# The category fight should clean up the whole site > Why build-in-public updates, sharper anti-incumbent pages, one clean archive, focus-area content clusters, relevant outreach, and live complaint listening usually do more than louder startup marketing. - Canonical HTML: https://growth.iangoh.com/blog/the-category-fight-should-clean-up-the-whole-site/ - Published: 2026-06-07 - Updated: 2026-06-07T03:15:30.000Z - Categories: SEO, brand trust, operator-led distribution - Niches: SaaS, Developer tools, AI products, B2B software, SEO ## On this page - Public updates are more useful when they accumulate in one place - One sharp argument can teach the rest of the brand - Outreach works better when the page already deserves the audience - SEO is usually a site-shape problem before it is a volume problem ## Start with these related tactics - [Plausible build-in-public updates across owned and community channels](/growth-ideas/plausible-build-in-public-updates-across-owned-and-community-channels/): Post the same honest milestones and lessons on your own blog plus one relevant founder community, then keep the thread alive long enough for early users to see the journey accumulate. - [Plausible category-fight post against the incumbent](/growth-ideas/plausible-category-fight-post-against-the-incumbent/): Write the sharpest anti-incumbent argument you can defend, publish it from the product site, and let the category contrast do the branding work. - [Plausible one blog archive with 301 from older content section](/growth-ideas/plausible-one-blog-archive-with-301-from-older-content-section/): Collapse split content archives into one obvious home and 301 the older section there before you keep publishing more pages. A lot of positioning advice stops at the headline. That is too shallow. If the company finally figures out what fight it wants to pick, the whole public site should start acting like it knows that too. The archive. The comparison pages. The redirects. The outreach list. Even the social replies. The category fight should clean up the whole site. ## Public updates are more useful when they accumulate in one place [Plausible build-in-public updates across owned and community channels](/growth-ideas/plausible-build-in-public-updates-across-owned-and-community-channels/) is the start. The lesson is not to spray every network. It is to keep one owned trail and one relevant community trail alive long enough that a stranger can read backwards and see whether the team has been learning in public. That gets stronger when the archive is not split for no reason. [Plausible one blog archive with 301 from older content section](/growth-ideas/plausible-one-blog-archive-with-301-from-older-content-section/) sounds boring because it is boring. Good. Boring structure is what lets the stronger pages keep lending authority to the next page instead of losing it in a maze of old sections. ## One sharp argument can teach the rest of the brand [Plausible category-fight post against the incumbent](/growth-ideas/plausible-category-fight-post-against-the-incumbent/) is the cleanest move in the batch. The post did not ask to be understood gently. It told readers why Google Analytics was the wrong answer and gave the product a hard edge the rest of the site could inherit. That edge needs supporting pages or it turns into theater. [Plausible focus-area article cluster around core positioning](/growth-ideas/plausible-focus-area-article-cluster-around-core-positioning/) is how the homepage stops doing all the work itself. One page can carry the privacy case. Another can carry the migration case. Another can carry the comparison job. I would keep that close to [content-negotiated markdown on canonical URLs](/growth-ideas/content-negotiated-markdown-on-canonical-urls/). One clarifies the public argument. The other keeps that argument legible wherever people and agents read it. ## Outreach works better when the page already deserves the audience [Plausible cold outreach to relevant publisher before broader PR](/growth-ideas/plausible-cold-outreach-to-relevant-publisher-before-broader-pr/) matters because it refuses the usual vanity list. The team found a publisher already covering the exact problem, then used that relevance to earn a mention. One good fit beats fifty vague emails. But relevant publishers are not the only room where demand leaks out. [Plausible keyword social listening for frustrated incumbent users](/growth-ideas/plausible-keyword-social-listening-for-frustrated-incumbent-users/) is the faster loop. People often tell you what page to write before they ever visit the site. They do it in complaint