* this amazing post

** educate you about an SEO thing

50M in organic traffic:

Natural links from the most authoritative sites on the web, such as:

Mozilla, Stripe, GoDaddy, Bing, Hubspot, Canva, TheVerge, FreshDesk, Inc…

Ranking for some baller keywords (that definitely relate to the product/service they sell):

Okay, your interest is piqued, here’s the site:

SmallPDF.com!

[Doofus Rick voice] It’s a tools site, Jerry! PDF tools!

​

I first started using this site in 2019 when I sold my first (mega successful) affiliate site, and have been diligently paying $8/mo since–it’s SO CONVENIENT.

And when I one fine day looked at their traffic, I damn near fell out of my seat (like this, but metaphorically):

So what’s the secret to their success?

Flawlessly executed SEO.

Look at this page they’re ranking in the top spot for the keyword “PDF to JPG” (almost 250k s/m!)

No bullshit.

No fluff

~ 600 total words on page (including menu/footer/etc.)

Giving the user what they want…

That’s a useful god damned page.

It doesn’t hurt that the page has picked up a TON of natural links, like this one from ZenDesk, where a support ticket for a ZenDesk user suggest someone use a PDF to JPG tool:

Or this one, from a DR 86 website on a page about passports:

Further down the page there’s a block of articles relating to this very topic…

so relevant

so silo

They’re also cashing in on offering posts/services in different languages:

Nice. Several tool pages and blog posts are being written in many different languages, as you can see from their sitemap:

​

All right, so what is working here and what can you take away to your own site?

Covering the topical map

No, not that confusing shit that you need a bottle of adderall and an advanced statistics degree to understand what the fuck they’re actually saying.

This site has every useful tool you could possibly want all on offer, all linked very sexily from the bottom of every page.

want to edit a PDF?

they got that.

Want to rotate a PDF?

got it.

PDF to word/excel/ppt/jpg

They got it DAWG.

They fucking got it.

Topical map: covered.

The content is useful, not just stuffed full of shit like a foie gras goose

Let’s look at a random blog post (and maybe their old content sucks but I’m looking at the new stuff).

Look at how they nailed this page:

Above the fold section

It’s got:

1. pre-heading(?) that states a question people probably type often when looking for this solution
2. big, straightforward H1
3. intro, then it gets RIGHT to answering the searcher’s query (and oh look, this can be solved by a tool they own, imagine that–very easy-to-read or scan numbered points

Below that:

A gif showing exactly what the tool does (so easy!)

A button that solves ALL your problems.

And then:

Finally, some FAQ-style content, but not the shitty FAQ-style content that most 4,000 word articles staple on the end of their shit that almost NO ONE is actually reading except search engine spiders (no judgment: I’ve made these pieces of content 100x b/c it WORKED/works/IDK…)

But this is like… useful, next-step questions about this specific workflow if you’re looking to delete pages from a PDF.

The blog content, as a whole, is some very targeted, very helpful content

One thing I see happen again and again and again and again with sites that start stacking authority and ranking well for things:

They overreach. They try and rank for EVERYTHING, Forbes styles. And it works, usually, for a while… until it doesn’t.

They get absolutely lost in the sauce…

The content spirals further and farther away (you don’t know which one it is) from their core topic, so when an algo update comes along and goes

nuh uh uh

that’s the technical SEO term, don’t listen to the haters

Traffic takes a BIG hit and thousands of keywords lost that never deserved to rank in the first place.

I *love* what SmallPDF is doing with their content.

It’s just going for helpfulness one post at a time. Look at this shit:

Every post addressing a single problem or question, and the answer to almost all of those questions is OH YEAH BY THE WAY, USE OUR TOOL IT’S SO USEFUL!

Wonderful.

A quick recap of why this site is doing so well:

1. a useful tool that solves actual problems and gets natural links
2. isn’t just a content/affiliate site
3. no fluff, no BS, actually useful pages (tool pages) that rank for all versions of the target keyword
4. content/tools cover the ENTIRE content map–deep expertise
5. tons of helpful content addressing very specific questions that reinforce expertise.

I can tell you that I’m building out a site that offers a very useful product in an absolutely KILLER cutthroat niche, and I’m following the SmallPDF playbook for building things out.

You can have your ranch-style content, or argue about TF-IDF or whatever…

but I’m going to do what the site that his this Similar Web traffic graph is doing:

FYI, this was originally published in my [amazing] newsletter, so if you like this shit and you’re not on the list, fix that right here:

Why?

It concluded (through a very scientific study SARCASM) that Vermont loves cheese the most.

That’s it!

What does that have to do with Online Casinos, the site behind this cheesey post?

Nothing!

Does that stop them from writing about it and doing outreach?

Nope.

Does that stop legitimate news sites and other websites from linking to their dopey cheese post?

Clearly not:

Here’s How They Did It (Probably)

I don’t have direct insight into their emails and shit, so this isn’t EXACTLY how they did it, more like: here’s how YOU can do it.

First: they found a topic that everyone can relate to (cheese).

Next: they interviewed 2,000 people from around the country. I don’t have a lot of insight into how exactly they did this, but you can use a service like Centiment to put together a survey and get it in front of people for your “data set.” I’m actually a bit interested in this, so I might dig into a bit more–how can you quickly put together a significant list of people and get them to answer your question so it looks legit enough to present it as data.

Then: they put together a nice shareable graphic and wrote up their findings:

Finally: I assume they juiced their efforts with a press release campaign (see below). I also wouldn’t be surprised if they engaged in some targeted outreach at journalists that like to write about shallow topics FOR THE CLICKS. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if the link I saw in the /r/vermont reddit was posted by a Reddit account that exists to just spread posts like this on behalf of that company or some service. It’s what *I* would do–you KNOW journalists are just cruising subreddits for shit to write about.

This is what people mean when they say “digital PR.”

You can see from the anchor text spread that most of the links are coming from the press release campaign:

But it’s still early days, and Ahrefs is just starting to discover these links, so I am assuming over the next week or two we’ll see many more link coming in both from the PR campaign AND from other writers seeing the post and writing about it.

Here’s what the two non press-release looks like.

This one is from PennLive.com:

And this one from a Texas newspaper:

Why It Matters

You have to know that casino sites are hard to get natural links to. The payoff is big for ranking well, and the competition is stiff. I know that casino sites have stupidly large link building budgets to get links however they can.

So to set up a campaign like this for–I’m assuming–significantly less than their monthly link building budget–it’s a big win.

And the list I just described is probably pretty easy to pull off–even for a fairly small team with a relatively small budget. Also if you have ANY kind of business that’s more reputable than an online casino–bonus! You’ll have an easier time getting links I would think.

Also: the more you can make the post about your main topic, the more powerful the campaign and the links will be.

If you’re a pet food site and you do a similar survey about the most respected pet food brand or something, those links will juice the absolute shit out of your relevancy and authority. If you’re a CBD brand, no one cares about CBD (and no one wants to link you) so–like casinos–you gotta write about stuff outside your sphere of relevancy…

Hopefully you can use this post as a springboard for your ideas–how can you get some stupid shallow, barely scientific post up that people are gonna love to link to–and then take action and get it done.

If you do, shoot me an email and LMK!

Also! If you liked this, definitely sign up for my newsletter cuz there’s more where that came from.

It’s free, it comes out weekly, and it’s amazing.

All my favorite podcasts and Matt Diggities do it every year and I’m like

hey guys

i’m ALSO an influencer… look at my thought leadership-y confidence and my iconoclastic disregard for 583 years of punctuation and capitalization standards!

So, without further ado…

1. Here’s what I think is in store for affiliate site owners in 2024:

Figure out how to turn your affiliate site into a brand that offers something else besides affiliate shit (unless you are a huge gigantic media company, in which, hello! It’s nice to meet you. Slide into my inbox and let’s talk about how you can hire me!).

