SEO
Niche Site Ideas
Finding the perfect niche site idea can seem like an impossible task when you’re starting out. So I decided to do the hard work for you and share 10 niche site ideas you can get going with immediately.
Let’s get started.
Hikers turn to Google for all kinds of inspiration. For example, if we search Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer for “best bikes in” and check the Matching terms report, we see hundreds of thousands of monthly searches for the best hikes in different locations.
You can easily create hundreds of blog posts to answer these informational questions and monetize with display ads.
But there are also hundreds of thousands of monthly searches for the best hiking gear where you can earn commissions from product reviews and recommendations.
For example:
Let’s filter this list for low-difficulty keywords. It looks like there are plenty of lucrative opportunities where competition isn’t too fierce; for instance, “best hiking gloves”:
There are also plenty of searches for reviews of individual products, such as Sealskinz socks:
From my limited research, there doesn’t seem to be a dominant and trusted review site in this niche. This presents an excellent opportunity for someone passionate about hiking products to build a go-to brand in this niche.
In terms of monetization, you can use Amazon Associates or work with some of the hiking brands themselves.
Many hiking brands have affiliate programs that pay decent commissions.
For example:
Survival is another topic jam-packed full of niche site ideas. It’s gained traction in recent years with the emergence of “preppers” who buy emergency supplies in large quantities.
If we type “survival products” into Google and look at the Google ads, we can get an indication of the average price point of products in the survival niche.
As we can see, survival encompasses everything from dehydrated food kits to power sources, bags, lighting, and survival tools.
As preppers buy products in bulk or as kits, the average conversion value per order is typically higher. This is excellent news for affiliate marketers, as it means higher commissions.
To get a sense of the opportunity in this niche, let’s put the seed keyword “survival” into Keywords Explorer, go to the Matching terms report, and add “gear” to the “Include” filter. This will show us keywords containing “survival” and “gear.”
You can see many angles you can take here if you want to specialize—everything from urban survival, to tactical survival, to military survival gear.
If we now update the “Include” filter to include “best,” we can hone in on some of the most lucrative affiliate keywords in this niche.
There are many keywords here, so it helps to refine this search further. From the above, we can see that people are searching for the “best survival food kits.” As “kits” is a word we have already encountered in the Google ads above, let’s dig into this keyword more in relation to our original seed keyword.
To do this, we’ll add “kit*” to our “Include” filter.
Sidenote.
Adding the * wildcard to the end of our keyword enables us to account for any plural variations of our keyword.
We can see that there are many angles to look at here, with over 700 keywords to target. The keyword list is now much more relevant.
It’s worth noting that “Amazon” appears in the top keywords in the above image, which shows a strong buying intent on that platform for this particular niche.
In terms of monetization, you can use Amazon Associates. But many specialist survival brands have affiliate programs with much higher percentages.
I have provided a few examples below:
Ebikes are a growing trend and typically have a higher retail price than road bikes. This makes them an attractive proposition for affiliate marketers, as commissions are high.
For example, if we look at the price of a Trek bike in the Google ads, we can see one that retails for almost $7,000. This would mean that you could get ~$280 commission at Trek’s 4% commission rate if someone bought this product through a link on your website.
Let’s take a closer look at this topic in Ahrefs to see what opportunities we can discover.
If we plug “ebike” into Keywords Explorer, we see that its search volume trend is on a healthy upward trajectory.
As there is a lot of search volume here, let’s refine our search further to uncover more keyword opportunities.
If a searcher wants to buy an ebike, they will likely search for the best ebikes, how two models stack up against each other, or related questions.
Let’s take a look at these scenarios in more detail.
To find the “best” searches for ebikes, go to the Matching terms report, set the Keyword Difficulty (KD) to 0–20, and set the “Include” filter to include “best.” This will allow us to view low-KD keywords that contain the word “best.”
OK, now let’s take a look at the vs. searches.
To do this in Keywords Explorer, enter a few ebike brands as seeds, go to the Matching terms report, and add “vs” to the “Include” filter.
You can see from the above that you can write many different comparison articles comparing various models.
Scrolling down the list, I can see there is also an excellent opportunity to write a comparison of Trek vs. Specialized ebikes.
You can scale this by replicating this “vs.” approach for other bike brands.
If we want to understand the questions people are searching for, we can use Keywords Explorer to identify these as well.
To do this, remove all filters and click on the toggle to select Questions.
In terms of monetization for the ebikes niche, you can use display ads or go directly to the manufacturers. For accessories, you can use Amazon Associates.
Examples of some of the higher percentage ebike affiliate programs are below:
- St3ike, 10% commission, 90-day cookie
- Trek, 4% commission, 30-day cookie
- Lectric, 3% commission, 30-day cookie
With 70% of U.S. households owning pets, this is a popular topic. And if you own a pet already, then this will be straightforward for you to write about.
Below is the current breakdown of pet ownership in the U.S., according to the 2021–2022 APPA National Pet Owners Survey.
Although it may seem like a good idea to write about cats and dogs, these topics have been covered many times before and will be extremely competitive.
Instead, I’d advise writing about lesser-known pets. For example, let’s take a look at “reptile,” which is further down the list.
If we put “reptile” into Keywords Explorer, go to the Matching terms report, and set the KD to 0–20, we can see some of the lowest competition keywords to target in this niche.
