EP 6 – From 0 to SEO – Startup Search & Content Strategies with Nate Saienni

Dave: Hey everyone, Dave here with another episode of Philly Tech Entrepreneurs Podcast. Today I am talking with one of our community members, Nate. Nate is an SEO and content consultant who works primarily with early-stage startups to get their search and content functions off the ground so they can drive business outcomes, generate more traffic. Definitely an important marketing channel, one that I’m pretty familiar with as well. So really happy to be able to chat with Nate and learn about what he’s doing. Nate, what’s up? How are you doing, man?

Nate: Good, appreciate the intro Dave. I did my best. You gave us plenty, lots to sort of work off of. I’ll guide your LinkedIn a little bit as well. Again, thanks so much for being here today.

Dave: This is the Philadelphia community. Tell us a little bit about what brought you to Philly, your relationship with the city.

Nate: Yeah, so I was born and raised in Delaware and then moved to Philadelphia. I mean, I think that’s what like a lot of Delawareans do, is just move 45 minutes east to Philly. It’s like the closest big city; there’s nothing in Delaware. And that was like eight years ago, so I had been in Philly for about six years, not consecutively. And then I ended up moving to Mexico for two years. And I actually just moved back to Philadelphia this past year.

Dave: Awesome. I want to hear a little bit about the Mexico move because that’s pretty interesting. And it sounds like maybe it overlapped a little bit with the pandemic, although I’m not 100% sure. What kind of got you going over to Mexico? What brought you back?

Nate: I love traveling. I’ve always wanted to try living abroad. It was during the pandemic, exactly when it was like 2020, that I ended up leaving. I think like December 2020. And I was like, look, I’m working remotely, I work for myself, so why not just take this opportunity to pack up and go and travel? So I did, and I was only supposed to be in Mexico for like a few months before going somewhere for two whole years, and then was like, okay, let me get back to the States and get back on the grind. And so I moved back last December, so it’s going on a year back.

Dave: Cool. Well, I mean, we’re glad to have you back obviously. I’ve done some digital writing myself. I totally understand the itch to kind of check out what’s going on. And eventually, you know, sometimes it’s nice to kind of get back to the community, the roots, and just kind of grow things here. Which takes us to the SEO and content game and how that’s useful for B2B startups. I was checking out your LinkedIn today, and I really loved a recent post that you had there. You had kind of called out how some, probably many honestly, SEO agencies talk about how the time to get started in SEO and content is always as early as possible and right now. And how impartial of the SEO agencies to kind of take that approach, right, because they offer those services. But you had a little bit of a disagreement on that. So tell us a little bit more about your opinion about when’s the right time to get started and why it might not be today.

Nate: Yeah, that post, I mean, a lot of people, of course, some agencies did not, I’m sure, do not. But yeah, I genuinely don’t believe that. Look, I love search, and despite all the Gen AI stuff happening, I think search is here to stay for quite a long time. I love content. I think both, and I think search as a channel could work for a lot of startups. But no, I don’t agree that it’s always a good time to invest in SEO. And I think a lot of startups, especially early-stage, make the mistake of dumping money into the channel when it’s not the appropriate time. And I think two of the biggest things that I think startups have to look for is: Do they have product-market fit? And have they tested any other channels first before investing in search? I don’t think in today’s landscape, organic is a channel that you can kind of test and just see what happens, especially not with content because content is so expensive. What’s a good piece of content cost? You’re not using AI to write a good piece of content. You’re looking at like, what minimum, like 1200, 1500 bucks for a long-form blog post. So, it’s like for an early-stage startup, that’s significant budget. Times that by let’s say like three to four to five to six blog posts a month, that’s significant. So I think a lot of people make the mistake of being like, well, let’s just dump money at the channel. And it’s like, well, no, like, have you tested like email first? Like, or what are you doing for inbound? Like, what’s going on with your outbound strategy? Have you tested paid? Take a little bit of budget and test like paid keywords. See if people actually want what you’re offering and if your messaging and positioning is actually resonating with people first before investing a lot of money in search and content. It doesn’t really make sense. And then, the other thing I notice is that there’s still a lot of kinks that have not been worked out with the product and its positioning where search doesn’t really make sense. And there have been times I’ve consulted with early-stage startups where it’s like, I get the understanding, I get the product and the position, I get the messaging, but it’s still going through evolutions, and they’re still evolving those things. So, it’s like, okay, if pre-positioning the product, this is the ICP, this is the market for it, and I start doing keyword research into what those ICPs are searching, what sort of content and keywords are going to resonate and perform and connect the product to that ICP, and I do that keyword research and then, two weeks later, they come back and say, actually, you know what, we’re changing our positioning, messaging, the product’s making all these changes. That breaks that keyword research. Like, we can’t use that anymore. And it’s resources. It costs resources and budget. And it’s like, look, I think there have been engagements I’ve been involved in where it’s like, I think we should pump the brakes. It sounds like based on the product roadmap or what you’re telling me that things are going to keep changing with these features and solutions and capabilities, and you’re kind of still working out your ICP and positioning, and all of those things have an implication on your SEO strategy. So, I think first, make sure you have product-market fit. Make sure you test it out. Other track itself is resonating, and there’s demand for it. And make sure that it’s mature enough and it’s marketing that SEO makes sense. I think those are the big things to look out for. So, no, I don’t believe now or always is the time for search.

