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 visitors modifications, and AI reshapes on-line advertising. 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 visitors falls whereas trials rise.
Craig based Castos, a podcast internet hosting SaaS firm serving hundreds of shoppers. 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, assist, improvement, and inside operations.
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Buying Distribution Earlier than Constructing the SaaS
Castos did not begin by deciding to construct a podcast internet hosting platform from scratch after which trying to find clients afterward. The corporate grew from a podcast enhancing and manufacturing service that gave him shut publicity to podcasters and the issues they have been making an attempt to resolve.
Then one in all Craig’s clients launched him to somebody promoting Significantly 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 grew to become the distribution basis for what would develop into Castos. Craig’s group constructed a paid SaaS product that linked instantly with the plugin, giving podcasters internet hosting, analytics, and associated options past what the free WordPress product supplied.
A number of particulars present why the deal mattered:
- The plugin was lively on roughly 20,000 WordPress websites.
- Craig acquired it for a number 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 solely easy. An replace linked to the brand new product initially broke WordPress websites for some customers, forcing the group to repair the issue shortly.
As soon as that subject was resolved, Castos had one thing many SaaS corporations spend years making an attempt to create: direct entry to individuals already utilizing a associated product. Craig describes distribution as one of many hardest components of constructing software program at the moment, particularly when creating the software program itself has develop into 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 grew to become one in all Castos’ main buyer acquisition channels. The corporate printed the kind of web optimization 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 grew to become one of many extra seen corporations in podcasting search outcomes, and at its peak the technique helped generate hundreds of free trials per 30 days.
Then search conduct modified. AI instruments started answering extra questions instantly. Google began inserting 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 visitors it as soon as did. On the similar 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 interested by 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 entice substantial visitors with out creating many shoppers. As we speak, Craig’s group spends extra time on content material linked on to a buying resolution.
The shift is much less about abandoning content material and extra about giving every web page a clearer enterprise goal. A smaller viewers may be much more worthwhile 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 various content material. Somebody trying to find a normal 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 worthwhile even when their search quantity appears to be like 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 instances
- Questions associated to publishing or monetizing a podcast
Craig additionally sees elevated worth in making these pages extremely particular. As a substitute 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 special response relying on the consumer’s circumstances, earlier conversations, and acknowledged targets. For Castos, specificity supplies one other alternative to point out why the product belongs in that reply.
Turning Free Instruments Into Buyer Acquisition Property
Free instruments could be the most attention-grabbing a part of Castos’ present content material technique. Fairly than publishing one other article explaining the best way 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’ fundamental product.
For instance, somebody might have a video file and wish solely the audio. Castos can provide a browser-based instrument 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 instrument concepts are chosen partly by taking a look at particular jobs a podcaster wants to finish, resembling:
- Extracting audio from one other media format
- Bettering 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 corporations resembling VEED and Riverside with demonstrating how properly this strategy can work. Castos then adapts the thought to the issues its personal potential clients are attempting to resolve.
The group additionally considers every instrument’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 instrument concepts, assessment 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 instrument pages ought to be structured.
That construction contains the interactive instrument close to the highest of the web page and supporting search-focused content material beneath it. Lots of the instruments run solely contained in the consumer’s browser, which retains the working necessities comparatively gentle. Castos does 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 thought to a usable web page shortly:
- AI proposes potential instruments grouped round buyer duties.
- The group evaluates buy intent and enterprise goal.
- Current web page templates information improvement.
- A human opinions the completed outcome earlier than publication.
- Castos promotes new instruments by means of its electronic mail audiences.
Craig says the corporate emails clients about as soon as a month and non-customers weekly. These messages give Castos one other method to introduce new utilities as an alternative of relying solely on search engines like google to find them.
Measuring Signups As a substitute of Chasing Visitors
Attribution stays tough, particularly for an organization that has been publishing content material for years.
Craig cannot cleanly assign each new buyer to at least one article or instrument. Somebody may work together with Castos a number of occasions, return by means of one other channel, use an advert blocker, or uncover the corporate lengthy earlier than signing up. So the corporate appears to be like at broader developments alongside page-level knowledge.
The numbers Craig shared level towards a noticeable change:
- Web site visitors is round half its earlier stage.
- Free trials have elevated regardless of the decrease 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 visitors has stopped mattering. The extra helpful distinction is between visitors as an exercise metric and 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 visitors numbers, that may require a significant psychological shift. A graph transferring downward doesn’t routinely imply the enterprise result’s transferring in the identical course.
Constructing AI Into Day by day Operations
AI at Castos extends far past content material creation. Craig describes AI as a relentless matter inside the corporate, with the group utilizing it throughout improvement, assist, advertising, and inside operations. He believes workers ought to deal with AI as one other instrument they study 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 assist system handles roughly half of Castos’ direct buyer assist quantity.
- The corporate is creating inside brokers for assist and advertising duties.
- Castos has moved a lot of its advertising workflow towards AI-assisted or automated programs.
- Group members are inspired to spend round 20% of their time engaged on AI programs and experimentation.
Craig has additionally created an open-source challenge referred to as web optimization Machine. It may:
- Pull data from sources resembling Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and web optimization knowledge suppliers
- Determine 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 programs to analysis alternatives, put together updates, and push modifications to the location. Human assessment stays accessible the place the group needs it.
Giving AI Higher Enterprise Context
Considered one of Craig’s recurring factors is that poor AI output usually displays poor context. A generic mannequin requested to provide a advertising article with little data might produce generic materials. Castos as an alternative offers AI programs most of the similar sources a human worker would use to do the job.
Which means connecting programs to firm data, analytics, writing pointers, and analysis sources. Helpful context can embody:
- Search Console knowledge
- Analytics knowledge
- web optimization analysis platforms
- Inner documentation
- Firm writing pointers
- Buyer assist 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 components 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 programs work.
Increasing Castos Round Buyer Worth
Castos has operated for roughly eight or 9 years, served hundreds of shoppers, and generated properly over $1 million in income. The corporate has raised some outdoors 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 turning into extra helpful to podcasters relatively than remaining solely a spot to host audio recordsdata. Craig is considering adjoining components of the podcast workflow, together with:
- Recording and enhancing
- Video
- Social media
- E-mail advertising
- Monetization
- Different instruments used earlier than and after publication
Acquisitions might finally be a part of that technique as properly. Castos beforehand acquired one other small podcast internet hosting platform, with combined outcomes as a result of clients have been accustomed to totally different product options and workflows.
That have has made adjoining merchandise extra attention-grabbing than one other direct internet hosting competitor. A complementary instrument may increase what Castos affords with out forcing two related merchandise and buyer experiences collectively.
Remaining Ideas
Essentially the most attention-grabbing a part of Craig’s story isn’t how Castos used web optimization 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 develop into much less predictable.
Castos is publishing much less for uncooked visitors and focusing extra closely on pages tied to a purchase order resolution. Comparability pages deliver the corporate nearer to individuals evaluating merchandise, whereas free instruments let potential clients expertise helpful performance earlier than paying.
On the similar time, Craig is treating AI as a part of how the corporate operates, not a separate experiment: advertising, assist, improvement, analysis, and inside programs.
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 visitors have been now not the first objective?
Castos’ reply is turning into clearer. Create issues that resolve a selected downside, place them in entrance of individuals with significant intent, measure enterprise outcomes alongside search metrics, and use AI to make extra of that work potential with a small group.
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