We can see that “reptile basics” has a monthly search volume of 5,000 and 0 KD, which will be an excellent opportunity for a niche site to capitalize on due to its very low KD.
Another keyword that stands out here is “reptile terrarium.” Although it has a higher KD than “reptile basics,” it has a higher Traffic Potential.
If we click on the keyword “reptile terrarium” and then scroll down to the bottom of the page, we can use the SERP overview in Keywords Explorer to see what the SERP looks like for this keyword.
Although many of the sites in the above list have high Domain Rating (DR) scores, we can see that the seventh result has a lower DR, which can mean it’s possible for a targeted niche site to rank for this keyword on the SERP.
Let’s return to the Matching terms report by clicking back in our browser. Let’s then add the word “best” to the “Include” filter to help us identify some commercial intent keywords for this topic.
By adding “best” as a qualifier, we can see people are searching for incubators, hygrometers, and other reptile accessories related to this topic—the best bit is these keywords also have low KD scores and decent Traffic Potential.
OK, let’s take this one step further now that we have established this is a workable niche.
Let’s imagine you created your site on a wider topic than just reptiles and went for the broader “exotic pets” niche. The advantage of this approach is that there will likely be more Traffic Potential and that we won’t limit our niche site to just reptiles.
If we add “exotic pets” as our seed keyword in Keywords Explorer and then go to the Matching terms report, we can see a bunch of opportunities here: roughly 9,000 potential keywords we can target.
Let’s take “legal exotic pets” from the above and dig deeper into this keyword phrase.
To do this, open a new instance of Keywords Explorer and type in “illegal pets, legal pets” in the search bar. Then click on the Matching terms report and add an “Include” filter with the word “in” in it.
Using this search method, we can see people are using Google to understand the legality of certain pets in different U.S. states.
As there are 50 states in the U.S., this gives you at least 50 pages of potential content on “exotic pets” to write about for your niche site.
In terms of monetization for the pets niche, you can use display ads and Amazon Associates. Or if you want, you can recommend vet care options, as they will typically have higher commission rates.
I have provided some examples of higher commissions within the pets niche below:
In 2021, the NGF reported that there were more golf courses nationwide than Starbucks or McDonald’s stores in the U.S. That’s a lot of golfers—meaning a lot of people are Googling golf-related questions.
Let’s look at how we can discover these opportunities within the golf niche using Ahrefs.
If we plug in the seed keyword “golf” into Keywords Explorer, go to the Matching terms report, and hit the Questions toggle, we can see just how many questions golfers are searching for—just over 230,000.
Answering these questions and running display ads is a perfectly legitimate way to build a niche site. But as there’s no way to answer them all, it’s probably best to narrow our search and focus on something more specific.
With 16,000 golf courses in the U.S., one potential option is to create a site about the best golf courses.
If we plug the seed keyword “golf course, golf courses” into Keywords Explorer, set the KD to 0–20, and add an “Include” filter containing the words “best” and “in,” we can see many low-KD searches that we can capitalize on.
It’s likely we’ll attract tens of thousands of monthly visitors to a niche site about this alone.
In terms of monetization, you can use Amazon Associates. But to get higher commissions, you should check out the programs below:
According to Statista, in the U.S. in 2021, approximately 1.85 million acoustic guitars were sold and 1.49 million electric guitars were sold. This makes the guitar niche attractive for affiliate marketers.
Let’s take a closer look at the guitar niche in Ahrefs.
If we enter our seed keyword “guitar” in Keywords Explorer and set the KD to 0–20, we can see there is much potential within this niche. In the results, there are millions of monthly searches for thousands of guitar-related keywords.
Let’s hone in on all the chord-related keywords, as there seem to be two examples in the top 10 with this particular keyword pattern.
We can isolate these keywords using an “Include” filter containing the word “chord.”
We can see there is a goldmine of low-competition informational keywords here. If you want to expand this idea further, you can look at Google’s People Also Ask questions to give you more inspiration to build out these topics.
For example:
But what if we want to write more commercially led content that compares one guitar to another?
We can do this in Keywords Explorer by changing our “Include” filter from “chord” to “vs,” which will allow us to see all the comparison queries people are searching for.
With this list, we can see there is a lot of potential to compare different guitar types against each other. Two of the examples in the above image also have 0 KD, meaning that these keywords can potentially be easy to rank for in Google.
In terms of monetization, you can use display ads or Amazon Associates, which pays a commission of ~3%. For higher commissions, you can try the following programs:
Pressure washers may not be the sexiest niche out there. But according to grandviewresearch.com, the global market is worth $1.8 billion.
Let’s start by using “pressure washer” as our seed keyword in Keywords Explorer and head to the Matching terms report.
We can see from the above that there are many brands within the top keywords.
Let’s try to isolate the brand comparison keywords.
If we add an “Include” filter in Keywords Explorer that contains “vs,” we can see that there are over a thousand keywords we can potentially target.
We can see that brands feature heavily in this list, so let’s change “vs” to “review” in our “Include” filter to isolate the top brand review keywords.
We can see that a lot of these keywords have low KD scores under 10 and also reasonable search volumes.
Now let’s say we want to take a closer look at the informational searches within this niche.
The quickest way to do this is to remove the “Include” filter and click on Questions.
Once we have done this, let’s say we want to understand how many questions in this niche have a featured snippet in Google. We can do this by clicking the “SERP features” dropdown, selecting Featured Snippet, and clicking Apply.
