I’ll spend $5,000 in 2023 in the ways that you best tell me to. Ok, but it’s also really just another website case study. Oh well.
Quick background.
The year was 2012 or so.
My buddy and I missed some local events and wondered how (we were involved young professionals, how did we miss them?!?)
We immediately decided to launch our own event source.
Started with 500 emails of our friends (sorry guys, we didn’t require an opt-in, just starting spamming you!)
We eventually decided we needed a website. (originally called the MobTen and definitely didn’t look like this then).
Today, we still tell people what’s happening in our city weekly.
But we’ve grown out the socials of Facebook and Instagram over time.
We also have (our most significant and impactful project) that’s launched out of the brand called Do Some Good.
Ok, so that’s the background.
10+ years of slow, painful, side hustle-style growth.
This included us wanting to quit many times but telling ourselves that this was part of our philanthropy to the city.
This is only one of our sources of income, but it’s now maturing into its own brand.
And 2 years ago, I went ham on SEO (I’m no expert, but it’s been a whole new world for me).
I ramped up our content using SEO.
We got to the point of making $300-500 per month from ads on our site. Mediavine was super cool and allowed us in at a lower threshold since I already had my primary site in their network (thanks!)
I ramped up content for our 2023 Mardi Gras season, and it blew up! (fun fact: it started in my city of Mobile, Alabama)
99% of the traffic was SEO (folks searching for parade schedules and such).
We made $4,000-ish during February.
So that got me thinking…
How else can I grow this brand?
I have some big ideas that I’m working on (well, big to me).
Varying Website Articles
No more ‘only for SEO’ creation.
We’re creating some satire to see how it does.
We also plan to write more news articles but only cover specific local items that our readers will want to know about.
It’s back, baby! That’s what I hear.
So we’re getting more strategic there.
Those satire articles above?
That’s right, they’ll be titled in a way and include a great featured image.
The hope is to get hundreds of social shares on some of them.
The website visits will pay for our article.
If 1 out of 10 hits big, it will cover the other 9 (my current thinking).
Of course, we’ll similarly share the news.
Website Directory
We’re going to create a directory.
We have lots of articles that link out to businesses.
My thought is to create my own directory where I can build them out a page.
So I’ll interlink to our site instead of away from our article (the directory will still link to them).
This will also allow us to ‘upsell’ the directory (no idea how or if this will work).
Real Estate Listings
Ok, I’m the most excited about the potential here.
You must be a licensed real estate agent to do this, so I’m set apart.
I plan to create 100 real estate pages in my area (think ‘houses for sale in…’ type of pages).
Fingers crossed that Google also sees our site as an authority in real estate.
If this works, I will get leads.
I will either sell these leads to local real estate agents or nurture them and then pass on the warm leads to agents for a split of their commission.
Ok, so those are my ideas for now.
And SEO pros, this is where you come in!
Which of these ideas is dumb?
Which ones do I need to double down on?
I’m all ears for this website case study.
And I’ll spend up to $5,000 in 2023 trying out the ideas that you think are best.
I’ll make updates over on Twitter and videos as needed over on YouTube.
Become my Yoda.
Thanks!
