Jared Smith interviewed seasoned internet business consultant Lyndon (Darth Autocrat) about his “Content Stacks” method for developing a content blueprint. Its been couple of years since I’ve following Lyndon on X and reading his content! I find it way more informative and easy to follow through & more importantly Lyndon likes to engage and answer questions of people which is so rare in this SEO industry.
Like many folks regularly publish content on like well known SEO publication, Search Engine Land but when I ask something specific about their piece on X (publicly) or if reach out to them on LinkedIn. They never reply clarify what they wrote in their piece but Lyndon isn’t like that & just because of this I love to read his long threads on X (unfortunately because of a medical issue he is offline and isn’t on X nowadays hopefully will recover soon & be back).
Recently he was on Growth Boss (interviewed by Jared Smith) discussing a business-first approach that prioritises audience needs over chasing keywords and word counts. The discussion covers why marketers should start with their most profitable products, the myth of topical authority, a practical link-building philosophy, the role of AI, and a sobering look at the future of SEO in a world of AI Overviews.
Lyndon talked about Content Stacks, Topical Authority, Link Building and Digital PR, future of SEO space and Google sending traffic to open web & about this he said ……
Which is a wake up call! 🧐
I’ve used Gemini 2.5 Pro in Google’s AI Studio to curate parts of information below! and have also added relevant links for key terms to make it more informative!
Key Takeaways
- Business First, SEO Second: Your content strategy should start with your core business offerings—specifically, the products and services with the highest margins and conversion rates—not with keyword research.
- Focus on Completeness, Not Word Count: While longer content tends to rank better due to how search algorithms work, the true goal should be “completeness.” Create content that answers the user’s initial question and all their likely follow-up questions to provide a satisfying experience.
- Abandon Fluffy “Topical Authority”: Creating endless pages to “cover a topic” often results in low-value content that doesn’t serve the business. Instead, build a “content stack” of articles, guides, and comparisons that directly support your core product/service pages and guide users through the sales funnel.
- Build a “Content Stack,” Not a “Blog”: Most businesses don’t need a traditional blog. They need a structured collection of content (case studies, white papers, comparisons, guides) designed to answer questions, handle objections, and drive conversions.
- Use AI as a Tool, Not a Crutch: AI can be a phenomenal tool for research and drafting, but it requires a strong human element for review, fact-checking, and adding unique insights. Don’t rely on it blindly.
- The Future is Mentions: Ranking in AI models will likely depend heavily on brand presence, citations, and mentions, not just links. Expect “mention spam” to become the new link spam.
- The Best Links are Earned: The most valuable links are earned organically from content that is genuinely useful to your peers, such as templates, cheat sheets, and unique data.
- The Future of SEO is Diversification: Google is increasingly keeping traffic on its own properties (like AI Overviews), which will reduce organic traffic to websites. SEO professionals must diversify their skills into broader digital marketing (social, paid media) or develop their own products/tools to survive.
Full Episode Transcript
Introduction
Host (Jared Smith): Welcome to the Growth Boss podcast, where we seek out the secrets to high-performing campaigns from some of the smartest marketers in the world. I’m your host, Jared Smith. Today, I have Lyndon with me, and he’s going to teach us his content stacks method on developing a content blueprint.
Lyndon, widely recognized by his online moniker, Darth Autocrat, is a seasoned internet business consultant specializing in search engine marketing, encompassing both SEO and PPC, as well as content marketing, social media, user experience, conversion optimization, and online reputation management. With a reputation for fixing what other SEOs broke, Lyndon brings a wealth of experience and a critical eye to the digital marketing landscape.
Lyndon, thank you so much for being here today.
Guest (Lyndon): Thank you for having me.
Host (Jared Smith): Absolutely. And Lyndon, you are the first guest I’ve ever had on here that who is not showing their face, which I think adds to kind of the intrigue and suspense of what we’re about to do. So, for all our podcast audience that doesn’t watch this on YouTube, I think we’re all super excited to learn from you.
Guest (Lyndon): Well, it’s not like they’re missing much.
