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I’ve made plenty of mistakes building side projects based only on a hunch. Most didn’t work, but I’ve found a better way.
Having seen SEO at work on one of my older projects (initially a happy SEO accident, but now I’m pursuing it properly), I had a light bulb moment.
So I’ve switched to only pursuing side project ideas with researched keywords now.
What do I mean by researched? In simple terms it means a decent keyword Volume, low KD, and lots of long tail keywords. This is research you can do for free too, not even with expensive tools.
Let’s look at a couple of examples of mine (not flexing here, this is purely to demonstrate).
1. A directory + blog I launched 4 years ago
(This is the happy SEO accident mentioned above).
Last 30 days stats:
2.8k page views, 840 Google clicks
- This site has around 50 directory listings, and 40 blogs at least count.
- Domain is not a .com and doesn’t match the keywords
- I’ve not even done any backlink work yet
2. A directory I launched only 6 weeks ago:
Last 30 days stats:
660 page views, 60 Google clicks
- Launched with just 100+ listings, no blogs
- Domain is a .com and matches the keywords
- I’ve not done any backlink work on this one yet either
If you haven’t dipped your toe into the world of SEO for your side projects, I really recommend you do. It could save you hours of wasted time.
I’ll write more on my SEO journey here in future posts.
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