On this week’s episode of the Area of interest Pursuits podcast, Craig Hewitt and I talk about how Castos is adapting its content material technique as search site visitors adjustments, and AI reshapes on-line advertising and marketing. We cowl why comparability pages and free instruments are driving extra significant outcomes than broad informational content material. Craig additionally explains how his group measures success when site visitors falls whereas trials rise.
Craig based Castos, a podcast internet hosting SaaS firm serving 1000’s of consumers. We additionally take a look at the WordPress plugin acquisition that gave the enterprise an early distribution benefit. From there, the dialog turns to how Castos is utilizing AI throughout advertising and marketing, help, growth, and inner operations.
Watch the Full Episode
Buying Distribution Earlier than Constructing the SaaS
Castos did not begin by deciding to construct a podcast internet hosting platform from scratch after which looking for clients afterward. The corporate grew from a podcast modifying and manufacturing service that gave him shut publicity to podcasters and the issues they have been making an attempt to unravel.
Then one in every of Craig’s clients launched him to somebody promoting Critically Easy Podcasting, a free WordPress plugin designed for podcasters. Craig noticed greater than software program. He noticed an present channel right into a market he already wished to serve.
The acquisition moved shortly, and the plugin turned the distribution basis for what would grow to be Castos. Craig’s group constructed a paid SaaS product that related instantly with the plugin, giving podcasters internet hosting, analytics, and associated options past what the free WordPress product supplied.
Just a few particulars present why the deal mattered:
- The plugin was lively on roughly 20,000 WordPress websites.
- Craig acquired it for a couple of thousand {dollars}.
- The acquisition course of took roughly six weeks to 2 months.
- The Castos SaaS product took about 5 months to construct.
- Castos had paying clients on its first day after launch.
The launch wasn’t fully easy. An replace related to the brand new product initially broke WordPress websites for some customers, forcing the group to repair the issue shortly.
As soon as that concern was resolved, Castos had one thing many SaaS firms spend years making an attempt to create: direct entry to individuals already utilizing a associated product. Craig describes distribution as one of many hardest elements of constructing software program right now, particularly when creating the software program itself has grow to be dramatically simpler.
His expertise suggests a helpful query for founders: as an alternative of asking solely what product you may create, ask the place your future clients already collect and whether or not you may companion with, purchase, or contribute to that channel.
Shifting Content material Towards Purchaser Intent
For years, content material advertising and marketing turned one in every of Castos’ major buyer acquisition channels. The corporate revealed the kind of search engine marketing content material many on-line companies used efficiently in the course of the earlier decade.
That included articles concentrating on broad podcasting subjects with substantial search quantity. Castos turned one of many extra seen firms in podcasting search outcomes, and at its peak the technique helped generate 1000’s of free trials per thirty days.
Then search habits modified. AI instruments started answering extra questions instantly. Google began putting extra data inside its personal outcomes, whereas customers gained extra methods to seek out solutions with out visiting particular person web sites.
Craig says Castos now receives roughly half the web site site visitors it as soon as did. On the identical time, trials have elevated. That obvious contradiction has modified how the corporate thinks about content material. Castos cares much less about attracting a big viewers loosely thinking about podcasting and extra about reaching somebody shut to creating a purchase order.
Older content material included subjects resembling:
- What’s a podcast?
- Greatest podcast microphones
- Greatest true crime podcasts
- Different broad informational searches with restricted buy intent
These pages may appeal to substantial site visitors with out creating many shoppers. As we speak, Craig’s group spends extra time on content material related on to a buying determination.
The shift is much less about abandoning content material and extra about giving every web page a clearer enterprise goal. A smaller viewers will be way more beneficial when the individuals arriving have an issue the product instantly solves.
Creating Comparability Pages for Excessive-Intent Searches
One space receiving extra consideration at Castos is comparability and different content material. Somebody looking for a basic podcasting query could also be months away from selecting internet hosting software program. Somebody evaluating two podcast hosts is far nearer to deciding.
