Kapwing's SEO Project Marketing

• Kapwing is a startup that makes an online video editor;
• They faced the same problem like every other new startup: no funding, no organic traffic and no users;
• Tried cold emails, ads, posting in Facebook groups but none of it worked;
• They realized SEO is key for their product with the observation that first fifteen of their paying users all came from Google;
• The link building strategy they empolyed is SEO Project Marketing, i.e., the is press exposure results in articles and backlinks:
  • Make side projects;
  • Host them on your own domain;
  • Get them in front of the press.
• In total they have launched 10 side projects and the result is more than 480 unique dofollow backlinks;
• How do they get the side projects in front of the press?
  • Direct outreach to journalists / bloggers who work in their niche;
  • Utilize Product Hunt since journalists browse Product Hunt for article inspiration.
• e.g., Cartoonify:
  • In 2018, a polaroid camera was getting attention for being able to turn photos into cartoon drawings;
  • They found the open-sourced code and turned it into a simple web app;
  • Then they started emailing all the journalists who wrote about the original, sharing their web-app version;
  • Their reward was 100+ new backlinks.

Ref:

• SEO project marketing
• Kapwing