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independence2 unconnected
applies to

b2b and consumer, no audience needed

outcome not stated

confidence

high

evidence

4 claims · 4 articles · 3 receipts

window

2017-10-10 → 2024-09-19

2 builders who never spoke to each other

Fix the product, because rankings follow it

Search optimisation will not lift an inferior option above a genuinely better competitor, so chase the visible failures as an acquisition problem rather than only a support one, since whether visitors stop searching after landing on you is itself the ranking signal. Keep the free tier fully working for the same reason. Run search as a product decision alongside product managers, not as a marketing bolt-on.

The method

  1. 01

    Treat visible product failures as an acquisition problem rather than only a support problem, because search rankings depend on visitors' problems actually getting solved and search may be your only traffic source.

  2. 02

    Keep the free tier fully functional early on, because heavy successful free usage is itself a search-ranking signal that the product solves the visitor's problem.

  3. 03

    Run search as a product rather than a marketing tactic: work with product managers, start from what the user needs and what experience you owe them, and place your product inside their own path of discovery.

  4. 04

    Fix the product before investing in SEO, because search optimisation will not lift an inferior option above a genuinely better competitor.

What it returned

  • Zue chased reports of blank generated PDFs specifically because Google rewards solving user problems and search was essentially his sole driver of traffic

  • Place Card Me had more than fifteen free sessions for each paying one, which Zue treated as an intentional part of his traction strategy.

  • Forcing a product into rankings it does not belong in is described as having no long-term future.

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

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More in seo

all seo plays

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.