Organic search was THE single biggest driver of revenue. <\/p>\n
So, I got to cut my teeth doing SEO that increased trials and MRR. We didn’t care about traffic. We didn’t care about rankings.<\/p>\n
Our only KPI was number of new users per week.<\/p>\n
Since leaving Time Doctor and starting Content Guppy, we’ve worked with dozens of SaaS companies, across all industries. Got tons of rankings and recommendations in AI platforms. <\/p>\n
I’ve learned a lot and put all of these tips into this single post.<\/p>\n
Here we go.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Part 1: Content Prep Tips<\/h2>\n
Most SaaS SEO programs fail before a single word gets written. They skip the research that makes content actually convert. Here is what to do before you open a blank doc.<\/p>\n
TIP 1: Interview Subject Matter Experts Within Your Company<\/strong><\/p>\n Generic content is the enemy of both SEO and AEO. If your content reads like it could have been written by anyone, it probably will not rank for long and AI systems will not recommend it.<\/p>\n Before writing any piece of content, sit down with the person in your company who knows the topic best. This could be your founder, a product manager, a customer success lead, or an engineer. The goal is to extract a point of view that only your company has.<\/p>\n Questions to ask:<\/p>\n What you are looking for is the insight that sits between the lines. The opinion your company has formed from doing this work day after day that nobody outside your company could have written. That is what makes content rank and what makes AI systems trust it enough to recommend it.<\/p>\n Why This Matters for AEO<\/p>\n AI systems like ChatGPT and Perplexity are trained to surface authoritative, differentiated sources. Content that sounds like every other article on a topic gets deprioritized. Content with a clear, specific point of view from a credible source gets cited.<\/p>\n Your sales team hears things every day that most content teams never find out about. They know why deals close and why they do not. They know which competitors keep coming up. They know exactly which objections slow down the buying process.<\/p>\n That intelligence is marketing gold, and most content programs ignore it entirely.<\/p>\n Before building your content plan, spend 30 minutes with whoever runs or does sales at your company. Ask:<\/p>\n The answers to these questions will tell you exactly which keywords to target, which comparison pages to build, which objections to pre-empt in your content, and which features to highlight. You will also end up with content that answers the exact questions buyers are asking LLMs before they ever talk to your sales team.<\/p>\n Your existing customers are the best source of keyword intelligence you have. They can tell you exactly how they describe their problem, what they searched before finding you, and what almost stopped them from buying.<\/p>\n Talk to three to five customers before building any new content cluster. Keep it conversational. The questions that tend to yield the most useful content insights:<\/p>\n The words your prospects use to talk to your sales team, and the words that your customers use talk to you are the same words that their peers use to talk to LLMs and search engines.<\/p>\n Before you write a single comparison page, alternative post, or category roundup, you need to know your competitive landscape in detail.<\/p>\n This isn’t just surface level research here. You actually want to sign up for the product (if possible) and use it for yourself. See how you compare to each product. Take note of how they compare to each other.<\/p>\n Here’s a few things to keep in your library<\/p>\n This library becomes the foundation for your alternative posts, your competitor comparison pages, and your keyword research. It also gives you the raw material to understand where there are gaps in the market that you can own with content.<\/p>\n I typically update this library every six months or so just to ensure the data is most up to date. <\/p>\n Finding the right keywords is not about finding the highest volume. It is about finding the searches that attract buyers, not browsers. Here is how we approach it.<\/p>\n Most SaaS content programs make the same mistake: they target informational keywords at the top of the funnel and wonder why organic traffic does not convert into trials.<\/p>\n But when you’re a bootstrapped SaaS who needs to grow revenue now, you can’t afford to wait for that traffic to convert.<\/p>\n Instead, you just bottom of funnel content that you know will convert.<\/p>\n Bottom of funnel keywords are the searches that happen when someone is ready to evaluate a solution. These are people with money and a problem. They are actively looking for tools. They convert at dramatically higher rates than informational traffic.