SEO Book Review: Product-Led SEO by Eli Schwartz

At the start of 2024 I posted on LinkedIn and Facebook asking my network: what business books do you recommend that I should read? I also asked for books for entertainment and anything they would recommend. I wasn’t really expecting any SEO books to be recommended because I rarely see anybody post about an SEO book as being worth reading.

I got overwhelmed with replies and the end result is I’ve ordered 10 physical books, 5+ audio books on Audible and another 5 more on my Kindle.

I am sure there are great SEO books out there but I wasn’t expecting to have anybody suggest one, let alone to get one that would be great to read. Sure enough, one of the first recommendations was from Victor Karpenko.

If Victor recommends it, it is probably a great SEO book to read. For me it was a book that resonated with me as someone who’s not just in affiliate marketing but running a SaaS company too. Obviously we are talking about StatsDrone here.

I already had an idea of what I could learn from the book given the experiences with product designers in 2023.

What is Product-Led SEO?

I’m going to answer this by sharing a short story of my journey on product marketing. All of 2023 I kept running into the word ‘product’ over and over again. Head of product and product designer were 2 roles that I couldn’t help notice.

The Biggest Casino Affiliate

I had a chance to privately interview one of the biggest iGaming affiliates in the industry. My question to this group was this:

Why do you have success as one of the best affiliates while other affiliates are bragging about being in the top 25?

The answer I got back was that most people don’t have a long term vision.

In asking to go a bit deeper, the answers were they were good at SEO and good at branding. Somehow I knew product was a core element.

SaaS Product Design

Months before that interview, we had decided to hire a design agency called UserActive who are phenomenal. They are not just UX designers but rather product designers.

Their design work was really focused on the user, as the name UserActive implies. It was my first time working with any designer that had a product-centric approach to design.

Product Designers & Head of Product Jobs

Ever since these 2 past experiences, I started noticing a shift in job posts with some of the largest online casino affiliate sites. You’d see jobs that were things like ‘head of product’ or ‘CPO’ and less of the standard UX design.

If you don’t believe me, look at some of the larger affiliate groups you can find and see what kind of talent they have working for their company. That is look through the employee list on LinkedIn and you won’t really see any generic ‘graphic designer’ positions. You might see some for ‘ux design’ but the focus is really around product design.

Must Read SEO Book

I wrote on Facebook that I was nearly finished this book and I got a lot of SEO peers asking if this book was good. My answer is yes, it is an excellent book but I shared the same context in this article with them. That is, it depends where you are in your SEO journey. For me, I’m learning more about this product-led approach. Even for a guy like Victor Karpenko that already has this mindset, he still said the book was excellent himself.

I highly recommend this book. It is loaded with insights and I strongly believe it will give you ideas of what you could add for your websites or business whether it is an affiliate business or SaaS company.

Product-Led Mindset

How do you transform your line of thinking into one that is product-led? It might not be easy but think about it by answering this question for yourself. Is this the best work you can do? Can you do better? What would make this more valuable to readers whether it is a SaaS or affiliate website.

By answering this tough question, it will quickly change your thinking into being more product-led and product focused.

To learn more about the book visit productledseo.com.