Checkout.com Organic Growth Opportunities
1. Readiness Assessment
1. Readiness Assessment
2. Competitive Analysis
2. Competitive Analysis
3. Opportunity Kickstarters
3. Opportunity Kickstarters
4. Appendix
4. Appendix
Readiness Assessment
Current Performance
- You rank for ~19k organic keywords and drive ~23k/month in organic traffic (≈ $115k in equivalent ad spend), with the homepage capturing ~24% of visits
- Organic demand is heavily brand-led (e.g., “checkout.com,” “checkout payment,” “checkout login”), while a smaller share comes from payments education terms like “ach routing number,” “bin number,” “arn number,” and “intermediary bank”
- Your Authority Score is 52 (solid credibility), supported by ~363k backlinks from ~10k referring domains—strong enough to compete, but currently under-leveraged in rankings
Growth Opportunity
- You’re 3rd of 3 vs Stripe/Adyen in both traffic and keyword footprint; Stripe is ~1.9m/month on ~608k keywords (≈ 83× your traffic), highlighting a large, addressable visibility gap
- Double down on non-branded, category-level and solution queries (payment gateway, payment processing, acquiring, fraud, payout rails, industry/region terms) by expanding and strengthening solutions/products pages—not just blog definitions
- Your best-performing pages beyond the homepage are informational blog posts (e.g., ACH routing number, BIN, ARN, Alipay, AVS mismatch); systematize this winning pattern into content clusters + internal linking that funnel into high-intent product pages
Assessment
You have a credible authority and link foundation, but organic growth is constrained by a reliance on branded searches and limited coverage of high-intent, non-branded topics. The competitor gap suggests a meaningful upside if you invest in systematic content production and optimization. AirOps can help you scale that content engine and close the discoverability gap efficiently.
Competition at a Glance
Analysis of 2 direct competitors (Adyen and Stripe) shows Checkout.com is currently the smallest organic-search presence in this peer set when comparing both traffic and keyword coverage.
Checkout.com ranks 3rd (last) in organic search traffic with 22,876 estimated monthly organic visits and 3rd (last) in ranking keywords with 19,017 keywords. The top-performing competitor is Stripe, with 1,893,501 monthly organic visits and 607,724 ranking keywords—roughly 83× the traffic and 32× the keyword footprint of Checkout.com.
Overall, the market visibility gap is primarily a scale gap in discoverability: competitors with broader keyword coverage are capturing materially more search demand and converting that breadth into significantly higher organic traffic. Checkout.com’s current position suggests it is underrepresented in non-branded, informational and category-level search demand relative to the market leader, limiting its share of organic acquisition compared to both Stripe and (to a lesser extent) Adyen.
Opportunity Kickstarters
Here are your content opportunities, tailored to your domain's strengths. These are starting points for strategic plays that can grow into major traffic drivers in your market. Connect with our team to see the full traffic potential and activate these plays.
A massive library of programmatic landing pages that provide implementation and operational guidance for specific payment methods across global markets.
Example Keywords
- "accept [payment method] in [country]"
- "[method] integration [country]"
- "[method] settlement time [country]"
- "[method] chargeback rules [country]"
Rationale
Global merchants expanding into new regions require specific technical and operational details for local payment methods. By providing these granular guides, checkout.com can capture high-intent traffic from businesses in the implementation phase.
Topical Authority
Checkout.com already ranks for payment mechanics like BIN, ARN, and AVS mismatch, proving that search engines view the domain as a credible source for technical payment infrastructure details.
Internal Data Sources
Utilize internal payment method specifications, the existing /docs sitemap (508 URLs), Support Help Center articles, and regional case studies to provide differentiated, non-generic content.
Estimated Number of Pages
15,000+ (Covering 50+ methods across 200+ countries and multiple use cases)
Structured country-level landing pages designed for businesses planning international expansion, covering local acquiring, regulatory nuances, and card scheme considerations.
Example Keywords
- "payment processing in [country]"
- "local acquiring [country]"
- "cross-border payments acceptance [country]"
- "merchant onboarding requirements [country]"
Rationale
Businesses researching how to enter new markets search for localized payment infrastructure requirements. These pages position checkout.com as the expert partner for global expansion.
Topical Authority
Existing organic success with infrastructure concepts like authorization numbers and reversals aligns perfectly with the persona of a payments leader researching country-specific processing.
Internal Data Sources
Leverage internal coverage facts (145 currencies), Trust Center security language, and the 60+ existing regional guides and reports for rich context.
Estimated Number of Pages
1,000+ (Covering 200+ markets with vertical-specific variants like SaaS, Travel, and Gaming)
Technical landing pages and implementation guides tailored to specific commerce platforms, headless frameworks, and engineering ecosystems.
