The ultimate guide to SEO | Ethan Smith (Graphite)
Ethan Smith is the CEO of Graphite, a boutique growth agency that’s helped companies like MasterClass, Thumbtack, Robinhood, Medium, and Honey develop and execute their SEO strategies. SEO is one of the least-understood levers for growth, while also one with the biggest payoff. This episode is a true master class on all things SEO. Ethan shares a wealth of information, including when you should begin investing in SEO, how to build your SEO growth engine, how to build your SEO team. He explains the difference between topics and keywords, shares exact rules of thumb and tools that will help you be successful in developing and implementing your own SEO strategy, and also goes deep into how to advocate for resources for SEO. Listen now on Apple, Spotify, Google, Overcast, and YouTube.  — Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/episodes/ — Where to find Ethan Smith: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/ethan_l_s • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanls/ • Graphite: https://www.graphitehq.com/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible: • Coda: https://coda.io/lenny • Mixpanel: https://mixpanel.com/startups • Lemon.io: https://lemon.io/lenny — Referenced: • Topical Authority Analysis: https://bit.ly/topical-authority-tool • SEO Link Analysis: https://bit.ly/diagnostic-internal-links • SEO Links API: https://bit.ly/graphite-internal-links-api • Screaming Frog: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ • Brandon Lee of Power: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonhli • Similarweb traffic analysis: https://www.similarweb.com/ • MasterClass: https://www.masterclass.com/ • BetterUp: https://www.betterup.com/ • NerdWallet: https://www.nerdwallet.com/ • HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com/ • Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com/ • Semrush: https://www.semrush.com/ • Google Search Console: https://search.google.com/search-console/about • Clearscope: https://www.clearscope.io/ • Yuriy Timen on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-grow-a-subscription-business-yuriy-timen-grammarly-canva-airtable/ • Gokul Rajaram on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/gokul-rajaram-on-designing-your-product-development-process-when-and-how-to-hire-your-first-pm-a-playbook-for-hiring-leaders-getting-ahead-in-you-career-how-to-get-started-angel-investing-more/ • Luc Levesque on Twitter: https://twitter.com/luclevesque • Search Off the Record: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/search-off-the-record/id1512522198 • GPT-3: https://gpt3demo.com/apps/openai-gpt-3-playground — In this episode, we cover: (03:53) Ethan’s background (07:53) Why technical audits are the biggest myth in SEO (10:05) When to invest in SEO (16:09) Heuristics to determine if SEO is worth it (18:36) The three buckets of SEO: programmatic, editorial, and technical (23:30) The process for creating an SEO strategy (27:00) Why you shouldn’t be too formulaic (28:33) What is site engagement? (29:31) Which pages need to be indexed (31:49) Topics vs. keywords (36:33) How to mine competitors’ sites for information (37:41) Useful tools for developing your SEO strategy (40:14) How long will it take to see results? (45:16) Factors to consider when looking to hire an SEO person (47:33) The functions of a programmatic SEO person (49:19) How to do testing (54:06) Editorial SEO strategy (57:14) How to scale based on the size of the site (59:51) Page types (1:01:53) How to win in a topic category (1:03:12) How to build solid hypotheses and test them (1:06:13) How to deal with roadblocks and advocate for resources (1:08:54) How topical and domain authority are determined (1:16:43) The power of internal links (1:24:32) Why AI is not usually useful for content creation (1:28:31) Final tips for getting started with SEO — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
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Lenny’s Newsletter Holiday Gift Guide 2022
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
The items below are products that I've used and found to be amazing, along with a bunch sprinkled in that I discovered through this killer Twitter thread.
How to be the best coach to product people | Petra Wille (Strong Product People)
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Listen now (72 min) | Petra Wille is an independent product leadership coach who's been helping product teams expand their skill sets since 2013. She's also the author of Strong Product People,
Startup to exit: Lessons from a first-time founder
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Why VC funding is like a drug, when building in stealth is a mistake, what to do when you lose conviction, how to approach selling your company, and more
What it takes to become a top 1% PM | Ian McAllister (Uber, Amazon, Airbnb)
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Leaving big tech to build the #1 technology newsletter | Gergely Orosz (The Pragmatic Engineer)
Thursday, November 17, 2022
Listen now (75 min) | Gergely Orosz writes the #1 technology newsletter at Substack, called The Pragmatic Engineer. He started his career as a software developer in the UK, spent three years at Skype,
Saturday, February 4, 2023
Initiator Creator - Issue #117 By Saurabh Y. // 4 February 2023 This issue is brought to you by Sunsama, your planning assistant designed for deep, focused work. Try it for free Developer AI
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Your Indie Hackers community digest for February 4th
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View in browser Friday! Hoping you're in for a fine weekend, all. We're thinking of you in particular, friends and relatives on the East Coast. "Artic" and "blast" are not
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Sidus tanks on public share offering, $RKLB is Deutsche Bank's top pick for 2023, two startup raises and more! View this email in your browser The Space Scoop Week Ended 02.03.2023 Happy Friday!
Predicting Cloud Growth Rates for 2023
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Tomasz Tunguz Venture Capitalist If you were forwarded this newsletter, and you'd like to receive it in the future, subscribe here. Predicting Cloud Growth Rates for 2023 I'm watching public
10words: Top picks from this week
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Today's projects: flareAI • Bookipi • CS Resources • Brandbeam • SaladTools • Vettted • GermanListening.com • Verbatik • FormKiQ Core • Popupfox • Feeder • Simplex Wireless 10words Discover new
Issue#74: Building $1K - $10K MRR Micro SaaS products around Freelancer ecosystem - Part 2
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Welcome to the 272 new subscribers joined this week. You can connect with me on Twitter & LinkedIn, where I share my insights on building profitable solo business, SaaS products, newsletters, info