Introductions Thread

[Humongous9154]

Hi all,

I'm an experienced middle-aged Wordpress blogger from the midwest (USA) who was active from 2012-2015 before I got disabled and took almost ten years away. I was hip deep in Moz and different white hat SEO back then, eventually ranking for quite difficult keywords (if I may say so) in a relatively competitive financial blog space.

These days I am taking a portion of my savings to launch a brand new SEO blog in a even more difficult field: philosophy. Philosophy is, naturally, not very SEO-competitive. But I am trying to monetize a philosophy SEO blog into a full time salary $100K, and this is going to be a challenge. I just finished a PhD in philosophy, so hopefully I can combine my old SEO experience with my knowledge of philosophy to create money model that actually pays out.

Work done on my philosophy SEO site so far:
1. Created a brand and registered the trademark
2. Purchased the .com as soon as the trademark went through
3. Paid a few devs on Toptal to code up the site. BUT I switched away from tired PHP-based Wordpress, instead going for react-js based on Gatsby, a SSG (static site generated) design which is fastest for SEO blogs
4. The site was launched earlier this year, and is already receiving 5000 visits/month

Looking forward to talking at Builder Society on how to monetize going forward,

H

 

[Ryuzaki]

Hi all,

I'm an experienced middle-aged Wordpress blogger from the midwest (USA) who was active from 2012-2015 before I got disabled and took almost ten years away. I was hip deep in Moz and different white hat SEO back then, eventually ranking for quite difficult keywords (if I may say so) in a relatively competitive financial blog space.

These days I am taking a portion of my savings to launch a brand new SEO blog in a even more difficult field: philosophy. Philosophy is, naturally, not very SEO-competitive. But I am trying to monetize a philosophy SEO blog into a full time salary $100K, and this is going to be a challenge. I just finished a PhD in philosophy, so hopefully I can combine my old SEO experience with my knowledge of philosophy to create money model that actually pays out.

Work done on my philosophy SEO site so far:
1. Created a brand and registered the trademark
2. Purchased the .com as soon as the trademark went through
3. Paid a few devs on Toptal to code up the site. BUT I switched away from tired PHP-based Wordpress, instead going for react-js based on Gatsby, a SSG (static site generated) design which is fastest for SEO blogs
4. The site was launched earlier this year, and is already receiving 5000 visits/month

Looking forward to talking at Builder Society on how to monetize going forward,

H

Welcome, H. Things aren't remotely the same as they were in the golden age of 2012-2015. I would argue that if you don't have a product or service to sell (eComm, SaaS, Local service/store), I wouldn't even bother with Google as a main "exposure engine" for your website. That ship has sailed for information-based sites, whether that be info articles or affiliate content. It's not that AI killed it, but that Google killed it to push people to their AI offerings to boost engagement and adoption.

I would do your basic on-page and some off-page SEO, but I wouldn't be out doing keyword research and writing articles you don't care about and buying links to these pages.

If you're going to become an author, do speaking engagements, etc., then even then I'd be on social media, YouTube, doing the podcast circuit, and generally just being visible and doing real marketing. The passive nature of SEO can work for a site like that provided it gives off the signals Google is filtering for, like shopping carts or whatever. And having a blog to flesh it out would probably be a good thing, but hammering out endless articles just isn't really viable any more.

What were you considering in terms of monetization?

 

[Nonbeardedman]

Hi all,

I'm an experienced middle-aged Wordpress blogger from the midwest (USA) who was active from 2012-2015 before I got disabled and took almost ten years away. I was hip deep in Moz and different white hat SEO back then, eventually ranking for quite difficult keywords (if I may say so) in a relatively competitive financial blog space.

These days I am taking a portion of my savings to launch a brand new SEO blog in a even more difficult field: philosophy. Philosophy is, naturally, not very SEO-competitive. But I am trying to monetize a philosophy SEO blog into a full time salary $100K, and this is going to be a challenge. I just finished a PhD in philosophy, so hopefully I can combine my old SEO experience with my knowledge of philosophy to create money model that actually pays out.

