AI transcript
0:00:07 If your traffic has been eroded by AI snippets and Reddit in the search results, this episode
0:00:10 is going to show you how to fight back and tap into the power of Reddit.
0:00:15 Now it feels a little bit like if you can’t beat them, join them kind of strategy, but
0:00:19 there’s no ignoring that Reddit, the self-proclaimed front page of the internet, has found itself
0:00:22 on the front page of just about every Google search.
0:00:26 Stick around in this one, we’re breaking down how to get some of that traffic flowing back
0:00:31 to you, the Reddit research and content best practices to be aware of, and some common
0:00:33 mistakes to avoid.
0:00:37 Now to help out, I’ve enlisted a professional content marketer who’s been helping businesses
0:00:44 and brands take advantage of this brave new Reddit-dominated search world from redvisible.com,
0:00:46 red with two Ds, Amy Aitman.
0:00:47 Welcome to the Side Hustle Show.
0:00:49 Hi, I’m so excited.
0:00:52 I love this show and I’m really excited to get into this.
0:00:53 So much fun.
0:00:57 And me as well, I’ve got some big Reddit news to share coming up, but maybe you can
0:01:03 kick us off with an example of what is possible from a publishing standpoint of, well, maybe
0:01:08 my own site is having a hard time ranking anymore, but I could publish the same or similar content
0:01:11 on Reddit and have it jump to the first page almost immediately.
0:01:14 So case study, really fun.
0:01:19 I was looking at one of our clients today and in SaaS, I guess a SaaS tool.
0:01:20 Okay.
0:01:21 Software product.
0:01:27 And we have a website that we publish, reviews, comparisons, been around for a long time.
0:01:35 We still do publish on our third party publishers, but we will publish a full scale article, blog,
0:01:42 and then we’ll share something in Reddit and either a subreddit that we own and that we built out and we’ll share.
0:01:47 Often Reddit content is quite different than a full blog.
0:01:53 It’ll often be sort of a share and, you know, it has to fit the Reddit world and the Reddit narrative and the Reddit site.
0:01:58 But if you go the next day, you’ll see the ranking for our content.
0:02:06 And what’s really fun now is we’re seeing that because all roads lead to Reddit, it’s informing AI overviews.
0:02:09 We’re seeing results in chat GPT search.
0:02:11 We’re seeing results in Bing.
0:02:13 Reddit has their own AI search tool.
0:02:15 So you can show up there.
0:02:20 You can show up in people also asking, show up in what people are saying.
0:02:25 Everything can show up all over the place because all roads do sort of lead to Reddit.
0:02:25 Yeah.
0:02:37 From kind of late 2023 helpful content update to late 2024, like 12 months later, where so many publishers got hit by a series of algorithm updates, starting with helpful content.
0:02:43 Reddit was like 10x, like 10 times the traffic that it used to get.
0:02:46 It’s like, oh, there’s this giant sucking sound.
0:02:49 And how do we, you know, get in front of that audience?
0:02:51 You mentioned there’s going to be some nuance to it.
0:02:53 So I want to get into the best practices here.
0:02:57 It’s not just copying and pasting the content that I used to publish on my website.
0:03:03 They’re like, maybe I still want to publish there because there’s hopefully down the road, like an opportunity to double, maybe triple dip.
0:03:04 Maybe I create the video.
0:03:10 Like I could take up potentially a lot of real estate on that first page of Google if I do it right.
0:03:19 But you mentioned, okay, I’ve got my own subreddit that I own and moderate and manage, but then like tapping into potentially others that could be relevant.
0:03:29 Maybe it would be helpful to have an example of like a product review type of article or like a roundup, like best, you know, 10 best toaster ovens or like that kind of traditional affiliate content.
0:03:30 Maybe we’ll start there.
0:03:30 Yeah, that’s great.
0:03:35 Well, 10 best toaster ovens, let’s say that we’re working on getting that ranking.
0:03:37 Obviously, we still have our publication.
0:03:42 And I feel like that’s, to me, it’s like one spoke in this internet realm right now.
0:03:46 And it’s an important spoke, but it used to be like the hub.
0:03:50 And that’s where like all roads led to our publications.
0:03:55 And now I look at it as one part in this entire landscape.
0:03:59 Publication meaning like a website, like your domain that you have full control over.
0:04:00 Yeah, okay.
0:04:01 That you own, yeah.
0:04:05 And that you do want to lead people to eventually, which is nice.
0:04:09 But it’s only one spoke and that’s the reality of it.
0:04:15 And posting a best toaster roundup in Reddit is not just copying and pasting your blog.
0:04:22 For example, like Redditors really, I think they’re really suspicious generally of brands and of affiliates.
0:04:25 And they know that kind of game things.
0:04:26 Like people squeeze in there.
0:04:27 We see it all the time.
0:04:33 There’s a lot of Reddit rules and best practices that you have to engage in.
0:04:36 But I would say generally be helpful.
0:04:41 And a lot of times when we’re sharing those types of best of in ours, it’s, you know,
0:04:44 we could take an angle of like, we’re looking into this, like we genuinely care.
0:04:47 We come at it through the side of like, we’re the users.
0:04:52 We are the curious people that are actually in their kitchen looking at toasters and,
0:04:55 and comparing them and, you know, like UGC.
0:04:59 But that’s how I would probably approach that in a Reddit list.
0:05:04 Like I’m looking at these and can you add some recommendations or have you tried these?
0:05:08 So that’s the kind of content I think that does really well in Reddit.
0:05:13 And if you want to publish in your own subreddit, that’s great.
0:05:15 I think it’s a great distribution play.
0:05:20 And I think all publishers, at the very least, if you are intimidated with Reddit,
0:05:23 create your own subreddit and start distributing your content.
0:05:25 That’s where we really started.
0:05:30 We would just distribute our content in Reddit and start to see some natural engagement.
0:05:36 I mean, you can use the sidebar, you can link back to your site, you can add, you can add links back to your site.
0:05:41 You can give them little teasers, like the full review is on my site, which is really great.
0:05:42 That’s a great technique to Reddit.
0:05:44 Like, you know, I’ve been looking into this.
0:05:46 These are three things I learned.
0:05:53 Not just straight copy and paste syndication, but a little teaser summary and, hey, the full review is back on my domain.
0:05:57 Yeah, there are subreddits that let you distribute your content.
0:06:06 And I see a lot of news driven content or if you have that type of a site where it’s like, you know, breaking news or breaking like entertainment.
0:06:11 So there are some subreddits that will do just that and you can engage in that as well.
0:06:12 That can be a strategy.
0:06:18 But for a lot of my, like for our type of publishing or for review sites or affiliate sites,
0:06:26 I think kind of crafting something that is valuable and answers a question or shares and then you can bring them back to your site.
0:06:30 So that’s a really good baseline strategy for publishers out there.
0:06:39 OK, and this is this is very timely because we like just as of literally yesterday got control of the Side Hustle Nation subreddit.
0:06:40 Somebody had been squatting.
0:06:43 I was wondering that I was looking at us.
0:06:46 It’s like, wondered if you had control of that.
0:06:53 Squatting is probably an aggressive term, but somebody was using that trademark term as their own subreddit in promoting who knows what.
0:06:54 But it had kind of been abandoned.
0:06:55 Yeah.
0:07:00 And so we submitted a trademark request, submitted like a moderator takeover request.
0:07:00 I don’t know what it was.
0:07:04 And was able to get on board with that.
0:07:12 And so now it’s like the question mark of why, you know, obviously we can invite the audience to come be members and contribute to the conversation and the content there.
0:07:24 But from a publishing standpoint, like do we start with like the archive, like the dozens and dozens of posts in the archive that like start to drip those out as threads in this community or in this subreddit?
0:07:30 Oh, I mean, that is definitely one strategy that you can do and, you know, figure out what kind of works.
0:07:36 The great thing about Reddit, I would say, one, it’s great that you got your subreddit back.
0:07:47 So for all the publishers out there, if you do anything right now, it’s like, you know, get your Reddit subreddit name because anybody can create any subreddit for any brand.
0:07:48 There’s no, there’s no rules.
0:07:52 It’s the wild, wild west of the world, Reddit.
0:07:55 So it’s nice when you can recover that and you can take it over.
0:07:59 So, yes, I would generally say have that distribution strategy.
0:08:04 But think if you if your goal is a traffic arbitrage, there’s things that you might want to do.
0:08:13 If your goal is to build a community there, there’s definitely a lot of community building things that you can do, you know, questions and engagement.
0:08:14 Like you said, bring your audience back there.
0:08:17 And what could that really look like?
0:08:26 I would spend a few minutes actually strategizing what you want your group to look like and what it’s going to lead back to and what you want people to do.
0:08:36 OK, but there’s a lot of opportunity there for for you to repurpose your tips, build some excitement, get some more views, ideas.
0:08:46 Yeah. I mean, one thing that’s that’s top of mind is looking at some of the highest performing articles, historically highest performing articles that have lost traffic and then saying, well, why?
0:08:50 You know, they’re still they’re still on the first page, but they’re just lower down.
0:09:03 Right. And so it’s like, how could we create, you know, the Reddit thread or the red, you know, some sort of post around that in an attempt to sure, hopefully this still exists on the site and maybe we update it, make it more relevant and timely.
0:09:08 Sure. But also, like, could we leapfrog that with some sort of Reddit in the search results?
0:09:17 Like, do you see people going after that or trying to create, you know, some other little compelling little tentacle out into the Internet world to like draw people back in?
0:09:22 Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s great. I love the feedback loop that can come from that, too.
0:09:36 So if you have an old listicle article that has done well and you can share some of that and ask people to, you know, weigh in on are these great choices or do you agree with this advice or any other advice, you can update the article and you can actually share and write it.
0:09:39 We’ve updated the article. We’ve updated the guide.
0:09:43 There’s so many things you can do with your subreddit as a community as well.
0:09:51 And for brands, I think, and for publishers, having that branded publisher subreddit is really great.
0:09:59 But you can expand your footprint as well and have like affinity subreddits, which are more like topical.
0:10:06 So you can, you know, just like just like a topical content map, you can have a subreddit for almost anything.
0:10:12 And I feel like it’s almost like the old days of SEO and there’s like exact match.
0:10:20 The more topical and the more niche the subreddit is, I feel like the easier it is to rank for certain things as well.
0:10:29 So sometimes having those brand new subreddits that are really, really topical, like wedding flower arrangements, let’s say.
0:10:32 And that’s all you talk about in that subreddit.
0:10:38 And it becomes a place where people can ask questions, but also where you can share really topical things.
0:10:41 And I feel like that also helps you rank.
0:10:43 It all will depend on the landscape.
0:10:49 Just looking at if you, you know, do a deep dive and look at what’s in the SERPs for anything.
0:10:54 There’s certain subreddits that are just dominant, like moving is a dominant subreddit.
0:10:59 A lot of business groups, you know, like project management, business, there’s a lot of that.
0:11:02 So like the broad terms have kind of been taken over.
0:11:03 Okay.
0:11:13 So going a little bit nichier and having those little mini affinity groups, you don’t need to have a ton of content.
0:11:19 You don’t need to have a hundred pieces, a hundred posts in your subreddit to start ranking and start seeing results.
0:11:25 The thing that people don’t really talk about Reddit a lot is that Reddit will serve your content right away.
0:11:36 The very first post, you create a new subreddit, you create a post, a welcome post or a new post, and it gets served to other editors right away.
0:11:44 Yeah, it’s getting indexed and everything, spending a lot of computing power, indexing all this content, user-generated content here.
0:11:51 We’ve built a lot of websites from scratch, and we know that it takes months to see those early results.
0:11:55 And you’re in Ahrefs and you’re like, okay, are we getting every indexed?
0:11:55 Are we getting some rankings?
0:11:56 Are we doing that?
0:12:03 It takes months to see if your original strategy is working, and Reddit, it takes days.
0:12:05 Yeah, yeah, you get the quick feedback loop.
0:12:08 Let’s go back to this, you know, best toasters example.
0:12:12 So maybe I put the list on my site and it’s, you know, bestkitchengadgets.com or something.
0:12:18 And I also have the best kitchen gadgets subreddit, sure, and I can post, you know, the teaser of it there.
0:12:23 And then I’m going to r slash kitchens, r slash cooking.
0:12:27 Am I, like, treading carefully not to, you know, get in trouble for self-promotion?
0:12:35 Or does it make sense to make, like, the best toaster, like, to create a completely separate subreddit, like, only for that day?
0:12:38 Or to piggyback on the brands themselves?
0:12:41 Like, oh, you know, KitchenAid was, you know, one of the…
0:12:48 So, I mean, that probably already exists, but, like, you know, if it’s an up-and-coming brand, like, if it doesn’t exist, like, you could be the first, you could be the creator of this thing.
0:12:51 And this is the exciting thing about Reddit right now.
0:13:01 And when we even start to work with partners and work with clients or even do a Reddit strategy for one of our sites, it’s, like, that’s part of the strategy is figuring out…
0:13:06 It’s, like, kind of, like, choosing your own adventure in Reddit and where you want to go.
0:13:13 And it is really just, like, evaluating the landscape and saying, okay, the brands, that’s, like, that’s already out there.
0:13:14 There’s already…
0:13:17 There might even be, like, a best toaster subreddit.
0:13:19 So maybe we take a different approach.
0:13:20 And, like, where can we kind of see?
0:13:28 And also kind of evaluate the titles and the kind of thing that is ranking but also is getting engagement from Redditors.
