Full show notes for this episode can be found at https://jakehower.com/how-to-dominate-the-web-by-producing-amazing-content-with-dan-norris/

In this episode, I speak to our first non

video content producing guest.

Although he does actually produce a video as well.

It's Dan Norris from informly, which is inform.

ly which is a reporting app.

We discuss a little bit about that, but we also, the main focus of the

episode is on his content domination.

He's brilliant at writing posts.

He's been featured in a number of top blogs, including pro blogger.

To name just a few he's, he produces an excellent podcast

with some amazing guests.

Pretty much essentially Dan is just an incredible producer of content.

So that was a name, no brainer getting him on the episode.

Without further ado.

Let's get stuck into this week's episode.

G'day Jake.

How you going?

I'm

really good.

How are you?

Good.

That's good.

Thanks very much for coming on the episode.

I really appreciate it.

Today we've only had episodes where we've been discussing video.

So this is our first episode where we're bringing on someone who's doing

amazing content creation that isn't.

Necessarily focused on video.

Count yourself lucky, Dan.

I think you're probably one of the better ones that I've seen

out there producing content.

Cool.

Thanks.

Excellent.

So Dan, why don't why don't we get stuck into it?

I'd love for you to tell the listeners a little bit about yourself.

Leading up to and prior to informally.

Okay.

I'll make it fairly quick I worked for a few years, different jobs out

of university and generally after six months or so I'd get bored and want

to do something else and eventually decided that I'd start my own company

because that way I could just do What I wanted every day and then I ran a rent

a web design business for six years and I Think by the end I was bored of

that as well and I wanted something different But while I was running the

web design company, one of the things I'd do is Create reports for clients

because I wanted my clients to understand how their websites were going and how

they're ranking in Google and whether their servers were up or down with their

visits and conversions are up and down.

So I started doing that manually and eventually I thought I might as well

make a system that does this and.

And that has turned into informally.

Basically, it's a system where as a business owner, you can connect up your

favorite services like analytics or MailChimp or Xero, that kind of thing.

And it gives you a report that simplifies all that information and

gives it to you all on the one page.

Yeah, I've I've had better access for a couple of days

and it's certainly very simple, but it's powerful with the with

the reporting that you get out of

it.

Yeah, there's a lot of dashboard products out there.

I think like the main difference with this is I'm intending to design this for people

who aren't really going to be the people who are spending all day in analytics

and are really keen for these stats.

It's more for a typical business owner who really wants to glance at something,

see straight away if something's red and therefore needs attention and spend

a couple of seconds a day looking at their stats rather than trying to figure

out all these different applications.

Yeah, it's a fantastic concept.

So you're a web designer you had a fantastic blog already

on your previous business site.

How long have you been producing content for that site?

Probably about two and a half years.

That site was a website designer.

com.

au and it used to had it.

By the end, it was front page for it was first for website design and third

for web design and first for website development and all of these keywords.

And so I think it started out as just a sales page.

And I think early on it just had a lot of links and had a good domain.

And it had its ranking that way, but I saw that was going to change, so I

started producing a lot of content, probably for about two years, I probably

produced 200 posts of different types, I think I wrote four or five ebooks and a

bunch of videos and just kept pumping out the content and building, building the

rankings, but also building the long term.

The long tail, I should say traffic and the audience as well to a point

where it was fairly well known.

Yeah, fantastic.

Let's let's move on a little bit.

So your history, obviously, you've come from the web design background,

you've moving and I guess through that transitioning through that

into content creation, and you've come come across the idea to create

informally Now let's move on to the real meat of our conversation today.

And that's how you've gone about promoting informally to to build an audience.

So you're spending a lot of time guest.

Guest posting in particular of also your posting on your own

website is really in depth.

And that's something that it's it's really stood out to me, but

you're also podcasting and you're producing really funny videos as well.

How have you gone about deciding on a strategy for all of

this?

The main thing for me was that a couple of months ago when I sold

my business, I also sold the blog.

I also had to get rid of my Twitter account and most of my forum

accounts my Facebook page with 1200 likes and basically everything and

had to start again from scratch.

And I, I still had my mailing list but other than that, pretty much

everything else was from scratch.

So I needed to get some attention.

I needed to build up.

A whole brand new domain with a brand new blog with a little bit

of overlap in the audience, but really a brand new audience as well.

