How Exceed helped Willo grow organic demo bookings by 180% in with Revenue-First SEO

When Willo came to Exceed, organic search existed, but it didn’t have any meaningful impact on the sales pipeline.

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They had solid domain authority and around 14,600 monthly sessions, but the leads coming through search were few and low quality: long sales cycles, low contract values, and weak close rates.

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Most traffic was branded or informational, attracting researchers and browsers rather than high-intent buyers. Pipeline came almost entirely from paid ads and cold outbound. Outbound is unpredictable by nature, while paid ads drove up cost per lead significantly. All without a compounding, organic search presence to help drive predictable pipeline and reduce cost per lead. 

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But most importantly, they needed to engage buyers when they were actively searching for what Willo offers.

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The brief was to build a search channel that consistently brings in buyers who convert faster and close on bigger packages, without requiring continuous spend to sustain it.

We didn't write a single word of content in month one.

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The first two weeks were spent talking to Willo's sales, customer success, and product teams, identifying their best customers. The ones with the highest lifetime value, the shortest sales cycles, and the best retention. 

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→ What problem were they solving before they found Willo?

→ How did they describe it?

→ What would they have searched for?

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The second two weeks turned those insights into a strategy: a full technical audit, a prioritized keyword list built from what we'd learned, and a content plan built entirely around commercial intent.

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We went straight to the bottom of the funnel from day one.

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No awareness content, thought leadership, or "what is video interviewing" guides. Those were already being absorbed by AI Overviews before the engagement started. Instead, we targeted three keyword clusters:

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→ Category keywords like "best candidate screening software"

→ Competitor alternative searches from buyers evaluating competitors like HireVue and Spark Hire

→ Jobs-to-be-done pain points from HR and talent teams with a specific problem to solve

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First rankings appeared within 2–3 weeks of publishing — faster than expected — because Willo already had domain authority and we were targeting high-intent keywords with relatively low competition.

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Link building ran alongside content from day one. High-quality backlinks pointed directly to bottom-funnel pages — comparison pages, alternative pages, category landing pages — backed by brand placements in the most frequently cited sources in the video interviewing category. 

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Referring domains grew from 648 to over 1,100.

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Those placements did two jobs at once. They passed link equity and built the third-party validation signals LLMs draw from when recommending software. When ChatGPT and Perplexity consistently see Willo mentioned alongside HireVue and Spark Hire in roundup content, they learn to recommend Willo when buyers describe that problem. 

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Willo now appears in 63% of target AI prompts, with 67% of those appearances in the top position.

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Throughout the engagement:

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→ Bottom-funnel keywords grew from 190 to 825

→ Monthly impressions grew from 356,400 to 780,983

→ AI referral sessions grew from 192 to 449 per month

→ Most importantly, organic demo bookings grew from 35 per quarter to 98 (an 180% increase)

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The buyers arriving from comparison and alternative pages had already evaluated the alternatives and decided Willo was worth a demo. The content did the qualifying before the sales call, which set the sales team up for success.