How EmailOctopus got its users

Make the entity list the tools your buyer already pays for, one page per tool. EmailOctopus publishes its list in emailoctopus.com/pages-sitemap.xml: eleven /-alternative URLs sitting at the root, covering mailchimp, kit, aweber, constant-contact, campaign-monitor, getresponse, mailerlite, brevo, sendy and mad-mimi. The unit is one competitor, not one keyword, and the filter is blunt: it needs a paid plan and a public pricing page, because price is the whole argument.

done whenCan you name ten paid tools your buyer is already paying for, each with a public pricing page? Under five and you have a blog post, not a page template.

Build the price table before the pages. /savings-calculator takes two inputs, subscriber count and emails sent, then prints an annual cost for EmailOctopus beside Mailchimp, Kit, AWeber and Constant Contact, under a note saying they re-check competitor prices and want discrepancies reported. That table is the data source: plan name, subscriber band, send allowance, price. Every alternative page pulls its two headline figures straight out of it.

done whenOpen each competitor's pricing page and fill one row. If you cannot state your price against theirs at the same subscriber count, you have nothing to put in the template.

Ship one template and swap three things. H1 is 'Looking for a [Competitor] alternative?', then the price gap as two figures side by side, review-site rating badges, named testimonials, the 'Email marketing. Nothing else.' block, four feature panels, the live-chat response line, and the closer: 'Ditching [Competitor] is quicker than you think, most users make the move in under 30 minutes.' Each alternative page footer links to the others.

done whenFill your template for two competitors and read them back to back. If the only difference is the name, add the price pair and the switching line before you build the third.

Hand-write the one paragraph where the competitor is a different animal. /sendy-alternative drops price entirely: Sendy is self-hosted, so the page argues hosted plus Amazon SES and pushes to EmailOctopus Connect, which carries its own /pricing-connect. /mad-mimi-alternative leads its H1 with the cheaper-than claim instead of the 'Looking for' question. Everything below that paragraph stays templated.

done whenFor every competitor on your list, write one sentence on why its users leave. If three of them produce the same sentence, your pages read as duplicates to a human and to Google.

Reuse the machine on the lists next door. The same sitemap holds 86 /integrations/{tool} pages and 14 /customers/{segment} pages, including indie-hackers, authors, film-festivals and newsletters. The integration template is deliberately thin: an 'EmailOctopus + Carrd' title, an About block lifted from the partner's own description, a 'Start integrating' button pointing at the partner's docs, and a related-integrations carousel. The partner writes the hard part.

done whenCount the partner tools and audience segments you could give a page to. If that second list is empty, your alternative pages are the whole channel, not the start of one.