🥴 HCU Hit Sites + The Algo Update: How It’s Going?

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How’s your week going?

I’ve been doing some cold emailing for my local newsletter to try to get sponsors.

It’s early days on my current strategy but seeing a 10% reply rate, which is promising. And I have a call scheduled later today with a national restaurant chain about adverting with us.

Though today we’ll focus on niche sites and the algo update rolling out.

But first, pointing out that I’ve got another sponsor today. So, give ‘em a click to check out their offer and get entered to win ALL the ads earnings for the month.

Later in this email I’ll share the winner for July!

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HCU Hit Sites + The Algo Update: How It’s Going?

So it’s been what, a week since the algo update started rolling out officially? I say officially cause there were signs that it started prior to that.

Anyways, what are you seeing?

Today I’ve seen people saying their early growth is now reversing. That blows.

Of course, with the algo update rolling out for a month, things can always take a turn back up.

I’m also seeing people who are dropping more. Still.

Like Katie here -

She’s been vocal on Twitter about her site but not gotten quite the same attention as Retro Dodo, My Fit Friend, House Fresh, or Travel Lemming.

No one wrote an article about her and her site in a major news publication.

Content quality is subjective, but she runs a travel blog that has real photos. And she’s still dropping.

Unrelated to this site, but I did see someone on Twitter pose an interesting idea today (sorry, can’t remember who).

Changing your permalinks to the post ID (a number) from the keyword-rich post title permalink may work to “de-optimize” the site and get traffic back up.

Not something I’ve tested, but something to think on, eh?

You like growth, right?

Beehiiv Ads Earnings Update

The total earnings for ads in July was $399.40, as you can see in this screenshot for today.

You’ll also notice the ‘earnings this month’ heading has a total of $348.20 so far - and that’s not counting some of the most recent emails.

Anyways, I got an email from a reader on Tuesday asking if I’d picked a winner yet. (thanks, Sonal!) I’d forgotten that I have to request that the money be withdrawn from Beehiiv, so I did that and used the random number generator for a winner.

July averaged 11 clicks out per newsletter, with 5 of you clicking every single ad.

The winner was Anna T. and she has already confirmed with me and I’ve sent the money her way this morning.

As you can tell from the screenshot above, August is going to be a bigger haul for the winner. Best of luck to you all!

Next Time…

Upcoming topics: more tips and ideas on Etsy and KDP, how it’s going with the AI music thingie and chatGPT book, and growing an ecomm site.

Otherwise, if you have a topic you want covered just reply and let me know.

Stay awesome,

Shawna

P.S. If you’re looking for high level discussions or tips on things like local SEO and Rank & Rent, I highly recommend Jacky Chou’s Advise community. I’ve been in it for several months and there’s tons of value in it, including a SOP for local SEO.

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