SEO For Startups - Start Here!
Chapter 1 Of $100M SEO for startups course
Written by Jan-Oliver Seidenfuss
It's October 2022.
I had just launched my first real product with two friends from university—an app that turns your selfies into professional headshots.
The app was tested; everything worked. The tech side was done. Now, let's get some customers, right?
Easier said than done. We had never done marketing before, so we were a little lost.
Somehow, SEO seemed very attractive for obvious reasons:
You don't have to invest money upfront
You don't have to put yourself out there in weird short-form videos
If you get your page to rank, it ranks for a long time.
Fine, so let's do SEO then.
Today, I know this wasn't the best decision. It was too early. We should have focused on other channels first. But, well, nobody told me back then.
So I started to learn SEO. Or I tried to. But somehow I really struggled. What was I supposed to do exactly? You have these keywords you should add them somewhere in the content and then what?
And why do these keyword research tools all cost $90+ per month?
Or should I even focus on adding keywords to my page? Should I fix technical issues? I ran this website audit, and it showed A LOT of errors and warnings. Should I fix these? Or create new content?
What exactly should I focus on and in what order?
Skipping into the future, it took me two months to finally kind of understand what I had to do. Two months? That's a long time. Too long.
And even with a basic understanding of what to do, it was still highly time-intensive to actually implement.
If you can relate to any of this, you've come to the right place!
I like to call this the SEO pain. And everyone I talked to had to go through it.
SEO Pain 1 is a knowledge problem. When you first start, you don't know what to do. It's hard to find a clear path through SEO.
SEO Pain 2 is an implementation problem. When you know what to do, but you realize it costs a lot of time and is actually not free as you have to pay for 3-4 tools on a monthly basis.
This course is going to solve the knowledge problem. Afterwards, you'll be able to design and implement your own SEO strategy.
And when you know what to do, my hope is you'll give Spexia a try to save hours of time you'd have to spend on implementing the SEO strategy.
But who am I to teach you anything about SEO? Well, I learned a thing or two over the last years and now help startups and e-commerce shops with SEO to get results like this.
This is flappie.ch, one of the startups we work with at Spexia. Feel free to check out their growth yourself using this free Ahrefs tool.
So if you trying to dig into SEO, I hope you enjoy this course & feel free to always reach out to me on X if you have questions or suggestions on how to improve the course.
It's October 2022.
I had just launched my first real product with two friends from university—an app that turns your selfies into professional headshots.
The app was tested; everything worked. The tech side was done. Now, let's get some customers, right?
Easier said than done. We had never done marketing before, so we were a little lost.
Somehow, SEO seemed very attractive for obvious reasons:
You don't have to invest money upfront
You don't have to put yourself out there in weird short-form videos
If you get your page to rank, it ranks for a long time.
Fine, so let's do SEO then.
Today, I know this wasn't the best decision. It was too early. We should have focused on other channels first. But, well, nobody told me back then.
So I started to learn SEO. Or I tried to. But somehow I really struggled. What was I supposed to do exactly? You have these keywords you should add them somewhere in the content and then what?
And why do these keyword research tools all cost $90+ per month?
Or should I even focus on adding keywords to my page? Should I fix technical issues? I ran this website audit, and it showed A LOT of errors and warnings. Should I fix these? Or create new content?
What exactly should I focus on and in what order?
Skipping into the future, it took me two months to finally kind of understand what I had to do. Two months? That's a long time. Too long.
And even with a basic understanding of what to do, it was still highly time-intensive to actually implement.
If you can relate to any of this, you've come to the right place!
I like to call this the SEO pain. And everyone I talked to had to go through it.
SEO Pain 1 is a knowledge problem. When you first start, you don't know what to do. It's hard to find a clear path through SEO.
SEO Pain 2 is an implementation problem. When you know what to do, but you realize it costs a lot of time and is actually not free as you have to pay for 3-4 tools on a monthly basis.
This course is going to solve the knowledge problem. Afterwards, you'll be able to design and implement your own SEO strategy.
And when you know what to do, my hope is you'll give Spexia a try to save hours of time you'd have to spend on implementing the SEO strategy.
But who am I to teach you anything about SEO? Well, I learned a thing or two over the last years and now help startups and e-commerce shops with SEO to get results like this.
This is flappie.ch, one of the startups we work with at Spexia. Feel free to check out their growth yourself using this free Ahrefs tool.
So if you trying to dig into SEO, I hope you enjoy this course & feel free to always reach out to me on X if you have questions or suggestions on how to improve the course.
It's October 2022.
I had just launched my first real product with two friends from university—an app that turns your selfies into professional headshots.
The app was tested; everything worked. The tech side was done. Now, let's get some customers, right?
Easier said than done. We had never done marketing before, so we were a little lost.
Somehow, SEO seemed very attractive for obvious reasons:
You don't have to invest money upfront
You don't have to put yourself out there in weird short-form videos
If you get your page to rank, it ranks for a long time.
Fine, so let's do SEO then.
Today, I know this wasn't the best decision. It was too early. We should have focused on other channels first. But, well, nobody told me back then.
So I started to learn SEO. Or I tried to. But somehow I really struggled. What was I supposed to do exactly? You have these keywords you should add them somewhere in the content and then what?
And why do these keyword research tools all cost $90+ per month?