Seriously, can’t you see all your affiliate-focused SERPmates are on display in museums, just bones now–they don’t even know if you had FEATHERS, that’s how extinct you are…

(that’s a velociraptor joke, people, LFG)

The days of your DR 22 “best butter knife” rankings are numbered.

BTW–this post first appeared in my newsletter–if you’re not subscribed please take a minute to do it, it’ll make you feel 10 years younger

2. Parasites and Spammy Search Results Will Continue For Infinity Years

Google has handed off the curation of any search results in which they HAVEN’T stolen the click from you by stealing your data to display as their own to the big magazines and news sites.

These sites will continue to charge $$$$ for placements of sponsored posts, which will continue to rank.

Stupid, manipulated search results that surface UGC will continue to be low quality and help no one.

Google calling these things “helpful content updates” is a case study in amazing marketing.

It’s not even that “they can’t fix it” they’re just clearly manipulating the search results to both artificially promote news/zines + UGC from DR 90 sites like Reddit, Quora, and (lol) Google Groups, plus whatever humungous sites SEOs can find to post about the best VPN to game Google’s new pay-to-play SERPs.

3. Parasite Sites Will Finally Figure Out That You Can Make More Money Writing Your Own Stupid Affiliate Content

Many have already done this. You can no longer buy posts like you used to could cuz they are writing their own posts, internally linking them in ways they never would to your sponsored post, and ranking for lucrative keywords.

The dual play here is to charge you $x,xxx to $xx,xxx to be somewhere in the top 10, and THEN also use affiliate links.

Double dipping that chip, baby.

So I think parasite opportunities will migrate away from these big sites toward finding some Harvard subdomain or old-ass Reddit threads in order to complete your parasite play.

4. Moving Away From Organic Traffic Will Be A Trend That Picks Up Steam In 2024

He said, running an SEO newsletter…

Building a brand and, specifically, building a community will be much more important goals as Google continues to fuck up the SERPs and push down “the little guy” trying to rank for anything worth ranking for.

Guess I’m still an optimist…

I don’t think SEO is going away–there’s too much money there, and I still have enough self-respect left not to be a dipshit “SEO is Dead” motherfucker (unless, you know, I’m doing it ironically).

But I do think the expectations for organic traffic need to be managed going forward (unless your site has the juice) and that more and more SEO dollars will start to be invested in building a brand/building a community.

~

That’s it for my own predictions!

But that’s not the end of the predictions!

I’ve searched around for all the influencers making predictions for the new year of SEO, and now I’m gonna share them with you and weigh in with my thoughts.

Talk about a god damned parasite…

Here we go!

Selected Predictions From SEO Influencers I Have Opinions About (the predictions–not the influencers)

(these first predictions are taken from SE Journal)

Kevin Indig:

If Google’s frenzied algorithm updates in 2023 have shown us one thing, it’s that the bar for content and domain quality has risen faster than we thought. In 2024, we need to find ways to scale the production of high-quality content and groom our content portfolio.
​
The most obvious way is using AI, but we need to significantly increase the output quality and add human input. In some cases, AI might be the wrong content creator, but I think we underestimate how good it can really be.

I think AI content will continue to kill it as long as you don’t brag about it on Twitter and have it go viral in pursuit of eternal glory fleeting attention for your AI tool.

I don’t personally think “high quality content” will help you rank–I think “high quality content” will help you build a name for yourself and a following independent of search results that will pay dividends for the work put in, but probably won’t help with organic traffic specifically.

Eli Schwartz:

Generative results in search mean that SEO moves from the top of the funnel to mid-funnel:

Instead of targeting keywords with the most search volume to hopefully peel off the maximum amount of clicks, SEO efforts will need to be more deliberate to target the right users with the right keywords.

Strongly agree with this–though I’d replace “generative results” with “AI-generated content in general.” In addition to SEO getting more difficult (with Google outsourcing their rankings to the big zines/news sites), SEO is shifting to the middle of the funnel. I think that’s an amazing way to frame it.

Katie Morton (SE Journal)

Helpful content is king. Google has made it clear that, when it comes to content, helpfulness is more important than ever. Users are increasingly listening to and watching content, and marketers are finding that use of video increases sales.

With the helpfulness of multimodal content, along with Google’s increasing ability to understand video, audio, and images, it stands to reason that multimedia content will begin to play a bigger part in SERPs in 2024.

Wow, I do not agree with this AT ALL. Maybe it’s my own bias against creating mult-media content cuz I get an A+ in writing and a “can we recast this guy for someone better looking and who is about 89% less awkward on camera?” when it comes to audio/video content.

I don’t think helpful content is king, you only have to look at Lily Ray’s twitter feed from, like two weeks ago to see the utter garbage in the SERPs even now, after approximately 800 million Google updates in the past few months.

However, I do very much agree with this:

It will be more important than ever for SEO pros to work closely with marketing, sales, product managers, and web developers to capture highly-qualified leads. User Experience (UX), content design, and conversion rate optimization (CRO) will be key to capturing the traffic SEO pros bring to business websites and platforms.

This has long been a problem.

“Okay, bud, you got this fire hose of organic traffic coming to your site but your site looks like shit and you’ve put 0 hours into optimizing for UX, CRO, and the customer journey.”

It will be EVEN MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER if you think I’m right (via Eli’s above prediction) that SEO is becoming a more MOFU (middle of funnel) thing and less of the TOFU (you can figure it out, come on context clues!).

Cyrus Shepard

Google can’t likely read your logo, but users can, and Google can read users. Likewise, if you label your blog “Blog” in your navigation, how about labeling it something to show your expertise, such as “Protein Research,” “Tennis News,” or “Coffee Blog.”

Solid advice, IMO. Part of standing out and specializing when trying to “build a brand.”

Just don’t look at menu where it says “blog…”

~

(these next predictions are selected from the LowFuits.io KW tool blog post)

First of, all: OMG, that cringey header image.

YOU GUYS. We can’t let the youtube thumbnail trend reach our blog post featured images!

We gotta band together and unionize against this. I’ve never cared about ANYTHING more than this IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.

No.

Okay, onto their predictions:

#1. Unique, first-person content backed by experience will start winning

Depends.

This is the current 3-5 spots for “best VPN.”

I feel pretty confident saying that these results won’t be replaced by super nerdy techy people talking about why this particular VPN is the best VPN (because, spoiler alert: it’s the one that pays the best affiliate rate. simple).

Maybe that’s true for some very specific instances, but for keywords that REALLY matter (aka $$$) “how to keep your data safe online” or “best CBD oil” etc., your knowledgable persona is never gonna outrank Forbes or Healthline–otherwise fucking Chong of Cheech and Chong would outrank all these corporate dickheads amirite?

Just keep checking these big searches and see how much it matters to be a big, general authority and not a “person that knows things.”

Calling it now: “first person content backed by experience” is the new voice search.

#2. Google will try figuring out a better algorithm for what ”quality content” really is

would that we all could live in the beautiful world you imagine is outside the warm, safe, comfortable walls you live in, free from monsters and the raging wind, the tricks of mean-spirited gods and the various and inventive horrors of your fellow man.

It will ALWAYS be shit and/or huge authority sites.

