Digicert 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
- Driving ~99k monthly organic visits from nearly 60k keywords, with an equivalent ad spend value of over $584k.
- Your performance is built on strong brand authority, with "digicert" searches driving significant traffic, alongside high rankings for core industry terms like "ssl checker" and "ssl certificate."
- Key informational pages and tools, such as the
/help/section and articles explaining SSL/TLS, are highly effective, capturing over 20% of all organic traffic.
Growth Opportunity
- Your three primary competitors attract a combined ~90k monthly organic visits, representing a large, relevant audience that can be captured to extend your market leadership.
- High-volume, non-branded keywords like "dns lookup" (33k monthly searches) and "ssl" (27k monthly searches) currently contribute less than 1% of your traffic each, signaling a major opportunity to improve rankings and capture more top-of-funnel users.
- A strong backlink profile, with an Authority Score of 59 and 27k referring domains, provides a powerful foundation to aggressively target and rank for a wider range of high-value keywords.
Assessment
You have a dominant, market-leading position with a robust organic search foundation. The data reveals a clear opportunity to systematically expand your keyword footprint, particularly for high-volume informational and tool-based queries. Airops can help you scale your content creation to systematically capture this untapped market share and further solidify your leadership.
Competition at a Glance
An analysis of 3 direct competitors confirms digicert.com's position as the clear market leader in organic search. Your site currently generates 99,368 monthly organic visits from 59,924 keywords, placing you #1 in the competitive landscape for both traffic and keyword visibility.
Your nearest competitor, Entrust, generates 49,638 monthly visits from 35,636 keywords. This data highlights your significant advantage, with DigiCert attracting more than double the organic traffic of your closest rival, driven by a substantially larger keyword footprint.
While you hold the top position, your three primary competitors collectively attract nearly 90,000 organic visits per month. This represents a substantial audience with a clear interest in digital trust solutions that is currently engaging with other brands, signaling a significant opportunity to extend your market leadership and capture an even greater share of voice.
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.
Create a comprehensive knowledge base of troubleshooting pages, with each page targeting a specific TLS/SSL error string. This play captures high-intent traffic from developers and administrators actively trying to solve a certificate-related problem, positioning DigiCert as the definitive resource and driving conversions to its tools and products.
Example Keywords
- "Fix ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH on Chrome"
- "openssl error: unable to get local issuer certificate ubuntu"
- "curl 60 ssl certificate problem self signed"
- "java pkix path building failed"
Rationale
A massive volume of long-tail search traffic comes from developers and system administrators searching for exact error messages. By creating a definitive, branded resource for every common TLS/PKI error, DigiCert can intercept users at their moment of greatest need, offering solutions that lead directly to using DigiCert's diagnostic tools or purchasing new certificates.
Topical Authority
DigiCert already possesses immense authority in TLS/SSL, evidenced by its high traffic to existing help and tool pages. However, they lack comprehensive coverage for the thousands of specific error strings that users search for. Creating this knowledge base would cement their position as the #1 troubleshooting authority, capturing traffic currently going to StackOverflow and disparate blogs.
Internal Data Sources
Mine DigiCert support ticket logs and live chat transcripts via API to get a real-world, prioritized list of the most common and confusing error messages customers face. This data provides a unique and valuable source for generating highly relevant content that directly addresses user pain points. Data from the existing 'SSL Checker' tool can also identify common failure patterns to target.
Estimated Number of Pages
1,200 - 1,500+ (Covering ~300 common errors across 4-5 different server/OS variants each)
Develop a large-scale library of implementation guides for every major open-source ACME client across various platforms like Kubernetes, Docker, and different operating systems. This strategy intercepts a massive audience using free certificate tools and provides a clear upgrade path to DigiCert's robust, automated enterprise solutions when they encounter limitations.
Example Keywords
- "acme.sh on windows server guide"
- "using lego for acme with kubernetes ingress"
- "automate iis certificates with posh-acme"
- "certbot haproxy renewal hook script"
Rationale
The user base for free ACME clients (like Certbot, acme.sh) is enormous, but these users often face challenges with automation, reliability, and advanced configurations. By providing the best-in-class 'cookbook' for these tools, DigiCert can build trust and capture this audience at the exact moment they outgrow free solutions and require enterprise-grade features, support, and reliability.
Topical Authority
DigiCert has native integrations with ACME and certificate management platforms but lacks deep, specific content for the vast ecosystem of open-source clients. As a leading Certificate Authority, providing expert guidance on the protocol it supports is a natural extension of its authority. This play would establish DigiCert as the go-to resource for all things ACME, not just its own paid tools.
Internal Data Sources
Leverage internal developer relations (DevRel) Git repositories containing sample scripts, configurations, and best practices for various ACME clients. Use API documentation for DigiCert's specific ACME endpoints to provide differentiated guidance on rate limits, supported validation methods, and enterprise features that free CAs lack.
Estimated Number of Pages
~2,400 (Covering ~120 ACME clients across 10 environments and 2 proxy patterns)
Create a catalog of DNS configuration guides for hundreds of popular SaaS and cloud applications, covering critical records like DMARC, DKIM, SPF, and CAA. This play leverages the Vercara/UltraDNS acquisition to attract users with DNS-related problems and cross-sell them on both premium DNS services and DigiCert's certificate products.