<\/p>\n Bottom of funnel keyword types to prioritize:<\/p>\n A keyword like ‘Hubstaff alternatives’ might only get 200 searches a month. But those 200 people are actively evaluating options. We ranked for that keyword at Time Doctor and it consistently drove trials. Volume is a vanity metric. Buyer intent is the only metric.<\/p>\n Why We Started Content Guppy<\/p>\n One of the trends I saw when I started Content Guppy was so many agencies using traffic and rankings as a KPI. I would see so many glossary terms and “what is” type content that I knew drove zero revenue. I wanted to create an SEO agency where the only KPI was revenue generated.<\/p>\n Most SaaS content programs make the same mistake: they target informational keywords at the top of the funnel and wonder why organic traffic does not convert into trials.<\/p>\n The fix is simple. Start at the bottom.<\/p>\n Bottom of funnel keywords are the searches that happen when someone is ready to evaluate a solution. These are people with money and a problem. They are actively looking for tools. They convert at dramatically higher rates than informational traffic.<\/p>\n Bottom of funnel keyword types to prioritize:<\/p>\n A keyword like ‘Hubstaff alternatives’ might only get 200 searches a month. But those 200 people are actively evaluating options. We ranked for that keyword at Time Doctor and it consistently drove trials. Volume is a vanity metric. Buyer intent is the only metric.<\/p>\n Some people may call this \u201cstealing your competitor\u2019s keywords\u201d. <\/p>\n For the sake of this post, I\u2019m going to call it \u201cGetting inspired by your competitors\u201d.<\/p>\n To do this, you can go into a site explorer and enter in the name of your competitor.<\/p>\n From here, you can check out one of two things. Either top pages or top organic keywords.<\/p>\n Typically, I like to check out the top pages. Google is smart enough these days that it knows what you\u2019re trying to say with a page. While keywords are still extremely important, I would prefer to see what pages are ranking\u2026 not just keywords.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n When I click on the top pages of my competitor\u2019s, I\u2019m given a list of their highest traffic pages in descending order.<\/p>\n Good keyword research gets you in the game. Good content keeps you there. Here is how to create content that ranks, converts, and gets recommended by AI.<\/p>\n Not all content is created equal when it comes to driving trials and MRR. Over a decade of doing this inside SaaS companies and with clients, I have found that five types of content consistently outperform everything else. I call them the five content archetypes.<\/p>\n These started out as SEO plays. But as AI systems like ChatGPT and especially AI Overviews (in Google) became more prevalent, these archetypes have become even more powerful<\/p>\n They attract and convert organic traffic AND LLMs read them to get your software recommended. <\/p>\n 1. Alternative Posts<\/strong><\/p>\n Your prospect is frustrated with the 800-pound gorilla in your category. They search ‘[Competitor] alternatives.’ Your job is to rank for that search and present your product as the obvious next step.<\/p>\n These posts convert exceptionally well because the reader is already in evaluation mode. They are not browsing. They are buying.<\/p>\n Headline formula: [Number] [Competitor] Alternatives + [Optional Benefit]<\/p>\n 2. X vs Y Pages<\/strong><\/p>\n Buyers are looking to compare your product to your competitors to make the most informed decision possible<\/p>\n That’s where the X vs Y page comes into play. These pages get a lot of high buyer intent traffic and AI systems tend to use these pages when recommending a short list of products to your prospects.<\/p>\n 3. Best Category Posts<\/strong><\/p>\n ‘Best [category] software’ is one of the highest-intent search formats in SaaS. The searcher knows they need a tool. They are collecting a shortlist. Being on that list matters enormously, both in Google and in AI recommendations.<\/p>\n These posts are also one of the primary sources AI systems reference when forming recommendations. If you are not appearing in best-of lists, both on your own site and on high-authority third-party sites, you are invisible to a growing portion of your buyers.<\/p>\n 4. Template Posts<\/strong><\/p>\n Find a task your product automates. Create a post that gives away a free template for doing it manually, then show why your product does it better.<\/p>\n At Time Doctor, we created a post called ‘Timesheet Templates.’ We gave away free Google Sheet, PDF, and Excel templates. The post ranked for a keyword with 7,700 monthly searches. Then, at the bottom of each template, we made the case for why manually managing timesheets was painful and Time Doctor automated the whole thing.<\/p>\n That post was responsible for adding 309 businesses to our customer base, with 20 to 25 new customers coming in every month.