Money Crashers is an organization that works to educate individuals so they know how to make financially sound decisions. Remarkably, Money Crashers attracts more than one million organic visits per month to its site!
Recently, Brett Farmiloe, CEO Markitors, asked Andrew Schrage, CEO of Money Crashers some questions about how Money Crashers achieved this remarkable goal. Check out their interview below.
It seems that Money Crashers attracts more than 1M organic visits per month. That didn’t happen overnight, and 1M organic visitors a month is an aspirational goal for most business owners and SEO experts. How did you achieve this goal?
It’s true that our success did not happen overnight. It came about through a lot of hard work, perseverance, and the ability to change up strategies when we felt they weren’t working. All of that is about par for the course when developing a new small business.
In general, we took a multi-faceted approach in order to achieve that goal. We hired more writers because we realized that we couldn’t get to where we wanted to be with current levels. But we were also very selective in who we hired. We looked for expertise and knowledge in our niche before bringing on a candidate. Then, we instituted a basic policy of absolute accuracy.
The Internet is rife with misinformation, and we didn’t want to be grouped into that category. Our content team knows that the articles they create need to be 100% factual, accurate, and on-point in every aspect. We also have a team of editors whose main job is to double-check for any errors along those lines.
And we also eventually instituted a rather aggressive social media initiative. We got involved with the basics like Facebook and Twitter, but are also now involved in portals like Instagram, Pinterest, and several others. It took a bit of time, but we are where we want to be, but are still looking for ways to expand our presence.
What does your internal content team look like? How many people are focused on increasing organic traffic internally?
We currently field a team of about 20 writers, located in various parts of the US. And as stated, we also have a team of editors charged with editing content and checking for accuracy. All of these people play a key role in increasing traffic organically, but we also have an individual in charge of marketing and outreach, who plays a major role in achieving that goal as well.
What are your best SEO tips for small business owners?
As far as a few more specific tips regarding SEO, with your website, be a little more specific and relevant to your audience and your product or service. Trying to capture an audience of a very broad and general topic will put you up against a lot of competition and make it difficult to be seen. Find a niche and own it!
Also, make sure your business is listed on all of the major business listing websites such as Manta, Google My Business, Yelp, and CitySearch. In addition, make sure your website is optimized for smartphone users. To take that strategy to the next level, also ensure your site is optimized for searches of the Voice variety, so you can capture folks who own an Echo or Google Home. And since a portion of your success with SEO is relevant to the time spent on your site, make sure that your articles link to other relevant and valuable articles on your website. That should help reach that goal as well.
If you lost your domain name today – and all the work that came with it – and had to recreate your success, where would you start?
If we lost our domain today, as tragic as that might sound, we would probably simply start over and once again focus on high-quality content. We’re in a good niche – personal finance – people will be seeking out more advice than ever as the economy changes and money technology complicates things.
Whether it be avoiding credit card debt, how to survive a recession, or any other of a number of related topics in the financial world, we feel that we can provide the assistance needed to get people back on their feet. And that goes for if we have an audience of one million or something smaller than that. We want to be financially successful, but equally, our goal is to help people in need, and we feel that we can serve that goal in just about any environment.
What else would you share with anyone who had a goal of attracting 1M organic visits per month?
Make sure that anything you post on your blog or website is 100% factually accurate. You just can’t afford to make mistakes these days, or else people will leave your site in droves. Develop a strong social media presence as well. Just make sure you have the required time to devote to a new initiative before jumping in.
A YouTube page with few or very little videos on it won’t do anything but confuse your followers and subscribers. But you’re also going to need a good deal of patience along the way. Reaching a goal of 1M organic visits per month won’t happen overnight. Write out your game plan, put it in place, and work hard. As long as you follow the right steps. There’s no reason why you won’t eventually be able to reach your goal.
Thanks for your insights! Where can people learn more about Money Crashers?
Check out moneycrashers.com<, check out their facebook page, and follow them @MoneyCrashers.
