How Cloudinary grew organic traffic by 88% in 5 months with developer-focused content
Cloudinary needed technical content that captured emerging developer search trends and converted readers into signups. Here is how Hackmamba helped them do both.
Key outcomes
- 88% increase in organic traffic from June to October 2024
- 67% of content pieces ranking in AI overviews and LLMs
- 70% of content ranking in top 3 positions
- 34 qualified developer signups per month from our content efforts
Company snapshot
Cloudinary is an API-first media platform used by developers to upload, transform, optimize, and deliver images and video at scale. By mid-2024, their blog had solid domain authority and a growing audience, but there were clear gaps. Emerging developer search trends around video performance, accessibility compliance, and AI-generated video were going unaddressed. Existing traffic was 70% informational and there was a need to create authentic BOFU & MOFU content that led to signups.
- Industry: Media and developer tools
- Company size: 201-500 employees
- Location: San Jose, California, USA
- Use case: Developer content and SEO
- Product: Video and image API platform
Traffic before and after
- 281K monthly organic traffic (June 2024, when engagement started)
- 529K monthly organic traffic (October 2024)
- 88% organic traffic increase in 5 months
The challenge
When Cloudinary engaged Hackmamba in June 2024, their content was undercapitalized across several high-intent developer search clusters. Topics around video optimization and Core Web Vitals, EAA and WCAG 2.1 accessibility compliance, AI-powered video workflows, and multichannel video delivery were growing in developer searches but not reflected in their content calendar.
Beyond the traffic gaps, the bigger constraint was conversion. Traffic alone was not the goal. Cloudinary needed content that converted readers into free plan signups, specifically developers who would use the API. Broad informational articles were not doing that.
Our approach
Trend analysis and cluster mapping. We audited existing content and mapped it against emerging developer search behavior. We identified three underserved clusters: video performance and Core Web Vitals, video accessibility under the European Accessibility Act, and AI video workflows. Each cluster had growing search volume and low existing coverage on the Cloudinary blog.
Long-tail keyword selection with buying intent. Within each cluster, we prioritized long-tail queries with clear intent signals. Queries like "cut video load times," "EAA compliant video player," and "accessible video player SEO" signal that a developer is already trying to solve a specific problem, which puts them much closer to signing up for a tool. We targeted these over broad informational terms.
Content structured for AI overviews. We wrote each piece with direct answers to core questions early, using structured headers and concise definitions. This is what drove 67% of our pieces to rank in AI overviews and appear in LLM responses on Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Gemini.
- Signup paths built into content. Each article demonstrated a specific Cloudinary feature, with the free account signup as the natural next step. The tutorial structure itself led the reader toward the product rather than relying on a CTA at the end.
Topics covered
Lazy load and autoplay with Core Web Vitals
Video load time benchmarks
EAA and WCAG 2.1 accessibility compliance
Accessible video player settings
Subtitle and caption customization
Multichannel video delivery
AI-generated video summaries
Rebuilding video infrastructure
Trigger upload optimizations
Personalized email image variations
Results
- 88% increase in organic traffic in 5 months, from 281K to 529K monthly visits.
- 67% of content pieces cited in AI overviews on Google, Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Gemini.
- 70% of content ranks in top 3 positions. The remaining pieces rank in top 10.
- 34 developer signups per month attributed to this content program.
The quality of our technical content program has improved greatly since working with Hackmamba. I can count on them for top quality technical content. They're dialed into the latest trends and always bring great ideas to every conversation. - Kelvin Lynch, Director of Content Marketing, Cloudinary
If you are building a developer-focused product and need content that ranks and converts, Hackmamba can help with technical content strategy, developer SEO, and bottom-of-funnel articles. Book a call today