Or should I even focus on adding keywords to my page? Should I fix technical issues? I ran this website audit, and it showed A LOT of errors and warnings. Should I fix these? Or create new content?
What exactly should I focus on and in what order?
Skipping into the future, it took me two months to finally kind of understand what I had to do. Two months? That's a long time. Too long.
And even with a basic understanding of what to do, it was still highly time-intensive to actually implement.
If you can relate to any of this, you've come to the right place!
I like to call this the SEO pain. And everyone I talked to had to go through it.
SEO Pain 1 is a knowledge problem. When you first start, you don't know what to do. It's hard to find a clear path through SEO.
SEO Pain 2 is an implementation problem. When you know what to do, but you realize it costs a lot of time and is actually not free as you have to pay for 3-4 tools on a monthly basis.
This course is going to solve the knowledge problem. Afterwards, you'll be able to design and implement your own SEO strategy.
And when you know what to do, my hope is you'll give Spexia a try to save hours of time you'd have to spend on implementing the SEO strategy.
But who am I to teach you anything about SEO? Well, I learned a thing or two over the last years and now help startups and e-commerce shops with SEO to get results like this.
This is flappie.ch, one of the startups we work with at Spexia. Feel free to check out their growth yourself using this free Ahrefs tool.
So if you trying to dig into SEO, I hope you enjoy this course & feel free to always reach out to me on X if you have questions or suggestions on how to improve the course.
Course chapters
Course Chapters
Course Chapters
My hope
My hope is that this course
will save you hundreds of hours you don’t have to spend on reading random resources that aren’t helpful. Time you can now spend on moving other aspects of your business forward.
will save you $1000’s of dollars as you don’t have to outsource crucial SEO tasks.
will prevent you from hiring a mediocre agency for $2000+/month that drives no impact.
It would typically cost at least $1000 on e.g. reforge.com but I'm happy to give it away for $0 - 100% for free.
As an homage to Alex Hormozi I call the course $100M SEO For Startups. How to get customers without paying for ads.
And now, without further blabla, let's jump into understanding the bigger picture of SEO🤘
My hope is that this course
will save you hundreds of hours you don’t have to spend on reading random resources that aren’t helpful. Time you can now spend on moving other aspects of your business forward.
will save you $1000’s of dollars as you don’t have to outsource crucial SEO tasks.
will prevent you from hiring a mediocre agency for $2000+/month that drives no impact.
It would typically cost at least $1000 on e.g. reforge.com but I'm happy to give it away for $0 - 100% for free.
As an homage to Alex Hormozi I call the course $100M SEO For Startups. How to get customers without paying for ads.
And now, without further blabla, let's jump into understanding the bigger picture of SEO🤘
My hope is that this course
will save you hundreds of hours you don’t have to spend on reading random resources that aren’t helpful. Time you can now spend on moving other aspects of your business forward.
will save you $1000’s of dollars as you don’t have to outsource crucial SEO tasks.
will prevent you from hiring a mediocre agency for $2000+/month that drives no impact.
It would typically cost at least $1000 on e.g. reforge.com but I'm happy to give it away for $0 - 100% for free.
As an homage to Alex Hormozi I call the course $100M SEO For Startups. How to get customers without paying for ads.
And now, without further blabla, let's jump into understanding the bigger picture of SEO🤘
Impact of SEO
Let’s state the obvious here. SEO can be one of the main sources of traffic.
Take Masterclass as an example. According to Similarweb.com, Masterclass drives close to 60% of their traffic from organic search.
TripAdvisor more than 75%.
That’s some crazy numbers & are just to show that SEO has big potential.
But it shouldn’t be the only source of traffic you rely on.
In fact, it can’t be.
Let’s state the obvious here. SEO can be one of the main sources of traffic.
Take Masterclass as an example. According to Similarweb.com, Masterclass drives close to 60% of their traffic from organic search.
TripAdvisor more than 75%.
That’s some crazy numbers & are just to show that SEO has big potential.
But it shouldn’t be the only source of traffic you rely on.
In fact, it can’t be.
Let’s state the obvious here. SEO can be one of the main sources of traffic.
Take Masterclass as an example. According to Similarweb.com, Masterclass drives close to 60% of their traffic from organic search.
TripAdvisor more than 75%.
That’s some crazy numbers & are just to show that SEO has big potential.
But it shouldn’t be the only source of traffic you rely on.
In fact, it can’t be.
SEO as marketing channel
SEO is one way of letting people know about your stuff. One possible marketing channel.
Sometimes SEO is a very good channel, sometimes it’s not.
Yes. You heard that correctly.
SEO isn’t always a good fit.
Even though a lot of Founders would like to belief that SEO will magically make potential customers appear, that’s not the case.
Unfortunately, you will have to use other channels as well.
Why is that?
One reason is time. SEO typically takes between 6-12 months to really drive meaningful results.
Thus, to get customers early on, it makes sense to pair it with other channels like Paid Advertisement, Social Media Marketing & PR.
Here's a diagram from Ethan Smiths talk that showcases this very well.
The second and more important reason however is that SEO alone is (generally speaking) not going to work.
You have to pair it with other channels.
“But why is that exactly Olli”, I hear you ask, "why can't I just use SEO alone"?
It comes down to how Google ranks pages. So let’s understand that.
