Episode Summary
In this episode of Seven Figures and Beyond, Greg Shuey unpacks why most brand blogs fail and how to turn them into true growth engines. He explains that too many blogs are filled with fluff, disconnected from the buyer journey, and assumed to automatically rank in Google. Instead, he outlines what a performance-driven blog looks like: data-backed, written for both humans and algorithms, and tied directly to business outcomes like leads and revenue. Greg introduces three content frameworks: Problem → Solution → Product, What to Buy → How to Choose → How to Use, and Options on the Table → Side by Side → Situational Fit. Each helps brands create content for every stage of the funnel. He closes by emphasizing the importance of optimizing for both SEO and LLMs, distributing content into communities, and regularly auditing existing posts to ensure they deliver real value.
Key Takeaways
- Most blogs underperform because they’re generic, disconnected from customer needs, and assumed to rank without proactive indexing and engagement signals.
- Performance-driven blogs are intentional: they’re based on data (keyword research, competitor analysis, customer insights), written to help real people, and measured against outcomes like rankings, leads, and revenue.
- Content frameworks can guide strategy across the funnel:
- Problem → Solution → Product
- What to Buy → How to Choose → How to Use
- Options on the Table → Side by Side → Situational Fit
- Search + AI models both need authoritative, structured content; feeding one without the other leaves opportunity on the table.
- Community distribution (Reddit, Quora, forums, Slack groups) helps amplify content and build trust, but requires consistent participation, not just link dropping.
Questions To Ask Yourself
- Do my current blog posts actually solve real customer problems, or are they generic and interchangeable with competitors?
- Which of the three content frameworks would best help me structure my next series of posts?
- How am I currently measuring blog success? Traffic only, or actual leads and revenue impact?
- Am I intentionally optimizing content for both Google and LLMs like ChatGPT and Perplexity?
- Do I have a distribution strategy beyond my own website, and am I actively engaging in the communities where my customers spend time?
Episode Links
Greg Shuey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-shuey/
Episode Transcript
Greg Shuey (00:01.646)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Seven Figures and Beyond eCommerce Marketing podcast. I am your host, Greg Shuey. I created this podcast to help direct to consumer business owners and marketers who are stuck. They’re out there grinding every day trying to find a way to continue to grow their brands and grow their businesses. So if you haven’t gotten the hint over the last 70 plus episodes, I think we’re on like episode 72 now, I love content.
especially helpful content that drives conversions, whether it’s e-commerce revenue, whether it’s lead generation for for my agency, it doesn’t matter. Content fuels everything from a digital marketing perspective. And when it’s done right, it will have an insane compounding effect across your SEO, across the LLMs like your chat, GPT, your perplexities, your Google Gemini’s. It is going to have massive
impacts on your overall business. One of the things I do for potential clients is a deep dive into their business to uncover areas of opportunity. Typically, when I start to dig into their website and I look at their blog, their content is actually pretty useless. I would say maybe 10 % of the blogs I look at an audit actually are valuable and well done. When I look at these blogs,
They don’t provide much value. They aren’t helpful. They don’t rank in Google and they definitely don’t drive traffic and conversions. To me, it’s really sad because either one, they invested a lot of time and money into generating this content and it’s not doing anything or they half-assed it and they have this quote unquote asset that they are wanting to do something for their business.
and they’re just sitting around waiting and it’s never going to happen. The good news is, is it doesn’t have to be that way. So in this episode, I’m gonna walk through how to build and execute a content strategy that will drive keyword rankings, drive LLM visibility, and will generate leads and revenue for your brand. So I know that was a little bit of an introduction, so let’s jump right in.
Greg Shuey (02:25.14)
So let’s start out by talking about what most brands get wrong when they are attempting to build their content strategy or build a blog strategy. So there’s really four things where they tend to go in the wrong direction. So first, what I see is that brands, treat their blog as just this digital dumping.
So they might throw up a press release or they might throw up an announcement about an upcoming product drop. Or maybe they post a holiday poster to where they’re talking about the best gift guides for men who do these types of things. And they’re just not very good. I mean, I know you’ve seen them, like the lame gift giving guides that only showcase a few of their products, right? That’s not a strategy. And as a matter of fact, it’s actually
It’s actually terrible at the end of the day. It doesn’t help anyone and Google hates it. second, most blog content that I look at is generic and it’s actually just a lot of fluff at the end of the day. It’s the same five tips that everyone else is publishing on their blogs. So as my general rule of thumb, if I can take your content and I can put a competitor’s logo on it,
and it works for them. That piece of content is not good. That piece of content is not unique. And in most cases, it doesn’t provide any value to the end user. All right, the third, and this one is like absolutely critical. The content is not connected to the overall buying journey. This is one of the biggest issues that I come across. It doesn’t solve
real customer problems and it doesn’t lead them closer to making their purchase decision and pulling out their credit card and actually completing that transaction. Finally, many teams and many content writers inside of these brands still think writing blog posts will automatically mean that Google will index it and that Google will rank it. That couldn’t be more wrong.
