The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
Goal: Build a brand new site from scratch, rank it, monetize it, using as little of my own time as possible, and sell it in 2 years for 6 figures.

Why: Why not? Because I can? Because for the last 3 years I've gone thru many ups and downs to build an agency and now my guys have a certain amount of available time to devote to something other than client work. So it is better to say, because WE can. This is intended to very much be a side project. An experiment even. But if it works well, it opens doors and possibilities

How: This is at least partially inspired by the writers thread. While reading that, it occured to me that I have a team of writers and we can produce high quality content, aided by AI. We will leverage our SEO tactics to get rankings. I have only the vaguest idea of how we will monetize it, but for starters we aren't focused on that. I want to build traffic first.

Initially, the vision is to produce on online publication. That may be all this ever is until I sell it. But it is flexible enough an idea to become an ecom store, a forum, a brand, a manufacturer, who knows? I may not even sell it, if it's spinning off sufficient monthly revenue. We'll see...

The Journey So Far: It was important that my team be on board with the game plan and have a sense of ownership of this project. So the first step was a brainstorming session. I had them read a few Authority Hacker articles to get the juices flowing. Then we all brought ideas for different niches we could target, and out of a list of roughly 60 we narrowed it down to the top five. That was 10 days ago.

We did keyword research around these five niches, and one was a clear winner. We bought a domain. We put up the basics of a site. That was last Friday.

I can't believe how excited my team is about this. Usually I'm the super excited one in the office, I'm surrounded by a bunch of laid-back dudes.

I won't reveal the niche or the website. Maybe I'll give some hints later, but for now I'll just say that we chose it because we found a host of solid keyword phrases that indicated people were definitely interested in the kinds of articles we want to produce, and we identified that there were actually very few articles of this type being produced.

In other words the interest level is high, and the competition level is low. An SEO's dream.

But my sense is we need to be moving fast in order to become an authority in this arena. This won't stay noncompetitive for long. It is an area that none of us have expertise in but we all find interesting.

I gave one writer a week of playing around with Jarvis to get really comfortable with it. That's still a work in progress, but we've got our first two articles written.

Next steps: put some finishing touches on the site. Get email/tracking/CRM set up.

Do a lot more keyword research. I have a team member working on this part.

Create 10 to 15 informational, educational type articles for the site. This is also in process.

Create a media list. I have a third team member working on that part.

Other Goals/Benefits:
1. I do have a content strategy in mind, and I'll be sharing more details on that later. My goal with this thread is to share different ideas and tactics that work. Or even what doesn't.

To date, this real estate thread is the closest I've had to a progress thread. Now I want to do one for real.

2. I also want to experiment and learn new skills. For example, I suck at emails. But this thread got my wheels turning again, and I'd like to use this new site as a way to improve my/my team's skills.

3. Frankly, having a site like this will open other doors and sales possibilities for our agency.

4. If it doesn't make a dime itself, I can always leverage the idea that we built a site that gets xx,xxx visitors per month into new client types.

5. Along the way will be testing various SEO theories that I don't feel comfortable using a client's site to test. So there's at least a small chance that this project might go nowhere because I only kinda accidentally blew it up. That's not likely, I am definitely interested in selling this site, but since as it is our own site from scratch, I'm not afraid to break my own conventions and share the results of that with you Fam.

6. Honestly, there's so many people on this forum who are just spending their wheels trying to figure out a way to make money. I'm hoping I can prove that producing a quality content for a website in an intelligently chosen niche is a way to get yourself to a sustainable income.

7. Prove "them" wrong. You know, the people who will inevitably think this idea is trash. If someone else was writing this progress thread, I would probably be one of "them".

I learned SEO tactics a decade ago by getting a blog/store to 50,000 visits a month in a low margin industry. I guess here I am 12 years later crazy enough to think that I'm going to do it all over again, but I'm telling myself that this time I'm going to be smarter about monetizing it and smarter about how to prioritize time.

