SEO & GEO FOR STARTUPS
SEO & AI search for startups
Your product works, and buyers still don't find it. SEO for startups fixes that: it builds the Google rankings and AI mentions that bring buyers without paying for every click. I build that channel with you, with the same engine I run for my clients and for this site.
Results from my SEO clients
From 15 to 50+ website inquiries a year
“Two and a half years ago our website got about one click a day. Today it's around 50 on a normal day and over 100 on the best ones, and Google shows us in AI answers more than 1.000 times a day. What matters most to us are the inquiries: from around 15 a year to more than 50. Automotive is having a weak year. We are having a good one, and SEO is a big reason why.”
+65 % Google impressions right after the relaunch
“We paid an agency a lot of money for a new website that Google barely noticed, and we kept buying ads to make up for it. Christian rebuilt the site from scratch with an SEO strategy for our parts. A few weeks after the relaunch we rank first for our core product, Google shows us far more often, and AI answers pick us up too.”
The three biggest pain points of startup founders
“We pay for every visitor.”
Ads bring traffic as long as the budget runs. The day it stops, the leads stop. Search is the one channel where the work of this quarter still brings buyers in two years.
“ChatGPT recommends our competitors.”
Buyers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews which tool to pick. The answer names three or four companies. If yours is missing, you never hear about the deal you lost.
“We have a blog. Nobody reads it.”
Articles for keywords nobody searches, or for keywords a young domain can't win in year one. Content without a plan behind it costs money every month and brings no buyers.
My method: an SEO strategy built on buyer awareness
Eugene Schwartz described five stages of buyer awareness in Breakthrough Advertising in 1966: unaware, problem aware, solution aware, product aware and most aware.
Each stage searches with different words, against different competition, at a different price per click. I map every keyword to its stage first. That decides which pages we build, which offer sits behind each one, and what comes first.
Problem aware
Searches about the pain, not the product. Little competition and cheap clicks. The strategy puts guides here, with a free template or a short survey that turns readers into leads.
Solution aware
Searches about approaches. The strategy targets how-to and comparison queries, plus the questions people ask ChatGPT before they shortlist, with your product as the shortcut.
Product aware
Searches about vendors. Expensive clicks and buyers ready to sign. The strategy goes for alternative keywords and the questions around pricing and integrations.
From 0 to 1 in 12 months
- MONTH 1
Find your unfair advantage
We sit down together and define your strategy. We find the gaps, analyze what your competitors do and miss, and pick the openings they leave you. You leave with a plan your team can act on.
- MONTHS 2 TO 12
Execute the plan
We work through the plan with new articles, optimized pages and technical fixes. I write myself or guide your team. We iterate and adapt monthly based on real data.
- AFTER MONTH 12
Let buyers find you
Rankings and AI mentions keep building on each other. We widen your reach, rewrite what ages and keep every page up to date, so the inquiries keep coming without paying for every click.
- 1ANTHROPICSEO LEAD$320K
- 2STRIPEHEAD OF AEO & SEO$315K
- 3HARVEYSEO/GEO LEAD$294K
- 4TIKTOKSEO MANAGER$244K
- 5APPLETECHNICAL SEO MANAGER$236K
- 6AMAZONSEO/GEO MANAGER$185K
SaaS SEO: turn searches into revenue
Get found before buyers know your name
One page per use case puts you in front of buyers while they're still looking. They search for the job, not for your brand: invoicing for freelancers, reporting for agencies.
Win buyers who are ready to switch
Comparison pages and alternatives catch buyers on their way out from your competitor. "[Competitor] alternative" and "X vs Y" are the searches closest to a purchase, so we build them first.
Get recommended by ChatGPT
GEO puts you on the list when a buyer asks AI for the best tool in your category. It is part of every plan. How GEO works
How We Can Work Together
Is your startup a good fit?
Good fit
- You're starting to find product market fit, but your website was never built to be found
- You have paying customers and want more of them without raising the ad budget
- You want content that sounds like your company, instead of generic AI slop
- You're between seed and Series B and want to win where your competitors aren't looking yet
Bad fit
- You don't have product market fit yet and hope traffic will find it for you
- You want rankings, but no funnel turns visitors into customers yet
- You want mass content pumped out by AI, not articles built from interviews and your own voice
- You want page one by next month, or a guaranteed ranking
Who you'll work with
A product coach who does SEO
I'm Christian Strunk, 13 years in product. I run SEO and GEO for my clients with my own SEO engine, and I think in buyers and revenue, not in rankings alone. More about me
Proven on my own site first
This site runs on the same engine I use for clients. Its Google clicks more than tripled within a year, and nine out of ten come from outside Germany.
Let's figure out if I can help
Let's Talk
Book a free 30-minute call and we go through your situation.
Questions founders ask about SEO
As soon as you know who buys and why. Before that, keyword research is guesswork, because you do not know yet which problem you sell. After the first paying customers, start: a young domain needs months to rank, and that clock only runs once you begin.
Both, for different jobs. Ads buy you answers this week: which message converts, which audience buys. SEO builds the channel that still brings buyers when the ad budget pauses. I use what your ads already taught you to pick the keywords, so the two feed each other.
For most startups, a consultant. An SEO agency sells hours and often hands you to a junior team, while a consultant works on your business directly. I work as an AI SEO consultant for startups: my own SEO engine does the research and the heavy lifting, and you get one person who knows your product, your buyers and your numbers.
GEO, short for generative engine optimization, gets your company named when buyers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews for a recommendation. Most of those answers are built from pages that already rank, so GEO stands on SEO and is part of every plan. If your buyers ask AI before they buy, you need it.
SaaS buyers compare before they talk to sales, so the pages closest to a purchase matter most: alternatives, comparisons, integrations and use cases. SaaS SEO consulting with me starts there, because those pages bring revenue first, and builds the guides for earlier stages around them.
With me, from €2.000 a month, net, with the analysis and the strategy included. I recommend twelve months, after that it runs month to month. A one-off audit is possible too. We settle the exact scope and price in the first call.
Pages that already sit on page two can move within weeks of a rewrite. New pages on a young domain usually take several months. AI answers can move faster, because one well-placed page or a mention on the right list can get you named. That is why I recommend twelve months.
Connect Google Search Console on day one. Write down the questions buyers ask in sales calls and answer each one on its own page. Get listed on the comparison sites and directories of your category. Those three steps cost no money and every later step builds on them.
Yes. I work remotely with startups in any market and any language. This site runs on the same engine I use for clients, and nine out of ten of its Google clicks come from outside Germany.