<\/p>\n The Template Post Formula<\/p>\n Give away the manual solution for free. Make it genuinely good. Then show why your product eliminates the need to do it manually. The reader feels they got something valuable before you ever pitch them.<\/p>\n \n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n 5. Jobs to Be Done Posts<\/strong><\/p>\n These posts target the task your buyer is trying to accomplish, not the tool they will use to do it. ‘How to track employee hours,’ ‘how to manage a remote team,’ ‘how to reduce churn’ are all jobs to be done.<\/p>\n The key to making these convert is to make your product a natural, inevitable part of the solution. You want the reader to finish the post feeling like doing the job properly without your tool would be unnecessarily hard.<\/p>\n The fastest way to get outranked is to write what everyone else is writing. Generic content gets commoditized quickly, especially as AI-generated content floods every topic.<\/p>\n What cannot be commoditized is your company’s own data, your first-hand experience, and the insider intelligence you have accumulated from working in this space.<\/p>\n At Time Doctor, our best-performing content was not the posts with the most keywords. It was the posts backed by real numbers from inside our product. We knew how many customers we had added through a specific page. We knew exactly what the CPC equivalent of our organic traffic was. We knew which features were driving renewals. That data made our content credible in a way no agency-written post could replicate.<\/p>\n Before writing any post, ask: what do we know about this topic that nobody outside our company knows? What data do we have? What have we seen? What opinion have we formed from doing this work every day?<\/p>\n That is what goes in the post. The generic stuff can come from anywhere. The first-hand intelligence can only come from you.<\/p>\n Why This Matters for AI Recommendations<\/p>\n AI systems are increasingly good at identifying original, authoritative sources vs. content that synthesizes existing content. Your proprietary data and first-hand experience are signals that AI systems weight heavily when deciding what to recommend.<\/p>\n When it comes to ranking your content, getting traffic, shares, and all that good stuff, sharing statistics is the way to go.<\/p>\n However, if you want to win the minds of your readers and convert them into customers, then make sure you tell stories.<\/p>\n And lots of them.<\/p>\n\n
TIP 2: Interview Your Sales Team<\/h3>\n
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TIP 3: Customer Development<\/h3>\n
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TIP 4: Build a Competitor Intelligence Library<\/h3>\n
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Part 2: Keyword Research Tips<\/strong><\/h2>\n
TIP 5: Start at the Bottom of the Funnel<\/h3>\n
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TIP 6: Start at the Bottom of the Funnel<\/h3>\n
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Tip 7: Get Inspired by Your Competitors<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Keyword-Explorer.jpg\" "\\"Keyword")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Toggl-Top-Pages.jpg\" "\\"Toggl")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Toggl-Top-Pages-List.jpg\" "\\"Toggl")
<\/span><\/p>\nPart 3: Content Creation Tips<\/h2>\n
TIP 8: Use One of the Five Content Archetypes<\/h3>\n
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\n \n TIP 9: Write with Your Own Data, POV, and Insider Intelligence<\/h3>\n
Tip 10: Tell Stories<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Tell-Story.jpg\" "\\"Tell")
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<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Collaborating-with-Amy.jpg\" "\\"Collaborating")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Amy-Facebook-Group-Post-1.jpg\" "\\"Amy")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Amy-Email.jpg\" "\\"Amy")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Collaboration-Traffic-1.jpg\" "\\"Collaboration")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Collaboration-email-subscribers.jpg\" "\\"Collaboration")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/bad-url-structure.jpg\" "\\"bad")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Good-URL.jpg\" "\\"Good")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/listicle-citations.jpg\" "\\"listicle")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/write-for-us.jpg\" "\\"write")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Domain-ranking.jpg\" "\\"Domain")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/timedoctor-branded-traffic.jpg\" "\\"timedoctor")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentguppy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/time-doctor-branded-traffic.jpg\" "\\"time")
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