For monetization in this niche, you can use Amazon Associates. For higher commission options, you can try these:
With vinyl record sales now surpassing CD sales and over $1 billion of vinyl records sold in the U.S. in 2021, it seems that the vinyl record has once again refused to die.
According to the data from the RIAA, the vinyl records market is set to keep increasing in value exponentially.
Let’s use Keywords Explorer to find turntable keyword phrases that include the word “best” in them.
To do this, type “turntable” into the search bar and add the word “best” to the “Include” filter.
The keyword “best turntable under 500” seems to indicate that people are probably searching for turntables “under” many different price points.
To see whether this is true, let’s add “under” to our “Include” filter.
It’s clear from the above that people are searching for turntables under many different price points. We can also see that these keywords have KD scores of 6 or under. This presents lots of opportunities to rank for “best” keywords at different price points within this niche.
In terms of monetization, you can use Amazon Associates, or you can use some higher percentage affiliate programs:
Home gym equipment became incredibly popular during the pandemic. And its popularity has exploded since then.
According to Statista, the wholesale fitness equipment market is worth an incredible $6.42 billion.
Let’s identify some keyword opportunities for this niche in Keywords Explorer.
Let’s start by using “home gym” as our seed keyword.
Using this search, we can see over 38,000 potential keywords to target here.
Let’s hone in on the “best” keyword, as it appears twice in our list. We can do this by adding the word “best” as an “Include” filter.
We can now see the emergence of a “best X for Y” pattern, so let’s add a second “Include” filter containing the word “for” to isolate these searches further.
From these two “Include” filters, we now have a list of over a thousand keywords we can use as inspiration for articles on our home gym niche site.
We have now successfully isolated the “best X for home gym” searches. Let’s take a different approach and look at one of the trends in the above list in more detail.
We can see in the screenshots above that the keyword “machine” is a recurring theme with high search volume.
The average price of a gym machine is likely to be higher than some standard gym equipment, so it can potentially bring in higher affiliate commissions.
Let’s type in a list of all the gym machines we can think of, copy and paste them into Keywords Explorer, go to the Matching terms report, and add “best” to the “Include” filter.
If we look at the general pattern of searches above, we can see two key exceptions that stand out from the general pattern of searches: “best smith machine exercises” and “best smith machine workouts.” These are both informational searches where people are looking for the best ways to use the Smith machine.
Let’s dig into these searches a bit further using Keywords Explorer.
To do this, we can add “exercise*, workout*” as an “Include” filter. (Remember that adding the asterisks here allows us to search for plural and non-plural variations simultaneously.)
Now we can see that we have over a thousand keywords that target mainly informational queries with low-KD scores.
We can also see that the Smith machine is a focus area for these types of search queries, so building out a substantial section on this topic in your niche site is probably a good idea.
With the home gym niche, you can monetize it by recommended products you have reviewed. Or you can recommend online personal trainers or simply use display ads.
You can also use Amazon Associates. But if you want something with a higher commission, you may want to check out the following programs:
According to a report from McKinsey, 87% of employed Americans would work flexibly if they could and 58% said they work remotely part of the time.
This means that 92 million people in the U.S. will require supplies to work from home. That’s a big market that is hard to ignore.
Let’s say you created a niche site around your favorite work-from-home products. What would you review? Wireless headsets? Laptops?
Let’s look at the opportunity for these types of products in Keywords Explorer.
Start by entering “wfh, work from home, working from home” in the search bar. Then go to the Matching terms report and add an “Include” filter containing the word “best.”
We can see from the above that the results aren’t 100% focused on products. So to refine the results further, we can hone in on product searches by adding “for” to the “Include” filter.
Once we have done this, we can get a good idea of what products people want when working from home: headsets/headphones, computers/laptops, and monitors.
Using these “Include” filters in Ahrefs, we can quickly locate all the “best X for Y” keywords. These keywords are likely a great starting point for a “working from home” themed website.
Let’s dig into the keyword “headphones” a bit more and look at all the Questions surrounding this topic.
We can see that there is a huge opportunity to create content around how to “pair” different brands of wireless headphones.
Let’s add an “Include” filter containing the word “pair” to isolate phrases that include this keyword.
We can see a lot of low-KD opportunities and over 7,000 keywords to create content around this single topic.
This type of content can be helpful for someone who is working from home for the first time and is about to join a remote meeting or someone who has just bought a new set of wireless headphones.
This niche can be monetized simply through display ads and Amazon Affiliates. I have provided a few other affiliate program examples below, which you can use to monetize your site.
For example:
- Logitech, 5–10% commission, 30-day cookie
- Razer, 3–10% commission, 30-day cookie
- HP, 1% commission, 30-day cookie
Final thoughts
Finding a great niche isn’t as hard as it seems.
Writing about a topic you love can definitely make things easier. But you should also analyze the data carefully before you choose your niche—this is where Ahrefs can really help.
With monetization, you don’t have to stick to just Amazon Associates, AdSense, or Ezoic—but these can be good places to start. Going directly to the manufacturers will almost always earn you a higher commission rate.
I’ve outlined 10 ideas here, but there are countless other ones out there. I hope this list provides inspiration for your next niche site.
