0:00 Today we're doing a live SEO roast of a product 0:02 I generally love and respect, Cal.com. 0:05 They're the open source scheduling tool 0:07 that's taking on the big giant Calendly. 0:10 They're killing it for developers 0:11 and their brand is very strong, 0:13 but my gut feeling is they're probably 0:15 leaving a ton of money on the table 0:18 by neglecting some blog post traffic, 0:21 maybe technical SEO mistakes, 0:23 maybe on-page SEO mistakes, 0:25 or not using the same SEO strategies 0:28 as their competitors might be doing. 0:30 First, I would look at the website. 0:32 Your website is really good. 0:33 It's clear, I like the social proof. 0:37 There's a lot of logos being shown, 0:40 it's being trusted, and it has a really good positioning. 0:43 It's a better way to schedule your meetings. 0:45 I think that this is a good option. 0:48 It uses some of the good keywords here, 0:51 appointment scheduling, which could be easy, 0:53 and it's clear as a way of how it works, 0:58 which is a good way to structure your overall blog post. 1:01 Usually you follow some guidelines, at least here. 1:05 If we look at the content, the headings, 1:10 it's all also correct, 1:11 and here we start with appointment scheduling is easy. 1:16 But of course it could be like, how can Cal be, 1:20 or how does Cal.com work? 1:24 If we keep going, it's more really good keyword stuff, 1:27 like scheduling app, being clear. 1:30 It's using a lot of the headlines, 1:32 it's very easy to read and navigate. 1:34 I really enjoy this. 1:35 It's clear there is some AI stuff going on, 1:38 it's more social proof, 1:39 and finally, simpler, smarter scheduling. 1:43 This is really good. 1:44 I like your homepage. 1:46 What I did right away is look at the domain rating, 1:51 open it up in Ahrefs. 1:53 The backlink profile is really good. 1:55 There's a lot of backlinks. 1:57 You even have some AI citations 1:59 that if someone is asking Chachapiti, Perplexity, or Claude, 2:03 you can see right away how they're being mentioned 2:06 and how they're being talked about. 2:08 Right now it's clear that you are being mentioned, 2:10 which is good. 2:12 Usually it correlates with just overall keywords 2:16 that are competitive that people type in, 2:18 so this is good. 2:19 It's natural to also rank for AI 2:22 if you have good SEO traffic. 2:24 Yours is decent, but in the last month it's falling. 2:27 If we compare it in one year, 2:31 it's mostly has improved a little bit, but not that much. 2:35 So it's clear that it's stalling, it's going up and down. 2:38 Maybe you get some viral traffic, then it dies down. 2:42 If we saw it on the organic traffic value, 2:45 it is steadily increasing, 2:46 which means that you're targeting more really good pages 2:50 and your organic pages, the yellow one, 2:52 is also increasing. 2:54 This is over the last five years, so that is decent. 2:58 The amount of impressions from overall your search volume 3:02 is good. 3:03 Paid traffic, you did it in the past, 3:05 then you stopped completely. 3:09 So your amount of referring domains is increasing, 3:12 and I would guess this is gonna be 3:15 a lot of your customers actually, 3:17 because each customer probably links back to your homepage 3:21 and that way you get backlinks naturally. 3:24 That's why you have such a high domain rating 3:27 that even has increased in the last year by four. 3:31 That means in your AR, which is your ranking, 3:36 you are the top 1,000 website overall in the world 3:41 for such a high domain rating, which is really good. 3:44 So what I would do is export your CSV 3:49 of all your organic keywords. 3:51 This way we know all the keywords 3:53 that are used on your website. 3:57 If we look at the ones that are actually showing up 4:00 on Google, like in the top 10, 20, 4:03 we see that it's also increasing, which is good. 4:06 And your best keywords here 4:08 that are giving you the most traffic, 4:11 so meaning you have a really good position 4:13 and your volume is high, that's Kyle. 4:15 So it's like a lot of branded terms, clearly. 