0:13:36 Because I think that’s another factor in getting your Reddit post up is comments and engagement as well.
0:13:39 And we really like to have great content.
0:13:41 I’m a content purist, a content nerd.
0:13:43 I don’t want to have a bunch of…
0:13:44 Oh, no bots.
0:13:47 But I don’t have a bunch of people just upvoting things to upvote.
0:13:51 I want great content that gets natural engagement.
0:13:57 And knowing that Reddit serves your content, if it’s good, people will like it and comment and engage in it, too.
0:14:01 So that’s another factor as well to keep in mind when you’re creating these strategies.
0:14:08 But there is a lot of initial put things out there, put a few Reddit posts together, see what’s working.
0:14:11 And then you can adjust the strategy.
0:14:13 Yeah, isn’t it?
0:14:14 In a way, it’s just nuts.
0:14:20 Like, I miss the EAT, whatever, you know, expertise and authority and trust.
0:14:25 It’s like, no, any old Joe Schmo can now create this thing and it ranks instantly.
0:14:28 It’s like, well, what happened to building domain authority?
0:14:34 I’ve been part of editorial and I’ve been a big EAT champion for many years.
0:14:38 And the goalpost for content quality, it kept moving and moving and moving.
0:14:44 And that was something like my editorial got tougher and tougher and we kept hiring more and more experts.
0:14:45 And we still do that.
0:14:49 I still hire the real deal experts, the real deal nerds.
0:14:49 Yeah.
0:14:54 But the Reddit thing coming up, it was like, that was my first kind of like gut.
0:14:57 It was like, oh, these people are may or may not be experts.
0:15:03 And I kind of had to like take a step back and embrace it.
0:15:11 Because if you think about with AI overviews and AI content creation and all the things that are happening, content is a bit of a commodity.
0:15:15 But at least with Reddit, as for the most part, it’s real.
0:15:16 It is real people.
0:15:20 I’m not saying they’re all experts, but they are real people.
0:15:28 And the more that I spend time in Reddit, the more I kind of get it and kind of respect the ecosystem that is there.
0:15:31 And I can’t believe the things that people are willing to share.
0:15:32 Yeah.
0:15:35 It’s a lot of anonymous usernames.
0:15:37 It’s like, well, who’s to say?
0:15:41 I mean, I guess you’re speaking from personal experience in a lot of cases as a commenter.
0:15:43 But, you know, who’s behind it?
0:15:43 I don’t know.
0:15:45 I can see the pros and cons to that.
0:15:49 But I think the anonymity really does help people express themselves.
0:15:51 Let’s just like say that.
0:15:54 Express, share things that they might not share.
0:15:57 Even like horror stories with work or insights.
0:16:04 Things that, you know, like even when you’re doing a podcast, there’s always going to be this thing where you’re holding back.
0:16:06 But on Reddit, someone might not hold back.
0:16:08 They might tell everything.
0:16:09 And they often do.
0:16:18 So I think that anonymity, it’s almost a tradeoff, but it could almost bring out more expertise and more insights than without it, to be fair.
0:16:19 Okay.
0:16:29 More with Amy in just a moment, including encouraging that engagement, building your community, and how you might do keyword research to figure out what kind of content to post in the first place.
0:16:30 Coming up right after this.
0:16:33 Who, not how.
0:16:39 That’s the unlock that transforms side hustlers into business owners instead of business doers.
0:16:41 You’re always going to run into problems.
0:16:43 And problem solving is a really important skill.
0:16:47 But I’m constantly trying to remind myself, I don’t need to know how to solve everything.
0:16:51 I just need to be able to find the people that do know how to solve it.
0:16:52 Who, not how.
0:16:56 And when you need to hire great talent fast, you need our sponsor, Indeed.
0:17:00 Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites.
0:17:04 Indeed’s sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast.
0:17:15 On top of that, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs, all with no monthly subscriptions and no long-term contracts.
0:17:16 There’s no need to wait any longer.
0:17:19 Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed.
0:17:28 Side Hustle Show listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash Side Hustle Show.
0:17:36 Just go to Indeed.com slash Side Hustle Show right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.
0:17:39 Indeed.com slash Side Hustle Show.
0:17:40 Terms and conditions apply.
0:17:43 Hiring, Indeed, is all you need.
0:17:47 When you’re running a business, every missed call is money left on the table.
0:17:49 Customers expect speed.
0:17:51 Think about the last time you had a plumbing emergency.
0:17:56 If the first plumber didn’t answer, my guess is you moved on to the next one on the list.
0:18:00 With our sponsor, OpenPhone, you’ll never miss an opportunity to connect with your customers.
0:18:06 OpenPhone is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales your customer communications.
0:18:12 It works through an app on your phone or computer, so that means no more carrying around two phones or using a landline.
0:18:18 With OpenPhone, your team can share one number and collaborate on customer calls and texts, just like a shared inbox.
0:18:24 That way, any team member can pick up right where the last person left off, keeping response times faster than ever.
0:18:32 Right now, OpenPhone is offering Side Hustle Show listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.com slash sidehustle.
0:18:39 That’s O-P-E-N-P-H-O-N-E dot com, openphone.com slash sidehustle.
0:18:45 And if you have existing numbers with another service, OpenPhone will port them over at no extra charge.
0:18:48 OpenPhone. No missed calls. No missed customers.
0:18:52 There’s still a lot to unpack here.
0:18:57 You mentioned that comments and engagement seem to be a positive signal, right?
0:19:05 Like if this is getting a lot of upvotes and comments, like that may be more likely to get more eyeballs to both on the Reddit platform and potentially through Google later.
0:19:10 Do anything specific to encourage that feedback, to encourage commenting?
0:19:16 I would say create good content and learn what works when you get it served.
0:19:18 Like I said, you create a post in Reddit.
0:19:21 It gets served to other people in Reddit.
0:19:23 You’ll see what’s kind of ranking.
0:19:26 And once people are there, are they actually clicking through?
0:19:27 Are they actually engaging?
0:19:28 Are they actually upvoting?
0:19:34 Those signals are really great and you can work on the editorial from there.
0:19:35 You can kind of make adjustments.
0:19:41 And do you have an example or two of a post or a thread that did get that level of engagement you were looking for?
0:19:55 One of the things that we did in the beginning was we started just a subreddit for one of our websites and it naturally got a lot of engagement and people joining in and saying, OK, can you look into this tool?
0:19:59 Can you look into this review or I don’t agree with you on this?
0:20:04 So like sometimes even having like really strong opinions will get engagement, which is great.
0:20:10 And I was looking at a post today and someone said, I don’t agree with your list for CFOs.
0:20:14 I think these are not really great recommendations and it’s a talking point.
0:20:15 It’s great.
0:20:18 And they’re making my post have more engagement.
0:20:21 I can always edit the post if I agree with them.
0:20:23 I can always disagree with them.
0:20:27 And I think that back and forth is actually a really good starting point for Reddit.
0:20:33 So, I mean, just like sometimes you can, if you have a strong opinion, people are going to agree or disagree with you.
0:20:38 It’s not about giving everything away like in a full blog.
0:20:43 It’s about sharing a strong opinion, showing your expertise, having a side.
0:20:45 I think that works really well to get engagement.
0:20:52 I mean, is this any different than blog comments, you know, back in the day or is this just, you know, nobody’s nobody’s reading the blog anymore.
0:20:53 So you got to go where the people are.
0:20:54 Yeah.
0:20:55 And that’s a really good point.
0:21:00 I feel like everything I’ve done for the past decade or more has led me to this.
0:21:09 It’s the way we’ve done editorial, like even just like how to get engagement, how to like improve a title, what to look for and what works.
0:21:11 It’s just we’re on a different platform, right?
0:21:15 It’s just a different place to put content and, you know, slightly different way.
0:21:24 Is there anything proactive that you’re doing to build your own subreddit community on the platform?
0:21:28 It’s like, I’m like such a newbie user.
0:21:29 It’s like, does it just happen organically?
0:21:32 People search side hustles and they find it?
0:21:32 Like, how does it work?
0:21:37 It can happen organically, but also like we do old fashioned community building.
0:21:46 So we do reach out if somebody comments on one of our posts, I will reach out through the mod mail and say, thank you so much for your comment.
0:21:47 Can you join our community?
0:21:52 Can invite other mods and other people to contribute to your community?
0:21:54 That’s that’s another thing that you can do.
0:21:57 You can do cross posting on Reddit.
0:22:02 I think Reddit is more friendly to cross post and sharing those kind of things.
0:22:07 Self promotion is you have to kind of play it a little bit safe.
0:22:12 But I think if you bring something valuable and it makes sense and it’s not all that you do.
0:22:19 Remember, every single Reddit profile that we that you have, you can see in the entire history of what someone’s done.
0:22:23 So every single thing you’ve done is a cross post promotion.
0:22:31 You’ve mentioned the same brand or same publication everywhere you go or that’s all you talk about is the AI tool that you love.
0:22:37 It’s very obvious to other writers that you’re not there to contribute to this Reddit community.
0:22:38 OK, yeah, no shortcuts there.
0:22:41 You got to be a part, be a good steward of the community.
0:22:42 Can you explain cross posting really quick?
0:22:47 This is like taking something from your subreddit into another subreddit.
0:22:52 And sharing and it’s like there is a way that you can actually cross post and share.
0:22:53 Yes.
0:22:57 And that’s also you can also cross post a question into more than one.
0:23:03 If you ask a question in another subreddit, you can cross post the question if you feel like you need more answers.
0:23:05 So there is that, too.
0:23:09 But yes, you can cross post your content into other subreddits.
0:23:14 And again, every subreddit has their own rules, their own ecosystem, their own guidelines.
0:23:22 So I just caution before you do any promotion, make sure you read the full subreddit rules.
0:23:25 And when you control your subreddit, you get to control that, too.
0:23:27 You can you can literally say no cross posting.
0:23:28 You can say anything.
0:23:30 You can say no cross posting, no brand promotions.
0:23:35 You have to start every post with a Yahoo to get approved.
0:23:36 Like it’s wild, wild.
0:23:41 Let’s say I’m coming to you as a new client or new prospective client.
0:23:52 Like talk to me about the like keyword research strategy, if that’s even the right term here, like to figure out where to go, what to post, what kind of keywords to target.
0:24:03 It’s a similar type of conversations working with, you know, creating a content plan or working with just like an SEO type of content strategy, depending on the client goals, like figuring out what they want to do first.
0:24:07 Do they want, is it going to be sort of a traffic arbitrage?
0:24:09 Is it going to be an awareness play?
0:24:12 Is it going to be a brand reputation management play?
0:24:18 Is it going to be there’s a lot of different things that you can do with Reddit?
0:24:23 But we start like literally looking at the search landscape, like where is Reddit coming up?
0:24:26 Where are their brand terms coming up?
0:24:29 What their brand terms are important to them?
0:24:34 Obviously, like review comparisons, all those commercial intent terms are really important.
0:24:44 We also look at AI overviews because Reddit’s being informed, like using Reddit’s in AI overviews now, which has only been for a few months, to be fair.
0:24:57 So that’s really interesting to see like what kind of what are they pulling and then determine the content strategy and keyword strategy and what type of content where we put it from there.
0:25:02 Any tools or tech that you like on this?
0:25:14 I’m just trying to think of, well, in Ahrefs, I could pull up like a competitor report or like a content gap type of report and say, oh, you know, these 10 similar sites are ranking for these keywords.
0:25:19 If you haven’t covered that, you might consider it because clearly there’s interest in that.
0:25:22 Well, in Ahrefs, you can look up everything in Reddit.
0:25:32 I feel like it’s a little bit behind still, like because there’s so much Reddit results that Ahrefs can be a little behind and displaying all the terms and the keywords that are actually ranking in Reddit.
0:25:33 But that’s a good place to start.
0:25:43 Like just look up Reddit, you know, look up your brand, look up your keywords, see it and also see like look up the keywords with your brand and then append Reddit.
0:25:46 So like, you know, Nike review Reddit.
0:25:47 So look to see that.
0:26:01 So kind of like look at that landscape, like digging into those Reddit results and and seeing if it’s major subreddits that are coming up, if it’s if it’s a geo play, because a lot of times it could be something where it’s a lot of geographical locations.
0:26:09 Like, you know, ask in Toronto or in Canada or in North Carolina or in L.A. and those kind of things, too.
0:26:15 And seeing some of the terms that come up, a lot of times for brands, we see things like is Brand X legit?
0:26:19 That’s a very something that comes up in Reddit a lot, as you can imagine.
0:26:19 Yes.
0:26:25 If you have a review of that brand, would you title that the three, you know, is Brand X legit here?
0:26:26 I tested this out.
0:26:28 I found these results.
0:26:28 Yes or no?
0:26:30 Like, here’s here’s the link to my full review.
0:26:31 Yeah.
0:26:38 I mean, for our blog, we might our third party, we might do a full review and that might be a subheading for a Reddit post.
0:26:40 That might be the title of a Reddit post is blah, blah, blah legit.
0:26:44 If we’re seeing that, if we’re seeing that people are asking that or is it worth it?
0:26:45 Is it legit?
0:26:46 Those kind of things.
0:26:56 And you can see the type of questions that people are asking in Reddit results already and deciding what to do with the information is like the next step in the strategy for sure.
0:26:57 But yeah, legit’s a good one.
0:26:58 Worth it’s a good one.
0:27:01 Would you create a new thread in that case?