Got more questions? Ping me on Twitter. 🙂
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SEO
SEO Experts Gather for a Candid Chat About Search [Podcast]
![SEO Experts Gather for a Candid Chat About Search [Podcast]](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/SEO-Experts-Gather-for-a-Candid-Chat-About-Search-Podcast.png "SEO Experts Gather for a Candid Chat About Search [Podcast]")
Wix just celebrated their 100th podcast episode! Congrats, Wix. To quote Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO Brand at Wix; “we talk a lot.”
You sure do! It’s a good thing you have a lot of interesting stuff to say.
The 100th episode of “SERPs Up” was full of awesome guests. Here’s a summary of the action.
Apart from the usual faces, Oberstein and Crystal Carter, Head Of SEO Communications, it was a powerhouse guestlist:
- Chima Mmeje.
- Darren Shaw.
- Joy Hawkins.
- Eli Schwartz.
- Kevin Indig.
- Barry Schwartz.
Just How Broken Are The SERPs?
The first guest was Chima Mmeje from Moz. She dove into the frustrations that many SEOs have been feeling and spoke plainly about the flaws in Google’s updates.
Mordy Oberstein: “Is the SERP broken?”
Chima Mmeje: “The helpful content update, and I’m saying this here, live, is a farce. There was nothing helpful about that update. … Yes, the SERP is 1,000% broken. … How does anybody even use Google in the U.S.? … I don’t think they are going to release any update that will fix these issues.”
Mordy Oberstein: “There’s no update. … Plopping Reddit all over the SERP was because they saw the content trends … and they said ‘we don’t have any so we’re just going to throw Reddit there’.”
Chima Mmeje: “It was lazy to have Reddit there … Nobody uses their real names. Anybody can go on Reddit and answer questions and then you see these answers populating in People Also Ask, populating in featured snippets, populating all over the SERPs as correct information. It is dangerous, at worst.”
Crystal Carter: “Do you think that one of the reasons why we’ve seen so much upheaval and so much so volatility in the SERPs, which I certainly agree with in the last year … is lots and lots of variables, like lots of new features coming in, so the alignment with Reddit, the AI overviews, the SGE … Do you think it is just too many things being thrown in at the same time and it messing up lots of SERPs as a result? Or do you think it’s something else?”
Chima Mmeje: ” … releasing too many features that they did not test properly. Features that were rushed SGE [testing] did not even last a year and now they brought in Google AI Overviews. I still don’t understand why we have AI Overviews and featured snippets on the same SERP. I feel like it’s like pick one, make a choice.”
Mordy Oberstein’s next question was about what we can do. “As an SEO, how are you supposed to do this? I’ve heard things from people … Yeah, I don’t know what to do. I can’t produce the kind of results that I’ve always wanted to. Can you still be effective as an SEO in an environment like this?”
Chima Mmeje: “I’m going to be honest, we are suffering … It feels like we are trying our best with what we are seeing … because there is no clear guidance. And to be honest, a lot of us are playing a guessing game right now and that is the best that we can do. It’s all a guessing game based on what we’ve seen one or two variables work. And this is not a long-term strategy. If we’re going to be realistic, it’s not going to work in the long-term. I honestly, I don’t know what the answer is … you’re fighting against Reddit. How do you compete against Reddit? Nobody has figured that out yet.”
Crystal Carter: “Thanks for saying it out loud, Chima.” Crystal was reflecting the sentiment of the commenters, who appreciated her candor and willingness to say: we don’t know, but we’re trying our best.
Mordy Oberstein: “The most honest take I’ve heard on that in quite a long time.”
Mmeje also recounted examples of small website owners and small businesses that have had to shut down. She also talked about the pervasive feeling in the SEO community that there is no rhyme or reason to how the algorithms handle websites and content.
What’s Going On In Local SEO?
The next guests were Darren Shaw from Whitespark and Joy Hawkins, owner of Sterling Sky for a segment called “It’s New.” They talked about new developments in local SEO.
Hawkins talked about a new feature in Google Business Profile.
Joy Hawkins: “… There’s a little services section inside the Google business profile dashboard that’s easy to miss, but you can add anything you want in there. … We’ve done a lot of testing on it and they do impact ranking, but I should clarify, it’s like a small impact. So usually we see it for longer-tailed queries that maybe don’t match a category or things that are not super competitive. … So it is a small ranking factor, but still one that is worth filling out.”
Darren Shaw: “ .. this is the question that a lot of people ask. We know that if you go into the services section of your Google business profile, Google will suggest predefined services … And so Joy’s original research was focused on those predefined ones and it definitely identified that when you do put those on your profile, you now rank better for those terms depending on how competitive they’re, as Joy had mentioned. … There is a place where you can add your own custom services. Have you done any testing around that? Will you rank better with the custom services?”
Joy Hawkins: “Yes. They both work. In custom services … I’m trying to remember the keyword that Colin tested it on. It was something super niche like vampire facials. I was Googling, what the hell is that? … Really, really niche … But he just wanted to know if there was any impact whatsoever and there was. [Custom services fields are a] good way to go after longer tail keywords that don’t have crazy high search volume or aren’t super competitive.”
Darren Shaw: “You want to make sure that you’re telling Google what you do … that’s basically what the services section provides. And it’s not a huge ranking factor, but it’s just another step in the local optimization process. … a tip for custom services because custom services often get pulled into the local results as justifications. It’ll say this business provides vampire facials, right? Well, did you know there’s a vampire emoji? So if you put the vampire emoji in the title … Then in the local results you’ll see a whole panel of businesses that all provide that service, but yours has that little vampire emoji which will draw people in.”
