Embarque.io
An agency for productized SEO content marketing services
Featured snippet!
First win of 2021! Ranking in the featured snippet for a keyword that gets 17k searches every month! Here's a Twitter thread on how we got to this ranking.
Featured snippet!
First win of 2021! Ranking in the featured snippet for a keyword that gets 17k searches every month! Here's a Twitter thread on how we got to this ranking.
...and $400 away from a 6 figure annual revenue for Embarque.io😬. Super cool.
Finishing 2020 with a nice milestone: we've exactly published 150 articles. Pleasantly surprised it's a rounded figure haha.
Best practices along the way
Content
- Word count matters — for both SEO articles and landing pages. Invariably, our content with 1000 words or more rank significantly faster.
- Use a topic optimisation tool, like Frase, cognitiveSEO, or Clearscope. They work, and help reduce the indexing wait from months to weeks.
- Keyword optimisation for SEO works. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
- Our average word count per content asset is above 1000.
Building Embarque
- Package upgrades still consist a huge part of our growth. Nice.
- Community engagement matters. I’ve recently realised this: I’ve gotten all my clients through community engagement (for another blog post)
- Even those that I’ve acquired through a “sales” call have found me through a forum post, or in a Slack group, and so on.
- The jump from being a content creator to an agency founder feels much more emotional than I thought it would.
- Delegate. If you think that you can do the job faster/better by yourself, you’re most likely wrong.
- Prioritize providing the best customer experience that you can — but not at the expense of customer acquisition
- Some prospects are just not for you — and that’s OK. Learn to fire clients.
- Sometimes, our growth never feels enough. I realise that this is going to be a recurring feeling.
We've been at this for around 6 months now, and it still feels like we're in our very early stages.
Onwards and upwards to 2021!!!
-
2
Best content I have ever gotten thx Ignacio
-
1
thx monn.
-
-
2
Super impressive.
-
1
Thank you so much, Kumy!
-
-
2
You've been on absolute fire this year Julian. Massively impressed with what you've achieved in such a short amount of time!
-
1
hihihi thanks for letting me guest-post on Striqo, your productized podcast agency to create amazing podcasts like Indie Bites ;).
-
-
1
Igancio....congratulations. I just looked at your site and think i'll give it a try. Have been in the publishing business a long time, but never have appropriate time to do my own SEO.
-
1
Congrats. I am going to contact you and see if your agency is a fit for my new project.
-
1
Thank you so much, Evan! Yeah, just hit me up if you have any questions :D.
-
-
1
Fantastic job! Please continue to keep us posted on your progress. I am inspired.
-
1
Yeah, of course! Super happy I somehow get to encourage people to launch their businesses.
-
📈High-quality content for SEO, product and community building is what we strive to create.
Focusing on quality and customer happiness have been important factors for our growth.
I’m super stoked to finally release this content samples page, which contains articles that have helped brands to grow their audience and get new clients through SEO.
When it comes to measuring outcomes, we purely rely on 2 important elements that contribute to meaningful SEO-fuelled growth:
- Organic search traffic (i.e. the content ranking in the top 10 for high-volume keywords AND getting actual traffic)
- Conversions
In my opinion, other “success” metrics for SEO content can be quite deceitful to clients. But hey 😬.
Guide to the samples page: https://embarque.io/blog/creative-content-writing-samples
Samples page: https://embarque.io/#samples
Yaaaaay!
-
4
(DJ Khalid voice) Another one. 🙏
-
1
thanks for reminding me that rihanna needs to release new music so that i can water my crops 💧
-
-
2
👏👏👏👏
-
2
Great samples page. Often overlooked aspect of productized service but samples, case studies, testimonials are super important. You can use them in your outreach as well, email sequences, etc.
-
2
Yes, agreed! I soft-launched this yesterday to a part of my small email list and got package sales without a discovery call! Amazing thing to wake up to!
-
-
1
Prolific
Love the value always being created!
-
1
Thank youuu for your support man!!!