And content is something I've identified that is something that

I can be good at, as opposed to a whole lot of other types of marketing

that I'm really not very good at.

So from day one, I was always going to produce a lot of content.

And try to build the audience back up and within, I think within three months, my

new site is already getting more traffic than the old one, which was six years old.

And I think from an audience point of view, I think my audience now is

much more engaged and I'm getting people from a lot, a wider range of

places and I'm getting mentioned in a lot of places that I look up to.

And I think that's gone to a new level.

So that's been really good.

And do you feel that's the content you've been producing,

or is it the networking you're doing, or is it a combination?

It's a combination, and the way I see the content is it is networking,

it's, I'm not very good at networking, like I, I don't really go to business

lunches and start talking to random people but I do have a lot to say, and I know

other people that have a lot to say that I have a lot in common with, guys like you

and James Schramko and Dan Andrews and, Tim Connolly, these guys that are putting

out content that I know I've got something in common with, I can easily ring them

up and interview them for my show.

And talk about them and they talk about me and that, that to me is a

form of networking, but it's the kind of networking that I can be good at.

Yeah, absolutely.

I agree.

Personally, I'm not a fantastic networker in I guess in person, I find it hard

to connect or try to meet new people.

You just don't see that connection.

Certainly once once I know somebody, it's a lot easier to find common ground

and And engaging conversation with them.

I've found online for me in particular you can actually do the research and work

out who you have that common ground with before even needing to approach them.

And it, it makes it really easy to connect with people.

Yeah.

And if I'm, I've attended a few face to face events as well, but to me,

I'd rather attend a face to face event put on by, James Schramko than I would

rather go down to the local commerce, the Gold Coast commerce or something

and attend a face to face event there where I'm not going to know anyone

and not going to know whether I have anything in common with these people.

So that's the way I see it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now so we've got all these, the multiple forms

of media that you're publishing.

Do you have a

favorite?

That's a hard question to answer.

I think the best thing I've done is start the podcast because that's enabled me to

do the networking and it enables you to show your own chops and, talk to other

entrepreneurs and you can't get that same kind of connection with blogging.

And I know I know you do a lot of video stuff and people say, that's as

close as you can get to, in person, but really often the video is not like a

conversation with someone else either.

And often it's not as in depth.

So the podcast gives you.

Something that the other mediums can't give you.

I have to agree.

I'm obviously very new to the podcasting arena, but I'm really enjoying producing

the each episode because exactly as you say, you really connect with with just

that person on the other end of the line.

And it's a great way to get to know people, as you've said.

So I am, I can see myself pumping out podcasts because it's so

enjoyable.

Yeah, and it's a lot easier to get known, putting out a podcast, if you

write a roundup blog post, then, you might get a couple of mentions if

you're lucky, but if do a podcast where you're interviewing someone in depth and

like almost every time that person is going to share it with their audience

and you're going to get a whole bunch of new readers and why wouldn't they?

It's good content and it requires very little effort for them.

So that's why I like it.

If I'm to be totally honest, my preferred, yeah.

way of creating content would be writing because that's probably what I prefer

to do is sit in the office and bust out content, but I think I get more response

from my other content than I do the blogging because it's just, it's hard to

write something that's really hasn't been said before and that people really want.

So that's a big challenge.

Whereas with a podcast, it's always unique.

It's always original because you're talking to someone else and As long

as you can find interesting guests, ideally ones that aren't the kind

of guests that get interviewed every week on podcast, then it's always

going to be interesting and unique.

Yeah, that's that's very hard.

I can right now you see Tim Ferriss on just about every single

podcast out there at the moment.

And the one catching up.

I really, I want to get him on this this podcast, but I'm just going to wait a

little while, cause he's so popular on the podcast just about all the podcasts

out there at the moment.

Don't wait too long.

Cause I'm, I know I'm getting him back on my show.

It's going to it's going to get into a little bit of a hair

pulling fight or something, I reckon.

No, but I think that is one of the things to think about, like

the interview podcast has been done to death and I still do the interview

podcast because I just think the idea of listening to my voice alone for a

long period of time is unbearable to me, let alone other people, but I'm

reluctant to just interview the same people that other people are interviewing.

And I like the idea of getting new guests that aren't trying to flog their

latest book or something like that.

