#i guess ove lowered it from an average of 10 hours to an average of 8 hours | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

geffbob · 4 years ago

Text

Togger

The Excited Dwarf

Togger got out of bed at 6am sharp, like he does every morning and like he will continue to do until he’s too old to mine anymore. Dwarves are interesting creatures in the sense that they wake up the second the sun touches their faces. Humans usually spend minutes or hours in bed rolling around instead of doing what they’re supposed to do. Dwarves, on the other hand, hate sleeping, you can’t get drunk if you’re asleep. He jumps out of bed, stretches, and gets ready to go. There’s no need to shower, considering that dwarves usually work in sulphur or coal mines, which means upon 10 seconds of entering the mine they’re already smelling like something awful. This will be Togger’s 500th day at the mine starting today, and he’s excited to see what will happen.

On his way out of his house and to the mine, he runs into an old friend of his, Jhonny, a human. Normally humans are a rare sight in a dwarven village, but Jhonny is different. He’s part of the Adventure’s Guild, which means he’s probably down here in the dwarven capital to collect a bounty. “What the bloody hell are you doing here you pink looking bastard?” Togger shouts; (as far as Dwarven culture is concerned, that is one of the politest ways a Dwarf would greet a human). “Not much mate. Just came to turn in something” Jhonny replies. He holds up a brown leather sack containing something that’s round, pointy, hard and clearly bleeding. It’s tightly bound together with string at the top and there’s some flies buzzing around it. Considering Jhonny is a certified monster hunter, Jhonny hazards a guess as to what it could be. “Is that the soddin’ goblin leader that’s been nicking sheep?” “yep! I’ll be seeing you”- Jhonny shouts, briskly walking away. “Typical human” Togger thinks “always in a fekkin’ rush”.

Upon reaching the mine, Togger is greeted with a small surprise coming from the mouth of the mine; “HAPPY 500TH VISIT YOU OLD SOD!” -Shout 1000 workers in unison. Dwarves are known for being in sync with many things, shouting absurdities at other Dwarves is one of them. “SHUT IT YA PACK OF WILD ANIMALS, DGARD OV NON REKKEN” he shouts down the mineshaft, which I shall not translate as humans should try their hardest not to learn Dwarven insults. “Sodding heck lad” says the senior manager, slowly exiting the shaft’s head and walking towards him, “you’ve really been here 500 times?” “yep” Togger replies “now, could you sod off cause I’ve got a lot to do and your daft expression is slowing me down” (insubordination is not a word in the Dwarven dictionary). The senior manager chuckles and moves out of the way. Togger walks forward, grabs a pickaxe off the rack and heads down the dark mine.

Dwarven mines are a sight to behold, but only if you can see in the dark (which Dwarves can). They’re massive, known for being bigger than most cities. This mine in particular is over 5km in circumference- quite small as far as most mines are concerned, 5km of hollowed out ground in which thousands of workers come to extract minerals and materials. The mine is littered with support beams holding up the earth, either natural beams that were excavated around or metal beams that were transported inside. Stairwells and paths are jotted everywhere, seemingly at random but are clearly labelled as to not get lost. The main pathway (the one Togger is walking on) splits off into many different directions, all leading to different areas. Some paths lead to a hollowed-out part of the wall, which is used as break rooms, offices, med bays etc, other paths lead up or down to places with high concentration of minerals where miners usually work. Some paths lead to black stairwells which take you down to the excavation site, a place where gigantic drills smash up rocks at the bottom of the hollowed-out mine, looking for rare materials or oil. The drills are lava proof- obviously. Togger takes the 6th pathway he sees, which leads him down a 45-degree angle to the right, where a small hollowed cave section awaits him, with 30 dwarves in there, looking right terrified.

“what are you lads and lassies waiting for? We got a quota to take care of and I’m not about to miss it!” barks Togger (he’s not a manager, just likes yelling). “Look Tog mate, happy 500th and all, but we’ve got a problem. Some rockmanti (mantises made of rocks) have taken up residence in the space below, they’ve got their greasy claws on a bunch of sapphires down there”. Togger looks at them in surprise, rockmanti don’t usually come this close to the surface, and they certainly don’t go after sapphires, one of the worst tasting gems out there, unless they’re absolutely starving.

