I want to start by saying that I’m not sharing this update via email or social media, and I would appreciate it if it’s just left between us. That is, people who come to Detailed directly (or subscribe to the RSS feed) for news and insights on SEO and digital goliaths.
Today I want to explain why the regular updates you’ll see from me in the future will be in a very different format.
As a quick backstory, around 90 days ago I started a new experiment, writing regular blog posts covering the acquisitions, redirects and traffic updates of some of the most successful brands on the internet. Both in terms of how many visitors Google sends them and how much revenue they generate.
As someone who has written around a dozen blog posts in the entire history of Detailed before this, writing dozens of blog posts each month was completely new territory for me. Granted, they weren’t as in-depth or well-written as the reports I’m known for.
I’ve learned a lot in the process, and now I’m ready to make changes.
Note: Nothing is actionable in this post, and it’s primarily about my thought process and future updates here at Detailed. If you have no interest in that (which is totally understandable), I would skip the rest of this article. I want to be respectful of your time.
If you are interested in the finer details, then let’s keep going…
Here’s What Worked, and What I’ll Continue Doing
There have been some things that have worked well and others I wouldn’t have done in hindsight. Let’s start with the positives.
People Care About the Angles I’m Sharing
Throughout the multi-month experiment I didn’t send any emails about what I was writing, nor did I make any social media updates about new articles either.
You would have only seen my writing if you were coming to the Detailed homepage directly, which isn’t a ton of people since there is little point in returning to a website that only publishes an article every 3 to 4 months.
Seeing people cover the articles in various marketing newsletters was a nice surprise. The one that got the most attention was me breaking the news of BuzzFeed and how they shut down their shoe site, SoleCollector, seemingly without telling anyone.
I also received some really nice emails and direct messages from people who were enjoying the updates and liked the new approach I was taking. That feedback didn’t go unnoticed, so thank you to everyone who reached out.
I was a little worried I was getting too nerdy at times with what I was covering, but it has now been validated that enough people care about the finer details for me to keep reporting them.
I Can Break Stories Before Big Media Brands
While others have been covering the world of publishing brands for a long time, I was still able to either write stories I knew they would cover before them, or find angles they wouldn’t notice.
A few times I reported on the revenues of specific companies before most major players, primarily because I found a quicker way to get the news than waiting for press releases said companies put out.
A large part of this process has actually been about how I find news and changes to site networks to be able to report on them, and that system is getting better by the day.
Detailed Q Was a Huge Hit, and I’m Already Working on Q2
The most important result from this experiment was having the idea for Detailed Q1, where I would share the top insights I found over the past quarter and put them together in a single report.
The reaction to this was better than I could have hoped, which makes me really happy because I loved putting it together.
Detailed Q2 is already in the works, and I can’t wait to share the new insights with you.
Here’s What I Won’t Be Doing Anymore
While I like to think I had a lot of interesting insights to share over these past few months, my approach to sharing them doesn’t make a lot of sense for Detailed as a business, or the people reading our articles.
The biggest change is that I won’t be writing individual blog posts for specific updates about each company.
Let’s use GRV Media as an example.
This year they’ve broken traffic records to their football (soccer) sites over and over again. I think it’s fascinating to see them doing so well and enjoy following the specifics like how many sites they’re launching and how many new team members they’re taking on.
While I have no football-focused sites of my own, their story is one I want to keep following.
If I write a new article every time they break traffic records or launch new sites (I’ve written a few), I find myself having to pad each update with details on who GRV Media are, which sites they have in their network and any other relevant backstory to make the article longer than 100 words.
I find that very tedious when I’ve already done it a few times before, and if there are any changes in their site network, it instantly makes the older articles inaccurate.
That latter point being bad for you, the reader.
If I was focused on getting Detailed into Google News or there was a ton of search traffic to pick up for ‘[brand] SEO / traffic / acquisitions’ (there isn’t) then it would make sense, but that isn’t on my radar right now.
Instead, I will have a single dedicated page for each Digital Goliath I wish to cover. Whenever I have new insights to share, I’ll update that specific page and add a mention of the update to the ‘Latest’ box on the Detailed homepage.
The downside is that a lot of the information on each page won’t have changed since you last read it, but the upside is that you’ll know what you’re reading is accurate, up-to-****, and I’ll link you to just the latest news of what has happened.
It will also be much easier to see what a brand has been doing over time.
I’ll be honest in saying that I don’t think these individual pages are going to pick up much traffic, and the quarterly reports going forward are going to be the star of the show, but I have a lot of motivation to keep them updated so we’ll see how things go.
What I Think People Care About, And What I’ll Continue to Prioritise
Whenever I’ve covered what Digital Goliaths like Dotdash Meredith, Future and Condé Nast are doing, I’ve personally always been interested in:
- How much revenue they’re generating (and whether it’s increasing or decreasing)
- The niches they’re active in
- Acquisitions & site-wide redirects they put in place
- Any unique insights from their strategy that others can model
Those are the kinds of things I covered in Q1 that were well received and they’re going to be my priority to focus on going forward.
The ideal scenario is that for many of these updates, you’ll also find them actionable. Not everything will be relevant to your situation, but my aim is that something I share each week will apply to what you have going on.
I’m still a few weeks out from having this new system in place (think: Wikipedia, without the multiple editors), so I wanted to share this update if you wonder why I’ve been quiet.
Everything will be properly organised so it’s easy to navigate and should be easy for me to update as well.
Here’s how one of the landing pages looks that I’m developing behind the scenes:
I really hope you like the future updates, and thanks for sticking with me while the regular updates are going to take a small hiatus as I get everything in place.
– G
P.S. We’re launching SEO Blueprint this month which I’m really excited about. The doors haven’t been open for around ~6 months so if that’s something you might be interested in, here’s the waiting list.
We’re a small bootstrapped team, trying to share some of the best SEO insights and niche opportunities on the internet. Clicking the heart tells us what you enjoy reading. Social sharing is appreciated (and always noticed). – Glen Allsopp