Yeah, I agree.

I think it's important.

That if you are interviewing people who are quite popular is

to try and find a different angle approach it in a different way.

And I've certainly got plans.

I'm interviewing quite a number of popular people in the next few episodes.

And I'm already thinking about ways I can I can attack the interview a

little bit or I guess in a unique way.

Yeah, I try to do that, but there's a limit to how much

control you can have over an interview, especially if you're just getting new,

just getting started to interviewing.

But I try to have some sort of structure and I try not to go too much in depth

with the person's background because, if you listen to an interview with James

Schramko and the first thing they say is, how'd you get to where you are?

And you end up hearing the same story over and over again.

And with James, he's a very good storyteller and he'll

have a unique angle every time.

But if you listen to a lot of these podcasts, the same guest

every week in the same story.

So I cut that part out of it and try to structure it around a topic.

But as I say, it's not as easy to do that when you're relying on a guest.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think and that's a very good point.

I know you do it very well.

And it's, rather than retail a story, you can just link to the most relevant

content that's already out there.

And this is something that you do incredibly well in pretty much all of

the mediums that you're producing in.

Oh,

thanks.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Okay.

So given that your your focus now is essentially a reporting tool, I'm sure

you've got stats on where you're getting.

Or the most effective way of building your audience.

So out of the different mediums, which one's the best for you?

At the moment it's guest posting.

And when I first started out with the guest posting, it was hit and miss.

Like I do one, like I did one post on pro blogger.

I think I've got two conversions from that whole post.

And I don't know, 30, 40 visits.

It was terrible and it was the first post I'd had on there and I'm like,

oh my God, this is, I'm going to get thousands from this, but it was nothing.

I changed a few things around and I've had a couple of guest posts that have been

really successful, like I did one on Rob Walling's blog, which is Software by Rob.

And it was a three part post.

I think it was probably 6, 000 words.

It was basically every bit of content marketing I've done in the last

three months and just telling the reader exactly what I did and what

I learned and what results I got.

And, I got from that post, I got 500, 600 more visitors and over a hundred

signups, to learn about my app.

So some of them have gone really well like that.

Cool.

What's what's second on the list if guest posting is one.

I think it's probably having your own content to me

comes first, because a lot of the traffic that I get is direct.

And if you get traffic direct, it's very hard to know how

they came about your site.

But because I'm putting out a lot of content, I can

assume that, a decent amount.

Are coming from the podcast a decent amount of heard of me on someone else's

podcast because of some content i've put out So I attribute a lot of that

to just be the general content creation stuff I get a lot of traffic from google,

even though i'm not madly optimizing for things, but i'm producing a lot

of content I think i've in the three or four months I think i've produced

around 50 blog posts and some of them quite big like I did a post yesterday

on podcasting That was a 3000 word post And really detailed guide on, on getting

started with podcasting and that kind of stuff gets a lot of long tail traffic.

So Google are my biggest referrer of traffic.

So that, and then going forward, that just it just builds and builds.

So they're becoming like by far my biggest referrer of traffic.

All right.

So listeners, what we're going to do, I want to.

Give you some actionable steps that you can take away from this interview.

Dan, I'd love to focus on two things with you for the remainder of the interview.

Number one, I'd love to speak with you about your guest posting strategy

how you've actually gone about getting content on other's site.

And then I would love to then just touch on a little bit about how

you construct your blog posts.

So things from the curation of content how you put your posts together, how

long it takes and a few other things that that so that we can actually

provide the listener with some

takeaways.

All right, the first thing I would say with guest posting is there's no real

strategy as such there's the way I go about it, which is to first have really

good content on my own site I'd never ask to blog on someone else's site unless

I had a site that had great content and Better still unless I had a few examples

of other sites that have had posts from me that have been successful you know

when I go to ask for a guest post now I send them a link to the Rob Walling

one and I send them a link to the pro blogger one and the think traffic one And

I say this, these are the kind of posts I write and this was tweeted by 300 people

and immediately they're going to look at that email before they look at some

random guy who tells them he loves their blog and wants to write a post for them.

So the first tip is to have good content yourself.

Don't start until you've got four or five really good.

Blog posts on your own site, long detailed, step by step specific with

images, a nice site with nice design that someone who's got a credible blog

is going to look at and go, this person knows what they're talking about.

Okay.

