PageFactory

My main focus for last month was launching the MVP for PageFactory, a tool that helps you generate pages for programmatic SEO.

I sent an email to my 250+ waitlist about closing the beta in mid June. Initially I communicated that PageFactory would be launched at the end of June, but with the Fourth of July holiday in the states starting around that time, I thought it would be better to launch the week after. Now I'm preparing to launch this Monday July 11th to the waitlist (with a discount), and July 13th to the public.

The fully "launched" version of PageFactory will be different from the beta in a few ways.

View full demo here

First, users will be able to use a WYSIWYG editor to create templates, replacing the need to write HTML or Jinja code.

And second, PageFactory will "sync" pages to Wordpress websites, so users don't have to deal with manually importing content into Wordpress. If the launch goes well and this seems like a viable product, I plan to integrate PageFactory with more website builders. Next would probably be Webflow.

Admittedly, I'm doing more for the "official launch" of the MVP than I probably should. Unnecessary customization, optimizing things that don't need to be optimized...typical stuff that builders and tinkerers like to get hung up on. But solving the technical challenges for PageFactory have been really fun! When I get in the "zone," it's hard to keep myself in check. 😅

Enjoying working on PageFactory has surprised me. I've had a lot more fun working on PageFactory than anything I've done for my other project, Fantasy Congress in the last couple years. And yet, Fantasy Congress is the project I'm more passionate about. Maybe it's because PageFactory is shiny and new. But I've also started to think "passion projects" are less adaptable and inherently more grueling than "profit driven" projects.

Still, I'm trying to keep my expectations for the launch to a minimum. Don't want to get hung up on something that hasn't been validated yet! But I can't help but be excited to put another one of my creations out into the world. 😊

The beta for my no-code programmatic SEO tool has been going really well. I've collected great feedback and am ready to start making changes in preparation for a full launch!

So far, this product has gone through about 4 names since I started playing around with the idea last fall. I've always thought product names are a silly thing to waste time on. After all, no one cares what it's called so long as it provides lots of value, right?

When I soft launched on Twitter, the name I was using was "Opal". This was supposed to be a play on SEO, as in "Your SEO pal" or "Your Optimization pal".

Cheesy, I know!

I didn't love it from the get go. But I felt compelled to name the application before sharing on Twitter.

The big reason I started to dislike this name was because it doesn't describe what the product does. It's abstract, and doesn't give consumers any hints.

Admittedly, it was hard to come up with a descriptive name in the beginning, because I didn't understand the purpose of the application until I started talking to potential customers.

Talking to people made me realize the value behind the product. And nailing that down has made every other decision much easier.

Including picking a better name!

After talking to beta testers and narrowing the product's scope, I landed on a name that I think is much better: PageFactory

Maybe it's not perfect. But for an SEO automation tool that helps you churn out many pages of content at once, I think it works.

And so far, people really like the change.

Of course, there's lots of products who get by just fine with abstract names that don't reflect what the product does.

But I feel more confident getting ready to launch with "PageFactory" than any other name I've used.

And the longer the product is out there, the harder it would be to re-brand. So better get that out of the way before launch, than after!

Opal originally started as an experiment I created to test the limits of programmatic SEO. I wrote a blog post about the experiment (https://allisonseboldt.com/experimenting-with-programmatic-seo/) and it began to rank on Google. People reached out to me through my blog and twitter so much, I decided to share the application I created for the experiment online. I shared a video of me demo-ing the application and a signup to beta test it. By the end of April I had over 40 people signed up to beta test Opal.