Can you imagine publishing a 500-word article and receiving 5.5 million pageviews within a week?
That’s what happened to Kurt Schmidt in May 2022.
His team published an article about Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean at the height of the divorce trial, and the article took off.
But that wasn’t a freak occurrence. His site, Inside the Magic, covers all things Disney and averages 45 million pageviews per month.
This is possible thanks to Google platforms – particularly Google Discover.
Kurt joins Spencer on the podcast to bring us a masterclass on creating engaging content that Google rewards.
Kurt is brilliant. The site, the t-shirt he wears in the interview, and the helpful advice he’s generous enough to share are all evidence of this.
He’s a banker who bought a site that was declining in traffic and turned it into the behemoth it is today in only 5 years. He did so by thinking outside the box and using technology to help make better decisions.
For example:
They increase their CTR by analyzing what’s working on Facebook and YouTube to create more engaging headlines and featured images.
They use SEO best practices to then keep visitors on the page by creating meaty content that satisfies the readers’ interest.
Then they go a step further, combining their knowledge with the latest machine learning and AI tech to continuously test and improve results.
And how they do this at scale is where the magic happens.
It’s a valuable and motivating interview with tons of great insights. Enjoy!
Topics Kurt Schmidt Covers
* How Kurt got into the online business world
* Acquiring a site
* The ups and downs of growing a business
* Getting out of hard times
* Using engagement metrics on Facebook to see what’s working
* Their team’s compensation structure and how it’s evolving
* The unique pay and bonus structure they use to incentivize authors
* Historical and current traffic breakdown
* The recipe for creating engaging, shareable content
* How to get traffic from Google Discover
* Best practices for optimizing titles and images
* Headline best practices
* Where they source images
* Tools they use to a/b test and improve their work
* Their content production process
* Their simple solution for managing their seemingly complex pay structure
* The pros and cons of clickbait titles
* Marrying human knowledge with AI tech
* Optimizing news content for SEO
* Revenue breakdown
* His view on whether this strategy is transferrable to other niches
* And a whole lot more…
Links & Resources
Inside The Magic – https://insidethemagic.net/
VidSummit – https://vidsummit.com/
MarketMuse – https://www.nichepursuits.com/marketmuse
Skimlinks – https://www.nichepursuits.com/skimlinks
Grammarly – https://www.nichepursuits.com/grammarly
Chartbeat – https://chartbeat.com/
True Anthem – https://www.trueanthem.com/
Sponsored by Link Whisper – https://www.nichepursuits.com/iifk
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