“Odd” replies Togger “rockmanti don’t usually nab sapphires, they’re more into hard diamonds or emeralds. “Yeah” replies the frightened dwarf, “that’s why we’re scared. If they’re hungry enough to be going after sapphires, then they’re hungry enough to attack anything that gets close”. Togger looks closely at the dwarf in front of him. A dwarf about 1m tall with bright green eyes, loose fitting overalls and an assortment of grease and tools over their body. This dwarf is around 90-100 years old (Dwarves live to 200 years on average) and has a long 70cm bushy brown beard, put into braids. Female.

“HELP!” shouts someone a few hundred meters down the hole. The group look up as they see a stubby human running towards them. Humans aren’t commonly found in dwarven mines, but this one is well known. He’s Bob, an exiled human, forbidden to ever enter a human settlement again, exiled humans usually work in other race’s settlements as they cannot work for humans again. Humans are terrible workers, but they’re adaptable and mostly immune to poisonous mine gasses. Also, they’re expendable. “THEY’VE GOT JIMMY”. Togger widens his eyes, Jimmy, a young git, got himself in hot water again. Togger picks up his pickaxe and draws a dagger, seemingly out of nowhere, and heads down the hole.

“GET OFF ME FEKKING LEG” shouts Jimmy, screaming in pain. The rockmanti have him in a corner and are stabbing at him. As Togger bursts into the dark opening, he sees what he expected. 7 manti, all about 1.5m tall, 2m when standing on hind legs. Grey and coated in a hard rock-like exoskeleton (hence the name, rockmanti). 4 of them are eating blue gems, chomping them down with sharp hard teeth. The other 3 are surrounding Jim, who’s lying in the corner in a pool of blood. One of his arms lies a few meters away from him, clearly torn off his body by something a lot stronger than him. He wastes no time, he quickly jumps towards the closest one, swinging his pick over his head vigorously into the head of it, smashing it into pieces, causing blood, sapphire and rocks to splatter into the ground. The second and third manti lunge towards him, trying to bite off his arms. Togger swings in a full 360-degree fashion, knocking 2 legs off the second one and smashing the third one against the wall. The other manti notice his presence and start heading towards him, snarling and spitting. Togger deftly avoids the spit and stabs the 4th one in his thorax with the dagger, smashing the thorax into bits. The 5th and 6th manti swing wildly at Togger, but he rolls underneath their claws and breaks his pickaxe over the head of the 5th one and throws his dagger at the 6th, impaling it against the wall. However, suddenly, he feels a sharp pain in his lower back.

“DGARTH” he shouts and spins to see what struck him. The 7th mantis, which he didn’t see before, had snuck behind them and had bitten off a small chunk of flesh from his bottom. Looking at the mantis dead in the eyes, he notices that his pick is smashed to bits and his dagger is about 10m away, perforating the wall and the head of a rock mantis, unusable. The mantis shrieks at him and lunges, aiming for the neck. Togger has no choice, he closes his eyes, raises his hands, and mumbles an incarnation. “hun got yeth no wor dem ya” he whispers, pointing his empty palm at the mantis, opening his eyes, suddenly full of magic, and shoots. A fireball slams into the face of the mantis, melting off its flesh and burning the inside of the brains to a black crisp. The impact launches the mantis a few meters off the ground and into the open hallway. Retrieving his dagger, he runs over to Jimmy, who’s suddenly gone quiet. “Dgarth” he whispers again, and launches another, smaller, fireball down the hallway. Which explodes at the end like a flare, a sign for medical aid. Within 2 minutes, a team of dwarven doctors come and pick up Jim and his arm. Leading him towards the med bay. Togger follows them up to the surface and makes sure nothing follows them. Before he loses sight of him in the ambulance, Jimmy opens his eyes, and whispers “thank you”.

Togger spent the rest of the day receiving praise from his peers, all dwarves can use magic, but only a few of them can use combat magic. The majority just use magic to carve rocks out, not attack other creatures. After 10 minutes he got fed up and yelled to be left alone, this request being ignored completely. After an hour, he started feeling dizzy and decided to cut the rest of the day short. He headed out of the mine, past the showers (where he received a brief 10 second squirt down by a young dwarf with a hose) and into town. Stopping at the nearest bar, he spent the rest of the day drunk before heading home. Dwarves don’t get drunk to hide emotions; they mostly get drunk to think about things. He didn’t want others to know that he was in the army, he just wanted to be left alone to smash rocks to bits. Upon arriving home, he notices a card in his letterbox. “Oi Togger” it begins “Jim here. Cheers, don’t worry, we already knew you were an army nut, nobody else would head towards 7 rockmanti without hesitation and even less would rescue me. If you don’t want people to say anything, they won’t.”

