♾️ Derisk your content strategy

Every B2B SaaS company I've worked with has focused on SEO. In fact, it's the default content strategy for most organizations—not because it was the best approach, but because it was relatively measurable and everyone else was doing it.

But in the past year, companies that built their entire content infrastructure on SEO alone are now scrambling.

Algorithm updates, AI-generated search results, and the saturation of nearly every high-value keyword have created a perfect storm.

They anchored their entire content strategy in a single platform they couldn't control.

I'm not saying SEO is dead. It will never be. Maybe the places we look for answers or how we search for answers will change—but the channel is far from dead. Optimizing for generative search is still SEO, no?

I've been working on a couple of content strategy projects in the past 3 months. In all these cases, SEO-based content is the anchor of our strategy, but approvals rely on one question:

If I can't distribute the content elsewhere and it doesn't address a problem our prospects have, we don't create it.

That’s the new standard.

But why was the SEO-only approach flawed from the start?

If your topic ideas come from a keyword tool, you’re chasing keyword volume, not customer conversations. Also, there's a good chance your content lacks depth because automated SEO briefs don't capture variability in the SERPs or your brand's narrative/POV.

This creates a massive vulnerability when search algorithms change—which they do constantly. And you lose the opportunity to connect your product's value to the topic, resulting in generic information that any AI tool could spit out.

The big platforms know you’re dependent on them, and they have zero incentive to help you succeed.

Google doesn’t care if your organic traffic drops 40% overnight.

LinkedIn doesn’t care if your engagement suddenly tanks.

TikTok doesn’t care if your perfectly optimized videos stop reaching your audience.

These platforms exist to maximize their revenue, not yours.

So what’s the alternative?

Here’s how I make sure my strategy is channel-agnostic:

I start with market and prospect research, not keyword research. Here’s the gist:

• Talk to 5-10 prospective customers and ask them how they stay informed, what channels they use daily, and what content has influenced their purchasing decisions.

• Review sales and demo calls to understand their dreams, fears, frustrations, and objections. 

• Talk to internal teams about the product, market, and ICP(s) to get their perspective in writing.

• Review top direct and indirect competitors and analyze which channels they’re investing in.

• Search for relevant communities/forums in your space and see what's at the top of their minds—and how they talk about purchasing decisions.

Validate this research by doing some manual research yourself. For example, if I wanted to see if it makes sense to reach finance leaders on LinkedIn, I'd do a quick audience analysis on LinkedIn by searching for the total # of users and monitoring activity levels.

Look at brands that cater to a similar audience and see if they’re investing in that channel. Are they getting good engagement from relevant people? Are they seeing follower growth?

You can put relevant questions or keywords into a tool like Ahrefs and see if there's a demand for those terms. And evaluate a competitor’s SEO performance—especially traffic course. If you're consistently seeing low volume/CPC across multiple topic categories or competitors are driving mostly through other organic sources (not search engines), it's not worth the investment.

You can even use Sparktoro to find top channels for an audience based on:

• Keywords

• Websites

• Keywords in a social bio

Since the platform uses clickstream data to track audiences online yo,u can be confident that your audience is on these channels. But cross-check the data across keywords and competitor websites to validate it.

This should give you some directional data to justify that choice. I'd land on at least three channels to go all in on when you're setting the foundation for your strategy: two earned and one owned.

In most cases, I've seen SEO and LinkedIn as a good earned media bet while email is a good owned media bet.

Use the data from your research to map your channels—after you've confirmed your audience spends time there. Organize your content calendar around problems and use cases, not keywords.

This way, you’ll reach your audience in different places—making it look like you’re everywhere (network effect).

Eventually, you’ll notice a mindset shift from:

The ones who win in the long term are the ones who spread the risk of their content strategy across multiple platforms—and invest resources into building trust with their audience.

They’re the ones who can withstand algorithm changes because they’ve never relied too heavily on any single platform.

Your prospects don’t live in a single channel. 

Your content strategy shouldn't, either.

P.S. Liked the issue and know someone who’d love it?