridhar Vembu at Zoho, and Kyle Poyar at OpenView, collected directly from keynotes at Founderpath events.

The 6-Part Strategy to Dominate Organic SEO

This playbook outlines the core steps successful software companies take to turn organic search into a predictable revenue channel. By focusing on user intent and creating genuinely valuable assets, you can build a sustainable growth engine that compounds over time.

1. Identify User Pain Points & High-Intent Keywords: Instead of guessing, start by understanding what your potential users are actively searching for. Focus on long-tail, high-intent keywords that signal a user is trying to solve a problem your software addresses. These are often framed as “how-to” questions, comparisons (“vs”), or searches for templates and tools.
2. Create High-Value Content & Free Tools: Develop resources that directly answer your users’ questions. This can be in the form of comprehensive blog posts, evergreen pillar content, or free tools and calculators that provide immediate value. Shiyam Sunder of TripleDart explained that building free tools like an “ESOP pool size calculator” can generate dozens of high-quality, free backlinks in just a few months because they are genuinely useful.
3. Focus on Bottom-of-the-Funnel (BOFU) Content First: Target keywords that indicate a user is close to making a purchase decision. This includes “alternative” keywords (e.g., “HubSpot vs. Zoho”), pricing pages, and use-case-specific content. These keywords are often less competitive but convert at a much higher rate.
4. Scale Content Creation with Programmatic SEO: Once you have a winning template, use programmatic SEO to create hundreds or thousands of targeted pages at scale. This is effective for targeting location-based keywords (“SEO agency in New York”), comparisons, or industry-specific use cases.
5. Build Authority with Quality Backlinks: A high volume of quality backlinks signals to search engines that your content is authoritative. While creating great content and tools will attract links naturally, proactive outreach and digital PR are also crucial for boosting your domain authority.
6. Convert Traffic into Revenue: Ensure your high-traffic pages have clear calls-to-action (CTAs) that guide users toward signing up for a free trial, requesting a demo, or making a purchase. The goal of SEO is not just traffic, but converting that traffic into paying customers.

40+ Examples of Organic SEO in Action

Here are over 40 real-world examples from SaaS CEOs who have successfully used organic SEO strategies to grow their companies, attract new users, and drive revenue.