Smiling, Togger heads inside, turns on the telly, pours himself a scotch, and spends the rest of the night watching anime.

#short story #fantasy

0 notes

jjpocketbook · 5 years ago

Text

The Future of Ubersuggest

* Please read the whole post, I have some good news at the bottom, but it won’t make sense unless you read the whole post.

Do you know why I got into SEO?

Not many people know this, but I grew up in middle-class America, and I wanted a better life for me and my parents.

When I was 16 years old, I worked at a theme park called Knotts Berry Farm where I picked up trash, cleaned restrooms, and swept up vomit every single day.

I didn’t mind it because that’s life and I needed the money.

At 16, I realized I was too young to get a high paying job, so I did the next best thing… I started a business.

But making $5.75 an hour picking up trash wasn’t enough to market my business, though. The only solution that I could think of was SEO because if you put in the time and effort you can get the traffic for free.

It’s also the main reason I fell in love with it… it gives the little guy a chance to compete with the big guys.

And over the years I wanted to pay it forward and help out all of the entrepreneurs and small companies so they can do the same… succeed without having to spend a lot of money.

So, what did I do?

Well over the years, I’ve produced a ton of free content, videos, and guides that help entrepreneurs and marketers of all sizes succeed.

And in February 2017, I decided to take it to the next level by acquiring Ubersuggest for $120,000.

When I first bought it, I had the dream of creating an SEO tool that could compete with the big players that charged $100+ a month, but of course, offer it for free.

The developers that I had at that time estimated that I could do this for $30,000 to $45,000 a month. That was perfect as I had no issue losing that much money each month.

But as we got rolling and kept adding in more features, our expenses continually climbed. Just look at what I spent in the last month…

I spent $89,930 on hosting so far in January with an estimated spend of $128,680 for February. But again, let’s stick with January…

My back-end development bill from Tryolabs was $47,885 for January.

My data feed from SEO Power Suite, Data For SEO, and Shared Count totaled $75,253 for January.

And of course, my front-end developers as well as my dev-ops team Netlabs, which ran me $22,700.

Then if you add on miscellaneous costs, such as support, design, and project management, I was out another $11,450.

All in all, I spent $247,218 during the month of January 2020.

Keep in mind that my costs are continually rising. As the tool gets more popular, it costs me more.

One of the big reasons for the server expenses is scrapers.

Believe it or not, a lot of companies are scraping our data and continually rotating up IPs and creating fake accounts, which increases our server expenses. Especially when you consider that they are researching vague SEO terms or domains that aren’t cached in our system.

Don’t feel bad for me

Now the purpose of this post wasn’t to make you feel bad or guilty (unless you are scraping me). I just wanted to be transparent about my situation.

Originally, I was hoping that I could convert a portion of the Ubersuggest customer base into agency clients but as we continually move upstream and work with bigger brands, the conversion rate from an Ubersuggest visitor to a paying consulting customer has been low.

As that didn’t work out the way I wanted, which I learned around 11 months ago, it became harder and harder for me to eat the costs as they continually grew and I didn’t have a way to pay for them other than to dip into my own savings.

So, I started searching for solutions, such as turning Ubersuggest into a non-profit and raise money from foundations to help support the cost. I tried that for 5 months and I didn’t gain much traction.

I also tried to see if I could get sponsors for the tool who would help cover the costs, but that didn’t work out well either. Instead, many of them offered to buy the company for millions of dollars (some in the 8 figures) but I didn’t want to sell it as I knew their goal would be to turn it into another $100-a-month tool, which didn’t sit well with me.

After running out of options, I had no choice but to make some changes to Ubersuggest (don’t worry it is not closing down). But you can guess what the changes are.

But don’t worry…

First and foremost, my goal is still to give as much away for free as I can. Within Ubersuggest, you will still be able to do a lot for free…

Creating projects

You will always be able to create projects and track your rankings. And just like before you always have been limited on the number of keywords you can track and that, of course, is due to costs.

