What is product-led content?
It is content that solves the reader's problem with your product inside the steps. Si Quan Ong, SEO and marketing educator at Ahrefs, puts it in one line in a post published on 3 May 2022: "Product-led content is content that helps the reader solve their problems using your product."
Ong's example is Ahrefs' own list of ways to get backlinks. Each tactic explains how to find link opportunities, and because that needs a tool like Ahrefs, each step shows how to do it in Ahrefs. The post also says what doesn't count: help articles, product announcements and landing pages, which exist to promote the product directly. Product-led content targets people who are looking to learn, not to buy.
Two details from the same post show how Ahrefs puts it into practice. New marketers at Ahrefs complete its academy courses and work in customer support for at least three months before joining the marketing team, which Ong says turns them all into Ahrefs experts. And Ong says the article is, in effect, a start-to-finish guide to how Ahrefs used content marketing to grow to eight-figure annual recurring revenue, a company-reported figure from 2022.
How does Ahrefs' business potential score work?
It rates each topic from 0 to 3 by how easily you can pitch your product while covering it. Ahrefs' keyword research guide, by Tim Soulo, Chief Marketing Officer at Ahrefs, calls it a simple score from 0 to 3. The product-led content post shows the same scale and says Ahrefs prioritises topics that score 2 or 3, so that mentions of the product are natural.
| Score | What it means (Ahrefs' definition, paraphrased) | Ahrefs' example topic |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | The product is an irreplaceable solution to the problem | How to see competitors' backlinks |
| 2 | The product helps a lot, but you can solve the problem without it | SEO tips |
| 1 | The product can only get a passing mention | Marketing ideas |
| 0 | There is no way to mention the product | Social media marketing |
Ahrefs adds two caveats. Ong's SEO content strategy post (22 November 2022) says there is no right way to score a keyword, and a 3 for one business may be a 1 for another. And Soulo's guide says that when Ahrefs categorised all the posts on its blog, 77% scored 2 or 3, with almost none at 0. The guide does not say when that count was made.
How many posts did our blog have, and which did we score?
There were 87 on 20 October 2026, before this research series went live. At that point the siela.in/blog index listed 87 posts in seven categories: Growth 22, CRM & Sales 16, Operations 14, Team Management 13, Meetings 11, Hiring 7 and Customer Success 4. The index page's own headline called them practical guides for running a team.
We scored 20 of them, picked in rough proportion to those categories: 5 from Growth, 4 from CRM & Sales, 3 each from Operations and Team Management, 2 each from Meetings and Hiring, and 1 from Customer Success. The sample is hand-picked, so treat its proportions as a sketch of the blog, not a measurement.
We scored against what the product does today: an AI SDR plus three marketing agents (Social Media, SEO Blog Writer and Competitor Watch), with a built-in CRM, calendar and booking pages, business memory, meeting notes and voice to text. The scores are our own judgement. As Ahrefs warns, someone else could score the same posts differently.
Our scores: 20 posts rated 0 to 3
Two posts scored 3, five scored 2, four scored 1 and nine scored 0. Here is each one, with the reason in a line:
| Post on siela.in/blog | Category | Score | Why (our judgement) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best AI SDR Tools for Small Business (2026) | Growth | 3 | The reader is choosing an AI SDR, which is the thing we sell. |
| How Much Does an AI SDR Cost? 2026 Pricing Compared | Growth | 3 | A buying question about our own category. |
| Buying Signals: 15 Free Triggers a Small Team Can Act On | Growth | 2 | Our AI SDR looks for several of these signals, such as hiring, funding and role changes, but the post is about free manual checks. |
| How to Find Leads on LinkedIn Without Sales Navigator | Growth | 2 | Our AI SDR finds LinkedIn leads without Premium, but free search filters also solve the problem. |
| How to Grow on X in 2026 as a B2B Founder | Growth | 2 | Our X Growth agent posts in your voice and replies to others, but growth depends on what you have to say. |
| Lead Scoring Without a Data Team: A Practical Framework | CRM & Sales | 2 | Our AI SDR scores each lead hot, warm or cold with a one-line reason; a manual points model works too. |
| Cold Email Sequences That Get Replies: Structure, Timing, Copy | CRM & Sales | 2 | Our AI SDR sends your own first email and AI follow-ups in the same thread; the copy advice stands without it. |
| CRM Data Hygiene: 12 Rules That Prevent a Useless Database | CRM & Sales | 1 | We have a built-in CRM, but the rules apply to any CRM. |
| How to Handle Price Objections Without Discounting | CRM & Sales | 0 | A live sales conversation; our product has no natural place in it. |
| What to Automate First: 10 Automations for Small Teams | Operations | 1 | Two of the ten, follow-up reminders and tasks from meetings, touch our follow-ups and meeting notes; the rest don't. |
| What Is Jev AI? TypeSafe's Decision Model Explained | Operations | 0 | A news explainer about another company's model. |
| How to Set Up a Shared Inbox That Doesn't Drop Enquiries | Operations | 0 | Our product has no natural place in a shared inbox setup. |
| How to Run 1:1s That Produce Decisions, Not Small Talk | Team Management | 0 | A management conversation with no product role. |
| How to Prevent Burnout on a Small Team | Team Management | 0 | No product role. |
| Setting Goals That Work: OKRs for Teams Under 20 | Team Management | 0 | No product role. |
| How to Take Meeting Notes That Turn Into Action Items | Meetings | 1 | Our built-in meeting notes fit the section on AI notes; the habit is the point of the post. |
| How to Run a Client Discovery Meeting | Meetings | 1 | Booking pages and meeting notes earn a passing mention at most. |
| How to Write a Job Description That Attracts the Right People | Hiring | 0 | Hiring, with no product role. |
| How to Turn Down a Candidate Without Burning the Relationship | Hiring | 0 | Hiring, with no product role. |
| How to Spot a Customer About to Churn | Customer Success | 0 | Retention signals; our product has no natural place in them. |
The pattern is plain. Every 2 and 3 sits in Growth or CRM & Sales, which are the topics closest to finding and contacting customers. Every 0 sits in Operations, Team Management, Hiring or Customer Success, plus one sales post about price objections.