Keys to a Content Blueprint: Fulfilling Audience Needs
Host (Jared Smith): So, Lyndon, talk to us about content marketing and developing a content blueprint. What are some of the keys to success?
Guest (Lyndon): The primary one is basically fulfilling your audience’s needs. I don’t know when it happened, but content became a major commodity. Google kind of pushed it. The more content you have, the better your rankings in general.
The more topics you cover, the more opportunities to rank, and all of a sudden the web just burgeoned with information—and a lot of copies, a lot of clones, and a lot of misinformation with it. The result is there’s an awful lot of content out there that isn’t needed, isn’t accurate, and doesn’t actually help your business. People spend thousands building websites and filling them up with fluff.
So the idea is you get back to bare basics. You’re in business. You have a website for business. You should have content that serves that business.
Topic Selection: Beyond Keyword Research
Host (Jared Smith): A lot of people look at content these days because of how Google has pushed it from an SEO perspective. So they run the keyword through Ahrefs or whatever their favorite SEO tool is. That tool tells them, “Okay, here’s all the different topics you need to cover.” What is the appropriate way to view topic selection in the first place?
Guest (Lyndon): It’s a terrible thing for an SEO to say, but it’s not starting with keyword research. I can hear people grabbing pitchforks and torches.
You have products, you have services, you sell those. In some case, you’re a publisher, you have news. That’s what people are there for. You don’t go off and go, “Okay, what’s the most searched for thing this month?” That’s not how you do a business. If you were a brick-and-mortar shop, you wouldn’t be running around going, “Oh, somebody mentioned socks. Let’s sell socks.” You just wouldn’t do it.
Instead, you look at what you’ve got, what your services are, what your products are. Then you look at which ones have the biggest margins, which ones if you sold will make you the most money, which ones have the highest conversions.
Work out where the overlap is—the intersect. Those are your primaries. You build those out so that you’ve got a solid set straight away. If someone searches for that product or service, you’ve got a page to convert them then and there. Then you work it backwards.
Page Content and Word Count: Is Longer Always Better?
Host (Jared Smith): Okay, very good. So, let’s talk about the specific pages that somebody’s going to create. Again, because of Google’s influence, the average SEO is going to say, “Hey, the top five pages that rank for XYZ term have an average of 3,000 words, so therefore, we need to have an average of 3,000 words.” Do you agree with that?
Guest (Lyndon): Yes and no. It’s Google has made a rod for their back and everybody else’s. The way that it basically works is things are comparative. They’re relative. So Google will see what seems to satisfy people out of what they’ve already scored up. What’s relevant? They go, “Okay, this matches that query. These all through our algorithms hit all the right notes. This is our base set.”
The problem is that causes a kind of skew because everyone goes and copies. So you end up with all these little parrots and it gets a bit lossy. A bit like if you photocopy the same thing repeatedly… you actually lose details.
And the same happens with content. We end up basically going, “Okay, what ranks? That ranks. Let’s create a version of that.” And it warps it more, and it’s not actually a guarantee that that’s actually the best thing.
You have to trial it. Sometimes you have to go, “Okay, they all say this. We could try this and we’ll suck it and see.” And every now and then that new thing, that’s actually what people have been after, but nobody’s done it. You become a clear knockout winner. Other times it’s like, okay, that doesn’t work. Let’s emulate what everyone else has done. We’ll just do it better.
I call it completeness. How complete is a piece of content that will answer the original question and all subsequent ones? And it’s not a secret. Google have literally spelled it out to us for over 15 years.
When you look at the SERP, they give you suggestions when you start typing. They give you suggested searches at the bottom, and then you’ve got things like the “People also ask” block. So you can literally see how people progress and migrate from the start of their journey to the end. So you can see what you should be covering in your piece or in a directly linked-to subsequent page.
So, a 500-word page generally won’t cut it these days. Unfortunately, Google denies the bias, but it’s basically irrefutable. You don’t need to exactly match what’s out there. If everyone else has got 3,000 words, you can do it with 2,000-2,500 so long as you answer the questions that are coming.
