5-year organic traffic
Peaked in 2024. Slid through 2025. Climbing again in 2026.
Sep 2021 to May 2026
Ahrefs · Avg. organic traffic, monthly
Hedra is an AI video generation platform that recently raised a $32M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), bringing total funding to $44M. After a 2024 organic traffic peak, the site was sliding through 2025 and had no structured library for searches that actually drive purchase intent. The 66th rebuilt the page architecture across bottom-of-funnel landing pages, middle-of-funnel comparison content, and AI-search-shaped blogs. Over four months, revenue from organic Google nearly tripled (+196%), revenue from ChatGPT grew more than twelvefold (+1,150%) while Gemini grew 180%, and the purchaser rate from organic Google grew more than sixfold.
Four months in, the pages we built from zero are not slowing down. Over the last three months the face-swap page alone pulled another 102,000 clicks, and the talking-avatar page, nano-banana, the models hub, and both 2026 comparison guides all kept trending up in Hedra's Search Console, several of them from a starting point of zero.
Hedra's organic traffic peaked in early 2025 and had eased off in the months before we started. The product was moving fast, but the site didn't yet have a structured library for the searches that drive purchase intent in AI video. That was the opening.
Blog posts are one of seven layers we ran for Hedra. The other six are what produced the revenue lift. We set the volume at 18 pages a month, the minimum needed to close the visibility gap against companies the size of Manus (originally Canva, before Hedra pivoted).
We mine the keyword landscape for the golden queries Hedra can realistically rank for, run a gap analysis against Canva, PhotoRoom, HeyGen, and Higgsfield to see what they rank for that Hedra doesn't, then break down the top 10 results on each query to find the angles those pages miss. The output is a full site architecture, mapped before a single page gets built, so every page has a place and a purpose.
Pages for people with active commercial and buying intent. We separate out the queries where the searcher is already shopping (things like "AI face swap tool" or "AI talking avatar generator") and build a dedicated page for each. Each page shows the product immediately and follows a clear path to sign up. This is the highest-converting page type in the library and the main reason organic purchaser rate grew more than sixfold.
Pages targeting people searching competitors (Manus, Canva, Sora) and converting them to Hedra. Also critical for AI SEO since ChatGPT and Gemini pull heavily from comparison content when answering "what should I use" style questions.
Getting other sites to link to Hedra so Google trusts the domain more. Every page on the site ranks better as a knock-on effect, not just the pages we are actively building.
Connecting related pages so Google understands the site structure and crawls the right ones first. Most of the lift on /models and /models/nano-banana came from internal linking, not from net-new content.
Fixing the plumbing so the rest of the work can rank. We improved page speed, fixed the robots file, and swapped a stale sitemap for one that updates itself whenever a page ships. We also find pages Google can't see properly and unblock them, so each one can compound traffic over time.
Long-tail visibility and AI search citation inventory. One layer of seven, scoped to comparison and explainer formats that ChatGPT and Gemini cite.
Several sub-systems shipped in parallel, all sitting on a technical foundation we fixed first. Each one points at a different searcher and a different surface (Google, ChatGPT, Gemini), but every page goes through the same scoping process before a writer touches it.
Built /uses/face-swap, /uses/ai-talking-avatar, and /uses/ai-image-generator from zero. The face-swap page alone drove 64.3K sessions in the last 4 months. Every page targets one commercial query, shows the product above the fold, and converts on the same screen the searcher landed on.
Each page started with the SERP, not the keyword. The top-ranking URLs were classified by page type to confirm a dedicated landing page would compete, then the keyword set was scoped tightly so no two pages overlapped. The scope decision happens before the outline, not after the draft.
Built the /models hub and individual model pages (/models/nano-banana and others) from zero. /models drove 562 sessions and /models/nano-banana drove 418, both starting at 0. Most of that lift came from internal linking work that gave Google clear signals about which pages to prioritize crawling, not from extra content.
Built a dedicated /alternatives/ page for each tool people weigh Hedra against: /alternatives/runway, /alternatives/heygen, /alternatives/synthesia, /alternatives/canva, /alternatives/higgsfield, and more. These pages capture searchers actively comparing tools, and they are the same pages that fuel the ChatGPT and Gemini citation lift, because comparison content is exactly what AI search pulls from when someone asks "what should I use instead of X."
One keyword per page. Format chosen from the SERP. No drift across adjacent queries. We set 18 as the floor because that is the volume needed to close the visibility gap against companies the size of Manus inside a single quarter. Less than that and the compounding curve stretches by months, not weeks.
None of the content ranks if Google can't crawl the site or it loads slowly, so we fixed the plumbing alongside the pages. We improved page speed, fixed the robots file, and replaced a stale sitemap that didn't keep up with the site with one that regenerates itself whenever a page ships, so Google always sees the current structure.
Earned links from other sites back to Hedra so Google trusts the whole domain more. The knock-on effect lifts every page on the site, not just the ones we are actively building.
All figures compare Feb 1 to Jun 16, 2026 against the prior window (Sep 21, 2025 to Feb 3, 2026). Source: Hedra's GA4, with source / medium = google / organic for the Google numbers and chatgpt.com / referral and gemini.google.com / referral for the AI numbers (paid traffic excluded). Every win below is logged in a shared dashboard the Hedra team can see live, so the numbers are never a surprise at reporting time.
| Channel (source / medium) | Purchaser rate | Purchases | Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| google / organic | +572.92% | +179.39% | +195.92% |
| chatgpt.com / referral | +287.68% | +933.33% | +1,149.7% |
| gemini.google.com / referral | +96.53% | +210.71% | +180.34% |
The new bottom-of-funnel pages bring in searchers who are already in-market, which is why the organic purchaser rate grew more than sixfold. The same comparison pages that converted those buyers also fed the AI search citation lift.
