Chaos isn’t a pit 🕳 Chaos is a ladder 🪜

Google's March spam and core updates are done rolling out, and it feels like a good time to check back in.

A lot has happened.

Loads of small, independent sites have been crushed by these recent changes.

Organic traffic to their sites has dried up, and in many cases it's not clear why - even the "experts" are at a loss.

If you're one of those folks that has been negatively impacted, I'm sorry.

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I know how much effort goes into building a site that gets any amount of organic traffic, and to see it all vanish overnight is gut-wrenching.

Post Google guillotine, I've had more than a handful of people private message me on Twitter, asking how things are going.

More recently I was asked if SEO was officially dead now?

In short, I don't think so - I'm actually leaning in further (more on that in a moment).

But the reality is, these are uncertain times.

I can't tell you how to recover if you've been hit by these updates.

I can't tell you what Google is going to do next.

Will they roll things back some over time, or will things continue to get worse?

I can't even tell you what the future of small publishing is.

All I can tell you is what I'm doing.

I can be transparent with you, as I always have been.

Let's start with the only two sites I am actively involved with - Stay New England and Niche Twins.

Both appear largely unchanged at the moment - for the time being, traffic is flat.

Keith and I applied submitted Niche Twins to Journey (by Mediavine) a while back, so hopefully we can turn on some display ads soon.

As for Stay New England, I plan on continuing to add content as I find the time.

It has been exciting to see a few large hotel bookings come through recently - hoping to see that continue into the summer months.

In addition to these two sites, I've also been in talks with someone from Twitter about potentially partnering on acquiring a large content site.

Well, actually its a small "network" of sites, 7-8 of them, that collectively do a couple million pageviews a year and mid-six figures in revenue. These sites have been around for nearly 30 years! 🤯

I've talked on the phone several times now with the potential buyer and we've texted back and forth a bit over the past month. Who knows what will come of it, but it's a very interesting opportunity.

Coincidently I'm also meeting with someone else today, at noon, who has a site of their own that has just started to take off.

They are looking to potentially partner and grow it further.

That site is less of a pure "content" site and more of a "tool" or "resource".

I mention these opportunities simply to emphasize that I am not going anywhere, I'm leaning in.

I completely understand that some folks have seen and felt everything going on, and they're calling it quits. They've had enough.

I've been fortunate to not rely solely on these projects for income - I have a good and steady 9-5 job. That has freed me up and removed a lot of stress that I know many of you are feeling - I recognize that.

But because of that, I'm still having fun. I'm still experimenting, and I'll continue to share the outcome of those experiments with you - the good and the bad.

Yes it is chaotic out there, but "chaos is a ladder".

Have a great weekend.

Get outside.

Make sure you're routinely stepping away from all this madness.

Then come Monday, we go again.

-Mike

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