To be determined...

Time tables: other than the preliminary goal of selling this at the 2-year mark, which may or may not change, I'm not putting timetables on this project. We are in the business of serving clients, and this is intended to be a side hustle of sorts for our agency, not something that distracts us from our bread and buttah.

Is It Fastlane: No. It doesn't need to be. But for all the reasons I listed above, it brings a lot of value to my agency, and we can bring value to a tens of thousands of readers a month.

But if this works, not only can you do it, my guys will be able to do it again and again. And that thought excited me enough to document this journey.

The forum has given me so many ideas and friendships, this is one way I want to give back.

One rule: Don't discuss "hidden" niches or ask what niche you should choose. These tactics are relatively easily duplicated. I'll answer most any questions as I'm able, but if you have a good idea for a niche with untapped potential, don't bring it up on a public forum. Use some common sense.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
For starters on a project like this keyword research is key. I have a formula I use that I'm not totally comfortable sharing. Instead I'll give a shout out to @lludwig for this excellent share a while back.

For a new site, I would follow this technique.


If you are looking to start something, this will get your gears going...
 

Madame Peccato

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
311%
Jul 14, 2018
659
2,048
31
Morbegno, Italy
Following with interest.
 

MTF

Never give up
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
455%
May 1, 2011
7,560
34,430
It is an area that none of us have expertise in but we all find interesting.

How are you ensuring that you'll produce good unique content considering none of you has expertise in the topic?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

jdm667

Silver Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
216%
Jan 27, 2020
357
770
Boston, MA
Goal: Build a brand new site from scratch, rank it, monetize it, using as little of my own time as possible, and sell it in 2 years for 6 figures.

Why: Why not? Because I can? Because for the last 3 years I've gone thru many ups and downs to build an agency and now my guys have a certain amount of available time to devote to something other than client work. So it is better to say, because WE can. This is intended to very much be a side project. An experiment even. But if it works well, it opens doors and possibilities

How: This is at least partially inspired by the writers thread. While reading that, it occured to me that I have a team of writers and we can produce high quality content, aided by AI. We will leverage our SEO tactics to get rankings. I have only the vaguest idea of how we will monetize it, but for starters we aren't focused on that. I want to build traffic first.

Initially, the vision is to produce on online publication. That may be all this ever is until I sell it. But it is flexible enough an idea to become an ecom store, a forum, a brand, a manufacturer, who knows? I may not even sell it, if it's spinning off sufficient monthly revenue. We'll see...

The Journey So Far: It was important that my team be on board with the game plan and have a sense of ownership of this project. So the first step was a brainstorming session. I had them read a few Authority Hacker articles to get the juices flowing. Then we all brought ideas for different niches we could target, and out of a list of roughly 60 we narrowed it down to the top five. That was 10 days ago.

We did keyword research around these five niches, and one was a clear winner. We bought a domain. We put up the basics of a site. That was last Friday.

I can't believe how excited my team is about this. Usually I'm the super excited one in the office, I'm surrounded by a bunch of laid-back dudes.

I won't reveal the niche or the website. Maybe I'll give some hints later, but for now I'll just say that we chose it because we found a host of solid keyword phrases that indicated people were definitely interested in the kinds of articles we want to produce, and we identified that there were actually very few articles of this type being produced.

In other words the interest level is high, and the competition level is low. An SEO's dream.

But my sense is we need to be moving fast in order to become an authority in this arena. This won't stay noncompetitive for long. It is an area that none of us have expertise in but we all find interesting.

I gave one writer a week of playing around with Jarvis to get really comfortable with it. That's still a work in progress, but we've got our first two articles written.

Next steps: put some finishing touches on the site. Get email/tracking/CRM set up.

Do a lot more keyword research. I have a team member working on this part.

Create 10 to 15 informational, educational type articles for the site. This is also in process.

Create a media list. I have a third team member working on that part.

