Content Sites Are Dead: Long Live Email

Hello fam. 

It’s been a minute… or a month.

I took a break from writing emails and on LinkedIn because of all the craziness lately with the Helpful Content Updates.

Let’s talk about how to move forward in a post-HCU world.

But first!... 

Announcement: 

Please keep your eye out as my newsletter has changed names and going under a complete rebrand. It’s still me, but the name is now “Shitty SEO Advice”

Why?

“Build Systems” doesn’t really encapsulate what I write about nor do I want to pigeon hole myself into just affiliate sites.

Also, the name is sarcastic and I think it's funny.

Everyone and their mother wants to give you this "amazing SEO advice that will scale your efforts to 1,000,000 visitors per month" but that shit is outplayed and over done. 

It also goes against what I want to be teaching.

More to come…

And yes, I know, the formatting and branding sucks right now. But we’re working on it.

In my 8 years in SEO, I’ve never seen anything quite like the landscape right now.

I’ve had affiliate sites go from $30,000 per month to $2,000.

From $15,000 to $1,000.

And a few in between. 

I know many of you on this email list are feeling the same pain.

Needless to say, I’m not bullish on pure content sites. 

I think the model is dead. 

Many of the clients that I’ve consulted for though, who implemented the same content marketing efforts as affiliate sites, are thriving.

These are e-commerce stores & SaaS businesses. 

HCU didn’t seem to affect them.

In fact, they won during these updates. 

So while I think pure content sites are dead, I don’t think the marketing strategies are dead.

I still have diamond hands when it comes to SEO & content marketing. 

I’m just not interested in launching any more content sites unless there is some sort of product or service tied to them.

According to the copywriting principles that I’m studying, here is where I explain why it's important to solve this challenge.

But do I really need to? If you’ve been tanked, I think you know why.

That said, please don’t think short-term.

Many SEOs are looking at quick fixes to help offset the pain brought to us.

- Parasite SEO

- Reddit Spam

- Etc

But again, these are quick fixes.

Temporary.

They won't last forever.

Here’s what I’m doing. 

Email First Websites

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably seen that newsletters are having a resurgence in the marketing world and Beehiiv is paving the way. 

Now, I’ve harped on the importance of email marketing too many times to count. 

And I’ve explained how to capture emails (at a basic level), so I won’t beat a dead horse here.

But these are the sort of websites I’m building.

The email list is front and center and my main goal is to get people to sign-up. 

This way I’m never solely reliant on Google, Facebook, or any of the other dickhead big tech companies.

Then to monetize, it’s a combination of two things:

1. Service or Product

2. Community

The main people I take inspiration from are… 

Salt Strong

These guys have 50,000+ members paying $9.99 a month. 

Some back of the napkin math tells me they are doing at least $499,500.00 per month. 

That’s MRR. 

Even if they lost their Facebook page, rankings in Google, etc - they’re still good to go. 

Now that’s a f*cking moat if I’ve ever seen one. 

To top this off, they have an e-commerce arm over at another site Fish Strong.

Imagine having 50,000+ people in a community who love you and who will buy everytime you drop a product.

It goes back to 1,000 true fans. 

Between the community fees and the revenue they make from Fish Strong, I have no idea how much these guys are making.

But I can tell you it’s far more than any affiliate site that I’m aware of.

Oh, and remember how I said this above?

Salt Strong’s e-commerce site is up 3x since the September HCU. 

And SEO isn’t even something they’re focused on.

Imagine if they were. 

So that’s where I’m at, my friends. 

SEO is still alive and well. 

But pure content sites are dead.

Build a product. Build a service. Build a community.

Slow is fast in this new world and I hope this gets your creative juices flowing.

Until next time, 

Alex “no longer just an affiliate” Horsman