Stop writing blog posts nobody needs

Key takeaways

• Write for the one person who has the problem you solve.
• If a customer hasn’t asked the question, don’t answer it yet.
• Short, specific posts beat long, vague guides every time.
• Your blog is a sales tool, not a library.

I spent two years writing posts nobody read.

Not because the writing was bad. Because I was answering questions nobody asked.

We were building creative review software. So I wrote about “5 ways to speed up your design approval workflow.” The posts got 200 views. Three clicks. Zero leads.

Then we started talking to CPG compliance teams.

One question kept coming up: “How do I know if my label will trigger a recall before the printer runs?”

I wrote a single post answering that. 800 words. No fluff.

That post brought in [VERIFY: number] qualified demos in the first month.

Here’s the lesson: Write what your best customers ask you in private.

The wrong way: content-first

Most content advice tells you to start with keywords. Find high-volume, low-competition terms. Then write around them.

That works if you’re selling cheap SaaS to thousands of people.

Not if you’re selling a $5,000/month compliance service to 50 food manufacturers.

A keyword like “FDA label compliance checklist” gets 1,000 searches a month. But the people searching it are random interns and paralegals. They’re not decision-makers.

The real customer asks: “How do we validate ingredient declarations across 12 packaging SKUs before a regulatory audit?”

Nobody searches that. But that’s the question you need to answer.

So you write for the person who already knows they have the problem. You skip the awareness stage and go straight to the comparison stage.

The one filter I use now

Before I write a single sentence, I ask:

“Would my latest customer have read this before they called me?”

If the answer is no, I don’t write it.

That rule kills 80% of content ideas.

Here’s what passes:

• “What data do you need to pass a 2026 FDA nutrition label audit?” (I just heard this from a VP at [VERIFY: company name].)
• “How to check for EU allergen labeling errors without a lawyer.” (Customer asked if we could automate this.)
• “Why manual label review still causes recalls in 2025.” (Because I see the same error patterns every week.)

Each of those posts is a direct response to a real conversation.

The format that works for bootstrapped teams

I don’t have a content team. I have me and an engineer. So every post has to earn its time.

We use one format: Problem → Specific example → How we solved it → What it costs or doesn’t cost.

No theory. No “industry trends.” Just what happened and what a reader can do with it.

For example:

Problem: A food manufacturer was rejecting 8% of packaging proofs because ingredient order didn’t match FDA rules.
Our solution: Built a script that cross-references ingredient declarations against the CFR Title 21 database.
Result: Rejection rate dropped to 0.5%. [VERIFY: customer name] saved [VERIFY: hours] of manual checking per week.
What you can do: If you’re using any compliance tool, ask them if they check ingredient ordering. Most don’t.

That’s it. 400 words. One concrete takeaway.

What I stopped writing entirely

• Anything with “ultimate guide” in the title. (Nobody needs an ultimate guide to anything. They need the right answer to their specific question.)
• Framework articles. (No more “The 5 pillars of label compliance.” Frameworks are for consultants selling workshops, not founders selling software.)
• Thought leadership. (I’m not John Gruber. My opinions are only useful if they come with a working product attached.)

The one exception

Sometimes a customer asks a question that’s too complicated for a blog post. “How do we handle global regulations across 40 markets?” That’s a demo call or a white paper, not 1,000 words.

Those questions go into a document I call “Monsters.” I store them until we have enough of a product answer to ship a real solution. Then we write about it.

Content that precedes your product capability is just noise.

What I’d do if I started over

I’d write exactly one post every two weeks.

I’d spend the other 13 days talking to customers and taking notes.

Every post would start with a single phrase: “A customer told me…”

Because that’s the only content that’s ever worked for us.

Everything else was just writing.