Free Tools as an SEO Engine: How SiteGPT, Supademo and Late Turn Search Into Signups
Free tools are the most repeatable SEO engine in these interviews: build small, ungated tools around low-difficulty search terms that sit right next to your product, and end each one with a reason to try the paid product. SiteGPT says almost ninety percent of its Google traffic comes from about 50 free tools. Supademo says its ungated tools bring roughly 20% of its traffic and turn 15 to 20% of those visitors into signups.
We transcribed the Starter Story interviews with transcribe.so and searched them by speaker and timestamp, so every quote below links to the moment it was said. Think of this as notes from the friend who actually watched the whole thing. Revenue and traffic figures are self-reported by the founders. Disclosure: we sell a transcription service, and we are not affiliated with Starter Story; links go to their original videos. This is part one of the Founder playbooks series.
In the interviews we read in November 2026, SiteGPT reported $13,000 in monthly recurring revenue, Supademo just over $250,000 a month and Late $40,000 a month.
| Company | What they built for search | Self-reported result | Moment |
|---|---|---|---|
| SiteGPT | About 50 free tools, one per keyword | Almost 90% of Google traffic | 01:47 |
| Supademo | Comparison pages, ungated tools, how-to pages | Tools: about 20% of traffic | 04:53 |
| Late | High-intent pages, then ads on the same terms | Paid search: about $15,000 a month | 08:10 |
| Elephas | Help articles and a listicle | A help article ranked first for 6 to 8 months | 11:31 |
How does SiteGPT turn free tools into signups?
SiteGPT sells a website chatbot, and its founder calls the approach engineering as marketing. The site has built almost 50 free tools: a PDF to markdown converter, a chatbot name generator, and similar one-job utilities. His summary of where Google visitors land is blunt: "almost ninety percent of Google traffic is from these free tools that we made" (01:47).
The funnel he described is modest and honest. Around 50,000 visitors a month become about 200 leads, about 60 trials, and 25 to 40 percent of those trials become customers (02:37). Free tools are not a shortcut to a huge conversion rate. They are a cheap way to keep the top of that funnel full.
Two rules make it work. First, every tool must attract someone who could plausibly buy the main product. Second, once a few tools exist, the next one is mostly a copy. He told the interviewer a new tool takes him under 5 minutes: he points his coding assistant at the existing tools and asks for a new one for a new keyword (05:39).
SiteGPT's seven-step keyword process
He walked through the exact process on screen (08:26):
- Open a keyword research tool and search with the keyword box empty, so you see everything.
- Filter by an include term that fits your product, such as "AI" plus "generator".
- Keep only keywords with a difficulty under 10.
- Keep only keywords with at least 1,000 monthly searches.
- List the survivors in a document with volume and difficulty.
- Write the call to action that will sit under each tool and lead to the main product.
- Build a table with volume, difficulty, effort to build and relevance, then build the easiest, most relevant, highest-volume tools first.
Why does Supademo build a page for every competitor?
Supademo makes interactive product demos. Its founder described a full-funnel plan where free tools are only the middle layer (04:53).
At the bottom of the funnel, the team wrote a comparison page against every competitor it could find, because that is "the easiest way to piggyback off of their traffic" (04:53). The first version of each page was deliberately imperfect. The team then checked which pages were being cited by AI answer engines and picking up traction, and optimized only those.
In the middle of the funnel, Supademo built dozens of free tools in adjacent spaces, such as screenshots and step-by-step guides, and made parts of the product usable with no account at all. Those tools bring roughly 20% of all traffic and convert 15 to 20% of visitors into signups.
At the top, the team made programmatic how-to pages, each with a working demo embedded: how to export a design file to PDF, how to merge cells in a spreadsheet (07:32). The bet was that solving the question inside the product would show enough visitors why they need it. Today the founder puts 30 to 40% of visitors down to search and AI engines, 30% to word of mouth and 20% to building in public (09:08).
How does Late combine organic and paid search?
Late sells a social media API to developers. Its founder skipped social content and put everything into Google (04:00).
On the organic side, the team targets bottom-of-funnel keywords with 300 to 800 monthly searches, low competition and very high intent, such as "social media API" (07:04). He credits organic search with about $8,000 a month in recurring revenue.
On the paid side, the team bids on the same terms, with one landing page per ad group, and sets a target cost per acquisition of $120. He said they spend around $8,000 a month, get $2.50 back for every dollar, and that paid search brings in about $15,000 a month in recurring revenue (08:10).
His launch advice is to publish 10 to 15 high-quality pieces in the first week: articles, landing pages or free tools, each with a big call to action (10:41). At the end of the episode the host added the caveat every SEO plan should carry: "Google search is not dead, but informational queries are dead" (17:50). People still search to buy a tool. They ask an AI assistant how to write a good post.
What did Elephas learn from help articles and listicles?
Elephas, a Mac AI assistant, found SEO by accident. A plain support article on creating API keys ranked first on Google for six to eight months (11:31). The traffic was low intent, but it showed the team what people search for. Its next move was a listicle of the best AI Mac apps, which ranked first and now also gets visitors from AI answer engines, a group the cofounder called even more high intent because they arrive ready to buy (12:42).
His filters are looser than SiteGPT's because the content is articles, not tools: keyword difficulty under 20, volume above 500, a list of 30 to 50 topics, and two or three posts a week to start (13:45).
What to copy
- Pick keywords before you build. Filter for low difficulty and real volume, then rank by relevance to what you sell. SiteGPT's table of volume, difficulty, effort and relevance is a good template.
- Make one tool, then clone it. The second tool should take a fraction of the time of the first. Keep the shared layout, swap the keyword and the job.
- End every tool with the paid step. Write the call to action before you build the tool, not after.
- Ship rough comparison pages, then double down on the ones that get cited. Supademo's rule saves weeks of polishing pages nobody reads.
- Prefer transactional pages over informational posts. Late's host caveat and Elephas's listicle both point the same way.
- Buy ads on the terms you already wrote pages for. One page per ad group, with a cost per signup you decide before launch.
If you want to try the research method on these episodes yourself, our free YouTube transcript tool gives you a timestamped transcript of any public video. The next post in the series covers YouTube search as a growth channel, and part three covers Reddit for your first 100 customers.
Frequently asked questions
What is engineering as marketing?
Engineering as marketing means building small free tools that people search for, so the tools attract visitors who might buy your main product. SiteGPT built about 50 of them and says they bring almost ninety percent of its Google traffic.
How many free tools does a SaaS need?
There is no fixed number in these interviews. SiteGPT has about 50 and Supademo has dozens, and neither said how many it launched with. Start with the handful of keywords that score best on volume, difficulty and relevance.
Do free tools still work now that AI answers many searches?
The founders in these interviews say yes for tools and buying searches, and no for generic how-to articles. Late's host put it as informational queries being dead while searches for a specific tool still convert. Supademo also tracks which of its pages AI answer engines cite.
Should free tools require a signup?
Supademo made its tools usable without an account and reports that 15 to 20% of tool visitors still sign up. Gating the tool removes the reason people searched for it, so put the signup ask after the result instead.