Tim Hanson, Chief Marketing Officer, Penfriend!

 

Hey Tim, can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do in the world of SEO and digital marketing?

 

I started off in structural engineering, oddly enough. I was a drafty, making 3D models of buildings, when I realized I could turn those into visuals for clients. But the construction industry is run by dinosaurs who wouldn’t let me leave my desk, so I pivoted to digital marketing instead. 

 

Skip forward through a redundancy, 28 interviews in 2 weeks, and landing a “junior growth hacker” job (whatever the heck that is), I worked my way up to head of SEO at an agency. When they fumbled the bag with some clients, a couple asked if I could help them as a consultant, and here we are. 

 

Now I’m CCO at Penfriend.ai, where we’ve built AI systems that create content that actually ranks. We currently outrank some huge websites for massive terms with zero backlinking, simply because we have better content. The controversial thing? We’re just doing SEO right while everyone else is trying stupid hacks.

 

Looking back, what pivotal moments or decisions led you to become such a recognized voice in the industry?

 

The first pivotal moment was when my agency let clients go, and two of them asked me to help as a consultant. That unexpected push into independence showed me I could actually build something myself. I’d read The Four-Hour Workweek at uni years earlier, which planted the seed, but this was the catalyst that made it real. Another driver was shifting my perspective on content strategy. I used to chase traffic with the ‘bigger number, better person’ mentality. But I lost clients because traffic without revenue is meaningless. 

 

So, we pivoted hard to focus on bottom-of-funnel first—sales pages, product comparisons, alternatives, and ‘best of’ lists. The money flowed in, and that changed everything about my approach to SEO. The development of Penfriend was probably the biggest turning point professionally. We mapped out the entire human process of creating content and realized you couldn’t write a blog in just a few prompts—it took 20+ distinct steps. Breaking down that process step by step completely changed how we approached content creation with AI. 

 

While everyone else was throwing spaghetti at the wall with generic prompts, we built a system that consistently delivered quality grounded in strategy and not just words on a page. What truly set me apart, though, was just doing the right thing when everyone else was chasing shortcuts. We currently rank above huge websites for massive terms with zero backlinking because we have better content. The controversial thing was actually just doing SEO properly. I just made what I would want to read. And it works.

 

You mentioned that clients are now asking for ‘revenue growth through search’ instead of just ‘SEO services.’ What’s one key difference in how you approach these two requests?

 

The key difference is where you start. Traditional SEO services typically begin with top-of-funnel content, chasing traffic and visibility for awareness-stage keywords. But when a client wants revenue growth through search, I flip the funnel and start with BoFu (bottom-of-funnel) content first. Instead of obsessing over blog traffic that may never convert, we prioritize product-comparison pages, alternative posts, and “best of” list content that directly captures buying intent. 

 

I learned this lesson the hard way after losing clients who had impressive traffic numbers but empty bank accounts. ToFu is nice for user metrics, but the bank doesn’t give a fuck about eyes; they care about sales. Once the revenue-generating pages are up and performing, then we work backward to create supporting mid-funnel and top-funnel content that nurtures prospects toward those money pages. This approach has generated over £38M for clients in the last four years, which is a hell of a lot more valuable than vanity traffic metrics.

 

You’ve had incredible success ranking websites without relying on backlinks, which many see as a cornerstone of SEO. Can you share a specific tactic that businesses can use to improve their content quality and attract organic traffic?

 

The most powerful tactic I’ve used is going deeper on search intent than anyone else. Most SEOs think about intent in the basic categories Google publishes—informational, navigational, commercial, transactional. But that’s surface-level stuff. Real search intent is about understanding the emotional state and context of the person typing in those words. Here’s what works: When researching a keyword, don’t just look at the top 10 results. Look at the featured snippets, “people also ask” sections, and related searches. Then, map out the entire customer journey around that search. What problem are they trying to solve? What have they likely already tried? What’s their technical knowledge level? What objections would they have about solutions? 

