# Why We Start SEO With The Customer, Not The Keyword Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/marketing-school-digital-marketing-and-online-marketing-tips-3891700/why-we-start-seo-with-the-customer-not-the-keyword Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/marketing-school-digital-marketing-and-online-marketing-tips-3891700/why-we-start-seo-with-the-customer-not-the-keyword.md Podcast: [Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips](https://stenobird.com/podcast/marketing-school-digital-marketing-and-online-marketing-tips-3891700) Published: 2026-08-17T15:24:41+00:00 Episode link: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/ESHO9421048531.mp3 Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/ESHO9421048531.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/marketing-school-digital-marketing-and-online-marketing-tips-3891700/episodes/why-we-start-seo-with-the-customer-not-the-keyword Duration seconds: 1006 ## Resource Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/ Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire Most SEO starts with keyword research. Neil and Eric start somewhere else entirely: the customer. Neil breaks down audience-first SEO, the approach Single Grain's Nicky Lamb wrote up and the one they have been quietly running for clients. Take wealth management: 2.7 million monthly searches in the US, and almost none of them are one audience. Someone trying to understand the term, someone saving for retirement, a business owner preparing for a sale and an ultra high net worth family are four different buyers behind the same keyword. Then Eric walks through the company brain he is rolling into ClickFlow, and what Atlassian's numbers say about where a SaaS moat actually sits. Key takeaways β—ΎStart with the ICP, not the keyword list, and the queries sort themselves β—ΎOne high-volume term usually hides four buyers who need four different pages β—ΎA software moat is context and workflow, not the model underneath Chapters 00:00 Audience First SEO 02:19 ClickFlow Content Workflow 07:48 Atlassian and SaaS Moats 𝗔𝗕𝗒𝗨𝗧 π—§π—›π—˜ π—–π—›π—”π—‘π—‘π—˜π—Ÿ Welcome to Marketing School, one of the top business podcasts with over 61 million downloads. Each episode delivers actionable marketing tips and strategies from two entrepreneurs who truly practice what they preach. The show is hosted by Eric Siu, founder of Leveling Up and Single Grain, and Neil Patel, co-founder of Neil Patel Digital and recognized by Forbes as a Top 10 Marketer. πŸŽ™οΈ Learn More About the Hosts Eric Siu – Leveling Up: https://www.youtube.com/@LevelingUpOfficial Neil Patel: https://www.youtube.com/@neilpatel ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/marketing-school-digital-marketing-and-online-marketing-tips-3891700/episodes/why-we-start-seo-with-the-customer-not-the-keyword/transcription-requests` β€” Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/marketing-school-digital-marketing-and-online-marketing-tips-3891700/why-we-start-seo-with-the-customer-not-the-keyword.md` β€” Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.