Other Goals/Benefits:
1. I do have a content strategy in mind, and I'll be sharing more details on that later. My goal with this thread is to share different ideas and tactics that work. Or even what doesn't.

To date, this real estate thread is the closest I've had to a progress thread. Now I want to do one for real.

2. I also want to experiment and learn new skills. For example, I suck at emails. But this thread got my wheels turning again, and I'd like to use this new site as a way to improve my/my team's skills.

3. Frankly, having a site like this will open other doors and sales possibilities for our agency.

4. If it doesn't make a dime itself, I can always leverage the idea that we built a site that gets xx,xxx visitors per month into new client types.

5. Along the way will be testing various SEO theories that I don't feel comfortable using a client's site to test. So there's at least a small chance that this project might go nowhere because I only kinda accidentally blew it up. That's not likely, I am definitely interested in selling this site, but since as it is our own site from scratch, I'm not afraid to break my own conventions and share the results of that with you Fam.

6. Honestly, there's so many people on this forum who are just spending their wheels trying to figure out a way to make money. I'm hoping I can prove that producing a quality content for a website in an intelligently chosen niche is a way to get yourself to a sustainable income.

7. Prove "them" wrong. You know, the people who will inevitably think this idea is trash. If someone else was writing this progress thread, I would probably be one of "them".

I learned SEO tactics a decade ago by getting a blog/store to 50,000 visits a month in a low margin industry. I guess here I am 12 years later crazy enough to think that I'm going to do it all over again, but I'm telling myself that this time I'm going to be smarter about monetizing it and smarter about how to prioritize time.

To be determined...

Time tables: other than the preliminary goal of selling this at the 2-year mark, which may or may not change, I'm not putting timetables on this project. We are in the business of serving clients, and this is intended to be a side hustle of sorts for our agency, not something that distracts us from our bread and buttah.

Is It Fastlane: No. It doesn't need to be. But for all the reasons I listed above, it brings a lot of value to my agency, and we can bring value to a tens of thousands of readers a month.

But if this works, not only can you do it, my guys will be able to do it again and again. And that thought excited me enough to document this journey.

The forum has given me so many ideas and friendships, this is one way I want to give back.

One rule: Don't discuss "hidden" niches or ask what niche you should choose. These tactics are relatively easily duplicated. I'll answer most any questions as I'm able, but if you have a good idea for a niche with untapped potential, don't bring it up on a public forum. Use some common sense.
Awesome idea -this is a great way to use the excess capacity of your team.

Niche privacy is a good idea. Sadly, people will steal your ideas in a heartbeat.

Is it an evergreen topic, or one that will need new content frequently (like daily news or state of the art tech reviews)?

I think the former will be easier to sell and get a higher valuation multiple, since it is more passive for a portfolio buyer.

Also, how much content do you imagine the "finished" site having at sale: 100 articles, or more like 1000?
 

Antifragile

Progress not perfection
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
453%
Mar 15, 2018
3,706
16,806
Following.
I like that it’s an experiment as I agree, it does look fastlane.
Good luck.
 

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
The market decides.

How will ensure quality content? The market will let me know.

How big will this thing get and what kinds of articles will it have? The market will let me know.

I wrote a thread about how MJ taught me that and I wanted to mention it early here because:

1. It explains why I don't have concrete plans on where I want to take this.

2. Since I'm writing this thread mainly for newer people, this seems like a good time as any to put a plug in for that post on entrepreneurial mindset.

3. It is a legit answer to the questions asked so far.

That said, I will come back when I have a little bit more time and give more detail answers to all the questions asked so far.

I honestly didn't expect to wake up and see this much activity on the thread. That was a pleasant surprise. And pretty awesome.

Thank you everyone for the interest in this journey. Good to know I'm not writing only for the lurkers.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Tiago

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
162%
Mar 22, 2014
785
1,275
30
Following this closely. By the way, just took a look at Jarvis. I actually said out loud "What the f*ck?!" when I saw what they do. Very exciting, thanks for sharing.
 