SEO is one way of letting people know about your stuff. One possible marketing channel.
Sometimes SEO is a very good channel, sometimes it’s not.
Yes. You heard that correctly.
SEO isn’t always a good fit.
Even though a lot of Founders would like to belief that SEO will magically make potential customers appear, that’s not the case.
Unfortunately, you will have to use other channels as well.
Why is that?
One reason is time. SEO typically takes between 6-12 months to really drive meaningful results.
Thus, to get customers early on, it makes sense to pair it with other channels like Paid Advertisement, Social Media Marketing & PR.
Here's a diagram from Ethan Smiths talk that showcases this very well.
The second and more important reason however is that SEO alone is (generally speaking) not going to work.
You have to pair it with other channels.
“But why is that exactly Olli”, I hear you ask, "why can't I just use SEO alone"?
It comes down to how Google ranks pages. So let’s understand that.
SEO is one way of letting people know about your stuff. One possible marketing channel.
Sometimes SEO is a very good channel, sometimes it’s not.
Yes. You heard that correctly.
SEO isn’t always a good fit.
Even though a lot of Founders would like to belief that SEO will magically make potential customers appear, that’s not the case.
Unfortunately, you will have to use other channels as well.
Why is that?
One reason is time. SEO typically takes between 6-12 months to really drive meaningful results.
Thus, to get customers early on, it makes sense to pair it with other channels like Paid Advertisement, Social Media Marketing & PR.
Here's a diagram from Ethan Smiths talk that showcases this very well.
The second and more important reason however is that SEO alone is (generally speaking) not going to work.
You have to pair it with other channels.
“But why is that exactly Olli”, I hear you ask, "why can't I just use SEO alone"?
It comes down to how Google ranks pages. So let’s understand that.
Google ranks pages by intent
Google has one job. Show users content that helps them. Content that answers their question. Content that gives them what they are looking for.
In SEO we call this content that fulfils the intent (of the users).
As an example, let’s say the user searches for the keyword sushi in zurich.
Can you guess what the user is looking for with this keyword? What is his intent?
And what content fulfils this intent best?
Restaurant landing pages? Reviews of a single restaurant?
Well, Google knows.
So put the keyword into Google and see what comes up.
Turns out it’s a map & a lot of top 10 articles giving the user an overview of sushi restaurant locations with reviews.
Indeed very helpful! Thank you Google.
“But how did Google figure out what the user wants”, you may wonder?
A lot of A/B tests - think experiments where different users see different search engine result pages (SERPs).
Then, Google keeps track which search results people liked better. Meaning, where they close Google afterwards as they found what they were looking for.
That’s the content that fulfils intent best.
Obviously this is simplified but it conveys the point.
Nobody knows how Google works exactly besides the Google-Engineers of course. But they don't talk:/.
Still, here is a slide from one of Googles presentations showcasing that this is actually what they do.
And even on their "How Search Works" explanation, Google states that "We also use aggregated and anonymised interaction data to assess whether search results are relevant to queries".
Cool!
So now we understand that Google's job is to show content that fulfils the users intent.
But why can’t you just create a lot of useful content? Why did I say you should utilise other marketing channels first?
This is because Google doesn’t trust you - yet.
When I say you, I mean your url. Your domain. The thing you have your content on.
Google has to know you are a credible source before showing your content to users.
Think about it, why should Google show your content right from the beginning if they don’t know you are trustworthy?
They have a ton of good content from authoritative (=trusted) pages already.
So why show yours?
It’s the same in your personal life. Would you go to a doctor that has no Google reviews or the one with hundreds of people endorsing him.
Exactly. Easy decision.
Of course, if there is no other content available, Google will rank your stuff early on as well.
You would also go to the doctor without reviews if there is no other doctor available.
But typically, Google has good content for most topics.
That’s why you have to show Google you are a credible source before you can really start with creating new content.
How can you do that?
There are different ways to convey trust.
These "ways" are called authority signals.
We’ll go into all the details on what those signals are & how to build authority when we talk about our second core concept - Topical Authority.
But, to drive the point home & to give you an idea of authority signals, one such signal is non organic search traffic.
Think people visiting your page directly, e.g. by searching for "yourdomain.com".
And to achieve this, you'll have to use other marketing channels. SEO alone won't cut it. It won't show Google you're a trusted source.
So, to summarise, publishing content is (mostly) only effective after you established some authority for your domain.
To establish authority & because you want to get customers in the short term, SEO can't be the only marketing channel you use.
So when should you start thinking about SEO then?
Great question, happy you asked!
Google has one job. Show users content that helps them. Content that answers their question. Content that gives them what they are looking for.
In SEO we call this content that fulfils the intent (of the users).
As an example, let’s say the user searches for the keyword sushi in zurich.
Can you guess what the user is looking for with this keyword? What is his intent?
And what content fulfils this intent best?
Restaurant landing pages? Reviews of a single restaurant?
Well, Google knows.
So put the keyword into Google and see what comes up.
Turns out it’s a map & a lot of top 10 articles giving the user an overview of sushi restaurant locations with reviews.
Indeed very helpful! Thank you Google.
“But how did Google figure out what the user wants”, you may wonder?
A lot of A/B tests - think experiments where different users see different search engine result pages (SERPs).
Then, Google keeps track which search results people liked better. Meaning, where they close Google afterwards as they found what they were looking for.