Dave: Yeah, I mean, I 100% agree. I think that’s a really mature opinion on the situation. There’s always a little bit of this kind of opinion in the space of like, well, it takes so long to get the ball rolling with SEO and content that if you don’t get started now, then six or twelve or two years from now, you’re going to be regretting that you kind of didn’t make headways on it. But it is so expensive. Content, backlinks, all that stuff is so expensive. And if you’re not directing it in an efficient way at the right ICP, at the right target market, using the right keywords, you’re just going to kind of be wasting a lot. Maybe, hey, maybe you’ll generate traffic, but it won’t convert, or whatever it is. It’s just… And then you’re going to get down on the whole channel, and then when actually it could be useful for you later on, you’re just going to be like, oh, well, we tried that and it didn’t work, and I’m not really in the mood for it anymore. So, it’s… I totally agree with your opinion. And it’s great that you were able to kind of highlight some specific milestones that companies should look for to understand when is the right time to dip into it. So, things like having product-market fit or really understanding your ICPs and what their problems are and how that drives keyword research and what your content strategy is like. Like, is it going to be written or video or, you know, is it going to be through social media or is it on the blog or all these different things, like how do your potential target market and audience kind of want to consume your content and things like that. For you know, once the company does feel like they’re ready, you know, what are some of the typical… What’s the process look like to kind of break into these marketing channels? What are some of the typical kind of steps that you take a client through?

Nate: Sure. That’s a great question. My methodology, typically the first thing is basically in trying to consume as much information and learn as much about their product and market responsibility. So, like I said, we work with a lot of SaaS companies and like Dev tooling sort of platforms. So, we’ll go through like Reddit and Stack Exchange. We’ll look at recorded demo calls, recorded sales calls. We’ll look at messaging matrices, marketing materials, all that stuff to sort of get a sense of what the product does, who they’re trying to target with it, what customer pain points are. Taking all that insight and trying to connect that back to keywords. That’s really what we’re… It’s very much like a keyword-second approach. We really care more about understanding and trying to marry what the product does and how it’s going to solve problems for the ICPs and potential topics and keywords that these ICPs are searching. And from there, it’s pretty much taking that keyword research and those topics and aligning that to content, whether that’s current pages on the website that they already have and trying to figure out, optimize those or spinning up more landing pages and then getting into long-form. But the basis behind all of that is what are they trying to figure out? What do they need help with? What’s going to get them to trust you? Let’s talk about that stuff. Very frequent that I engage with a customer, and it’s this very sort of like volume-first and, well, we just want to talk, we want to write content about everything and blah. And for me, it’s like, look, you’re early stage and you need pipeline, like, today, not like a year from now. So, we need to focus on, like, high intent keywords and topics and position your product in a way that’s obvious to people who are searching these things like, oh, I have this problem and these guys help me fix it. Sign me up. Like, where do I request a demo? How do I engage? That’s kind of my methodology for it. I think another kicker of it is you don’t see like conversions like you used to. People are not landing on some random webpage for some like early-stage stats that nobody knows about and are immediately converting. I think it’s… it takes more development and winning that person’s trust. So, the game’s kind of changed a little bit where it’s like, we want to drive pipeline, we want to drive conversions, but we also want to demonstrate your authority and sort of build that trust and build that audience. So, it’s like, oh, because I mean, when was the last time that you searched some product and you saw a brand pop up that you had never heard of and you were like, yeah, let me swipe my card. It’s rare. And the other thing is, some of these customers, they’re doing like 100k a year enterprise deals. Nobody is just like landing on some random brand’s website and signing up. It doesn’t work like that. So, a lot of it is like high-intent content that’s like solving pain points and the jobs to be done. And then content that’s clearly demonstrating you understand your user, you get what they’re talking about, you get their needs, and let’s, like, talk shop. Like one of the… I forget what his name is, he put out a great piece of content around barbecue content, that’s like the concept he was talking about. Barbecue content, where it’s like put yourself in your ICP shoes. You and your ICPs are at some barbecue and, like, grilling steaks or something. What would you be talking about? Like, what are those cool industries, like niche-specific topics that you guys would be chatting about, right? Talk about that stuff. Because I think at the end…

Dave: Go ahead, sir.