• Eric Siu at Single Grain shared how one single SEO-optimized page generates over $1 million in pure profit annually by ranking for thousands of keywords. His site, which gets nearly 20 million visits a year, was built on a strategy of refreshing old content and targeting high-value, bottom-of-the-funnel keywords.
• Kyle Poyar of OpenView highlighted that organic search and SEO are the most common and effective acquisition channels for PLG companies, accounting for about 40% of all new users.
• Jurg Bender of Prepper explained their growth playbook is centered on organic SEO. By targeting and ranking for keywords like “best time to post on Instagram,” they generate over 1,600 free clicks per month, helping them grow to over $6,000 in MRR.
• The team at TripleDart, a B2B SaaS growth agency, uses programmatic SEO for their own growth, creating location-specific pages like “B2B SaaS SEO agency in New York” which rank in the top positions and drive high-intent traffic.
• Ricardo at Betterpic grew his company from zero to $3.2 million in revenue in just over a year, with a heavy focus on SEO from day one. His strategy included creating 5-10 blog posts per week and building free tools to capture organic traffic for high-value keywords.
• John Doherty of Getcredo generated over $250 million in leads by scaling his site’s taxonomy to over 6,500 pages targeting hyper-specific, long-tail keywords like “B2B Healthcare SaaS marketing companies,” achieving conversion rates of 30-50% on those pages.
• Andrea Volpini of WordLift grew his SEO tool to over $1 million in ARR by focusing on inbound marketing and SEO, helping large clients like ZoomInfo present their data effectively to search engines and improve their rankings.
• MonetizeMore’s CEO, Kean Graham, revealed that over 95% of their leads come from inbound content marketing. Their active blog, evergreen pillar posts, and YouTube channel have been key drivers in growing their revenue to over $400,000 per month.
• The founder of Credo explained how a single backlink from a Moz article drove over $300,000 in revenue over five years, demonstrating the long-term power of high-authority referral traffic.
• DashThis CEO Antoine Periera grew his reporting tool to $4.2 million ARR primarily through SEO and PPC. By creating a large volume of helpful content, they successfully targeted specific, high-converting keywords related to marketing reports and KPIs.
• Rytis Lauris of Omnisend shared how his company, now at $50 million ARR, successfully competed against giants like HubSpot by focusing on a sophisticated SEO strategy that involved building high domain authority through extensive backlinking and creating expert-led, authentic content.
• Nathan Latka of Founderpath utilizes programmatic SEO to generate over 750,000 free clicks from Google annually. By creating a repeatable sentence pattern, his platform ranks number one for thousands of keywords like “[Company Name] Revenue.”
• The CEO of Surfer SEO, which grew to $15 million ARR, advised that for bootstrapped companies in competitive niches, it’s better to wait until reaching profitability (around $1M ARR) before investing heavily in SEO to ensure a positive ROI.
• The team at Surfer SEO grew to over $14 million in ARR by gamifying their review generation process. They offered in-product credits for users who left reviews on G2 and other platforms, rapidly increasing their social proof and search rankings.
• NessLabs founder Anne-Laure Le Cunff is actively growing her membership site’s acquisition through SEO, aiming for search traffic to overtake Twitter as her primary channel. She focuses on creating authentic content first and optimizing for SEO later, which has helped her rank for terms like “life lessons.”
• Rankwatch CEO Vaibhav Kakkar explained that 70-80% of their customers, now totaling 1,500, come from organic search. His team focuses on thousands of keywords, including long-tail terms like “future of SEO,” to drive consistent inbound growth for their $180k MRR business.
• NightEye CEO Stanislav Dimitrov grew his browser extension to 100,000 users purely through SEO. By writing articles targeting keywords like “Facebook dark mode” and “Amazon dark mode,” he was able to ride the trend and rank high in search results, acquiring customers for his $2,700 MRR side project.
• The CEO of RallyMind (formerly DevHub), Mark Michael, helps clients like Windstar Cruises launch hundreds of SEO-optimized, location-specific pages at scale, turning their websites into lead-generation machines and growing his company to a $5 million run rate.
• Madhav Bhandari from Storylane detailed a “Demo-Led SEO” strategy that grew their site from 25k to over 150k visitors per month in just three months. They created thousands of interactive demo pages for “how-to” keywords related to popular SaaS tools their ICP uses.
• The team at WordLift, which hit $1.8M ARR, automates SEO by building knowledge graphs for clients. This technique helps Google better understand a website’s content, allowing them to rank more easily and drive inbound traffic, a strategy that has them growing at 100% year-over-year.
• Arium’s founder, Joy Chottery, grew his company to $10k MRR by focusing on inbound marketing. He started by posting on forums and getting feedback, which led to initial customers and valuable word-of-mouth referrals.
• KoalaRank CEO Arrigo Lupori emphasized the importance of guest posting on high-authority sites and getting listed in directories like Clutch to build backlinks and drive qualified leads, a strategy that helped him establish his agency.
