This week, I welcomed Trish Seidel onto the show. Trish is "marketing's big sister" on LinkedIn, where she shares advice on SEO, content strategy and growth.
We discuss:
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This week, I welcome Josh Spilker onto the show. Josh is a seasoned marketer, having been the sole or first content person at ClickUp, Friday, and several other venture-back startups.
We discuss:
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Learn to scale content production in my eBook! https://www.thefxck.com/produce-content-at-scale
"There's no search volume for what we do"—okay, well do THIS instead.
In this case study, Aditya Vempaty (ex-Amplitude, current MoEngage VP of Marketing) shares his story of identifying an underserved segment of a competitive industry and building an SEO-led content strategy to capture it.
In this conversation, we discuss:
Find Aditya on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adityavempaty/
Follow me on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamingoodey/
Join the How the F*ck newsletter here: https://www.thefxck.com/
Learn to scale content production in my eBook! https://www.thefxck.com/produce-content-at-scale
We're back, baby! In this episode, I jump on to do my first-ever solo podcast. Just me and you.
I wanted to dig into a challenge my clients and network face regularly: How to craft your first topic cluster.
Your first for a client is so important. I can't stress that enough. It sets the tone and dictates whether SEO and Content will be part of your go-to-market moving forward.
So in this guide, I want to help you choose a topic that with high commercial potential that will also make sure you stand the f*ck out in your industry.
Key Links:
—Benny
I was so excited to welcome fellow Brit, Zoe Ashbridge, to the community today.
We throw tips and questions back and forth, discussing best practices around these four topics:
How to write content that targets a specific keyword
How to win featured snippets
How to win HARO links
How to work efficiently with freelancers (from briefs to workflows)
In the newsletter this week, I’ll round up some of our advice on 1 and 2 and I’ll let you dive into the conversation with Zoe to hear the rest.
Sponsored messages:
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Want a free backlink? Visit the Editorial Link website and book a meeting. Order 5 backlinks to get 1 free, use promo code "Ben Goodey" to get your free links (only pay when links are secured!).
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Benji Hyam and his team at Grow & Convert build SEO strategies that focus on conversion, not traffic.
In this interview, we focus on the case study of Cognitive FX, which is a classic example of how to build a blog full of content that's high-converting, differentiated, and still outranks WebMD.
Benji walks us through pain point SEO, keyword prioritization and his approach to topical authority.
The results speak for themselves: their work has led to 250K monthly organic visitors and drives 50% of all new business for Cognitive FX.
Things You'll Learn:
“60% of all our content ranks on page one.”—Jessica Lam Hill Young
In this episode, we learn the three-part framework Jess and her team use to create high-quality content that ranks on Google almost every time.
Expect to learn:
The three-part framework behind content that ranks on page 1
How to balance self-promotion & helpful content
Where to get subject matter expertise
Listen to part one from Jess here (I wrote my best insights into this article, with best bits from the episode).
Key Links:
A big thanks to our sponsors, uSERP (need an ambitious SEO agency? These are your people.) and Ahrefs (the best all-in-one SEO platform). Test out their free tools here: https://ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools
Supporting article (free): How to Refresh Old Content for SEO (and what NOT to do)
This week's episode focuses on one of the most powerful tools in the SEO arsenal: content refreshes.
Want to impress your clients or boss? Start revisiting your vast library of content.
Be warned: hockey stick traffic growth awaits.
As you'll hear in the episode, updating old content can take a blog post from 0 to 5,500 monthly visitors in as little as one month.
Expect to Learn:
Read the full article here to learn more about this topic. I offer 8 questions to ask yourself when updating old content and give tips on what not to do.
Key Links:
1. Sponsor #1: uSERP (Need an ambitious SEO agency? These are your people.)
2. Sponsor #2: Ahrefs (Best all-in-one SEO platform). Test out their free tools here: https://ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools
3. Grab my SEO brief template - Drive expertise, connection & ranking
4. View sh*t loads of awesome case studies in our SEO case study library
Our "raison d’etre" is to help marketers scale search traffic without sacrificing quality. This week, expect a ton of tips & ideas for doing just that.
I interviewed Erin Balsa, who builds thought leadership-driven content strategies for B2B SaaS startups that sell complex, enterprise solutions.
She, like me, has a strong aversion to putting out content that’s not unique and well-sourced. Both of our standards for minimum viable content are pretty damn high.