4:19 So then once we have exported this list, 4:23 I made a potential traffic value calculator, 4:27 with V0, I've exported it here. 4:30 And now we see that actually you could get 4:33 a million dollars worth of potential SEO value, 4:38 and which would be around like $2,000 per page, 4:41 which is really nice. 4:43 So if we zoom in on the actual best pages right now, 4:48 which like if we compare, 4:50 this means like the best volume overall for the best CPC. 4:55 And if you calculate them both and combine them, 4:58 we see that for this ranking for Calendly Login, 5:02 this could give you a lot of potential SEO value. 5:06 Same with Scheduling Tool, 5:08 with Scheduling Software for Business, 5:12 Calendar Scheduling Tool, Scheduling Website, 5:16 Google Calendar Appointment Schedule, 5:19 Free Booking Website, Automated Scheduling Software, 5:22 Scheduling Service Software. 5:24 And this is a really good way to know 5:26 which keywords you should focus on, 5:29 because these keywords have a lot of value, 5:32 volume, and also a high cost per click. 5:36 They're valuable, and if we combine both, 5:38 they're the best ones. 5:39 Best Interview Scheduling Software and so on. 5:41 The list is quite big, but the problem is here, 5:43 like your current position for most of them 5:46 isn't that high right now. 5:49 So it's above 20, 5:52 so you're not really ranking for most of these. 5:54 So if you would pick a few keywords 5:57 that could be like your money keywords, 5:58 I would definitely focus on some of them here. 6:03 If we keep going, then looking at your other pages, 6:06 not like your homepage, we see that app is ranking, 6:10 so it's like your login page probably. 6:12 If we open it in Incognito, we see what it is. 6:16 So it's like your app store, actually. 6:18 The app store for cow.com. 6:21 And then, yeah, it could be ranking for Zoho login, 6:25 but I doubt it, so it's not so super relevant. 6:28 Then the next one is your blog posts 6:32 for patient scheduling software, 6:35 for medical office scheduling software. 6:37 So it's really nice that it actually niches down, 6:40 and this is one of the keywords 6:42 that we could focus on in a bit. 6:45 So it's a blog post. 6:48 It's about the five great options 6:50 for patient scheduling software, free and paid. 6:53 And it's some nice image here. 6:55 Then this, I think, is clearly like Chachapiti, 7:00 like in today's fast-paced healthcare environment, 7:02 patient scheduling software has become something, something. 7:06 So definitely this is not great, 7:09 because I think people who do visit this page, 7:13 they believe the text is too small, 7:16 like it's gray against gray background. 7:19 The images are generic. 7:22 So this is not really gonna work out that well. 7:25 If we actually Google this, 7:27 like the patient scheduling software, 7:30 we see that there's a lot of search volume, 7:33 and also a very high cost per click, 7:35 because it is very specific. 7:37 And the pages that are currently ranking 7:39 are like some competitors, 7:41 like rescheduling, 7:43 what is the best appointment scheduling software, 7:45 medical appointments scheduling software, 7:48 and also some blog posts 7:49 that actually mention a bunch of other tools. 7:53 And these are the ones that you should focus on 7:55 if you are link building. 7:58 And if we look at the actual blog posts, 8:02 that are ranking, 8:03 these are the ones that can rank, 8:05 because you can see that they are also on Google. 8:08 So that's what Google wants to see here 8:11 from all of these top 10 pages. 8:13 And what your blog post should be about is, 8:17 yeah, five great options. 8:18 So you have them, 8:20 but if you actually compare these ones, 8:23 you're not really listing yourself as free, 8:26 like you're listing yourself as the last one. 8:28 I would always list myself first. 8:30 I would have a scheduling software for patients. 8:34 But here, like you see that it's not super high value, 8:38 but they at least have a table. 8:39 So it's like these little attributes 8:42 that Google really likes, 8:44 like best for ease of use, 8:46 AI features, pricing. 8:48 So it's very structured. 8:49 There is also like a video, 8:51 there is images, 8:53 there is even a demo of their own software here, 8:56 and a lot of screenshots, 8:58 and then it explains what each one is best for. 9:01 I think this is like the minimum, 9:04 what can rank, 9:05 and why it also might potentially prefer 9:09 this blog post compared to yours, 9:11 is because they have 10 options. 9:13 So their blog post is automatically a little bit longer, 9:16 and more in depth. 