In this website analysis, we highlight how FreshBooks grew its organic traffic exponentially with excellent content and SEO. You will learn about:

• FreshBooks’ small business resource hub that covers nearly 2,000 topics
• The international SEO configuration of the website
• Dedicated industry-specific landing pages targeting highly relevant keywords
• How FreshBooks targets thousands of “invoice template” keywords
• The power of glossary pages that answer “what is” questions
• How a single free tool can generate over 10,000 monthly visitors
• Product comparison pages that ensure you capture your brand traffic
• How you can apply the learnings of this analysis to your own website

Disclaimer: this is an analysis of a website with great SEO and content, in the author’s opinion. SERP Builders has not worked with FreshBooks.

What is FreshBooks?

FreshBooks is an online accounting and invoicing software for small and medium-sized business owners that don’t have an accounting background.

The company was founded in 2003 by Mike McDerment, who initially developed invoicing software for his own needs and eventually turned it into a product for IT professionals just like himself. Two decades later, the company has over 500 employees and serves customers from all over the world.

The platform’s functionality includes invoicing, accounting, expenses and receipts tracking, mileage tracking, time tracking and payroll integration. It also integrates with many third party apps and SaaS solutions.

FreshBooks’ organic SEO traffic

Ahrefs estimates FreshBooks’ monthly organic traffic to be north of 1.7 million, with over 700,000 ranking keywords that contribute.

Organic traffic grew steadily for many years, reaching 500,000 visitors in January 2020. While most websites will never get anywhere close to that traffic level, FreshBooks wasn’t done growing. By late 2022, the website was getting close to 2 million organic visitors per month.

Let’s look at the content types and SEO strategies FreshBooks used to achieve these numbers.

An extensive small business resource hub

FreshBooks has a content hub that contains nearly 2,000 pages explaining everything there is to know about running a small business.

Combined, the content hub pages drive 1.4 million monthly organic visitors, roughly 80% of total organic traffic.

Each page covers its topic in full and is SEO optimized for all of the keywords in its keyword bucket by structuring the article and the H2 header tags around them.

FreshBooks also has a dedicated blog section that covers more niche topics, case studies, and news about its product.

Not every article on the blog is targeting SEO keywords, but this section of the website drives another 67,000 organic visitors per month.

Recommended reading: How to Become the Content Marketing King of Your Niche

International SEO & content strategy

FreshBooks uses an international SEO and content strategy with localized versions of the website for many of the world’s major English speaking countries. It also has German and Spanish versions targeting Germany and Mexico, respectively.

Searchers in each country’s search engines automatically get shown the right country version of the website through the correct implementation of hreflang tags.

The website also contains country-specific content that is only available on that country’s version of the website. For example, the Australian version of the website contains an article about the Australian superannuation system.

This international website configuration gives FreshBooks excellent visibility in each geographical location it is targeting.

Industry specific landing pages

FreshBooks created 89 different landing pages that target the keyword “accounting software” in combination with specific business types such as repair shops, electricians, and travel agencies.

Many of the industry pages rank on the first page of Google, with several highly relevant keywords ranking in the top 3.

While these pages contribute “only” 5,600 monthly organic visitors, they are really important because the keywords are targeting potential customers who are much further along in their buyer’s journey.

Invoice templates

FreshBooks has over 100 invoice template pages that drive over 100,000 monthly organic visitors to the website.

Similar to the industry-specific “accounting software” landing pages, the template pages target business types such as web designers and artists, and also invoice types such as printable invoices and blank invoices.

Each page provides free downloadable invoices that do not require users to leave their email address.

There are CTA buttons throughout the template pages to get customers to try invoicing with FreshBooks. The free downloadable invoices are FreshBooks branded, which is an excellent way to increase brand awareness and exposure.

Glossary pages answering “what is” questions

FreshBooks has an extensive glossary section that contains explainer pages about all of the terminology used in its space.

Since FreshBooks caters to small and medium-sized business owners – many of whom do not have an accounting background, but do at least some of their own accounting – these pages are not only valuable from an SEO standpoint, but also from a business standpoint.

Combined, the glossary pages drive 8,500 monthly organic visitors to the website. These are very recent visitors, as the glossary section hasn’t been around for long:

This is not the first time we have seen the power of this content type as Chargebee has also been very successful with a similar strategy.

Calculator tools

FreshBooks has created a free markup calculator tool:

This single page drives over 12,000 monthly organic visitors to the website.

FreshBooks also has VAT calculator tools for several of the countries it is targeting, which contribute another 7,000 monthly organic visitors.

Free calculators are valuable to FreshBooks’ audience as they help with pricing and invoicing. In addition, they give potential customers a taste of what FreshBooks’ software can do for their business.

Product comparison pages to capture brand traffic

FreshBooks ensures it captures traffic for “compare” and “FreshBooks vs [Competitor Product]” keywords.

There are dedicated landing pages with fair comparisons between competitors and FreshBooks.

Pages like this are extremely valuable as they attract potential customers who are in the final stages of their decision making process.

Having them land on your website is half the battle.

RELATED: The Importance of Owning Your Branded Keywords

How you can grow your B2B fintech website with the right content types

It may seem like a daunting task to research and determine the content types and topics that target your potential customers and also drive SEO traffic.

The truth is, it’s not easy to find that perfect mix between business objectives and SEO objectives.

Across all of the content types mentioned in this analysis, FreshBooks has over 6,500 pages indexed in Google.

But the site started somewhere. The process took years.

SERP Builders specializes in content and SEO for B2B fintech businesses like FreshBooks. We can help you with the whole content marketing process, from strategy creation to execution. We start with the highest ROI content topics for your business, so you can see results regardless of your budget.

Learn more about our SEO and content services, or reach out for a tailored strategy that fits your site’s needs.