So that's obviously, and is that how you approach them?

Did you essentially, are you just sending them an email with an idea for a guest

post or are you going off and writing content and then sending that to them and

saying, Hey here's a post I've written.

I'd love for you to publish

it.

No, I'm sending them an email and saying here are a bunch of posts I've written,

I've got this idea for your blog, I think it's good, this is why I think it's

good, and would you like it on your blog?

And most of the time if you've got some sort of unique idea, like even

the second post I did on ProBlogger was a post on guest posting.

And you couldn't pick a more cliche topic but because I had a unique angle

for that particular post They were like, yeah, actually that sounds pretty good.

Let's do that I don't participate in any kind of blogging groups or anything

like that I just think if you've got good content then just go and approach

These owners and make them feel like you understand their audience and you're

going to write something really good for them And then once they can see the

evidence that you're capable of doing that then most of them We'll say yes.

Someone like Darren Rouse is it, was it Darren

that you were dealing with?

And A, if it was did you already have a relationship with him before

approaching him for the initial

post?

Actually, I pissed Darren off.

I probably, yeah, I probably got a worse relationship.

Now, because after I did the first guest post, I got one of my VAs to

just as an experiment to reply to everyone who tweeted the post and just

say, thanks for tweeting this post.

And then, just see if they followed me back on Twitter.

But she CC'd in, she CC'd Darren Rouse into every single tweet.

So she sent.

Two or three hundred tweets.

Send me a message saying, this is really good, you're being proactive, but do you

mind not cc'ing me into all these tweets?

Yeah, no, I don't know him.

I know what he looks like.

So if I saw him at the cafe, I would probably say hello.

But no, he had a lady working for him, Georgina.

I think a lot of these guys initially have someone else that answers the email first

and then sometimes they'll come in and...

Respond later like a think traffic they've corbett's got a guy caleb who

works for him and does a lot of the content on his site and I just did

one on firepole marketing And Danny Iney is the guy who runs the blog,

but he's got someone else who handles the communication with bloggers.

So normally you'd get a response from that person first and then maybe you'd get a

response from the owner of the blog later.

Yeah, okay.

Now what's your conversion rate like then?

How many blogs are you approaching and how many do you end up being published on?

I think I've only been not published on one that I've that I

can think of I contacted copy blogger and they said that they basically only

take posts from people who are regular contributors and but it really comes

down to who you're targeting as well ProBlogger publish so much content

on their site that they're always looking for people to get content from.

If you approach someone like Kissmetrics, then you would really

have to know what you're talking about.

And you would have to be prepared for a long process of producing an

amazing article and back and forth with them to get it on their blog.

Yeah, I think you have to be careful with who you choose

and why you're choosing them.

Yeah,

no, that makes sense.

It's a good conversion rate that you obviously got there But I guess that

comes back to the fact that you've got such strong content on your own

site Yeah, it does.

It's, I'm sure that a lot of these guys, especially pro blogger, I hate

to think the amount of requests they get to get content put on their site.

They probably get a request from someone who can actually produce good content and

they're probably, pleasantly surprised.

Yeah, absolutely.

All

right.

Let's move on then to the blog posting that you've been doing for your own stuff.

Cause that, these are really the pillar pieces that gets you everything else.

Now personally.

I struggle I hit a brick wall as soon as I have to start writing something.

You're obviously very good at writing, but do you have a process

that you follow for creating these

posts?

I, yeah, I've got a bit of a process.

I can run you through the general steps.

I use Evernote a lot.

So anytime I'm out and about and think of an idea, it goes straight into Evernote.

And if I look at my Evernote, like I've got a notebook for, say, guides or

blog posts or guest posts or something Then there's 10 or 20 different notes

in there of random stuff and generally something will bubble to the surface like

during the week I did the big article on podcasting and I mean i've written

posts on podcasting before but I wanted to create like a step by step guide And

so I've just been jotting down ideas here and there, and, Pat Flynn released

a tutorial on podcasting, so I checked that out and got a few notes from that,

and James released that video of interview tips, so I noted that down, and, but by

the time you're ready to actually produce the post, you've got half a page of notes,

and you can use that as a structure.

Structure for the post.

I also look at with informally There's one chart in there that allows you to look

at how much impact your blog posts are having So it will look at who's tweeting

your post how many people liked it?