-
-
1
Nice one. This is something I need to do a better job with. 👍
-
1
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
Until today, I was earning $13-14K per month since Feb 2020 from my full-time job and freelancing as a marketing strategist.
Yesterday, I submitted my final freelancing project.
Today, I'll be working full-time on Embarque, an agency for productized SEO content marketing services that earns $6k in monthly revenue (http://embarque.io/).
Salary cut: temporary
Building something that I love and own: priceless
I've never felt so sure of my decision.
-
3
Congrats!
Suggestion for your service (coming from a founder who would be interested in your services) - offer a free consultation call. I personally can't put my card down for a service like this without speaking with you personally and get a feeling for your past experience and strategy.
-
1
Yep! Cheers for the feedback. You're right :).
We'll be adding that a consultation button next to the subscribe one. If you want, always down for an email: julian@embarque.io.
Thanks again!
-
-
3
Congrats wish you all the best and good luck! Exciting times ahead, I also left my job without a salary working on my own products and so far my work-happiness levels are way higher :D Keep it up!
-
3
Congrats Julian! Temp pay cut is definitely worth building a product you own and enjoy.
-
2
Yeah, gradually quitting all freelancing obligations has made me generally a lot less anxious. I never realised how unhappy I was haha.
-
-
2
Massive congrats, the best decision!!
-
1
Hihi yasss
-
-
1
Best of luck! Don't know your background but esp. if you are still young-ish, go for it as this decision won't get easier with age.
I am considering leaving my corporate career with a 6-figure salary and perks after 20 years, mortgage just paid off and with some investments. I do have a side business making ~$10k/month for some years but it still feels risky as there won't be a way back in a few years. -
1
Congratz Julian !
I'm wondering... how do you aquire your customers ? SEO ? Other sources as well ?
Because I don't see tons of backlinks or good ranking for this website, so I'm really curious.-
2
Haha great question! To be honest, I haven't had the time to do proper SEO work on my own website because I have so many client projects to finish. But to answer your question:
- We get most of our clients through community engagement (e.g. being here) and word-of-mouth referrals.
- Past work. I'm going to be working on samples page this weekend!
That said, I do want to use SEO as a growth channel and looking to hire great SEO writers for our blog. I just need to find the time in-between client work.
-
-
1
Where did you get the customers from ? What have you used as marketing channels ?
-
1
Julian, this is a great milesone and looking forward to following your journey.
-
1
can't wait to share my learnings <3
-
-
1
Great news Ignacio! Keep it pumping!
-
1
Yesss 💪
-
-
1
Congrats! All the best :-)
-
1
Thank youuuu
-
-
1
Good luck! I haven't yet left my six figure salary, but that day isn't far.
-
1
Hahahaha, I don't think I took a risk, because I live fairly frugally. Good luck!!!
-
-
1
Good luck!!!!!
-
2
Thank you so much!!!!! Fingers crossed!
-
-
1
Exciting times! All the best!
-
1
thank youuuuuu
-
-
1
Cool website, who did it?
-
1
some monkeys?
-
-
1
Congratulations and Good luck!!
-
1
Thank you so much! I'll need all the luck i can get.
-
-
1
Yay go you Julian!
-
1
yusssss go us <3333
-
-
3
This comment was deleted 3 years ago
-
1
Super nice! Thanks, again for your comment, Dinesh!
-
-
1
This comment was deleted 5 years ago
-
6
This comment was deleted 4 years ago
-
1
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
May - August (3 months) - Reached $3,500 MR
August - September (2.5 weeks) - $6,000 MR
It took me 3 months to reach $3,500 and 2.5 weeks to get to $6,000
Mostly from upgrades. Thank you so much for all your support. My clients are the real MVP. :D
-
3
congrats, remember seeing you starting it , great work 🚀
-
2
I know right? I was such a MESS.
But I got there, bless 😇
-
-
2
Amazing work Julian! Thoroughly deserved 🔥
-
1
Thank youuu for your support this whole time man. Really valuable support group!