Rethinking Topical Authority
Host (Jared Smith): Brilliant. Now, one of the pieces that you provided in the pre-show document was to forget about topical authority. I’m a big fan of topical authority, so I’m excited to learn maybe where I’ve misunderstood the concept. Where are SEOs getting topical authority wrong these days?
Guest (Lyndon): There’s two parts. You have Topical Authority and then you have Topic Maps. And there is a big thing with topic maps. You know, “Oh, you’ve got to cover all these terms. We’ve raided a thesaurus and we’ve pulled out 52 other variants that you’ve got to cover.”
It just creates an awful lot of fluff content that people don’t typically search for, don’t generally want, and those few that do come for the wrong reason. These aren’t tied to your business.
It’s a bit like having a bookstore and being a library. One does not really complement the other. You may think you’ll get tons of people to come to your library and buy books, but what actually happens is they all come, they all look, they all check books out for free, and nobody actually buys anything from you.
That’s what happens with all this topical map stuff. You are better off investing in content that does lead to conversions, if not directly be a conversion. The other thing is Google is cracking down more and more.
They crawl less often. They index less. If you don’t meet certain thresholds… Google will just go, “Yeah, we’re only going to index 50% of your pages now.” So again, you’re just spending money on content that isn’t needed.
The “Content Stacks” Method vs. Traditional Blogs
Host (Jared Smith): And so your favorite form of content is really focusing on the questions that your consumers and customers are asking. Are you publishing these FAQs as subpages under your main money pages? Are you doing it as blog posts? Where do you like to put this content?
Guest (Lyndon): I hate the word “blog” Most people don’t need blogs. A blog, technically, originally was a weblog, a bit like a diary. The problem is people built content management systems for blogging and it’s stuck.
Most people actually produce articles or guides or instructional pieces, educational material. And that’s what a content stack is. You build out the relevant content formats people need to answer their questions, handle their objections, walk them through the sales funnel, and get them to convert.
It depends on the nature of your business, the type of client—B2C, B2B, high ticket, low ticket—and then you build out the relevant content. If you’re selling shoes, you don’t really need tech sheets.
If you’re looking at B2B and higher-end hardware, you’re looking more at white papers, case studies, data and analysis, success stories. One that works across the board in most cases is comparisons. And you see people mention it all the time… but which type? You can do you-versus-them, them-versus-them, multi-product comparisons, or best-of lists.
They’re all valid forms, but different types of products and services for different markets will prefer different types. You need to be able to figure out which ones to invest in.
The Role and Risks of AI in Content Creation
Host (Jared Smith): Lyndon, what are your thoughts on AI content? AI is getting pretty smart these days. Don’t you think it can kind of determine what the user wants, or not so much?
Guest (Lyndon): Yes and no. It’s a tough question. I personally have objections to the way that it’s all come about. I personally think it is IP theft, copyright breach. On the other hand, it’s phenomenal. It is impressive. We have come on leaps and bounds.
What we’ve got now is basically a lot of the chat stuff is statistical parrots, but it does the job. It’s not bad at what it does. It will get better. You can refine it, you can constrain it, you can get it to validate. Sash and I spent a while building out a system so that we can input stuff and it will go off, check it, come back, and correct it for us, which saves us a ton of time and effort. That’s now becoming standard.
I don’t advise people to rely on it. Instead, you need that human element. You need to review it. You need to vet it. And you need to add to it.
Getting Ranked in AI Search
Host (Jared Smith): What are your thoughts on getting ranked in AI SEO, AIO, whatever the flavor of the day is? Getting ranked in ChatGPT, Gemini—what are some of the commonalities that you’ve seen so far?
Guest (Lyndon): Based on just initial research and logic, it boils down to presence. They were scraping pages left, right, and center. So it boils down to: are you mentioned elsewhere? Are you where they were stealing content from? It’s not rocket science. It’s promotion. It’s being mentioned. It’s being referenced. It’s being cited. So, there isn’t really anything new there to do.
Host (Jared Smith): So, because this is looking more at mentions than it is links, do you anticipate that mention spam is going to be the new link spam?