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
Following this closely. By the way, just took a look at Jarvis. I actually said out loud "What the f*ck?!" when I saw what they do. Very exciting, thanks for sharing.
If you haven't already, check out this thread. I had heard about it previously, but dismissed it until I saw people in there talking about it.
 

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
How are you ensuring that you'll produce good unique content considering none of you has expertise in the topic?
Good question. I honestly hadn't even considered it, but it's a good discussion point for illustrative purposes, being that I run an SEO agency, and we already utilize online PR as a link building strategy.

Pretty much every time I sign a new client, my writers are learning a new industry. One has been with me a year and a half, the other over 3.

When I started this, it really was because I already have the right staff in place.

At first, things we produce are "good enough" content. It has to be at least at that level because the places we get links from have editors, and our articles need to pass muster.

But in time, through research and interviews, they'll develop sufficient expertise to produce the content.

So I'm not concerned.

And that is one of the pitfalls that I feel I have when it comes time to sell this. At some point in the future, I'm going to try and figure out a better system that doesn't require what my writers do to keep this engine running. I'll need to do that in order to maximize the value for sale.

One thought is at some point to hire some college interns, and develop a process for training them, maybe with the help of Jarvis, to produce this content. And then my writers take on more of an editor role, overseeing them. I like that idea because then it gets my guys an ability to start developing some leadership skills. And it allows me to test what it would be like running an even bigger agency.

Another possibility is that this project turns into a proper business with sufficient revenue that I could just hire a writer. And then that writer would transfer if I sell the business.

But that's a project for later, and it may prove unnecessary, if I find the right buyer.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
Awesome idea -this is a great way to use the excess capacity of your team.
Thank you. I thought so. On a side note, the team I am building will ultimately be geared towards launching multiple projects, ideally software platforms, but this is a good first project to expand skills and test processes.

One thing I've never understood. If you got the skills that it takes to properly grow a business, why would you only do it for clients? Why not incubate and grow your own businesses?

There are a few thread like that already on the forum, notably @GuitarManDan has pivoted and added this new pursuit in his thread.

So that's the ultimate goal, but I'm not documenting all that in this thread here.
Is it an evergreen topic, or one that will need new content frequently (like daily news or state of the art tech reviews)?

I think the former will be easier to sell and get a higher valuation multiple, since it is more passive for a portfolio buyer.

Also, how much content do you imagine the "finished" site having at sale: 100 articles, or more like 1000?

I agree on your valuation point.

The truth is, in this space, I think I could write as small as a 20-page website and make some money. I don't really have a good way to judge how much, but it doesn't need to be an ongoing thing.

But what I am thinking we're going to do is set up a multi year content plan, execute on the first couple years of it, and then sell a business with a plan that's showing increasing traffic and revenue.

Another possibility is that I actually set up a few different websites in this space, to achieve different purposes.

I'll have a much better idea of how many pages we actually will be writing, once we've completed some of the keyword research we're working on. That's going to take a little time but I'll expand more on my thoughts on this later.

Right now my goal is to get the website to 10,000 visits a month. Once I'm getting that kind of traffic, I'll be able to start making some data based decisions on the directions to go with this stuff.
 

jdm667

Silver Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
216%
Jan 27, 2020
357
770
Boston, MA
One thing I've never understood. If you got the skills that it takes to properly grow a business, why would you only do it for clients? Why not incubate and grow your own businesses?
Good point. For that matter, why do people work as employees for decades after mastering those skills in a few months or years? (I guess that's why we're on this forum, though.)
Right now my goal is to get the website to 10,000 visits a month. Once I'm getting that kind of traffic, I'll be able to start making some data based decisions on the directions to go with this stuff.
True - it makes sense to get some feedback from the market and see what sticks, then go all in on that. If it earns a lot, great; if not, it is still a project to learn from (and it sounds like your team is excited about this, which is also good).
 