What do the scores tell us?
Most of the 87 posts we had before this research series help people run a team, and fewer lead to what we sell: 49 of the 87 sit outside Growth and CRM & Sales. Seven of the 20 posts we scored reached 2 or 3. Ahrefs reports 77% of its own posts at 2 or 3, though its count covers its whole blog and is undated, while ours is a hand-picked sample of 20 from a single day.
The 0s are not failures. They answer real questions for the people who read them. But Soulo's guide says topics scoring 2 or 3 are the ones most likely to bring potential customers to your website. On that test, the nine 0s in our sample are the least likely to do that job, however well they rank.
The 2s are the bigger opportunity. In each one the product genuinely helps, yet the post may teach the manual method without showing the product step. Ahrefs' product-led content post covers exactly this case: if existing content already targets topics with high business value, update or rewrite it to include your product.
What we would suggest doing with the scores
These are suggestions for our own blog, not commitments, and there are no results to report yet.
Show the product step in each 2
In a post like 15 free buying signals, keep the free method and add the step where the AI SDR saves each lead to the CRM with the reason it was picked. The manual route stays; the product becomes the shortcut.
Keep the 3s fair
Comparison posts such as best AI SDR tools for small business score 3 because the reader is shopping. They are only useful to readers if competitors are described fairly and our own claims stay checkable.
Leave the 0s alone
Ahrefs' advice is not to force the product where it isn't a good fit. A product pitch bolted onto a 0 post would read as exactly the kind of forcing Ahrefs warns against.
Score topics before writing them
Give every new idea a score first, and favour 2s and 3s. Siela's SEO Blog Writer already checks search volume, the top 10 results and People Also Ask before it outlines, so you could add your own business potential score next to that research before approving the outline.
Score the other 67 older posts
Rate the rest of the original 87 with the same rules, two people scoring separately, and compare. The full count would replace this sample.
How to score your own blog this week
Put every post in a sheet, score each one 0 to 3 against what your product does today, and fix the top 2s first. For a 1 to 5 person team this fits in a week of short sessions.
List what your product does
Write ten lines on what the product does today, and nothing planned. Score against this list only, or every topic will look like a 3.
Export the posts
Copy title, URL and category for every post into a sheet. Add columns for score, one-line reason, scorer and date.
Score twice
Two people score separately, using the four definitions in the table above. Talk through every post where you differ by more than one point.
Fix five 2s
Pick the five 2s with the most traffic. Add one step that shows the product doing part of the job, with a screenshot, and keep the manual method beside it.
Score the next ten ideas
Before anyone writes another post, score your next ten topic ideas. Drop the 0s unless there is a reason other than sales to write them.
Frequently asked questions
What is Ahrefs' business potential score?
It is a 0 to 3 rating Ahrefs uses to judge how easily it can pitch its product while covering a topic. A 3 means the product is an irreplaceable solution, a 2 that it helps but isn't essential, a 1 that it can only be mentioned in passing, and a 0 that it can't be mentioned at all. Ahrefs prioritises 2s and 3s.
Is product-led content the same as a landing page?
No. Ahrefs' Si Quan Ong says help articles, product announcements and landing pages exist to promote the product directly, so they are not product-led content. Product-led content targets people looking to learn how to solve a problem, then shows the product helping with the steps. If the searcher is ready to buy, Ong says you are writing a sales page instead.
What share of Ahrefs' blog posts score 2 or 3?
Ahrefs' keyword research guide, by Tim Soulo, says that when Ahrefs categorised all the posts on its blog, 77% scored 2 or 3 on business potential, and almost none scored 0. The guide does not say when the count was made, so treat it as an undated, company-reported figure.
Should you delete blog posts with a business potential score of 0?
The Ahrefs posts we read advise prioritising topics that score 2 or 3; they do not tell you to delete low scorers. Our suggestion is to keep 0 posts that help readers, avoid forcing a product pitch into them, and stop adding new ones unless there is a reason beyond sales.
How did Siela's blog score on business potential?
On 20 October 2026 we scored 20 of the 87 posts on siela.in/blog before this research series went live, chosen in rough proportion to its seven categories. Two scored 3, five scored 2, four scored 1 and nine scored 0. The scores are our own judgement against what the product does today, and the sample is hand-picked.
Sources
- Ahrefs: Product-Led Content: What It Is, Why Use It, and How to Get Started (Si Quan Ong) (published 3 May 2022)
- Ahrefs: How to Create an SEO Content Strategy (Si Quan Ong) (published 22 Nov 2022)
- Ahrefs SEO Guide: How to Do Keyword Research for SEO (Tim Soulo) (no date shown; checked 20 Oct 2026)
- Siela blog index (checked 20 Oct 2026)