SEO for Founders - A golden WHAT?

As a founder, the last thing you want to do is keyword research and content optimisation. You’d rather be building and shipping your product.

In this post, I’ll share a simple SEO strategy called the Keyword Golden Ratio (KGR) that can help you gain authority fast without complex tools or spending big bucks.

Why SEO Matters for Founders

As a founder your goal is to build authority in your industry. You want to be seen as a leader and expert.

SEO helps with that. It shows you know your stuff and gains you organic traffic. More authority means more trust from potential customers.

It also helps justify higher pricing down the line and reduces customer churn. Basically, SEO provides fuel for future growth.

And you don’t need fancy tools. Free plans on Mangools or LowFruits work fine when starting out.

Understanding KGR for Founder SEO

KGR stands for Keyword Golden Ratio. It helps you find underserved keywords that you can target easily. Popularised over 10 years ago by Doug Cunnington.

The logic is simple — take any keyword and divide the monthly search volume by the number of Google search results.

Understanding the Role of the Keyword Golden Ratio (KGR) in Creating Content

When you use the KGR, you typically focus on long-tail keywords (phrases with 3+ words) that have a moderate search volume (less than 250 per month) and minimal existing content targeting the exact phrase.

The KGR score helps predict the likelihood of a blog post or other content types quickly climbing search rankings.

This approach is particularly advantageous for new websites with limited traffic. Crafting a high-quality blog post around a KGR-friendly keyword can lead to quick ranking, often within a few days, bringing immediate organic traffic to your post.

Where to look up keyword monthly search volume?

I use Mangools. They have a free plan. You can use UberSuggest, lowfruits.io or any other tool you fancy.

You want that ratio to be 0.25 or less.

The lower the better.

For example-

“founder productivity tips”

Google Results: 389 Search Volume: 110

Ratio = 110 / 389 = 0.28

That’s a bit high.

The goal is to find keywords very low competition.

Just ask questions people would search instead of broad keywords.

Now How Do You Actually Find Good Keywords?

Simply brainstorm topics related to your product or service. Similar to “zero search volume” content.

What problem would people be searching for?

Next go to your keyword tool of choice. Under the volume filter 1–100 and difficulty 0–35.

Scan through and look for promising questions and phrases. No more than a few minutes.

Lastly, run potentials through the KGR formula using “allintitle:” in Google.

Zero in on ones ≤ 0.25.

We’ve got a good one…

Turn that into a blog post right away.

Yes — in a few hours you can rank and drive real traffic to your site by publishing helpful information.

Rinse and repeat.

Over time you build authority through an expanding content base. And have real data to improve upon vs guesses. Patience pays here.

What’s next?

SEO for founders doesn’t need to be complicated. The KGR method let’s you start simple and be effective.

Gaining authority through search is crucial for any new business. Doing SEO the right way takes time but builds real long-term value.