Keyword research

Within the app, you will still be able to see keyword research data.

You’ll see a chart with the latest few months’ traffic volume, data on mobile versus desktop search volume, demographic data, and even keyword recommendations.

And you can, of course, continually find new keywords to target.

Sure, some of the data is blocked, but did you know that only 14.3% of people used to register for a free account to unlock that data.

In other words, most of you never even registered because the application shows you enough for free without needing to log in.

Content ideas

Similar to before, you can also see popular blog post suggestions for any given keyword.

You’ll also be able to see the top keywords a blog post ranks for and the backlinks pointing to that URL.

Again, keep in mind the majority of you only looked at the top 10 results as 14.3% of you registered for a free account to unlock more data.

Traffic Analyzer

You will still be able to look up any domain and get stats on it.

Historical data is blocked, but you can see the last few months which is enough for most of you.

You’ll also be able to see the top pages for any domain and the keywords that page ranks for as well as backlinks.

The same goes for the keywords any domain ranks for.

Some of the data is blocked, but just like before only 14.3% of you registered to view that data. Which means 85.7% of you are happy with the free data.

SEO Analyzer

Not much has changed here, you can still analyze over 100 pages on your site and figure out which errors you have.

Here’s an interesting fact: Did you know the average site that goes through Ubersuggest only has 48 pages?

The median number of pages a site has in our system was similar at 43 pages.

And of course, there is the backlinks report, which now shows new and lost links as well as historical link growth.

Similar to what I mentioned above, very few people really cared to see the blocked off information as only 14.3% of you registered.

My dream

My goal in life is to help people generate more traffic. And I believe Ubersuggest can get better results and give you a fighting chance.

I also want to continually make the tool better. For example, why can’t SEO be automated? If you can have self-driving cars, there is no reason why you can’t automate SEO through artificial intelligence and machine learning.

But with the rising expenses, I was left with 2 options… either shut the tool down (which isn’t an option for me) or figure out a way to cover my expenses.

In the long run, I can’t keep sustaining the loss of $247,218 a month forever, especially when that number is climbing (that’s roughly 3 million dollars a year).

My team and I came up with an interesting concept that we think is fair and hopefully, you won’t be upset about it.

Remember how I said only 14.3% of people register to view more data but 85.7% never register as they were happy with the free data?

Well, nothing will change for 85.7% of you.

As for the 14.3% who register to create projects and track keywords, you can still do that for free. But if you want to add more projects or track a lot more keywords, you can upgrade to a paid plan.

The same goes for keyword research. If you want to view even more data, you can pay for the blocked data. Or if you want to analyze thousands of pages on your site through the site audit, you can also upgrade.

Don’t worry though, I am still following my original mission.

I promise to always keep Ubersuggest affordable (and mainly free). I decided to take the Netflix/Amazon approach and try to make the cost super affordable (as my goal is to only break-even).

On top of that, I made it a 7-day free trial.

You’ll also find that the pricing varies per country as my costs vary per country. In regions like India and Brazil when someone registers, creates a project and tracks keywords, my expenses are substantially lower than if someone from the United States registers and creates projects and tracks keywords.

The same goes for labor. My support team in India and other regions costs substantially less than the team in the United States or the United Kingdom.

If you also pay annually, you’ll get 2 months free so you can save even more money.

And as I mentioned above, I want to stick to the original mission, which is to help people generate more traffic without having to spend a lot of money.

There will always be a very generous free plan and I am hoping that I can break even by charging for a portion of the application.

What’s next?

Ubersuggest is going to continually get better.

To make things up to you, over the next month or two I am going to release a Chrome extension that will give you tons of insights for free. And of course, if you want a little bit more you can pay.

Here’s what the free extension will look like…

Whenever you perform a Google search you will be able to see the volume for any search term in any major country. And if you click the “view all” link you will see more data on that keyword.

You’ll also see the average domain score for any given ranking page and the number of links you need to rank in the top 10.

As you scroll down and go through each of the ranking results, you’ll see the domain score for each URL, social shares, and the backlinks pointing to that search result.

You can even drill down and see the top links pointing to each URL.