Greg Shuey (04:46.798)
Crawl budgets these days are tighter than ever. And engagement signals matter so much to Google and matter so much to the LLMs. It’s not uncommon for me to pull up Google Search Console and see that their last 10 posts have been crawled but not indexed. Like this is a very common thing. It even happens to me from time to time when I’m publishing content on the Stride website is that
Google will crawl it, they won’t add it to their index. And so I’ve got to build some links to it. I’ve got to request indexing a couple of times. I’ve got to get visitors to the blog post. I’ve got to create some engagement signals in order to be able to get that post trusted enough for Google to add it to their index. And it can take a minute sometimes. And so I just think that a lot of people think that it’s a given. It’s an automatic.
Right? And so if you’re, if you’re hitting these three things that I talked about and doing it correctly, you’re going to have a much easier time getting that content into the search engines and into the LLMs. So end result, lots of posts, very little to zero impact whatsoever. It’s a lot of wasted hours, a lot of wasted money. And to me, that’s, that’s really sad. So what does a performance driven blog or content strategy look like? Let’s.
take some time to unpack that next, right? We’ve talked about the mistakes. We’ve talked about the pitfalls. Let’s talk about what a good strategy looks like. Okay. First and foremost, it starts with intent. All right. You’re not just publishing content for content sake. You’re not publishing content because you read a post on an agency website that says you have to have content. You do have to have content, but that shouldn’t be the reason.
Right? What you are supposed to be building for is building an acquisition engine that’s going to work to bring people into your funnel at the very top and then handhold them to conversion at the very bottom, regardless of how long that is. Right? Some of the brands we work with, they have a very long buying cycle. Someone doesn’t learn about their brand today and buy today.
Greg Shuey (07:00.576)
Some of these are higher ticket items that take longer for someone to purchase. And so it’s important to know that buying cycle, length of time from first touch to conversion, and then what those content pieces need to be to handhold them. I like to use that word, handhold. It has really what you’re doing, but you’re doing it digitally, okay? The highest performing blogs that I’ve created for my business, well, I guess business is, cause I have multiple,
and that we have created for clients typically have three things in common. You’re gonna wanna write these three things down, okay? First, they are driven by data. They are driven by customer research. They are driven by keyword research so that you know how much demand there is. And then they are also driven by competitor analysis and then doing analysis on potential traffic metrics and those types of things.
to your competitors content. Okay, so you have a general idea that this particular topic is actually going to be seen and it’s actually going to be consumed by your potential customer. That’s the first and probably the most important thing. Second, they are written for both humans and they’re written for algorithms. Human first at all times.
Right? It’s very bad. I did say I’m going to build this post for SEO purposes or I’m going to build this post just so I can start showing up in chat GPT. That’s the wrong way to do it. Okay. What this means is that the content is actually useful and it’s helpful. So at the end of the day, after someone reads that or consumes that piece of content, it actually helped them accomplish something. Okay. It needs to be specific.
So on a specific topic, you don’t want them to get too broad and then it needs to feel authoritative or as though a thought leader produced this piece of content, someone who’s actually knowledgeable about the topic and is credible enough to produce that and then be able to push that out and promote that. Okay. And then the last thing is it needs to be measured against actual business outcomes. That means traffic.
Greg Shuey (09:17.9)
rankings, leads, and revenue. Now pushing publish today doesn’t mean you’re going to get all four of those things tomorrow, but you need to start measuring it. The first thing is, is Google indexing this piece of content? And if not, need to figure out why. Once they index it, you can start to measure in impressions, clicks, traffic, rankings, leads, and then revenue. Okay? I know I’ve provided this example before. I’m sorry, but it really showcases the power of content.
So I used to own a direct to consumer brand that sold aftermarket parts for Toyota Tacoma’s Tundras and forerunners. I sold that business in December, but that entire business was actually built on helpful content. I didn’t start selling products first. I actually started writing content first. And then I started to layer in my products. My only goal for that website was to give so much value and so much help to the owners.
of these particular Toyotas that people would end up buying from me. And it worked insanely well. I published written guides. I repurposed those guides into videos. And then I distributed them where my audience spent time online. I did a little bit of SEO, obviously make sure my keyword research is dialed in, making sure that those keywords were sprinkled throughout the content, that they were included in the title. I did a little bit of link building, but 99 % of the work that I did on that site,
was building this content. And because I’m a Toyota fanboy, I’ve had a Tacoma, I’ve had a Tundra, relatives of own forerunners, I was qualified to produce this content. I did it all by myself. I took that business from zero to a million dollars a year in revenue in just under three years, again, all by myself, probably putting in less than three or four hours a week over those three years.
