Proofpoint 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 73k organic keywords and drive ~173k monthly organic visits (≈$795k in equivalent ad spend), placing you #2 for traffic/keywords among your peer set (ahead of Mimecast and far ahead of Abnormal).
- Your Authority Score is 59, supported by a massive link profile (13.7m backlinks from 137k referring domains)—a strong foundation for scaling new content and rankings.
- Traffic is led by a mix of brand + “threat reference” education: top queries include “proofpoint” (largest traffic driver), plus high-volume definitional terms like “what is a dns,” “what is phishing,” “what is a vpn,” and “what is malware”; top pages are your /us homepage (~26k visits) and threat-reference pages on phishing, DNS, identity theft, social engineering, and HIPAA compliance.
Growth Opportunity
- Reduce reliance on brand/top-of-funnel by building and optimizing more bottom-funnel solution pages (email security, DLP, security awareness, DMARC/SPF tooling) to capture higher-intent “vendor/solution” searches and convert informational traffic.
- Your “Threat Reference” hub is already a traffic engine—systematically expand it into topic clusters (email authentication, social engineering, compliance frameworks) and strengthen internal linking/CTAs to product and demo paths to turn definitions into pipeline.
- The category ceiling is high: microsoft.com’s ~59m monthly organic visits shows the addressable search demand—your link authority suggests you can capture more share with consistent, scaled publishing and refreshes.
Assessment
You have a strong organic foundation (authority + breadth) and a proven content format that already wins competitive, high-volume queries. The main upside is systematically converting that informational reach into higher-intent traffic and more product-led landings. AirOps can help you execute this content expansion and optimization programmatically at scale.
Competition at a Glance
Across 3 competitors (Microsoft, Mimecast, and Abnormal Security), Proofpoint’s organic search presence sits in the middle tier—strong against direct email-security peers, but far behind the category’s biggest general-tech publisher.
Proofpoint.com ranks #2 in monthly organic traffic and #2 in ranking keywords in this set, with 173,210 monthly organic visits supported by 73,409 ranking keywords. It stays ahead of Mimecast (148,180 visits; 40,174 keywords) and is dramatically more visible than Abnormal Security (21 visits; 119 keywords).
The clear market leader is microsoft.com, generating 58,950,955 monthly organic visits and ranking for 15,389,054 keywords—a scale that dwarfs every other site here. Overall, Proofpoint shows a solid competitive position versus close peers, while the primary gap is reach and breadth at mass-market scale relative to the top performer.
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 diagnostic pages for email admins centered on specific SMTP rejection strings and provider enforcement rules. These pages provide step-by-step remediation for delivery failures while mapping fixes to Proofpoint capabilities.
Example Keywords
- "550 5.7.26 unauthenticated email rejected"
- "421 4.7.0 temporary rate limit gmail"
- "554 5.7.1 message rejected due to policy"
- "outlook message rejected authentication failure code"
- "enhanced status code 5.7.26 fix"
Rationale
IT admins and security engineers frequently search for specific error codes during delivery outages. By providing the definitive fix guide for every possible rejection string, Proofpoint captures high-intent technical traffic at the moment of critical need.
Topical Authority
Proofpoint is a global leader in email security with existing high-ranking threat-reference content. Expanding into technical delivery diagnostics is a natural extension of its established authority in email protocols.
Internal Data Sources
Utilize Support Knowledge Base themes, internal provider policy tracking memos, and product deployment guides to offer unique remediation steps not found in generic documentation.
Estimated Number of Pages
20,000+ (Covering thousands of SMTP/enhanced codes across various provider and environment variants)
Static mapping pages that explain exactly how to satisfy specific regulatory requirements using Proofpoint controls. Each page provides a requirement summary, evidence artifacts for auditors, and a technical implementation checklist.
Example Keywords
- "NIS2 email security requirements"
- "DORA incident reporting controls"
- "GLBA safeguarding rule email controls"
- "CMMC level 2 email security"
- "NIST 800-171 protect CUI in email"
Rationale
Compliance is a primary driver for enterprise security spending. Buyers search for specific regulatory requirements while evaluating tools, allowing Proofpoint to capture high-intent traffic during the solution-selection phase.
Topical Authority
The domain already ranks for broad compliance terms and threat-reference topics. Providing granular control-level mappings leverages this existing trust to win more specific, commercial-intent queries.
Internal Data Sources
Ingest solution briefs, whitepapers, and product datasheets from internal repositories to generate precise mapping narratives and evidence checklists.
