Building a Content Engine for SaaS: 163% Traffic Growth & 160% More Inbound Leads
Executive Summary
JustCall, a product of VC-funded parent company SaaS Labs, is a cloud communication platform for sales and customer support teams serving 6,000+ businesses globally. It had strong product-market fit but content that wasn’t yet driving growth at scale. Traffic had plateaued and keyword visibility lagged behind competitors. The existing content cadence produced volume without strategy. Assets weren’t mapped to buyer intent or tied to measurable outcomes. There was no unified message map; every piece sounded different, and prospects encountered fragmented positioning at every touchpoint. The content function operated reactively rather than strategically.
The business needed a complete rebuild: a full-funnel content marketing strategy that could fuel demand generation across every buyer stage, a message map that unified positioning and voice across all touchpoints, and systems that could scale quality and consistency. Working as part of a cross-functional team (SEO specialists, designers, performance marketers, PPM, developers, and sales ops), the content marketing strategy was rebuilt from the ground up—creating the full-funnel framework, building the core messaging framework that anchored all positioning, establishing repeatable editorial systems, and developing assets that supported both acquisition and enablement.
Over 12 months, organic traffic grew 163% (from 7,516 to 19,741 users per month), keywords ranking in the top 10 increased 535% (from 1,119 to 7,111), inbound leads grew 160% year-over-year, and the organic channel contributed approximately 30% of the total sales pipeline.
Diagnostic Phase: First Two Weeks
The initial assessment focused on understanding content inventory, organic performance trends, competitive positioning, and internal workflows. Several structural issues became clear early.
- No full-funnel content marketing strategy: Content skewed heavily toward top-funnel “how-to” blogs. Weak mid-funnel evaluation content. Bottom-funnel decision pages were thin, generic, or missing entirely. No coherent buyer journey connecting awareness to conversion.
- Messaging inconsistency: No unified message map. Every piece sounded different. No consistent value proposition, differentiation narrative, or brand voice across touchpoints—prospects encountered fragmented positioning at every stage.
- Fragmented content architecture: Overlapping posts competing for identical search intent, splitting authority and creating keyword cannibalization across product categories.
- SEO performance plateau: Traffic was stable but not growing. Keyword rankings were stagnant in positions 11-20 for high-intent terms—visible but not competitive.
- No editorial infrastructure: No content briefs, quality standards, or repeatable production processes. Output was inconsistent. No clear ownership of content quality.
- Conversion path ambiguity: CTAs were generic. No intent-matched offers, lead magnets, or progressive engagement strategies tied to funnel stage.
- Sales enablement gap: Sales team lacked content-backed materials for common objections, comparisons, and nurture sequences.
Strategic Hypotheses
Developed six hypotheses to guide strategy and provide measurable validation points:
If content is deliberately mapped to each buyer journey stage (awareness → consideration → decision) with logical next steps between stages, traffic quality and conversion rates will improve significantly.
If a unified message map defines core positioning, differentiation, and voice across all touchpoints, prospects will build confidence faster because they encounter the same strategic narrative everywhere they engage.
If pages answer high-intent questions fully (features, pricing context, use cases, comparisons, next steps), engagement will increase and exits will decrease.
If content clusters around core use cases and personas with intentional internal linking, rankings will consolidate and user navigation will improve.
If production processes are standardized (briefs, message map alignment, review checklists, quality rubrics), output quality will scale independently of individual contributors.
If early signals (SERP movement, scroll depth, form starts) are tracked weekly, course-correction will be faster than relying on lagging pipeline metrics.
Strategic Approach
Full-Funnel Content Marketing Strategy
Built a comprehensive content marketing strategy that mapped every asset to a specific buyer journey stage and decision moment. This wasn’t content for content’s sake. It was a system designed to move prospects from awareness to evaluation to decision.
- Stage 1: Awareness (Top-Funnel): Educational content addressing pain points before prospects knew solutions existed Focus: problem identification, category education, thought leadership. Goal: traffic + brand recall.
- Stage 2: Consideration (Mid-Funnel): Solution-oriented content helping prospects evaluate approaches and build internal business cases. Focus: frameworks, comparison logic, ROI thinking. Goal: engagement + qualification.
