A presentation given to the folks participating at the Product Qualified Summit. The presentation covers when to consider SEO for your startup: * Common pitfalls of SEO for early stage companies * SEO as product market fit * SEO before product market fit * SEO after product market fit SEO has a place during all the stages of your startup. You need to know which strategy to use depending on where you're at.

1. When to consider SEO for
your startup
Bernard Huang
Co-founder, Clearscope

2. 1. Pitfalls of SEO for early-stage companies
2. SEO as product market fit
3. SEO before product market fit
4. SEO after product market fit
5. Questions
Table of Contents

3. Pitfalls of SEO for
early-stage companies

4. SEO captures monthly searches. If no one is searching for what you offer, then you’re outta luck!

5. SEO takes a long time (12+ months). If you pivot, you have to reinvest in your content strategy.

6. SEO is not guaranteed. You can work on it for awhile but get no results.

7. SEO as product market fit

8. SEO as product
market fit
If you’re #1 on
Google for a bunch of
high value keywords,
then your website will
be valuable.

9. Credit card leads are valuable. Ranking #1 for [best credit cards] is quite lucrative.
https://surveyanyplace.com/average-cost-per-lead-by-industry/

10. Lots of people are looking for things to do in cities. Ranking #1 gives TripAdvisor a ton of influence.

11. Homes are expensive purchases. By being the first on Google, Zillow captures a ton of potential buyers.
https://theclose.com/zillow-premier-agent-worth-cost/

12. SEO before product market
fit

13. SEO before
product market
fit
1. Case studies
“How X company is using your product
to do Y”
2. Thought leadership
“Why Z matters”
“How to do Y better”
3. Guest posting
Borrow other people’s audience and
authority
The goal of SEO
before product
market fit is to help
with sales.

14. How can a company trust your company? Case studies build early trust with potential customers.
https://www.clearscope.io/customers/optimizely

15. Content for thought leadership is a great way to showcase why your product is special.
https://www.clearscope.io/content-seo

16. Guest posting is a great way to “borrow” somebody else’s audience and spread the word.
https://clearbit.com/books/data-driven-marketing/b2b-seo-content-that-ranks

17. SEO after product market
fit

18. 1. Guides
“How to do X”
“What is X”
“Everything you need to know about X”
2. Solutions pages
“X solution”
3. Use case pages
“X for Y”
SEO after
product market
fit
The goal of SEO after
product market fit is
to get in front of as
many potential
customers as
possible.

19. Once your an established player, the more impressions you can serve a potential customer the better.
https://mailchimp.com/email-marketing/

20. Solutions pages work when your product category is well defined.
https://www.zendesk.com/help-desk-software/

21. Use case pages work when you start to understand your user needs.
https://mixpanel.com/solutions/saas/

22. Questions?
@bernardjhuang