
HubSpot’s SEO strategy is the talk of the SEO world today. Why? Just look at this image:
Organic traffic appears to have declined sharply, dropping from 13.5 million in November to 8.6 million in December, according to Semrush (disclosure: MarTech is a Semrush company). HubSpot’s blog seems to have taken most of the impact.
It may be that Google wants to stop rewarding websites that publish content outside their area of expertise – that lack depth and topical authority on. The type of content that is more geared toward getting Google organic traffic than being written for people. What Google might call “SEO-first content” (or helpful content).
Some of the topics seeing huge declines for HubSpot appear to be blogs about famous quotes, writing a resignation letter, and cover letter examples.
Why we care. SEO just keeps getting harder. HubSpot, for years, executed a masterful content strategy that was emulated by countless other brands and websites. For years, it was considered by many to be the gold standard of B2B vendor blogs. Now, it appears that SEO playbook is no longer working, likely due to a combination of Google core updates and AI Overviews. Think depth, not breadth.
SEO reactions. Some SEOs are blaming the huge traffic drop on HubSpot’s lack of topical authority, while others pointed to possible “thin content” issues. Here’s a sampling of some of the reactions to the news of HubSpot’s SEO results falling off a cliff:
Taylor (Berg) Chapa, group manager, web strategy and experience at Headspace, had a great thread on X, some highlights:
Gemma Brunson wrote on X:
Chris Long had an interesting analysis of HubSpot’s blog traffic on X.
Adam Ryan, CEO of Workweek, wrote on X: