Product, marketing and sales teams can learn to run growth experiments to validate new strategies in the real world before incurring significant resource investment.
![guess_vs_experiment](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/40uy9hD2VDsloevHEODX5m/7231e7f18856fa8c00e0f9eaef7347ec/guess_vs_experiment.png)

[Confirmation bias](https://mannhowie.com/cognitive-bias#confirmation) is a psychological tendency where we seek information that validates our existing beliefs as well as avoiding contradictory information. This bias often causes teams to waste resources on initiatives that validate existing views but are ineffective in the real world.

This article explains the 4 key steps of a growth experiment and a practical example of how you can run your own growth experiment quickly and cost effectively:
1. [Hypothesis](#hypothesis)
2. [Trigger](#trigger)
3. [Action](#action)
4. [Measure](#measure)

Imagine we are in the product marketing team of a B2B software startup that provides a tool for capturing customer complaints called Capturo.

## <a name="hypothesis"></a>1. Hypothesis
Set a hypothesis early. Start by identifying a customer struggle and business outcome of what you are trying to achieve. Form your own explanation as to what is causing the customer struggle and come up with a solution as to what could ease that struggle. [User interviews](https://mannhowie.com/user-interviews) are an effective tool at this stage if you have the time.

It is important at this stage to avoid the pitfall of falling in love with your explanation and solution. Focusing on the struggle will allow you to run a new growth experiment if the current one fails.

### __Example Hypothesis__
__Struggle:__ Our new users are observed to create a lower number of customer complaint forms on the platform than our existing users which is leading to lower product engagement and complaints captured.

__Explanation:__ We suspect two core reasons: 1) New users are unfamiliar with the types of questions to ask to gather complaints; 2) New users lack the time or know-how to digitise their existing questions into our platform.

__Solution:__ Our proposed solution will address the first explanation of new users not knowing what questions to ask. We will research and propose the most frequently asked questions to address customer complaints by service type (e.g. contact centre, restaurant, consultation).

__Hypothesis:__
> “Teaching new users the most commonly asked customer complaint questions relevant to their business will help them create more forms on the platform and gather more customer complaints”

## <a name="trigger"></a>2. Trigger
Establish a trigger point to communicate with your customer around their struggle and your proposed solution. The most effective mediums are email and calling customers directly. In-app banners, notifications and user flows are expensive if you do not already have the infrastructure in place. As this is a growth experiment we do not need to worry about solutions that don’t scale yet. 

The three most important components of a trigger:
1. __Audience:__ identify your target audience. Start with bigger groups, segmenting at this stage will be time consuming and take longer to gather results
2. __Message:__ keep consistent with your original hypothesis. There is no need to A/B test on a small scale but avoid message variation overkill
3. __Timing:__ identify the best time to contact your users to get their attention. Be sparing for when you trigger again due to lack of response

### __Example Trigger__
__Audience:__ our growth experiment will be to email new users who have created two forms or less in the platform from their first three months of joining

__Message:__ “Real examples of customer survey questions [Dental Practices] are using in Capturo” or “Top 6 customer survey questions [Dental Practices] ask in Capturo”

__Timing:__ Send when admin users are most active on the platform (for example mid-week mornings)

## <a name="action"></a>3. Action
Establish an action that you can measure based on the trigger. This can include opening a link to an article, registering interest via a form, logging in to the platform to perform an activity, emailing or calling back to respond.

Without creating an action it will be difficult to measure the success of your growth experiment.

### __Example Action__
Create a webpage link in the email which takes a user to the top customer survey questions.
E.g email link.
“View top 6 customer survey question examples”

## <a name="measure"></a>4. Measure
Measure and track the performance of the trigger and action stages. Start simple and use a spreadsheet to track key results. Free or cheap email tracking plug-ins are an effective way of tracking email open and click-through rates.

Once you feel you have gathered enough insight (can take a few weeks) assess the results and determine if your hypothesis was correct. Within the same experiment you can go back and modify the trigger and action to gather more data if needed.

### Example Measure
Create a spreadsheet with columns to track the following:
User contact email and id
- Email message sent
- Date and time sent
- Date and time opened email (use email tracking tools)
- Date and time opened link (use email tracking tools)
- Already sent (Y/N)
- Created a new template (Y/N) (check manually each week)

After measuring the performance assess engagement metrics for example:
- Total users contacted
- Average contact count per user
- % email open rate
- % click through rate
- % users creating new template

__Happy case__
If the % click through rate and % users creating a new template is good we have quickly validated that knowing the right questions to ask can help boost form creation. We now have an improved business case for investing more resources in-app to build onboarding tours in the form creation stage.

__Sad case__
If the % open rate is poor after adjusting for message and timing then the solution of our hypothesis is likely incorrect. We can go back to our original hypothesis and form a solution for our second explanation (e.g. already know what questions to ask but don’t have the time to create a new form). 


4 steps to a successful growth experiment: 1) Hypothesis; 2) Trigger; 3) Action; 4) Measure. Practical example for how teams can run growth experiments quickly and cheaply.

How to Run a Growth Experiment - Learn the 4 Steps

Why do most startups fail to find product market fit? 
![beware_solutions_seeking_problems](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/2rGuWsynYvglJNeJeWcQoz/b11da185061ef24f957efe1f9683d4f8/beware_solutions_seeking_problems.png)

Because our [confirmation bias](https://mannhowie.com/cognitive-bias) creates tunnel vision towards our existing solutions. Instead we should frame our focus on solving the user’s struggle.

Here are 5 questions you can ask in user interviews to validate if your startup has found product market fit.

Imagine we are a startup building solutions for mortgage brokers.

## 1. What progress are you trying to make in X?
__*Example:*__
__Q.__ What progress are you trying to make in finalising loan applications?

__A.__ I’m looking for my team to close more loans and shorten the bank approval times.

## 2. What is your biggest struggle when trying to make progress in X?
__*Example:*__
__Q.__ What is your biggest struggle in getting bank approvals completed on time?

__A.__ Document gathering with our customers. A single important lost or incomplete document can slow the whole process down and cause frustration amongst both lenders and borrowers, both of whom are our customers.

## 3. Tell me about the last time you encountered this struggle?
*__Example__*
__Q.__ Tell me about the last time you encountered this struggle? (create a timeline of the event as if you were in their shoes)

__A.__ Last month one of our new starters had a backlog of 10 applications with one of our newer lenders. An applicant customer did not submit a key piece of information that the new lender required but this only came to light a couple of weeks after the applicant had already submitted all the documents we asked. The lender was frustrated that we missed the information (as they said they had asked us for this before) and the applicant was livid as they had already terminated their rental lease.

## 4. What solutions have you previously tried?
__Example:__
__Q.__ What solutions have you previously tried to avoid or manage this struggle?

__A.__ We’ve used shared cloud storage solutions like Google Drive and Dropbox, onboarding checklists to make sure we don’t miss things and our CRM tool to keep track of emails.

## 5. What didn’t you love about those solutions?
__Example:__
__Q.__ What don’t you love about those solutions you’ve previously tried?

__A.__ Some of the tools create more work for our team in managing the document workflow and version control, we still have to review all the documents to make sure they are complete. As a result we still rely heavily on email to follow-up and confirm next steps with both lenders and customers but then it’s easy for us to miss things and drown in emails.

## Bad User Interview Questions
User interviews to find product market fit should be framed around the user’s struggle and not solution ideas. 

Bad user interview questions include:
- What ideal solution would you like to solve your struggle? ❌
- Do you have any feedback on our solution? ❌
- Would you use this solution if we offered it? ❌
- What do you think we could do to improve your process? ❌
- Do you know anyone else in your company who would use our solution? ❌

## User Interview Insights
Following the insights from our 5 user interview questions we are now better able to frame the struggle for our mortgage broker manager as:

> “Communicating between lenders and customers the missing information needed to complete a loan application”

Solutions we can now explore to solve the problem could include:
- Assignees for onboarding docs (whose court is it in now) 💡
- Automatic email reminders of incomplete docs 💡
- Auto-logging emails to capture a digital chat history 💡
- Identify which docs have not been updated in a while 💡

Framing the challenge around the user struggle allows us to continue iterating on solutions to help users make progress instead of being fully invested into one solution. 

⚠️ Beware solutions seeking problems.


5 user interview questions to validate product market fit: 1) What progress are you trying to make?; 2) What is the hardest thing about making progress?; 3) Tell me about the last time you encountered the struggle; 4) What solutions have you previously tried? 5) What didn’t you love about those solutions?

5 Questions to Ask to Find Product Market Fit - User Interviews

> *TLDR; Google’s job is to match the best content to the relevant question. If an answer is better, then it should outrank. Backlinks should be a reflection of, not a source of ranking.*

Do you need SEO backlinks to rank? The answer is no. Here is an SEO Content Template and framework to show you how. Without creating backlinks, we built SEO to be our largest acquisition channel for a world class B2B SaaS company.

By the end of this article you will learn:
- 👈[What are Backlinks?](#what-are-backlinks)
- 🚀[How we Built Huge SEO Traffic Without Backlinks](#how-we-built)
- ✔️[3 Simple Steps to Follow](#3-simple)
- 📥[Download SEO Content Template](#framework)
- ⌛[How Long Does it Take to Rank?](#how-long)
- 🤔[Do Backlinks Still Matter?](#do-backlinks-matter)

📥<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yq7iLrVDq5oWBLXzLw4ZftvnMHFrqYhzJ7amuK87is4/edit" target="_blank">Skip the article and download the SEO Content Template we use to write SEO content that ranks.</a>

## 👈<a name="what-are-backlinks"></a> What are Backlinks?
Let’s start with some background. Backlinks are external websites that link back to your webpages. They occur when others cite you or refer to you as something of interest to their readers through a hyperlink. 

