Seven years in one niche and not one project outside it
RootRank did not start with a business plan. The founder spent years working in-house and inside agencies, and at some point noticed that every project on his desk was SaaS, infrastructure or developer tooling. The specialisation had already happened; the agency simply gave it a name. Since 2019 we have not taken a single project outside technical products.
RootRank in eight lines
- What we are
- An SEO and AI search agency working only with technical products
- Founded
- 2019, by Alexei Rozenplenter
- Specialisation
- SaaS, B2B software, software development, fintech and e-commerce platforms, cybersecurity, EdTech
- Clients
- Companies that own a technical product, and agencies buying SEO under their own brand
- Markets
- United States, United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, United Arab Emirates
- Team
- 8 specialists in-house; five of them on every project; nobody carries more than three clients
- Working languages
- English and Russian
- Model
- Monthly retainer from $1,500, six-month minimum; placements billed at supplier cost
Four rules that cost us money
We say it before, not after
The enquiry forecast and the expected payback month go into the proposal with their assumptions stated. If the numbers start diverging, you hear it in the next two-week report, not at the end of the year.
We turn down what we can't win
We decline roughly one enquiry in five. Usually because the niche won't cover our fee at their margin – and we say so on the first call.
You keep everything if you leave
Keyword data, briefs, access, the list of placed links, open tickets. Thirty days' notice, no penalty. Deliverables don't stay with the agency.
Tech only
We have never taken the clinics, the garages or the local service businesses, so we never had to learn a new niche every quarter. In SaaS, software development, AI, networking, fintech and e-commerce platforms we know where the money is usually buried.
Seven years in four moments
The niche narrowed on its own
Years inside teams and agencies where SEO was one line on a longer list. The early projects were retail and services; later they were increasingly technical products – one SaaS, then another, then infrastructure.
That technical niches turn on different things, and importing retail tactics into them achieves nothing.
One founder
By then the specialisation had already happened. All that was left was to give it a name and stop taking everything that came. The first client was a former employer.
That selling SEO is easier once you have sat on the other side and know what a useless report looks like.
The first refusals
Clinics, garages and property developers started calling. Same money, different world. We turned them all down and wrote the rule: technical products only.
That in B2B the sales cycle breaks conventional attribution, and the maths has to change.
The first markets outside home
The first EU client arrived by referral, then four more. We had to build a network of native speakers for outreach and learn to size demand in markets we had never lived in.
That link equity does not cross borders, and local keyword data cannot be translated – only rebuilt.
A new discipline
We started counting mentions in AI answers while it still looked like a toy. For six months we imported habits from SEO and got poor results.
That in an AI answer it's the paragraph that wins, not the page. That's a different demand on the writing.
Eight people by role
Forecast, plan and the call every two weeks. One strategist per two or three projects.
2 peopleAudits, logs, crawl budget and tickets for your developers.
2 peopleDemand mapping, briefs, editing. Freelance writers write, the content lead signs off.
1 personOutreach across CIS, EU and US. Native speakers on foreign markets work on contract.
2 peopleDashboards, revenue attribution, reporting.
1 personThree things not to come to us for
We don't promise specific rankings
Results are rebuilt daily and differ by device and city. Promising a specific position for a specific query means either not understanding how this works or counting on the client not to check.
We don't run click bots
It works for a few months and then the domain goes under a filter. We've seen how it ends on three projects that came to us from other agencies.
We don't sell you what you don't need
If you run a furniture shop or a dental clinic, we're not your agency. If the niche won't cover the fee, we say so before the contract. We decline about one enquiry in five.
Shall we talk?
Our Head of Inbound Sales will look at your product and tell you whether you fit our niche. If you don't, he'll point you somewhere that does.
Tell us about your product
The site address is enough. We'll ask the rest on the call.