#3. Google will try to battle Parasite SEO

~

(these next predictions are selected from the Moz post on 2024 predictions)

All right, so. Look–I was gonna pick several predictions from this list like I did from the places I covered in the lists above, but…. damn, they’re like the same three predictions over and over, so I’ll just summarize them + my responses to make it quick:

1. Google is going to rely on personal expertise to wildly transform the SERPs to be actually useful
2. People will increasingly look for their information in other places, like TikTok, Youtube, Pinterest, etc
3. SGE is gonna show up and fuck shit up for SEOs

To which I will respond:

1. No, the DR 90 sites will just be given the top spots in most searches and still be pay to play.
2. No doy
3. No, they’re going to play around with it for a bit and kill it (see below)

Okay Sean, your response to most of these predictions–especially MOZ smacks of a deeply-embedded bitterness at once again being overlooked by the wider SEO industry, as if your use of memes and constant all-caps rants eclipses your actual SEO knowledge and will NEVER be enough to rise above the general but persistent background noise of the SEO speaker circuit and the publicity the chosen few generate .

N… nuh-uh.

(here’s Christoph Cemper on the REAL SGE prediction)

~

All righty. That’s the end of the 2024 SEO prediction game.

What do you think? Agree or disagree, it doesn’t matter because comments are disabled due to shit SEOs trying to build links with comment spam, so you can feel free to call me out on twitter.

If you take away one single thing from this post it’s this:

sign up to my newsletter it’s the shit:

Sign up here if you’re not on the list yet.

All right, let’s get into it.

Googled lied about “CTR” being a rank factor.

I’m bringing receipts to this conversation:

Here’s a 2021 SE Journal article saying clicks are “definitely not” a ranking factor.

Here’s a 2016 Perficient article on why it’s not a ranking factor featuring this amazing graphic:

LOL. IT’S TOO EASY TO GAME! (that’s going to be really funny in a minute).

Here’s another 2016 article from SE Watch claiming “Google says it’s not a ranking factor so it’s not!”

Here’s a 2021 SE Roundtable article carrying the shit for Google.

Here’s Ross from Siege Media saying, essentially, that because it could be so easily manipulated, it’s probably not a ranking factor.

Why am I bringing this up?

Oh, no reason… just thought it was relevant given recent testimony from the ongoing DOJ vs. Google antitrust lawsuit.

TOO EASY TO GAME.

So they just SUPER downplayed it.

Here’s a direct quote from Gary Illyes on a 2018 Reddit AMA:

Dwell time, CTR, whatever Fishkin’s new theory is, those are generally made up crap. Search is much more simple than people think.

Yeah it is! So simple that, like, click data actually moves the needle.

Here’s John Mueller being real smooth:

If CTR were what drove search rankings, the results would be all click-bait. I don’t see that happening.

I’ve never tested this, so I can’t say if this is a thing or not.

But I’m going to.

Are you?

Although it’s not directly related to the “CTR is *actually* a ranking factor, here’s a quick look at another way Google is TOTALLY LYING TO YOU.

Google Says Links “No Longer A Top 3 Ranking Signal”

​Here’s an article about how at the recent 2023 PubCon, well-known honesty advocate and Bringer Of Google’s Light Of Truth And Veracity Into The Dark Heart Of SEO Gary Illyes said, basically, links aren’t really in the top three most important signals that Google’s algo would use to rank a site:

Google has been downplaying the importance of links in its ranking algorithm for the past couple of years now. But last Thursday, at PubCon, Gary Illyes from the Google Search team said he wouldn’t even put links into the top three ranking signals Google Search uses.

Wow! So cool.

Look at all these sites Google chose to rank for “best cbd oil” on the strength of their content or, you know, whatever stupid bullshit Google is claiming is important nowadays…EEAT? Is it EEAT? I know how much experience GIANT BUSINESS MEDIA COMPANIES historically have with cannabis-adjacent products…

I mean… it’s weird, right?

“But Sean Markley… Marque? But Sean, look at that Forbes article it only has 23 RD and it’s ranking for NUMBER TWO?!?!!11”

So right. I’m sure the ONE POINT SIX MILLION REFERRING DOMAINS to the domain altogether has no bearing! I bet if you started a new CBD site and built 25 links you’d have… a pretty good shot at ranking. YOU SHOULD TOTALLY DO THAT!

Anyway.

Time to stop building links because Google said they are less important?

Send that article to your competitors.

I’ve already shown you how generous and ruthless-in-pursuit-of-the-truth Google is.

Time to build some more fucking links.

#DoingTheOppositeOfWhatGoogleSaysAsAnSEOTactic2024

Recently, I acquired The Weekly SEO newsletter from Andrew Charlton. That SEO newsletter has been rolled into my SEO Newsletter called Rank Theory.

Here’s a quick overview of what you can expect from my SEO newsletter:

• Every Monday I’ll send a highly-curated, human-written email containing the most important SEO news from the past week summarized, analyzed, and synthesized for your quick reading and understanding. It’s truly search news you can use.
• Every Thursday I’ll send a deep dive, longform SEO essay on a particular topic—usually something SEO experts are actively doing, where I break it down and show you how it work, WHY it works, what you can take away for your own websites or projects.

So if you came here looking for The Weekly SEO, sign up for the newsletter here, I guarantee you won’t regret it:

I want to write a useful article here for you outside of just “sign up to Rank Theory and what used to be The Weekly SEO, it’s the tops,” so I’ll also talk about the Best SEO newsletters I’ve read.

Here we go.

Are you tired of scouring the internet for the most effective SEO tips and strategies, only to find outdated advice or feel overwhelmed by information overload? Imagine having top-notch, cutting-edge SEO knowledge, including content marketing trends, latest algorithm updates, and insightful SEO news, delivered right to your inbox weekly, allowing you to maximize your website’s organic traffic like never before! Say hello to our SEO Newsletter – your ticket to higher search rankings, explosive growth, and exceptional online success. Read on to discover how you can stay ahead of the competition, harness the power of link-building, and unlock the true potential of your website. Join us now as we explore the 5 best SEO newsletters that have transformed digital marketing in 2023.

Our website ranks and provides information on the top 5 SEO newsletters including SEOFOMO, The SEO MBA, WTSNewsletter, WTF is SEO?, and SEO Notebook. These newsletters cover a range of topics such as content marketing, algorithm updates, link-building strategies, and SEO news, providing valuable insights and strategies for improving your SEO efforts. Subscribing to these newsletters will help you stay up-to-date with industry developments and best practices.

Benefits of a SEO Newsletter

If you’re looking to improve your website’s visibility on search engines, subscribing to an SEO newsletter can prove to be a valuable asset. Here are some of the benefits of receiving regular updates in your inbox:

First and foremost, SEO newsletters are a convenient way of staying up-to-date with the latest industry news, algorithm updates, and changes. As we all know, search engines like Google are constantly evolving, and keeping pace can be challenging. By subscribing to an SEO newsletter, you ensure that you never miss out on anything important.

Moreover, a good SEO newsletter will offer practical advice and strategies for improving your rankings and driving traffic to your site. Many newsletters feature expert tips on content marketing, case studies, real-world examples, and helpful links that can help you get ahead in your niche.

Of course, some may argue that there’s already enough information available online about SEO, rendering newsletters redundant. However, while there are many excellent blogs, podcasts, and video resources out there – not to mention social media – newsletters have a unique advantage in that they curate the most important content for you. You don’t have to go searching for it!

To put it another way, an SEO newsletter is like having a personal trainer for your website. Sure, you could read fitness articles online or watch YouTube videos to learn new exercises, but if you really want results, having someone guide you through a personalized plan makes all the difference.

Now that we’ve explored why you should consider signing up for an SEO newsletter let’s look at some of the top options available.

Top SEO Newsletters to Subscribe to in 2023

Here’s the quick list if you’re looking to just explore the news letters straight away:

• Rank Theory
• SEO Notebook
• Growth Memo
• SEO For Lunch
• SEO FOMO
• Search News You Can Use

When it comes to selecting an SEO newsletter to subscribe to, there are plenty of choices. Here are some of the best options out there:

Rank Theory by Sean Markey

SEO Notebook by Steve Toth

The SEO Notebook Newsletter by Steve Toth is a weekly email newsletter that delivers unconventional SEO tips in a concise format designed to help improve your SEO game. The newsletter is trusted by SEOs from companies like Hubspot, Vimeo, and Ahrefs, and has over 15,000 subscribers. Steve Toth is an SEO expert who shares his notes and insights on SEO strategy through his newsletter, website, and YouTube channel.