Backlinks formed the basis of Google’s patented [PageRank algorithm](https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/37/a9/18/d7c46ea42c4b05/US6285999.pdf) (named after founder Larry Page). The invention ranked the importance of a webpage not just on the number of citations it had, but on the importance of those citing pages.

#### Google PageRank Patent Filed 9 Jan 1998
[![Google PageRank patent](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/4fep3mpwZl6DRj1fZGtXNT/25e1f20de062f2c0d279811248c80056/unnamed.png?h=300)
](https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/37/a9/18/d7c46ea42c4b05/US6285999.pdf)
> The rank assigned to a document is calculated from the ranks of documents citing it. This implies a recursive definition of rank. In addition, the rank of a document is calculated from a constant representing the probability that a browser through the database will randomly jump to the document. 

Then the world changed forever. Fast forward 20 years and today Google answers over [3.5 billion](http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/) questions daily and has become the information portal for the human race (minus China). People globally are actively using Google to find information and make important decisions.

#### Google Year in Search 2019

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZRCdORJiUgU" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>


How well you rank on Google can be a determining factor in your audience reach and success.

## 🚀<a name="how-we-built"></a> How we Built Huge SEO traffic Without Backlinks
I had the privilege and joy to build and lead the SEO team for [SafetyCulture](http://safetyculture.com/), a global B2B SaaS startup with a mission to improve safety and quality in the global workplace. 

Within 12 months we turned a virtually non-existent SEO presence into our largest and fastest growing customer acquisition channel and cut dependency on costly paid advertising to fuel growth. All without link building.

#### SEMrush organic US traffic for safetyculture.com (public)
![SEMrush organic traffic chart](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/3sKDGJ1avIOLWzWonddpWY/8d09c396809791ac12afc250fb7b428f/Screen_Shot_2019-05-01_at_11.32.41_am.png?h=300)

With zero experience in marketing or SEO, I was overwhelmed by the countless guides, tools, hacks, tips and must-dos to rank in Google. I tried many link building strategies, but after  sending hundreds of spam emails only to get a handful of backlinks, I felt there must be a better way and went back to basics.

Google’s [stated mission](https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/mission/) is to: 

> organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Today, people around the world turn to Search to find information, learn about topics of interest, and make important decisions.

Google makes public the factors that determine its search quality ranking in this [164 page document](https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf). Google contracts with over 10,000 search quality evaluators worldwide who use this document to rank the quality ranking of webpages to help power Google’s machine learning search algorithms.

Here are the 4 most important factors that Google uses to determine page quality ranking:
- __Purpose__ - how well does the page achieve its stated purpose vs the user intent
- __Quality of the content__ - is it factually accurate, well researched, clearly written and provides value
- __Authority__ - does the author and website have expertise and are they trustworthy
- __Functionality__ - is it mobile responsive, good UX, functionality and widgets all working

[PageRank](https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/algorithms/) remains an important factor, but namely from backlinks to high quality content that naturally gain popularity. 

[Google](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en) has this to say about backlinks:

> The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it.

The next section will provide a framework for how you can create unique, relevant content that readers want.

## ✔️<a name="3-simple"></a> 3 Simple Steps to Rank
Here are the 3 simple steps our SEO team still uses to write targeted and high quality content
1. Find the Right Keyword to Target - Know Your Audience
2. Competition - What Have Others Already Said on the Topic
3. Write Great Content

💡To illustrate how to apply these steps, we will use the preparation and writing of this article itself as an example.

### 1. Find the Right Keyword to Target - Know Your Audience
This is the most important step. In order to write high quality content that achieves its stated purpose we need to understand who we are writing for and their intent.

- __Who - is the target audience?__ For this article, our audience is online and growth marketers and people working in tech startups
- __What - questions would they ask?__ How to create backlinks
- __Why - are they asking this question?__ What is the intent behind the question? What is the [Job To Be Done](https://hbr.org/2016/09/know-your-customers-jobs-to-be-done) from creating backlinks? In this case, it is to have content that ranks and drives traffic

From here we use Google’s [free keyword planner tool](https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/) to select the right keywords (questions) to target. In our case we know that users mostly search for `backlinks`, `seo backlinks`, `what are backlinks` etc. as opposed to `link building`. 

