{"id":9944,"date":"2025-05-26T14:19:38","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T14:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seobuddy.com\/blog\/?p=9944"},"modified":"2025-05-30T10:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T10:03:10","slug":"my-seo-journey-answersocrates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seobuddy.com\/blog\/my-seo-journey-answersocrates\/","title":{"rendered":"My SEO Journey [Pro Edition]: Jamie I.F from answersocrates.com \u2013 Scaling Free SEO Tools, Surviving Google Hits & Winning With Affiliate-Led Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My SEO Journey [PRO Edition] is a series where professionals in the SEO Industry, Digital Marketing, or Web Design share their honest SEO Journey filled with failure, success, and most importantly, proven results. Episode #165 features Jamie I.F from Answer Socrates<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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


Hey! I\u2019m Jamie I.F., and I\u2019m an ex-SEO affiliate, turned SEO tool owner!<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"AnswerSocrates.com<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n


I help run Answer Socrates<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 a free keyword research and keyword clustering tool for finding thousands of keywords on any topic, to create fast topical maps to scale your content strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We wanted to make keyword research and content strategy as accessible as possible, as a lot of the existing tools are just so expensive now. And Answer Socrates was a tool we had used in the past, so we purchased it from the original founders, fixed it, and added some new tools like the keyword clustering!<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"AnswerSocrates.com<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n


We now have over 100,000 active users, and 7,000 new SEOs sign up every month to use the free SEO tools we have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

 was a fan of Answer Socrates for years before we ran it! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But before that, I graduated from university in 2019. My DREAM<\/strong> was to start a social enterprise soup company \u2013 where for every soup we sold, we\u2019d give one to a soup kitchen or a person in need.<\/p>\n\n\n

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


Unfortunately\u2026 I ran out of money, and couldn\u2019t make it work. And in trying to find new ways to make money, discovered SEO!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using what I was researching, I built websites designed to rank for specific keywords, found out you could monetise them from display ads and affiliate links, and by mid-2020 had managed to make what is an average salary in the UK from the SEO traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got really lucky from there, and we built a 10-person SEO team to scale the content across these brands over the next couple years. During this time, a tool we loved using for FAQs and finding content gaps was Answer Socrates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We managed to scale these affiliate sites to around $80,000 per month by 2023 from hundreds of thousands of monthly organic page views, but then Google\u2019s Helpful Content Update destroyed them overnight. It was really soul-destroying \u2013 we were in the middle of an exit for $1.5 million, and this update killed the deal dead. Eventually I had to write all the sites off as worthless and abandon them, and let the team go. It was a tough time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About a year later, through complete chance, we had the opportunity to buy Answer Socrates, which had since then been neglected and wasn\u2019t working. It was a dream to fix it back up and try to grow it again, so we had to try and do a deal! Honestly, it\u2019s such a dopamine hit to type in a topic, for example \u201c3D printer\u201d, and see 1,000+ keywords come up on the screen which you could create content on. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"AnswerSocrates.com<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n


But, keywords aren\u2019t the end goal anymore \u2013 tightly created topical maps, clusters, and clear content strategies are. And we wanted to democratise that for all SEOs, even if you don\u2019t have $300+ per month for the top-level SEO tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, we built our custom machine learning and semantics into Answer Socrates for keyword clustering, this was something we were really proud of. Most tools cost $100+ per month for clustering, but we let ALL our users cluster 3,000 keywords per month, completely for free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since launch, what has worked to attract more organic traffic?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s really great is that Answer Socrates complements my other major SaaS project so well, which we have used to grow traffic \u2013 both the organic traffic, and referral traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My other main project is Endorsely<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 a free affiliate marketing software for SaaS brands to build their affiliate programs with. Because a lot of affiliates for our users are using SEO to send traffic, there\u2019s a lot of overlap with the SEO world.<\/p>\n\n\n

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


And, it means we could hook Answer Socrates up to Endorsely to create an affiliate program. Now our 100,000+ active users can refer friends to either the free or paid version using tracked affiliate links and earn money by sending us extra traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has directly helped with organic traffic, as the more brand mentions we\u2019ve started getting online, the more our organic traffic has risen. We get over 30,000 direct visitors to the website every month, and the brand name gets 10,000+ searches on Google from our Search Console data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve had great success writing \u201cAlternatives\u201d listicles, too. A tool we are similar to with Answer Socrates is Answer The Public, and we created the \u201cAnswer The Public Alternatives<\/a>\u201d blog post to compare us with them and help people make a decision there. We quickly hit #1 for this keyword, and it drives a lot of high buyer intent traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n

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


The fact that it is a well-known and liked free tool has also made influencer marketing easier, as more of the people we reach out to have already heard of us, and respond positively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve built some great relationships with YouTubers and other SEO influencers who help raise attention with the tool, helping with those TOFU brand awareness signals that help sustain your brand in the SERPs.<\/p>\n\n\n

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

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

Since HCU, I\u2019ve learned that not all content is the same. And the exact same content published on different types of websites can perform very differently. If your website isn\u2019t the type of website Google wants to rank, then it\u2019s far less likely to rank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We used to publish content on affiliate websites, with affiliate links and display ads, and since HCU, Google hates this. But if you published the same content on an e-commerce store\u2019s blog, it would rank #1. So I\u2019ve learned to be more mindful of a website\u2019s positioning and intent, so we\u2019re swimming with the tide \u2013 not fighting against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also learned that you can focus all your time on content, and creating what you think is the best, most fulfilling experience for the reader \u2013 but if it\u2019s not on the right website, or you lack brand signals \u2013 then it\u2019s a waste of time. And that\u2019s unfortunate, because I think caring about quality should be rewarded, but in a lot of cases it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across my SEO journey<\/a>, I\u2019ve gone from being an optimist, to being brutally pragmatic and transactional. Everything is an ROI and expected value decision \u2013 it\u2019s not about making the best content, because this isn\u2019t what\u2019s often rewarded.<\/p>\n\n\n

\r\n
\r\n \"img\"\r\n <\/div>\r\n \t
\r\n
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

\r\n \r\n