A brief bio of Steve:

Steve Toth is a renowned SEO Consultant partnering with growth-oriented companies globally. His insightful strategy notes, emailed weekly, make him a reliable source for over 15,000 subscribers of seonotebook.com. Previously, Steve served as the full-time SEO Manager at FreshBooks until February 2020 when he transitioned to a consultancy role following a stellar performance that included ranking #1 for a 300,000 search keyword and multiplying organic traffic fivefold within a year. His efforts contributed to the team’s recognition as the Best In-House SEO Team at the 2020 Canadian Search Awards.

Steve adopts a selective approach when choosing clients, emphasizing compatibility and high success potential. His primary clientele comprises growth-stage SaaS and e-commerce companies seeking scalable channels. A people-oriented professional, Steve takes great pride in prioritizing his clients’ interests and consistently going above and beyond in his services.

You can subscribe to SEO Noteboook here.

Growth Memo by Kevin Indig

Growth Memo is a newsletter by Kevin Indig, a growth expert and SEO specialist. Here’s what the newsletter is about, according to the landing page:

The Growth Memo is a weekly email about SEO and Growth. Think about it as an essay about fresh, new ideas on growing companies at unicorn speed.

A brief bio of Kevin:

After 5 years on the agency side, Kevin moved from Germany to Silicon Valley in 2014 and built the professional services team in the US for Searchmetrics. He has consulted for companies like eBay, Yellow Pages, Columbia Sports, homes.com, and Pinterest.

In 2016, Kevin joined French startup Dailymotion as Director of SEO and left the company when it got acquired by Vivendi. Shortly after, Kevin joined Atlassian to grow organic traffic to Atlassian’s wide portfolio of products (Jira, Trello, Confluence, Bitbucket, etc.) and worked his way up to lead the technical SEO team.

Ready to step into his next box, Kevin joined G2 as VP SEO & Content in 2019 where he led a team of 35 writers and SEOs and doubled organic traffic within 2 years.

In 2020, Kevin moved to Chicago and got the offer to run SEO as Director of SEO at Shopify, where he led a team of 25 SEOs across technical, experimentation, content, and offsite. He also started angel investing in what is now a portfolio of over 12 startups across all areas of Tech.

You can subscribe to Growth Memo here.

SEO For Lunch by Nick Leroy

SEO For Lunch is a weekly newsletter by Nick Leroy, an SEO expert and consultant. The newsletter is designed to provide quick and actionable SEO tips that can be consumed during your lunch break. Each issue of the newsletter includes three SEO tips, news updates, and links to relevant articles and resources. The tips cover a range of topics, including on-page optimization, link building, keyword research, and more. The newsletter is ideal for busy SEO professionals who want to stay up-to-date with the latest SEO trends and techniques. SEO For Lunch has over 5,000 subscribers and is published every Tuesday.

A brief bio of Nick:

Nick LeRoy is a St. Paul, Minnesota-based freelance SEO consultant, podcaster, and newsletter author. With a specialization in SEO strategy, technical SEO, editorial strategy, and website migrations, he offers his expertise through his firm, Nick LeRoy Consulting. Nick also authors two SEO-centric newsletters: #SEOForLunch and The SEO Freelancer. In addition, he owns SEOjobs.com, a boutique job board dedicated to the SEO industry.

You can sign up for SEO For Lunch here.

SEO Fomo by Aleyda Solis

SEO Fomo is a newsletter by Aleyda Solis, an internationally recognized SEO consultant and speaker. The newsletter is designed to help SEO professionals and marketers stay up-to-date with the latest SEO news, trends, and best practices. Each issue of the newsletter includes a roundup of the latest SEO news and updates, as well as tips and insights from Aleyda’s own experience. The newsletter also includes links to relevant articles and resources, making it a valuable source of information for anyone looking to improve their SEO skills.

Brief bio of Aleyda:

Aleyda Solis is a celebrated international SEO consultant, blogger, author, and speaker. As the founder of her company, Orainti, she offers award-winning SEO services. She is the author of the Spanish SEO book “SEO. Las Claves Esenciales” and the curator of #SEOFOMO, a leading SEO newsletter with over 25,000 subscribers.

Notable recognitions include being named the European Search Personality of the Year in 2018, one of the 10 Most Influential SEO Experts of 2022 by USA Today’s List Wire, and featuring in Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Hubspot lists of top marketing specialists and influencers.

Aleyda boasts 15 years of SEO experience working with companies from Europe, America, and Latin America. Through Orainti, she has aided diverse companies, from startups to multinationals, in augmenting their organic search visibility and meeting their SEO objectives.

In addition to her work with Orainti, Aleyda is a co-founder of Remoters, a platform providing resources for remote working professionals. She is also a respected educator in the field, teaching at Pompeu Fabra University, KSchool in Madrid, and ISDI Masters. Aleyda holds an E-Commerce Master from the University of Salamanca and is a systems engineer by training.

You can sign up for SEO FOMO here.

Search News You Can Use by Marie Haynes

Search News You Can Use is a weekly newsletter by Marie Haynes, an SEO expert and consultant. The newsletter is designed to help SEO professionals and marketers stay up-to-date with the latest news and updates in the search industry. Each issue of the newsletter includes a roundup of the latest search news, as well as insights and tips from Marie’s own experience. The newsletter covers a range of topics, including algorithm updates, Google Search Console, link building, and more. Additionally, the newsletter includes a Q&A section where Marie answers questions from subscribers. Search News You Can Use is published every Friday

A brief bio of Marie:

Dr. Marie Haynes, an acclaimed SEO industry leader since 2008, is revered for her grasp of Google’s Search Algorithms and her ability to articulate optimization strategies to business owners. Known for her contributions to Search Engine Land and other authoritative SEO publications, she is a trusted resource for many in the industry. She provides valuable insights through her weekly SEO newsletter and bi-weekly podcast.

Highlighted in The Atlantic’s article “The Open Secret of Google Search,” Marie’s expertise is acknowledged as crucial to understanding Google’s search algorithms. Primarily focusing on the aspects of quality favored by Google’s algorithms, she has successfully improved the Google search performance of numerous websites, from small family-owned businesses to large, nationally recognized brands.

You can sign up for SEO News You Can Use here.

seo tools

backlinks

for beginners

making SEO part of your marketing strategy, along with copywriting

how-to guides

google algorithm updates

General SEO Newsletters

– The Moz Top 10: As mentioned by our competitor, this newsletter curated by Moz features the ten most essential SEO articles, links to valuable resources, and content marketing insights published each week. It’s a fantastic way to get a quick overview of what’s been happening in the industry.

– Search Engine Land Newsletter: This daily newsletter is packed with news, tips, and advice on algorithm updates, content marketing, and link-building strategies for keeping your website optimized.You‘ll also find updates on Google algorithm changes, the latest SEO strategy from seasoned SEO professionals, and other industry developments.

– SEJ Daily Newsletter: Search Engine Journal is one of the premier sources of SEO content online, and their daily newsletter offers insights into the latest trends and strategies. Expect to find expert commentary, case studies, and more. Moreover, the SEO professionals at SEJ will occasionally send out curated campaign suggestions to help you optimize your efforts.

Niche-Specific SEO Newsletters

– Practico Analytics Newsletter: If you’re interested in analytics as they relate to SEO (and you should be), then this is the newsletter for you. Each month, they feature an in-depth case study on how data analysis can improve your search engine rankings.