How many people have commented how many people have visited that post and

it gives you an idea of what content, People really like and you know from

that I know the certain types of content I should produce so I'll use that to

decide I don't believe in a calendar.

A lot of people say having an editorial calendar or something

like that's not really how I work.

If you do work like that, then it's probably a good idea.

But to me it's really a matter of once I get to the point where I've got

enough notes on a topic that I feel like I can spend three or four hours

and create something really good.

That's the point I write a blog post.

Yep.

Okay.

And

your blog posts, are you then Are you creating them into one

session or are you just adding bits here and there and coming back to it

after a few hours or a day or two?

Generally, what I'll do is I'll get to the point in

Evernote where I've got half a page of notes and then I'll just

start writing it in Evernote and.

Once it's like I've got like a thousand words, if it's one of these

big posts, like on my blog, you'll see I've got four or five guides,

which are really big detailed posts.

If it's one of those ones, then I'll generally write up

maybe half of it in Evernote.

And then once I feel like, yeah, this has actually got something,

I'll put it into WordPress and I'll basically spend three or four hours

just like busting out the whole thing.

And then once that's done, I'll have a break.

And go off and look at a couple of other blogs, look at what other people

are saying about the same topic, and see if I can inject a little bit

more into the post that I hadn't just got out of the original brain dump.

And then I'll probably have a break again and then come back and read it

properly, because I tend to have a lot of spelling mistakes and that kind of

thing, and it helps if I just take a break and come back and read it all.

And then it'll hopefully be ready to go.

Yeah.

Okay.

Then how do you go about adding things like images and that

or formatting of the post?

Are you doing that throughout the construction or throughout the writing?

Or are you just getting content on the side and then coming

back and formatting everything?

I do a bit of both, but I've always got the ideas

for the images as I'm writing it.

Like I'll never do a big blog post like this without, 10 or 15 images or more.

Because they're really important, especially if they're detailed things

like you're doing screenshots of how to do certain tasks and the images are really

important, but also for having a guide where you've got a couple of 1000 words.

It's just too much to fill the page with text and it doesn't look good.

So like even in Evernote, I'll say, have a.

Intro section on why you should podcast and include a screenshot here of my stats

for my podcast So even at that very early stage, I'll know exactly what screenshot

I want And then as i'm creating the post in wordpress I'll generally go off

and get a screenshot and chop it up in fireworks and put it up and I do pay a

lot of attention to how it looks like I've, I really want to make sure that

the post looks really good so that when someone sees it, they know that it's

not just some guys throwing it together.

Yeah,

I think that's very important.

I know personally myself, I don't read many detailed posts.

And certainly you can tell straight away whether or not

someone spent any time at all.

On the design of the poster in terms of using bullet points subheads and

just even the way they insert images.

So that's certainly one thing that attracts me to your posts.

They're so well laid out and it makes it very scannable and easy to read.

Yeah, part of it is there's just so much crap out there that you

need to distance yourself from that.

You're not just writing another post on guest posting, you're, you've really

taken the time to get the graphics right and get it presenting really

nicely and have quotes in there from people and links to other places,

and you've really thought it through.

So that's part of it, but the other part is also.

I like to look at what other blogs that I respect are doing and like

Kissmetrics is one that always comes up because I don't read much content either

but I do read a lot of their content because, just because of how good it is.

And I look at how they're doing the images and how they're doing the guides and I

try to set myself I mean, they're a pretty big company it's a lot for one individual

to create content at that level But if you set yourself that kind of benchmark

then you're constantly looking at that and thinking man Mine's not as good as that.

So you just got to get better and better.

I know certainly there's probably Some of our listeners out

there are probably considering is it worth my time investing so much

energy into writing such good content?

Shouldn't I just be posting on a regular occur, like a regular basis

and just getting four or five, 600 word posts out there on a weekly basis.

Isn't that going to attract more subscribers or I'm going to have end up

with more content out there for Google to find me and people to come across my page.

It really depends on your strategy.

Some blogs get by on You know a couple of really awesome posts and those posts

tend to get a lot of impact in social media and they'll get, they'll get hack

and use attention and they'll get lots of tweets and Facebook likes and whatever.

Other blogs we'll get by based purely on volume.

And like long tail SEO traffic is really powerful.