0:27:03 Like kind of with that same title?
0:27:04 Or would you just comment on it?
0:27:06 Like, yes, it’s legit.
0:27:06 No, it’s not.
0:27:08 Like whatever your results finding was.
0:27:17 So a lot of times I evaluate sentiment of for the reviews that are coming up currently when we first start working with a client.
0:27:30 And if it’s negative sentiment, if something’s definitely negative sentiment, one thing you don’t want to kind of do is like add to the fire because comments and upvotes make that post better.
0:27:32 Give it more, give it more juice.
0:27:43 So we kind of have an approach of like love bombing around the negative sentiments, at least having more of an editorial approach or creating things around that.
0:27:48 I wouldn’t go and engage with a fully negative review and hoping to like turn the brain.
0:27:50 And that’s what brands have done.
0:27:51 They’re like, oh, I have a negative.
0:28:01 Someone said something and it’s and it could be for something 10 years ago that happened and somebody was upset and it’s actually we could be a post from 10 years ago and write it like this is what we’re dealing with now.
0:28:08 And so they’ll go and they’ll comment on that right at their head and just give it more juice and that it can stay in the ranking.
0:28:14 But we like to kind of love bomb, let’s say, around those and to shift the sentiment.
0:28:16 Sorry, I’m not sure if I’m clear on that.
0:28:22 Are you saying like don’t jump on that overwhelmingly negative thread with a positive spin?
0:28:23 You’re just like you’re just adding more fuel.
0:28:27 And the consensus is still like we want to bury this thing.
0:28:29 Like we don’t want this to have any more visibility than it already does.
0:28:32 Starting something else that, you know, has a clean slate.
0:28:33 It could be more positive.
0:28:43 Yes, I would say the exception would be if it’s something that’s in your own branded subreddit and it’s a customer service type of question that’s genuine.
0:28:46 I think then brands need to address it and need to comment.
0:28:49 And I think that’s, you know, that’s a different strategy.
0:28:52 That’s more of like a customer service strategy.
0:29:01 But as far as like if you’re for the ranking, remember, like the more you engage in a post and read it, the more it’s going to surface to the top.
0:29:01 Okay.
0:29:02 Yeah.
0:29:07 So maybe not adding more visibility to something that you don’t want people to read or you don’t want people to see.
0:29:13 Or even if you’re just an affiliate partner, it’s like we don’t necessarily want that to be front and center.
0:29:17 But I think evaluating that sentiment as content creators is really important.
0:29:22 And I think that’s part of the research and part of what I tell our writers as well.
0:29:34 Because if we’re talking about brands or products or things that we like and every single thing in Reddit is negative and we come across as this overly positive, which we would never do.
0:29:41 Because we have a real editorial UGC approach to this, but it’s also doesn’t fly and it stands out.
0:29:52 So like I think digging into what’s there and seeing what other people think is really important to create honest and genuine editorial and making recommendations as well.
0:29:52 Yeah.
0:29:54 Be upfront.
0:29:56 Like, hey, here’s what we liked about it.
0:29:56 Here’s what’s good.
0:29:58 Here were some of the downsides.
0:30:03 Or here’s, you know, here’s what some of the detractors say, you know, just to be aware of both sides.
0:30:14 Yeah, it’s like we posted a post the other day and that said, I see a lot, just as many Reddit posts love this mattress versus just as many Reddit people don’t love this mattress.
0:30:15 And here’s why.
0:30:16 And that’s how we kind of approached it.
0:30:23 But to completely ignore that there’s like people that are like, I, this is a way too soft of a mattress and I don’t like it.
0:30:26 I think doesn’t play well on Reddit either.
0:30:26 Yeah.
0:30:28 I mean, I don’t think it’s a great editorial either.
0:30:31 I think I like the balanced kind of approach.
0:30:32 Okay.
0:30:38 So that would be maybe how to approach some of the review content looking like, is this brand legit?
0:30:39 Is this brand worth it?
0:30:40 Is this product worth it?
0:30:48 Imagine you could do similar for like this product versus this product, kind of like bottom of the funnel, you know, high buyer intent type of keywords.
0:31:01 And then even going, you know, the 10 best toasters, like something a little bit higher in a buyer’s decision and kind of teasing that, hey, we’ve just undergone this, you know, month long intensive testing process.
0:31:07 And I can’t wait to share all the results, you know, here, here on our site, but I’ll tease, you might be surprised who won or something.
0:31:15 And I think if you want to embrace the Reddit values of things, you’ll be opinionated, you’ll share something.
0:31:22 And overall, I think what’s gotten me really excited about doing editorial already is that it does feel fresh.
0:31:24 It does feel a little different.
0:31:31 And it does feel more human for a long time in SEO, in content websites, in affiliate websites.
0:31:34 I feel like we were creating very similar types of content.
0:31:40 And there was a lot of people in the industry saying the top 10 results all look the same.
0:31:43 The top 20 results all look the same.
0:31:45 And then we were just competing on content quality.
0:31:47 We’re competing on a lot of different things.
0:31:50 But to be fair, that was the landscape for a while.
0:31:58 Yeah, authority, domain age, everybody plugs it into a phrase or something and says, well, this is what, you know, is already on the first page.
0:32:00 Make sure you include that in your article.
0:32:01 Make sure you include that.
0:32:09 And even when we had these, like, you know, really underground reviews for, like, indie games on our sites that would get to it.
0:32:17 Once something started getting searchable, once something started having enough search volume, one of the bigger publications would pick it up and destroy us.
0:32:23 Because they would do, you know, a content pack of, you know, 200 articles or 50 articles to our three, right?
0:32:24 Yeah.
0:32:37 And now I think Reddit is giving other people a way to, you know, have those discussions, share those insights in the SERPs that the publishers, you know, competing with the publishers, yes.
0:32:39 But it can be really refreshing and exciting, too.
0:32:47 More with Amy in just a moment, including mistakes to avoid and how to get more mileage out of the content you’re already creating right after this.
0:32:53 Remember data from the Goonies, the guy with all the gadgets, or data from Star Trek?
0:32:56 I think that’s why I say data instead.
0:33:02 And one thing I love about our sponsor, Mint Mobile, is I can get all the data I need for one low monthly price.
0:33:03 That’s right.
0:33:04 Down here, it’s our time.
0:33:10 Mint Mobile is rescuing people from overpriced wireless and they’re jaw-dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages.
0:33:19 All Mint Mobile plans come with high-speed data, or data, I guess, your choice, and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation’s largest 5G network.
0:33:25 You can use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your own phone number along with all your existing contacts.
0:33:32 Join me in ditching overpriced wireless and get 3 months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for just $15 a month.
0:33:35 No matter how you say it, don’t overpay for it.
0:33:39 Shop data plans at mintmobile.com slash sidehustle.
0:33:42 That’s mintmobile.com slash sidehustle.
0:33:48 Upfront payment of $45 for 3-month, 5-gigabyte plan required, equivalent to $15 per month.
0:33:53 New customer offer for first 3 months only, then full price plan options available.
0:33:54 Taxes and fees extra.
0:33:56 See Mint Mobile for details.
0:34:04 One strategy I didn’t fully embrace or maybe wasn’t fully aware of when I was starting out was this idea of the piggyback principle.
0:34:07 In the startup phase, that means you don’t have to start completely from scratch,
0:34:14 but instead you can take advantage of existing tools, templates, playbooks, best practices from the people who’ve gone before you.
0:34:17 A perfect example of this is our partner Shopify.
0:34:25 Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses, from household names to side hustlers on their way to becoming household names.
0:34:31 With hundreds of ready-to-use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store and start selling.
0:34:35 Plus, Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools to accelerate your workflow.
0:34:39 We’re talking product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhancing your product photography.
0:34:46 You can even easily create email and social media campaigns to reach your target customers wherever they’re scrolling or strolling.
0:34:48 If you’re ready to sell, you’re ready for Shopify.
0:34:51 Turn your big business idea into…
0:34:53 With Shopify on your side.
0:34:58 Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash side hustle.
0:35:01 Go to shopify.com slash side hustle.
0:35:04 Shopify.com slash side hustle.
0:35:17 Is it primarily text written content versus, you know, people sharing videos or trying to get more juice to their YouTube channel or to their short form content?
0:35:20 Yeah, I think there’s all sorts of things.
0:35:24 Video content right now is really another exciting avenue.
0:35:26 I see video in tons of SERPs.
0:35:28 A lot more short videos.
0:35:32 I see, like, obviously YouTube, TikTok, all of those channels being promoted.
0:35:35 But yeah, you can use video in Reddit as well.
0:35:36 And you can do all that.
0:35:40 I don’t think we do a lot of video in Reddit, but we have.
0:35:52 Okay, so what I’m hearing, own your community, own your subreddit as a place where hopefully nobody can, like, ban you for, like, dropping links or, like, you know, being self-promotional.
0:35:53 Like, hey, of course I want to promote my stuff.
0:35:54 This is my subreddit.
0:35:58 But treading really, really carefully in others.
0:36:03 Like, if there is, you know, r slash cooking and you come in, well, here’s my best, 10 best toasters.
0:36:08 It’s like, ah, it’s a recipe to get the post deleted at best or get yourself banned at worst.
0:36:15 Well, I would say even with your own subreddit, there’s no guarantee that you cannot be, that you won’t be suspended or banned.
0:36:17 Reddit is a risky platform in that way.
0:36:22 So I would say, like, give, and I call it paying the Reddit tax.
0:36:25 Go in, give, share valuable information.
0:36:29 I would never, ever start a new subreddit and start adding affiliate links.
0:36:33 In fact, I, like, kind of don’t want to share any affiliate links.
0:36:34 I think it’s a red flag.
0:36:35 I think Redditors hate it.
0:36:38 I think it’s sad because that’s how people, obviously, we’re…
0:36:39 Yeah, Amy, we’re trying to make money.
0:36:40 Come on.
0:36:42 We are trying to make money.
0:36:47 So you have to take a few extra steps and you have to, you know, you know, give till it hurts.
0:36:48 Follow the rules.
0:36:49 Share.
0:36:53 You can share links to your own site and have affiliate links there.
0:36:55 Yes, it’s another step that people have to take.
0:36:58 But I think it’s worth it.
0:37:10 I think it’s not worth the risk and, you know, just losing people, like, losing the Redditors’ kind of trust by, you know, just having a bunch of spammy, kind of linky kind of things.
0:37:10 So.
0:37:11 All right.
0:37:15 So that’s helpful to be, like, I don’t know, to hear you say, like, I wouldn’t put any affiliate links.
0:37:18 Like, okay, just tread, tread super carefully.
0:37:21 Any other risks or mistakes that we should know about?
0:37:25 I mean, it does feel, this is my beef with all these platforms.
0:37:28 It’s like, yeah, you got to go where the eyeballs are, but you’re still playing in somebody else’s sandbox.
0:37:31 They could take their ball and go home at any time.
0:37:34 And you’re like, I feel like I’m building on borrowed land here.
0:37:35 It’s really tough.
0:37:36 I feel like that, too.
0:37:41 I mean, the advice that I would have given five years ago is not what we’re doing now.
0:37:46 In fact, like, being publishing and we publish a lot on YouTube.
0:37:47 We publish on our own site.
0:37:48 We publish in Reddit.
0:37:52 We publish in Medium and TikTok and Quora and other forms.
0:37:55 I would have said before, don’t do that.
0:37:56 Don’t spread yourself thin.
0:37:58 The editorial is different.
0:38:01 It takes a lot more effort to get into all these things.
0:38:05 And you’re, you know, going on rent to land and Reddit does have its risks.
0:38:08 But it’s such a huge platform.
0:38:10 There’s so much visibility.
0:38:12 You almost have no choice.
0:38:16 If you’re not on Reddit, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities to be in the SERPs.
0:38:21 And so we had to, our motto was like, we’re going to figure it out.
0:38:23 No matter what, we’re going to figure it out.
0:38:25 And so that was like, challenge accepted.
0:38:26 We’ll do it.
0:38:26 Yeah.
0:38:30 Tell me about the Medium and Quora strategies.
0:38:31 It’s like the same type of content.
0:38:35 You know, we started a thread or somebody asked this question or a very similar question.
0:38:37 So we could answer it over there as well.
0:38:38 Yeah, I would say similar.
0:38:41 They’re a little bit more edit friendly.
0:38:46 You can edit a Quora question after it’s been asked a little bit easier.
0:38:48 You can edit your Reddit questions too.
0:38:54 But I think the etiquette is to say edited because I added this and it has to be valuable.
0:38:55 Okay.
0:38:55 Okay.
0:39:01 I think Quora and Medium are obviously a little less risky as far as like you can publish what you want.
0:39:05 And depending on the SERP, sometimes Quora outranks Reddit.
0:39:13 So I think just evaluating that landscape again and seeing and also asking questions that people will answer is really important.
0:39:15 Knowing how to ask the question.
0:39:17 Quora has their own kind of etiquette as well.
0:39:21 Like they ask you, don’t ask questions that have already been asked.
0:39:23 So that kind of thing.
0:39:28 So all these different things, they all have their own little quirks, let’s say, that you have to figure out.
0:39:35 I mean, do you give any weight to like, you know, back in the day, it would be like, oh, that would be considered duplicate content to publish the same stuff on your site.
0:39:40 And to paste it on Medium or paste it in, you know, syndicate to MSN.
0:39:43 It’s like, or publish it on Substack.
