{"id":3760,"date":"2021-12-06T07:50:27","date_gmt":"2021-12-06T07:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seobuddy.com\/blog\/?p=3760"},"modified":"2021-12-06T08:04:04","modified_gmt":"2021-12-06T08:04:04","slug":"my-seo-journey-siteguru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seobuddy.com\/blog\/my-seo-journey-siteguru\/","title":{"rendered":"My SEO Journey [Pro Edition]: Rick van Haasteren from siteguru.co – SEO is a long-term game, be consistent and always try something new"},"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 #50 features Rick van Haasteren from SiteGuru<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

My name is Rick van Haasteren and I run SiteGuru<\/a>. SiteGuru is an SEO tool that helps marketers and SEO experts improve their websites and monitor their performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tool is popular with in-house marketers because it gives them a step-by-step approach to SEO, without having to become an SEO expert. Instead of endless lists of issues, they get a prioritized SEO to-do list which makes their lives a lot easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s our goal to help our clients succeed in organic marketing, by removing all the fuzziness that you often found around SEO, and provide actionable steps instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a bit of a mix between a developer and a marketer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve worked as an SEO consultant, and for every new client, we would start with an SEO scan, using tools like Screaming Frog<\/a> or Ahrefs<\/a>. Although those tools are quite in-depth, it took most of us ages to make anything meaningful out of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had worked as a developer before, and I thought I could build something better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started working on an SEO audit tool and focused on getting a prioritized SEO to-do list. This way we could quickly tell our clients what was wrong without having to go through endless amounts of data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After testing the tool on many of our client’s websites, I knew I was onto something. It really helped me make sense of a client\u2019s website quickly and identify the top priority issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, I started promoting the tool and it got some traction. I got a lot of positive feedback. But most importantly, because I was using it myself all the time, I was able to improve it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drink my own Champagne, like they say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve always dreamt of starting my own company, so a few months ago I decided to quit my job as an SEO consultant and go all-in on my startup. I\u2019ve been working full-time on SiteGuru for a few months now, and I absolutely love it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since launch, what has worked to attract more organic traffic?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"siteguru.co<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

After I got to my first 1,000 users (this was back when it was still a small side-project), I wrote a blog post about how I got there<\/a>. I shared it on Indie Hackers and Hacker News, and it took off: lots of new visitors and users. One drawback: most of these users were startup founders. Sure, they wanted to improve their website, but they\u2019re unlikely to start paying for an SEO tool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, it helped me gain exposure and build links<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another piece of content that brings in a lot of traffic is our Startup Directory List<\/a>. When I started link building, I initially wrote to all the startup directories out there asking them to list my company. This is a relatively easy way to do link building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had the list of startup directories and thought it would be useful for others as well. I created a page for it and posted it on some startup communities. It\u2019s brought in a lot of traffic ever since, and it keeps doing well. All I need to do is refresh the content every month or so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The Startup Directory List keeps bringing in a decent amount of traffic, with nice peaks over time.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Next to that, our SEO Academy<\/a> has a lot of in-depth articles about SEO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s funny to see how the more generic articles don\u2019t get a lot of traffic. On the other hand, the very specific, in-depth articles like the one about Text to HTML ratio<\/a> does really well. Competition is less strong, so for a relatively small site like ours, it\u2019s possible to rank for those terms, whereas it would be impossible to beat giants like Moz or Ahrefs on more generic SEO topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trick is to consistently produce good content. Not every article will rank, but it will give you a much better idea of what works and what doesn\u2019t. Take those learnings and adjust your content strategy based on that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you learned anything particularly helpful in your SEO Journey?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For me, the most important lesson is that SEO is a long-term game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re unlikely to find that one tweak, that one link, or that perfect piece of content that gets you to the top. It\u2019s a combination of all these little things. Together, they add up and drive growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This requires patience and perseverance. Don\u2019t give up if something doesn\u2019t work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn your lessons and try something new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just to illustrate: some months ago we launched the SEO Glossary: a list of SEO terms with an explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It didn\u2019t take too long to create a list of around 200 terms, and we quickly pushed it online. Quite soon, impressions in Google started rising, we gained positions and got some clicks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then it stopped. We lost positions, and never got any clicks after that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"siteguru.co<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, our more in-depth content did better than ever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We added more advanced tools to the existing articles, like adding a compression checker to an article about compression and page speed<\/a>. This made the article more valuable to the reader, and that paid off. This was a lesson that meaningful content always beats short-form content.<\/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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