There was tons more in this section, including questions from the audiences and some great jokes.
The Obligatory AI Section.
Eli Schwartz And Kevin indig were next up to talk about AI. Oberstein, professional rabble rouser, tried to get them to argue, but despite their very different posting habits, they found a lot to agree on about AI.
Mordy Oberstein: “It wouldn’t be an SEO podcast if we didn’t talk about AI. Where do we currently stand with AI? What can it do? What can’t it do?”
Kevin Indig: “… We’re at a stage where AI basically has the capability to create content, analyze some basic data. It still hallucinates here and there and it still makes mistakes. … If you compare that to when this AI hype started in November, 2022, so it’s almost two years now and we’ve come a really long way, these models are getting exponentially better. … It means different things based on whether you look at it as a tool for yourself to make your work more efficient. And of course, what does it mean from an SEO perspective? How does it change search, not just Google, but also how people search. And I think these are all different questions that are exciting to dive into. … So there is a lot of objective data that indicates efficiencies and benefits from AI. There’s also a lot of hype that promises a little too much about what AI can do. And so I’m generally AI bullish, but I’m not in the camp of AI is going to replace us all the next two years.”
Mordy Oberstein: “I’m setting the stage here a little bit because while your LinkedIn pros are generally like pro ai, a lot of Eli’s posts are a little more skeptical about AI. So Eli, what do you think about what Kevin just said? By the way, I’m like, for those who are listening or watching this, I’m pitting them against each other. They’re friends and they do a podcast together. So it’s cool.”
Eli Schwartz: I think AI is great. I think that there’s a lot of great things you can get out of AI. You can, again, like Kevin said, it can be your thought partner. … I’m anti AI in the way people are using it. And I don’t think people have necessarily changed their behaviors because before … they outsource [content] on Fiverr and Upwork and they bought very cheap content and now they’re getting very free content. So then that’s coming from AI. That behavior hasn’t really changed. The challenge is that now there are more people that think they can copy them.
So I talk to CMOs all the time who are like, well, I just go of my SEO team. A big company reached out to me recently. They wanted to gut check themselves after they already fired their SEO team. So I can’t really help there, but they’re like, AI can do everything. … Well, I’ll see them in a year from now when they have whatever sort of penalty. AI is a very powerful tool. Any tool we have a drill is a very powerful tool. But if you just hold it in the air and just let it go, it’s going to make holes. But if you use it appropriately, it does the thing it’s supposed to do. … We’re humans and we buy stuff and it has to come to a point where humans are talking to humans.
Crystal Carter: “… Most of the gains are coming from productivity. The stuff like Kevin was talking about with being able to write product descriptions more quickly, being able to write lots of posts more quickly and being able to finish your things more quickly, brainstorm, et cetera, in terms of the quality, the quality is still not there. It’s getting there rapidly, but it’s still not there.”
There was lots more AI talk, so you should listen to the whole episode if you want to hear the full range of opinions.
Snappy News About The Google August Update
“The Snappy News” segment featured Barry Schwartz, Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land. It also featured the dreaded SEO phrase “it depends.”
Mordy Oberstein: So the article of the day is from Search Engine Land, basically written by Barry that the core update, the August 2024 core update is done. It is complete. … The issue with Google folks who are trying to figure out, will they see a reversal of their fortunes from the 2023 helpful content update, the September, 2023 helpful content update. It’s a mouthful, to be honest with you. And my question for you, since you’re here, did that happen? Was the August updated reversal?
Barry Schwartz: “It depends on the site. I think the number, I don’t have the exact data, obviously I don’t think anybody does, but I’ve seen examples of some very few sites see complete reversals. … There are a number of sites that saw maybe a 20% bump, a 30% bump, maybe a 5% bump. But very few sites saw a complete reversal, if you want to even call it that. … I’ve been through a lot of Google updates over the years, and it’s sometimes sad to see the stories, but at the same time, if you keep at it and you are true to the content, your audience, generally, you’ll do well in the long run. Not every site, there’s plenty of sites that have been hit, went out of business, and they couldn’t come back. That’s business in general. And things change, like seasonalities and times change. You’re writing about the railroad business a hundred years ago and you keep writing about it today. There’s not many people investing a lot of money in railroads these days. So I dunno, it’s, it’s hard to read those stories, but not everybody deserves to go back to where they were. And then at the same time, Google’s not perfect either, which is why they keep on releasing new updates.”
That’s a wrap!
If you haven’t experienced a SERPs Up episode before, you should absolutely take a listen to experience the full effect of Mordy and Crystal’s banter.
The SERP’s Up podcast is brought to you by Wix Studio.
SEO
OpenAI Claims New “o1” Model Can Reason Like A Human
OpenAI has unveiled its latest language model, “o1,” touting advancements in complex reasoning capabilities.
In an announcement, the company claimed its new o1 model can match human performance on math, programming, and scientific knowledge tests.
However, the true impact remains speculative.
Extraordinary Claims
According to OpenAI, o1 can score in the 89th percentile on competitive programming challenges hosted by Codeforces.
The company insists its model can perform at a level that would place it among the top 500 students nationally on the elite American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME).
