SEO Journey Validation

Validate whether SEO makes sense for your business before investing—most SaaS shouldn't do SEO

Eli Schwartz
Rethinking SEO in the age of AI

SEO Journey Validation

"If you can't answer the question about what is it that someone's going to do a search on, then don't do SEO." - Eli Schwartz

What It Is

SEO Journey Validation is a three-step framework for determining whether SEO is the right channel for your business before investing significant resources. The biggest myth in SEO is that everyone should do it because "it's free"—but SEO costs real time, money, and opportunity cost.

This framework challenges the default assumption that SEO belongs in every marketing mix. It asks: Does the buyer journey for your product actually include a search step that connects to conversion?

How It Works

The Three Questions:

  1. Does a search journey exist? Would a potential customer actually search for something that leads to your product?

  2. Can conversion happen online? Can someone go from search result to paying customer without requiring committee decisions, sales calls, or complex integrations?

  3. Is SEO the best use of resources? If you invested the same money in another channel (paid, brand, events, sales), would you get better returns faster?

Why Most SaaS Shouldn't Do SEO:

  • Users often don't search for solutions to problems they don't know exist
  • Enterprise products require committee decisions that don't happen from a search click
  • The buyer journey involves sales conversations, demos, and relationship building
  • Other channels (brand, events, outbound) often have faster ROI

Signs SEO Won't Work:

  • Blank stare when asked "what would users search for?"
  • Conversion requires talking to sales
  • Product needs integration/buy-in from multiple stakeholders
  • No self-serve pricing or signup
  • Users discover the problem through your marketing, not through search

How to Apply It

Step 1: Validate the search journey

Ask: "What would someone search for that would lead them to need our product?"

  • If you can't answer this clearly, SEO probably isn't right for you
  • If the answer is generic keywords with no conversion path, SEO probably isn't right
  • Example (good): "People search 'Gmail Salesforce integration' when they need Zapier"
  • Example (bad): "People might search 'analytics tools' for our enterprise analytics platform"

Step 2: Validate online conversion

Map the journey from search to payment:

  • Can someone sign up and pay without talking to sales?
  • Is the product simple enough to evaluate from a landing page?
  • Are there committee decisions or integrations required?
  • Does the price point allow credit card purchases?

Step 3: Calculate the resource trade-off

Budget out the full SEO investment:

  • SEO expertise (agency or hire): $10K+/month minimum for quality
  • Engineering resources for product-led SEO
  • Design and content resources
  • CMS and tooling costs
  • Compare: Would the same budget in events, paid, or sales yield better results faster?

When to Use It

Use this validation before:

  • Hiring your first SEO person or agency
  • Building a content strategy
  • Investing engineering resources in programmatic SEO
  • Including SEO in growth projections

SEO likely DOES make sense when:

  • Product solves a problem people actively search for
  • Self-serve signup and pricing exists
  • Conversion can happen without sales involvement
  • You have engineering resources for product-led approaches
  • Examples: SurveyMonkey, Zapier, Canva, Tinder

SEO likely DOESN'T make sense when:

  • Enterprise sales motion (Mixpanel, Google Cloud)
  • Committee purchase decisions required
  • No one searches for what you do (brand/category creation needed)
  • Better ROI from events, relationships, or direct sales
  • Examples: Enterprise SaaS, B2B platforms, new categories

Examples

SurveyMonkey (SEO Works):

  • People search "customer satisfaction survey template"
  • They find a template and sign up free
  • If they need more, they upgrade on credit card
  • Generated hundreds of millions in organic revenue

Mixpanel (SEO Doesn't Work):

  • People might search "analytics tools"
  • But they can't just buy—requires company-wide integration
  • Committee decision, budget approval, technical setup
  • SEO traffic didn't convert to customers

Gardening SaaS (SEO Doesn't Work):

  • Company wanted to spend $15K/month on SEO content
  • But their customers came from gardening trade shows ($10K each)
  • Better ROI: attend more shows than write more content

Google Cloud (SEO Doesn't Work):

  • Only two competitors (AWS, Azure)
  • No one will search, see Google Cloud ranked #1, and buy
  • Committee decisions, multi-year contracts, complex integrations
  • SEO can't meaningfully contribute to this buying process

Source

  • Guest: Eli Schwartz
  • Episode: "Rethinking SEO in the age of AI | Eli Schwartz (SEO advisor, author)"
  • Key Discussion: (00:31:54) - The three steps to validating if SEO is right for your business
  • YouTube: Watch on YouTube

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