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
Quick pop in update.

Spent time speeding up the website. Getting excellent scores/times. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I'll link to this guy's forum post.

We went with WordPress hosted on Site Ground. Really like how easy SG made it.

There's a few additional things we do to speed up a site, and I'll detail that in a future post.

We got 3 articles written last week. I approved 2 and sent one back to the writer for edits. Client work is taking priority this week. Goal is to have 8 more articles written by end of next week and launch the site on the 1st.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
Ok, trying to make slow steady progress. Delegated 2 more stories. Need to come up with 5 more stories ideas to be written. Since all my guys are now maxed, the remaining keyword research falls on me. I said I'd work on it as little as possible, but I didn't say not at all. It makes sense for me to do this part anyways, because part of my goal is to test some silo tactics (sorry, SEO jargon, will explain later, or you can Google it). If the tactics work out, I'll sahre the basics here, I might make an INSIDERS post about it specifically, but that is months away yet. Silos are silos, I don't know if there's value in the details.

Had a quick discussion with the team. We are looking to create a persona for the "site owner" so when we sell, the persona goes with it. We discussed who would manage the social media accounts, as well as certain ethic implications and procedural issues that might arise from doing this. Took 15 min, have a plan to move forward that everybody is comfortable with.

Next steps: put some finishing touches on the site. Get email/tracking/CRM set up.

Do a lot more keyword research. I have a team member working on this part.

Create 10 to 15 informational, educational type articles for the site. This is also in process.

Create a media list. I have a third team member working on that part.
The finishing touches are almost done. Just need to add the articles and some blocks of text, about us pages, that kind of thing. Emails/tracking/CRM are set up.

Decided we will launch with 5 articles live and 5 scheduled ahead. At least initially I am thinking we publish posts Tuesday morning and Friday afternoon. So we'll have content 2 1/2 weeks out. Part of my goal will be publishing consistently. This will give us a minimum frequency to shoot for. If we are able to write faster (highly likely), we can always increase the frequency, but I think its better to start slow and increase than over shoot now and slow down later.

Media list got started. It is on the calendar to be worked on tomorrow also.

Adding to the list: creating social accounts, creating a list of possible revenue sources (generally meaning affiliates programs for now), and teaching my new guy my preferred method to optimize the pages.

That's it for today, I'm off to stare at data!
 

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
Goody! I found a competitor! Which led to me finding a half dozen more. Only one is over a year old and that's the one we have to beat.

Now I have definitive proof that we can achieve the goal. That competitor is definitely worth 6 figs based on my traffic analysis.

(Up till now I found an article here or there that discussed these topics but not the sites dedicated to only talking about it.)

So glad to make this discovery, adding to the to-do's: competitor research. This will give me link ideas, monetization tactics, story ideas, etc.

Update: Just found a great source of images by glancing at the competitor's site. Solving problems before they are problems is the best. Ok, back to keyword research.
 
Last edited:

Andy Black

Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
370%
May 20, 2014
18,563
68,687
Ireland
Good question. I honestly hadn't even considered it, but it's a good discussion point for illustrative purposes, being that I run an SEO agency, and we already utilize online PR as a link building strategy.

Pretty much every time I sign a new client, my writers are learning a new industry. One has been with me a year and a half, the other over 3.

When I started this, it really was because I already have the right staff in place.

At first, things we produce are "good enough" content. It has to be at least at that level because the places we get links from have editors, and our articles need to pass muster.

But in time, through research and interviews, they'll develop sufficient expertise to produce the content.

So I'm not concerned.

And that is one of the pitfalls that I feel I have when it comes time to sell this. At some point in the future, I'm going to try and figure out a better system that doesn't require what my writers do to keep this engine running. I'll need to do that in order to maximize the value for sale.

One thought is at some point to hire some college interns, and develop a process for training them, maybe with the help of Jarvis, to produce this content. And then my writers take on more of an editor role, overseeing them. I like that idea because then it gets my guys an ability to start developing some leadership skills. And it allows me to test what it would be like running an even bigger agency.