That’s the content that fulfils intent best.
Obviously this is simplified but it conveys the point.
Nobody knows how Google works exactly besides the Google-Engineers of course. But they don't talk:/.
Still, here is a slide from one of Googles presentations showcasing that this is actually what they do.
And even on their "How Search Works" explanation, Google states that "We also use aggregated and anonymised interaction data to assess whether search results are relevant to queries".
Cool!
So now we understand that Google's job is to show content that fulfils the users intent.
But why can’t you just create a lot of useful content? Why did I say you should utilise other marketing channels first?
This is because Google doesn’t trust you - yet.
When I say you, I mean your url. Your domain. The thing you have your content on.
Google has to know you are a credible source before showing your content to users.
Think about it, why should Google show your content right from the beginning if they don’t know you are trustworthy?
They have a ton of good content from authoritative (=trusted) pages already.
So why show yours?
It’s the same in your personal life. Would you go to a doctor that has no Google reviews or the one with hundreds of people endorsing him.
Exactly. Easy decision.
Of course, if there is no other content available, Google will rank your stuff early on as well.
You would also go to the doctor without reviews if there is no other doctor available.
But typically, Google has good content for most topics.
That’s why you have to show Google you are a credible source before you can really start with creating new content.
How can you do that?
There are different ways to convey trust.
These "ways" are called authority signals.
We’ll go into all the details on what those signals are & how to build authority when we talk about our second core concept - Topical Authority.
But, to drive the point home & to give you an idea of authority signals, one such signal is non organic search traffic.
Think people visiting your page directly, e.g. by searching for "yourdomain.com".
And to achieve this, you'll have to use other marketing channels. SEO alone won't cut it. It won't show Google you're a trusted source.
So, to summarise, publishing content is (mostly) only effective after you established some authority for your domain.
To establish authority & because you want to get customers in the short term, SEO can't be the only marketing channel you use.
So when should you start thinking about SEO then?
Great question, happy you asked!
Google has one job. Show users content that helps them. Content that answers their question. Content that gives them what they are looking for.
In SEO we call this content that fulfils the intent (of the users).
As an example, let’s say the user searches for the keyword sushi in zurich.
Can you guess what the user is looking for with this keyword? What is his intent?
And what content fulfils this intent best?
Restaurant landing pages? Reviews of a single restaurant?
Well, Google knows.
So put the keyword into Google and see what comes up.
Turns out it’s a map & a lot of top 10 articles giving the user an overview of sushi restaurant locations with reviews.
Indeed very helpful! Thank you Google.
“But how did Google figure out what the user wants”, you may wonder?
A lot of A/B tests - think experiments where different users see different search engine result pages (SERPs).
Then, Google keeps track which search results people liked better. Meaning, where they close Google afterwards as they found what they were looking for.
That’s the content that fulfils intent best.
Obviously this is simplified but it conveys the point.
Nobody knows how Google works exactly besides the Google-Engineers of course. But they don't talk:/.
Still, here is a slide from one of Googles presentations showcasing that this is actually what they do.
And even on their "How Search Works" explanation, Google states that "We also use aggregated and anonymised interaction data to assess whether search results are relevant to queries".
Cool!
So now we understand that Google's job is to show content that fulfils the users intent.
But why can’t you just create a lot of useful content? Why did I say you should utilise other marketing channels first?
This is because Google doesn’t trust you - yet.
When I say you, I mean your url. Your domain. The thing you have your content on.
Google has to know you are a credible source before showing your content to users.
Think about it, why should Google show your content right from the beginning if they don’t know you are trustworthy?
They have a ton of good content from authoritative (=trusted) pages already.
So why show yours?
It’s the same in your personal life. Would you go to a doctor that has no Google reviews or the one with hundreds of people endorsing him.
Exactly. Easy decision.
Of course, if there is no other content available, Google will rank your stuff early on as well.
You would also go to the doctor without reviews if there is no other doctor available.
But typically, Google has good content for most topics.
That’s why you have to show Google you are a credible source before you can really start with creating new content.
How can you do that?
There are different ways to convey trust.
These "ways" are called authority signals.
We’ll go into all the details on what those signals are & how to build authority when we talk about our second core concept - Topical Authority.
But, to drive the point home & to give you an idea of authority signals, one such signal is non organic search traffic.
Think people visiting your page directly, e.g. by searching for "yourdomain.com".
And to achieve this, you'll have to use other marketing channels. SEO alone won't cut it. It won't show Google you're a trusted source.
So, to summarise, publishing content is (mostly) only effective after you established some authority for your domain.
To establish authority & because you want to get customers in the short term, SEO can't be the only marketing channel you use.
So when should you start thinking about SEO then?
Great question, happy you asked!
When to start with SEO?
It's simple. Thinking about SEO starts from day 0.
But Olli, didn't you say that you should only start with SEO after you established some domain authority?
Yes, but it seems like there's a misconception here! Let me explain.
SEO is about much more than publishing content with the purpose of it to rank and bringing in organic traffic.
SEO is about deeply understanding what your potential target customers are searching for when looking for your product, your solution, the problem you are solving and more.
This is essential information which influences everything from purchasing a domain to positioning your product or service online.
And should therefore be on your mind from day 0.
But how can you understand what your customers are searching for? Well, let's check that out!