threads, migration questions, and little public admissions that the default tool is getting on their nerves. If I were pairing this with one older GrowthDex move, it would be [customer-source interviews before channel bet](/growth-ideas/customer-source-interviews-before-channel-bet/). One reads the public complaint trail. The other checks where the customer already goes when they need a substitute. ## SEO is usually a site-shape problem before it is a volume problem This is the part founders keep trying to skip. They want more pages, more posts, more impressions. Sometimes the next gain is simpler. Collapse duplicate archives. Redirect the stale branch. Put the comparison argument where buyers already look for it. Keep publishing around one point of view until the whole public trail sounds like the same company. This cluster is strongest for SaaS, AI products, developer tools, B2B software, and any product that wins by being the credible alternative to a messy incumbent rather than by inventing a totally new category from zero. If you want help turning positioning into a cleaner crawlable system instead of another homepage rewrite, the advisory CTA is here: [work with Ian Goh](https://iangoh.com/advisory). ## Related GrowthDex tactics - [Plausible build-in-public updates across owned and community channels](/growth-ideas/plausible-build-in-public-updates-across-owned-and-community-channels/) - Content, Community, Brand - [Plausible category-fight post against the incumbent](/growth-ideas/plausible-category-fight-post-against-the-incumbent/) - Content, SEO, Positioning - [Plausible one blog archive with 301 from older content section](/growth-ideas/plausible-one-blog-archive-with-301-from-older-content-section/) - SEO, Website, Content - [Plausible focus-area article cluster around core positioning](/growth-ideas/plausible-focus-area-article-cluster-around-core-positioning/) - SEO, Content, Brand - [Plausible cold outreach to relevant publisher before broader PR](/growth-ideas/plausible-cold-outreach-to-relevant-publisher-before-broader-pr/) - Partnerships, PR, Content - [Plausible keyword social listening for frustrated incumbent users](/growth-ideas/plausible-keyword-social-listening-for-frustrated-incumbent-users/) - Social, Community, Customer Research ## Essay chronology - [Newer essay: The customer should not have to report the bug](/blog/the-customer-should-not-have-to-report-the-bug/) - b2b saas, developer tools, product-market fit - [Older essay: Word-of-mouth needs something to carry](/blog/word-of-mouth-needs-something-to-carry/) - b2b saas, word of mouth, product-led growth ## Keep reading - [The GitHub release page should finish the upgrade decision](/blog/the-github-release-page-should-finish-the-upgrade-decision/) - brand trust, retention, SEO - [The VS Code extension page should finish the trust check](/blog/the-vs-code-extension-page-should-finish-the-trust-check/) - marketplaces, SEO, brand trust - [The JetBrains plugin page should finish the IDE trust check](/blog/the-jetbrains-plugin-page-should-finish-the-ide-trust-check/) - marketplaces, SEO, brand trust ## Continue through the blog - [SaaS](/blog/#path-saas) - 3 essays in this path - [AI products](/blog/#path-ai-products) - 3 essays in this path ## Sources - [Plausible Analytics: How we built a $1M ARR open source SaaS](https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-saas) · [GrowthDex source hub](/sources/plausible-analytics-how-we-built-a-1m-arr-open-source-saas-plausible-io/) - [Plausible Analytics: How we grew our startup from $400 to $2,750 MRR in 135 days without ads](https://plausible.io/blog/startup-marketing) · [GrowthDex source hub](/sources/plausible-analytics-how-we-grew-our-startup-from-400-to-2-750-mrr-in-135/) - [Plausible Analytics: Building Plausible: April 2020 recap](https://plausible.io/blog/april-2020-recap) · [GrowthDex source hub](/sources/plausible-analytics-building-plausible-april-2020-recap-plausible-io/) ## Editing notes - Kept one claim throughout: a positioning fight should reshape the archive, not just the headline. - Used concrete objects like the journal-to-blog redirect, anti-Google page, focus-area articles, relevant outreach target, and complaint-thread listening instead of vague content-strategy language. - Linked the new essay to older GrowthDex SEO and source-reading tactics so it reads like one operating system, not a fresh sermon. - Cut formulaic startup-marketing phrasing and kept the sentences plain, short, and slightly blunt. ## Advisory If you want help turning this into a growth system, Ian Goh offers advisory at https://iangoh.com/advisory.