Rippling

The brief

Rippling needed help executing their AEO/GEO content strategy.

I came on board as senior content support across the library. Decision-stage articles. Customer stories. Refreshes. Content assets.

The pages had to serve buyers and answer engines at the same time. Buyers needed comparison logic and product context they could trust. Answer engines needed verified claims that were easy to parse and cite.

The quality bar was higher than "write the page." Product research, claim discipline, answer structure, and customer proof had to move together.

How I got the context

The briefs were across HR Tech and FinTech, so I had to understand the buyer question behind each one: outgrowing a starter payroll tool, comparing HR platforms, evaluating global payroll providers, weighing expense management options, and more.

Competitor and product research: I reviewed official feature and pricing pages, customer reviews, support docs, product demos, battlecards, competitor positioning, and internal docs.

I had to separate marketing claims from buyer-relevant feature differences before a single section felt safe to write.

Search and answer structure: I used BLUF technique to lead sections with the answer first, then backed it up with quick comparison tables, feature snapshots, verdicts, review tables, FAQs, metadata, and extractable explanations.

Retrieval shaped the structure. Make the answer easy to find, use, and cite.

Wherever it made sense, I pulled customer voice close to the claim it supported. The surrounding sections needed more than brand claims to stand on.

Brand and review alignment: I treated feedback as part of the system, not a one-off comment thread.

Recurring notes became checks I ran before the next draft. Claims that needed legal or product support were flagged before review. Brand guidelines were used as a standard, not a PDF sitting somewhere in the folder.

That made drafts easier to review at speed. Fewer repeated notes. Cleaner claims. Less drift from the brand.

Before handoff, I checked drafts against brand guidance, legal notes, product accuracy, and answer-first structure.

What I wrote

Comparison and alternative pages: These pages were for buyers already choosing between tools across legacy HR platforms, payroll providers, EOR products, HRIS systems, and point solutions. They needed methodology and quick comparison tables. Feature snapshots, verdicts, and customer proof did the rest.

Best-of roundups and buying guides: I wrote evaluation-stage content across payroll, HRIS, benefits, workforce management, training, global payroll, expense management, and business credit cards. Buyers had to understand the category and where Rippling fit.

Content refreshes: I also refreshed longer pieces that were losing rankings. That meant newer competitive insight, clearer answer structure, and stronger signals that the page still reflected the current category.

Customer stories: I wrote 8+ stories across long-form case studies and their "How I Solved It" editorial series, where practitioners explain how they fixed a specific operational problem. I looked for the buyer-relevant angle in the interview. Sometimes that was consolidation or scaling. Sometimes it was workflow automation, cost savings, compliance, or the operational risk the team had finally stopped tolerating.

Content assets: Some articles needed more than just words. For one, I created five custom Google Sheets templates with formulas, automated calculations, and professional formatting, then paired them with a 3,000+ word guide and decision tree. The asset shaped the article around who each template was for, what questions it answered, and how a reader should choose.

What changed

• 30+ AEO/GEO articles published across HR Tech and FinTech
• 8+ customer stories turned product usage into buyer-recognizable proof
• Comparison, alternative, best-of, and buying-guide pages gave buyers clearer decision support
• Longer pieces got fresh competitive insight and recency updates where rankings were slipping
• Content assets gave select pages stronger ranking value and clearer conversion paths
• Articles earned visibility across Google, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity
• Draft checks helped pages stay aligned with brand guidance, verified claims, and answer-first structure