Ready to plan, write, and optimize blog posts faster than ever?
Meet GrowthBar, an AI writing and search engine optimization (SEO) tool that enables you to automate the content creation process from start to finish.
An early addition to the rise of the AI writing tools on the market today, GrowthBar’s effectiveness caused it to grow its subscriber base fast — so quickly, in fact, that its creators sold it just a few years after its debut.
Want to learn more? Let’s dive into some of the top GrowthBar facts and statistics.
GrowthBar is an AI writing tool that helps marketers and content creators research, write, optimize, and share SEO-friendly content 10x faster. (Source)
Powered by ChatGPT-4 (although some website sections also reference ChatGPT-3), GrowthBar provides all the tools you need for effective end-to-end content creation.
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GrowthBar also offers done-for-you SEO writing services for those who prefer a completely hands-off approach to content creation. (Source)
GrowthBar’s comprehensive, quality data aggregation and AI-powered content creation capabilities are key to its success. Let’s examine how each aspect works to help you create SEO-friendly content in minutes.
Although the exact collection method depends on the type of information, GrowthBar aims to maintain a high standard across all of its databases. It specifies that it only gathers data from proprietary algorithms and trusted sources, like SpyFu, Google Ads, and OpenAI’s GPT-3. (Source)
With keyword data from industry-leading providers and clickstream query data in its back pocket, GrowthBar helps users make accurate, data-driven decisions that can take them to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). (Source) Even better, it takes its accuracy seriously, too.
Take its Keyword Ranking Tracking Tool, for example. GrowthBar uses hundreds of proxy servers and scrapes the Google SERPs thousands of times daily, with the aim of providing users with only the most precise, up-to-date keyword rankings. (Source) You can then use that data to inform your content strategy. Not to mention, leverage GrowthBar’s AI model to improve your rankings.
GrowthBar’s AI and propriety algorithms are what make it so effective for researching, writing, and optimizing content. (Source)
It’s powered by a natural language processing (NLP) model, its AI has been trained on about 45 terabytes of data from books, articles, and websites to help it understand how people use language. (Source)
It may seem like a lot, but a massive dataset is key to getting accurate, logical results. All this training enables GrowthBar’s AI to fine-tune its 175 billion parameters that help it process and ultimately generate high-quality outputs. (Source)
Its training doesn’t stop there either. Growthbar notes that part of its AI training process includes feedback on the content generated, as well as repeated evaluation of the model’s outputs for accuracy and adherence to SEO best practices (Source).
Then, if something seems off, it’s fed even more data to adjust its logic (Source) They believe it’s these tweaks that make GrowthBar’s outputs more useful than other AI writing tools. (Source)
So, how did the team behind GrowthBar come up with the winning formula for what they claim to be the “#1 Rated AI Writing Tool for SEO?” (Source) Let’s take a closer look.
There aren’t many press releases or articles covering GrowthBar’s every move throughout the years, but we do know a few things about the company and its product.
GrowthBar was founded in 2020 by Hailey Friedman and Mark Spera. (Source and Source) However, it's not the first project its founders worked on together.
Their working relationship started when Spera offered Friedman a job at a 25-person startup in San Francisco. (Source) He was Head of Marketing at the time and the company really started to take off, eventually earning about $14 million in revenue and a $200 million valuation. (Source)
You’d think with all their success the founders would be in good spirits, but according to Friedman, Spera wasn’t happy around this time. (Source) These challenges prompted life changes and instilled the idea to “just do it” instead of wondering “what if.” (Source)
With this in mind, Spera agreed to go into business with Friedman when she bought the domain GrowthMarketingPro.com — which would play a key role in GrowthBar’s development. (Source)
Before long, Friedman and Spera saw so much success with Growth Marketing Pro (GMP) that they wanted to expand. (Source)
They decided automation was the way to go, so they created GrowthBar. (Source)
Friedman would lead GMP for a year, and Spera would do the same with GrowthBar (Source) At the end of those 12 months, the business that was growing more quickly would receive their full attention. (Source)
Though it was originally an internal tool to help them automate client SEM and SEO tasks, GrowthBar was so effective that its two founders decided to take it to market. (Source) Sure enough, it ended up being a hit with customers, evidenced by the nearly $100,000 they would earn on signup days at its peak. (Source)
Despite having yet another success on their hands, GrowthBar’s rapid growth became a problem for Friedman and Spera, as it stretched resources across the companies. (Source)
It turned out, a year wasn’t enough time to make the decision. Both businesses were growing so fast after 12 months that they decided to continue with their wager for another year. (Source)
Their timing was impeccable. Right around the two-year mark, a content marketplace and public data company separately reached out to Friedman and Spera to express interest in acquiring GrowthBar. (Source) However, the offers weren’t quite what the founders were after, so they passed. (Source)
The offers did help them make one decision; it was time to sell GrowthBar.