- Stage 3: Decision (Bottom-Funnel): Decision-support content addressing final objections and product-specific questions. Focus: feature clarity, competitive positioning, implementation confidence. Goal: conversion + sales enablement.
Every piece of content had a defined role, a target persona, and a logical next step. No orphaned assets. No publishing for vanity metrics.
Message Map: The Strategic Foundation
Created a comprehensive message map that unified positioning, differentiation, and voice across all content touchpoints. This became the strategic anchor for every piece produced, from blog posts to landing pages to sales enablement materials.
The message map defined:
- Core value proposition: The single reason JustCall exists and what it uniquely delivers
- Persona-specific pain points: What each buyer persona struggles with and cares about most
- Differentiation pillars: The 3-5 ways JustCall is meaningfully different from alternatives
- Proof points: Evidence that supports each claim (metrics, use cases, customer outcomes)
- Tonal guidelines: Voice, vocabulary, and rhetorical style that makes content sound distinctly “JustCall”
This foundation ensured that whether people read a blog post, a comparison page, or a sales datasheet, they encountered the same strategic narrative-just adapted to their stage and intent. Content teams could produce a coherent system that compounds authority over time.
Intent Mapping & Prioritization
Search queries were mapped to buyer journey stages and persona intent. Content production focused on closing gaps in consideration and decision stages—areas where prospects were leaving to research competitors or abandoning evaluation due to missing information.
The operating principle: Optimize for the decision, not just the click.
Target outcome: informed, sales-ready prospects entering the pipeline.
“Complete the Job” Framework
Planned a standardized page structure to eliminate friction and reduce information-seeking exits. Every bottom-funnel page required:
- Use case clarity: Who this is for, what problem it solves
- Feature context: Not just what it does, but why it matters
- Pricing transparency: Ballpark ranges, plan comparisons, ROI framing
- Proof: Customer logos, testimonials, case outcomes
- Comparison positioning: How it stacks against alternatives
- Next action clarity: Intent-matched CTA (guide, demo) with low-friction entry
This addressed the core diagnostic insight: users left because pages didn’t provide complete information. They had to visit competitor sites to finish their research.
Hub-and-Spoke Architecture
Partnered with SEO and product marketing to consolidate overlapping content into high-value pillar pages organized around core buyer jobs-to-be-done:
- Built hub-and-spoke clusters for categories like “Call Center Automation,” “Sales Dialers,” and “AI Conversation Intelligence”
- Established canonical structures and consistent link hierarchies for crawl efficiency
- Created internal linking rules ensuring every hub connected to a clear conversion path (demo, use-case assessment, etc.)
This structure improved crawlability, consolidated link equity, and created intuitive user pathways. Instead of competing internally, the architecture built compounding authority.
Editorial Operating System
Built repeatable processes to scale quality across a growing content volume (200+ pieces per quarter):
Reader intent, core questions to answer, differentiation angle, internal linking, CTA matching, compliance/accuracy notes
Three-pass system (accuracy/compliance → clarity/structure → conversion/UX)
Mandatory elements for decision-stage pages (use cases, pricing context, proof, comparisons, objection-handling, clear next step)
Specific over generic. Match next step to page intent. Delay aggressive prompts. Reduce friction at capture.
Conversion Path Design
Replaced generic CTAs with intent-specific offers. CTAs were staged by funnel position: early content promoted educational downloads, mid-stage promoted demos and comparison assets, late-stage promoted signups. This reduced friction by matching asks to readiness.
Sales Alignment
Created condensed enablement sheets for each persona and use case—designed for follow-up conversations. Materials summarized key discussion points, linked to relevant content, and outlined next steps. Sales adoption rate was significantly high the first quarter (based on feedback).
Content Production & Cross-Functional Execution
Content Delivery
Working with SEO, product marketing, and freelance contributors, the content team produced 200+ assets per quarter across educational, product, and enablement categories—all anchored in the full-funnel strategy and core messaging framework.
