How Buffer got its users

Buffer's blog slices one vocabulary two ways: the network name (bluesky, threads, tiktok, linkedin) crossed with the verb a buyer types. That grid is visible in the /resources/ category list. Build your version: every noun your users say for the job your product does, crossed with 'how to', 'best time to', 'best tools for'. One query, one URL, no overlap. Put the year in the title so you have a standing reason to refresh the page instead of writing a new one.

done whenOpen your support inbox and the free-text field on your signup form. If you cannot pull twenty nouns that real users typed for your product's job, you are guessing at queries rather than collecting them.

Copy the format of /resources/how-to-schedule-linkedin-posts. It teaches LinkedIn's own free native scheduler first, with step screenshots, then Buffer, then a table headed 'Scheduling LinkedIn posts on Buffer vs. LinkedIn at a glance' covering limits and price. The free workaround gets top billing. Write yours the same way: the manual method someone can do today without paying you, then your product as the faster path, then the honest comparison.

done whenRead your draft as someone who will never pay you. Does it still solve their problem? If deleting your product's section leaves the article useless, you wrote a landing page wearing an article's title.

Buffer's /resources/best-time-to-post-on-bluesky is built from its own aggregated customer posting data, adjusted to each audience's local time zone, and says plainly that timing is guidance, not gospel. You have no corpus yet, so publish the smallest honest one: your own accounts, exports your first users hand you, a sample you count by hand. State the sample and the method inside the post. That page is the one other blogs cite.

done whenPick one number nobody else in your category publishes. Can you produce it this month from data you already hold, or by asking ten users for an export? If not, choose a smaller question you can actually answer.

Bylines on /resources/ are named people with a stated claim to the topic: staff writers carrying their Buffer title, and outside writers bringing their own credential, like Shea Karssing on the LinkedIn scheduling piece, billed as author of Freelance Like a Boss. Hire practitioners who already do the job, not SEO writers. Rhythm: one query page finished per week, and one pass each quarter to update the year and the screenshots on pages you already rank for.

done whenLook at the byline on your last post. Would a buyer recognise that person as someone who has done this work? If the byline is your company name, you have nothing to trade for trust.

Three page types sit beside the articles. /social-media-terms/ is a plain glossary, one term per URL, definition first. /free-tools/ holds no-signup generators, one per query. /resources/open and buffer.com/transparency publish internal decisions, with titles like 'We Send A Q&A Doc To Candidates Before We Meet Them'. The query pages rank. The open ones are what other people link to, which is the only reason the query pages ever rank.

done whenCount the pages on your site someone would link to without being asked for anything. If every page ends in a signup button, you have a catalogue, not a reason for anyone to cite you.