Work done on my philosophy SEO site so far:
1. Created a brand and registered the trademark
2. Purchased the .com as soon as the trademark went through
3. Paid a few devs on Toptal to code up the site. BUT I switched away from tired PHP-based Wordpress, instead going for react-js based on Gatsby, a SSG (static site generated) design which is fastest for SEO blogs
4. The site was launched earlier this year, and is already receiving 5000 visits/month

Looking forward to talking at Builder Society on how to monetize going forward,

H

You can exploit Reddit. Philosophy is big there.

For monetization, I've mostly seen membership content and publishing as a viable source.

I'm not sure how passive you could be. In my eyes, this project will only work as long as you do; I'm not sure how sustainable it is to provide you with long-term security.

I agree with @Ryuzaki on being an author. However, that's a long route. First 2-3 years are just going to be spent building PR and credibility. I haven't seen much philosophers being well off unless they had some sort of radical/revolutionary idea or were involved in media controversy. Also for managing all marketing fronts - doing social media, YouTube, podcasts, etc. - you'd probably need more manpower.

A successful example that comes to mind would be Robert Greene. He gained traction with his controversial "48 Laws of Power" book, but even he, despite gaining a lot of recognition, wasn't able to carry that momentum. He eventually had to branch out and get active on social media, collaborated with others, and did quite a few podcasts and interviews. Not sure if he's a philosopher to be exact... But still you could explore his journey a bit from writer to now this sort of "personality" and see if that's where you want to be...

I can at least assure you, you're not going to be making much from ads or digital products. Haven't seen anyone make much from that in the Philosophy niche.

 

[Humongous9154]

Welcome, H. Things aren't remotely the same as they were in the golden age of 2012-2015. I would argue that if you don't have a product or service to sell (eComm, SaaS, Local service/store), I wouldn't even bother with Google as a main "exposure engine" for your website. That ship has sailed for information-based sites, whether that be info articles or affiliate content. It's not that AI killed it, but that Google killed it to push people to their AI offerings to boost engagement and adoption.

I would do your basic on-page and some off-page SEO, but I wouldn't be out doing keyword research and writing articles you don't care about and buying links to these pages.

If you're going to become an author, do speaking engagements, etc., then even then I'd be on social media, YouTube, doing the podcast circuit, and generally just being visible and doing real marketing. The passive nature of SEO can work for a site like that provided it gives off the signals Google is filtering for, like shopping carts or whatever. And having a blog to flesh it out would probably be a good thing, but hammering out endless articles just isn't really viable any more.

What were you considering in terms of monetization?

I understand information-based sites are harder than they used to be, but I'd argue that they're still possible and always will be. The AI-robots will need to get their information somewhere, and when people want to have an authority around some opinion, they're going to ask the robots for sources.

I would refer you to LilyRay, who demonstrates that SEO always changes and yet always remains the same:

For a more practical example, consider someone trying to figure out who they should vote for president. Would they simply ask ChatGPT? Or would they actually refer to real flesh-and-blood humans for the bottom of their beliefs? Naturally, they eventually want real people. Thus it is with more subjective-based information like religion or politics or philosophy. If you want to know a recipe for biscuits, those information-based websites are dead forever. But if you want to pick a religion or political team, there will always be a final referent that will be a real person. Faceless LLMs are best when authoritative for simple facts (historical events, simple facts, etc).

As for monetization, I am thinking at this moment for a two-tiered system. First will be affiliate reviews (easiest to implement) and I will follow that up with digital content (eBooks, video series, etc). I have absolutely zero interest in creating membership because it requires constant work, and I want to establish a mostly passive site.

I already paid to have 300 philosophy articles written by a friend who is PhD in philosophy. 40 are online and they are already having decently sized traffic.