- Persona and use-case hub pages covering core buyer jobs-to-be-done
- Bottom-funnel decision pages including feature comparisons, pricing breakdowns, use-case guides, case studies, and competitive positioning
- Supporting educational content strategically mapped to funnel stages and buyer intent
- Restructured existing content around user questions rather than internal product categories
- Added missing decision elements (pricing context, social proof, competitive comparisons)
- Improved content UX and on-page clarity—better structure, readability, and engagement
- Updated factual accuracy and ensured alignment with the core messaging framework
- Datasheets, objection-handling guides, comparison sheets, use-case one-pagers—all anchored in the same messaging framework used across content touchpoints
- Built consistent brand messaging via guides, datasheets, and comparison materials
- Standardized brief template (intent, must-answer questions, messaging alignment, internal linking, CTA logic)
- Established editorial quality controls and repeatable production systems for internal teams and freelancers
- Final editorial review on all pieces (accuracy, clarity, message consistency, conversion optimization)
- Quality checklist enforced across all decision-stage content (completeness, plain-language requirement, transparency, structural consistency, messaging adherence)
Cross-Functional Collaboration
SEO & Technical Optimization (With SEO Team)
- Identified and resolved keyword cannibalization (consolidated competing pages into authoritative hubs)
- Specified internal linking strategy; SEO team implemented hub-and-spoke structure
- Recommended schema markup for HowTo, FAQ, and SoftwareApplication types
- Coordinated canonical tag cleanup and 301 redirects for merged/retired content
Conversion Optimization (Recommended & Tested With Design/Dev)
- Replaced generic CTAs with intent-matched offers (guide, assessment based on page goal, etc.)
- Sticky mobile CTA implementation; restricted to bottom-funnel pages after testing showed scroll-depth impact
- Reduced lead capture form fields based on completion rate analysis
- Specified inline lead magnet placement at value delivery moments rather than random placement
Measurement Framework
Maintained a dashboard tracking both leading and lagging indicators to enable real-time adjustment rather than relying solely on delayed pipeline metrics.
- Top 10 keyword movement for high-intent terms
- Scroll depth to primary CTA position
- Form-start rate (engagement signal)
- MoM organic traffic movement
- Qualified lead volume
- Lead-to-opportunity conversion rate
- Organic-assisted pipeline contribution
- Cost per acquisition (organic attribution)
Performance Outcomes (12 Months)
Beyond traffic and leads, engagement metrics validated the quality of growth. Users stayed longer, explored deeper, and converted more.
Inbound Leads (YoY)
+160%
Organic Pipeline Contribution
~30%
- Time-on-page (key decision pages): ~40s → 3m+
- Bounce rate: 74% → 58%
- Pages per session: 1.4 → 2.8
Note: All metrics shown are directional estimates based on internal analytics and tracking tools during the engagement period. Figures reflect growth trends, not absolute precision.
Why It Worked
Full-Funnel Strategy Created Buyer Momentum
Content wasn’t just attracting traffic. It was moving prospects through a logical, structured journey. Awareness content built interest, consideration content built confidence, decision content removed friction. Each stage fed the next. No dead ends.
Core Messaging Framework Unified All Touchpoints
Every asset (blog, guide, datasheet, landing page, more) reinforced the same strategic narrative. Prospects encountered consistent positioning, vocabulary, and proof points across every interaction. This built trust faster and made the brand feel coherent, not fragmented.
Optimized for Decisions, Not Just Traffic
Growth came from strategic positioning around high-intent queries and complete, conversion-ready pages. Volume mattered less than intent quality and readiness.
Complete Pages Reduced Research Exits
Users no longer needed multiple tabs to piece together information. Time-on-page increased significantly. Exit rates dropped because friction was eliminated at the content level.
Repeatable Systems Scaled Quality
Editorial infrastructure (briefs, rubrics, review processes) meant quality wasn’t dependent on individual contributors. Standards were documented, enforced, and iterable.
Multi-Team Coordination Drove Execution
Content strategy influenced—and was informed by—SEO technical work, conversion optimization, product positioning, and sales enablement. This integrated marketing strategy prevented siloed efforts and multiplied impact.
Let’s Talk About Turning Your Content Into a Growth Channel.
No fluff. No vanity metrics. Just strategy and assets that compound your visibility, trust, and pipeline—quarter after quarter.
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