It's simple. Thinking about SEO starts from day 0.
But Olli, didn't you say that you should only start with SEO after you established some domain authority?
Yes, but it seems like there's a misconception here! Let me explain.
SEO is about much more than publishing content with the purpose of it to rank and bringing in organic traffic.
SEO is about deeply understanding what your potential target customers are searching for when looking for your product, your solution, the problem you are solving and more.
This is essential information which influences everything from purchasing a domain to positioning your product or service online.
And should therefore be on your mind from day 0.
But how can you understand what your customers are searching for? Well, let's check that out!
It's simple. Thinking about SEO starts from day 0.
But Olli, didn't you say that you should only start with SEO after you established some domain authority?
Yes, but it seems like there's a misconception here! Let me explain.
SEO is about much more than publishing content with the purpose of it to rank and bringing in organic traffic.
SEO is about deeply understanding what your potential target customers are searching for when looking for your product, your solution, the problem you are solving and more.
This is essential information which influences everything from purchasing a domain to positioning your product or service online.
And should therefore be on your mind from day 0.
But how can you understand what your customers are searching for? Well, let's check that out!
Targeting the Customer Journey
We've just mentioned that it's essential to understand the keywords your target customer uses across all interactions with your brand.
But how can we formalise this?
That's where the customer journey comes in.
When I think about the customer journey I like to use the following framework. It consists of 5 awareness stages:
Unaware: People aren’t aware they even have a problem
Problem aware: People know they have a problem, don’t know the solution
Solution aware: People know they have a problem & possible solutions
Product aware: People know your product and how it solves their problem
Most aware: People are ready to purchase
Quite a lot of marketing bla-bla. So let's use an example to make it super easy to understand: Flappie.
The problem Flappie solves is cats bringing mice & other prey through the cat flap into the house. To prevent that, the cat flap uses AI to detect if there's prey in the cat's mouth. If so, the cat flap does not open until the cat dropped the prey.
The target customer persona for Flappie are cat owners.
Here's an example of a customer journey for Flappie. We'll learn over the course all concepts that go into it but I still want to give you a high level explanation of all stages already.
Don't get scared. Bear with me. It's quite easy.
Let's start at the bottom.
Most & Product Aware Stage
For the product aware & most aware stages people use your brand name to find your page. They already know you exist and are specifically searching for your offering.
When people use your brand name directly in Search Engines like Google, this is called Branded Search.
From a SEO perspective these keywords are important for understanding what topics your domain is known for. This is called Topical Authority - one of the core concepts in SEO we'll cover in two chapters from now.
But the underlying idea is super simple. Let me make it clear with an example:
People searching for "Flappie cat flap" show Google that Flappie is known for cat flaps. With that, Flappie gained topical authority for "cat flap".
Easy as that. But more on it later.
Besides for understanding Topical Authority, we don't care too much about these keywords.
Solution Aware Stage
In the solution aware stage, people don't know any brands. They just know there is a solution to their problem & are searching for it.
How?
In a few different ways.
One option is product focused search. People look for exactly what you offer. In Flappie's case this could be keywords like "ai cat flap" or "cat flap with prey detection".
Another option is competitor focused search. People know one of your direct competitors and want to find other brands, products or services offering the same thing.
I'll leave it to the Keyword Research chapter to go into more details.
But it's obvious that people searching for these things are very likely to make a purchase. That's why this is usually what you really want to rank for in the first few positions on Google.
The solution aware stage is also what you typically target with Paid Ads.
Problem aware stage
In the problem aware stage, people have a problem but no solution. So they are trying to find options to solve their problem online.
For Flappie the topics in this stage are mostly informational with questions like "how to stop cat from bringing home prey".
Looking at the fact that somebody is annoyed enough to search for possible solutions, it seems obvious that there's a good chance they'll convert to a customer as soon as they hear about Flappie's solution.
So it's a great opportunity to create content around these topics, rank on Google and get organic traffic from people that have the problem you're solving.
But there are two things to note here.
Firstly, I would wait before writing content like this until I reached a minimum Domain Authority. More on that in the SEO strategy chapter.
Second of all, there usually aren't a lot of problem focused topics available. For Flappie it's less than 10.
That’s why most of the content focuses on the unaware stage.
Unaware stage
In the unaware stage, people have no idea about you and are searching for things that don't even relate to your product/service.
So what are we doing in this stage then? Great question.
The idea of the unaware stage is to move away from targeting product specific questions (problem/solution stage) and move towards targeting the customer persona.
Let me say this again. In the unaware stage, we target the persona, not the product.
What does this mean for Flappie?
Well, the target customer persona in their case are cat owners. In the unaware stage we therefore target topics cat owners are searching for. This are keywords like "how to take care of a cat" or "apple allergy cat".
The key is that even though the target persona is not directly looking for what we offer, they still might be interested. They still might need it.
That’s why your task with the content is not only to answer their question/give them the information they were looking for - fulfil their intent, but also inform them that you exist & what problem you are solving.
Chances are, they have the problem you are solving and become a customer.
But the key thing here is to target the persona instead of the product!
And you are right when saying that a lot of the people reading your content might not have that problem.
Even if they have it, they don’t have the intent to make a purchase (yet). They just want to get information about a certain topic/question.
All of this is true.