– Backlinko Newsletter: Brian Dean is one of the best-known names in the world of SEO, and his weekly newsletter is a must-read for any serious practitioner. Expect exclusive content, expert advice, and some humor thrown in too!

– Shopify Compass Newsletter: While not strictly an SEO newsletter, Shopify’s Compass is an invaluable resource for ecommerce store owners looking to increase visibility and sales. You’ll find plenty of tips on driving traffic through search engines.

Of course, these are just a few examples of the many great SEO newsletters available today. Whichever one(s) you choose – whether from our list or elsewhere – we hope that it helps you stay up-to-date and achieve success with your website!

• According to a survey conducted in 2022, 71% of digital marketers believe that regular access to well-curated SEO newsletter content helps them stay updated with industry trends and best practices.
• The same survey revealed that 62% of respondents prefer to receive their SEO updates through newsletters as opposed to social media or blog posts.
• A study published in 2021 indicated that by subscribing to and reading relevant SEO newsletters, marketers reported an average increase of 23% in their organic search traffic within a year.

General SEO Newsletters

General SEO newsletters are an excellent resource for keeping up-to-date with all things related to search engine optimization. They provide updates on industry trends, algorithm changes, and new strategies that can help you improve your website’s ranking on Google. These newsletters are perfect for those who want to stay informed about the latest developments without getting overwhelmed.

For instance, SEOFOMO is a popular general SEO newsletter that provides subscribers with a weekly round-up of the most important industry news. This newsletter is fantastic for gaining valuable insights into how the world of SEO is evolving and what you need to do to stay ahead of the competition.

Another great general SEO newsletter is The Moz Top 10. This monthly newsletter provides subscribers with ten of the best articles about SEO from around the web. It covers everything from keyword research and link building to technical SEO and content creation. With succinct summaries of each article, The Moz Top 10 saves readers time but still keeps them well-informed.

Some argue that general SEO newsletters may not be specific enough for certain businesses or industries. However, it’s essential to keep in mind that they offer crucial insights into the industry as a whole. Though they may not be tailored to specific niches or industries, their information can still be adapted by professionals.

• General SEO newsletters like SEOFOMO and The Moz Top 10 are valuable resources that can help professionals stay up-to-date on the latest trends, algorithm changes, and strategies related to search engine optimization. While some argue that they may not be specific enough for certain industries, these newsletters offer important insights into the industry as a whole that can still be applied by professionals in various niches. By subscribing to these newsletters, professionals can save time while remaining well-informed about important developments in the world of SEO.

Niche-Specific SEO Newsletters

Niche-specific SEO newsletters focus on providing detailed information about a specific area of search engine optimization. For example, if you’re an e-commerce business owner looking to increase sales through organic traffic, subscribing to an e-commerce specific SEO newsletter could be beneficial.

One such niche-specific newsletter is Shopify’s Ecommerce Marketing Newsletter. It offers expert advice on how to optimize your online store as well as tips on driving traffic and increasing conversions.This newsletter provides practical advice specifically for ecommerce store owners, which they can implement straight away to improve their sales. With a well-thought-out design and an easy-to-use template, it opens up a world of handy tricks for boosting sales.

Niche-specific SEO newsletters are like expert coaches who provide tailored advice. Just as a football coach would tailor their game plan based on the team’s strengths and weaknesses, niche-specific marketing newsletters tailor their advice to suit specific business models.

Another great example is The SEM Post. It’s an excellent resource for those involved in paid search marketing, offering insights and strategies to help readers improve the efficiency of their pay-per-click campaigns. This type of newsletter would be particularly helpful for businesses that use PPC to drive website traffic.

One potential downside with niche-specific SEO newsletters is that they may not offer enough variety. Readers may be too busy implementing the detailed advice provided by these newsletters to keep up with what else is happening in the wider world of SEO.

Engaging Newsletter Content

Newsletters can serve as a powerful way to keep your audience engaged and informed about the latest in the SEO industry. However, to make sure your subscribers remain engaged and interested, it’s important to provide them with valuable, well-written content that speaks directly to their needs.

A great example of this is Search Engine Journal’s newsletter. They provide curated information on a range of topics from SEO tips to new industry developments. Each section is written in a conversational tone and includes practical advice for improving your website’s performance.

In addition to providing helpful information, engaging newsletters also make use of visual elements such as images, infographics, and videos. These elements not only break up the text but also add variety and interest to the newsletter.

Think of your newsletter like a conversation between you and your readers. Just as in any good conversation, you should strive to make your newsletter informative, interesting, and easy to follow. Using thoughtful design and clever tricks, a well-structured template can make this process much more manageable.

One debated topic when it comes to newsletter content is whether or not to include promotional material. While it’s understandable that you want to promote your services or products, remember that readers subscribe to your newsletter for helpful information – not blatant self-promotion. A balance must be struck between providing useful content while also promoting without being too pushy.

Now that we’ve discussed what makes engaging newsletter content let’s take a look at some tips for writing captivating emails.

Tips for Writing Captivating Emails

The perfect email should grab your reader’s attention from the subject line all the way through to the end of the message. But how do you achieve this? Here are some tips:

Use personalization: Addressing your subscribers by name personalizes the email and can help build a connection with them. There are many tools available today that make it easy to insert a subscriber’s name into the email.

Keep it short and sweet: The average person receives dozens of emails every day, so aim to keep your email concise and to the point. Use short paragraphs, bullet points, and headings to make the content more digestible.

Don’t overdo the subject line: While it’s tempting to make bold or exaggerated claims in your subject line, this can lead to lower open rates as subscribers may feel misled or disappointed when they open the email and preview its content. Remember, your subject line should accurately reflect the email’s content at an appealing rate.

Make it visually appealing: Just as with newsletters, emails that contain visual elements are more engaging. Use images that enhance your message, and always make sure they are high quality. A visually appealing preview can greatly increase your open rate.

Make it conversational: As with newsletter content, aim for a conversational tone rather than a formal one. This builds connection with readers and makes your messages feel more human.

Test and optimize: Email marketing lends itself well to testing, so don’t be afraid to try out different subjects lines, layouts, lengths, and calls-to-action. By continually monitoring metrics such as open rates and click-through rates, you can understand what works best for your audience and optimize accordingly.

By keeping these tips in mind, you’ll be able to create newsletters and emails that not only engage your readers but ultimately drive results for your business.

Growing Your Audience and Maximizing Impact

Congratulations! You have just launched your very own SEO newsletter. But before you sit back and wait for the subscribers to roll in, it’s time to think about how to grow your audience and maximize your impact. Here are some tips to get you started.

Start with quality content: Your newsletter should be packed with information that your readers find useful and interesting. Before promoting your newsletter, make sure you’re providing value to your subscribers. This means researching topics thoroughly, writing engaging copy, and providing actionable insights that readers can use in their SEO strategies.

Engage with your audience: Once you have subscribers, engage with them regularly. Ask for feedback, answer questions, and take note of what they like (and don’t like) about your newsletter. This will help you refine your content and keep your subscribers engaged.

Offer exclusive content: One way to encourage people to subscribe to your newsletter is by offering exclusive content that can’t be found elsewhere. This could include research data, case studies, or interviews with industry experts. Make sure this exclusive content is highly valuable and relevant to your readers.

Leverage social media: Promote your newsletter on social media channels where your target audience hangs out. Share snippets of content from newsletters on platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn to pique interest. Think of social media as a funnel – use it as an entry point into the world of your newsletter.

Promoting Your SEO Newsletter

Now that you’ve built up a solid subscriber base for your SEO newsletter and are continuously engaging with them through top-notch content – it’s time to take things up a notch! It’s time to promote!

Optimize Your Website: Make sure subscription forms are visible on all pages of your website in areas of high traffic. Experiment with different placements to see what works best for your audience. Make sure the subscription forms are prominently displayed and easy to fill out.

