Strategy
Hiring an SEO agency after getting burned: the 30-day test
Find which of 4 patterns burned you, then hire the next SEO agency on a 30-day strategy month you own.
Matt McGee on how The Walkthrough podcast grew from 0 to 5K listeners at a real estate tech company.
Join Matthew Proctor, Founder/CEO of NarrativeBent and Matt McGee, Editor at NarrativeBent as they discuss how they went about creating a successful podcast, The Walkthrough, during their time at a large real estate technology company. Learn about how you might start your own podcast.
Podcast Host
Matthew Proctor, CEO at Narrative Bent
Podcast Guest:
Matt McGee, long time SEO, podcast showrunner, & Editor at Narrative Bent
At NarrativeBent we blend storytelling, strategy, and data to help you build influence and grow your business through content marketing.
Matt is a strategist and creator who specializes in content-focused marketing that drives revenue and retention. He's consulted for clients as big as Target and The Weather Channel, and as small as mom and pops selling wooden pens out of their garage. Matt's skilled in both growth and brand marketing with a proven history of attracting an audience and turning them into a community of raving, brand-loyal fans.
Led content and SEO at HomeLight from Series A to a $1B valuation.
I've worked in SEO for 16 years, and I've always measured it in revenue. I was employee #27 at HomeLight, where I led content and SEO and grew the team to about 30 people as the company went from Series A to a $1B valuation. Before that, I ran enterprise SEO programs at BrightEdge and Catalyst. In 2023 I started Narrative Bent to do the same work for proptech, fintech, and B2B companies with long sales cycles.
Blog leads a month in 10 months, in a rough housing market.
Demo requests from 1 webinar we built and promoted.
The content and SEO program our founding team built.
We'll review your content program for free.
A 30-minute diagnostic of your search and AI visibility with the people who'd run your program.
The newest posts from the same topic.
Find which of 4 patterns burned you, then hire the next SEO agency on a 30-day strategy month you own.
A year of client work changed my mind about GEO as a discipline. I still think the shortcuts are a waste of money.
How to compare content agencies in 2026, what to ask them, and which kind of agency fits which kind of company.
Backlinks, internal links, blog length, author bios, agencies, and whether SEO is snake oil. 17 years of answers.
Traffic forecasts, blogs that don't convert, funnel mix, SEO vs. LinkedIn, and whether your CEO should make content.
3 things that give you the best shot at a mention or link in Google's AI Overviews right now.
A comparison page, an original survey, and a loans content program. 3 times our clients got into AI Overviews.
The search funnel marketers relied on is broken. How we're rethinking the website, discovery content, and SEO.
Content teams rewarded for clicks and impressions end up on the chopping block. Align the team on leads and revenue.
5 checks for using AI in marketing without losing quality, trust, or your brand's voice.
Matt McGee on how The Walkthrough podcast grew from 0 to 5K listeners at a real estate tech company.
Fewer searches end in a click every year. What that means for where your content needs to show up.
What Databox CEO Peter Caputa gets right about content-led growth and social selling.
Readers can tell when copy was written by AI, and it makes them trust you less.
Skip the algorithm chasing. Talk to customers, answer their questions, and earn attention.
People use every platform to learn about everything, including the topics your buyers care about.
What a steady content and link program built for a fitness startup, with no growth hacks.
How a startup can build content and SEO into a multimillion-dollar channel, starting with the first hire.
The salaries, vendors, and 3 to 4 years of patience behind a $1M content program that paid back more than 10X.
Most technical SEO fixes won't move revenue. Content and links do most of the work.
Almost 90% of our writer applicants skipped the writing samples. Here's why that matters.
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