Probably could have done it way faster had I had a team behind me. And honestly, I think back and say, what could that have been in three years had I put an entire team behind me? But, you know, I did it myself on very limited hours and I was really proud of that. I’m now doing this same thing for a business I started in the RV space, which is having a very similar growth trajectory. And then we use this exact process to drive growth for our clients at Stripe because it
Greg Shuey (11:41.726)
is so powerful, alright? So let’s talk about the frameworks that we use here at Stride. It’s actually three different frameworks and how we use these to be able to build strategy and execute strategy. This this can be for any kind of business, right? Doesn’t even have to be for an ecommerce business. So this is where you’re going to want to get your note note taker out. Your iPad, your sticky notes, whatever, because
this is gonna be super important to go through. So the first framework, and these don’t have like a cool name by any means, but each framework has three pieces. So the first one is problem identification, solution crafting, and then product connection. So let’s break these three down. So problem identification, pretty straightforward. You probably already know what I’m gonna say, but this is content that addresses your exact customer’s pain points, okay?
An example of this, because we do a lot of work in the baby space is why is my baby not sleeping through the night? Parents need their sleep and they can get super frustrated when their baby isn’t sleeping through the night. That is pain. And if you can help them start to solve that pain, then you can start moving them into the next phase, which is solution crafting. This is content that explores fixes to the problem. So an example of this is
the best sleep training methods for new parents. so problem identification, solution crafting, and then you can connect it to products. So product connection. This is the content that connects your product to the solution. So an example of this is how your brand’s product, whether you’re a baby.
crib maker or a baby mattress maker or a sound machine right? Your product helps babies sleep longer at night, alright? So that’s the first framework. The second framework is what to buy. How to choose and then how to use. So let’s break these three down. So the first one what to buy this is.
Greg Shuey (14:05.12)
what you would kind of consider product roundups or comparison type content. Right? This is like the best hiking backpacks for weekend trips. How to choose. This is educational content like five things to consider when buying a hiking backpack and then how to use. This is adoption and retention content. So how to pack
your hiking backpack for a three day trip. So you can see how each of those connects to the overall buyer journey. All right. The last framework is options on the table, side by side and situational fit. So let’s break these three down. Options on the table. This is content that showcases many different options in the market like
the top 10 baby carriers for new parents or the best camping coolers of 2025 or 2026 for next year. This type of content helps build early funnel trust by acknowledging competition instead of pretending it doesn’t exist. This type of content works really, really well for e-commerce brands side by side. So this is content that showcases product versus product or brand versus brand.
So this might be something like ergo baby versus Nunea, which baby carrier is best for you? This type of content helps make decision making easier with objective pros and cons, specs, pricing and use cases. right, with these two pieces, types of content, not pieces of content, these two types, options on the table and side by side, anytime you are looping in your competition, and I’ve said this on other episodes, you cannot and should not
them and do bash pieces, right? Friendly competition is great. Anytime you start throwing daggers, that is bad. So you want to make sure that we are talking about pros and cons for each brand, not just your competition. Yours shouldn’t just be pros. Yours should also have cons to it because let’s be honest, your product is not built for every single human on the face of this earth. It’s built for a select set of people and someone else’s product.
Greg Shuey (16:29.014)
although a competitor may be built for someone else, all right? The last one is situational fit. So this is content that provides contextual comparisons like the best baby carrier for travel versus the best baby carrier for daily use or hard-sided coolers versus soft-sided coolers. This shows buyers how to align their product selection
with their lifestyle or a specific situation that they are going to be in, whether it’s backpacking, whether it’s going camping, whatever, right? So when you actually take time to build a content strategy that layers in these three frameworks, I think it’s pretty clear that this is covering the entire funnel from awareness at the very top. Someone’s never heard of you before all the way down to purchase. Even some of these will live in the
post purchase loyalty part of the funnel, which is on the other side of the bottom, right? That’s how your blog becomes a true growth channel for your business. So now that you understand that, now that you understand how everything connects and the different content types that you need and how to approach these content types, right? Let’s finish up our episode today talking about how to use this to be able to fuel your growth.
Again, like this should be an acquisition engine that runs for you 24 seven, whether it’s someone who’s reading your content in the middle of the night when they’re nursing a baby or whether it’s someone who’s taking a break from work in the afternoon and researching, you know, a shed for their backyard so they can start their, their fall cleanup. Right. This is incredibly important to be able to have this content to start to fuel that growth for you. So there are three main ways.