9:18 They have an FAQ, 9:20 and yours is just five. 9:21 So that might be a reason why Google would show other ones. 9:25 So if we look at the second option, 9:27 this one is, I think, a little bit better. 9:30 They also have an intro, 9:33 but it's not like the generic chat GPT from two years ago. 9:38 I think like even now, 9:39 like cloud or anything else 9:41 is gonna write a lot better content. 9:44 So I know you probably make really good content. 9:48 You are a founder, 9:51 you know the whole space really well. 9:54 You write on Twitter, 9:56 YouTube, or LinkedIn quite often. 9:59 So it shouldn't be that hard 10:01 to make one good blog post that could work, 10:05 especially if it's such a high value one. 10:08 If we look at this example, 10:11 they highlighted even like the main keyword 10:14 that is visible here. 10:15 They highlight other things 10:17 that real humans would focus on. 10:20 So like statistics, numbers. 10:24 So that's a really quick fix. 10:25 You can write a draft of AI, 10:28 but then you kind of improve the text yourself. 10:31 You can just copy it, for example, 10:33 and markdown and cursor, 10:35 and then ask it to rewrite some parts 10:37 or add some text if you have some ideas. 10:40 That's the way that I generally do it. 10:43 The next part, of course, 10:44 is like really making really good images. 10:47 You can make a lot of these for Sora 10:49 or just generating them yourself 10:52 with NanoBanana or something else. 10:55 So that way, people who are kind of like skimming, 10:58 they scroll down and they view the content, 11:00 they get at least something visible. 11:03 So this one doesn't have as many videos here, 11:06 but they do structure the whole content 11:08 into different features. 11:10 And that allows people to actually skim 11:12 and read quite quickly. 11:14 I would kind of combine both of them 11:16 and just make one blog post that works really well. 11:20 If we look at the blog posts currently 11:22 for your current website, 11:24 like how it is for you, 11:26 you definitely, by the way, 11:27 have way too long slug. 11:29 This is like five great options 11:31 for patient scheduling software, free paid. 11:34 That kind of sucks 11:35 because if you change the title later, 11:37 it's really annoying that you, 11:40 like now if I tell you, 11:42 okay, you need to make it 10, 11:44 you're gonna have a bad time 11:45 because your slug just says five. 11:49 So what I would generally do 11:51 is make sure that the keyword that I focus on 11:56 is just a slug, 11:57 so patient scheduling software. 11:58 You don't need anything more than that. 12:01 And that allows you to also know 12:03 this is the keyword 12:04 that is currently being focused on this page. 12:07 And you can always change the title, 12:08 the whole content, anything, 12:10 just as long as the slug stays the same. 12:14 So if you have this right now, 12:15 you can just make a redirect 12:17 and go to the new slug if you would change it. 12:21 But this keyword, as you can see, 12:22 like free medical appointment scheduling software, 12:25 it's really good 12:26 because the cost per click is super high. 12:28 You see that it's super valuable. 12:30 If we saw it by cost per click 12:32 by this keyword alone, 12:34 like medical schedule software, 12:37 is a cost per click of $25. 12:39 So these people really need 12:41 a strong scheduling solution. 12:43 And which solution is better than an open source one? 12:46 Almost nothing, right? 12:48 So this is something that they can adapt themselves. 12:51 And you don't have to worry, 12:53 or they don't have to worry about 12:55 time zones and all that stuff. 12:57 The next blog post 12:58 that is the highest potential value to focus on 13:02 is booking software for small business. 13:04 Let's take a look at this one. 13:06 Here's a small business guide 13:08 to appointment scheduling software, 13:10 which is a little bit different, 13:12 but here, I think you need a whole redesign on your blog. 13:17 It's like, nobody's gonna read this. 13:18 It's too gray, I think. 13:21 And it has some sources, 13:25 but they're not really linked. 13:26 It's quite a bit sloppy. 13:29 I would spend quite a bit of time, 13:30 maybe like per article, 13:32 you would probably spend like $1,000 to $2,000 13:36 to just have a professional copywriter 13:38 rewrite each of them. 13:41 This is generally what we kind of charge for as well. 13:44 So that's in the range. 