So if you can build up a good blog with a good following and just

pump out a lot of content, then you'll get that long tail traffic.

In.

In droves because just because of the sheer bulk of content you have, but part

of the reason for me, and I do have posts on my site that aren't like as epic as

these big guide posts, but part of the reason of doing these really good posts

is I'm not just trying to get traffic.

Trying to make a name for myself and trying to get the attention of other

content producers who are only going to give me Their attention if i'm producing

good stuff and i'm also trying to get the attention of other blogs and other

influential people, to post content On their sites and they're not going to be

interested in these crappy 600 word posts that have been written a thousand times

before so There's that motivation as well.

And i'm also doing it to educate the People who are using informally, a lot

of these posts i'm doing are to do with analytics and things like that And if

you're writing something that really is at the core about educating people.

Then you can't be doing these crappy 500 word posts, you know on the top

12 Tips for blogging or you know the top 20 wordpress plugins and you know

I probably do have a few of those posts on there, but You can't fill

your blog with that kind of stuff.

If your intention is to educate people.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think You made a very good point with the with the authority.

Just thinking about how I how I engage with people or who I see as

authority figures it's never, I'm never I'm always hanging out to read

their content or watch their videos.

But in most cases, the contents produced irregularly and it's because it's

such high quality that I that I engage at such a level with these people.

So if you're looking to build an authority, I guess is what

I'm saying, then focus on.

Producing the best quality content you can

that's what works for me I mean, there's a lot of ways to do it

But that's what works for me and it's important to me to know that I'm helping

people as well And that I'm I mean if I was just sitting around, you know building

dodgy backlinks to my site I just that's just not what I want to do with my time

So if you're the sort of person who was like me and wants to do that then go for

it I mean if you're the sort of person who Really doesn't like writing and it's

just going to have to be forced to do this Then maybe just don't do it at all

or get someone else to help you with it or do something that you are really good

At like podcasting or video or something like that so you can get you can make

your name that way Yeah, absolutely.

I think

it very that's very relevant You just have to find a medium that best

suits you and you'd There are certain mediums that allow you to leverage a

little bit more than others, but I think it's more important to get your main

medium is the correct one for you, and that will give you the best results.

And it's like you with your video stuff.

Like I think I, I probably got to know you because I was seeing all

these awesome videos and these comments you were putting, in

the forums about the video stuff.

If you had have been just writing blog posts, I probably

still wouldn't know who you are.

In, in a way it's good to choose something other than writing.

But I dunno, for whatever reason, writing is just what

I find I'm probably better at.

And I find myself enjoying doing more of.

Absolutely.

And that's the same with me videos.

I can pump out videos like just so quickly.

I shot three videos before I hopped on this episode with you and it took

me about 15 minutes, but certainly if you asked me to write a post even

a two or 300 word post I wouldn't even get one out in two weeks.

Yeah, and part of it is pushing yourself, I'm no good at video

either and I'm doing those videos But I'm just I'm rapidly learning it same with

podcasting the first one was terrible the last one, you know It was much better

and you gradually learn and you I think you like things more once you start

getting good at them as well But if you're just starting out I would definitely

be doing Whatever it is that you can be really good at and get the attention

of other people who are good at it

So informally, it's just about to come out of better.

So right now, you've got a team that is developing for this product.

Am I right in saying

that?

Yeah, I've got two full time developers in the Philippines.

As you launch.

Do you anticipate having the time that you have had for the last few months to

produce the quality or to keep the caliber of the content to the same standard?

I've got a few ideas after I launch.

I get through a lot of work, so I will still be doing, and I do work

a lot as well, and I'll still be working a lot and getting through a

lot of work, but I see the content as core to the success of the app.

And if I'm not doing the content, Then I don't think I'm really

going to have any way of marketing this app, that other people aren't

able to do better than I can.

So to me it's core.

But the other thing is I'm also going to look at getting some

help from other people as well.

And I've started to look at other writers and getting I really would

love to build up my blog to the point where it's a really like a renowned.

destination, for people who want to learn about dominating online and, doing this

online marketing stuff and analytics and people are just getting into this stuff.

I'd really like to be a really well known place for that.

And to do that, I think, especially since I can't.

I can't religiously put out like five blog posts a day, then I'm

going to have to get some extra help.

So I'm looking at doing that as well.

Yeah.