But it’s about informing page visitors. Making them aware. Increasing the interactions with your brand. Building their intent to purchase over time.
According to the marketing rule of 7, a person needs at least seven interactions with your brand before they are ready to buy.
That’s what SEO is all about.
We’ll cover all this in more details when discussing the SEO strategy so don’t worry! This isn’t the last time you’ll hear about this.
The goal in the unaware stage is to target the persona - not the product - along the full customer journey & iteratively getting them in contact with your brand to build their intent to purchase over time.
We'll see in the Keyword Research chapter how to properly map the customer journey and find topics for the unaware stage.
We've just mentioned that it's essential to understand the keywords your target customer uses across all interactions with your brand.
But how can we formalise this?
That's where the customer journey comes in.
When I think about the customer journey I like to use the following framework. It consists of 5 awareness stages:
Unaware: People aren’t aware they even have a problem
Problem aware: People know they have a problem, don’t know the solution
Solution aware: People know they have a problem & possible solutions
Product aware: People know your product and how it solves their problem
Most aware: People are ready to purchase
Quite a lot of marketing bla-bla. So let's use an example to make it super easy to understand: Flappie.
The problem Flappie solves is cats bringing mice & other prey through the cat flap into the house. To prevent that, the cat flap uses AI to detect if there's prey in the cat's mouth. If so, the cat flap does not open until the cat dropped the prey.
The target customer persona for Flappie are cat owners.
Here's an example of a customer journey for Flappie. We'll learn over the course all concepts that go into it but I still want to give you a high level explanation of all stages already.
Don't get scared. Bear with me. It's quite easy.
Let's start at the bottom.
Most & Product Aware Stage
For the product aware & most aware stages people use your brand name to find your page. They already know you exist and are specifically searching for your offering.
When people use your brand name directly in Search Engines like Google, this is called Branded Search.
From a SEO perspective these keywords are important for understanding what topics your domain is known for. This is called Topical Authority - one of the core concepts in SEO we'll cover in two chapters from now.
But the underlying idea is super simple. Let me make it clear with an example:
People searching for "Flappie cat flap" show Google that Flappie is known for cat flaps. With that, Flappie gained topical authority for "cat flap".
Easy as that. But more on it later.
Besides for understanding Topical Authority, we don't care too much about these keywords.
Solution Aware Stage
In the solution aware stage, people don't know any brands. They just know there is a solution to their problem & are searching for it.
How?
In a few different ways.
One option is product focused search. People look for exactly what you offer. In Flappie's case this could be keywords like "ai cat flap" or "cat flap with prey detection".
Another option is competitor focused search. People know one of your direct competitors and want to find other brands, products or services offering the same thing.
I'll leave it to the Keyword Research chapter to go into more details.
But it's obvious that people searching for these things are very likely to make a purchase. That's why this is usually what you really want to rank for in the first few positions on Google.
The solution aware stage is also what you typically target with Paid Ads.
Problem aware stage
In the problem aware stage, people have a problem but no solution. So they are trying to find options to solve their problem online.
For Flappie the topics in this stage are mostly informational with questions like "how to stop cat from bringing home prey".
Looking at the fact that somebody is annoyed enough to search for possible solutions, it seems obvious that there's a good chance they'll convert to a customer as soon as they hear about Flappie's solution.
So it's a great opportunity to create content around these topics, rank on Google and get organic traffic from people that have the problem you're solving.
But there are two things to note here.
Firstly, I would wait before writing content like this until I reached a minimum Domain Authority. More on that in the SEO strategy chapter.
Second of all, there usually aren't a lot of problem focused topics available. For Flappie it's less than 10.
That’s why most of the content focuses on the unaware stage.
Unaware stage
In the unaware stage, people have no idea about you and are searching for things that don't even relate to your product/service.
So what are we doing in this stage then? Great question.
The idea of the unaware stage is to move away from targeting product specific questions (problem/solution stage) and move towards targeting the customer persona.
Let me say this again. In the unaware stage, we target the persona, not the product.
What does this mean for Flappie?
Well, the target customer persona in their case are cat owners. In the unaware stage we therefore target topics cat owners are searching for. This are keywords like "how to take care of a cat" or "apple allergy cat".
The key is that even though the target persona is not directly looking for what we offer, they still might be interested. They still might need it.
That’s why your task with the content is not only to answer their question/give them the information they were looking for - fulfil their intent, but also inform them that you exist & what problem you are solving.
Chances are, they have the problem you are solving and become a customer.
But the key thing here is to target the persona instead of the product!
And you are right when saying that a lot of the people reading your content might not have that problem.
Even if they have it, they don’t have the intent to make a purchase (yet). They just want to get information about a certain topic/question.
All of this is true.
But it’s about informing page visitors. Making them aware. Increasing the interactions with your brand. Building their intent to purchase over time.
According to the marketing rule of 7, a person needs at least seven interactions with your brand before they are ready to buy.
That’s what SEO is all about.
We’ll cover all this in more details when discussing the SEO strategy so don’t worry! This isn’t the last time you’ll hear about this.
The goal in the unaware stage is to target the persona - not the product - along the full customer journey & iteratively getting them in contact with your brand to build their intent to purchase over time.
We'll see in the Keyword Research chapter how to properly map the customer journey and find topics for the unaware stage.