 

The most successful pages I’ve created answer not just the primary question but the next five questions they would ask. Create content that feels like mind-reading. If someone searches “best CRM for small business,” they don’t just want a list. They want to know price points that won’t break their budget, the implementation difficulty for non-technical teams, and which options integrate with the tools they already use. They need content that addresses their specific situation, not generic best practices. 

 

The real secret is that you need to know what you’re talking about. Most content out there is written by people who’ve never used the products or experienced the problems they’re writing about. Instead of rehashing the same basic advice, create content that provides genuine insights from experience. When I built out our pages about SEO, I included specific problems I’d encountered and exactly how I solved them—not vague theory. This specificity and depth are what rank without needing artificial backlink schemes because they provide actual value Google can’t find elsewhere.

 

You talked about AI-aware content strategy. What does that look like in practice? Can you give an example of how you’ve used AI to create content that ranks well and resonates with human readers?

 

Let me roll a d6 for length… let’s say we roll a 6, which means I should “go deep, really deep on the topic.” This will be a comprehensive answer that really digs into Tim’s approach to AI content. 

 

For Tim’s writing style: 

 

Conversational but structured 

Direct and solution-oriented 

Enthusiastic about effective strategies 

Some irreverence toward conventional wisdom 

Practical examples and personal experiences 

 

AI-aware content strategy is about understanding where AI fits in the modern search ecosystem—both how it creates content and how it surfaces content. In practice, it’s a complete rethinking of how content moves people through your funnel. 

 

First, you need to understand that most people are doing AI content creation completely wrong. They’re asking the AI to do things they themselves have no idea how to do properly, then getting mad when the results suck. The AI never did it wrong—they just didn’t understand the process well enough to explain it. When we built Penfriend, we started by mapping out every single human decision point in creating a blog. We initially thought it might be 5-10 steps, but it turned out to be 22+ decision points. The current version uses hundreds of prompts to write a single blog because we realized each section needed even more granularity. 

 

We had a client in the B2B SaaS space competing against enterprise companies with 50+ content people. We couldn’t match their output volume with traditional approaches, so we needed topical authority with less content. We used Penfriend to create the first drafts of deeply researched, comprehensive articles targeting bottom-of-funnel keywords first. But here’s the crucial part—I didn’t just publish the AI output. I refined it, added real examples from our experience, and injected a human voice that resonated with our target audience. 

 

The results were insane. We pushed search traffic to 200K/month in three months, outranking major competitors for valuable commercial terms. The content took a day instead of weeks to produce, and we didn’t waste time with lengthy approval processes. Traditional marketers were stuck in endless review cycles while we were already ranking and converting visitors. 

 

What makes this approach different is understanding the division of labor. AI excels at research synthesis, structure, and first drafts. Humans excel at personal experiences, nuanced opinions, and emotional connections. I let AI handle the heavy lifting while I add my unique human elements.

 

Many businesses are understandably wary of AI-generated content. How do you ensure the content you create using AI tools maintains a human touch and avoids sounding robotic?

 

What’s important is understanding that AI shouldn’t replace humans – it should amplify them. Most businesses try to make every prompt sound like their brand voice, which is a mistake. Instead, we let each specialized prompt do its technical job well, then apply a comprehensive style transformation at the end. It’s like having an expert ghostwriter who gets all the facts right, then a final editor who makes it sound like you. 

 

I always include real examples, personal anecdotes, and controversial opinions that the AI would never generate on its own. The secret sauce is injecting those uniquely human elements – your specific experiences, client stories, and industry insights that no one else has. People connect with content that feels like it was written by someone who’s been in the trenches, not content that regurgitates general knowledge.

 

People will search with AI, but they will still buy from humans. So, focus your human-touch efforts on bottom-of-funnel content where purchase decisions happen. Your AI process should handle the heavy lifting but save some energy to add those personal flourishes that robots can’t replicate – that’s the difference between content that ranks and content that converts.

 

You mentioned a client who wasted 100k on content that didn’t have the right technical foundation. What’s one actionable piece of advice you’d give to businesses to avoid making a similar mistake?