Another possibility is that this project turns into a proper business with sufficient revenue that I could just hire a writer. And then that writer would transfer if I sell the business.

But that's a project for later, and it may prove unnecessary, if I find the right buyer.
Years ago I was in a team of 35 Google Ads specialists buying 1m visitors a day.

The media buyers would order articles from the content team that would get added to sites.

This allowed the media buyers to run new campaigns and/or increase EPCs for current canpaigns.

The quality of the content was pretty poor, but I was struck by how simple the system was, and that the media buyers requested the content based on the paid search campaign data.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Andy Black

Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
370%
May 20, 2014
18,563
68,687
Ireland
James Schramko calls it an “infinity project”…

Have a project running in the background that your team loves working on, and can switch to when they’ve completed client work.

I try to always have a couple of non-client “infinity projects” on the go.
 

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
I see now how it really is a commitment to start one of these progress threads. Kudos to anybody who has one that has lasted even just three pages.

I did the keyword research (not that its ever "done" but its "done" for now).

OK, we launched the site today, two days off schedule. I had a personal tragedy affect some things this week, but this is when being surrounded by a team really helps buoy the entrepreneurial journey. Freelancers can't help you on that level.

My one writer got his ten articles done. We backed dated a few, and scheduled a head the next 2 weeks.

The other writer I gave an in depth article intended as a helpful resource, and another research heavy article that is more "newsy". The first one turned out to be 3-4x bigger than I thought. He says he tried to tell me, but he never actually told me.

We had a discussion about directness in communication and his owning his own deadlines or at least owning when it becomes apparent that a deadline is unreasonable. We pared down the big project and it'll be done Monday. The other by end of the week.

It's a minor bummer, because this page was going to be an anchor page to begin our SEO. I've decided we would start with a handful of forum links in appropriate locations. I'm really just looking for Google to notice the site and get a little data on how visitors to this well researched article/resource page will interact with us.

Will people even be interested in the content? Will they sign up for the newsletter? Will they submit suggestions (that's the call to action at the end of the article)? Anyways, that will be the focus of our activities for next week.

Anyways, phase 1 of the project is done.

The site loads really fast. .7 second on desktop (largest content paintful). If you don't know what that is I promise I will write a little more about it, but for now it's just a geek bragging). On mobile I get a 2.3-3.2 sec time, which isn't great but it is good. I need to train my new guy not to upload PNG files when a jpg will do. JPG files are smaller, thus load faster. Even if you convert to webp or something similar, I've found it is generally better to start with the smaller file size.

Still in the last two weeks I've been seeing the return of some really slow loading sites hitting #1 in the rankings, so Google's vaunted page speed update has, at least in the short term, had perhaps the opposite effect than I expected. I don't expect it to last. But it does mean that I don't need to obsess over speed right now.

I really really want to fix this myself, it just BUGS me, but I said I would do as little work on this as possible and fixing an image so I can report a better result to you guys probably isn't a good use of my time. Neither is the stream of consciousness I just did, but hopefully someone gets value out of that.

Anyways, 6 easy to rank pages live, 4 "in the hopper", 2 more being written, and we begin phase 2 next week, slowly promoting the site. Will need to finish creating the persona we wanted to create. Need to create a privacy policy and get it on there. Have several minor touch up issues that have come up.

That's it for now.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression...

1631133625855.png

We got our first search impressions and it only took five days. It's been a while since I've worked on a brand new site, I'm always interested to see how long it takes to get something, anything, outta Google.

I'm happy with an initial average ranking on page 6. And so it begins...
 

jdm667

Silver Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
216%
Jan 27, 2020
357
770
Boston, MA
They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression...

View attachment 39821

We got our first search impressions and it only took five days. It's been a while since I've worked on a brand new site, I'm always interested to see how long it takes to get something, anything, outta Google.