So, they listed on Acquire.com and quickly received a lot of interest (50+ groups responded within 24 hours, and they had three solid offers within 48). (Source)
They ended up selling the company to XO Capital in June 2023 (Source)
Though founded back in 2020, very little information is available on GrowthBar’s product release history. Here’s what we do know:
Outside of that though, there was also an introductory article on its Custom AI Models feature published in April 2023 (Source)
GrowthBar’s Custom AI Models feature uses advanced AI algorithms to help users write with AI in their own brand voice. (Source)
By enabling brands to give their content a more personal touch to keep Google happy, this feature is in line with GrowthBar’s goal: to help users quickly create effective SEO content that ranks. (Source)
GrowthBar hasn’t made many major financial moves throughout the years. Founders Friedman and Spera bootstrapped GrowthBar to get it off the ground. As a result, they noted they didn’t need to raise additional money. (Source)
The most notable financial move for GrowthBar was its sale to SaaS private equity firm XO Capital in June 2023. (Source)
Here are a few of the key details of the sale:
(Source)
Though details are scarce, GrowthBar’s founders and XO Capital seemed happy with the deal. Spera claims there are two main reasons they went with the XO Capital offer:
(Source)
For XO Capital, it was their 10th and largest SaaS acquisition to date. (Source) Sure, they considered the risks, like the legacy tech stack and the competitive AI content generation market. (Source)
However, there was also a lot to like about GrowthBar, including its:
(Source)
XO Capital went with seller financing at the time of the acquisition, so they didn’t expect to see any money from GrowthBar for about a year and a half. (Source) If profits were reasonable at that point, the company would either start spending to accelerate growth or put it back on the market. (Source)
It will be interesting to see what the firm decides to do with GrowthBar in the future. In the meantime, let’s see how GrowthBar works in its current form.
With the ability to research, write, and optimize content all in the same place, GrowthBar is a one-stop shop for quick and effective content creation. Here’s an overview of how it works.
Thorough keyword research is the bedrock of high-quality content writing.
After brainstorming some general topics, you can use GrowthBar’s Keyword Research Tool to help you zero in on the most effective, rankable keywords for your niche.
With the tool boasting over 2 billion keywords and 80 billion data points, you’re sure to find a keyword that works for your niche. (Source)
Simply throw in a broad topic or head term (such as a seed keyword or short-tail keyword) into the Keyword Research Tool, and sit back as it finds up to 100 related keywords.
GrowthBar gives you a lot more than just the keywords themselves. You’ll also get some extra information you can use to inform strategy, including:
Alternatively, you can use GrowthBar’s Site Inspector Tool to plan your content through competitor analysis. For this one, you type a domain into the Site Inspector to get an idea of what your competitors are doing and how they’re performing.
More specifically, GrowthBar provides you with competitor insights such as:
Once you’ve chosen your keyword(s), it’s time to start creating your content.
Next, you’ll want to head over to the Blog Post Generator. Although you can also optimize an existing article here, you’ll want to select “New article” to create a post from scratch.
Then, enter your keyword phrase, potential article title, and website (this last one’s optional), and hit “Submit” to start building your outline.
Now you should see GrowthBar’s 2-Minute First Draft Builder pop up. The first step here gives you a list of headings that high-ranking sites already use for your topic. Your job is to drag and drop these headings into the specified section to start forming your outline.
For the second “Content” step, the tool starts to build out your subtopics by generating relevant bullet point information under each heading. You’re not stuck with it, though. You can edit or delete any of the points to your satisfaction.
When you’re happy with your outline, you can move to the final step where GrowthBar generates a first draft of your article.
Since AI writing tools aren’t perfect, you should check through the draft for any inaccuracies and perform any necessary edits before moving on to the next step: optimization.
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At the top of your article, you may notice a green bar with a percentage at the end of it. This growth bar or optimization meter tells you how SEO-optimized the article is for your keyword.
To get that bar going in the right direction, head on over to the “Optimize” section to the right of your article. Here, you’ll find ideal targets for creating “Optimal Content”, including:
You can also check out the “Drag-and-Drop” section right next to “Optimize” to check out suggested headlines and images for your article to help it rank. If you happen to find another heading you’d like to include, you can use the “Write with AI” button at the top of the copywriting window to fill it out with some AI-generated text.