Collaborate with Other Newsletters: Reach out to other newsletters in your industry that are complementary, or even have some overlap audience, and propose a collaboration where you can exchange subscribers. Cross-promotion opportunities will help you tap into new audiences and attract more subscribers to your own newsletter.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising: Consider using pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns on major platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads. This method allows you to target specific demographics, interests, and locations that are relevant to your audience. Determine how much money you’re able to spend, create eye-catching ads with engaging copy and attractive visuals and then monitor results with analytics software.

Referral Program: Offer incentives to existing subscribers for referring colleagues or friends to subscribe to the newsletter. A referral program doesn’t have to be extravagant, it could be something as simple as offering an additional free daily guide download.

Canva’s Content Game Is Killing It

I stumbled upon this when the domain name “forest green” was expiring at DropCatch. (It sold for $3087 last December–a steal if you ask me!)

In researching the domain and the keyword when I was thinking about buying it, I was intrigued with the results–especially the page I saw from Canva:

67,000 searches per month (admittedly, a good chunk of those are for the soccer club–but still!), and Canva was ranking #1.

When I went to the page itself I was in love — an extremely useful page, well-laid out, covering every topic that was possibly relevant. Sure the DR 92 of the root domain doesn’t hurt, but this page was beautifully done.

More on that in a minute.

I searched other colors… seafoam green. Magenta. Pastel yellow.

Every single page ranked in the top 3–mostly in the top spot. The URLs are structured like this:

www.canva.com/colors/color-meanings/[color-name]

So I removed the color name and threw that URL into Ahrefs to see what it looked like (as it would show all versions of that URL ranking–with al the colors it was ranking for).

One million in organic traffic for this… silo(?)

Amazing. Here is a more detailed look at the traffic stats:

And some of the gigantic keywords these pages rank for:

So let’s break it down…

How is the Content Laid Out To Be So Useful (to humans AND search algorithms…)

First, let’s look at the hero section of the page, and what it contains:

Google LOVES that shit.

In the sidebar is a seriously useful array of color combinations:

Get them “dwell time” numbers up, dawg.

The next section is rich with semantically-similar keywords:

“bushes,” “trees,” “nature,” “environment,” “blues and greens.”

I didn’t pull a Clearscope report, but I bet some of those words are on it.

Also, FOR SURE “hex code” is there–that is a useful piece of information to searchers of “forest green.”

Next: internal links FTW:

Exact match, yeah it’s not always the best idea, but in this case, it’s pretty relevant and I’d argue: quite useful if this isn’t quite the color you were looking for.

The piece of content ends with some very technical, data-rich content:

It’s not new or original information, but it doesn’t have to be, here. Forest green isn’t changing, and these color values are also not changing.

This is a great example of a page not needing to be 3,000 words long to rank–it’s 699 words. Obviously this is a keyword by keyword basis kind of thing, but if you’re trying to outrank Canva on a color (good luck to ya), writing a LONGER page about the color probably won’t do much for you.

I’m an idiot when it comes to Programmatic SEO stuff…

But this is probably done programmatically, right?

That shit fascinates me, but I’m way too chaotic to make that stuff work for me. If it IS mostly programmatic, wow. What a huge win.

Here’s what the /color-meanings/ page looks like (nested beneath the /colors subfolder):

Looks great–very visual tool. You can scroll and scroll hovering over and clicking on various colors.

Here’s where the “color meanings” page lives under the /colors subfolder:

There are some amazing things ranking under those other pages (like ranking #1 for “color wheel”) — just absolutely dominating topical relevancy for everything color which is some AMAZING top-of-funnel content for their paid tool.

In the future I’ll explore some more things Canva is doing that really impressed me, but I thought looking at their top-of-funnel color content and how they were laying it out was a good starting place.

I don’t want to run this newsletter too long, but another site that does this kind of thing AMAZINGLY is Grammarly.

Here’s a taste:

“grey or gray” gets about 66,000 searches/mo according to Ahrefs (other combinations of this phrase really add to the total) and is ABSOLUTELY something you have probably Googled at some point in your life.

A person looking for the answer to this question is 100% someone that could easily see the value in signing up for Grammarly, so it’s a great top-of-funnel piece for them.

And though it’s nearly double the length of Canva’s color pages, the “grey or gray” page is under 1200 words–very direct content, very to the point.

Maybe in the future I’ll do a round-up of sites with this kind of content. It is a great example of what writing useful, straightfroward content can look like.

So what is a takeaway from all this?

To sum it up, I’d say:

• cover the topical map entirely
• write useful, straightforward content
• obviously get links to become a trusted authority
• you don’t necessarily need to be guided by exact keyword research–write the content the users of your product/ideal customer will be searching for.

No duh, right?

But it can be helpful to see how another, very successful site is doing things, and that’s what I tried to do here.

As for me, my plan is to redouble my efforts to cover the topical map like a couple of Burmese Pythons covered the Everglades.

I’ll also be changing the writer’s and the AI’s output to focus on shorter, more direct articles where it calls for it.

How does one know?

Google that shit–are the pages ranking 5,000 word monsters? If not, it’s probably OK. At this point, in the interest of trying to produce new SEO-buzzword non-homogenous content (meaning content that isn’t the same as all the other content in the SERPs), I might experiment with some pieces and see if I can outrank some of wordier results with some real focused content.

Do you have any favorite examples of sites that are crushing it on their content? Share them with me, I collect them and keep them on my dresser.

The question is: what are you doing about it?

I wrote in a recent newsletter (which you should subscribe to, if you haven’t already) about the big push to elevate sites from obvious affiliate money grabs to actual brands that mean something. And to be 100% clear: no judgement from me. I’ve created and exited several affiliate sites in the past, and it was a great way to build and hone some skills and create some cash from nothing. My cynicism is a reflection of how Google treats these sites.

Just so you understand my position.

Out of all the things I’ve ever written, this topic got more replies than any other. It’s clear that a lot of site owners and operators have this issue on their mind, and the future of work in the affiliate site game is going to likely consist of turning review sites into a brand.

But there are two immediate questions that follow from this:

1. What is a brand?
2. How does one turn an affiliate site into a big, beautiful brand?

Well, I’m going to attempt to answer the second question in this post, because I think best when I’m writing, and I’m inviting you along on the journey. This is part one of a series that will look at what it takes to build the kind of authority site that every Google update rewards with more top 3 rankings.

That Affiliate Site Look

Then God Affiliate Marketers said, “Let Us make man affiliate sites in Our the same exact image, after Our Astra and Generate Press likeness templates, to rule over review the fish of the sea tank accessories and the ALLbirds of the air (shoes) over and the livestock feed, and over all review the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.

– this little book called THE BIBLE

You know what I mean.

Just look at the template libraries for Generate Press and Astra themes and you’ll see the foundation of like 80% of affiliate sites:

Astra:

GP:

The one thing these templates all have in common is a GIANT HERO IMAGE.

That’s so very 2018.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with GIANT HERO IMAGE as function of your site, but if we’re going to learn from the sites that rule the SERPs (and yes, I know it’s mostly about that DR 90 backlink profile, but I can’t help you with that shit right now), you’re not going to find a lot of sites like this in the Red Ventures/DotDash/Merideth portfolio.

The Homepage Vibe

I pulled a bunch of sites from the portfolio of these giant digital media companies so I could compare them and see how they represent their content on the homepage.

Do they have a GIANT HEADER IMAGE?

No.

Is the homepage just the default WordPress blog page?

Also no.