#### Google Keyword Planner Tool Snapshot
![Screen Shot 2019-05-01 at 4.44.47 pm](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/34zMMRwzeV90S7ZydJks1I/f5dcd5ac29cba9fac639c273710db78c/Screen_Shot_2019-05-01_at_4.44.47_pm.png?h=300)
> ☝️General Rule of Thumb: Top ranking search results on average capture 30% of average monthly search volume (known as the Click Through Rate - __CTR__). So over time if this article were able to achieve a #1 ranking for the `backlinks` keyword that would represent a potential 15,000 global visits a month. The CTR falls exponentially as rankings drop. Very few visitors go beyond page 1 search results.

### 2. Competition - What Have Others Already Said on the Topic
To create a quality piece of content, we need to know what others have already said on the topic and determine if we can write something better. This is where many fall short and end up paraphrasing or writing content that is inferior to existing pages that rank. 

For our target keyword of `backlinks`, we must google and review the first page results to evaluate what has been said.

#### First Page Search Results for Target Keyword
![Google result for keyword backlinks](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/QgLsTaayCrmL9bADStT1y/94796327e61195875a8dfe31ec6ad49b/Screen_Shot_2019-05-01_at_5.20.42_pm.png?h=300)

We see many definitive strategy guides on how to backlink and the importance of backlinking. As I have nothing more insightful to add to this topic I have opted for a contrarian response to the same question:

👉 *__How to Rank Without Backlinks: 3 Simple Steps [Free Framework]__*

### 3. Write Great Content
Now that we have a topic based on a target audience, intent and question, we can get to work. While it is still possible to write high quality content without being an authoritative expert (in fact it’s often easier) finding an author with expertise on the topic would rank content higher.

For this article I felt I have both the authority and experience to discuss this topic. There are basic online writing tips you can follow but never forget to empathize with the user. Don’t be selfish with your writing. Write for your user, deliver value, solve their problem.

## 📥<a name="framework"></a> Free SEO Content Template
On the topic of giving value to your users. I have created a Framework Template you can view, download and customize for your content. Our team uses this framework before researching and writing any piece of SEO content.

#### Download SEO Content Template
[![SEO Content Framework Template Screenshot](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/5H9VRaQTV6pZrU1RCBVAj4/e9b849b2d8462a7bd5728d338b87219f/Screen_Shot_2019-05-01_at_6.26.34_pm.png?h=300)
](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yq7iLrVDq5oWBLXzLw4ZftvnMHFrqYhzJ7amuK87is4/edit)

## ⌛<a name="how-long"></a> How Long Does it Take to Rank Without Backlinks?
The ability to rank for keywords will depend on the relative competitiveness of your content. A piece of content that is better researched, articulated and solves the user's problem should rank well even without backlinks.

Our experience was that high quality pages would begin to rank on page 1 globally within a month and achieve top 3 ranking within 3 months. If we didn’t rank page 1 within a month then we would revisit the content, competition and user problem.

#### Organic weekly traffic of pages published in December (redacted private data)
![Amplitude chart](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/2jbNMVJbLPFob5wK2s7o4c/bfe8e57a46a652465520213df77392f3/Screen_Shot_2019-05-01_at_9.50.46_pm.png?h=300)

However, if the competing content is of higher quality and has greater backlinks and authority ([use a free tool to check](https://moz.com/products/pro/seo-toolbar)), then you are unlikely to outrank others.

## 🤔<a name="do-backlinks-matter"></a> Do Backlinks Still Matter?
Yes, while not the deciding factor, the PageRank algorithm remains an indicator of a page’s authority. It should be used as an outreach tool to amplify high quality content you have already written.

Remember, time spent understanding your user and solving their problems is always time better spent. 

---
*Final note: Thank you to the amazing SafetyCulture SEO team for giving me the opportunity to lead, teach and work alongside all you beautiful humans 💖.*
#### SafetyCulture SEO Team Photo

![SEO Team Photo](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/6XoDFOg6jR7SPmHsRiLHWC/e11229b0e3b39b59184e08ffcd2aadd0/IMG_20190308_160804.jpg?h=300)


What are backlinks? Do you need SEO backlinks to rank? The answer is no. Here is a framework to show you how. Without creating backlinks, we built SEO to be our largest acquisition channel for a world class SaaS company.

Howie Mann
Startup & Investing Advice
About Articles Stocks

Articles > marketing (3)

How to Run a Growth Experiment - Learn the 4 Steps

5 Questions to Ask to Find Product Market Fit - User Interviews

How to Rank Without Backlinks [Free Template]

Howie MannStartup & Investing AdviceAboutArticlesStocks

Articles > marketing (3)

How to Run a Growth Experiment - Learn the 4 Steps

5 Questions to Ask to Find Product Market Fit - User Interviews

How to Rank Without Backlinks [Free Template]

Howie Mann
Startup & Investing Advice
About Articles Stocks