0:39:51 Like there’s lots of different channels where like, okay, on the plus side, it’s like, well, I have the potential to take up half of the first page if all of these somehow get ranking.
0:39:56 But, you know, maybe only one of them is going to get indexed if it’s the same.
0:39:56 Well, that’s the thing.
0:40:02 We might have the same topic, but the approach to every single different platform is going to be different.
0:40:06 And it’s different content for every single platform that we create.
0:40:07 It might be remixed.
0:40:08 Sounds like a lot of work.
0:40:09 It is a lot of work.
0:40:12 And I feel like maybe that’s why there’s bad sentiment.
0:40:17 Like scaling up these teams, these editorial teams.
0:40:28 But I have a great team of writers, creators that do video, will create a blog post, will create a Reddit share, will create a Quora, will create a Medium.
0:40:32 And it is very, it is different for every single approach.
0:40:34 And they will do fresh content for every single thing.
0:40:36 So it is a lot of work.
0:40:43 But it’s worth it because we have a client that I was doing a report for, and we were ranking in seven spots on the first page of Google.
0:40:44 Yeah.
0:40:46 For seven different things.
0:40:47 Yeah, that’s what’s possible.
0:40:51 They just completely dominate the front page real estate if done right.
0:40:51 Yeah.
0:40:57 Are there any rules of thumb in terms of, you know, publishing cadence where it’s like, well, every Monday I got to have a new thread?
0:41:02 Is there any rules like that or just kind of like as you see fit or as you see necessary?
0:41:06 With Reddit, I think starting off, don’t publish a 50 or a 100.
0:41:09 I wouldn’t publish, mass publish anything.
0:41:11 I wouldn’t, I would have a human approach to it.
0:41:14 So I would start with publishing one thing, publishing two.
0:41:21 And like I said before, you don’t need to have a ton of content to start seeing some results and start seeing what works.
0:41:25 I’ve seen friends of mine, I think that’s their mistake because they put a lot,
0:41:31 they invest a lot of their team’s energy and effort into their subreddit and they start to like, you know,
0:41:36 I’m going to publish a hundred things, 150 things and put a ton of effort into it.
0:41:41 One, the risk is if something happens and you lose that subreddit, which can happen.
0:41:43 I hope it doesn’t.
0:41:44 You’ve lost 150.
0:41:53 But two, you can get enough data and validation and review from a few posts and then see what kind of works.
0:41:55 But I also think just like be human.
0:41:58 Like I think too much cadence, kind of maybe like a tripwire.
0:42:00 So I would space it out a little bit.
0:42:01 Okay.
0:42:01 Yeah.
0:42:10 So if, so if other publishers are in the same boat as me, they’ve, you know, been running their sites for five or 10 years, they’ve got like this huge library of content.
0:42:13 The strategy is not to go and try to dump that all at once, even every single day.
0:42:16 It’s just like, take a, take a metered approach.
0:42:28 And if you want to publish more, I would say create those affinity subreddits as well that you can publish more and to different things like expand it that way instead of just expanding.
0:42:35 But once your subreddit is established and you have members and you have engagement and all the good things that come from that, it’s a little bit more solid.
0:42:40 And you can do, you can do a lot more and you can publish on more of a regular cadence.
0:42:50 And of course, ideally people are publishing on your subreddit, they’re publishing questions and you have moderators and it can, you know, become this humongous thing eventually.
0:42:51 Yeah, it can be its own.
0:42:57 So it’s another touch point for the brand is kind of how I’ve traditionally viewed the Sino Salvation Facebook group.
0:43:02 It’s like, hey, you know, wherever you are, if you’re in the car, hey, listen to the podcast.
0:43:06 If you’re scrolling through your feed, make sure you see our stuff in the Facebook group.
0:43:14 So there’s, I guess I could see another touch point here with people being engaged with the brand and fueling future content through their questions.
0:43:26 Like, yeah, hey, anybody ever tried this particular side business or this particular money making app or whatever and try and gather feedback on that or like, sure, I never heard of that.
0:43:27 I won’t test it out.
0:43:28 Yeah.
0:43:31 And then you can create a podcast or find somebody by an expert.
0:43:39 And a lot of great things can happen with that kind of community and that feedback loop that I think is really fun for something like this, for sure.
0:43:46 And remember, like, Reddit is not like a Facebook or like another social because it’s just so prevalent in the SERPs as well.
0:43:53 So people that may even tell us that they’re not Reddit users, like my husband says he isn’t on Reddit, but he’s on Reddit.
0:43:53 Sure.
0:43:57 Because when he does any kind of Google search, Reddit will show up.
0:43:58 He’ll be on it.
0:44:00 You know, he might not realize it.
0:44:01 Okay.
0:44:02 Personal question.
0:44:08 Like, you’ve talked a lot about, like, the affiliate type of content, which, you know, okay, there’s an extra step.
0:44:09 Hopefully I draw people back to the site.
0:44:11 Maybe they eventually click the affiliate link.
0:44:18 If I want to promote an episode of the show and say, hey, we just had this really interesting guest on.
0:44:24 She was getting paid to create short form videos for brands, you know, two, three hundred bucks a video, sometimes more.
0:44:28 I genuinely think it’s like a super creative business, like a really cool story.
0:44:31 Hey, I made a hundred grand on the side from my day job.
0:44:37 You know, just trying to get the word out there, but not be like, hey, come listen to my stuff.
0:44:45 Like, what’s, how do you, I don’t know, how do you tread lightly or, you know, figure out the best way to promote something like that or like that story based type of content?
0:44:47 Oh, yeah, that’s really interesting.
0:44:53 Because I think that there is a case for having more of a cadence then because you have real things that you want to share.
0:45:02 And maybe there is like, maybe you share it in your brand and subreddit, maybe you have your own like, like subreddit for the podcast only.
0:45:08 And this is where you get updates and it can be kind of a feed, but you can engage in other subreddits as well.
0:45:13 And if you are genuinely excited, and I see a lot of people promoting themselves like that.
0:45:16 But again, it’s like where it’s kind of like the approach.
0:45:22 So, you know, it’s like this is such a really interesting story and I think you’re going to really get good tips.
0:45:24 I think that can, that can work.
0:45:31 I just think it’s when, I think it’s just when brands are almost lazy and too self-promotionals when they get into trouble.
0:45:31 All right.
0:45:31 All right.
0:45:39 But I think if you’re a genuine content creator and you generally do what you do on Reddit, it does translate.
0:45:39 It can.
0:45:41 Not perfect, but it can.
0:45:50 To what extent are you using AI to spin up, you know, different intros or different ways to say the same type of thing and like to make it unique and different?
0:45:55 Well, we have like a no AI policy in our content.
0:46:09 And to be fair, I don’t really know if our writers have used AI in their brainstorming process and their, but I don’t want it to look like AI, feel like AI, sound like AI.
0:46:12 Even if they haven’t used AI to create it, if that makes sense.
0:46:13 You can kind of sense it.
0:46:16 I want them to, I want it to be a little imperfect.
0:46:18 I want it to be, you know, opinionated.
0:46:24 I want it to be, for Reddit especially, I think anything that feels computer generated.
0:46:29 But yeah, for testing, I think that’s something that you could do.
0:46:29 I don’t know.
0:46:31 We don’t, we don’t really do that right now.
0:46:32 All right.
0:46:33 Fair enough.
0:46:45 The people that are creating our editorial or creating our post are real experts, real nerds, full of like, you know, humor, edginess, opinions that I want to pull that out of them.
0:46:49 I don’t want to figure out a formula for, you know, testing.
0:46:50 Mass, mass producing.
0:46:51 Okay.
0:46:52 Fair.
0:46:53 What’s next?
0:46:55 Where do you see Red Visible going?
0:46:58 Where, I mean, what’s got you excited this year?
0:47:12 Well, the first thing is, I feel like it’s really exciting to survive in this new landscape when AI reviews are, you know, at the forefront, taking up half the listing on Google right now.
0:47:16 When our publications, when the traffic changed, there was a huge shift.
0:47:26 All of the things that have happened in publishing and digital, to be still here and to be excited and to be in content is a really big win for me and still gets me really motivated.
0:47:36 And to be able to work with people that I love and creatives and, you know, and do the thing I love, that is really what’s kept me going for the past year, year and a half, two years.
0:47:37 It’s been a roller coaster.
0:47:50 Looking forward, I feel like because we’ve figured out how to distribute content, create content on different platforms, I feel like it’s a moat around our business, around what we do.
0:47:54 Because no matter how the SERPs change, I feel like we have a stake somewhere.
0:48:01 Whether it’s if Reddit completely disappeared from the SERPs, we still have our third party, but we still have our publishers.
0:48:04 We still have, there’s still Quora Medium.
0:48:06 There’s still video, which is really exciting.
0:48:21 So, moving into that and just embracing search for what it is right now and for how people are discovering us and for where people are living online has been really what’s kept me motivated and what I look forward to doing.
0:48:23 And every day is a new day.
0:48:29 And in one year, I may be talking about something else, but for right now, that’s what keeps me going.
0:48:32 Yeah, the change is the only constant.
0:48:40 You never know what’s coming, but for the time being, a lot of that traffic and attention is certainly flowing towards Reddit.
0:48:44 So, you might as well figure out how to take advantage of that, whatever that means for your brand.
0:48:47 Redvisible.com is where you can find Amy.
0:48:51 Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for Side Hustle Nation.
0:48:53 Embrace your side hustle.
0:49:01 Like, I feel like everybody needs to have a side hustle, no matter how busy you are, and I feel like it’s a great way to test new things.
0:49:03 I still have my little side hustles out there.
0:49:11 You don’t necessarily have to make a lot of money right away, but the things that you learn, you never know where it’s going to come into play.
0:49:20 So, I would say one of my side hustles is I love to play around with AI and play around with AI tools and things like that and create things.
0:49:22 But have I put anything out into the orbit yet?
0:49:23 No.
0:49:24 But I’m learning a lot.
0:49:29 Yeah, but you learn from that, like, just messing around time, like the tinkering time.
0:49:30 But, I mean, I love it.
0:49:37 I listened to the interview you did on UGC and how amazing that is and how much freedom someone gets.
0:49:43 And I love hiring UGC creators and I love finding people and it can fit into your life.
0:49:51 And these kind of things that people are discovering now and doing now, there’s going to be different opportunities in two years and three years.
0:50:01 So, if you have a passion to do that and I have a 14-year-old and he’s done some videos with us and I was really hoping he would really get into it and be a creator.
0:50:02 But it’s funny.
0:50:07 Like, some of those episodes that you’re like, I know the perfect person for this.
0:50:09 And you send it to them and they’re like, eh.
0:50:11 I was like, man, I really thought that was going to hit.
0:50:14 But when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
0:50:15 So, maybe they’ll come back to it.
0:50:21 I think listening and hearing other people’s stories and getting inspired, you never know what’s going to be.
0:50:22 And just, like, tinker around.
0:50:23 It’s fun.
0:50:25 Like, I think that’s my advice.
0:50:29 I am in the very early stages of my Reddit tinkering.
0:50:30 I hope you’ll come by and join.
0:50:33 If you’re listening to this, it’s r slash side hustle nation.
0:50:34 Come and come by.
0:50:38 Help us out and build a helpful community for side hustlers on the internet.
0:50:41 A couple of takeaways from me before we wrap.
0:50:42 Like Amy said, no shortcuts.
0:50:44 You got to be a member of the community.
0:50:45 It’s real work.
0:50:46 It’s real effort.
0:50:51 And, you know, you can’t come in guns blazing and just spamming up a place with your affiliate links.
0:50:52 You got to be there for the long haul.
0:50:57 And the second thing is to build that subreddit that you are the moderator of, that you have some ownership over.
0:51:00 It could be a distribution channel for your content.
0:51:05 It could be a place to gather community feedback and questions that fuels future content.
0:51:12 It could be just another touchpoint for your brand if people are going about their day-to-day lives and they see you pop up in their feed there.
0:51:20 So those are kind of the highlights for me and I’ll probably update as we go forward with our newfound reddit journey here.
0:51:24 But big news, the Side Hustle Show just had its 12th birthday.
0:51:31 So whether this is your first time listening or you’ve been around since the beginning, I appreciate you spending some time with us in your earbuds today.
0:51:39 If you are new or newer to the show and you want to dig a little bit deeper, you can actually get a personalized playlist at hustle.show.
0:51:48 You just answer a few short, multiple-choice questions and it’ll recommend 8 to 10 of our greatest hits to start out with based on your answers.
0:51:48 Totally free.
0:51:51 Hustle.show for your personalized playlist.
0:51:53 Big thanks to Amy for sharing her insight.
0:51:57 Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:52:02 SideHustleNation.com slash deals is where you can find all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.
0:52:05 Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show.
0:52:07 It really does make a difference.
0:52:08 That is it for me.
0:52:10 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:52:14 If you’re finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
0:52:15 So fire off that text message.
0:52:19 Maybe somebody that you know who had their traffic hit in the last year or two.
0:52:22 Say, hey, maybe here’s a path forward like we talked about at the beginning.
0:52:24 If you can’t beat them, join them.
0:52:27 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen.
0:52:30 And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show.
0:00:10 is going to show you how to fight back and tap into the power of Reddit.
0:00:15 Now it feels a little bit like if you can’t beat them, join them kind of strategy, but
0:00:19 there’s no ignoring that Reddit, the self-proclaimed front page of the internet, has found itself
0:00:22 on the front page of just about every Google search.