Guest (Lyndon): Oh, yeah. The spam sector, to be honest, are possibly the fastest moving thing in physics. If there is an opportunity, there will be a spammer there within 30 seconds. Brand mentions, citations, references, getting tie-ins and associations… all of that’s coming. To be honest, the fact it isn’t already here is somewhat shocking.
Link Building Philosophy: Earning vs. Arranging Links
Host (Jared Smith): I’d like to hear about your link building philosophy and how that’s changed over the years.
Guest (Lyndon): It hasn’t really changed. I’ve basically been stuck in like 2015. Links come in two flavors. There’s the stuff that you arrange. I don’t like going to cheap, tacky, nasty, mass link sales companies because 90% of the links are useless.
If you’re going to pay money, do it with a higher quality service that vets sites, or you go privately. You reach out and say, “We’re not competitors, we do overlap. Can I sponsor a page? Can I have a mention? How much?”
That leads to DPR, digital public relations, which in most cases nowadays is just posh link building. It’s not bad… but quite often you’re on a page that gets buried within 15 minutes. I don’t recommend doing it solely for SEO. Do it for publicity, awareness, perception, traffic, and conversions.
Third, and my favorite though it is time-consuming, is earning links. Having content that people will link to. The problem is that generally means you need content for your peers, not your customers.
Customers don’t buy a washing machine from you and then go, “Oh, I’ve got a website, I’m going to tell everyone.” It just doesn’t happen. Instead, figure out who your peers are… and create something useful for them. Things like templates, cheat sheets, guides, infographics, anything like that. Over time, it will acquire links bit by bit.
Insights from Google Leaks (DOJ, API)
Host (Jared Smith): What did SEOs miss from the recent Google leaks, like the DOJ leak or the API doc leak? What was something that nobody quite caught on to?
Guest (Lyndon): My biggest one which has just come up today is the clicks. Google uses clicks. Back in, oh, it predates 2012. We’ve had 10-plus years of different parts of the SEO sector going, “Oh, it’s bounce rate. Oh, it’s time on page. Dwell time. Oh, it’s first click.” It’s like, really? There’s research papers, there’s patents that cover implicit feedback. All of this is fairly well-documented.
You have a search session. Someone searches for something, they click on a result. If they’re happy, they go away. If they’re not happy, they may come back and click on a different listing or they may tweak the query. It’s not rocket science. It’s been in our face almost every core update because you can see it in Google Search Console. Why it was ever such a big question, I don’t know.
The Future of SEO: A Shakeup is Coming
Host (Jared Smith): My last question is, what are you looking forward to right now with this crazy landscape that we live in and the AI overviews taking over the search results? What’s most exciting to you right now?
Guest (Lyndon): Getting out of it. I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but yeah, SEO is in for a fairly big shakeup. It’s not OpenAI, it’s not Anthropic, it’s not Perplexity… it’s Google. Google is basically killing web traffic.
They’ve been doing it for 10 years, slowly but surely throttling traffic back. Knowledge panels, FAQs, instant answers, featured snippets, now we’ve got AI overviews. Google doesn’t want you to go to a website. Google wants you to think Google has all the answers and spend money through Google, because that’s coming. It’s all going to be pay-to-play.
Web traffic from search is just going to plummet. By 2027, we’re going to be looking at like 20% of what it was. It’s just… unless there is a big swing from legal there, nothing’s going to stop Google from doing it. So either you’ve got to broaden your scope and become a digital marketer and handle things like social and paid, or you got to learn to bake things and go off and do something else.
How to Connect with Lyndon
Host (Jared Smith): Amazing. Well, Lyndon, thank you so much for your time. We will link to your X account from the show notes. Is there any other way that you want people to connect with you?
Guest (Lyndon): Well, there’s the website if they feel the need. It’s a shambles. We don’t really have a lot of time for it… but occasionally we do throw up the odd bit of content. People are more than welcome. Come say hi, ask questions. Always around, always happy to help. Social media is there for social. Don’t be afraid.
Host (Jared Smith): I love it. Thank you so much again. Appreciate your time.
Guest (Lyndon): Thank you.
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