• Andrew Geisel of Planleave shared that his primary go-to-market strategy after acquiring his pre-revenue company is SEO. He is focusing on long-tail keywords like “vacation trackers” and “time off trackers” where he sees an opportunity to rank despite competition from larger HR systems.
• Nick Bjorn from Power Digital Marketing uses tools like MarketMuse to dissect keyword topics and scale content creation for clients like Soccer Loco. By topic modeling terms like “cheap soccer cleats,” his team creates comprehensive content ecosystems that rank well and drive traffic.
• Unstack CEO Grant Deken, now at $10k MRR, uses his own platform for content marketing, focusing on long-tail SEO and creating pillar posts like “best SaaS websites.” This dog-fooding approach helps them rank for keywords their customers are searching for.
• Atul from Plobal Apps achieved a number one Google ranking for “Shopify mobile app” through a combination of content marketing and a strong presence on the Shopify App Store, driving the company’s growth to over $54,000 in MRR.
• Topic CEO Nikhil Aitharaju plans to build a long-term growth engine through content marketing. By “laying the seeds” now with SEO-focused content, he aims to create a predictable revenue flow for his company, which has reached $21,000 MRR in its first year.
• Shai from Fleek is driving traffic and conversions for his new product by launching small, free side projects on Product Hunt. These projects act as lead magnets, attracting users who then discover and sign up for his main offering, helping him grow to over $4,000 MRR.
• Hiver CEO Niraj Ranjan explained that 80-90% of their customer acquisition is free and comes from organic search. They rank well for high-intent keywords like “shared inbox” and “help desk for Gmail,” which has scaled their business to over $1.4 million in ARR.
• JotForm’s CMO, Steve Hart, grew the company to over 3 million users and $45 million in ARR by being deliberate about SEO. His team identifies specific problems customers face and creates targeted content that shows up as the solution in search results.
• William Richards of EasyRedir grew his bootstrapped redirect service by 275% year-over-year by shifting focus from paid ads to SEO. He invested heavily in creating thought leadership blog posts and building relationships with partners like HubSpot, who now refer a significant number of customers.
• Vaibhav Kakkar from Rankwatch leverages his company’s own SEO tool to identify and rank for thousands of keywords. A key tactic is creating high-value infographics, like their “Future of SEO” piece which interviewed top experts and ranked in the top 10, driving significant conversions for their $180k MRR business.
• Mass Mobile Apps founder Ali Ispahani grew his white-label reseller business to $35k MRR through organic traffic. By focusing on keywords like “app builder” and “mass mobile,” his website ranks well and attracts a steady stream of inbound leads.
• Ahmed Qureshi of Brand Overflow is building his SEO tool to compete with giants like Ahrefs and SEMrush. His strategy involves using his own tool’s SEO audit feature to identify ranking opportunities and create content that will put them in the top 10 for competitive keywords.
• Datability’s founder Vivek Khandelwal shared that his browser notification platform, now at $54k MRR in pure SaaS revenue, grows through inbound content marketing and a “Powered by” link on their free publisher tool, which drives significant brand visibility and referral traffic.
• Trainual CEO Chris Ronzio scaled his company to $3 million ARR in two years by investing heavily in content and SEO. His internal marketing team focuses on guest posts, podcast sponsorships, and PR efforts to build backlinks and drive organic traffic, which is now beginning to overtake their paid ad channels.
• Steven Benson of Badger Maps uses SEO as his second-biggest acquisition channel. Word-of-mouth is number one, but their SEO strategy has been critical in growing the company to over 4,000 customers and a $1.2 million run rate.
• CrazyLister founder Vic Levitin uses a combination of paid acquisition and organic content to grow his eBay listing tool. By targeting very specific, high-intent keywords like “how to increase my sales on eBay,” he drives valuable traffic and has grown the company to over $80,000 in MRR.
• Mikael Thuneberg of Supermetrics has grown his company to a $12 million run rate with a strong focus on organic channels. They get over 10,000 leads per month from ranking for keywords like “Google Data Studio dashboarding” and from high ratings in Google’s application galleries.
• Max from PixelMe drives significant growth by creating targeted content for niche audiences like Amazon sellers. An article on “how you can retarget your Amazon traffic” was a major growth driver, helping the company reach $10k in MRR within 12 months.
• Scott Shatford, founder of AirDNA, dominates long-tail SEO by programmatically generating 80,000 unique pages for keywords combining geographical locations with terms like “Airbnb occupancy rate.” This strategy drives 80,000 unique visitors per month and has scaled the company to over $8.5 million in ARR.

Conclusion

You’ve just learned how the founders of top SaaS companies leverage Organic SEO to add millions in revenue, often with minimal ad spend. By focusing on user intent, creating genuinely valuable content and tools, and systematically building domain authority, they have turned organic search into a powerful and sustainable engine for growth. Now you have the playbook to do the same. If you’re looking for non-dilutive capital to scale your own marketing efforts, explore how Founderpath can provide you with the funding you need to grow faster.

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