Here’s an image that captures several at once, so you can check the general vibe:

Here are the sites represented in this image:

• TheBalance.com (6.1m monthly visitors)
• TheSpruce.com (25.9m monthly visitors)
• Gamespot.com (73.6m monthly visitors)
• Liquor.com (5m monthly visitors)
• MedicalNewsToday.com (94.5m monthly visitors)
• TripSavvy.com (4.3m monthly visitors)
• Cnet.com (69.5m monthly visitors)
• Lifewire.com (20.6m monthly visitors)
• Treehugger.com (2.9m monthly visitors)
• Healthline.com (275.7m monthly visitors)
• ThoughtCo.com (15.9m monthly visitors)
• PsychCentral.com (3.2m monthly visitors)
• Bankrate.com (13.3m monthly visitors)
• Reviews.com (117k monthly visitors)
• CreditCards.com (1.2m monthly visitors)
• VeryWellHealth.com (28.1m monthly visitors)
• ThePointsGuy.com (8.5m monthly visitors)
• Investopedia.com (64.6m monthly visitors)
• GearHungry.com (625.9k monthly visitors)
• GearJunkie.com (1.3m monthly visitors)

Are all of these sites affiliate site? No. That’s not the point.

But also, that IS the point.

All of these sites are solid brands that do very well in the SERPs.

So what are the main takeaways?

1. Magazine Layouts FTW

Personally, I think “magazine layout” looks like ass: too cluttered and so much going on. What do you click on? Who knows?

But I bet they’re GREAT for engagement. Click on this, click on that, look there’s another thing to click on! I guess people love clicking on things, and the magazine layout puts a lot of different content in front of people, giving the site a lot of chances to engage someone with an intriguing article that speaks to them.

One thing I’m sure of despite not having proof because I don’t work at any of those digital publishers (that’s called FAITH, baby. Bible reference. Call back to earlier in this post!):

DotDash and Red Ventures and etc. have spent a shitload of money testing and thinking about how the layout of a site engages readers.

So, look at your site. Does it have GIANT HERO IMAGE?

Does it look like an Astra or Generate Press template from the site library?

Here’s two more examples from sites you’ve heard of, in a slightly different category, but with the same kind of layout (I assume, because it works!)

2. Custom Images Make the Brand

One thing Siege Media gets right with the work they deliver (and I can speak to this with experience, as I worked there for like… a month) is they have an in house graphic design team that creates custom images in a distinct style and with a distinct color pallet for their clients.

If you visit the sites I put in that image above (and then listed out below the image), you’ll see that they mostly use custom illustrations that match a specific style and the colors of their brand on their home page–though there is the occasional stock photo attached to an article.

Just look at home slick and integrated the brand style and colors are at Healthline:

and also:

Beautiful.

PsychCentral Does This So Well

Just look at this quick and dirty copy/paste I did of screenshots of their front page:

The backgrounds of (stock? custom?) photos incorporate the logo colors, there are illustrations behind real photos with the colors popped in, and obviously, the colors are very prominent in the custom illustrations

10 out of 10 here, this is executed perfectly.

Just so we’re clear here: yes, doing stuff like this isn’t cheap. But that’s kind of the point. There are different games to play when it comes to affiliate marketing, but you one of the games you gotta play if you want to win is the LONG game. Having custom illustrations and a cohesive look is definitely part of that.

Quick Anecdote About This:

This is something I did last year for one of my affiliate sites when times were good: custom illustration in a particular style for each blog post.

Sure, it was a GIANT HERO IMAGE but it was also the featured image, so I’ll let it slide. I also had some custom images in the same style on the home page. This really helped my site. As the year went on, I stopped working with the company doing these custom images because I was trying to Michael down my Vincents and push up the income while pushing down expenses. A.K.A. playing the super short game like a dummy, and I got burned HARD for it in December.

Lesson learned!

So hire a freelancer or a company like Design Pickle, and settle on a style and a color pallet, and have them go nuts on custom homepage and sidebar illustrations.

I think this can be done without breaking the bank. You don’t have to have Healthline-caliber illustrations on the site–just like with link building (make it LOOK natural) you just need to make it LOOK like you’re doing something like what Healthline is doing with illustrations (or, you know, whatever site you’re being inspired by). Fake it till you make it, then do it right.

3. Social Proof Like a Boss

Especially the DotDash sites did something I really really like.

Each site has a sexy SOCIAL PROOF section at the top of each site.

This goes beyond “As Seen On” which is pretty played out at this point (but, you know, you play the cards you’re dealt). Even if you don’t have many things to put here, find SOMEthing to put.

The Spruce talks about how many products they’ve tested, and how many photos they have.

Find something to put there that’ll speak to your audience and give them a sense that you are real people running a real site and you’re different from every site SOMEHOW.

Fake it till you make iiiiiiiiiit f’real.

4. The Logo is The Word

Hopefully by now it’s clear that not every one of these points applies to every single site I’m talking about, or every single site owned by a big digital media publisher because

That’s not the point.

The point is to notice the trends and apply them in some say to your site.

Yeah, we’re keeping it SUPER SUPERFICIAL in part one.

I wasn’t even going to write about this, but I just kept noticing it.

The logo, on all of these sites, is a stylized word. Scroll back up and look at healthline and the spruce and blah blah blah. You’ll see whatever I mean!

Also, on other big publisher sites:

It’s just a word.

Food for thought. Your logo is cute with the Vacuum on the logo where the “V” goes but it just screams SOMEONE ON FIVERR MADE THIS LOGO.

Instead, go to 99designs, buy the middle package, and tell them you want to see a stylized version of the name of your site, no icons please!

(Except for me, I’m a god damned icon)

Boom. Now your site looks less like an affiliate site you bought on Flippa and more like a brand someone is building.

Wrapping up Part I of Building an Actual Brand

So, here we are, the end of part one.

What did we learn?

Your affiliate site looks like an affiliate site and Google hates that about you.

So start looking at some of the biggest, highest trafficked blogs on the planet and emulate them, NOT that site you bought off of Facebook from that guy you barely know. Here’s the takeaways from this post:

1. Get rid of the big stupid GIANT HERO IMAGE on the home page that looks like all the affiliate site library of templates.
2. Find a way to use custom images to make your site stand out, and to reinforce your brand’s color pallet.
3. Use social proof–differentiate your site from your competitors somehow. Figure it out.
4. Consider getting rid of your Fiverr logo with an icon in exchange for a stylized word logo.

That’s a start, but that’ll take plenty of effort to make some progress on. So get to work, make your site look like an authority, and send me 10% of future profits.

Or, at least, sign up for my newsletter if you haven’t yet:

Thank you and goodnight.

The Background

Over the weekend of March 7th-8th, I started to see an image being circulated on social media about the importance of “flattening the curve” of the budding COVID-19 crisis in American. You’ve seen it a thousand times by now–it’s this one:

I thought it was brilliant–it captured a fairly complex idea extremely simply. I thought it was an idea that should be shared. So I did what anyone addicted to domain names and marketing does: I checked to see if the domain name was available.

It was.

Sunday night, March 8th, I bought the name via the Namecheap iPhone app (which, is risky for someone who gets a little dopamine kick from registering a new domain, feeding off the energy of an idea newly-born, with all the potential in the world before it). My idea at the time was just to throw a site up that just contained the image, to make it easy to share. I had no real ideas on what to do with it beyond that.

The very next morning I was scrolling through my Twitter feed instead of working and came across something Retweeted by one of my favorite authors and a solid Twitter follow, Kelly Link (shout out to Kelly Link–go and read her short story collections immediately). The author of the tweet was Julie McMurry, a public health expert based in California. In the absence of strong guidance from public officials, she put together an amazing resource that gave people that, looking back from September 2020 to this past March, seem simple and obvious, but at the time there was definitely an absence of simple and useful info:

Julie put all these ideas into a Google Doc, and published the public link so people could view it. When I visited the doc it was obvious how popular it was from the amount of “anonymous animals” viewing it.