0:00:26 Stick around in this one, we’re breaking down how to get some of that traffic flowing back
0:00:31 to you, the Reddit research and content best practices to be aware of, and some common
0:00:33 mistakes to avoid.
0:00:37 Now to help out, I’ve enlisted a professional content marketer who’s been helping businesses
0:00:44 and brands take advantage of this brave new Reddit-dominated search world from redvisible.com,
0:00:46 red with two Ds, Amy Aitman.
0:00:47 Welcome to the Side Hustle Show.
0:00:49 Hi, I’m so excited.
0:00:52 I love this show and I’m really excited to get into this.
0:00:53 So much fun.
0:00:57 And me as well, I’ve got some big Reddit news to share coming up, but maybe you can
0:01:03 kick us off with an example of what is possible from a publishing standpoint of, well, maybe
0:01:08 my own site is having a hard time ranking anymore, but I could publish the same or similar content
0:01:11 on Reddit and have it jump to the first page almost immediately.
0:01:14 So case study, really fun.
0:01:19 I was looking at one of our clients today and in SaaS, I guess a SaaS tool.
0:01:20 Okay.
0:01:21 Software product.
0:01:27 And we have a website that we publish, reviews, comparisons, been around for a long time.
0:01:35 We still do publish on our third party publishers, but we will publish a full scale article, blog,
0:01:42 and then we’ll share something in Reddit and either a subreddit that we own and that we built out and we’ll share.
0:01:47 Often Reddit content is quite different than a full blog.
0:01:53 It’ll often be sort of a share and, you know, it has to fit the Reddit world and the Reddit narrative and the Reddit site.
0:01:58 But if you go the next day, you’ll see the ranking for our content.
0:02:06 And what’s really fun now is we’re seeing that because all roads lead to Reddit, it’s informing AI overviews.
0:02:09 We’re seeing results in chat GPT search.
0:02:11 We’re seeing results in Bing.
0:02:13 Reddit has their own AI search tool.
0:02:15 So you can show up there.
0:02:20 You can show up in people also asking, show up in what people are saying.
0:02:25 Everything can show up all over the place because all roads do sort of lead to Reddit.
0:02:25 Yeah.
0:02:37 From kind of late 2023 helpful content update to late 2024, like 12 months later, where so many publishers got hit by a series of algorithm updates, starting with helpful content.
0:02:43 Reddit was like 10x, like 10 times the traffic that it used to get.
0:02:46 It’s like, oh, there’s this giant sucking sound.
0:02:49 And how do we, you know, get in front of that audience?
0:02:51 You mentioned there’s going to be some nuance to it.
0:02:53 So I want to get into the best practices here.
0:02:57 It’s not just copying and pasting the content that I used to publish on my website.
0:03:03 They’re like, maybe I still want to publish there because there’s hopefully down the road, like an opportunity to double, maybe triple dip.
0:03:04 Maybe I create the video.
0:03:10 Like I could take up potentially a lot of real estate on that first page of Google if I do it right.
0:03:19 But you mentioned, okay, I’ve got my own subreddit that I own and moderate and manage, but then like tapping into potentially others that could be relevant.
0:03:29 Maybe it would be helpful to have an example of like a product review type of article or like a roundup, like best, you know, 10 best toaster ovens or like that kind of traditional affiliate content.
0:03:30 Maybe we’ll start there.
0:03:30 Yeah, that’s great.
0:03:35 Well, 10 best toaster ovens, let’s say that we’re working on getting that ranking.
0:03:37 Obviously, we still have our publication.
0:03:42 And I feel like that’s, to me, it’s like one spoke in this internet realm right now.
0:03:46 And it’s an important spoke, but it used to be like the hub.
0:03:50 And that’s where like all roads led to our publications.
0:03:55 And now I look at it as one part in this entire landscape.
0:03:59 Publication meaning like a website, like your domain that you have full control over.
0:04:00 Yeah, okay.
0:04:01 That you own, yeah.
0:04:05 And that you do want to lead people to eventually, which is nice.
0:04:09 But it’s only one spoke and that’s the reality of it.
0:04:15 And posting a best toaster roundup in Reddit is not just copying and pasting your blog.
0:04:22 For example, like Redditors really, I think they’re really suspicious generally of brands and of affiliates.
0:04:25 And they know that kind of game things.
0:04:26 Like people squeeze in there.
0:04:27 We see it all the time.
0:04:33 There’s a lot of Reddit rules and best practices that you have to engage in.
0:04:36 But I would say generally be helpful.
0:04:41 And a lot of times when we’re sharing those types of best of in ours, it’s, you know,
0:04:44 we could take an angle of like, we’re looking into this, like we genuinely care.
0:04:47 We come at it through the side of like, we’re the users.
0:04:52 We are the curious people that are actually in their kitchen looking at toasters and,
0:04:55 and comparing them and, you know, like UGC.
0:04:59 But that’s how I would probably approach that in a Reddit list.
0:05:04 Like I’m looking at these and can you add some recommendations or have you tried these?
0:05:08 So that’s the kind of content I think that does really well in Reddit.
0:05:13 And if you want to publish in your own subreddit, that’s great.
0:05:15 I think it’s a great distribution play.
0:05:20 And I think all publishers, at the very least, if you are intimidated with Reddit,
0:05:23 create your own subreddit and start distributing your content.
0:05:25 That’s where we really started.
0:05:30 We would just distribute our content in Reddit and start to see some natural engagement.
0:05:36 I mean, you can use the sidebar, you can link back to your site, you can add, you can add links back to your site.
0:05:41 You can give them little teasers, like the full review is on my site, which is really great.
0:05:42 That’s a great technique to Reddit.
0:05:44 Like, you know, I’ve been looking into this.
0:05:46 These are three things I learned.
0:05:53 Not just straight copy and paste syndication, but a little teaser summary and, hey, the full review is back on my domain.
0:05:57 Yeah, there are subreddits that let you distribute your content.
0:06:06 And I see a lot of news driven content or if you have that type of a site where it’s like, you know, breaking news or breaking like entertainment.
0:06:11 So there are some subreddits that will do just that and you can engage in that as well.
0:06:12 That can be a strategy.
0:06:18 But for a lot of my, like for our type of publishing or for review sites or affiliate sites,
0:06:26 I think kind of crafting something that is valuable and answers a question or shares and then you can bring them back to your site.
0:06:30 So that’s a really good baseline strategy for publishers out there.
0:06:39 OK, and this is this is very timely because we like just as of literally yesterday got control of the Side Hustle Nation subreddit.
0:06:40 Somebody had been squatting.
0:06:43 I was wondering that I was looking at us.
0:06:46 It’s like, wondered if you had control of that.
0:06:53 Squatting is probably an aggressive term, but somebody was using that trademark term as their own subreddit in promoting who knows what.
0:06:54 But it had kind of been abandoned.
0:06:55 Yeah.
0:07:00 And so we submitted a trademark request, submitted like a moderator takeover request.
0:07:00 I don’t know what it was.
0:07:04 And was able to get on board with that.
0:07:12 And so now it’s like the question mark of why, you know, obviously we can invite the audience to come be members and contribute to the conversation and the content there.
0:07:24 But from a publishing standpoint, like do we start with like the archive, like the dozens and dozens of posts in the archive that like start to drip those out as threads in this community or in this subreddit?
0:07:30 Oh, I mean, that is definitely one strategy that you can do and, you know, figure out what kind of works.
0:07:36 The great thing about Reddit, I would say, one, it’s great that you got your subreddit back.
0:07:47 So for all the publishers out there, if you do anything right now, it’s like, you know, get your Reddit subreddit name because anybody can create any subreddit for any brand.
0:07:48 There’s no, there’s no rules.
0:07:52 It’s the wild, wild west of the world, Reddit.
0:07:55 So it’s nice when you can recover that and you can take it over.
0:07:59 So, yes, I would generally say have that distribution strategy.
0:08:04 But think if you if your goal is a traffic arbitrage, there’s things that you might want to do.
0:08:13 If your goal is to build a community there, there’s definitely a lot of community building things that you can do, you know, questions and engagement.
0:08:14 Like you said, bring your audience back there.
0:08:17 And what could that really look like?
0:08:26 I would spend a few minutes actually strategizing what you want your group to look like and what it’s going to lead back to and what you want people to do.
0:08:36 OK, but there’s a lot of opportunity there for for you to repurpose your tips, build some excitement, get some more views, ideas.
0:08:46 Yeah. I mean, one thing that’s that’s top of mind is looking at some of the highest performing articles, historically highest performing articles that have lost traffic and then saying, well, why?
0:08:50 You know, they’re still they’re still on the first page, but they’re just lower down.
0:09:03 Right. And so it’s like, how could we create, you know, the Reddit thread or the red, you know, some sort of post around that in an attempt to sure, hopefully this still exists on the site and maybe we update it, make it more relevant and timely.
0:09:08 Sure. But also, like, could we leapfrog that with some sort of Reddit in the search results?
0:09:17 Like, do you see people going after that or trying to create, you know, some other little compelling little tentacle out into the Internet world to like draw people back in?
0:09:22 Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s great. I love the feedback loop that can come from that, too.
0:09:36 So if you have an old listicle article that has done well and you can share some of that and ask people to, you know, weigh in on are these great choices or do you agree with this advice or any other advice, you can update the article and you can actually share and write it.
0:09:39 We’ve updated the article. We’ve updated the guide.
0:09:43 There’s so many things you can do with your subreddit as a community as well.
0:09:51 And for brands, I think, and for publishers, having that branded publisher subreddit is really great.
0:09:59 But you can expand your footprint as well and have like affinity subreddits, which are more like topical.
0:10:06 So you can, you know, just like just like a topical content map, you can have a subreddit for almost anything.
0:10:12 And I feel like it’s almost like the old days of SEO and there’s like exact match.
0:10:20 The more topical and the more niche the subreddit is, I feel like the easier it is to rank for certain things as well.
0:10:29 So sometimes having those brand new subreddits that are really, really topical, like wedding flower arrangements, let’s say.
0:10:32 And that’s all you talk about in that subreddit.
0:10:38 And it becomes a place where people can ask questions, but also where you can share really topical things.
0:10:41 And I feel like that also helps you rank.
0:10:43 It all will depend on the landscape.
0:10:49 Just looking at if you, you know, do a deep dive and look at what’s in the SERPs for anything.
0:10:54 There’s certain subreddits that are just dominant, like moving is a dominant subreddit.
0:10:59 A lot of business groups, you know, like project management, business, there’s a lot of that.
0:11:02 So like the broad terms have kind of been taken over.
0:11:03 Okay.
0:11:13 So going a little bit nichier and having those little mini affinity groups, you don’t need to have a ton of content.
0:11:19 You don’t need to have a hundred pieces, a hundred posts in your subreddit to start ranking and start seeing results.
0:11:25 The thing that people don’t really talk about Reddit a lot is that Reddit will serve your content right away.
0:11:36 The very first post, you create a new subreddit, you create a post, a welcome post or a new post, and it gets served to other editors right away.
0:11:44 Yeah, it’s getting indexed and everything, spending a lot of computing power, indexing all this content, user-generated content here.
0:11:51 We’ve built a lot of websites from scratch, and we know that it takes months to see those early results.
0:11:55 And you’re in Ahrefs and you’re like, okay, are we getting every indexed?
0:11:55 Are we getting some rankings?
0:11:56 Are we doing that?
0:12:03 It takes months to see if your original strategy is working, and Reddit, it takes days.
0:12:05 Yeah, yeah, you get the quick feedback loop.
0:12:08 Let’s go back to this, you know, best toasters example.
0:12:12 So maybe I put the list on my site and it’s, you know, bestkitchengadgets.com or something.
0:12:18 And I also have the best kitchen gadgets subreddit, sure, and I can post, you know, the teaser of it there.
0:12:23 And then I’m going to r slash kitchens, r slash cooking.
0:12:27 Am I, like, treading carefully not to, you know, get in trouble for self-promotion?
0:12:35 Or does it make sense to make, like, the best toaster, like, to create a completely separate subreddit, like, only for that day?
0:12:38 Or to piggyback on the brands themselves?
0:12:41 Like, oh, you know, KitchenAid was, you know, one of the…
0:12:48 So, I mean, that probably already exists, but, like, you know, if it’s an up-and-coming brand, like, if it doesn’t exist, like, you could be the first, you could be the creator of this thing.
0:12:51 And this is the exciting thing about Reddit right now.
0:13:01 And when we even start to work with partners and work with clients or even do a Reddit strategy for one of our sites, it’s, like, that’s part of the strategy is figuring out…
0:13:06 It’s, like, kind of, like, choosing your own adventure in Reddit and where you want to go.
0:13:13 And it is really just, like, evaluating the landscape and saying, okay, the brands, that’s, like, that’s already out there.
0:13:14 There’s already…
0:13:17 There might even be, like, a best toaster subreddit.
0:13:19 So maybe we take a different approach.
0:13:20 And, like, where can we kind of see?
0:13:28 And also kind of evaluate the titles and the kind of thing that is ranking but also is getting engagement from Redditors.
0:13:36 Because I think that’s another factor in getting your Reddit post up is comments and engagement as well.
0:13:39 And we really like to have great content.
0:13:41 I’m a content purist, a content nerd.
0:13:43 I don’t want to have a bunch of…
0:13:44 Oh, no bots.
0:13:47 But I don’t have a bunch of people just upvoting things to upvote.
0:13:51 I want great content that gets natural engagement.
0:13:57 And knowing that Reddit serves your content, if it’s good, people will like it and comment and engage in it, too.