13:45 And when we try to outsource 13:48 or hire other content writers, 13:49 that's generally the price that we hear about. 13:54 So if we actually Google your top keyword here, 13:56 because it has a decent volume 13:58 and a decent cost per click, 14:00 and you're now in position 46, by the way, 14:03 and we Google this, 14:04 we see what Google is showing us here. 14:07 So booking software for small business, 14:09 super high keyword difficulty, 14:11 but you do have some potential to rank 14:13 because of course, Calendly is showing up. 14:16 And they are showing up 14:18 because they have a lot of backlinks here. 14:21 But there's some other opportunities as well. 14:24 For example, here, 14:25 you see that there's a Reddit post 14:26 about best easy to use appointment booking software. 14:29 And someone is kind of recommending Ziddy 14:32 and some other ones. 14:34 So generally what you would do 14:35 is you open some of these up 14:38 and then you write a comment here 14:41 and you say like, Calendly sucks, Cal is great. 14:46 Pretty simple, 14:47 because right now everyone is recommending them. 14:51 You can also see here, 14:52 the sources that are being cited 14:54 similar to the one that we saw above. 14:56 So if you see a lot of these sources, 14:58 you know like this is what Google likes as content. 15:04 And that's why they are promoting the other tools. 15:07 That's why Calendly is showing up 15:09 because they have a lot of mentions everywhere. 15:11 So Google associates this brand 15:14 with all the results and they are being pushed up. 15:17 So if you had your own solutions page, 15:21 right now you're ranking for this keyword 15:23 potentially via this blog post, 15:25 which is kind of shitty. 15:27 But what Calendly is doing here, 15:29 they have a dedicated solutions page 15:31 for each of these segments. 15:32 So this is kind of like a programmatic SEO-ish 15:36 landing page thing. 15:37 If we look at Calendly solutions, 15:40 we see what they're doing right now for all of them. 15:42 And then you can kind of copy all of them. 15:46 Their top pages for just the solutions pages on Calendly, 15:51 they get 1,500 traffic 15:54 and they have a decent traffic value, 15:57 about 1,500 for each one of these. 16:00 So the best ones are recruiting, 16:02 small business, education, individuals, 16:06 financial services, professional services, 16:08 sales, enterprise, revenue operations, 16:10 IT, customer success, technology. 16:12 All of these people need some type of scheduling software 16:17 just for them. 16:18 Appointments software for small business, 16:21 another one for recruiting or interview scheduling. 16:24 That's actually something that they're missing out 16:26 on their recruiting page. 16:29 But all of these have some dedicated pages on their site 16:34 and that allows them to actually make a unique page 16:37 and improve it for each of these keywords. 16:41 And that's a really good strategy that works. 16:44 If we keep looking at the blog posts 16:47 that you need to appear in, 16:49 here, for example, there's a lot of competitors again, 16:53 and you collect all of these 16:56 and then you send everyone an email. 16:58 So you use like Hunter.io, Apollo, or LinkedIn, 17:02 where we also gather all these emails 17:04 and then you do an outreach message. 17:06 So you look at the best blog posts here, 17:10 that's where AI is, like AI reviews 17:13 is getting all these sources and also a part of Reddit. 17:16 And also this simple widget here on the top, 17:20 it's also using these citations as sources, 17:23 as you can see here. 17:24 All of these are like some information that Google collects. 17:28 And if you would be mentioned more often, 17:32 you would also have a specific page 17:34 or like your icon here as cow.com. 17:38 I think small business booking software 17:40 is a really good one for you 17:41 because that's a decent niche. 17:45 IT, maybe SaaS as well. 17:48 But small business is a good deal 17:50 because it's open source. 17:51 And if you would just email everyone, 17:53 if you look at some of these examples, 17:56 like youcanbookme.com, 17:58 they have all of these competitors 18:01 and like most of them just always mention Calendly. 18:05 But it's definitely outdated, right? 