Now if you head over to the sidebar, you’ll see a list of related keywords as well as data on the top 10 keyword recommendations.

If you scroll a bit more, you’ll see a graph that shows how many backlinks each result has so that way you can see how many backlinks again you roughly need to rank in the top 10.

At the very bottom of the search results, you’ll see data on related keywords.

As time goes on not only will you have the extension, but I will continually add more and more features for free.

Conclusion

I’m sorry that I have to start covering my costs, but I hope you understand at the same time.

From my projections, it will take me roughly 6 months to break even, so I am going to be out a decent amount of money over the next 6 months… but that’s life.

I am not looking to recuperate my original investment and I don’t mind that being a loss, but once I break even on a monthly basis I will continue to either open up more stuff for free or consider lowering the monthly pricing if possible.

Again, I am really sorry, but I hope you understand that it isn’t sustainable for me to spend $247,218 a month indefinitely.

I am open to hearing your thoughts or ideas. I also want to let you know I appreciate everything you have done to support Ubersuggest and my site.

The post The Future of Ubersuggest appeared first on Neil Patel.

Original content source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/ubersuggest-update/ via https://neilpatel.com

The original post, The Future of Ubersuggest, has been shared from https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com/2020/02/18/the-future-of-ubersuggest/ via https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com

0 notes

jimmyjohnsmnm · 5 years ago

Text

The Future of Ubersuggest

* Please read the whole post, I have some good news at the bottom, but it won’t make sense unless you read the whole post.

Do you know why I got into SEO?

Not many people know this, but I grew up in middle-class America, and I wanted a better life for me and my parents.

When I was 16 years old, I worked at a theme park called Knotts Berry Farm where I picked up trash, cleaned restrooms, and swept up vomit every single day.

I didn’t mind it because that’s life and I needed the money.

At 16, I realized I was too young to get a high paying job, so I did the next best thing… I started a business.

It’s also the main reason I fell in love with it… it gives the little guy a chance to compete with the big guys.

And over the years I wanted to pay it forward and help out all of the entrepreneurs and small companies so they can do the same… succeed without having to spend a lot of money.

So, what did I do?

Well over the years, I’ve produced a ton of free content, videos, and guides that help entrepreneurs and marketers of all sizes succeed.

And in February 2017, I decided to take it to the next level by acquiring Ubersuggest for $120,000.

When I first bought it, I had the dream of creating an SEO tool that could compete with the big players that charged $100+ a month, but of course, offer it for free.

The developers that I had at that time estimated that I could do this for $30,000 to $45,000 a month. That was perfect as I had no issue losing that much money each month.

But as we got rolling and kept adding in more features, our expenses continually climbed. Just look at what I spent in the last month…

I spent $89,930 on hosting so far in January with an estimated spend of $128,680 for February. But again, let’s stick with January…

My back-end development bill from Tryolabs was $47,885 for January.

My data feed from SEO Power Suite, Data For SEO, and Shared Count totaled $75,253 for January.

And of course, my front-end developers as well as my dev-ops team Netlabs, which ran me $22,700.

Then if you add on miscellaneous costs, such as support, design, and project management, I was out another $11,450.

All in all, I spent $247,218 during the month of January 2020.

Keep in mind that my costs are continually rising. As the tool gets more popular, it costs me more.

One of the big reasons for the server expenses is scrapers.

Don’t feel bad for me

Now the purpose of this post wasn’t to make you feel bad or guilty (unless you are scraping me). I just wanted to be transparent about my situation.

After running out of options, I had no choice but to make some changes to Ubersuggest (don’t worry it is not closing down). But you can guess what the changes are.

But don’t worry…

First and foremost, my goal is still to give as much away for free as I can. Within Ubersuggest, you will still be able to do a lot for free…

Creating projects

You will always be able to create projects and track your rankings. And just like before you always have been limited on the number of keywords you can track and that, of course, is due to costs.

Keyword research

Within the app, you will still be able to see keyword research data.

You’ll see a chart with the latest few months’ traffic volume, data on mobile versus desktop search volume, demographic data, and even keyword recommendations.

And you can, of course, continually find new keywords to target.

Sure, some of the data is blocked, but did you know that only 14.3% of people used to register for a free account to unlock that data.

In other words, most of you never even registered because the application shows you enough for free without needing to log in.

