Everyone’s obsessed with SEO. They treat it like some dark art, a complex system of rituals you have to perform to please the Google gods. Buy these backlinks. Use this exact keyword density. Sacrifice a goat under the full moon. It’s exhausting, and honestly, most of it is junk.
I’ve built and sold two companies. I’ve invested in over 200 more, including some of the fastest-growing tech startups on the planet like Anthropic and Scale AI. I’ve seen what works and what’s just noise. And I’m telling you, the secret to SEO isn’t about gaming the algorithm. It’s about playing a different game entirely.
Forget the endless checklists and the so-called gurus. I’m going to give you the same framework I’ve used to grow my own companies and the one I share with the founders I advise. It’s simple, it’s effective, and it’s the only one you’ll ever need.
Pillar 1: Content People Actually Want to Read
This sounds painfully obvious, right? But it’s the part everyone gets wrong. They get so caught up in keywords and search intent that they forget to be human. They write for bots, not for people. The result? A sea of robotic, soulless articles that all say the same thing.
When we were building RemoteTeam, which Gusto later acquired, we were entering a crowded market. Everyone was writing about “remote work best practices.” The content was a blur of generic tips. So we did something different. We wrote about the hard stuff. The loneliness of working from home. The challenge of building a company culture across time zones. We told real stories, our stories. We were vulnerable.
One of our most successful posts was a brutally honest account of a payroll mistake I made in the early days. It had nothing to do with our target keywords. It was just a raw, personal story. It got shared everywhere. Why? Because it was real. It resonated with other founders who had been in the trenches and made similar mistakes. It built trust in a way no keyword-stuffed article ever could.
Your content needs a heartbeat. It needs an opinion. Don’t just tell people what to do; tell them why. Share your failures. I made a mistake with a referral program at one of my companies that almost killed us. I wrote about it. People connected with it. Stop trying to be the smartest person in the room and start being the most honest.
Pillar 2: Distribution Through Community
So you’ve written something great. Something human. Now what? This is where most content strategies fall apart. People hit “publish,” share it on their corporate Twitter account, and then wonder why nobody reads it. You can’t just create content; you have to create a distribution engine.
For us, that engine has always been community. Not just dropping links in a forum, but actually becoming part of the conversation. When I invested in Hugging Face, I didn’t just write a check. I spent time in their community, understanding what developers were struggling with, what they were excited about. That’s how you find content ideas that matter. That’s how you build the relationships that lead to genuine, organic sharing.
Think about it. Who are you more likely to trust? A random brand account, or someone you’ve had a genuine conversation with in a Slack or Discord community? It’s not even a contest.
Find the communities where your audience lives. It could be Reddit, a professional Slack group, a niche forum. Don’t just show up to promote your stuff. Show up to help. Answer questions. Share your expertise. Become a trusted voice. When you do eventually share your content, it won’t feel like spam. It will feel like a gift. This is what “community-led growth” actually means. It’s not a marketing tactic; it’s a philosophy.
Pillar 3: Technical SEO is Not a Monster
Now for the part that scares everyone: the technical stuff. Site speed, schema markup, sitemaps, robots.txt. It sounds intimidating, but the 80/20 rule applies here more than anywhere else. A few simple things make almost all the difference.
First, make your site fast. Nobody waits for a slow website. Not users, and not Google. Use a good host, compress your images, and don’t overload your site with a million plugins. It’s that simple.
Second, make your site easy to navigate. Can a new visitor understand what you do in five seconds? Is your menu structure logical? If a human can’t find their way around, a search engine crawler won’t either. At MovieLaLa, we were obsessed with this. We A/B tested our navigation constantly, not for SEO, but for user experience. The SEO benefits were a byproduct of making the site better for people.
Third, use clean, descriptive URLs. yourwebsite.com/blog/seo-framework is a lot better than yourwebsite.com/p=123. It’s a small thing, but it adds up.
That’s it. That’s 90% of technical SEO. Don’t let anyone convince you it’s more complicated than that. The rest is mostly noise, designed to sell you expensive consulting services.
A Real-World Example
Let's put it all together. At RemoteTeam, we wanted to rank for terms related to global payroll. A huge, competitive space.
Instead of writing another boring article on
"How to Pay International Employees," we wrote a post titled "We Messed Up Payroll for 3 Months. Here’s What We Learned." It was a story about a real, painful experience we had. That was our Pillar 1 – honest, human content.
For Pillar 2, we didn't just blast it on social media. We shared it in founder communities where I was already an active member. I framed it as a cautionary tale. The response was immediate. Other founders chimed in with their own horror stories. The post wasn't just content; it was a conversation starter. It drove more traffic and sign-ups than any of our “optimized” content ever had.
And for Pillar 3, we just made sure the page loaded quickly and the URL was clean. That’s it. No fancy schema, no complex internal linking strategy. Just a fast, readable page.
Stop Chasing the Algorithm
The game of SEO is not about chasing an ever-changing algorithm. That’s a losing battle. The algorithm is designed to do one thing: find and reward content that humans value. So, your goal should be to create that content.
Stop thinking in terms of keywords and start thinking in terms of problems. What are the real, painful problems your audience is facing? What are the questions they’re afraid to ask? Go answer those. Tell stories. Be vulnerable. Be interesting.
I’ve seen this work for B2B SaaS companies, for consumer apps, for e-commerce stores. It worked for us at RemoteTeam. It worked for us at MovieLaLa. It’s worked for the countless companies I’ve invested in. It will work for you.
This isn’t just an SEO strategy. It’s a business strategy. Building a brand that people trust and want to connect with is the ultimate moat. It’s the one thing your competitors can’t copy. They can copy your features, they can copy your pricing, but they can’t copy your voice.
So, here’s my challenge to you. Take one of your boring, keyword-stuffed blog posts and rewrite it. Find the human story inside it. Find the honest, painful, or funny experience that led to that knowledge. Share that instead. See what happens.
I’m betting you’ll be surprised by the results. You might just find that the best way to please the Google gods is to forget they exist and just talk to people.
Frequently Asked Questions
How has this view evolved over time?
My thinking on most topics has changed significantly over the years. Early in my career, I held many conventional views that experience proved wrong. I try to update my beliefs when the evidence changes.
How can I apply this thinking to my own situation?
Start by identifying the core principle behind the opinion, not the specific example. Then ask yourself: does this principle apply to my context? If yes, test it in a small, low-risk way before going all in.
What experience informs this perspective?
This perspective comes from over a decade of building companies in Silicon Valley, two successful exits (RemoteTeam to Gusto, MovieLaLa to Gfycat), and investing in 200+ startups including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Scale AI. I write about what I've lived.
Do all experts agree with this view?
No, and that's fine. The best ideas in business are often contrarian. I share my perspective based on my experience and data, but I encourage you to seek out opposing viewpoints and form your own conclusions.