18:07 Like one way that you could try to reach out to them 18:10 is just going on their contact sales page 18:14 and figuring out like, 18:17 probably you can book a calendar meeting 18:20 and tell them like, hey, can we figure this out? 18:23 Like why are you mentioning Calendly everywhere? 18:25 You should probably mention cow.com. 18:28 We are open source. 18:29 And just keep doing that 18:31 for all of these specific blog posts, 18:33 listicles that you find. 18:35 Your other strategy works also really well. 18:38 It's like Calendly alternatives. 18:40 This is probably the best keyword that you could find 18:44 because people are looking for a free alternative 18:47 to Calendly or they're looking for 18:50 an open source scheduling platform, 18:52 which also has an API in this case. 18:56 So you could use this strategy that someone did. 18:59 You make a real website, calendlyalternatives.org. 19:03 I've seen other people in our Indie Hacker community 19:07 do this quite often. 19:09 So it's a really good way, 19:10 not only Indie Hackers actually, 19:12 but also real SaaS or big enterprise do this. 19:15 This actually works because you focus 19:17 on this specific keyword 19:18 and then you make a random page, 19:19 you pump it full of backlinks 19:21 and it can actually help you rank. 19:23 So ZenCal also has a blog post. 19:26 There's quite a lot of these blog posts, 19:29 content, listicles that you see here. 19:31 You are number six right now, 19:33 which is pretty good. 19:36 Potentially the other ones that we saw, 19:38 they're listing like five of them. 19:39 So you could keep this scheduling page 19:43 that you have here, this one, 19:44 but also write a blog post 19:46 where you compare five through different criteria. 19:50 It could be like pricing, open source, make a table. 19:52 You really need to invest a lot in your blog, I think, 19:55 to make it really nice, high quality, 19:58 add pop-ups, conversion rate optimization, 20:00 CTAs and so on. 20:02 Because if you would just improve 20:05 your entire blog software, 20:08 like make it so much better, 20:10 add like a CTA on the right, 20:12 add a CTA in the bottom, 20:14 add like a exit pop-up widget 20:15 if someone like moves away the cursor 20:18 outside of the window. 20:19 You can use the window on our sleeve event 20:21 to just show a pop-up and say, 20:23 hey, wait, you forgot to do something, 20:26 you forgot to get cow. 20:29 Like pop-ups in the middle, interstitial ones. 20:32 You could do quite a lot. 20:34 There's a lot of different tools for this. 20:36 But all of these blog posts 20:38 are just bleeding kind of value. 20:41 You have written them, 20:43 but they're just there, 20:44 without any traffic at all. 20:47 That's why you're stuck at 5,700 traffic over here. 20:50 So let's take a look at some competitors in this case. 20:54 So we saw the solutions pages, 20:56 but here's like what Calendly.com themselves is doing. 21:00 And compared to your little traffic value, 21:03 they have 5,000 traffic volume. 21:07 Probably because mostly they rank on Calendly, 21:10 everyone knows Calendly. 21:11 They are ranking for free scheduling app 21:15 and scheduling software, 21:17 which would be like your primary keywords. 21:20 And if you would Google some of these ones, 21:22 you have the same strategies again. 21:24 So you open up these ones, 21:26 you look at who else is having 21:28 a listicle blog post party here, 21:30 and you just email everyone. 21:33 I think you have a lot of SEO potential. 21:36 You should focus on the blog almost 100%. 21:40 Make sure it's super high quality, 21:41 make sure that it converts, 21:42 make sure that it gets a lot of traffic, 21:46 add internal links to each of the blog posts, 21:48 add them to your resource pages. 21:50 Your website is really good, decent. 21:53 And if you would just do a few of these things, 21:56 you would really get a lot more traffic, 21:57 just like Calendly or these other websites 22:00 that do get a lot of the traffic. 22:03 I hope this really helps you, 22:04 and I will take a look and keep looking at your website 22:07 now and again and give you some tips. 22:10 So thank you so much for your support, 22:13 and let me know if you have any comments or any feedback.
Cal.com", "Cal").
LinkDR to find the emails of these editors and automate the outreach sequence.