I'm happy with an initial average ranking on page 6. And so it begins...
Often, I can rank articles sooner on Bing and other search engines (DuckDuckGo, etc.) than in Google. Do you keep track of those rankings at all?

Not that you will get much traffic from them in the long run, but if I rank well in one of the smaller search engines, I find that Google rankings usually follow later. It gives a nice early validation that your content is good and the SEO is on point.
 

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
Often, I can rank articles sooner on Bing and other search engines (DuckDuckGo, etc.) than in Google. Do you keep track of those rankings at all?
Nope. Don't care to. Too busy to seek the validation.

At best the other search engines will be 20% of the total search traffic, so I'll see the traffic coming from them in my analytics reports, but I don't bother to track the rankings on them.

Life is busy. Minimize distraction.
I rank well in one of the smaller search engines, I find that Google rankings usually follow later. It gives a nice early validation that your content is good and the SEO is on point.
You're right. Not always, but generally true for sure.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
Not much to report this week. Agency work and sales meetings took priority this week.

I've actually been enjoying the slow burn of this. Since Sept 8 we got 4 days of impressions, then Google stopped showing it for 3 days (I actually checked and couldn't find us anywhere), and since then we rank for more phrases and a higher average ranking (total average up to 41). These are tiny numbers, three to seven impressions a day.

The site is fully indexed by Google. Seven of the pages are optimized for something, and four of them have gotten at least one search impression.

We are getting search impressions all over the world, including non-English speaking countries. Obviously, some of that is normal, but the fact that only 20% of our impression so far are in the US is something I'll be keeping an eye on. Geographically, we are starting by targeting the US, and there is an opportunity for us to target at least parts of Europe, but we're not really looking to turn this into a worldwide brand.

I'm using this beginning time in a sense to learn just how little I need to do to get something to the first page. I want to stress that most people will not find a niche this low in competition. If I had any real amount of competition, we would have already been going full board at link building.

Instead, this week we got two really juicy, highly relevant links, both from the same page on an authoritative site. Google hasn't indexed that page yet, and I am content to wait and let it happen organically. I want to see what happens to rankings when you get just one good link.

Next week, I'm going to have my writers start reaching out to the industry for interviews and working on new content. And I'll have my tech guy make some tweaks to signal to Google that we are a US-based company. For starters, we will probably set up a Google maps listing and office address.

One more interesting little tidbit I gleaning which was unexpected. So there is a particular product that we mentioned in one of our articles. The article is not optimized for this product name at all, it's just mentioned in there. That article now ranks in the 20s for the "product name" + the word "price".

That is interesting because we achieved that without even trying, so my expectation is if we actually tried to rank for product name plus price we do much better. And that is interesting because ultimately one of the monetization strategies is to rank for those kind of phrases and then use affiliate links to make money.

My initial excitement about this niche is cooled a little bit. We're still likely several months away from attempting to monetize. And I'm not sure, even if we rank for product names plus price, that our recommendations will actually lead to sales.

There's this little doubt in the back of my mind, what if the guys do all this work, and then the site doesn't convert?

And then I remind myself there's only one way to find out. So shut up brain and get to work.

Fearing that outcome does no good. Cross that bridge IF we get to it.
 
Last edited:

jdm667

Silver Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
216%
Jan 27, 2020
357
770
Boston, MA
One more interesting little tidbit I gleaning which was unexpected. So there is a particular product that we mentioned in one of our articles. The article is not optimized for this product name at all, it's just mentioned in there. That article now ranks in the 20s for the "product name" + the word "price".
This is why Google Analytics & Search Console are so important. Otherwise you might never have known about that little gem. They can also tell you things about your audience you never would have guessed.

Going after that keyword might lead to some other insights later on, and down the rabbit hole it goes...
 