Nate: No, it’s okay. You’ve just offended all the vegetarians listening to us, but that’s okay. No, I’m just kidding. Honestly, there’s so much good content in what you just said. And I also just want to say, as someone who’s in the industry and talked with lots of people who do SEO and content, like, you can kind of tell who knows what they’re talking about, who doesn’t. And it’s clear that you do. So, I’m… And I didn’t really know you before this call, so I’m really glad that it worked out that way and I wasn’t like, anything I just completely disagreed with. Methodology-wise and stuff like that. But yeah, you know, it’s really just understanding the pain points of the users, creating content around that, and respecting the fact that it is kind of like a long-term thing where people don’t usually buy right away. Maybe they’ll sign up for the newsletter, maybe they’ll follow you on social media, or maybe they’ll just forget about you. But then they’ll happen to come back to you some other time for some other reason, and they’ll remember that they had seen you before. And like, that buyer journey is so not linear, it’s very circuitous, and it is difficult for those of us who do SEO and content to kind of convey the value of the work that is done because it isn’t so obvious of like, this piece of content is worth, you know, X dollars. I mean, you can kind of say like, oh yeah, like traffic comes and it converts, etc. But there’s so much more about around like the buyer journey that it contributes to. I think this is all, it’s all great stuff.

Dave: Yeah. I know about you obviously, but a lot of the work that you’re talking about, you know, the keyword research, the content creation, SEO, etc., you know, usually requires like a team or so of people. Tell me a little bit about who you work with in the broader sense, or are you usually kind of working with other maybe service providers to fill in the gaps? Because I doubt as just one person you’re doing all that content writing and everything yourself, right?

Nate: Yeah. Believe it or not, most of it is myself. I have a content writer, she’s just fantastic. She lives in the Bay Area. Her name’s Chelsea. I bring her into projects a lot when the customer does not have any sources to write. However, ideally, I don’t write content. I mean, I come from a writing background, sort of. But usually, I onboard with customers who kind of already have either a small writing team or they have a couple freelancers on deck and they have the capability to already produce content. If they don’t, that’s when I’ll bring in Chelsea to assist me with writing, like, landing page copy and all-important content. Pretty much everything else in the process, though, I take.

Dave: That’s cool, man. A lot of respect because it is just a ton of work. As is honestly, the content writing. Apologies about some of the background noise we’re dealing with here. I just want to try to go on this. Yes, I could, but you know, for all the different potential clients and industries you might come across, to be able to try to write for all these different personas, to cover all these different keywords, to kind of be experts on these different topics, you know, it’s very challenging. So, for you to kind of be doing it along with a really, you know, relatively sounds like small team is commendable for sure. I think part of it is, and you’ve probably experienced this, is that, I mean, if we both agree about the same methodologies, then I’m sure you’ve experienced that when it comes to keyword research, it’s hard to find SEOs who understand, and no offense to any SEOs listening, I really mean it, but it’s hard to find SEOs today who understand broader marketing and how to align search with the business. So, I’ve worked with SEOs before, I’ve worked with subcontractors on engagements before, and a lot of times it’s like, there’s gaps in the output and the delivery of work because a lot of SEOs aren’t taking into account that buyer journey or their go-to-market motion and how SEO fits into that. So, there’s a lot of nuance to it. To the point where I think for right now at this time and place, I’m fine handling the end-to-end process aside from the content.

Dave: I hear you. There’s a lot of tunnel vision in the space, a lot of very channel-focused marketing, you know, where it’s like, well, I do SEO, you know, or I do paid ads or whatever, but marketing is so much bigger than that and the buyer journey is also connected across all these different channels. Usually, at least one is done well. I mean, I feel like I have to draw the line because we’ll just kind of keep going here because we both are so aligned on this stuff. So, Nate, for people that kind of want to learn more about what you’re doing with B2B startups and they want to up their SEO and content game, where should they get in touch with you?

Nate: They can visit enginehq.com, that’s my small little consultancy’s website. They can find me on LinkedIn, Nate Cyani, and yeah, or on Twitter. I’m very active. I’m more of a lurker on Twitter than a poster on Twitter, but they can find me at Nate Cyany on Twitter as well.

Dave: Cool. And of course, you’re also in our Slack membership where we’ll sort of workspace there, and hopefully, we’ll catch you at an upcoming event.

Nate: 100. Cool, man. Awesome. Thanks so much for being here.

Dave: Alright. Appreciate it, Dave.

Nate: Thank you.