{"id":3330,"date":"2021-09-20T05:50:23","date_gmt":"2021-09-20T05:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seobuddy.com\/blog\/?p=3330"},"modified":"2024-05-23T13:53:50","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T13:53:50","slug":"my-seo-journey-yesoptimist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seobuddy.com\/blog\/my-seo-journey-yesoptimist\/","title":{"rendered":"My SEO Journey [Pro Edition]: Tyler Hakes from YesOptimist.com \u2013 How We Use Strategic Content to Skyrocket Organic Traffic and Inbound Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My SEO Journey [PRO Edition] is a series where professionals of the SEO Industry, Digital Marketing, or Web Design, share their honest SEO Journey filled with failure and success, and most importantly proven results. Episode #32 features Tyler Hakes from Optimist<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Tyler<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Tyler Hakes is the Strategy Director and Principal at Optimist, a full-service content marketing agency built entirely on inbound leads. In this interview, he shares how his team drives exponential growth (including a 9,800% increase in sales from organic traffic<\/strong>) for a range of clients across different industries and business models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Optimist\u2019s Origin Story<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What motivated you to start your own content marketing agency?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Starting my own agency was a leap of faith, but the idea was grounded in lived experiences. The initial concept for Optimist grew out of my experience running growth and marketing for a venture-funded startup<\/a>. In just over a year, we generated more than one million visitors to the site\u2014including 100,000+ organic sessions every month.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That role taught me a ton about the challenges of scaling traffic and the value of good content. I also learned that content marketing takes a full team; it\u2019s not something one person can reasonably pull off on their own. You need 5-7 people to tackle the full range of roles, from strategy to writing to promotion and link building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, I realized that most startups were approaching content marketing the wrong way. They\u2019d hire a single person to crank out a bunch of content and then sit back and hope for results. Of course, they rarely saw results because they neglected all the other steps that make content marketing so powerful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did you come up with the concept of a freelance collective?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As someone who left a full-time job to freelance, I liked being a freelancer way more than being a full-time employee. Freelancing forced me to become better at managing myself and my time. I also had a bit more skin in the game since clients could choose to leave if I wasn\u2019t doing good work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I wanted to create an environment that allowed similar-minded folks to focus on doing their best work while also giving them some accountability and potential to reap the rewards of their efforts on a larger scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was no formal validation process, but this is my worldview: The future of work is hiring experts, giving them a goal, and letting them be experts at what they do.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My goal was to provide full-service content marketing at a cost equivalent or cheaper than a full-time employee\u2014and actually execute content that delivers results. I wanted to build a team and a system that delivers a predictable stream of growth. That idea evolved into a freelance collective that comes together to serve diverse clients and content marketing goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tapping Into the Power Inbound Traffic<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

How did you initially drive traffic to your site?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Before we get too deep into this topic, I have a quick confession: I haven\u2019t spent as much effort driving traffic to Optimist\u2019s website as I\u2019d like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(You know what they say about the cobbler\u2019s children.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Optimist\u2019s inbound traffic isn\u2019t all that impressive if you focus on numbers alone. However, we have built an entire agency model<\/a> and generated $4MM to date on<\/strong> inbound leads driven entirely by organic traffic and content marketing.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of our early leads came from an interest in a case study I published in 2016 detailing my experience growing and scaling content marketing for a startup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our first year, we generated 1.5MM in sales revenue<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, we\u2019ve focused on sharing content and case studies about the work we\u2019ve been doing at Optimist<\/a> for our clients. People reach out to us all the time and say they are impressed with the site, our content, and the fact that we practice what we preach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, even though that\u2019s been our only sales and marketing efforts, we\u2019re steadily growing\u2014and it\u2019s 100% through inbound marketing and referrals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do hope to scale up our marketing further down the road. But right now, we\u2019re still seeing new leads enter the pipeline consistently, so we\u2019re focusing on driving growth for our clients more than ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n

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There\u2019s more\u2026<\/div>\r\n

Now it\u2019s time to discover the other 102 steps that will get more organic traffic flowing to your website. Get the SEO Checklist here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Want to get a sneak peek of what it looks like?<\/strong>
\nEnter your email and get a free demo version of the SEO Checklist.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\r\n

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