-
-
2
Congratulations. Getting inspired from you .
-
1
I live for this! Hit me a DM on Twitter @jic94 if you have any questions. I'll try to respond as fast as I can :D.
-
-
2
Very well deserved my friend.
-
1
Thankkkkk youuuu Charlie-boy. Thanks for listening to my existential crises when I was just starting out.
😂
-
-
1
Wow, congratulations bro.
What kind of marketing brought in the best revenue?-
1
Word of mouth referrals :).
-
-
1
amazing, congratulations👍🏻
-
1
Thank youuu!!
-
-
1
Isn't it 4 months instead of 2 weeks? You title is a bit confusing :)
Nevertheless this is an awesome result. Congrats!
-
1
Thank you! :)
-
-
1
Congrats Julian! How did you get everyone to upgrade?
-
1
Hahaha, this will be kind of a disappointing response, but they all asked for it.
A more tactical, yet unexpected, growth tactic was to include a content calendar in the packages containing relevant topics. Obviously, if they want to publish more content within a short timeframe, then they'll have to order more blog posts.
We also very recently shifted from offering end-to-end productized content marketing services to exclusively SEO content creation services. SEO publishing is an important growth machine, and the earlier you can publish great SEO content, the faster it ranks for Google. This means that brands are more willing to dish out $$$ in order to rank faster.
But yeah. The secret sauce for our growth is delivering great SEO content that builds a community :P! It's content that brands aren't afraid to distribute online and show to their clients.
-
2
Hahaha :)
And so you mean you give them content ideas upfront and then they upgrade because they want MOARRR faster??? :)
-
1
hehehe noice
-
-
1
Do you have a way of measuring the outcomes of using your SEO content?
-
1
Hey @Donfelix, yeah! We measure it through organic search traffic and conversions, full-stop!
We don't play around with people's expectations. Most SEO and content marketing agencies use the number of keywords ranking as a measurement. That's BS, in our opinion.
You don't get results by being on the second page of a Google search. You get it by being in the top 10. We'll help you get your content on the first page by producing great content. Now, it's up to the client to do backlink outreach campaigns.
-
-
-
-
1
Good job man!😁
-
1
Thank youuuuu
-
-
1
Congrats!
When did you start embarque.io?-
1
Timeline's a bit blurry (blame corona) but announced April and soft-launched late May!
-
-
1
Congrats. Great work on UI.
-
1
Awesome
-
1
Awesome! :)
-
-
1
Awesome job! Keep up the good work.
-
1
Thank you so much! It's time to move forward and not look back!
-
-
1
Saw this from Productized Community FB group - this is amazing, congratulations Julian! :D
-
1
Thanks, Steven! Great community! Yeah, I'm also super happy with the milestone :D.
-
-
1
Interesting, I would assume there is churn here and the MRR will stabilize at some point (the timeline seems too small).
For example I might buy the starter package, get the 3 posts and cancel. Because I don't need 3 posts every month :)
-
2
Hey, Tony! See, I initially thought like this, too. But SEO and publishing are very interesting verticals, in that businesses want to adhere to a publishing schedule to rank for Google. This means that they want to continue, based on how much content you can produce. And this has been my main growth segment. My main growth has been based on business upgrades!
-
-
1
Well done!
-
1
Thank you so much!
-
-
1
Congrats. Thanks for sharing the win
-
1
Of course! Going to do that more often.
-
-
1
What are your profit margins? Nice work!
-
1
This comment was deleted 3 years ago
-
1
Hey Dinesh, thank you so much! timeTracko looks mad interesting! Rooting for you!
-
...And I've shared all my learnings in an interview about building Embarque and having a full-time job at the same time.
We talked about:
- Why product excellence should be every indie hacker's #1 priority for growth
- What product-based growth means for productised SEO content marketing services
- Growth through customer success and guest-posting
- Almost giving up 2 months in
Comment