We've just mentioned that it's essential to understand the keywords your target customer uses across all interactions with your brand.
But how can we formalise this?
That's where the customer journey comes in.
When I think about the customer journey I like to use the following framework. It consists of 5 awareness stages:
Unaware: People aren’t aware they even have a problem
Problem aware: People know they have a problem, don’t know the solution
Solution aware: People know they have a problem & possible solutions
Product aware: People know your product and how it solves their problem
Most aware: People are ready to purchase
Quite a lot of marketing bla-bla. So let's use an example to make it super easy to understand: Flappie.
The problem Flappie solves is cats bringing mice & other prey through the cat flap into the house. To prevent that, the cat flap uses AI to detect if there's prey in the cat's mouth. If so, the cat flap does not open until the cat dropped the prey.
The target customer persona for Flappie are cat owners.
Here's an example of a customer journey for Flappie. We'll learn over the course all concepts that go into it but I still want to give you a high level explanation of all stages already.
Don't get scared. Bear with me. It's quite easy.
Let's start at the bottom.
Most & Product Aware Stage
For the product aware & most aware stages people use your brand name to find your page. They already know you exist and are specifically searching for your offering.
When people use your brand name directly in Search Engines like Google, this is called Branded Search.
From a SEO perspective these keywords are important for understanding what topics your domain is known for. This is called Topical Authority - one of the core concepts in SEO we'll cover in two chapters from now.
But the underlying idea is super simple. Let me make it clear with an example:
People searching for "Flappie cat flap" show Google that Flappie is known for cat flaps. With that, Flappie gained topical authority for "cat flap".
Easy as that. But more on it later.
Besides for understanding Topical Authority, we don't care too much about these keywords.
Solution Aware Stage
In the solution aware stage, people don't know any brands. They just know there is a solution to their problem & are searching for it.
How?
In a few different ways.
One option is product focused search. People look for exactly what you offer. In Flappie's case this could be keywords like "ai cat flap" or "cat flap with prey detection".
Another option is competitor focused search. People know one of your direct competitors and want to find other brands, products or services offering the same thing.
I'll leave it to the Keyword Research chapter to go into more details.
But it's obvious that people searching for these things are very likely to make a purchase. That's why this is usually what you really want to rank for in the first few positions on Google.
The solution aware stage is also what you typically target with Paid Ads.
Problem aware stage
In the problem aware stage, people have a problem but no solution. So they are trying to find options to solve their problem online.
For Flappie the topics in this stage are mostly informational with questions like "how to stop cat from bringing home prey".
Looking at the fact that somebody is annoyed enough to search for possible solutions, it seems obvious that there's a good chance they'll convert to a customer as soon as they hear about Flappie's solution.
So it's a great opportunity to create content around these topics, rank on Google and get organic traffic from people that have the problem you're solving.
But there are two things to note here.
Firstly, I would wait before writing content like this until I reached a minimum Domain Authority. More on that in the SEO strategy chapter.
Second of all, there usually aren't a lot of problem focused topics available. For Flappie it's less than 10.
That’s why most of the content focuses on the unaware stage.
Unaware stage
In the unaware stage, people have no idea about you and are searching for things that don't even relate to your product/service.
So what are we doing in this stage then? Great question.
The idea of the unaware stage is to move away from targeting product specific questions (problem/solution stage) and move towards targeting the customer persona.
Let me say this again. In the unaware stage, we target the persona, not the product.
What does this mean for Flappie?
Well, the target customer persona in their case are cat owners. In the unaware stage we therefore target topics cat owners are searching for. This are keywords like "how to take care of a cat" or "apple allergy cat".
The key is that even though the target persona is not directly looking for what we offer, they still might be interested. They still might need it.
That’s why your task with the content is not only to answer their question/give them the information they were looking for - fulfil their intent, but also inform them that you exist & what problem you are solving.
Chances are, they have the problem you are solving and become a customer.
But the key thing here is to target the persona instead of the product!
And you are right when saying that a lot of the people reading your content might not have that problem.
Even if they have it, they don’t have the intent to make a purchase (yet). They just want to get information about a certain topic/question.
All of this is true.
But it’s about informing page visitors. Making them aware. Increasing the interactions with your brand. Building their intent to purchase over time.
According to the marketing rule of 7, a person needs at least seven interactions with your brand before they are ready to buy.
That’s what SEO is all about.
We’ll cover all this in more details when discussing the SEO strategy so don’t worry! This isn’t the last time you’ll hear about this.
The goal in the unaware stage is to target the persona - not the product - along the full customer journey & iteratively getting them in contact with your brand to build their intent to purchase over time.
We'll see in the Keyword Research chapter how to properly map the customer journey and find topics for the unaware stage.
$100M SEO for startups course roadmap
Let's get an overview of the next chapters.
First we'll introduce the two core concepts that are at the heart of SEO in 2024:
This will give us the foundations we need to
Now we have everything to figure:
How to capitalise on the SEO opportunity (SEO Strategy for startups in 2024)
How to start with SEO from 0 as startup in 2024: My step by step SEO growth plan.
With the SEO Strategy in place, we’ll look into the different page types that occur for startups in the solution aware stage. And how to optimise them for SEO.
After finishing the solution aware stage, it’s time to scale the SEO efforts to the problem & unaware stage.
That’s when Technical SEO aspects start getting important.