It makes a lot of sense.

I think an interesting way that companies approach it.

SEO Moz, I think do it quite well where they essentially have a

they've got their pillar blog.

And then they've also got their UMoz blog, which is

essentially anyone can post to it.

And then they promote content.

Depending on how popular it is.

I think that's quite an interesting

concept.

Yeah, it definitely is.

I think it's tempting to look at these other companies and try to replicate them.

But, SEOmoz have had, I think something like 20 million of funding and it's

hard when you're just doing it yourself to, you say, yeah, I want to be like.

Kissmetrics or SEOmoz, but really that kind of model is not going

to work for you if it's just you.

So I think you've really got to think about what's going to work

for you and how you can maybe one day build yourself up to that level.

But it's like when people take these ideas that, that Apple have

done and say, this is how you, how to apply it to your business.

They're Apple.

And you can't apply that to your business.

Yeah.

It's definitely important to have a benchmark, but it's but try not

to At least from my point of view.

I try not to say, this is exactly how they do it Therefore

that's what i'm going to do

The other thing I guess is that there are they're relatively mature

companies now, so they didn't start off with their current structure in

place 10 years ago or whatever it was.

They've evolved over time and I guess you will too.

Yeah.

It's also they did it off the back of a product.

That in a lot of cases they did off the back of a product that pretty much

didn't exist, SEO were very early on in terms of SEO software and they were

building a great product and they were also, I think, I'm not sure how many

years they've been around, but I've heard a few interviews with random and that

he had a consultancy for years as well.

And they build this momentum up over a long period of time.

And, yeah, I think that's important to remember as well.

That's one thing with blogging that's hard to take at first.

You could write 10 and get like 3 tweets on Twitter.

And it's man, this is depressing.

It's actually hard work.

But eventually, things start rolling.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, Dan.

I think we've covered quite a lot in this episode of, I

really appreciate you coming on.

Hey, one thing we didn't really touch on would you be would you be happy to

reveal some numbers in terms of your your, their community you've built in

terms of subscribers and things like that.

So three months ago, my site didn't exist at all.

Now I'm getting about 5, 000 visitors a month, which is about

what I was getting in my old blog.

And it's not a huge number of people, but within three months,

I think that's pretty good.

I've had, I had about 1100 people sign up to the beta and out of that 1100,

Probably maybe 200 or so or maybe less that are actually actively using the app.

I think a lot of people sign up and forget about it.

And these are some of the things I'm going to have to address as I launch it.

But I've also had, I think maybe 1200, 1300 people who've signed

up to be notified about the app.

So mainly the content at the moment, the opt in has been, we're going

to be launching informally soon.

Sign up here to be notified.

And yeah, I've also done an email course.

I think I've had maybe 60, 70 people sign up to do the email

autoresponder course as well.

So I think the numbers will get a lot more interesting when I launch it to

the public and I see, who's referring people to use it, how many people are

signing up to paid and that kind of thing.

Yeah, certainly,

That's fantastic.

Dan we've touched on a couple of aspects of of your content domination.

I'd love to get you on in the future to speak about a little bit

more about podcasting and a little bit about your videos as well.

But for this episode, I think we've covered covered enough.

So again, I'd like to thank you very much for coming on.

Absolutely.

Thanks for having me.

This episode will be going to air just after you've

launched publicly for informly.

Where can people go to to find out more about you personally

and also about about the app?

Cool.

So yeah, hopefully it'll be launched and it wouldn't have exploded

and everything's just going well.

And if that's the case, you can go to inform.

ly.

And you can sign up for free and connect a bunch of your services and

feel free to email me dan at inform.

ly And just give me any feedback you have on the app.

I'm really happy to hear from people I'd love to hear from people about

what they like about it what they don't like about it and the blog is inform.

ly forward slash blog and on there you'll find all sorts of stuff there's

a lot of posts like we talked about i've got 20 podcast episodes and a bunch of

videos and that kind of thing and Of course, leave me feedback on those as

well.

Absolutely.

Listener.

If if you do actually head across, if you listen to this episode and

then head across to the site and find it has exploded, Dan would

really appreciate that you give him a, or shoot him a quick email.

I'm sure he'd really appreciate hearing from you at that stage as well.

Yeah, that'd be good.

All right, Dan, thanks very much for coming on today.

Absolutely.