Daniel Abebe, a no-code enthusiast from the very beginning, had a vision: he wanted to promote the no-code movement in Switzerland. In 2020, he and Fabian Gmür founded HuggyStudio, a no-code agency for app and web development. Their business: building software solutions without having to write a single line of code themselves.

No-code was relatively unknown in Switzerland at the time. Interest in the topic first had to be sparked among the target group. HuggyStudio quickly realised that knowledge transfer would be a key pillar in establishing itself as a first mover in the field. To this end, HuggyStudio initially focused on events and social media measures. These worked well, but mainly reached the immediate network.

In order to reach a larger portion of the actual target group, co-founders Fabian Gmür and Daniel Abebe ultimately decided to invest more heavily in content. This led to the creation of the content platform ‘no-code.ch’, which focused on building the community. With this content-focused approach, HuggyStudio wanted to increase its own reach and establish itself as a thought leader on the topic of no-code.

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[[callout]] About HuggyStudio

HuggyStudio started in 2020 as an agency for no-code MVPs and marketplace incubation. HuggyStudio also ran the no-code Academy & Content Platform no-code.ch. No-code.ch is now directly integrated into HuggyStudio. The agency has also evolved into a product-oriented company that validates new ideas, designs its own products and supports customers in their product development. At the end of 2024, Daniel Abebe left HuggyStudio to pursue new projects.

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Building a new platform: an SEO-focused content hub

For Daniel Abebe, it was clear at the time that in order to realise the project, he needed a partner who had the necessary expertise in SEO and content. After all, they themselves had neither the time nor the practical experience to do so.

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I knew that I wanted to invest in content and SEO. What I didn't want was to find out months after launch that I had made fundamental mistakes in my research or planning. – Daniel Abebe, Co-Founder & former CEO of HuggyStudio

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To pave the way for HuggyStudio to realise its vision, we supported the development of the no-code.ch platform with SEO-focused content marketing.

We provided ideation, creation and distribution from a single source:

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1. Ideation: Find topics that match the search behaviour of the target group

HuggyStudio wanted to grow with its own community. To do this, we needed to gain a deeper understanding of what the target group really needed.

But before we jumped into the analysis, it was important for us to understand HuggyStudio's positioning and business. So we sat down with Daniel Abebe and together we put the ‘big idea’ down on paper as a content marketing concept.

In this step, we answered key questions, including:

• Which target group does HuggyStudio want to address?
• How does HuggyStudio want to position itself?
• Which topics does HuggyStudio want to cover?

We noted that HuggyStudio focused in particular on entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs who wanted to realise an idea. In doing so, they repeatedly encounter the same hurdle: traditional software development is often slow, very opaque to laypeople, time-consuming and costly.

HuggyStudio was firmly convinced that entrepreneurship is more about positive change than code. They saw it as their mission to enable entrepreneurs to quickly and easily validate their ideas on the market and get started.

No-code solutions clearly remedy this situation with significantly shorter development times and reduced costs. Thanks to no-code tools, laypeople become citizen developers. However, most people are unaware of this alternative or do not understand what it entails.

With these insights, we put ourselves in the shoes of the target group and identified topics relevant to them that reflect their behaviour in Google searches. But how would we bring these topics to the target group?

These initial considerations regarding distribution are important in the ideation phase, because the channels and formats should already be known before the content is created:

a. Primarily, we planned to use Google search to deliver knowledge-driven content and build topical authority for the subject.

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b. Secondarily, LinkedIn was also suitable for distributing story-driven content within the right community and interacting with it.

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Our vision at that point: With no-code.ch, HuggyStudio would establish itself for strategically important keywords and generate organic traffic – and Daniel would succeed in positioning himself as an expert.

Detailed keyword research enabled us to better understand and quantify the search behaviour of the target group. And to ensure we didn't miss any important topics, we also conducted a thorough competitor analysis.

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2. Creation: Create content based on expertise and with sufficient depth

To ensure that the content reached the right target group and met their needs, content creation and SEO had to be based on a central strategy. For each piece of content, we therefore defined:

• What search intent do we want to serve?
• What is the goal we are pursuing with the respective content?

The search intent and the goal of a post together form the beacon that guides the creation of the text. However, successful content requires not only strong SEO expertise but also excellent editorial skills. To this end, we put together a small team of qualified copywriters who brought with them the highest level of competence, reliability and sufficient specialist knowledge.

Since HuggyStudio wanted no-code.ch to provide valuable insights rather than disseminate run-of-the-mill knowledge, the content created was based on first-hand expertise. We conducted interviews with Daniel Abebe and his team for each content format.

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Based on detailed briefings and transcripts of the interviews, our copywriters then drafted the first versions. We supported this process by editing and proofreading the written content to ensure the best possible quality in terms of both content and language.

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The project demonstrated once again that choosing the right topic alone is not enough. The correct approach is just as crucial for generating added value with SEO content.

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It's all in the mix: Digital Leverage brings passion to copywriting, but always keeps a clear focus on what the target audience is looking for. – Rossana A. Ammann, former Community & Marketing Manager at HuggyStudio

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This also included incorporating content distribution into the creation process.

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3. Distribution

Once the content was published, our job was far from done. Only through targeted distribution could the content ultimately reach the target audience. We therefore addressed the relevant questions:

• Where is the target audience located?
• What measures can we take to increase the visibility of no-code.ch?
• How can we increase domain and topic authority?

Our strategy: build one link after another to generate positive momentum for No-Code. The additional links gave the blog articles more visibility in search results, which in turn led to more visits and more links. In this way, we created a positive flywheel effect that continued well over a year after the first link building campaigns.

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Social media was also an important distribution channel in this case: organic posts on LinkedIn helped HuggyStudio build proximity to the community and interact with it. Likes and shares increased the reach of the content within social networks. Some of this content was picked up again in external posts, comments or blogs. These mentions and backlinks in turn had a reinforcing effect on our flywheel.

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Finally, we set up clear tracking and reporting for no-code.ch to keep them informed about current developments. Based on these findings, we were able to make ongoing optimisations and update measures and content.

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The Result

The strong focus on content quality, combined with a clear ranking and link building strategy, bore fruit to everyone's delight.

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Traffic: from 0 to over 3,000 organic clicks per month

Organic traffic in particular had grown steadily since the launch of no-code.ch. Within a year, it had risen from 0 to over 3,000 organic clicks per month.

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Links and authority: over 150 additional links

The investment in backlink building and content distribution also paid off. By early 2021, no-code.ch had gained a good 150 links from nearly 70 domains.

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Partnership: the cornerstone of successful projects

For HuggyStudio, the collaboration had produced other important, albeit unquantifiable, results. Not only did Daniel Abebe and his team gain a competent partner, but they also gained an ‘unofficial CMO’ – in the words of Daniel Abebe himself.

They could be completely confident that they had found someone who got the most out of both technical SEO and content creation and management. This saved internal resources and allowed them to invest more in their daily business. We would like to thank HuggyStudio and, in particular, former CEO Daniel Abebe for the trust they placed in us.

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Digital Leverage always prioritised HuggyStudio's interests during the launch of no-code.ch. They always knew what was important to us without losing focus on the target audience. From the very beginning, they believed in us and our idea. In doing so, they demonstrated a high degree of flexibility and a deep understanding of the growth process that a start-up goes through – Daniel Abebe, Co-Founder & former CEO of HuggyStudio

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