Estimated Number of Pages
1,200+ (Mapping dozens of global frameworks across hundreds of individual security controls)
Programmatic landing pages that map specific SaaS applications to specific security risks and Proofpoint control capabilities. These pages guide users on how to secure their existing cloud stack against account takeover and data exposure.
Example Keywords
- "protect Microsoft 365 users from account takeover"
- "prevent invoice fraud in Microsoft Teams"
- "stop sensitive data sharing in SharePoint"
- "secure Slack against social engineering"
- "workday email impersonation protection"
Rationale
Enterprises search for security solutions tailored to the specific apps they have already deployed. These pages capture buyers looking to harden their specific cloud environment, leading to high conversion potential.
Topical Authority
Proofpoint's established footprint in cloud and email threat protection provides the necessary domain authority to rank for app-specific security configurations and integration use cases.
Internal Data Sources
Use product integration documentation, configuration guides, and internal threat intelligence reports to provide platform-specific risk scenarios and control mappings.
Estimated Number of Pages
3,000+ (Covering over 100 integrations across multiple risk and industry variants)
A technical library of ready-to-use detection queries and response runbooks for security engineers. Each page maps a threat technique to specific SIEM platforms and Proofpoint telemetry sources.
Example Keywords
- "KQL detect suspicious mailbox forwarding rules"
- "Splunk query detect anomalous email forwarding"
- "Sentinel query detect impossible travel token reuse"
- "SIEM alert for mass attachment download"
- "incident response runbook compromised mailbox"
Rationale
Security practitioners search for copy-pasteable queries and structured runbooks during incident readiness or active triage. This play builds deep trust with the technical influencer persona by providing immediate utility.
Topical Authority
Proofpoint's extensive API documentation and threat telemetry footprint provide a strong foundation for engineer-facing content that competitors often under-serve.
Internal Data Sources
Leverage Threat Insight Dashboard API documentation, field schemas, and internal customer success playbooks for "what good looks like" alerting.
Estimated Number of Pages
10,000+ (Covering hundreds of techniques across multiple SIEM platforms and environment types)
A programmatic directory documenting how threat actors impersonate well-known enterprise brands and business functions. Each page details common lure themes, lookalike domain patterns, and specific detection controls.
Example Keywords
- "Microsoft impersonation email indicators"
- "fake DocuSign invoice email detection"
- "lookalike domain patterns for PayPal"
- "vendor banking change request email indicators"
- "payroll redirect request email controls"
Rationale
There is a massive volume of long-tail search traffic for specific brand lures and impersonation tactics. This atlas captures that traffic and funnels it into Proofpoint's brand protection and email fraud solutions.
Topical Authority
As a leader in threat intelligence, Proofpoint is uniquely positioned to provide an authoritative directory of impersonation tactics, building on its existing success with threat-reference content.
Internal Data Sources
Utilize Emerging Threats Intelligence, URLDefense click telemetry patterns, and sanitized customer incident postmortems to provide unique indicators of compromise.
Estimated Number of Pages
80,000+ (Covering thousands of brands across multiple lure themes and communication channels)
Improvements Summary
Expand five priority Threat Reference pages with snippet-ready definitions, deeper sections that match query variants, and visible FAQs. Standardize on-page templates (title/H1, TOC, examples, visuals) and strengthen internal links via hub pages and “Related” modules to move URLs from page 2 to page 1.
Improvements Details
Upgrade /it-compliance with an “IT compliance checklist,” framework table (ISO 27001, SOC 2, NIST, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR), and audit/evidence sections targeting “it compliance” and “it compliance checklist.” Expand /smishing with “smishing examples,” a smishing vs phishing vs vishing comparison, and a “what to do if you clicked” playbook; expand /email-spoofing with above-the-fold definition, detection steps (headers, SPF/DKIM/DMARC, reply-to), and links to authentication pages. Improve /email-filtering with a filtering taxonomy and best practices, and refresh /cerber-ransomware with dated variant notes, high-level IOCs, vectors, and recovery guidance; add FAQPage schema, 1 diagram, and 1 comparison table per page.
Improvements Rationale
These URLs target high-demand definition queries but show low traffic share, suggesting rankings hover near page 2 and need stronger topical coverage and better CTR. Definition-first formatting, FAQs, and examples increase featured snippet and PAA visibility, while internal links from hubs, product pages, and blogs add authority signals that help rankings and create clearer paths into product pages.
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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