- Startup Spells 🪄
- Posts
- How Ahrefs Uses Reddit for Content Marketing
How Ahrefs Uses Reddit for Content Marketing
PLUS: I posted 400,000+ stories. Here's what actually gets sales.
How Ahrefs Uses Reddit for Content Marketing
Ahrefs posts on Reddit in big communities where their target audience lives.
The SEO tool company shares content strategically on subreddits like r/BigSEO to reach people interested in keyword research, backlink analysis, and search ranking tools.
One smart move: Ahrefs posts their blog content in a short and sweet manner on Reddit, then links to their full articles. They understand Reddit users want quick value, not promotional noise.
Take their Beginner's Guide to Keyword Research TL;DR on r/BigSEO. The post delivered actual value upfront, and at the end, the poster wrote: "PS: I didn't put a link to the full guide published at Ahrefs Blog, and I think you folks know why. ;)"
They avoided looking promotional, which kept the community engaged instead of getting defensive about it being an ad.
After building trust over the years, they earned the right to link directly. However, if you're just starting, wait months before adding links or skip them entirely. Let people ask for the source instead.
Another example: The Beginner's Guide to Link Building r/BigSEO TL;DR version. Same pattern here: value first, promotion second.
2. Announce new features where your users hang out
Ahrefs also shares product updates on their target subreddit. When they rebuilt Content Explorer from scratch, they posted Content Explorer 2.0 by Ahrefs on r/BigSEO.
Their audience would be interested in the feature, so the post fit naturally into the conversation.
That said, moderators sometimes remove their content. Subreddits like r/marketing, r/startups, r/content_marketing, and r/seo hate self-promotion. It's crab mentality, but those communities police hard. On strict subreddits, you have to disguise promotional material as pure value.
Reddit works when you don't have budget for paid
Reddit is good in the early days when you don't have money for ads.
Find where your audience lives, give them value, and build trust. Then the links come naturally.
Top Tweets of the day
1/
Founded 10 years ago, $9B valuation, will only start worrying about sales tax next month.
The European mind cannot comprehend.
— Adam Wathan (@adamwathan)
5:56 PM • Oct 21, 2025
Most marketing around MoR (Merchant of Record) is FUD Marketing (FUD = Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt)
You don't need to collect sales tax until later. Some products instill fear through marketing but turns out, you don't need it.
2/
the not boring campaigns of the week
— calvin (@calvintcarr)
6:36 PM • Oct 20, 2025
This purely is the influence of AI-image getting better. The creative explosion is about to happen by 2025/2026 given how far AI Image and AI Video has come.
3/
I made almost 3M views on Japanese TikTok by riding a trend started by K-pop idols!! Here’s how I found the trend and jumped on it👇
Here’s the trend spread I found:
- MBTI first went viral in Korea
- K-pop idols started talking about it in their livestreams
- Fans in Japan— Woojin (@songwoojin)
1:31 AM • Oct 22, 2025
The fastest way to make lots of money in very little time is jumping on a trend. If you could just master the art of jumping on a trend and nail it every time, you can easily make millions. It's probably the highest IQ move.
This is not only great for product but also in terms of marketing. A rising tide lifts all boats.
Rabbit Holes
What’d ya think of today’s newsletter? Hit ‘reply’ and let me know.
Do me a favor and share it in your company's Slack #marketing channel.
First time? Subscribe.
Follow me on X.
More Startup Spells 🪄
TikTok Comment Section Conversions: How Apps Grow Without Paid Ads (LINK)
A 3-Page Priming Paywall Flow That 3x'd LTV (Data from a 14 Day A/B Test) (LINK)
The Great SaaS Rebundling: How AI Kills Point Solutions (LINK)
How Marketing Ideas Beat Product Hunt’s No-Newsletter Rule to gain 4,135 subscribers (LINK)
Backlinks from Reddit Image Carousels (LINK)
Reply