0:14:01 So that’s another factor as well to keep in mind when you’re creating these strategies.
0:14:08 But there is a lot of initial put things out there, put a few Reddit posts together, see what’s working.
0:14:11 And then you can adjust the strategy.
0:14:13 Yeah, isn’t it?
0:14:14 In a way, it’s just nuts.
0:14:20 Like, I miss the EAT, whatever, you know, expertise and authority and trust.
0:14:25 It’s like, no, any old Joe Schmo can now create this thing and it ranks instantly.
0:14:28 It’s like, well, what happened to building domain authority?
0:14:34 I’ve been part of editorial and I’ve been a big EAT champion for many years.
0:14:38 And the goalpost for content quality, it kept moving and moving and moving.
0:14:44 And that was something like my editorial got tougher and tougher and we kept hiring more and more experts.
0:14:45 And we still do that.
0:14:49 I still hire the real deal experts, the real deal nerds.
0:14:49 Yeah.
0:14:54 But the Reddit thing coming up, it was like, that was my first kind of like gut.
0:14:57 It was like, oh, these people are may or may not be experts.
0:15:03 And I kind of had to like take a step back and embrace it.
0:15:11 Because if you think about with AI overviews and AI content creation and all the things that are happening, content is a bit of a commodity.
0:15:15 But at least with Reddit, as for the most part, it’s real.
0:15:16 It is real people.
0:15:20 I’m not saying they’re all experts, but they are real people.
0:15:28 And the more that I spend time in Reddit, the more I kind of get it and kind of respect the ecosystem that is there.
0:15:31 And I can’t believe the things that people are willing to share.
0:15:32 Yeah.
0:15:35 It’s a lot of anonymous usernames.
0:15:37 It’s like, well, who’s to say?
0:15:41 I mean, I guess you’re speaking from personal experience in a lot of cases as a commenter.
0:15:43 But, you know, who’s behind it?
0:15:43 I don’t know.
0:15:45 I can see the pros and cons to that.
0:15:49 But I think the anonymity really does help people express themselves.
0:15:51 Let’s just like say that.
0:15:54 Express, share things that they might not share.
0:15:57 Even like horror stories with work or insights.
0:16:04 Things that, you know, like even when you’re doing a podcast, there’s always going to be this thing where you’re holding back.
0:16:06 But on Reddit, someone might not hold back.
0:16:08 They might tell everything.
0:16:09 And they often do.
0:16:18 So I think that anonymity, it’s almost a tradeoff, but it could almost bring out more expertise and more insights than without it, to be fair.
0:16:19 Okay.
0:16:29 More with Amy in just a moment, including encouraging that engagement, building your community, and how you might do keyword research to figure out what kind of content to post in the first place.
0:16:30 Coming up right after this.
0:16:33 Who, not how.
0:16:39 That’s the unlock that transforms side hustlers into business owners instead of business doers.
0:16:41 You’re always going to run into problems.
0:16:43 And problem solving is a really important skill.
0:16:47 But I’m constantly trying to remind myself, I don’t need to know how to solve everything.
0:16:51 I just need to be able to find the people that do know how to solve it.
0:16:52 Who, not how.
0:16:56 And when you need to hire great talent fast, you need our sponsor, Indeed.
0:17:00 Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites.
0:17:04 Indeed’s sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast.
0:17:15 On top of that, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs, all with no monthly subscriptions and no long-term contracts.
0:17:16 There’s no need to wait any longer.
0:17:19 Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed.
0:17:28 Side Hustle Show listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash Side Hustle Show.
0:17:36 Just go to Indeed.com slash Side Hustle Show right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.
0:17:39 Indeed.com slash Side Hustle Show.
0:17:40 Terms and conditions apply.
0:17:43 Hiring, Indeed, is all you need.
0:17:47 When you’re running a business, every missed call is money left on the table.
0:17:49 Customers expect speed.
0:17:51 Think about the last time you had a plumbing emergency.
0:17:56 If the first plumber didn’t answer, my guess is you moved on to the next one on the list.
0:18:00 With our sponsor, OpenPhone, you’ll never miss an opportunity to connect with your customers.
0:18:06 OpenPhone is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales your customer communications.
0:18:12 It works through an app on your phone or computer, so that means no more carrying around two phones or using a landline.
0:18:18 With OpenPhone, your team can share one number and collaborate on customer calls and texts, just like a shared inbox.
0:18:24 That way, any team member can pick up right where the last person left off, keeping response times faster than ever.
0:18:32 Right now, OpenPhone is offering Side Hustle Show listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.com slash sidehustle.
0:18:39 That’s O-P-E-N-P-H-O-N-E dot com, openphone.com slash sidehustle.
0:18:45 And if you have existing numbers with another service, OpenPhone will port them over at no extra charge.
0:18:48 OpenPhone. No missed calls. No missed customers.
0:18:52 There’s still a lot to unpack here.
0:18:57 You mentioned that comments and engagement seem to be a positive signal, right?
0:19:05 Like if this is getting a lot of upvotes and comments, like that may be more likely to get more eyeballs to both on the Reddit platform and potentially through Google later.
0:19:10 Do anything specific to encourage that feedback, to encourage commenting?
0:19:16 I would say create good content and learn what works when you get it served.
0:19:18 Like I said, you create a post in Reddit.
0:19:21 It gets served to other people in Reddit.
0:19:23 You’ll see what’s kind of ranking.
0:19:26 And once people are there, are they actually clicking through?
0:19:27 Are they actually engaging?
0:19:28 Are they actually upvoting?
0:19:34 Those signals are really great and you can work on the editorial from there.
0:19:35 You can kind of make adjustments.
0:19:41 And do you have an example or two of a post or a thread that did get that level of engagement you were looking for?
0:19:55 One of the things that we did in the beginning was we started just a subreddit for one of our websites and it naturally got a lot of engagement and people joining in and saying, OK, can you look into this tool?
0:19:59 Can you look into this review or I don’t agree with you on this?
0:20:04 So like sometimes even having like really strong opinions will get engagement, which is great.
0:20:10 And I was looking at a post today and someone said, I don’t agree with your list for CFOs.
0:20:14 I think these are not really great recommendations and it’s a talking point.
0:20:15 It’s great.
0:20:18 And they’re making my post have more engagement.
0:20:21 I can always edit the post if I agree with them.
0:20:23 I can always disagree with them.
0:20:27 And I think that back and forth is actually a really good starting point for Reddit.
0:20:33 So, I mean, just like sometimes you can, if you have a strong opinion, people are going to agree or disagree with you.
0:20:38 It’s not about giving everything away like in a full blog.
0:20:43 It’s about sharing a strong opinion, showing your expertise, having a side.
0:20:45 I think that works really well to get engagement.
0:20:52 I mean, is this any different than blog comments, you know, back in the day or is this just, you know, nobody’s nobody’s reading the blog anymore.
0:20:53 So you got to go where the people are.
0:20:54 Yeah.
0:20:55 And that’s a really good point.
0:21:00 I feel like everything I’ve done for the past decade or more has led me to this.
0:21:09 It’s the way we’ve done editorial, like even just like how to get engagement, how to like improve a title, what to look for and what works.
0:21:11 It’s just we’re on a different platform, right?
0:21:15 It’s just a different place to put content and, you know, slightly different way.
0:21:24 Is there anything proactive that you’re doing to build your own subreddit community on the platform?
0:21:28 It’s like, I’m like such a newbie user.
0:21:29 It’s like, does it just happen organically?
0:21:32 People search side hustles and they find it?
0:21:32 Like, how does it work?
0:21:37 It can happen organically, but also like we do old fashioned community building.
0:21:46 So we do reach out if somebody comments on one of our posts, I will reach out through the mod mail and say, thank you so much for your comment.
0:21:47 Can you join our community?
0:21:52 Can invite other mods and other people to contribute to your community?
0:21:54 That’s that’s another thing that you can do.
0:21:57 You can do cross posting on Reddit.
0:22:02 I think Reddit is more friendly to cross post and sharing those kind of things.
0:22:07 Self promotion is you have to kind of play it a little bit safe.
0:22:12 But I think if you bring something valuable and it makes sense and it’s not all that you do.
0:22:19 Remember, every single Reddit profile that we that you have, you can see in the entire history of what someone’s done.
0:22:23 So every single thing you’ve done is a cross post promotion.
0:22:31 You’ve mentioned the same brand or same publication everywhere you go or that’s all you talk about is the AI tool that you love.
0:22:37 It’s very obvious to other writers that you’re not there to contribute to this Reddit community.
0:22:38 OK, yeah, no shortcuts there.
0:22:41 You got to be a part, be a good steward of the community.
0:22:42 Can you explain cross posting really quick?
0:22:47 This is like taking something from your subreddit into another subreddit.
0:22:52 And sharing and it’s like there is a way that you can actually cross post and share.
0:22:53 Yes.
0:22:57 And that’s also you can also cross post a question into more than one.
0:23:03 If you ask a question in another subreddit, you can cross post the question if you feel like you need more answers.
0:23:05 So there is that, too.
0:23:09 But yes, you can cross post your content into other subreddits.
0:23:14 And again, every subreddit has their own rules, their own ecosystem, their own guidelines.
0:23:22 So I just caution before you do any promotion, make sure you read the full subreddit rules.
0:23:25 And when you control your subreddit, you get to control that, too.
0:23:27 You can you can literally say no cross posting.
0:23:28 You can say anything.
0:23:30 You can say no cross posting, no brand promotions.
0:23:35 You have to start every post with a Yahoo to get approved.
0:23:36 Like it’s wild, wild.
0:23:41 Let’s say I’m coming to you as a new client or new prospective client.
0:23:52 Like talk to me about the like keyword research strategy, if that’s even the right term here, like to figure out where to go, what to post, what kind of keywords to target.
0:24:03 It’s a similar type of conversations working with, you know, creating a content plan or working with just like an SEO type of content strategy, depending on the client goals, like figuring out what they want to do first.
0:24:07 Do they want, is it going to be sort of a traffic arbitrage?
0:24:09 Is it going to be an awareness play?
0:24:12 Is it going to be a brand reputation management play?
0:24:18 Is it going to be there’s a lot of different things that you can do with Reddit?
0:24:23 But we start like literally looking at the search landscape, like where is Reddit coming up?
0:24:26 Where are their brand terms coming up?
0:24:29 What their brand terms are important to them?
0:24:34 Obviously, like review comparisons, all those commercial intent terms are really important.
0:24:44 We also look at AI overviews because Reddit’s being informed, like using Reddit’s in AI overviews now, which has only been for a few months, to be fair.
0:24:57 So that’s really interesting to see like what kind of what are they pulling and then determine the content strategy and keyword strategy and what type of content where we put it from there.
0:25:02 Any tools or tech that you like on this?
0:25:14 I’m just trying to think of, well, in Ahrefs, I could pull up like a competitor report or like a content gap type of report and say, oh, you know, these 10 similar sites are ranking for these keywords.
0:25:19 If you haven’t covered that, you might consider it because clearly there’s interest in that.
0:25:22 Well, in Ahrefs, you can look up everything in Reddit.
0:25:32 I feel like it’s a little bit behind still, like because there’s so much Reddit results that Ahrefs can be a little behind and displaying all the terms and the keywords that are actually ranking in Reddit.
0:25:33 But that’s a good place to start.
0:25:43 Like just look up Reddit, you know, look up your brand, look up your keywords, see it and also see like look up the keywords with your brand and then append Reddit.
0:25:46 So like, you know, Nike review Reddit.
0:25:47 So look to see that.
0:26:01 So kind of like look at that landscape, like digging into those Reddit results and and seeing if it’s major subreddits that are coming up, if it’s if it’s a geo play, because a lot of times it could be something where it’s a lot of geographical locations.
0:26:09 Like, you know, ask in Toronto or in Canada or in North Carolina or in L.A. and those kind of things, too.
0:26:15 And seeing some of the terms that come up, a lot of times for brands, we see things like is Brand X legit?
0:26:19 That’s a very something that comes up in Reddit a lot, as you can imagine.
0:26:19 Yes.
0:26:25 If you have a review of that brand, would you title that the three, you know, is Brand X legit here?
0:26:26 I tested this out.
0:26:28 I found these results.
0:26:28 Yes or no?
0:26:30 Like, here’s here’s the link to my full review.
0:26:31 Yeah.
0:26:38 I mean, for our blog, we might our third party, we might do a full review and that might be a subheading for a Reddit post.
0:26:40 That might be the title of a Reddit post is blah, blah, blah legit.
0:26:44 If we’re seeing that, if we’re seeing that people are asking that or is it worth it?
0:26:45 Is it legit?
0:26:46 Those kind of things.
0:26:56 And you can see the type of questions that people are asking in Reddit results already and deciding what to do with the information is like the next step in the strategy for sure.
0:26:57 But yeah, legit’s a good one.
0:26:58 Worth it’s a good one.
0:27:01 Would you create a new thread in that case?
0:27:03 Like kind of with that same title?
0:27:04 Or would you just comment on it?
0:27:06 Like, yes, it’s legit.
0:27:06 No, it’s not.
0:27:08 Like whatever your results finding was.
0:27:17 So a lot of times I evaluate sentiment of for the reviews that are coming up currently when we first start working with a client.
0:27:30 And if it’s negative sentiment, if something’s definitely negative sentiment, one thing you don’t want to kind of do is like add to the fire because comments and upvotes make that post better.
