GOLD! Intro, AMA, and a Recent Sale for $6M of InvestorJunkie.com

[lludwig]

How you got traffic to your site? Any tips on getting free organic traffic?

see my AMA on SEO. If you have a specific question. Ask it there!

AMA: SEO

I already did one on affiliate marketing, let's try one on SEO. AMA: SEO. My Background: I've been developing websites for 25 years+, and had an affiliate blog for 10 years which 80% of the traffic was from SEO. Starting from zero, I had over 300,000 unique visitors per month. I sold my...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

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[ZeroTo100]

Hey Larry,

Have you noticed the new owners of Investor Junkie have changed the theme of the site?

From an SEO perspective, why do you think they would switch to a Themeforest theme knowing that the business had been built on user experience, speed, conversion, etc? Why would they spend $6m on a site and take the risk on hurting the evolution of the site?

To be honest, I think it hurts the value a little bit and could also hurt serps.

I thought this question might benefit future website buyers. Thoughts?

 

[lludwig]

Hey Larry,

Have you noticed the new owners of Investor Junkie have changed the theme of the site?

From an SEO perspective, why do you think they would switch to a Themeforest theme knowing that the business had been built on user experience, speed, conversion, etc? Why would they spend $6m on a site and take the risk on hurting the evolution of the site?

To be honest, I think it hurts the value a little bit and could also hurt serps.

I thought this question might benefit future website buyers. Thoughts?

Yes, I am aware, and no I have no public comment.

 

[Y.B.]

I'll take a private comment lol

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Yes, I am aware, and no I have no public comment.

After seeing what the company did to my business after I sold it, this sentiment sounds oddly familiar.

 

[ZeroTo100]

Yes, I am aware, and no I have no public comment.

I can understand that.

If you care to elaborate, I wanted to ask some questions regarding SEO for 2020.

The landscape to rank is definitely changing and it’s becoming harder in my opinion to get on page one. Plus, google is doing a better job keeping users on their site as appose to sending them off. Also, I’m seeing more snipits, Q&A, videos, paid ads on page one and less review type pages ranking. What are your thoughts on all this and how would you approach SEO in starting a new site with a small team and a small budget in 2020.

It seems like a lot of factors and checkboxes are coming into play with no guarantee google will reward you. Why take the gamble and hope that google recognizes you.

In regards to keyword research, do you focus more on search volume or click through data?

Just wondering, as an SEO yourself, how do you see search ranking changing going into 2020?

Thoughts?

 

[lludwig]

I can understand that.

If you care to elaborate, I wanted to ask some questions regarding SEO for 2020.

The landscape to rank is definitely changing and it’s becoming harder in my opinion to get on page one. Plus, google is doing a better job keeping users on their site as appose to sending them off. Also, I’m seeing more snipits, Q&A, videos, paid ads on page one and less review type pages ranking. What are your thoughts on all this and how would you approach SEO in starting a new site with a small team and a small budget in 2020.

Sure, in fact, I recently discussed some of my thoughts on a recent article on my site about the trends for the next 10 years.

8 Blogging and Business Trends for the Next 10 Years

It's hard to predict the future, though one should try. I tell you the 8 blogging trends you should not ignore.

larryludwig.com

Currently, 60-85% of all traffic comes from organic search. You rely on Google for most of your traffic. Even though it’s on the decline, if you aren’t optimizing for Google, you should be. You are missing out on a huge audience for your blog.

Though the trend is obvious. Less traffic is coming from organic search. From the data at Advanced Ranking, in May 2014 the CTR was 39% for the #1 position in organic search.

Today the #1 position gets an average CTR of 31% or a decrease of 8%.

You should mix SEM with SEO IMHO. That's not to say you should ignore SEO, just the fact you have to "pay to play" at least some level for some keywords.

YouTube is another area that's still ripe for plucking with SEO. So I would do a multi-channel approach.

Schema is becoming more important and should be using it. Though like you said can be a double edge sword. In some cases, it's shown that showing in featured snippets can decrease the CTR of SERP. So it should create an open loop in which it causes people to want to click and not completely solve their problem. Even though Google may want that at some level. So add value but don't give away everything. In many cases Google's snippets can't do it all and the person must click to the source website.

Though for something like a recipe or some question and answer (in the case of voice search) then that might be all that's needed.

In regards to keyword research, do you focus more on search volume or click-through data?

Just wondering, as an SEO yourself, how do you see search ranking changing going into 2020?

Thoughts?

Neither, it's intent.

It's always been important and now even more so. What matters is quality over quantity. I want the right people to visit my site. What matters is with the keyword where are they alone the sales funnel journey. I always use this example. "what is a mortgage" compared to "best mortgage rate" is a much different intent and much further along in the sales funnel journey.

So don't hit the visitor with mortgage rates for "what is a mortgage". They are much earlier in the sales funnel process so you can't be so transactional. In fact, Google will penalize you for this.