We’ll also realise that there are 2 different ways of creating content for SEO:
Articles/Listicles are created using Editorial SEO
Product/Category pages are created using Programmatic SEO
Both will be covered individually and in detail.
Last but not least, a lot of startups want to target multiple languages with their content. This comes with a few additional difficulties. We'll shed light on them in the Multilingual SEO chapter.
I hope you enjoy the SEO for startup course!
Let's get an overview of the next chapters.
First we'll introduce the two core concepts that are at the heart of SEO in 2024:
This will give us the foundations we need to
Now we have everything to figure:
How to capitalise on the SEO opportunity (SEO Strategy for startups in 2024)
How to start with SEO from 0 as startup in 2024: My step by step SEO growth plan.
With the SEO Strategy in place, we’ll look into the different page types that occur for startups in the solution aware stage. And how to optimise them for SEO.
After finishing the solution aware stage, it’s time to scale the SEO efforts to the problem & unaware stage.
That’s when Technical SEO aspects start getting important.
We’ll also realise that there are 2 different ways of creating content for SEO:
Articles/Listicles are created using Editorial SEO
Product/Category pages are created using Programmatic SEO
Both will be covered individually and in detail.
Last but not least, a lot of startups want to target multiple languages with their content. This comes with a few additional difficulties. We'll shed light on them in the Multilingual SEO chapter.
I hope you enjoy the SEO for startup course!
Let's get an overview of the next chapters.
First we'll introduce the two core concepts that are at the heart of SEO in 2024:
This will give us the foundations we need to
Now we have everything to figure:
How to capitalise on the SEO opportunity (SEO Strategy for startups in 2024)
How to start with SEO from 0 as startup in 2024: My step by step SEO growth plan.
With the SEO Strategy in place, we’ll look into the different page types that occur for startups in the solution aware stage. And how to optimise them for SEO.
After finishing the solution aware stage, it’s time to scale the SEO efforts to the problem & unaware stage.
That’s when Technical SEO aspects start getting important.
We’ll also realise that there are 2 different ways of creating content for SEO:
Articles/Listicles are created using Editorial SEO
Product/Category pages are created using Programmatic SEO
Both will be covered individually and in detail.
Last but not least, a lot of startups want to target multiple languages with their content. This comes with a few additional difficulties. We'll shed light on them in the Multilingual SEO chapter.
I hope you enjoy the SEO for startup course!
Materials I used to create this course
There usually is some hidden gem of information for any topic you want to learn.
When it comes to SEO, this gem is content produced by Ethan Smith (and hopefully this course).
Ethan Smith is CEO at Graphite - a growth agency, focused on SEO and content strategy, that builds scalable growth engines for companies like MasterClass, Robinhood, Webflow, and Notion.
They are world class.
A big part of this course is based on what I learned from consuming all his content, enriched with further concepts, structured & explained in an easy to understand way.
I linked you my top 3 resources to learn SEO.
The thing is, Graphite found that most of the SEO actions have no impact but take a lot of time to implement. Sounds like a bad idea, right? It is.
To prevent this, they defined high impact activities, the 5% that drive 95% of the results.
This course is focused on these.
Note however that nobody from Graphite is affiliated with this content. They have nothing to do with Spexia. I just want to give them the credits they deserve. So go check out Graphite & I wish that you will, at some point, grow with their help!
There usually is some hidden gem of information for any topic you want to learn.
When it comes to SEO, this gem is content produced by Ethan Smith (and hopefully this course).
Ethan Smith is CEO at Graphite - a growth agency, focused on SEO and content strategy, that builds scalable growth engines for companies like MasterClass, Robinhood, Webflow, and Notion.
They are world class.
A big part of this course is based on what I learned from consuming all his content, enriched with further concepts, structured & explained in an easy to understand way.
I linked you my top 3 resources to learn SEO.
The thing is, Graphite found that most of the SEO actions have no impact but take a lot of time to implement. Sounds like a bad idea, right? It is.
To prevent this, they defined high impact activities, the 5% that drive 95% of the results.
This course is focused on these.
Note however that nobody from Graphite is affiliated with this content. They have nothing to do with Spexia. I just want to give them the credits they deserve. So go check out Graphite & I wish that you will, at some point, grow with their help!
There usually is some hidden gem of information for any topic you want to learn.
When it comes to SEO, this gem is content produced by Ethan Smith (and hopefully this course).
Ethan Smith is CEO at Graphite - a growth agency, focused on SEO and content strategy, that builds scalable growth engines for companies like MasterClass, Robinhood, Webflow, and Notion.
They are world class.
A big part of this course is based on what I learned from consuming all his content, enriched with further concepts, structured & explained in an easy to understand way.
I linked you my top 3 resources to learn SEO.
The thing is, Graphite found that most of the SEO actions have no impact but take a lot of time to implement. Sounds like a bad idea, right? It is.
To prevent this, they defined high impact activities, the 5% that drive 95% of the results.
This course is focused on these.
Note however that nobody from Graphite is affiliated with this content. They have nothing to do with Spexia. I just want to give them the credits they deserve. So go check out Graphite & I wish that you will, at some point, grow with their help!
Course Chapters
Copyright © 2024 Profaile GmbH. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2024 Profaile GmbH. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2024 Profaile GmbH. All rights reserved.