In my opinion, I mean, there could be others and there could be subsets of these three main ways to be able to use your content to be able to drive brand awareness, traffic and sales. All right. The first is search engine optimization. The second is LLMs. And then the third is community seating. We’re going to talk just about each one for here for just a second. Okay.
Greg Shuey (18:54.592)
So first SEO, I think we’ve probably covered this one at Nausium over the last couple of months as our episodes have been really hyper-focused on the SEO side of things. But in short, making sure that your content is properly optimized for search terms. Again, if you remember, we talked about data above, above, earlier, I’m thinking as though I’m writing a blog post, sorry. earlier in the episode search terms that people are looking for.
that are going to allow them to qualify to rank for those specific keywords. Make sure to use tools like Semrush. There are other tools like Ahrefs, and you can use those tools to be able to help you identify those keywords and then start to work that into your content. So, LLMs, right? Your blog isn’t just for Google anymore. The LLMs are here. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Gemini.
Google’s AI overviews, that’s even part of AI. These models, in order to have answers that they can provide to specific prompts, they pull from authoritative, structured, and trustworthy content. So if that content doesn’t live on your website, if you’re not producing this, guess where they’re gonna go? They’re gonna go to your competitors, and then your competitors are going to have the competitive advantage, okay?
So if your blog fits that profile, authoritative, structured, and trustworthy, you have a real shot at showing up when buyers ask their questions inside of those platforms. Right, so you’ve got to think of your blog as doing double duty at the end of the day. Right, we’re feeding Google with search optimized evergreen content, and then we’re feeding the AI models with structured, trustworthy content that answers questions directly.
right? And then the last one’s community seating. I’ve talked about this one before on a few episodes as well, mostly because this is part of how I helped build that automotive parts brand that I sold. Going out to different. You read it, whether that be Cora, those are some of the bigger ones that are more broad or getting super niche inside of different forums.
Greg Shuey (21:14.158)
you know, private slack groups or slack channels that are hyper relevant to your ideal customer profile. And then taking that content and seeding that content in those communities when people have questions about the exact topic that you wrote about is a great way to be able to build brand awareness, to be able to referral traffic to your website and be able to continue to grow your sales.
By using this content, right? That’s a little bit of a heavier lift. Sometimes you may be better off hiring someone in house for five to 10 hours a week to do that. There are some agencies that do that quite well as well. It’s not something that you can just log into Reddit tomorrow and drop a comment and log back in in 45 days. It’s not how these communities work, right? You’ve got to be an active participant and so.
making sure that you’ve got the right amount of capacity to be able to handle that’s absolutely critical. But marrying these three together is what’s really gonna give your content a shot in the arm and give it a real chance to become that acquisition engine that I’ve mentioned a few times here. And this is truly how to future proof, you your content strategy and your blog strategy. So wrapping up, right, let’s recap really at the highest level. So in my opinion,
Most blogs fail because they’re fluffy, generic, and irrelevant. If that doesn’t cut you, then I don’t know what will. I don’t know that there’s much hope. Kidding, totally kidding. Everyone can do better. Performance-driven blogs are intentional, they’re data-driven, and they’re tied to growth. Using the frameworks liked I talk about are going to help you bring clarity to your strategy.
and help you build content that’s actually going to help your users through their buyer journey. And then finally, optimizing for both Google and AI models will help you future proof your content and your content strategy. So if you’re listening to this and your blog isn’t performing at all, or maybe it’s performing a little bit, but not to where you want it to be performing, today is the day to carve out two hours. It’s all you need two hours today.
Greg Shuey (23:37.314)
to audit your content, right? Go through each piece, write down your thoughts about each piece. Are they too fluffy? Are they too short? Are they too generic? Do they provide value? Are they helpful? Do we believe that someone will read this and have trust in us that we are the experts? If not, flag those and then double down on reworking those. I mean, you may just wanna delete some of them.
reworking some of those, expanding them and making them better so that you can have high performing content pieces that will actually make your blog a true growth channel. So thank you everyone for tuning in today. If you found this episode helpful, please take a minute to share it with a fellow brand owner, a marketer, a friend, right? I’d love to be able to get more people listening to this because I feel like it is such helpful content.
and the more listeners the better. So please take a minute to share that. I hope that you have a few amazing takeaways that you can start executing today and I hope that you tune in again next time. Thank you so much for joining.
Greg is the founder and CEO of Stryde and a seasoned digital marketer who has worked with thousands of businesses, large and small, to generate more revenue via online marketing strategy and execution. Greg has written hundreds of blog posts as well as spoken at many events about online marketing strategy. You can follow Greg on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.