Further, OpenAI states that o1 exceeds the average performance of human subject matter experts holding PhD credentials on a combined physics, chemistry, and biology benchmark exam.
These are extraordinary claims, and it’s important to remain skeptical until we see open scrutiny and real-world testing.
Reinforcement Learning
The purported breakthrough is o1’s reinforcement learning process, designed to teach the model to break down complex problems using an approach called the “chain of thought.”
By simulating human-like step-by-step logic, correcting mistakes, and adjusting strategies before outputting a final answer, OpenAI contends that o1 has developed superior reasoning skills compared to standard language models.
Implications
It’s unclear how o1’s claimed reasoning could enhance understanding of queries—or generation of responses—across math, coding, science, and other technical topics.
From an SEO perspective, anything that improves content interpretation and the ability to answer queries directly could be impactful. However, it’s wise to be cautious until we see objective third-party testing.
OpenAI must move beyond benchmark browbeating and provide objective, reproducible evidence to support its claims. Adding o1’s capabilities to ChatGPT in planned real-world pilots should help showcase realistic use cases.
Featured Image: JarTee/Shutterstock
SEO
How to Build a Fandom by Talent-Scouting Great Content
At a time when anyone can create content, the real challenge—and opportunity—is in saying something new.
I think content curation can help with that.
Curation is all about finding undiscovered stories and repackaging ideas in ways your audience really respond to.
In this article, you’ll learn why content curation is great for growth, and how to talent scout quality underground or left-field content.
Gathering and sharing content is a popular social media tactic, but content curation extends to mediums and channels far beyond social.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
| Example | Type | What is it? |
|---|---|---|
| The Pudding | Article | A data journalism publication that curates a range of rich media (e.g. social comments, headline snippets, literature reviews) to tell compelling visual stories – like this one. |
| Ahrefs’ digest | Newsletter | Our Senior Content Marketing Manager, Si Quan Ong (SQ), curates key SEO/marketing news, accompanied by snappy annotations. |
| Near Media Memo | Podcast | Conversations at the intersection of search, social, and commerce. Hosts curate and discuss the latest industry content. |
| KFC’s “Bucket Bangers” Spotify Playlist | Playlist | A playlist curated by KFC as part of a PR campaign, containing 46 tracks that name drop the brand. |
| Campaign Inspiration | Image carousel | This LinkedIn page curates visual examples of existing PR campaigns to inspire marketers. |
Newsletters, in particular, have become the go-to platform for curation, since they’re fairly cheap to run and easy to set up.
The numbers back this up. A quick look at Site Explorer shows newsletter platform Substack experiencing a 373% leap in organic traffic from September 5th, 2023 to September 5th, 2024.
You can see some great examples of curated SEO newsletters here: I Subscribed to 72 SEO Newsletters. Here Are My 11 Favorites.
Now you know about content curation in all its forms and guises, let me tell you what’s so great about it…
From saving money, to building traffic, and cementing your authority, content curation comes with plenty of benefits.
1. Content curation saves time and money
At Ahrefs, we follow The Pareto Principle: the idea that 80% of the reward comes from 20% of the effort.
If you want to improve your effort:reward ratio, curation is a great option.
I asked SQ about the benefits of content curation, and he had this to say:
“One benefit is that I don’t have to write an essay from scratch each week (which is what most newsletters are).”
While content curation has the potential to save you time, resources, and money, I do want to add two important caveats:
- Curating niche, underground content examples can still take time – especially when you’re first finding your sources.
- If you’re doing deep-dive investigations into those examples, you may spend just as long curating as you would creating.
2. Curation helps you build links, traffic, and engagement
Marketing Examples is a goldmine of curated marketing snippets.
Founder, Harry Dry, doesn’t just gather content — he dissects real-world marketing copy, name drops the creator, and breaks down their winning formulas, making it easy for readers to replicate that success.
As a result, his site has earned fairly consistent links and traffic over time, growing organically by 88% in the last two years.
Curating content is an example of what I call “awareness you prepared earlier”. Your chances of driving traction are vastly improved when you crowdsource ideas.
Not only do your audience consume your curated content, they publicize it to their own network via social posts or reciprocal links when they get featured.
Some refer to this as “ego bait”. Obviously there’s an element of flattery involved, but in my experience, the top curators prioritize content that genuinely helped or inspired them, rather than chasing big names with the widest reach.
3. Curating content is great for EEAT
Few people have direct experience with every topic they’ve ever written about.
But, since 2022, first-hand experience has become a prerequisite for ranking in Google.
Curating others’ lived experiences and knowledge in your content is a powerful way to build your EEAT and improve your rankings.
4. You become credible by association
We tend to categorize people according to their social group memberships – this is known as social categorization.
If you’re regularly associating yourself with respected thought leaders, your audience is more likely to group you with them, and hold you in higher regard as a result.
Mixing in your own content and opinion is important for building credibility, but be careful not to overdo the self-promotion.
Back to SQ:
“I don’t tend to include all of the blog posts we publish on our blog.“
5. You get closer to your customers and community
When you curate, you consume content holistically –like your customers– and stop being so introspective.
If you’re only consuming content from your brand or brand “friends”, there’s a limit to the value you can bring to your audience.
Content curators turn to their community to source content, so curating bridges the gap in two ways: by helping them consume like their customers, and by giving them a reason to connect.