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
Going after that keyword might lead to some other insights later on, and down the rabbit hole it goes...
Yep. I'm quoting this section so people read it again. This, to me, is the essence of what good SEO is, it is letting the data lead you, and that is what makes this field so interesting to me.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
Any updates on how this is going?
In a word, slowly.

I meant to put up an update on the 1st. Has half a month gone by already? Wow.

Agency work continues to dominate our time. We have consistently put up 1-2 articles a week. The main article goes up on Tuesday and is informational/educational in scope. On Fridays we occasionally put up a more "in the news" type article. Those are not keyword optimized and a intended to just round out/diversify the content.

We discussed last week ideas around a social strategy, but haven't implemented it. My concern is two fold. First, once we start it, we must maintain it, otherwise it is a waste of time. And second, perhaps more importantly, we barely gotten any links for ourselves, and that needs to be our next focus.

So 2 links generated. In Google we are ranking for 147 different phrases over the last 30 days somewhere in the top 100 position, with none on the first page. Our best phrase is at 22.

On the other hand, in the last 4 weeks we've gotten 22 search engine visitors, mostly from duckduckgo and bing. Our biggest day is 5 visits. So some of the articles have ranked and are getting seen a little. As mentioned previously, this experiment is focused on Google, so I didn't dig deeper into that. With holidays coming up, hoonestly I probably won't have another update until January. Hopefully by then we won't be having any 0 traffic days anymore.
 
Last edited:

jdm667

Silver Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
216%
Jan 27, 2020
357
770
Boston, MA
On Fridays we occasionally put up a more "in the news" type article. Those are not keyword optimized and a intended to just round out/diversify the content.
How does your team decide which news-type articles to write? Sites like BuzzFeed, ExplodingTopics, etc.?

I am always looking for news-type ideas, but my niches are pretty evergreen, so real "news" can be hard to come by.

We discussed last week ideas around a social strategy, but haven't implemented it. My concern is two fold. First, once we start it, we must maintain it, otherwise it is a waste of time. And second, perhaps more importantly, we barely gotten any links for ourselves, and that needs to be our next focus.
I hired a VA exclusively for Pinterest for one of my sites last December. She does a great job, and the pins get lots of engagement on Pinterest.

However, all that work hardly brings any traffic at all to the website. It's like MJ says with Facebook and other platforms - once they grow to a certain point, they don't need us anymore and so they start to send less traffic.

It probably depends on the social media site, the niche, and your article topics, though.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
How does your team decide which news-type articles to write? Sites like BuzzFeed, ExplodingTopics, etc.?
This was part of our conversation last meeting. We don't have a formal process. But my guys whole job is to get articles published on media sites for clients, so they keep their eyes out on the niche. Following journalists on Twitter helps. This niche is one that has legislation attached to it, so that makes for easy article topics.
How does your team decide which news-type articles to write? Sites like BuzzFeed, ExplodingTopics, etc.?

I am always looking for news-type ideas, but my niches are pretty evergreen, so real "news" can be hard to come by.


I hired a VA exclusively for Pinterest for one of my sites last December. She does a great job, and the pins get lots of engagement on Pinterest.

However, all that work hardly brings any traffic at all to the website. It's like MJ says with Facebook and other platforms - once they grow to a certain point, they don't need us anymore and so they start to send less traffic.

It probably depends on the social media site, the niche, and your article topics, though.
You have good points. If I have my way, we probably won't do any social. The push to do social is coming from my writers, being that they're on Twitter etc. I don't want to shut down an idea they have without at least fully considering it.
 

Andy Black

Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
370%
May 20, 2014
18,563
68,687
Ireland
If I have my way, we probably won't do any social. The push to do social is coming from my writers, being that they're on Twitter etc. I don't want to shut down an idea they have without at least fully considering it.
Is social a hamster wheel? If you stop posting then does everything dry up?

My experience on Twitter was that as soon as I stopped tweeting I stopped getting followers and engagement.

At the moment, I’d rather create evergreen content to go onto YouTube and a blog.
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top