Example Keywords
- "dmarc record for notion"
- "squarespace caa record example"
- "how to set up tlsa record for github pages"
- "zoom phone srv record configuration"
Rationale
Nearly every business uses multiple SaaS applications, and each requires specific DNS records for email security, branding, and certificate issuance. This is a constant source of confusion and search queries. By providing a centralized, authoritative 'recipe book', DigiCert can attract a huge audience of IT administrators and developers, building brand trust and creating a natural funnel for its DNS and PKI offerings.
Topical Authority
With the acquisition of Vercara (UltraDNS), DigiCert has unique, top-tier authority in both PKI and DNS. Currently, this expertise is not reflected in scaled content that merges the two topics. This play directly combines both areas of authority, creating a resource that no other competitor can easily replicate and establishing DigiCert as a leader in overall digital trust infrastructure.
Internal Data Sources
Utilize the verified DNS record templates and common support configurations from the Constellix and UltraDNS platforms. This proprietary data ensures the 'recipes' are accurate and tested. AirOps can then generate pages with copy-paste zone file examples, propagation advice, and a clear call-to-action for DigiCert's managed DNS and certificate services.
Estimated Number of Pages
1,500 - 1,800 (Covering ~300 popular SaaS vendors with 5-6 critical record types each)
Build an authoritative library of remediation guides, with one page dedicated to every historical and future TLS/PKI-related Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE). This strategy captures urgent, high-value traffic from security engineers during security incidents and positions DigiCert as an indispensable crisis-response partner.
Example Keywords
- "cve-2024-3602 openssl fix"
- "tls renegotiation vulnerability patch"
- "remediation for cve-2023-0286"
- "openssl memory corruption exploit explained"
Rationale
When a major TLS vulnerability is announced, search volume for the CVE identifier explodes as organizations scramble for information and fixes. By creating the most authoritative, comprehensive, and actionable content, DigiCert can capture this high-stakes traffic, build immense brand trust, and engage with decision-makers when security budgets are most flexible.
Topical Authority
As a leading global Certificate Authority, DigiCert's core business is trust and security. It is uniquely positioned to be the most credible voice on TLS/PKI vulnerabilities. While NVD provides basic information, DigiCert can offer deeper context, mitigation strategies, and direct links to its products that solve the underlying issues (e.g., automated certificate management to patch vulnerable certs).
Internal Data Sources
Feed AirOps with data from the official NIST CVE JSON feed, supplemented with proprietary research and proof-of-concept exploits from DigiCert Labs. Internal security advisories and whitepapers can provide unique context on how DigiCert's platform mitigates specific threats, creating differentiated content that goes beyond simple summaries of the vulnerability.
Estimated Number of Pages
1,200+ (Covering ~900 existing relevant CVEs and an estimated 50+ new ones per year)
Develop a large hub of integration-specific landing pages, each detailing how to use DigiCert products with a specific DevOps tool, cloud service, or security platform. This play targets bottom-of-the-funnel buyers who are past the research phase and are actively trying to implement a solution, indicating extremely high purchase intent.
Example Keywords
- "acme certificate palo alto firewall"
- "automate f5 bigip tls with digicert"
- "hashicorp vault digicert pki backend"
- "jenkins code signing digicert"
Rationale
Developers and DevOps engineers don't search for generic 'certificate management'; they search for solutions that work with their existing tech stack (e.g., 'Kubernetes + DigiCert'). By creating a dedicated page for every popular integration, DigiCert can capture this highly-qualified, long-tail traffic and provide immediate value with code snippets and configuration guides, dramatically shortening the sales cycle.
Topical Authority
DigiCert already has a strong brand and a few integration pages, but the coverage is minimal compared to the vast ecosystem of tools its customers use. Scaling this content would transform DigiCert from a product vendor into an indispensable ecosystem partner, demonstrating deep expertise within the workflows its customers already use and solidifying its topical authority in modern cloud and DevOps security.
Internal Data Sources
Leverage internal developer documentation, partner integration guides, and sample scripts from sales engineering and professional services teams. This proprietary information can be fed into an AirOps Knowledge Base to generate unique, practical content including verified code snippets, YAML configurations, and step-by-step tutorials that aren't available anywhere else.
Estimated Number of Pages
600 - 1,000 (Covering ~200 tools with pages for installation, automation, and troubleshooting)
Improvements Summary
Revise and internally link SSL certificate explainer and product pages to target high-volume, low-competition keywords. Add schema, FAQs, comparison tables, and clear CTAs to improve rankings and drive conversions.
Improvements Details
Update meta titles, descriptions, and H1s to focus on keywords like 'ssl vs tls vs https' and 'what is a wildcard certificate.' Add FAQ sections with schema, comparison tables, and internal links between pillar, FAQ, and product pages. Create new assets such as a comparison blog, step-by-step guide, interactive quiz, and explainer video to address user intent and support the hub-and-spoke structure.
Improvements Rationale
These actions address content overlap, orphaned pages, and missed keyword opportunities, making the cluster more authoritative and user-friendly. Improved on-page optimization and internal linking will help capture striking distance keywords, increase organic traffic, and raise conversion rates for SSL certificate products. Enhanced SERP features and clear navigation will also improve click-through rates and user engagement.
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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