That makes comparability pages beneficial even when their search quantity seems to be unimpressive beside bigger informational key phrases. Castos is concentrating on searches tied to particular selections, together with:
- Product-versus-product comparisons
- Various-to searches
- Podcast internet hosting suggestions for particular use circumstances
- Questions associated to publishing or monetizing a podcast
Craig additionally sees elevated worth in making these pages extremely particular. As an alternative of manufacturing a generic listing designed to fulfill everybody, Castos can create content material round narrower conditions the place its product has a transparent purpose to seem.
That issues much more as individuals ask customized questions by means of AI platforms. The identical broad query can produce a unique response relying on the consumer’s circumstances, earlier conversations, and said objectives. For Castos, specificity gives one other alternative to point out why the product belongs in that reply.
Turning Free Instruments Into Buyer Acquisition Property
Free instruments often is the most fascinating a part of Castos’ present content material technique. Relatively than publishing one other article explaining find out how to full a podcasting process, Craig’s group more and more tries to create one thing that performs the duty instantly. Many of those instruments signify small items of performance intently associated to Castos’ essential product.
For instance, somebody might have a video file and wish solely the audio. Castos can supply a browser-based software that accepts the file and produces an MP3 with out requiring the customer to buy software program first.
That creates a a lot nearer connection between the search question and the on-page expertise. The corporate’s software concepts are chosen partly by taking a look at particular jobs a podcaster wants to finish, resembling:
- Extracting audio from one other media format
- Enhancing an present audio file
- Changing media into one other format
- Dealing with particular video-related duties
- Finishing small manufacturing jobs earlier than publishing
Craig credit firms resembling VEED and Riverside with demonstrating how nicely this strategy can work. Castos then adapts the concept to the issues its personal potential clients are attempting to unravel.
The group additionally considers every software’s goal earlier than creating it. Some pages are designed to draw clients, whereas others might assist earn hyperlinks or increase Castos’ presence round podcast-related searches. That distinction retains the corporate from judging each web page by the identical metric.
Constructing Free Instruments With AI
The economics of making these instruments have modified as a result of AI can deal with a lot of the event work. Craig says his group can ask Claude to suggest new software concepts, overview them, describe the specified performance, after which use AI to construct a lot of the completed web page. Castos has additionally created templates that inform the system how software pages must be structured.
That construction contains the interactive software close to the highest of the web page and supporting search-focused content material beneath it. Lots of the instruments run fully contained in the consumer’s browser, which retains the working necessities comparatively gentle. Castos would not want so as to add a big server workload each time somebody makes use of a utility.
The workflow permits the group to maneuver from concept to a usable web page shortly:
- AI proposes potential instruments grouped round buyer duties.
- The group evaluates buy intent and enterprise goal.
- Present web page templates information growth.
- A human evaluations the completed consequence earlier than publication.
- Castos promotes new instruments by means of its e-mail audiences.
Craig says the corporate emails clients about as soon as a month and non-customers weekly. These messages give Castos one other option to introduce new utilities as an alternative of relying fully on search engines like google to find them.
Measuring Signups As an alternative of Chasing Site visitors
Attribution stays tough, particularly for a corporation that has been publishing content material for years.
Craig cannot cleanly assign each new buyer to at least one article or software. Somebody would possibly work together with Castos a number of instances, return by means of one other channel, use an advert blocker, or uncover the corporate lengthy earlier than signing up. So the corporate seems to be at broader traits alongside page-level knowledge.
The numbers Craig shared level towards a noticeable change:
- Web site site visitors is round half its earlier degree.
- Free trials have elevated regardless of the decrease site visitors.
- Roughly 25% of recent clients might now come from newer content material initiatives.
- WordPress stays one other main supply of buyer acquisition.
- Integrations, referrals, affiliate relationships, and devoted touchdown pages make up parts of the combination.
The lesson is not that site visitors has stopped mattering. The extra helpful distinction is between site visitors as an exercise metric and site visitors from somebody with a transparent purpose to buy. Castos is discovering extra worth within the second group.
For web site homeowners who spent years chasing bigger site visitors numbers, that may require a significant psychological shift. A graph transferring downward doesn’t mechanically imply the enterprise result’s transferring in the identical course.