0:27:32 Give it more, give it more juice.
0:27:43 So we kind of have an approach of like love bombing around the negative sentiments, at least having more of an editorial approach or creating things around that.
0:27:48 I wouldn’t go and engage with a fully negative review and hoping to like turn the brain.
0:27:50 And that’s what brands have done.
0:27:51 They’re like, oh, I have a negative.
0:28:01 Someone said something and it’s and it could be for something 10 years ago that happened and somebody was upset and it’s actually we could be a post from 10 years ago and write it like this is what we’re dealing with now.
0:28:08 And so they’ll go and they’ll comment on that right at their head and just give it more juice and that it can stay in the ranking.
0:28:14 But we like to kind of love bomb, let’s say, around those and to shift the sentiment.
0:28:16 Sorry, I’m not sure if I’m clear on that.
0:28:22 Are you saying like don’t jump on that overwhelmingly negative thread with a positive spin?
0:28:23 You’re just like you’re just adding more fuel.
0:28:27 And the consensus is still like we want to bury this thing.
0:28:29 Like we don’t want this to have any more visibility than it already does.
0:28:32 Starting something else that, you know, has a clean slate.
0:28:33 It could be more positive.
0:28:43 Yes, I would say the exception would be if it’s something that’s in your own branded subreddit and it’s a customer service type of question that’s genuine.
0:28:46 I think then brands need to address it and need to comment.
0:28:49 And I think that’s, you know, that’s a different strategy.
0:28:52 That’s more of like a customer service strategy.
0:29:01 But as far as like if you’re for the ranking, remember, like the more you engage in a post and read it, the more it’s going to surface to the top.
0:29:01 Okay.
0:29:02 Yeah.
0:29:07 So maybe not adding more visibility to something that you don’t want people to read or you don’t want people to see.
0:29:13 Or even if you’re just an affiliate partner, it’s like we don’t necessarily want that to be front and center.
0:29:17 But I think evaluating that sentiment as content creators is really important.
0:29:22 And I think that’s part of the research and part of what I tell our writers as well.
0:29:34 Because if we’re talking about brands or products or things that we like and every single thing in Reddit is negative and we come across as this overly positive, which we would never do.
0:29:41 Because we have a real editorial UGC approach to this, but it’s also doesn’t fly and it stands out.
0:29:52 So like I think digging into what’s there and seeing what other people think is really important to create honest and genuine editorial and making recommendations as well.
0:29:52 Yeah.
0:29:54 Be upfront.
0:29:56 Like, hey, here’s what we liked about it.
0:29:56 Here’s what’s good.
0:29:58 Here were some of the downsides.
0:30:03 Or here’s, you know, here’s what some of the detractors say, you know, just to be aware of both sides.
0:30:14 Yeah, it’s like we posted a post the other day and that said, I see a lot, just as many Reddit posts love this mattress versus just as many Reddit people don’t love this mattress.
0:30:15 And here’s why.
0:30:16 And that’s how we kind of approached it.
0:30:23 But to completely ignore that there’s like people that are like, I, this is a way too soft of a mattress and I don’t like it.
0:30:26 I think doesn’t play well on Reddit either.
0:30:26 Yeah.
0:30:28 I mean, I don’t think it’s a great editorial either.
0:30:31 I think I like the balanced kind of approach.
0:30:32 Okay.
0:30:38 So that would be maybe how to approach some of the review content looking like, is this brand legit?
0:30:39 Is this brand worth it?
0:30:40 Is this product worth it?
0:30:48 Imagine you could do similar for like this product versus this product, kind of like bottom of the funnel, you know, high buyer intent type of keywords.
0:31:01 And then even going, you know, the 10 best toasters, like something a little bit higher in a buyer’s decision and kind of teasing that, hey, we’ve just undergone this, you know, month long intensive testing process.
0:31:07 And I can’t wait to share all the results, you know, here, here on our site, but I’ll tease, you might be surprised who won or something.
0:31:15 And I think if you want to embrace the Reddit values of things, you’ll be opinionated, you’ll share something.
0:31:22 And overall, I think what’s gotten me really excited about doing editorial already is that it does feel fresh.
0:31:24 It does feel a little different.
0:31:31 And it does feel more human for a long time in SEO, in content websites, in affiliate websites.
0:31:34 I feel like we were creating very similar types of content.
0:31:40 And there was a lot of people in the industry saying the top 10 results all look the same.
0:31:43 The top 20 results all look the same.
0:31:45 And then we were just competing on content quality.
0:31:47 We’re competing on a lot of different things.
0:31:50 But to be fair, that was the landscape for a while.
0:31:58 Yeah, authority, domain age, everybody plugs it into a phrase or something and says, well, this is what, you know, is already on the first page.
0:32:00 Make sure you include that in your article.
0:32:01 Make sure you include that.
0:32:09 And even when we had these, like, you know, really underground reviews for, like, indie games on our sites that would get to it.
0:32:17 Once something started getting searchable, once something started having enough search volume, one of the bigger publications would pick it up and destroy us.
0:32:23 Because they would do, you know, a content pack of, you know, 200 articles or 50 articles to our three, right?
0:32:24 Yeah.
0:32:37 And now I think Reddit is giving other people a way to, you know, have those discussions, share those insights in the SERPs that the publishers, you know, competing with the publishers, yes.
0:32:39 But it can be really refreshing and exciting, too.
0:32:47 More with Amy in just a moment, including mistakes to avoid and how to get more mileage out of the content you’re already creating right after this.
0:32:53 Remember data from the Goonies, the guy with all the gadgets, or data from Star Trek?
0:32:56 I think that’s why I say data instead.
0:33:02 And one thing I love about our sponsor, Mint Mobile, is I can get all the data I need for one low monthly price.
0:33:03 That’s right.
0:33:04 Down here, it’s our time.
0:33:10 Mint Mobile is rescuing people from overpriced wireless and they’re jaw-dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages.
0:33:19 All Mint Mobile plans come with high-speed data, or data, I guess, your choice, and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation’s largest 5G network.
0:33:25 You can use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your own phone number along with all your existing contacts.
0:33:32 Join me in ditching overpriced wireless and get 3 months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for just $15 a month.
0:33:35 No matter how you say it, don’t overpay for it.
0:33:39 Shop data plans at mintmobile.com slash sidehustle.
0:33:42 That’s mintmobile.com slash sidehustle.
0:33:48 Upfront payment of $45 for 3-month, 5-gigabyte plan required, equivalent to $15 per month.
0:33:53 New customer offer for first 3 months only, then full price plan options available.
0:33:54 Taxes and fees extra.
0:33:56 See Mint Mobile for details.
0:34:04 One strategy I didn’t fully embrace or maybe wasn’t fully aware of when I was starting out was this idea of the piggyback principle.
0:34:07 In the startup phase, that means you don’t have to start completely from scratch,
0:34:14 but instead you can take advantage of existing tools, templates, playbooks, best practices from the people who’ve gone before you.
0:34:17 A perfect example of this is our partner Shopify.
0:34:25 Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses, from household names to side hustlers on their way to becoming household names.
0:34:31 With hundreds of ready-to-use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store and start selling.
0:34:35 Plus, Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools to accelerate your workflow.
0:34:39 We’re talking product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhancing your product photography.
0:34:46 You can even easily create email and social media campaigns to reach your target customers wherever they’re scrolling or strolling.
0:34:48 If you’re ready to sell, you’re ready for Shopify.
0:34:51 Turn your big business idea into…
0:34:53 With Shopify on your side.
0:34:58 Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash side hustle.
0:35:01 Go to shopify.com slash side hustle.
0:35:04 Shopify.com slash side hustle.
0:35:17 Is it primarily text written content versus, you know, people sharing videos or trying to get more juice to their YouTube channel or to their short form content?
0:35:20 Yeah, I think there’s all sorts of things.
0:35:24 Video content right now is really another exciting avenue.
0:35:26 I see video in tons of SERPs.
0:35:28 A lot more short videos.
0:35:32 I see, like, obviously YouTube, TikTok, all of those channels being promoted.
0:35:35 But yeah, you can use video in Reddit as well.
0:35:36 And you can do all that.
0:35:40 I don’t think we do a lot of video in Reddit, but we have.
0:35:52 Okay, so what I’m hearing, own your community, own your subreddit as a place where hopefully nobody can, like, ban you for, like, dropping links or, like, you know, being self-promotional.
0:35:53 Like, hey, of course I want to promote my stuff.
0:35:54 This is my subreddit.
0:35:58 But treading really, really carefully in others.
0:36:03 Like, if there is, you know, r slash cooking and you come in, well, here’s my best, 10 best toasters.
0:36:08 It’s like, ah, it’s a recipe to get the post deleted at best or get yourself banned at worst.
0:36:15 Well, I would say even with your own subreddit, there’s no guarantee that you cannot be, that you won’t be suspended or banned.
0:36:17 Reddit is a risky platform in that way.
0:36:22 So I would say, like, give, and I call it paying the Reddit tax.
0:36:25 Go in, give, share valuable information.
0:36:29 I would never, ever start a new subreddit and start adding affiliate links.
0:36:33 In fact, I, like, kind of don’t want to share any affiliate links.
0:36:34 I think it’s a red flag.
0:36:35 I think Redditors hate it.
0:36:38 I think it’s sad because that’s how people, obviously, we’re…
0:36:39 Yeah, Amy, we’re trying to make money.
0:36:40 Come on.
0:36:42 We are trying to make money.
0:36:47 So you have to take a few extra steps and you have to, you know, you know, give till it hurts.
0:36:48 Follow the rules.
0:36:49 Share.
0:36:53 You can share links to your own site and have affiliate links there.
0:36:55 Yes, it’s another step that people have to take.
0:36:58 But I think it’s worth it.
0:37:10 I think it’s not worth the risk and, you know, just losing people, like, losing the Redditors’ kind of trust by, you know, just having a bunch of spammy, kind of linky kind of things.
0:37:10 So.
0:37:11 All right.
0:37:15 So that’s helpful to be, like, I don’t know, to hear you say, like, I wouldn’t put any affiliate links.
0:37:18 Like, okay, just tread, tread super carefully.
0:37:21 Any other risks or mistakes that we should know about?
0:37:25 I mean, it does feel, this is my beef with all these platforms.
0:37:28 It’s like, yeah, you got to go where the eyeballs are, but you’re still playing in somebody else’s sandbox.
0:37:31 They could take their ball and go home at any time.
0:37:34 And you’re like, I feel like I’m building on borrowed land here.
0:37:35 It’s really tough.
0:37:36 I feel like that, too.
0:37:41 I mean, the advice that I would have given five years ago is not what we’re doing now.
0:37:46 In fact, like, being publishing and we publish a lot on YouTube.
0:37:47 We publish on our own site.
0:37:48 We publish in Reddit.
0:37:52 We publish in Medium and TikTok and Quora and other forms.
0:37:55 I would have said before, don’t do that.
0:37:56 Don’t spread yourself thin.
0:37:58 The editorial is different.
0:38:01 It takes a lot more effort to get into all these things.
0:38:05 And you’re, you know, going on rent to land and Reddit does have its risks.
0:38:08 But it’s such a huge platform.
0:38:10 There’s so much visibility.
0:38:12 You almost have no choice.
0:38:16 If you’re not on Reddit, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities to be in the SERPs.
0:38:21 And so we had to, our motto was like, we’re going to figure it out.
0:38:23 No matter what, we’re going to figure it out.
0:38:25 And so that was like, challenge accepted.
0:38:26 We’ll do it.
0:38:26 Yeah.
0:38:30 Tell me about the Medium and Quora strategies.
0:38:31 It’s like the same type of content.
0:38:35 You know, we started a thread or somebody asked this question or a very similar question.
0:38:37 So we could answer it over there as well.
0:38:38 Yeah, I would say similar.
0:38:41 They’re a little bit more edit friendly.
0:38:46 You can edit a Quora question after it’s been asked a little bit easier.
0:38:48 You can edit your Reddit questions too.
0:38:54 But I think the etiquette is to say edited because I added this and it has to be valuable.
0:38:55 Okay.
0:38:55 Okay.
0:39:01 I think Quora and Medium are obviously a little less risky as far as like you can publish what you want.
0:39:05 And depending on the SERP, sometimes Quora outranks Reddit.
0:39:13 So I think just evaluating that landscape again and seeing and also asking questions that people will answer is really important.
0:39:15 Knowing how to ask the question.
0:39:17 Quora has their own kind of etiquette as well.
0:39:21 Like they ask you, don’t ask questions that have already been asked.
0:39:23 So that kind of thing.
0:39:28 So all these different things, they all have their own little quirks, let’s say, that you have to figure out.
0:39:35 I mean, do you give any weight to like, you know, back in the day, it would be like, oh, that would be considered duplicate content to publish the same stuff on your site.
0:39:40 And to paste it on Medium or paste it in, you know, syndicate to MSN.
0:39:43 It’s like, or publish it on Substack.
0:39:51 Like there’s lots of different channels where like, okay, on the plus side, it’s like, well, I have the potential to take up half of the first page if all of these somehow get ranking.
0:39:56 But, you know, maybe only one of them is going to get indexed if it’s the same.
0:39:56 Well, that’s the thing.
0:40:02 We might have the same topic, but the approach to every single different platform is going to be different.
0:40:06 And it’s different content for every single platform that we create.
0:40:07 It might be remixed.
0:40:08 Sounds like a lot of work.
0:40:09 It is a lot of work.
