Trying to push a rope uphill

Today marks the end of my first full week in Daily Mentor.

So far, I’ve hosted a community Q+A and met 1-on-1 with 8 separate eCom founders.

I’ve been asked dozens of questions.

“How do I write better SEO content?”

“Which AI tools do you use or recommend?”

“Does Google care about AI content?”

Asked and answered.

But these founders kept asking about blog content.

Very few collections about money pages, internal links, or backlinks.

And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.

Then it hit me.

These founders have a fundamental misunderstanding of the function SEO serves for their business.

This isn’t their fault, nor am I insulting them.

They’re scaling multi-million dollar brands across the globe — far more impressive than writing some content and building a few links.

At least in my opinion.

Because of this, they all had a very simplistic view of how SEO works and what it actually does for their business.

I couldn’t figure out why this was the case, until I got this question from the founder of a supplement brand.

Let’s call him Andy.

“How do you improve the conversion rate of a blog post?”

……….

“Holy shit, Andy thinks that revenue is driven through the blog posts. I’m about to blow his mind.”

I thought a bit longer.

That must be why all of the questions are about blogs — Andy (& the others) think that’s the only way to make money with SEO.

Before answering the question, I took a look at the particular blog post Andy had asked about.

Visually, the blog was fantastic. It had built in CTAs, lifestyle photos, direct comparisons of nutrition labels & ingredients between them and their competitors.

I scrolled back to the top, glaring at the title.

I thought about his business for a second.

After a second, I responded: “Who’s this blog written for?”

“Extremely top of funnel visitors.”

“Exactly.”

I went on to explain to him that you can’t force a conversion from a top of funnel visitor.

“It’s like trying to push a rope uphill — it’s simply not possible.”

He clearly understood this premise when it came to Meta Ads, email/SMS lists, and photo & video creative.

But when it came to SEO, he thought blogs were the only vehicle for revenue & traffic.

I gave my usual spiel about how the real money is made on the product & collection pages — he had no idea.

The conversation then shifted to “How do I improve the conversion rate on this particular blog post?” to “Holy shit, I’m shocked I got any conversions at all.”

We then went on to discuss the actual purpose of blogs in eCommerce SEO — building topical authority so that your products & collections rank higher.

The gears started to turn in his head.

We built a game plan for what he should do next, namely, focusing on the money pages, not the blog posts.

He already booked another call with me a month from now — I’m excited to see the progress he’s made.

Catch you on Monday.

Kai