Like that, but there were hundreds.

I had an idea–what if I could take this Google doc that was getting some traction and just paste it on FlattenTheCurve.com — it was the perfect content for the domain name.

So I cold-DM’d Julie on Twitter. After a brief introduction that I was a marketer and was looking to be helpful, and that I also owned the FlattenTheCurve.com domain name, here’s how the convo went:

So that’s what I did–I just copied the entire doc, pasted it into WordPress and spent about an hour fixing all the formatting issues.

The Impact

Because I spend my days obsessing over traffic to my portfolio of websites, and because I knew I’d eventually write up the story of this project (even before seeing how it actually unfolded), I took screenshots of the traffic at various times over the next few weeks.

The first half-day the site was live it saw several thousand visitors–driven mostly from Julie’s tweets and the message she put in the Google doc that said, basically, “this content has moved to FlattenTheCurve.com.”

That Tuesday and Wednesday, though, traffic exploded. It went viral on Facebook and hit the front page of HackerNews (getting as high as the number two spot). I worked my ass off to keep the site from going down. Several very generous people on Twitter reached out to help, and Dreamhost and Cloudflare provided some direct support that helped the site stay live for the most part. As I specialize in SEO and am not really all that technical, I was really over-my-head when it came to making smart decisions about keeping the site live through the onslaught of traffic.

Traffic peaked on Thursday, March 12th–the day after the NBA announced it was suspending its season due to the coronavirus. Here’s a screenshot with the highest number of “live visitors” I managed to grab, to show you what kind of traffic this site was getting:

1500-1700 active users on the site was sustained for probably half of that Thursday. That’s 300-400 visitors per minute, I’d never seen anything like it before in my life.

Aside from just the sheer largeness of that number, it was amazing to see Julie’s content resonate with so many people–people who were, at the time, just desperate for some guidance. There was a lot of uncertainty still in early March.

Here’s a look at the traffic from the first seven days:

3/09 – 7,618
3/10 – 156,603
3/11 – 282,396
3/12 – 283,641
3/13 – 152,704
3/14 – 103,997
3/15 – 72,437

The General Takeaway

So what’s the point of all this? Yes, as a traffic-obsessed marketer in my day job, I love digging into the numbers and seeing “up-and-to-the-right” analytics. For me, personally, it was incredibly satisfying to see something I helped create (though Julie obviously did all the heavy lifting in creating the content and previously working for years to earn the authority as an MPH that would help people trust her) spread as widely as it did, and, I sincerely hope, helped people reduce their risk–or avoid altogether–coming down with or spreading COVID-19.

It’s also nice to see a good domain name be used for its “highest and best purpose,” to badly paraphrase Michael Cyger. As Elliot Silver pointed out in a blog post he wrote about seeing #FlattenTheCurve trend on Twitter, and then seeing the website being shared on social media with a real authority as the author:

Typically when a hashtag is trending, someone scoops up the matching domain name. Sometimes the domain name is put up for sale, and other times the name is somehow monetized. For #FlattenTheCurve, it looks like the matching FlattenTheCurve.com was just registered, and it looks like it is in the right hands.

Although FlattenTheCurve.com is registered under privacy at Namecheap, it looks like the website is being operated by Julie McMurry, MPH

I’m super grateful I was able to grab this domain and connect with Julie to create something that so clearly spoke to a lot of people in a very short time.

This whole thing is such a great case study for demonstrating the power of a great domain name that exactly matches a trend, an ideal, or a single word that encompasses an entire brand, and it’s a good illustration of why domain names are worth so much AND why they sell for so much.

I spent the time writing this up because I think it’s a neat story for marketers, SEOs, and domain name investors. I also wanted it all documented somewhere, so I don’t forget the little things about it.

The SEO/Marketing Takeaway

Because I’m so deeply invested in SEO and marketing, it becomes the window frame and the panes of glass I see the world through. My personal philosophy when it comes to building the portfolio of sites I create, grow, and monetize as my “day job” is to do things as naturally as possible. Yes, there’s a lot of time spent on ensuring search engine spiders can crawl, understand, and categorize the sites I build so they can serve them up to curious searchers, but in creating content and then building awareness I try to take a “natural” approach to things. No tricks (mostly), just write content that is highly optimized and informative.

To do this in a way that not only reads as “natural” or “how sites actually operate” but is also highly effective, I spend time studying successful sites–whether that success is in being shared widely, getting a lot of links and attention, or ranking well for tough keywords. In the case of FlattenTheCurve.com it became all three.

So here are the lessons I took away from this wild ride:

Create Content That Resonates With People

You can have the best domain on the block, but if you create content that no one cares about, isn’t relevant, or just kind of sucks you’ll never get traction. Yes, this domain was a perfect exact match riding the very first curve of an exponential trend. But the content that Julie wrote was simple, straightforward, and really struck a chord with people.

Find Win-Win Opportunities

I was 100% unqualified to write anything on the subject of coronavirus, public health, epidemiology, etc. but Julie absolutely was qualified. She was, however, too busy, and (I’m assuming but don’t know for sure) not really experienced in internet marketing like I am. The Google doc she used to write the initial information was incredibly slow and laggy due to the sheer number of people accessing it. It definitely wasn’t the ideal form of what it could be–I provided that with the domain. So I couldn’t have created something like this without Julie’s content, and vice versa. Together we reached almost a million people, though, and that’s pretty god damned cool.

If Your Mission is Something People Can Get Behind, They Will

I simply could not keep the site online by the second and third day–it was being visited by too many people all at once. Several people on Twitter stepped up to help me figure out next steps, and several businesses contributed their time, expertise, and products to help.

Dreamhost bumped up the bandwidth to help with the increased traffic.

Cloudflare engineers helped me set-up and troubleshoot issues with getting Cloudflare set up and implemented properly.

Slack gave us a “paid” account to help coordinate everything, for free.

Nico and his organization Instedd stepped in and took over running the site–including all technical issues and coordinating translations, which saved me because I was pretty far over my head…

Several people from other countries helped translate the text into something relevant for them fellow citizens, and literally translated it into their language.

All of that, for free. It was amazing!

Obviously this is something that won’t happen as readily with, say, a cycling affiliate site or something. But if you build a site or platform that truly helps other people, that resonates with them, and promotes ideas they believe in… I mean, you never know.

What Does A ‘Natural’ Backlink Profile Look Like?

One thing it was interesting to observe was the quality of links that started rolling in–links that make angels weep and Eric Ward, the Patron Saint of Link Building watching over us all give a knowing smile.

In a very short amount of time, the site got links from publications like :

• CA.gov
• Go.com
• FastCompany.com
• BioMedCentral.com
• MedicalNewsToday.com
• Slate.com
• Columbia.edu

The site is currently a DR 61 with over 1.6k referring domains:

Most sites with a backlink profile like that have been around for decades and have gone through several iterations. I think it’s super rare to see a site so young (just a few months!) get those kinds of links from those kinds of sites. It gives you a chance to see what a natural, focused anchor text spread looks like:

FlattenTheCurve.com doesn’t rank for very many keywords–it was never meant to (and so it isn’t the BEST of case studies to use in building your own sites)–but it ranks on the first page for “Flatten the Curve” among several impressive authority sites like the NYTimes and LiveScience.com.

The End

I asked Julie if she’d like to wrap this post up, and I think she wrote the perfect summary of things. Here’s what she said:

Although flattening the curve looks different today than it did in March (more sustainable risk reduction, less indefinite lock-down), it is still a vital message–one which has become ubiquitous now, so traffic dropped off.

The site is still live for reference since it will be a while before we can leave this plague safely behind us.

Well, that’s it.

Special thanks to Julie McMurry for helping me wrap-up this essay, and Nick LeRoy who read an early draft and provided feedback.

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