Of course, GrowthBar has several other features that can help you get content created, optimized, and out the door (the AI Paragraph Rewriter, AI Meta Description Generator, and Blog Topic Generator just to name a few).
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If you want to get an idea of how effective the tool is, check out our GrowthBar review.
You can also leverage GrowthBar’s insights on the go with its Chrome extension. (Source) It’s even easier to use than the standalone app.
To use the GrowthBar Chrome extension, simply:
Now, in addition to the usual links and descriptions of relevant websites, GrowthBar will display SEO metrics alongside your Google search results.
At the top of the page, you’ll find the keyword difficulty for the word you typed in, but you’ll also get data about each website, including their:
Some of these metrics will require you to click on the “+” symbol in the bar under each website, but others like domain authority and organic traffic should be visible.
You may also notice a “Words” option beside the website. When you click on this one, you’ll see the page’s word count.
Looking for a best-in-class Chrome Extension? Check out Originality.ai’s Chrome Extension with 4 tools in 1 extension including an AI Detector, Plagiarism Checker, Readability Checker, and AI Grammar Checker.
Desktop users typically navigate to GrowthBar’s website via one of two sources. The breakdown of growthbarseo.com’s top traffic sources as of December 2024 is as follows:
(Source)
Growthbarseo.com receives most of its traffic from organic search, with direct traffic not too far behind.
Looking at growthbarseo.com’s desktop web traffic by country in December 2024, the website is most popular in:
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Growthbarseo.com is most popular in India, followed by Pakistan.
With so many different social media platforms to choose from, it may be surprising that GrowthBar’s website only receives traffic from two social media sources.
The top social media traffic sources to growthbarseo.com in December 2024 are:
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Growthbarseo.com receives most of its social media traffic from Facebook, then WhatsApp.
GrowthBar has a decent number of fans in just about every relevant age group. As of December 2024, the breakdown of growthbarseo.com’s age distribution is:
(Source)
Growthbarseo.com is most popular with 18-24-year-olds, but the 25-34 age group is close behind.
The gender distribution for growthbarseo.com’s website traffic in December 2024 is as follows:
(Source)
The top organic search term for GrowthBar isn’t a surprise, but some others may be. As of December 2024, the top keywords by desktop traffic for growthbarseo.com are:
(Source)
Another 289 keywords drive traffic to the growthbarseo.com website. (Source)
If GrowthBar isn’t meeting your needs, several competitors and similar sites are available. Some of growthbarseo.com’s top alternatives and competitors in December 2024 include:
(Source)
Optimo, Fatjoe, Narrato, and Semrush are all excellent choices for SEO help (Source, Source, Source) Grow Hack Scale is more about providing marketing solutions for businesses with growth challenges. (Source)
From an internal tool to a hit SaaS product, GrowthBar really made a splash in its early days. However, with so many similar AI tools now crowding the market, it will be interesting to see if the new owners can replicate its success.
In the meantime, if you’ve been looking for an AI writing and optimization tool to help streamline your content creation process, GrowthBar is certainly worth a try. With a 4.8/5 rating on G2 as of this writing, it clearly has a lot of happy customers! (Source)
Looking for a complete suite of best-in-class tools? Check out Originality.ai’s AI Checker, Plagiarism Checker, and AI Grammar Checker.
Read more about the latest in AI and apps! Check out our statistics guides:
Still have a few questions left about GrowthBar? Check out some of the most frequently asked questions below.
GrowthBar is an AI writing and SEO optimization tool that helps you streamline every stage of the content creation process. You can plan content with its keyword research and competitor analysis tools, write outlines and full articles with its 2-Minute Blog Builder and AI writing feature, and optimize everything to rank on the SERPs all in one place.
Anyone can use GrowthBar to help them create organic search traffic-driving content. However, a little background in SEO is ideal for making the most out of its suite of tools. So, if you’re a marketer, blogger, or editor with some SEO knowledge, you’ll likely find GrowthBar handy for content creation purposes.
No, GrowthBar doesn’t plagiarize content, in one of the FAQs on their site they note that the content is “100% unique.” (source)
However, AI writing tools can unintentionally generate similar content, so it’s always a good idea to run AI-generated text through a plagiarism checker to review originality. Remember, AI isn’t a perfect technology, so human oversight is an essential part of using it responsibly.
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