Example Keywords
- "payment gateway for [platform]"
- "[platform] payment provider for enterprise"
- "[framework] payments integration API"
- "headless commerce payment gateway [platform]"
Rationale
Developers and commerce architects search for platform-specific integration patterns during vendor selection. Providing copy-pasteable guidance for their specific stack drives high-intent technical traffic.
Topical Authority
The domain's extensive /docs and api-reference footprint (500+ URLs) establishes a strong foundation for ranking in developer-intent search results.
Internal Data Sources
Use the API Reference, SDK documentation, internal partner/integration catalogs, and common support ticket themes to address real-world integration friction.
Estimated Number of Pages
600+ (Covering hundreds of platforms, frameworks, and server-side languages)
A comprehensive operational library that helps payment engineers and finance teams interpret and resolve specific transaction decline codes from various card networks.
Example Keywords
- "visa decline code [code]"
- "mastercard response code [code] meaning"
- "soft decline code [code]"
- "[code] retry strategy"
Rationale
When transactions fail, teams search for the specific code to find a resolution. These pages provide the fix and route users toward checkout.com's optimization products like Intelligent Acceptance.
Topical Authority
Checkout.com already wins traffic for tactical troubleshooting terms like "AVS mismatch" and "do not honor," making this a natural and scalable extension of a proven strategy.
Internal Data Sources
Incorporate Support/HC articles, internal webhook event documentation, and the 114 merchant communications regarding scheme rule updates.
Estimated Number of Pages
1,500+ (Covering hundreds of codes across multiple networks and failure scenarios)
A programmatic library that helps prospects understand the underwriting requirements, risk signals, and documentation needed for specific Merchant Category Codes (MCCs).
Example Keywords
- "payment processor underwriting requirements [industry]"
- "mcc [####] underwriting"
- "high risk merchant account requirements [industry]"
- "reserve requirements for [industry] payments"
Rationale
Onboarding friction is a major pain point in payments. Providing transparency into the underwriting process for specific industries attracts high-intent leads early in their search for a new provider.
Topical Authority
Authority in payment mechanics (ACH, BIN, ARN) transfers effectively to the risk and compliance persona, who values precision and technical depth.
Internal Data Sources
Utilize sanitized underwriting policy guidelines, aggregated risk outcomes by vertical, and the 102 existing case studies for industry-specific proof.
Estimated Number of Pages
10,000+ (Covering 400+ MCCs across major global markets and business models)
Improvements Summary
Refresh key Checkout.com blog explainers on reversals, refunds, chargebacks, declines, and settlement with definition-first intros, intent-matched sections, and tighter keyword mapping. Add comparison tables, timelines, and FAQ blocks tied to long-tail queries, then connect the cluster with a new hub page and 5–8 contextual internal links per article.
Improvements Details
Prioritize pillar updates for /blog/chargebacks-vs-refunds ("chargeback vs refund"), /blog/refund-vs-reversal-transaction ("reversal vs refund"), and /blog/what-is-a-payment-reversal ("payment reversal meaning"), expanding sections for variants like "chargeback vs reversal" and "what does reversal mean on a bank statement". Target quick-win pages with low-SERP-count terms: /blog/do-not-honor-meaning ("do not honor due to avs/cvv settings"), /blog/what-is-an-arn ("23 digit acquirer reference number"), and /blog/what-is-pinless-debit ("pinless debit"); add snippet-ready 40–60 word definitions under H1, tables (Reversal vs Refund vs Chargeback; Authorization vs Capture vs Clearing vs Settlement), and FAQPage + Article schema. Launch a hub glossary page and add a "Next in the lifecycle" module to reduce overlap between similar pages (reversal/refund/chargeback; clearing/settlement) and clarify primary query focus.
Improvements Rationale
Many pages currently rank for only a few keywords and show low traffic share, suggesting thin query coverage and weak SERP intent match. Expanding on-page targeting around winnable long-tail terms (including low result-count queries) plus snippet blocks, tables, and FAQs increases chances of page-1 placement and featured snippets. A hub-and-spoke internal linking setup concentrates topical authority, reduces cannibalization, and helps search engines understand the transaction lifecycle relationships across the cluster.
Appendix
| Keyword | Volume | Traffic % |
|---|---|---|
| best seo tools | 5.0k | 3 |
| seo strategy | 4.0k | 5 |
| keyword research | 3.5k | 2 |
| backlink analysis | 3.0k | 4 |
| on-page optimization | 2.5k | 1 |
| local seo | 2.0k | 6 |
| Page | Traffic | Traffic % |
|---|---|---|
| /seo-tools | 5.0k | 100 |
| /keyword-research | 4.0k | 100 |
| /backlink-checker | 3.5k | 80 |
| /site-audit | 3.0k | 60 |
| /rank-tracker | 2.5k | 50 |
| /content-optimization | 2.0k | 40 |
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