6. When you curate, your content gets better
To create is to curate. All ideas are shaped and borrowed from somewhere – that’s how knowledge is acquired.
If I don’t curate, I tend to find my own content stagnates.
Curation introduces me to new ideas, reminds me of the things I have forgotten, allows me to build deeper, more informed arguments, and ultimately helps me produce better content – with a lot more in the way of information gain.
For instance, this blog started out as a simple list of content curation benefits, thunk up by yours truly.
But as I came across cool examples of novel content curation, it evolved into a more comprehensive (and hopefully, more interesting) guide.
“Another benefit of content curation is that I get to keep abreast of anything new in SEO and marketing, which informs my own work”
7. You build your personal “brand”
Curation gives you the chance to platform your own expertise and assert yourself as a thought leader.
Take a look at the search volume for one of the most prolific curators in SEO: Aleyda Solis.
Aleyda curates SEO news and insights across her newsletter, SEOFOMO, her podcast, Crawling Mondays, her owned social media channels, and industry talks.
As a result, her name now drives ~600 monthly organic searches, according to Site Explorer.
And over 19K “in content” mentions, according to Content Explorer.
Curation is about piecing together unrelated content to reveal new ideas and information.
You’re giving someone else’s content another shot at engagement – sometimes after a “failure” to launch.
“The same core information can be made more or less valuable by changing its format. Great ideas are sometimes locked away in places that render them inaccessible to people that would benefit from them.”
Here are 9 ways you can “talent scout” novel content, and carve out your own curation USP.
1. Pay attention to lesser-known voices
In every industry there are sources that audiences defer to for information and ideas.
Look beyond them.
Scout for “rising stars” and underground sources to give your curation exclusivity.
Mark Williams-Cook, Director at Candour and Founder of AlsoAsked, does just this when curating his newsletter: Core Updates.
“I’ve made a conscious effort not just to follow the ‘big names’, as there are some truly excellent SEOs that are very quiet on social media. I’d always recommend following someone if you see them putting out solid advice, even if you’ve never heard of them. I’ve made some good friends and excellent connections that way!”
This is probably something you’ll have to do manually at first.
I try to pay close attention to people leaving savvy comments on social media posts and industry communities.
2. Build an X list of “ones to watch”
Once you’ve found the right “ones to watch”, you can start building a list to refer back to whenever it’s time to curate.
SQ uses X lists and subscribes to others’ Substacks:
“I have my own Twitter list of marketers (getting poorer these days sadly) and follow other people’s substacks/newsletters and see if there are any links they recommend.”
3. Mine niche and atypical sources of information
Nicole DeLeon, Ed Zitron, Marie Haynes and other tech curators recently mined Google’s DoJ trial documentation to investigate “buried” information on how the search engine ranks content.
Search Engine Roundtable founder, Barry Schwartz, is always extracting content from Google rep social comments, Google developer docs, and Google’s Office Hours video series to curate hot-off-the-press news.
Techemails mines leaked tech company emails from court filings and curates them across social media and their website (p.s. they are preeetty eye-opening).
Finding and teasing out obscure information is a great skill to have when it comes to content curation.
Here are some more ways you can do that:
- Track updates in company documentation (e.g. brand Ts & Cs, Google Developer Docs, Anthropic Release Notes)
- Mine Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request databases
- Monitor government data via fact finding bodies (e.g. Indeed curates content from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to inform content in their Hiring Lab)
- Study public datasets released by research institutions (e.g. Harvard Dataverse)
- Mine “hidden” or ephemeral content (e.g. podcasts, webinars, industry talks, seminars etc.) to curate quotes and promote relatively unheard information
- Monitor public announcements and press releases from organizations
4. Track down new and trending content
Be the first to break and curate news in your industry. Start by searching for industry-specific keywords in Content Explorer.
Then add filters to make sure you’re seeing the freshest and highest quality content.
In my experience, I find that:
- Adding a minimum Referring Domain of “30”
- Adding a minimum word count of “300”
- Sorting by “Date: newest first”
…shows me the newest and best SEO related content, but you should play around until you find what works in your industry.
Tip
When it comes to filtering, don’t get too prescriptive about it – remember, you want to find novel content that usually flies under the radar, so avoid being overly strict with minimum thresholds.
This next part is really important. Once you’re happy with your configuration, hit “Save filters” so that you can repeat this analysis for the next instalment of your newsletter, podcast, social post, article, or whatever else you might be curating.
With the Content Explorer, you’re searching for instances of a keyword in the title, content, URL or all of the above.
But relevant content won’t always contain the exact keywords or topics you’re searching for.
In which case, try searching for keywords in the anchor text linking to that content.
There’s a preconfigured search for this in Ahrefs’ Web Explorer. Just hit the “examples” tab, and select “Most quoted newly published pages about ChatGPT”:
This will load a full report of the most linked to pages about the topic “ChatGPT” over the last week. Then all you need to do is update the report with your chosen topic, and adjust any filters.
And hit “Save report”.
Another tip for breaking news was recently disclosed by SEO expert and founder of SEO blog Detailed, Glen Allsopp, on the Ahrefs Podcast (it’s a great episode – I highly recommend a full listen!)
He spoke about a technique that he refers to as the “iPhone Link Building” method.
