SEO Metrics for Cybersecurity Startups – Benchmark Research

Cybersecurity services have never been in higher demand. With the sudden rise of the digital age, came a sudden rise in hacking and security breaches, which created a new market for data protection.

There is now a shortage of professionals, mainly due to the influx of cybersecurity startups in recent years. According to a study by PwC, cybersecurity startups received over $10 billion in funding in 2020.

Young startups need to hit the ground running with their digital marketing strategies to get ahead of the curve. Rampiq carried out benchmark research on some of the key SEO metrics amongst 40 cybersecurity startups to see how they measure up.

The key metrics measured are the new and total keywords, new and existing backlinks, and domain rating. 

Industry average domain rating (DR) for cybersecurity startup websites

What is a DR? As Ahrefs says

“Website authority is a metric from SEO tool providers. It measures the relative strength of a site’s backlink profile compared to every other site in the index. Like most other website authority metrics, it runs on a scale from 0–100.

The three things that affect domain rating are: 

• The number of websites linking to yours

• The DR score of linking domains

• The number of sites each referring domain links to”

Cybersecurity startups that have an average domain rating of 54 have evidently invested some time and effort into link-building, keyword allocation and content development. Nonetheless, they still have a long way to go to see website authority improvement. The minimum DR our research participants had was 13, and the ultimate metric champion with a DR of 87. Domain rating can depend on the age of your website, the quality of content and backend factors.

Industry average backlinks for cybersecurity startup websites

The backlinks definition by SEMRush is as follows: 

“Also referred to within SEO as ‘inbound links’ or ‘external links,’ backlinks are links that point from a page on one website to a page on another. They are the links from third-party sources that point to your website, in comparison to internal links that exist between two pages within your website.”

Backlinks are important for rankings in Google. Some say that backlinks are a chief ranking factor, and we think they may be right. 

According to our research for the cybersecurity startup market, the least number of backlinks was 120.

The industry average was 572,665 backlinks, which definitely set a high standard for the market.

New Backlinks for the Last 3 Months

Continuous link-building work (or working on increasing the number and quality of backlinks your website has) is something that every company needs to do when it comes to online competition. 

Rampiq has researched the cybersecurity industry companies’ link-building pace for the past 3 months and here are the results:

The minimum number of backlinks acquired was 32. In order to keep up with the market and hold positions, you need to acquire 2537 new backlinks each quarter (if you want to grow – aim at higher numbers).

Average number of ranking keywords for cybersecurity startup websites

What are keywords? According to Ahrefs: 

“Keywords are the terms that people enter into search engines to find information. Keyword research is the study of these search terms to find out where the search traffic in your market comes from, and determine which keywords your website can target with marketing.”

According to our research, the minimum number of keywords in the cybersecurity niche was 11, according to our research. On average, cybersecurity industry startups have 14,362 keywords. 

New keywords

Just like link-building, it is necessary to add new keywords continuously to make sure that the growth in the number of keywords the site is ranking for, in order for a website to hold its place in online competition.

Over the last 3 months, the industry average was 778 new keywords monthly.

Conclusion

To rank your web pages highly in the cybersecurity niche, it is crucial to research current trends and stay on top of them before another competitor takes over.

Our research shows that there is a lot of competition and a very high benchmark for a lot of SEO metrics.

The continuous growth of high-quality backlinks, usage of targeted niche keywords, and up-to-date content will increase your company’s domain rating and authority. 

Linked here is a detailed guide on SEO sales forecasting with a free Excel template to help you.

Rampiq has extensive experience in growing young businesses in the cybersecurity industry.

If you would like your startup to positively disrupt the cybersecurity industry, then Rampiq would gladly join you on this exciting journey and be your guide in the ins and outs of digital marketing to help you reach your online sales and brand awareness goals.

You can contact us here