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- ⭐️ Algorithm-proof your SEO
⭐️ Algorithm-proof your SEO
Hey 👋
One of the greatest skills you can develop in your lifetime is the ability to communicate and tell stories.
Humans love stories.
It's why we get drawn into Dr. Seuss as a kid.
Why we listen to a track on repeat for days.
Why we get lost watching a movie at the theater.
And I'm writing this because I want to tell you something important.
AI is advancing, it's shifting jobs, and it's creating a feeling of uneasiness for many (especially in the tech industry).
But, I know if you don't forget the fact that people love stories, you will always find a way to make it.
A few weeks ago, a reader of this newsletter reached out asking what my secret was for the growth of the Marketer Milk website. By growth, this person meant the SEO traffic.
This person noted that Google had killed many publishers, and that they noticed my site had continued to grow (with most of the growth happening during periods of Google Core Updates):
Mind you, this person is a very successful marketer — leading content marketing at a huge tech company. And I knew they only jokingly used the word “secret.”
But, I get this question a lot. And I never know how to respond.
My "secret"?
My secret is I spent years, put in over 10,000 hours to study a topic I loved, learned what Google wants from its publishers, and fused all of that together with the power of storytelling.
But no one wants to hear that.
I get a ton of messages every day from people asking me about hacks, tools, and secrets. And my initial reaction, although I don't say this publicly as to not offend anyone, is that you already lost before you began. You're deciding to put the cart before the horse.
Last year, we saw too many tools launch that promised to help you create and scale SEO generated content. Being the curious person I am, you bet I paid and tried a ton of them. And each time I used one of these tools, I was hesitant to publish anything from what they generated. I noticed that the content was missing something very important. It was missing a soul.
And because of that, I had a feeling that many of the publishers out there that will use AI to generate ideas and content are among the 90% of people that are looking for that magical "secret."
As of today, all of my websites, and even all of my clients' websites, have only continued to grow.
Simply because I focus on a few core things (and ignore the rest):
Getting your branded search traffic up: This means building a brand built on trust — something people want to share. Traffic from social media, email marketing, and just direct word-of-mouth is a signal Google uses to see if it can trust your website. And the more people search for your brand (and mention it on social media), the better chance you have at not only sustaining your overall non-branded search traffic, but having it grow during algorithm changes.
Have great UX: One trend I've noticed with sites that have been hit hard this year is that they have generic WordPress templates from something that looks like it came out of the Tumblr days (or it’s littered with display ads). Design is very important. Pay attention to it. Most marketers suck at design. Don't be one of those marketers.
Write what you know: Talking from a first person perspective on things you know deeply is how you win. When people search things in Google, they want to learn from someone who's "been there, done that." Talk about your experiences. Weave in your ideas and solutions to problems into a story that has soul.
Pay attention to web semantics: Google is a robot, and it tries to make sense of things by analyzing structure. How you structure your HTML, the ways you answer queries, the way you build topical authority, the way you interlink your content, the way you link out to external resources, and the way you get others to link back to you all matters. Focus on the human side first, but do not turn a blind eye to how algorithms analyze and understand content.
Slow is better: I don't buy into the notion that you need to move as fast as possible in order to grow and be successful. In fact, it's an act of violence to not think deliberately about what you're doing. SEO is hard and it takes a while to build something great out of it. It took me over 2 years of consistent work to get to this point. And that's what I love about it. Nobody wants to do hard things. This is why I truly believe SEO is in its golden era and competition is at an all time low. 90% of the content out there sucks. If you focus on doing your absolute best, learn to enjoy the process, and not rush by taking shortcuts with AI content, you will win.
This is my insight for this week. It's one I've been thinking a lot about since all the Google news these past couple of months. Only those who have taken shortcuts are scared right now. But I know you know better.
Have a 10 year plan, not a 1 year plan.
With that, let's get into what we have in store this week (lots of good stuff):
Marketing news from the past week
How Flo grew to $190M ARR
9 DTC email marketing strategies
The traffic impact of AI Overviews
How AI will reinvent marketing
Ad of the week
Website of the week
Cool marketing jobs
And much more
🗞 In the news
🚀 All things growth & product
How Flo grew to $190M ARR, Adobe’s UX issue, winning go-to-market strategies, and three common mistakes when building big bets.
💭 Guess the riddle
How many marketers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer is at the bottom of this email
💌 Emails, lifecycle, & copy
9 DTC email marketing strategies, how customer lifecycle evolves with marketing, and a secret to making your writing resonate with people.
✍️ SEO & content marketing
The traffic impact of AI Overviews, the “why” behind major SERP traffic dips in SaaS, and the 75-25 rule of content marketing.
📈 AI, ads, & branding
How AI will reinvent marketing, 7 steps to create the perfect Facebook ad, and the Peak-End Effect in branding.
🦖 Food for thought
📣 Ad of the week
Saw this ad on the 6 train in NYC
💻 Website of the week
🏝 Cool marketing jobs
Okay, that's it for now 🩷. See you next Tuesday!
What did you think of this newsletter? |
“Technology teaches passivity. Absorbed in our devices - at any age - we are absorbed in someone else's perspective.” — Julia Cameron
Riddle answer: None, they’ve automated it.