Description:
In this episode, Matt’s joined by Matt Campbell. We dig deep into his journey in building a wedding site that enjoys 4 million visitors a year due to the use of SEO & Content Efforts. It’s not by accident either. As you listen, you realize he’s doing exactly what he was cut out to do.
Matt’s love for music led him straight into a career as a DJ early in life. And like many of us, life happened, he got married and he found himself moving to Las Vegas and doing something entirely different; working for someone else.. until that entrepreneurial itch kicked in and he launched into something that again reunited him with his love for music. He built a wedding website.
The site itself started out great, but as many that depend on SEO have experienced, Google made changes that dramatically affected its traffic and revenue.. but, one of the things that are amazing about this story is it didn’t end there. He didn’t give up, learned more about his craft and built it back better. It’s a GREAT comeback story.
If you are interested in or depend on SEO, this is the episode for you. ENJOY!
Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell is the founder of My Wedding Songs. He is a member of the Roling Stone Culture Council and hosts the Wedding Songs Podcast. Matt shares his SEO and blogging knowledge as the Las Vegas Bloggers Meetup organizer.
My Wedding Songs features wedding song ideas through 600+ curated playlists. The website helps more than 4 million visitors a month plan their wedding music and music fans discover songs.
THE MEAT OF IT!
- Intro
- Another new friend from Twitter!
- What’s Twitter good for?
- College – Started a DJ service.. in Montana.. 1990s
- Met wife in a Yahoo chatroom
- Moved to Las Vegas
- Didn’t want to start DJ company all over again.. instead became purchasing manager of electronic components.
- 2003 started Wedding Museum (website)
- Learned the technical stuff about building sites..
- Found most of the traffic was going to his song lists.. from being a mobile DJ.
- 2017 Rebranded to My Wedding Songs.
- Had a website for DJ service before 2003
- Joomla to WordPress. ..
- The history of his website
- Why switch to a CMS (Joomla initially)
- Joomla vs WP in mid 2000s.
- Rewinding.. how did he become a DJ? Why inspired by ‘songs’..
- Always been into music w/ his brother ..
- MDA 24-hour dances .. DJ’d there.
- Thought it might be a great career.. reached out to other DJs to see if they were hiring.
- The story about first dance as a DJ ..
- His favorite music Genres
- 80s music ..
- 90s music ..
- His last dance .. End of 1999 when the world was going to end.
- Why he didn’t DJ in Las Vegas ..
- Component distributor ..
- What inspired him to start the websites..
- Loved music.. still entrepreneurial itch.
- WeddingMuseums
- Why he choose the name..
- The challenges with that name
- When Penguin and Panda Hit… one of the downfalls.
- Duplicate content .. 90 to 30k visitors per month overnight.
- Importance of the Domain name ..
- More about Panda and Penguins .. in the world of search engines
- Panda about links ..
- Matt’s rant about relevant pages.. Google has a different idea.
- The differences between now and back in the early days of SEO ..
- Moving away from the PR bar ..
- The transition to WordPress ..
- 2014 – “I need to get into business”
- Thought he knew everything about SEO ..
- Went to work for a marketing company implementing SEO on websites
- Got a mentor .. Ross Barefoot
- Learned he really didn’t know SEO
- Started to see hockey stick growth.. when rebranded.
- Got the Exact match domain – Wedding Songs part of the domain name.
- 300k visitors per month.. 4 million visitors per year!
- The technical stuff of SEO ..
- Site maps, robots.txt, index-ability
- How to write titles/descriptions people want to click..
- He was a sponge.. great employee.
- Implemented into his own site!
- Learning from your work on other sites..
- Same with Matt’s biz .. working with multiple clients, he picks up lessons from one client and can apply that to another or one in the future.
- He’s the Organizer of the Las Vegas Bloggers Meetup
- If he started over again today…
- BIG TIP – # of posts he suggests – with the goal to become an authority in your space.
- # of words per article.
- Building authority as a writer and your brand.
- Finding ways to get links to your site.. getting published in authoritative mags or websites.
- Sponsored posts ..
- Getting mentioned or published on a very Authoritative site.
- BECOME AN AUTHORITY IN YOUR SPACE – Most important
- Why a 100 is a great framework
- Why Matt likes the # .. example with Pay Per Click
- He remembers my training program and PPC & Aff Marketing method – Campaign Blasts !!
- As the author of the Campaign Blasts, Blast Formula etc..
- Our Blast Challenges in our forum.. based on 100 campaigns.
- Why did he suggest 100 articles..
- Get better..
- Figuring out your niche
- WRITING ARTICLES
- How to know how many words to write for an article. (Good stuff!)
- Look to your competition ..
- Does he use Tools to choose topics and keywords?
- Looking at Google’s “People asked” section .. answers those questions in the article. ?
- Topic Ideas – AnswerThePublic.com ?
- He doesn’t want to write about things people aren’t searching for..
- Google Ads keyword planner ..
- Has to be a benefit to the reader.
- You only have their attention for so long
- Creating a resource .. letting them skip the fluff.
- How does he monetize his blog?
- Most people start with Google Adsense ..
- Growing to a 1000+ .. then he personally went to .. ( watch the episode and find out!
)
- A different Ad network you could make more with ..
- Then .. Media Vine
- He serves ads through this platform.
- Benefits
- Amazon Affiliate
- Get credit for everything in the cart!
- Best way to send traffic to Amazon.. where he sends them on the site.
- More about Media Vine
- How does it work..
- How they negotiate for you.
- How you get paid
- Can you choose your ads.. or shape what’s served?
- The model of a website.. FULL of ads.
- vs a user-friendly site.. care about content and user experience first.
- The struggle
- ‘Can you pay the bills’.. the more traffic, the more expenses?
- How does testing play into this..
- Matt’s example of popups.. YOU hate them, but facts are facts. You’ll get more signups with them.
- Same with ads #s?
- Where does he see himself in the next 5-10 years? Any plans?
- Something new he’s started ..
- Top Wedding Songs – create your own playlists ..
- Youtube API integration ..
- Working on growing that – could be the future.
- Any plans for coaching or?
- Bloggers meetup .. share knowledge.
- Book is on Wedding Songs.
- Tricky.. thinking about him about SEO (hiring him as an SEO) vs the Wedding Songs guy.
- The dilemma.
- Share’s his story as more inspirational
- Something new he’s started ..
- Is blogging still hot?
- What about 3rd party sites..? Social media content?
- Blogging – you own the content. A HUGE thing for him.
- Likes the idea of the blog first..
- Then do a podcast
- Youtube channel
- Likes the idea of the blog first..
- Better to be good at just one or two platforms ..
- Would rather do a podcast and get regular listeners.. than worry about Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
)
Check out these related Episodes:
- Episode 66: Joe Matz – 18 Yrs building businesses in Italy & Brazil, Becoming a Business Coach Back Here in the US
- Episode 65: Doland White (Sadie Hawkins Episode) – Interviews Matt about HIS Business!
- Episode 64: Week in the Life of an Agency: Unified Web Design, April 11-15, 2022
Web Developer, WordPress & JavaScript Nerd at Unified Web Design, LLC
Matt is the Founder & Web Designer at Unified Web Design, Owner of UnifiedPlugins.com, blogger at MattLevenhagen.com ( who else would be? 😉 ) AND host of this amazing podcast, The Builders!
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