With the companies she works with, this stuff is critical.
B2B enterprise SaaS is as far from an impulse purchase as you can get. It’s expensive and there are lots of decision-makers involved.
You just can’t get away with cheap or AI-written content when you’re selling something expensive and complex to such a smart audience.
Grab the full case study here (it's a lot more in-depth than the interview).
Expect to Learn:
Key Links:
1. Sponsor #1: Skale B2B SEO Agency
2. Sponsor #2: Ahrefs (You know who they are). Test out their free tools here: https://ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools
3. Sponor #3: uSERP (Need an ambitious SEO agency? These are your people.)
4. Grab my SEO brief template - Drive expertise, connection & ranking
5. View sh*t loads of awesome case studies in our SEO case study library
Since launch in 2020, copy.ai has grown to 8M users in the fierce battle for AI content writing tools.
But back in 2022, when they began investing in SEO, search volumes for their core keywords (e.g. "AI content generator") were negligible if they existed at all.
Over that year, as we are all well aware, there was a rapid wave in demand for AI copywriting tools.
The team at copy.ai correctly predicted that demand. And as a result, they were the first to build an SEO strategy to capture it.And they won.
Their big money maker? A cluster of tools pages that now brings in way over 150,000 high-intent visitors a month.
In this SEO case study, we look at how copy.ai's SEO strategy helped them seize a first-mover advantage in the emerging category and how they built an SEO moat that they still benefit from today.
Guest: Jeremy Moser the Founder of uSERP.io, which is the Digital PR and Performance SEO agency for copy.ai.
Listen to this episode to find out:
Full case study teardown here (with video!)
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Key Links:
1. Sponsor #1: Workello: https://workello.com/?fpr=howthefck for a platform that helps find, vet, and hire writers at scale
2. Sponsor #2: Ahrefs: Ahrefs is my go-to keyword and competitor research, too. Test out their free tools here: https://ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools
3. Grab my SEO brief template - Drive expertise, connection & ranking
4. View sh*t loads of awesome case studies in our SEO case study library
We're joined again this week by Jacob from NerdWallet, this week to discuss a VERY important topic: high-converting keywords.
We discuss:
Key links:
1. Sponsor #1: uSerp: userp.io for a great backlink-building agency
2. Grab my SEO brief template - Drive expertise, connection & ranking
3. Read the full teardown here.
4. View sh*t loads of awesome case studies in our SEO case study library
This case study is about an underdog website.
A new company, launching into a competitive niche and winning some of those most difficult keywords.
Maze broke through on topics like “UX Design” and “UX Design Tools” by focusing on:
These are the core tenants of the SEO revenue engine that has allowed Maze to fuel its growth via search.
Listen to this episode to find out:
1. The SEO engine companies like Hubspot, MoonPay, UserZoom, PiktoChart and Maze have under the hood, and how to build one yourself.
2. How to pioneer your category via search. Winning growth EVEN when no one is searching for what you do.
3. How to avoid wasting search visitors. Most traffic reads and leaves, not anymore with this 3-step process.
4. A simple yet powerful technique for backlink building that will put you AHEAD of your competitors. Maze did this to beat a powerful competitor.
Note: Got questions? Jake kindly offered How the F*ck listeners a free 15-minute chat to SaaS peeps who wants help implementing this. Book here.
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Sponsors:
1. Grab my SEO brief template - Drive expertise, connection & ranking
2. Sponsor #1: uSerp: userp.io for a great backlink-building agency
3. Sponsor #2: Workello: https://workello.com/?fpr=howthefck for a platform that helps scale hiring writers
4. Read the full teardown here.
5. View sh*t loads of awesome case studies in our SEO case study library
Jacob Clarke joined the show today from NerdWallet's stupidly successful SEO team. He helps us define topical authority and drill down into how to achieve it to accelerate growth results.
In SEO, the concept of topical authority is one that's relatively new in our lexicon. But it's one of THE most powerful tools to have in your belt when building an SEO-driven content strategy.
Topics covered: Why prioritize topical authority? Two tried & tested methods for measuring authority. And a step-by-step for building authority.
Key links:
1. Reduce time and improve rankings: Get the ultimate SEO brief template
2. Sponsor: uSerp: userp.io for a great backlink-building agency
3. Read this in article format
4. View sh*t loads of topical authority case studies in our SEO case study library
I had an amazing conversation with Ash Read this week on the show.
