💩 Ho-Lee Crap

There's a lot going on. Not to mention it's been an eternity since I've sent an email.. so it seemed about time.

Hey There, Here we are, already in September of 2017. It's been an embarrassingly long time since I've emailed you, and with so much stuff going on - I wanted to send a quick update. So here are all the things that are going on right now: Traffic Safety Store - I'm proud to say we've made the INC5000 list for the second year in a row. Lists and awards don't matter as much to me as growth and profits, but it's nice to see my team's hard work recognized on a national scale. The development team which currently works out of our own space on Church Street, in Old City Philadelphia, is getting ready to move 2 blocks down, right next to Indy Hall. The space won't be as private as our current space, but being able to walk across the hall for lunches at Indy has everyone pretty excited. I'm From The Future - Sitting at 17 full-time folks, we've outgrown our 3rd office in 14 months. We're in the process of acquiring another Philly-based agency that focuses on social media marketing, and making a strategic hire out of state. All in all, it's looking like we'll be in the mid to high 20's for total headcount before the end of the year.  In the wake of all of this we're also finalizing a deal to take the entire top-floor of a once booming bicycle factory in the heart of the Spring Arts area, complete with a video/podcasting studio. We're in the final stages of testing for 3 new Wordpress plugins we'll be releasing soon. Big things are coming.  Sentinel - v3 has really come a long way. We are now a fully integrated data source for search volume and cost per click data as well as links. We cut a deal to acquire a dream domain that better represents the entire product suite we're building, so we'll be rebranding prior to launch of our public beta, which is expected to kick off in December 2017. We've integrated keyword sentiment libraries in addition to our intent mapping, and have a working version of an NLP tool that utilizes TF*IDF analysis to suggest topic edits to better optimize content for SEO (albeit it's still command-line, but we're starting on an interface). Amazon Affiliate - I've decided to make a more serious commitment to test out Amazon Affiliate site's so we've purchased 2 operating Affiliate sites and a brand-able domain all in the same niche. We're in the process of standing up what will be the master brand site with content to let it age a bit, but then will be folding in all the content and links from the other 2 sites. I'm excited to see how this all works out, and if it's a complete failure I'm confident we'll at least be able to sell for a profit. Traffic Think Tank - We're in the final 2 months of the program with the flagship class. Overall I'm really happy with the results, but as is always the case there are a few members who aren't as committed as others and are falling behind on doing the work. With that said, there are folks who are going strong and have seen as much as a 200% increase in their business revenue thanks to more SEO traffic and higher conversion rates. I'm prepping to re-launch the program next month with additional trainers, agencies and consultants allowed, and a huge discount on the price (forever not just for next month). ADD Hero - I put a lot of time and effort into prepping the site for a major push to affiliates via email and paid social advertising. I've hit so many bumps along the way and got so frustrated that I've pulled back on marketing and decided to re-think my revenue model. I'm going to rip Stripe out (which was setup explicitly to take advantage of some affiliate networks), replace with Paypal, and focus on a direct product sales model as that's what's always worked best for me. It means I'm going to have to get the content machine going again and start focusing on link building, but I have hope for this project yet. So like I said, it's a lot - but that's what's going on with me.  What are you working on? To your high rankings, Nick P.s. - You probably already know I rep SEMRush pretty hard, and because of it they give me offers to share. If you're still not using SEMRush, you can use this referral code to get 30 Days of the PRO plan for free. They will ask for your credit card details to create the account, but they don't charge you -- just set a calendar reminder 2 days before to cancel; it's pretty easy. By using my referral code if you end up paying for SEMRush (like I do every month), I will earn a small commission. If you leave you will lose access to private updates (like this one) and free stuff I send only to my email list, but if you must go, click here to permanently unsubscribe from my mailing list.