Case study: Supporting Nectar’s 59 to 71 Domain Rating Boost

Nectar is an employee rewards and recognition platform that enables peers, managers, and leaders to exchange meaningful shoutouts with each other via an internal social feed. Each message contains a note of praise and an allocation of Nectar points. Recipients then spend their accumulated points on a variety of rewards, including gift cards, charity donations, company swag, Amazon products, and custom rewards like PTO.

Partnered with SHRM and boasting clients like Heineken and Statista, Nectar has been achieving incredible success since its launch in 2019. But I first came across the company in August 2022 when freelance writer Amanda Cross moved in-house to become Nectar’s content marketing department of one.

I’d long admired Amanda’s work. The content marketing world is jam-packed with B2B SaaS writers, but there are few genuine HR Tech content specialists, and Amanda is one of them. I’d read so much of her work, and I always found her writing incredibly clean, insightful and relatable.

Two months after Amanda announced her Nectar appointment, I pitched her and was delighted when she thought we were a great fit. After our second assignment together, Amanda sent me with this testimonial:

“Rebecca is the best writer I know – the quality I get back blows me away. Her content is flawless and well-researched. She picked up on the voice of our blog seamlessly and has a knack for breaking down complex topics. As much as I want to keep her out-of-this-world writing ability low-key, I can’t help but shout about it from the rooftops. I know her work will be integral as I grow my company’s blog.“

Establishing a strong creative partnership

We quickly built a strong collaboration based on four long-form articles per month. Amanda invested heavily in our partnership by scheduling a monthly call where she’d share a Canva presentation with me. Usually, it would include:

  • Praise and appreciation for my work
  • The latest traffic increases and hitlist of my highest ranking blog posts
  • Upcoming content for the month, including “why” each of these topics was important to the company’s overarching goals
  • Any product changes, such as new features in the works

Let me go on the record here and say I have never worked with another content manager who has committed so extensively to working with me. And that’s a great shame, because these regular check-ins set me up for success each month. I would genuinely look forward to the meeting (and I don’t say that about a lot of Zoom calls!)

Amanda’s content briefs were equally in-depth—the perfect mix of need-to-know information coupled with enough creative freedom for me to bring the topic to life.

So, that’s what I did. Between November 2022 and October 2024, I wrote 70+ long-form blog articles (usually around 3,000 to 3,500 words each) that fell roughly into these categories:

“We had several top-notch guest posters this year, but the real star of the show was Rebecca Noori. I deeply value the content partnership we’ve built and how I can trust her with topics and ideas near and dear to me.” — Amanda Cross

Revealing the story behind Nectar’s original research

Together, we produced content that got people talking, sharing, and linking back to Nectar as a trusted source. Nectar’s original research was a huge part of this.

Amanda conducted numerous largescale surveys of 1,000+ US full-time employees on topics like recognition, workplace promotions, layoffs, department meetings, etc. And with several pieces, Amanda provided the raw survey data, and let me find the narrative behind the numbers. Some of these insights were seriously concerning, such as the realization that women receive less recognition than men and don’t feel their employer invests in their professional development as much as their male counterparts. I was eager to shine a light on these inequalities and nudge leaders into making a difference in their own organizations.

Fresh data-packed pieces attract backlinks from other companies who want to include the details in their own content. In Nectar’s case, this approach gained them amazing new backlinks from renowned publications and high-ranking SaaS companies. By doing so, Nectar has increased its domain rating score from 59 to 71 during Amanda’s time as content manager and my extended partnership with the company. Amanda reveals the importance of this boost:

“When I began my Nectar journey, our domain rating sat at 59. Today, it sits at 71. Why is this metric important? Ahrefs creates this metric as a guide to help companies understand the strength of their backlink profile. When you have a higher DR, you are typically getting backlinks from higher authority sites. I feel like this increase in DR and getting links from higher authority sites has translated into us ranking better in search engines.”

Adding value with expert insights

Expert insights are another key ingredient in my work. Many of my Nectar articles feature quotes from subject matter experts offering their own opinions, tips, and experiences on the topic. For example, I was delighted to include quotes from the likes of Toggl founder Alari Aho, and Myers-Briggs Company thought leader, John Hackston in my work, among dozens of others sourced through:

  • Quote-finding services like Featured, Qwoted, and HelpaB2Bwriter
  • Internal experts, such as Nectar’s co-founders and SVP of People and Culture
  • My own professional network made up of LinkedIn connections, clients, and PR contacts
  • Podcast hosts and guests
  • Recorded interviews, such as the transcript of a call between Amanda and Gaby Israel Grinberg of Proofpoint Marketing for our piece on The Ultimate Guide to Employee Benefits

These expert quotes add depth to the content, so readers gain more value than the surface-level AI junk other sites pump out. As a bonus, the featured experts are normally eager to share the published work on social media. For example, when I listed author Tara Furiani in Nectar’s 15 Best HR Books article, her shoutout on LinkedIn garnered 62 likes, 30 comments and 3 reposts, which was great publicity for both her book and Nectar.

I’ll always be proud of the content I’ve created for Nectar and grateful for the opportunity to develop my expertise in employee recognition.

I’m passionate about celebrating the importance of praise and appreciation in the workplace. So, feel free to get in touch if you have any employee recognition or research-driven HR pieces in the works — I’d love to chat.