How Highwire helped Byos earn its first $45,000 worth of organic monthly traffic

Byos was founded with the goal of making network security simpler and fundamentally more secure. The Byos Secure Edge™ lets users communicate “on the network” without being connected “to the network” by isolating each device on its own network of one. It’s a novel concept that resonated with early adopters but would require a strong marketing push to compete against incumbent cybersecurity players with a substantial head start. 

Highwire knew precisely what was required: a long-term content strategy that used SEO to connect Byos with infosec professionals getting up to speed on the latest in network threat prevention and microsegmentation strategies. After meeting the team and forging a partnership, the Highwire strategy team went to work.

Challenge: Crafting valuable content for discerning cybersecurity experts

Byos’ arrival in the market was well-timed – work-from-home practices were on the rise, creating new security risks as businesses expanded private network access to countless unsecured endpoints. Byos wanted to capture the time and attention of security professionals who needed a solution to protect their organization without overwhelming staff now working remotely.

As a cybersecurity startup with limited marketing resources competing in an industry with six-figure deals, paid search traffic was prohibitively expensive — just one of the relevant keywords cost $75 per click. Instead, Highwire turned to organic traffic, identifying relevant keyword opportunities associated with the most common network threats that Byos helps address. Research revealed that many keywords fell outside the addressable difficulty range of the Byos domain rating or had been firmly claimed by legacy players like Cloudflare and Amazon. More importantly, these keywords focused on technically sophisticated topics for expert audiences. For new content to rank, it had to meet Google’s EEAT standards — meaning it needed to exhibit first-hand experience, demonstrate clear technical expertise, and share the kinds of insights that only seasoned cybersecurity experts can offer.

Action: Close collaboration to meet Google’s EEAT content standards

Highwire worked closely with the internal experts at Byos, conducting in-depth interviews and brainstorming sessions. From these talks, we gathered a range of sound bites, pull quotes and first-hand anecdotes that made it possible to develop cohesive cybersecurity topic clusters that aligned with Google’s EEAT standards and content structure guidelines.

From that raw research, Highwire produced forty search-optimized blog posts for Byos, addressing topics like network threat prevention, Zero Trust security, operational technology security, manufacturing security and microsegmentation. This content went through multiple iterations with the Byos team as our team of brand journalists developed and refined an expert voice that demonstrated the kind of technical expertise that cybersecurity experts could trust.

Results: From 0 to 4,500 monthly qualified visitors

As each approved article and topic cluster went live, Highwire and Byos watched and waited to see if the strategy would pay off — and we didn’t have to wait long. Byos quickly went from having a minor search presence to ranking on the front page for 230+ non-branded cybersecurity keywords, including denial-of-service attack prevention, how to prevent malware attacks, and IoT attacks. Of these keywords, Byos ranked within the top three search results for 60+ different terms. As organic content, they continue to generate high volumes of traffic amounting to roughly 4,500 monthly sessions.

With Highwire’s help, Byos was able to capture the $75 per click keyword it sought for a fraction of the cost. Today, Byos’ blogs continue to generate organic views worth in excess of $45,000 per month in equivalent CPC value.