For those of you who know the software company Buffer, Ash was their Editorial Director for 6 years. So, you know, this is going to be an episode where you'll about scaling traffic with quality content systems.
Since 2020, Ash has been building a niche blog empire. Starting with LivingCozy.com, which focuses on home & furniture product reviews.
The site received over 335,000 monthly page views in Feb 2023 and earned ~$10K a month this time LAST year.
Expect to learn:
1. Living Cozy's initial content strategy and how it's evolved
2. Three types of content and why they write them
3. Why expertise is so important and how they get it for every article
4. How Ash uses "layering" to ship more content quickly
5. The ins and outs of Living Cozy's content operation
6. Living Cozy's backlink strategy
Sponsors:
1. Mentioned SEO brief template
2. Sponsor: uSerp: userp.io for a great backlink-building agency
3. Read this in article format
4. View sh*t loads of topical authority case studies in our SEO case study library
Learn about E-E-A-T and how to demonstrate it with SEO expert, Olga Zarr.
Topics: What is E-E-A-T? Does it matter for everyone? How can I demonstrate it to Google?
Key Links:
Eli Schwartz has advised the who's who of technology companies: Zendesk, Coinbase, Quora, InsightTimer, and many more.
During his 7-year tenure at SurveyMonkey, his growth team of 5 was responsible for 2/3 of their annual revenue. In total, over $1bn in organic value (yes, that includes both branded search and content strategy).
"By the time I left, we were generating an average $200 million a year in revenue sourced from organic search."—Eli Schwartz
He systemized his learnings at SurveyMonkey into an approach called Product-led SEO. A methodology used by companies like Canva, Coinbase, Language Drops, and more to drive explosive growth.
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In this episode, we learn all about it:
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Want to really understand this technique?
I break down this strategy in full at thefxck.com:
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Sponsors:
In the final episode with Adam Smith, we look at the keyword research system behind his "beast" SEO case study.
Here's the background on the niche site:
We've already heard:
In this week's episode, we explore how to raid competitor sites for content ideas that you're all but guaranteed to win.
Adam calls the system "tomb-raiding SEO", and it's the exact process he used to build the content strategy for the "beast".
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Want to really understand this technique?
I break down this strategy in full at thefxck.com:
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Sponsors:
More with Adam Smith!
This time? The hardest part of niche blogging: Actually choosing a sub-niche you don't regret.
This is the best methodology I've seen to find areas of traffic you can win, quickly.
Adam tells us how to take a data-led approach to this.
The savvy ones of you out there will have already noticed—this methodology (for finding untapped, uncompetitive traffic to win) also applies to SaaS and services.
Really, it's one of the most fundamental principles of SEO research. But taken through a lense I'd never considered before.
Expect to learn:
Want to really understand this technique?
I break down this strategy in full at thefxck.com:
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Sponsors:
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Related reads:
This week, I caught up with niche website expert, Adam Smith, to learn how to use aged domains to accelerate traffic-building success.
Expert to learn:
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Get How the F*ck Premium:
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Sponsors:
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Related reads:
In this week's SEO case study, we revisit a story we released in December 2022: How Monday.com Scaled its SEO (1,000 articles in 12 months).
In part one, we lifted the hood of the content operation that underpinned Monday's very first major investment into SEO.
We learned how Monday worked with the content production company, Codeless.io, to make up for lost time.
In part two, we hear from two Monday insiders.
Eliana Atia, Brand and SEO Content Team Lead, who joined the team just after the IPO, 6 months after the project started.
Zoe Averbuch, Senior SEO Manager, who led the project while it unfolded.
Eliana and Zoe tell us the logic behind the strategy; the return on investment for Monday; and how they've since iterated their strategy.
Expect to learn:
⚡ Monday's SEO philosophy: Why failing fast, learning, and iterating were all part of the plan.
⚡ Working together with the paid acquisition team: How Monday's 8 years of heavy ad spend helped optimize their SEO strategy.
⚡ Why prioritization is everything in SEO. And why this means it's important to ship new content before it's fully edited.
⚡ Return on investment: Was the experiment worth it? How has Monday's SEO strategy iterated from their learnings?
⚡ Moving forward: What were their biggest learnings and how are they continuously maintaining their enormous content library?
Read the teardown: Access our full library of 25+ Premium SEO case studies and deep best practice insights for £17 at www.thefxck.com.