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SEO strategies. Growing your product to 2.5K monthly pageviews

Last year, I'd built a site from scratch and grew it to 2.5k month monthly purely through SEO.

EOY data:
📈 Total page views: 14,104
⏱ Avg session time across all pages: 3:38

Here's a few strategies I used along the way 👇

Website SEO performance

It'd been years since I'd worked specifically in content or SEO, so I first took the time to review the Ahrefs blogging for business course (now available for free).

This is a MUST for any founder looking to use SEO as an acquisition channel.

A few key takeaways from the course 👇

1️⃣ Source keyword opportunities with medium-high search volumes, with low backlink competition.

2️⃣ Quality > quantity.

Take the time to write the most valuable content on the internet. Some examples of my content here & here.

3️⃣ Prioritise search terms that add genuine value to your business.

It's also just as important to build backlinks to increase your domain authority.

My progress throughout the year:

👉 March 2020: DR: 7 // 113 backlinks

👉Dec 2020: DR: 27 // 511 backlinks

backlinks performance

These were the top strategies I used to generate high-quality links 👇

1️⃣ Updating existing links

Over the past few years, I'd guest published content across some renowned sites. With a pre-build relationship built on the value I'd already shared, I contacted each publisher and asked to include a link in my authors bio.

2️⃣ HARO

In my personal opinion, HARO can be an absolute gold mine for high-quality back-linking opportunities. Each day, I'd submit 3 applications, taking the time to write the most valuable and in-depth responses to each.

3️⃣ Guest publishing

With an existing personal brand in my niche, I reached out to as many publishers as possible who allowed guest authors. Once again, I prioritised those with a high DA.

The process was the most draining from my experience, but was well worth the effort.

4️⃣ Podcast features

I also researched podcasts within my niche that hosted their shows on their own site. This was a great way to not only share insights and value to an existing audience, but also receive a backlink from the publisher.

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One of the last strategies I used was proper schema markup. Within each post, I'd add schema for a list so that I could increase my chances of a featured snippet placement.

Once I published each post, I'd manually submit it to search console to be indexed soon as possible.
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The most important strategy for anyone interested in SEO is patience.

You need to remember that it's a long play.

My site certainly isn't seeing hockey stick growth, but it's slowly compounding each month 👍

  • If you enjoyed the content in this post, I'd recommend checking out my Twitter profile @lachlankirkwood.
posted to Icon for group Growth
Growth
on January 10, 2021
  1. 3

    I don't quite understand. Your business is making T-shirts, right? But the 2 examples of your content are nota bout T-shrts. What am I missing here?

    1. 3

      Should have clarified, this was for another project of mine before I built Maker Threads. This product is called ClickThrough.

  2. 1

    Thanks, Lachlan. I had never heard of HARO before your post.

    1. 1

      Definitely a must!

      As I mentioned, I'd recommend taking the time to submit the most informative responses possible. With hundreds of users applying for each request, you'll need to stand out by sharing the most value.

  3. 1

    Very nice post, thanks for sharing it. I'm about to launch my app in the next couple of weeks and will use these tips.

    1. 2

      Thanks! Glad this could help.

      I'd even recommend starting work on SEO before you launch your product if possible. As SEO can take months before it becomes effective, the best time to get started is now 👍

  4. 1

    Thanks for sharing the tips.

    1. 1

      Not a problem, hope there's something actionable you can use for your own product.

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