0:40:12 And I feel like maybe that’s why there’s bad sentiment.
0:40:17 Like scaling up these teams, these editorial teams.
0:40:28 But I have a great team of writers, creators that do video, will create a blog post, will create a Reddit share, will create a Quora, will create a Medium.
0:40:32 And it is very, it is different for every single approach.
0:40:34 And they will do fresh content for every single thing.
0:40:36 So it is a lot of work.
0:40:43 But it’s worth it because we have a client that I was doing a report for, and we were ranking in seven spots on the first page of Google.
0:40:44 Yeah.
0:40:46 For seven different things.
0:40:47 Yeah, that’s what’s possible.
0:40:51 They just completely dominate the front page real estate if done right.
0:40:51 Yeah.
0:40:57 Are there any rules of thumb in terms of, you know, publishing cadence where it’s like, well, every Monday I got to have a new thread?
0:41:02 Is there any rules like that or just kind of like as you see fit or as you see necessary?
0:41:06 With Reddit, I think starting off, don’t publish a 50 or a 100.
0:41:09 I wouldn’t publish, mass publish anything.
0:41:11 I wouldn’t, I would have a human approach to it.
0:41:14 So I would start with publishing one thing, publishing two.
0:41:21 And like I said before, you don’t need to have a ton of content to start seeing some results and start seeing what works.
0:41:25 I’ve seen friends of mine, I think that’s their mistake because they put a lot,
0:41:31 they invest a lot of their team’s energy and effort into their subreddit and they start to like, you know,
0:41:36 I’m going to publish a hundred things, 150 things and put a ton of effort into it.
0:41:41 One, the risk is if something happens and you lose that subreddit, which can happen.
0:41:43 I hope it doesn’t.
0:41:44 You’ve lost 150.
0:41:53 But two, you can get enough data and validation and review from a few posts and then see what kind of works.
0:41:55 But I also think just like be human.
0:41:58 Like I think too much cadence, kind of maybe like a tripwire.
0:42:00 So I would space it out a little bit.
0:42:01 Okay.
0:42:01 Yeah.
0:42:10 So if, so if other publishers are in the same boat as me, they’ve, you know, been running their sites for five or 10 years, they’ve got like this huge library of content.
0:42:13 The strategy is not to go and try to dump that all at once, even every single day.
0:42:16 It’s just like, take a, take a metered approach.
0:42:28 And if you want to publish more, I would say create those affinity subreddits as well that you can publish more and to different things like expand it that way instead of just expanding.
0:42:35 But once your subreddit is established and you have members and you have engagement and all the good things that come from that, it’s a little bit more solid.
0:42:40 And you can do, you can do a lot more and you can publish on more of a regular cadence.
0:42:50 And of course, ideally people are publishing on your subreddit, they’re publishing questions and you have moderators and it can, you know, become this humongous thing eventually.
0:42:51 Yeah, it can be its own.
0:42:57 So it’s another touch point for the brand is kind of how I’ve traditionally viewed the Sino Salvation Facebook group.
0:43:02 It’s like, hey, you know, wherever you are, if you’re in the car, hey, listen to the podcast.
0:43:06 If you’re scrolling through your feed, make sure you see our stuff in the Facebook group.
0:43:14 So there’s, I guess I could see another touch point here with people being engaged with the brand and fueling future content through their questions.
0:43:26 Like, yeah, hey, anybody ever tried this particular side business or this particular money making app or whatever and try and gather feedback on that or like, sure, I never heard of that.
0:43:27 I won’t test it out.
0:43:28 Yeah.
0:43:31 And then you can create a podcast or find somebody by an expert.
0:43:39 And a lot of great things can happen with that kind of community and that feedback loop that I think is really fun for something like this, for sure.
0:43:46 And remember, like, Reddit is not like a Facebook or like another social because it’s just so prevalent in the SERPs as well.
0:43:53 So people that may even tell us that they’re not Reddit users, like my husband says he isn’t on Reddit, but he’s on Reddit.
0:43:53 Sure.
0:43:57 Because when he does any kind of Google search, Reddit will show up.
0:43:58 He’ll be on it.
0:44:00 You know, he might not realize it.
0:44:01 Okay.
0:44:02 Personal question.
0:44:08 Like, you’ve talked a lot about, like, the affiliate type of content, which, you know, okay, there’s an extra step.
0:44:09 Hopefully I draw people back to the site.
0:44:11 Maybe they eventually click the affiliate link.
0:44:18 If I want to promote an episode of the show and say, hey, we just had this really interesting guest on.
0:44:24 She was getting paid to create short form videos for brands, you know, two, three hundred bucks a video, sometimes more.
0:44:28 I genuinely think it’s like a super creative business, like a really cool story.
0:44:31 Hey, I made a hundred grand on the side from my day job.
0:44:37 You know, just trying to get the word out there, but not be like, hey, come listen to my stuff.
0:44:45 Like, what’s, how do you, I don’t know, how do you tread lightly or, you know, figure out the best way to promote something like that or like that story based type of content?
0:44:47 Oh, yeah, that’s really interesting.
0:44:53 Because I think that there is a case for having more of a cadence then because you have real things that you want to share.
0:45:02 And maybe there is like, maybe you share it in your brand and subreddit, maybe you have your own like, like subreddit for the podcast only.
0:45:08 And this is where you get updates and it can be kind of a feed, but you can engage in other subreddits as well.
0:45:13 And if you are genuinely excited, and I see a lot of people promoting themselves like that.
0:45:16 But again, it’s like where it’s kind of like the approach.
0:45:22 So, you know, it’s like this is such a really interesting story and I think you’re going to really get good tips.
0:45:24 I think that can, that can work.
0:45:31 I just think it’s when, I think it’s just when brands are almost lazy and too self-promotionals when they get into trouble.
0:45:31 All right.
0:45:31 All right.
0:45:39 But I think if you’re a genuine content creator and you generally do what you do on Reddit, it does translate.
0:45:39 It can.
0:45:41 Not perfect, but it can.
0:45:50 To what extent are you using AI to spin up, you know, different intros or different ways to say the same type of thing and like to make it unique and different?
0:45:55 Well, we have like a no AI policy in our content.
0:46:09 And to be fair, I don’t really know if our writers have used AI in their brainstorming process and their, but I don’t want it to look like AI, feel like AI, sound like AI.
0:46:12 Even if they haven’t used AI to create it, if that makes sense.
0:46:13 You can kind of sense it.
0:46:16 I want them to, I want it to be a little imperfect.
0:46:18 I want it to be, you know, opinionated.
0:46:24 I want it to be, for Reddit especially, I think anything that feels computer generated.
0:46:29 But yeah, for testing, I think that’s something that you could do.
0:46:29 I don’t know.
0:46:31 We don’t, we don’t really do that right now.
0:46:32 All right.
0:46:33 Fair enough.
0:46:45 The people that are creating our editorial or creating our post are real experts, real nerds, full of like, you know, humor, edginess, opinions that I want to pull that out of them.
0:46:49 I don’t want to figure out a formula for, you know, testing.
0:46:50 Mass, mass producing.
0:46:51 Okay.
0:46:52 Fair.
0:46:53 What’s next?
0:46:55 Where do you see Red Visible going?
0:46:58 Where, I mean, what’s got you excited this year?
0:47:12 Well, the first thing is, I feel like it’s really exciting to survive in this new landscape when AI reviews are, you know, at the forefront, taking up half the listing on Google right now.
0:47:16 When our publications, when the traffic changed, there was a huge shift.
0:47:26 All of the things that have happened in publishing and digital, to be still here and to be excited and to be in content is a really big win for me and still gets me really motivated.
0:47:36 And to be able to work with people that I love and creatives and, you know, and do the thing I love, that is really what’s kept me going for the past year, year and a half, two years.
0:47:37 It’s been a roller coaster.
0:47:50 Looking forward, I feel like because we’ve figured out how to distribute content, create content on different platforms, I feel like it’s a moat around our business, around what we do.
0:47:54 Because no matter how the SERPs change, I feel like we have a stake somewhere.
0:48:01 Whether it’s if Reddit completely disappeared from the SERPs, we still have our third party, but we still have our publishers.
0:48:04 We still have, there’s still Quora Medium.
0:48:06 There’s still video, which is really exciting.
0:48:21 So, moving into that and just embracing search for what it is right now and for how people are discovering us and for where people are living online has been really what’s kept me motivated and what I look forward to doing.
0:48:23 And every day is a new day.
0:48:29 And in one year, I may be talking about something else, but for right now, that’s what keeps me going.
0:48:32 Yeah, the change is the only constant.
0:48:40 You never know what’s coming, but for the time being, a lot of that traffic and attention is certainly flowing towards Reddit.
0:48:44 So, you might as well figure out how to take advantage of that, whatever that means for your brand.
0:48:47 Redvisible.com is where you can find Amy.
0:48:51 Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for Side Hustle Nation.
0:48:53 Embrace your side hustle.
0:49:01 Like, I feel like everybody needs to have a side hustle, no matter how busy you are, and I feel like it’s a great way to test new things.
0:49:03 I still have my little side hustles out there.
0:49:11 You don’t necessarily have to make a lot of money right away, but the things that you learn, you never know where it’s going to come into play.
0:49:20 So, I would say one of my side hustles is I love to play around with AI and play around with AI tools and things like that and create things.
0:49:22 But have I put anything out into the orbit yet?
0:49:23 No.
0:49:24 But I’m learning a lot.
0:49:29 Yeah, but you learn from that, like, just messing around time, like the tinkering time.
0:49:30 But, I mean, I love it.
0:49:37 I listened to the interview you did on UGC and how amazing that is and how much freedom someone gets.
0:49:43 And I love hiring UGC creators and I love finding people and it can fit into your life.
0:49:51 And these kind of things that people are discovering now and doing now, there’s going to be different opportunities in two years and three years.
0:50:01 So, if you have a passion to do that and I have a 14-year-old and he’s done some videos with us and I was really hoping he would really get into it and be a creator.
0:50:02 But it’s funny.
0:50:07 Like, some of those episodes that you’re like, I know the perfect person for this.
0:50:09 And you send it to them and they’re like, eh.
0:50:11 I was like, man, I really thought that was going to hit.
0:50:14 But when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
0:50:15 So, maybe they’ll come back to it.
0:50:21 I think listening and hearing other people’s stories and getting inspired, you never know what’s going to be.
0:50:22 And just, like, tinker around.
0:50:23 It’s fun.
0:50:25 Like, I think that’s my advice.
0:50:29 I am in the very early stages of my Reddit tinkering.
0:50:30 I hope you’ll come by and join.
0:50:33 If you’re listening to this, it’s r slash side hustle nation.
0:50:34 Come and come by.
0:50:38 Help us out and build a helpful community for side hustlers on the internet.
0:50:41 A couple of takeaways from me before we wrap.
0:50:42 Like Amy said, no shortcuts.
0:50:44 You got to be a member of the community.
0:50:45 It’s real work.
0:50:46 It’s real effort.
0:50:51 And, you know, you can’t come in guns blazing and just spamming up a place with your affiliate links.
0:50:52 You got to be there for the long haul.
0:50:57 And the second thing is to build that subreddit that you are the moderator of, that you have some ownership over.
0:51:00 It could be a distribution channel for your content.
0:51:05 It could be a place to gather community feedback and questions that fuels future content.
0:51:12 It could be just another touchpoint for your brand if people are going about their day-to-day lives and they see you pop up in their feed there.
0:51:20 So those are kind of the highlights for me and I’ll probably update as we go forward with our newfound reddit journey here.
0:51:24 But big news, the Side Hustle Show just had its 12th birthday.
0:51:31 So whether this is your first time listening or you’ve been around since the beginning, I appreciate you spending some time with us in your earbuds today.
0:51:39 If you are new or newer to the show and you want to dig a little bit deeper, you can actually get a personalized playlist at hustle.show.
0:51:48 You just answer a few short, multiple-choice questions and it’ll recommend 8 to 10 of our greatest hits to start out with based on your answers.
0:51:48 Totally free.
0:51:51 Hustle.show for your personalized playlist.
0:51:53 Big thanks to Amy for sharing her insight.
0:51:57 Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:52:02 SideHustleNation.com slash deals is where you can find all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.
0:52:05 Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show.
0:52:07 It really does make a difference.
0:52:08 That is it for me.
0:52:10 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:52:14 If you’re finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
0:52:15 So fire off that text message.
0:52:19 Maybe somebody that you know who had their traffic hit in the last year or two.
0:52:22 Say, hey, maybe here’s a path forward like we talked about at the beginning.
0:52:24 If you can’t beat them, join them.
0:52:27 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen.
0:52:30 And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show.
If you notice that your traffic is dominated with AI snippets and Reddit results, here’s how you can take advantage of that and learn how to drive traffic from Reddit.
It really does feel like an “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” situation, but we can’t ignore that Reddit, the self-proclaimed front page of the internet, now shows up on the first page of almost every Google search.
To help me out is Amy Aitman from ReddVisible.com, a professional content marketer who’s been helping businesses and brands take advantage of this new Reddit-dominated search world.
Tune in to Episode 673 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:
- how to get some Reddit traffic flowing back to you
- the reddit research and content best practices to be aware of
- and common mistakes to avoid
Full Show Notes: Reddit Marketing: How to Drive Traffic from Reddit
New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here!
Sponsors:
Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month!
Indeed – Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post!
OpenPhone — Get 20% off of your first 6 months!
Shopify — Sign up for a $1 per month trial!