Software and growth systems for small teams
Engineering as marketing: free tools that bring in customers
The short answer
Engineering as marketing means building something genuinely useful, such as a free tool, calculator or comparison site, that your target customers find through search and use without signing up. It earns links and visits that a blog post rarely would, and it gives you a natural, relevant moment to introduce your paid product.
Most marketing asks for attention. A useful free tool earns it. People search for quick ways to convert a file, check a number or compare options, and the site that solves that problem in the browser wins the visit. If the same audience needs your product, that visit is a warm introduction. SEO agencies often recommend this tactic and then hand it to a developer. I research the demand, design the tool and build it, so the idea reaches production.
SEO reviews and implementation are scoped separately.
What the finished solution should accomplish
Gain an extra acquisition route that sits beside your main site, attracts the right audience through search and keeps working after launch without ad spend.
What this could look like in practice
A creator software company might notice its audience regularly searches for a small, specific editing task. A free browser tool that does exactly that, with no account required, can rank for those searches. Once the job is done, a short, relevant prompt points to the paid product for the bigger version of the same work. I run this pattern alongside my own SaaS products, together with a specialised directory that helps buyers compare tools in the category.
Decisions to make before building
Pick a problem your buyers have that is small enough to solve for free and close enough to your product that the next step is obvious. Check the search demand before building anything. Decide whether the tool lives on your main domain or its own site, how it links back, and what you will measure: visits, completed uses and referrals into the product. Keep it fast, honest and free of signup walls, or it stops being useful.
When a simpler option is enough
If nobody searches for the task, a free tool becomes a marketing cost with no discovery behind it. If the problem has nothing to do with your product, it may attract traffic that never converts. In those cases, programmatic landing pages around your core use cases, or comparison content for buyers already evaluating options, are usually the better investment.
An initial scope could include
- Search demand research for candidate tool ideas, ranked by fit with your product
- A working free tool or discovery site, built and deployed
- Technical SEO, metadata and structured content so it can be found and cited
- Referral tracking from the tool into your product
How we would check the work
- Confirm the tool pages are indexed and appearing for the target searches
- Measure completed uses, not only visits
- Track referrals and signups that start on the tool
Is a free tool better than writing blog content?
For the right problem, often yes. A tool solves the task instead of describing it, so people use it, return to it and link to it. Blog content still matters for questions that need explanation. The two work best together, with articles answering questions and tools doing the job.
What is a specialised discovery website?
A focused directory or comparison site that helps buyers explore every option in a category. It must be accurate, balanced and clear about any commercial relationships, otherwise readers and search engines stop trusting it. Done properly, it also gives AI assistants structured information to draw on when people research the category.
Scope, ownership and working together
You work directly with Joel from discovery through implementation. We agree the outcome, exclusions and acceptance checks before a build. You receive access to the code, deployment and handover documentation. Hosting, third-party services and ongoing support are identified separately; owning the code does not make operating costs disappear.
SEO engagement pricing follows the review and implementation scope. Rankings and enquiry volumes cannot be guaranteed.
Further reading: Google’s people-first content guidance and scaled content policy.
MathersLabs · Updated
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