Published
Feb 10, 2026
Category
SEO
Industry
SaaS (AI Audio & Podcast Editing)
Success Story – Scaling AI SaaS
Introduction
Cleanvoice, a San Francisco-based AI podcast editing startup, faced a common SaaS dilemma: a superior product obscured by well-funded competitors and low organic visibility. Partnering with SEOJetty for a 6-month aggressive growth campaign, Cleanvoice moved from fierce obscurity to market leadership in their niche. By prioritizing technical health, user-intent content, and strategic link building, SEOJetty delivered a 300% increase in Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) and established Cleanvoice as a go-to resource for automated audio mastering.
Client Overview
- Client: Cleanvoice
- Location: San Francisco, California, USA
- Industry: SaaS (AI Audio & Podcast Editing)
- Size: Startup (10-50 employees)
- Core Offering: An AI-powered tool that automatically removes filler words (“uhs,” “umms”), mouth sounds, and stuttering from audio recordings.
Cleanvoice serves a dual market of B2C individual creators and B2B professional production teams. Their value proposition is speed and precision—turning hours of manual editing into a few minutes of automated processing.
The Challenge
Despite having a robust product, Cleanvoice’s growth was throttled by three core friction points:
- Fierce Competition: The “AI audio” space is crowded with unicorn-status competitors and legacy software giants (e.g., Adobe, Descript) with massive marketing budgets.
- Low Organic Visibility: The domain struggled to rank for high-intent keywords. Potential users were searching for solutions (e.g., “how to remove filler words automatically”) but landing on competitor blogs.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) vs. Budget: As a lean startup, Cleanvoice could not sustain a bidding war on paid ads against funded competitors. They needed a sustainable, organic acquisition channel to lower CAC.
Goals & Success Metrics
SEOJetty collaborated with Cleanvoice leadership to define SMART goals for the 6-month engagement:
- Primary Goal: Increase organic visibility for “bottom-of-funnel” (transactional) keywords to drive qualified traffic.
- Revenue Metric: Directly correlate organic traffic growth to a lift in MRR and trial sign-ups.
- Timeline: Achieve measurable ROI within 6 months.
Strategy: The "Big Moves"
We rejected a “spray and pray” content approach. Instead, we engineered a strategy focused on Intent Matching and Topical Authority.
- The “Problem-First” Content Pivot
Competitors were ranking for broad terms like “podcast software.” We pivoted to attack specific pain points. We hypothesized that users searching for specific problems (e.g., “remove mouth sounds from audio”) were ready to buy, not just browse.
- Technical SEO as a Foundation
We prioritized site architecture to ensure Google could crawl and index the rapidly expanding library of AI-processed audio samples and comparison pages without hitting budget snags.
- Trust-Based Link Acquisition
In the AI space, trust is paramount. Our off-page strategy focused exclusively on high-relevance sectors: podcasting networks and AI technology publications, rather than generic directories.
Execution
Phase 1: Technical Audit & Foundation (Month 1)
Before creating content, we had to ensure the site could handle it.
- Deliverables: Comprehensive site audit, Core Web Vitals optimization, and schema markup implementation (SoftwareApplication schema).
- Action: We resolved canonicalization issues that were diluting page authority across similar landing pages. We optimized meta titles and headers to align with NLP (Natural Language Processing) search patterns.
Phase 2: Content Engine & Editorial Calendar (Months 2–3)
We deployed a “Hub and Spoke” content model.
- The Hub: A pillar page regarding “AI Podcast Editing.”
- The Spokes: Educational blog content targeting long-tail queries.
- Examples: “How to remove silence from MP3,” “Best stutter remover software,” “AI mastering vs. Manual mastering.”
- Deliverables: 12 high-quality, tutorial-style articles per month; optimization of existing landing pages to match user intent.
Phase 3: Authority Building & Distribution (Months 3–6)
- Action: We executed a digital PR campaign targeting podcasting newsletters and “Tools for Creators” listicles.
- Deliverables: Secured backlinks from authoritative audio engineering blogs and AI tech reviews.
Measurement & Attribution
To prove ROI, we moved beyond vanity metrics (like raw impressions) and focused on conversion data.
- Primary Tool: GA4 (Google Analytics 4).
- Tracking Setup: We configured custom events for “Trial Start,” “Audio Upload,” and “Pricing Page View.”
- Attribution Model: We utilized a data-driven attribution model to give credit to organic blog posts that served as the first touchpoint in the user journey, even if the conversion happened days later.
Results (6-Month Campaign)
| Metric | Result | Context |
|---|---|---|
| MRR Growth | +300% | Directly attributed to organic search traffic increase. |
| Keyword Rankings | High-Volume Wins | Secured Page 1 rankings for competitive terms like "remove filler words" and "AI audio editor." |
| User Acquisition | Increased | Substantial growth in daily trial sign-ups from organic entry points. |
| Brand Equity | Improved | Significant rise in direct brand searches, indicating improved market recognition. |
The Turning Point
Month 3: The “How-To” Revelation
Midway through the campaign, performance data revealed a critical insight: Educational “How-To” guides were converting at 3x the rate of generic feature pages.
Users weren’t looking for a “tool”; they were looking for a “method” to solve a problem.
The Pivot: We immediately reallocated 40% of the remaining budget from link building to aggressive content production. We doubled down on creating granular tutorials (e.g., specific guides for different DAWs like Audacity and Premiere Pro), positioning Cleanvoice as the integrated solution within those workflows. This pivot accelerated the MRR growth trajectory significantly in Months 4, 5, and 6.
Lessons Learned
- Pain Points > Features: In SaaS SEO, ranking for the problem (e.g., “editing takes too long”) often yields higher conversion rates than ranking for the category (e.g., “editing software”).
- Agility Wins: The willingness to pivot strategy in Month 3 based on early data was the difference between good results and great results.
- Technical Health is ROI: Fixing the technical foundation first allowed the content to rank faster. Skipping this step would have resulted in “crawling budget” waste.
What’s Next (Next 90 Days)
With a strong organic foundation established, the next phase focuses on scaling and retention:
- CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization): A/B testing headlines and CTAs on the highest-traffic blog posts to maximize trial starts.
- Video SEO: Repurposing high-performing blog content into YouTube tutorials to capture video search traffic.
- International Expansion: Localizing top landing pages for European and Latin American markets.
About SEOJetty
SEOJetty is a data-first digital marketing agency specializing in B2B SaaS growth. We don’t just chase traffic; we chase revenue. By combining technical precision with high-level content strategy, we help startups compete with giants.
Ready to scale your SaaS revenue through organic search?