“The reason I call it this, because it doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter how old your website is, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been around. If you have a photo of the iPhone 16 before anyone else and you put that on [your site], the whole tech world is going to talk about it, right? You’re going to get links from every tech website on the planet. Doesn’t matter that [your site] has nothing to do with tech and gadgets. You’ve got the first iPhone link. People are going to talk about it. So I refer to it as the iPhone link building.“
To carry out “iPhone link building”, Glen sets up an alert using Visual Ping. This sends him a notification as soon as there’s an update on one of the webpages he’s tracking. If something new or interesting has changed, he’ll work this into his next piece of content.
5. Ask your network
Turning to your social network for examples of existing content is a great way to curate.
Here’s Chris Haines, Ahrefs’ Senior SEO Specialist, doing just this on LinkedIn…
And here I am posting in Women In Tech SEO (my #1 community) for contributions to my article: So You’ve Been Asked To Humanize AI Content
Often, Slack communities will dedicate a channel to self-promotion. This is another handy way to find new content to curate.
“In the Women in Tech SEO Slack group, we have a hashtag channel (#wts-amplify-me) that serves as a space for members to promote their work, and it’s wholesome to see lots of our members use it to highlight the work of others! This channel helps me curate content for our weekly WTSNewsletter. As newsletter creators, we are responsible for amplifying diverse voices, which was the driving force behind starting WTSNewsletter. The lack of diversity in industry newsletters motivated me to create our very own weekly newsletter that showcases the brilliant work of underrepresented individuals.”
Community content sourcing doesn’t begin and end with LinkedIn or Slack. Check out other pockets of the internet, including niche forums, Subreddits, Facebook groups, and Mastodon instances.
6. Bookmark everything
Some of my best articles have been inspired by the posts I’ve bookmarked.
Here are my top tips for bookmarking curated content:
Use web highlighters
Use a web highlighter plugin to bookmark interesting content for future curation.
Organize examples in a note taking app
Use a note taking app like Notion or Obsidian to organize your content examples.
Bookmark your saved social media content
You’ll undoubtedly have banked some great content on social media over the years, but navigating back to those archives can be a bit of a faff.
I bookmark mine to my browser so I can easily jump back in (e.g. LinkedIn “Saved”, X bookmarks, X advanced searches, TikTok saved, Instagram saved etc.)
7. Set up author notifications
Follow creators and journalists that inspire you. Subscribe to their channel, turn on notification bells on LinkedIn and X, and set up RSS feeds to get alerted whenever they push out new content.
Tip
When you’re searching for new content in the Content Explorer, check out the Authors tab for ideas on which thought leaders to follow in your industry.
8. Set up keyword alerts
Get notified as soon as on-topic content is published, with Ahrefs “Mention” alerts.
9. Use AI to extract and annotate content
AI broadly summarizes outdated content, and has a habit of forgoing (or entirely fabricating) references. In other words, it’s pretty terrible for curating unique content.
Instead, use it to extract, summarize, and investigate the content you’ve selectively curated.
Extract nuggets from “hidden” content
I used AI to extract quotes and insights from webinars, interviews, and YouTube videos. The post I wrote for SpinSucks was inspired by content mined from interview transcripts and bookmarked social media content, using Claude AI.
Reverse-engineer successful content formulas
I fed ChatGPT examples of top-performing blogs to understand patterns of success, and inform my opinion of what “good” content looks like, while updating the post: 6 Simple Blog Post Templates (Download & Edit Along.
We’ve covered a lot of ground, but there are a few extra details worth mentioning before you jump into curation.
Make sure you have a clear theme
Curation isn’t just about sourcing and presenting the most unique content you can find.
Value also comes from carefully selecting content that fits a central concept or theme.
“[Content curation] helps build my taste, which in my opinion, is the hardest part of curation, because most people don’t seem to understand the concept of “curation”, i.e. selecting the best, or what fits a theme. They just seem to shoehorn every article on the internet.”
Build your exclude list
Be discerning about the content you create. Set out rules as to the content or people you will/won’t include, using your brand guidelines for inspiration.
Repurpose your knowledge
Content curation is usually cheaper and easier to produce, but don’t treat it as a “one and done” activity. Repurpose the things you learn both internally and externally.
“We actually use the news – that Jack (Chambers-Ward) and I curate for the Core Updates newsletter – internally at Candour during one of our weekly meetings when we are discussing changes in the industry. So it’s been a helpful task to make sure the agency is always up to date!”
Final thoughts
Content curation isn’t a “set it and forget it” tactic. It’s an ongoing process that demands a reasonable amount of effort, but the payoff is worth it. That’s because:
- It’s a traffic magnet: Curated content can outperform original content in terms of organic traffic, because you’re cherry-picking the best ideas.
- It builds your E-E-A-T: By sharing valuable experiences, you’re signaling to users and search engines that you know your stuff. This can boost your rankings across the board.
- It’s a networking opportunity: When you share others’ content, they notice. We’ve built relationships with industry giants simply by featuring their work on our blog or weekly digest.
Great curation is about adding value. You can just reshare content verbatim, but you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity to add your own insight, and explain why the content you’ve painstakingly curated matters to your audience.
In a world where 70 million blog posts are published every month, skilled curators stand out. They don’t just share content – they build communities, spark discussions, and become go-to resources in their niches.
If you’re giving content curation a try, experiment with different formats and track what resonates (our Content Explorer can help with that too), then watch your influence grow.
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