Rethinking SEO: Build Products, Not Just Content

The old content-first approach vs. the new way, AI's impact on SEO

Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow - read by 50,000+ revenue professionals weekly to stay up-to-date and scale their companies and careers. GTMnow is the media brand of GTMfund - sharing go-to-market advice from the top 1% of revenue operators including the 350 executives behind the fund, news, and our viewpoints from working with hundreds of portfolio companies.

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Product 💚: Attention

At Attention, call recordings and CRM auto-fill are just the beginning. Attention’s conversational intelligence platform not only delivers key insights based on what your customers are saying, but allows you to automate actions using our AI-powered workflows. With Attention you’ll be able to:

1. Generate coaching scorecards after every call

2. “Ask Attention anything” - ask questions across all of your customer calls

3. Send follow-up emails to prospects or internal stakeholders on a deal

4. Automatically alert key stakeholders of relevant deal info (churn risk, solutions needs, etc.)

Help your team close more deals. Check out Attention.

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Rethinking SEO: Build Products, Not Just Content

When people hear the word "content," they often think of the typical forms like blog posts or articles. Guilty of this, till a deep dive with Ei Schwartz to understand this framework around building actual products for search users, not just content.

Let’s get into it.

The Old Way vs. Product-Led SEO

Most companies, especially in the early stages, think of SEO as content creation. You hire a marketer or an agency to write blogs, listicles, and maybe some landing pages, hoping they’ll rank on Google and bring in leads.

This old-school approach of “content-first” no longer cuts it. Algorithms are smarter, content is increasingly easier to produce, user behavior has changed, and most importantly, users expect value.

The problem with the content-first approach is that it often attracts traffic that doesn’t convert. You might be writing blogs about the general topic surrounding your product, but it’s not necessarily what your target users are looking for - or willing to pay for.

This was the challenge Eli faced at SurveyMonkey. Early in his tenure there, the company’s SEO strategy was focused on content marketing. But while the content was getting page views, it wasn’t converting into paying customers. So, instead of focusing on broad content about surveys, they shifted their efforts to building SEO-driven products - like survey templates - targeted at users with intent to create a survey.

“When someone searches for a ‘customer satisfaction survey template,’ they don’t want to read an article about surveys. They want the template itself” -Eli

By focusing on product creation, they attracted the right audience and dramatically increased conversions.

SEO is no longer just a marketing tactic - it’s a product strategy.

Zapier’s Billion-Dollar SEO Play

Zapier helps automate workflows by connecting different software tools. But early on, most of those connections - like Gmail to Salesforce - weren’t on anyone’s radar. So how do you rank for something that users don’t even know they need?

Eli and the Zapier team stumbled upon an idea: create dedicated product pages for every possible software integration. If someone searched for “Gmail Salesforce integration,” Zapier’s product page would be there to provide the exact solution.

“We created hundreds of SEO-optimized pages for very niche, long-tail search terms. Over time, as Zapier built up these integrations, it became the go-to solution for connecting tools that didn’t have direct integrations.” -Eli

This SEO approach helped Zapier not just rank highly for these long-tail keywords but also solidified their position as the go-to platform for software integration. It’s a prime example of how building a product specifically for SEO users can drive sustained growth and market leadership.

It’s More Than Content

The drum is beating…SEO isn’t just a content play. While content is still a component, it’s not enough on its own to drive meaningful results.

Take Coinbase, for example. When they first started working on their SEO strategy, they focused heavily on writing content about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. But over time, they realized that what users really wanted wasn’t another blog post about Bitcoin - they wanted pricing information. So Eli and his team shifted their focus to optimizing Coinbase’s crypto pricing pages, which became the primary way users discovered the platform through search.

It’s not enough to rank; you have to provide exactly what users are looking for.

“Think about what your audience needs at different stages of their journey, and create products or tools that serve those needs” -Eli

AI and SEO

With the rise of AI-generated content, many businesses are wondering if they can automate SEO entirely by using AI to churn out thousands of blog posts.

Eli’s take? AI is a tool, not a replacement for strategy.

“AI can be helpful in content creation, but it’s not a magic bullet. If you rely solely on AI to create content, you’ll end up with generic, uninspired material that doesn’t resonate with users.” -Eli

Instead, Eli recommends using AI as a way to augment SEO efforts - helping with content ideation, speeding up production, or optimizing for search queries - but not as a replacement for thoughtful, strategic content creation.

The key is intent. Whether you're using AI or human writers, the content must serve a clear purpose and address the user’s needs.

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👂 More for your eardrums

The GTM Podcast - subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

GTM 118: 5 Must-Try PLG Tactics to Accelerate Growth with Kyle Poyar

Kyle Poyar is the Co-Founder and Operating Partner at Tremont, with over 8 years of experience at OpenView where he became a leading voice in the product-led growth (PLG) movement. Kyle shares his insights on the inevitability of PLG in an AI-driven future and reveals must-try tactics to accelerate growth using a PLG approach.

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👀 More for your eyeballs

40+ ICP marketing plays. Marketing, sales, CS, product and even ops all play a role in building pipeline. The magic happens when we combine these plays in coordinated campaigns aimed at our best target customers. Or, ICP marketing.

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🚀 Startups to watch 

Attention - announced a $14 million Series A. Attention will use the new funding to fulfill strong market demand and expand its go-to-market team, while continuing to invest in product and engineering to solidify its leadership in the AI-driven sales market

Kick - announced $9M in funding. Kick creates accounting and bookkeeping AI agents, and will use the funding (two rounds) to continue to expand operations and development efforts.

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🔥 Hottest GTM jobs of the week

1. VP, Content at Writer (US)

2. Senior Manager, Commercial Sales (EMEA) at Vanta (Hybrd - Dublin)

3. Product Marketing Lead, Platform at Atlan (Remote - US)

4. Customer Experience Representative at Alt (Remote - US)

5. Growth Manager, Digital Success at Gorgias:

   1. Toronto

   2. San Francisco

   3. Lisbon

See more top GTM jobs on the GTMfund Job Board.

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🗓️ GTM industry events

Upcoming go-to-market events you won’t want to miss:

• GTMfund Dinner: October 30 (San Francisco)

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This newsletter was entirely written and edited by Sophie Buonassisi and Scott Barker (not AI!).

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