An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth)

Meltem insists you must first ensure you have a fast, functional website that clearly explains what you do and is indexable by search engines; only after that—and initial organic discovery via content/SEO—is in place should you consider paid acquisition. Running ads to a slow or confusing site wastes money and data.

Early growth came from going wherever target users were asking real questions—Reddit, Quora, Twitter, closed founder/HR communities, YC, VCs—and answering them in-depth, not just dropping links. This is time-intensive but nearly free, compounds over time, and works especially well in B2B where active problems drive behavior.

Rather than keyword-stuffing, Deel’s SEO strategy is to write pages that fully answer the underlying intent so users don’t bounce back to Google. They systematically prioritize keywords via a ‘traffic-light’ system (green/yellow/red by purchase intent), then craft comprehensive, simple content that resolves the entire problem.

Deel’s ~8-person content team runs like an ops org: rigorous keyword vetting, standardized briefs, freelancer management, fact-checking, ongoing updates, and tools like Clearscope to ensure clarity and coverage. They now publish ~5 new pieces and update ~5 old ones weekly, across multiple languages, with tight measurement.

Growth at Deel owns revenue, not “marketing metrics.” Paid channels are evaluated on full-funnel performance and 12‑month revenue, tracked in real time via data dashboards (lead → opportunity → closed-won → ARR), so budgets follow true profitability instead of vanity lead volume.