Constructing AI Into Every day Operations
AI at Castos extends far past content material creation. Craig describes AI as a continuing subject inside the corporate, with the group utilizing it throughout growth, help, advertising and marketing, and inner operations. He believes workers ought to deal with AI as one other software they be taught to make use of of their day-to-day work.
The corporate offers workers appreciable freedom to experiment with software program which will enhance productiveness. A number of examples present how far that experimentation has gone:
- Builders spend a lot of their time working with instruments resembling Claude Code and Codex.
- An AI help system handles roughly half of Castos’ direct buyer help quantity.
- The corporate is growing inner brokers for help and advertising and marketing duties.
- Castos has moved a lot of its advertising and marketing workflow towards AI-assisted or automated methods.
- Staff members are inspired to spend round 20% of their time engaged on AI methods and experimentation.
Craig has additionally created an open-source challenge referred to as search engine marketing Machine. It will possibly:
- Pull data from sources resembling Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and search engine marketing knowledge suppliers
- Establish content material alternatives
- Create briefs
- Carry out analysis
- Help with writing or updating pages
The corporate has since taken the idea additional by transferring its web site from WordPress to an Astro-based setup constructed round flat Markdown recordsdata. That construction makes it simpler for automated methods to analysis alternatives, put together updates, and push adjustments to the positioning. Human overview stays accessible the place the group desires it.
Giving AI Higher Enterprise Context
One among Craig’s recurring factors is that poor AI output usually displays poor context. A generic mannequin requested to provide a advertising and marketing article with little data might produce generic materials. Castos as an alternative offers AI methods most of the identical sources a human worker would use to do the job.
Meaning connecting methods to firm data, analytics, writing tips, and analysis sources. Helpful context can embrace:
- Search Console knowledge
- Analytics knowledge
- search engine marketing analysis platforms
- Inside documentation
- Firm writing tips
- Buyer help supplies
- Web site construction and templates
- Related discussions from sources resembling Reddit and YouTube
This strategy turns AI use from remoted prompting right into a wider working system for sure elements of the corporate.
Craig nonetheless expects failed experiments. He says he has created many issues that by no means reached clients, and he views that experimentation as a part of studying how these methods work.
Increasing Castos Round Buyer Worth
Castos has operated for roughly eight or 9 years, served 1000’s of consumers, and generated nicely over $1 million in income. The corporate has raised some exterior capital and as soon as employed as many as 15 individuals. As we speak, the group is six.
Its subsequent section is concentrated closely on changing into extra helpful to podcasters fairly than remaining solely a spot to host audio recordsdata. Craig is considering adjoining elements of the podcast workflow, together with:
- Recording and modifying
- Video
- Social media
- E-mail advertising and marketing
- Monetization
- Different instruments used earlier than and after publication
Acquisitions might ultimately be a part of that technique as nicely. Castos beforehand acquired one other small podcast internet hosting platform, with blended outcomes as a result of clients have been accustomed to totally different product options and workflows.
That have has made adjoining merchandise extra fascinating than one other direct internet hosting competitor. A complementary software may increase what Castos provides with out forcing two comparable merchandise and buyer experiences collectively.
Last Ideas
Essentially the most fascinating a part of Craig’s story isn’t how Castos used search engine marketing years in the past. It is how the corporate is responding now that the previous relationship between search rankings, web site visits, and clients has grow to be much less predictable.
Castos is publishing much less for uncooked site visitors and focusing extra closely on pages tied to a purchase order determination. Comparability pages convey the corporate nearer to individuals evaluating merchandise, whereas free instruments let potential clients expertise helpful performance earlier than paying.
On the identical time, Craig is treating AI as a part of how the corporate operates, not a separate experiment: advertising and marketing, help, growth, analysis, and inner methods.
For area of interest website homeowners, SaaS founders, and on-line enterprise operators, the episode raises a helpful query: what would your content material technique appear like if site visitors have been now not the first objective?
Castos’ reply is changing into clearer. Create issues that remedy a particular drawback, place them in entrance of individuals with significant intent, measure enterprise outcomes alongside search metrics, and use AI to make extra of that work attainable with a small group.
