The Best SEO Is Not Needing SEO
The companies that win at SEO are the ones that would succeed without it. Build something people search for by name and the rankings follow.
I've done SEO for 20+ years. And here's the most counterintuitive thing I've learned:
The best SEO strategy is building something so good you don't need SEO.
The Winners Don't Optimize
Look at the companies dominating search results. Stripe. Notion. Figma. Zapier. Airtable.
Their content ranks. They get millions of organic visits. But ask their teams about SEO strategy and you'll get blank stares.
They're not optimizing for keywords. They're not building backlinks. They're not worrying about E-E-A-T.
They built products so useful that people search for them by name. Everything else follows.
The Brand Search Advantage
When people search for your brand name, Google notices. It's the ultimate authority signal.
"Notion templates" tells Google that Notion matters for templates.
"Stripe documentation" tells Google that Stripe is authoritative for payment docs.
These branded searches pull up non-branded rankings. Google connects the dots: if people trust this brand for X, they probably trust them for related topics too.
You can't fake branded search volume. You can't buy it. You have to earn it by building something people actually want.
The Link Magnet Effect
Companies with great products don't do link building. They don't need to.
Developers link to Stripe docs because they're the best payment docs.
Designers link to Figma tutorials because Figma is what they use.
Writers link to Notion templates because they actually use them.
Real utility creates real links. No outreach required. No guest posting. No buying placements.
If you're doing link building, ask yourself: why aren't people linking naturally? That's the real problem.
Content That Ranks By Accident
The best-ranking content is usually created for reasons other than ranking.
Documentation written to help users. Blog posts written to share genuine insights. Resources created because customers needed them.
This content ranks because it's actually good. Not because it hit the right keyword density or had the perfect meta description.
When you create content to rank, you create content for Google. When you create content to help, you create content for humans. Google is trying to find content for humans.
The SEO Paradox
Here's the paradox: the more you focus on SEO, the worse your SEO gets.
SEO-focused content is optimized, formulaic, and forgettable. It ranks briefly, gets no engagement, and fades.
Product-focused content is useful, original, and shareable. It ranks and stays because people actually want it.
The companies winning at SEO aren't playing the SEO game. They're playing the "build something genuinely useful" game. SEO is just a side effect. (That's the playbook nobody will sell you.)
What This Means For You
Stop asking "how do we rank for this keyword?"
Start asking "what can we create that people will search for by name?"
Build the product. Create the resource. Write the thing that's so good people have to share it.
Do SEO basics - don't break anything, have decent technical hygiene. But spend 90% of your energy on being worth finding, not on being findable.
The best SEO is having something so good that Google would look stupid not ranking it. Everything else is just tactics.
Build something worth finding. The rankings will follow.