 

Start with the technical foundation before spending a penny on content. I see this all the time—businesses drop massive budgets on content creation without first ensuring their site architecture can support and distribute authority to those pages. The client who blew $100k had beautiful content, but their site structure was a complete mess, with critical commercial pages buried six levels deep and internal linking that told Google, “Please ignore our money pages.” 

 

My actionable advice is this: Map your site architecture on a whiteboard first. Start with your core money pages (the ones that actually generate revenue) at the center, then build supporting content clusters around them. Make sure no critical page is more than three clicks from your homepage. Then, set up proper internal linking that pushes authority to these revenue-generating pages. Content without the right technical foundation is like putting Ferrari engines in cars with square wheels—all that power gets you nowhere. Fix your technical foundation first, then create content that supports your money pages—not the other way around.

 

For those looking to break into the world of SEO and content marketing today, what’s one piece of advice you’d give them based on your own experiences?

 

Run your own website and actually rank for something. So many people want to get into SEO, but they’ve never actually ranked a website for anything. Don’t just read articles and watch YouTube videos—get a WordPress installation, pick a niche you give a damn about, and try to rank for 5-10 targeted keywords. You’ll learn more from that hands-on experience than from a hundred courses.

 

When I was starting, I worked on side projects while learning the ropes. That practical experience was invaluable because I made all the mistakes on my sites before touching client work. And here’s the thing most newcomers miss: Learn how to do everything manually first before jumping into automation tools or AI. You need to understand the fundamentals of keyword research, on-page optimization, and content creation with your brain before you can effectively use tools to scale those processes. The people crushing it in this industry aren’t the ones with the fanciest tools—they’re the ones who deeply understand the principles and can adapt as the landscape changes.

 

What are you most excited about for the future of SEO and digital marketing, and what trends are you keeping a close eye on?

 

I’m most excited about the massive filtering effect AI is having on the industry. The bar for content quality is going up exponentially, and all those agencies pumping out generic, shallow content (if you can even call it content) are going to get absolutely obliterated. It’s going to separate the real marketers, who understand human psychology, from the ones who’ve just been gaming a system for years. 

 

The evolution of search with AI overviews is fascinating to watch. Where we used to have featured snippets, we now have these AI-generated summaries, and it’s completely changing how we approach ranking. Basic informational queries are increasingly being answered directly by AI, which means the whole top-of-funnel approach needs rethinking. 

 

I’m watching closely how this will redistribute search traffic and which types of queries still send users to websites. Content repurposing is an area that excites me. We’re working on tools that can take one piece of well-researched content and intelligently transform it into dozens of formats and channel-specific pieces without losing the core value. 

 

The leverage this gives smaller teams is incredible – you can compete with massive content operations at a fraction of the cost. The trend I’m betting on the biggest is the polarization between AI-driven discovery and human-driven conversion. People will search and find things with AI, but they will still buy from humans. The businesses that thrive will be the ones that understand this dynamic – using AI to handle wide-net discovery while investing in authentic human connection points as prospects move closer to purchase. 

 

This means radically different content strategies for different funnel stages. I’m also keeping my eye on how search intent is evolving. The traditional informational/navigational/commercial/transactional model is becoming outdated. We’re developing much more nuanced frameworks for understanding the complex emotional and contextual factors behind searches. The marketers who can map content to these deeper intent patterns will have a massive advantage.

 

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

 

The one thing I’d hammer home is that there are no shortcuts in this game. While everyone’s distracted by the latest AI tools or algorithm hacks, the fundamentals remain unchanged—create genuinely helpful content that solves real problems for real people. I’ve seen businesses waste obscene amounts of money chasing trends while completely neglecting the basics of good marketing. Despite all the technology, we’re still just people trying to connect with other people. 

 

The best SEO strategy will always be to deeply understand your audience and create something genuinely valuable for them. I built my career by rejecting the bullshit conventional wisdom and focusing on quality and results. The controversial thing I did? I just made what I would want to read. And it works. So while the tools and tactics will keep evolving, that fundamental truth won’t change—be useful, be authentic, and the results will follow.