Content ideas

Similar to before, you can also see popular blog post suggestions for any given keyword.

You’ll also be able to see the top keywords a blog post ranks for and the backlinks pointing to that URL.

Again, keep in mind the majority of you only looked at the top 10 results as 14.3% of you registered for a free account to unlock more data.

Traffic Analyzer

You will still be able to look up any domain and get stats on it.

Historical data is blocked, but you can see the last few months which is enough for most of you.

You’ll also be able to see the top pages for any domain and the keywords that page ranks for as well as backlinks.

The same goes for the keywords any domain ranks for.

Some of the data is blocked, but just like before only 14.3% of you registered to view that data. Which means 85.7% of you are happy with the free data.

SEO Analyzer

Not much has changed here, you can still analyze over 100 pages on your site and figure out which errors you have.

Here’s an interesting fact: Did you know the average site that goes through Ubersuggest only has 48 pages?

The median number of pages a site has in our system was similar at 43 pages.

And of course, there is the backlinks report, which now shows new and lost links as well as historical link growth.

Similar to what I mentioned above, very few people really cared to see the blocked off information as only 14.3% of you registered.

My dream

My goal in life is to help people generate more traffic. And I believe Ubersuggest can get better results and give you a fighting chance.

But with the rising expenses, I was left with 2 options… either shut the tool down (which isn’t an option for me) or figure out a way to cover my expenses.

In the long run, I can’t keep sustaining the loss of $247,218 a month forever, especially when that number is climbing (that’s roughly 3 million dollars a year).

My team and I came up with an interesting concept that we think is fair and hopefully, you won’t be upset about it.

Remember how I said only 14.3% of people register to view more data but 85.7% never register as they were happy with the free data?

Well, nothing will change for 85.7% of you.

As for the 14.3% who register to create projects and track keywords, you can still do that for free. But if you want to add more projects or track a lot more keywords, you can upgrade to a paid plan.

Don’t worry though, I am still following my original mission.

I promise to always keep Ubersuggest affordable (and mainly free). I decided to take the Netflix/Amazon approach and try to make the cost super affordable (as my goal is to only break-even).

On top of that, I made it a 7-day free trial.

The same goes for labor. My support team in India and other regions costs substantially less than the team in the United States or the United Kingdom.

If you also pay annually, you’ll get 2 months free so you can save even more money.

And as I mentioned above, I want to stick to the original mission, which is to help people generate more traffic without having to spend a lot of money.

There will always be a very generous free plan and I am hoping that I can break even by charging for a portion of the application.

What’s next?

Ubersuggest is going to continually get better.

To make things up to you, over the next month or two I am going to release a Chrome extension that will give you tons of insights for free. And of course, if you want a little bit more you can pay.

Here’s what the free extension will look like…

Whenever you perform a Google search you will be able to see the volume for any search term in any major country. And if you click the “view all” link you will see more data on that keyword.

You’ll also see the average domain score for any given ranking page and the number of links you need to rank in the top 10.

As you scroll down and go through each of the ranking results, you’ll see the domain score for each URL, social shares, and the backlinks pointing to that search result.

You can even drill down and see the top links pointing to each URL.

Now if you head over to the sidebar, you’ll see a list of related keywords as well as data on the top 10 keyword recommendations.

If you scroll a bit more, you’ll see a graph that shows how many backlinks each result has so that way you can see how many backlinks again you roughly need to rank in the top 10.

At the very bottom of the search results, you’ll see data on related keywords.

As time goes on not only will you have the extension, but I will continually add more and more features for free.

Conclusion

I’m sorry that I have to start covering my costs, but I hope you understand at the same time.

From my projections, it will take me roughly 6 months to break even, so I am going to be out a decent amount of money over the next 6 months… but that’s life.

Again, I am really sorry, but I hope you understand that it isn’t sustainable for me to spend $247,218 a month indefinitely.

I am open to hearing your thoughts or ideas. I also want to let you know I appreciate everything you have done to support Ubersuggest and my site.

The post The Future of Ubersuggest appeared first on Neil Patel.

Original content source: https://ift.tt/2uWvikL via https://neilpatel.com The post, The Future of Ubersuggest, has been shared from https://ift.tt/2HBGIxf via https://ift.tt/2r0Go64

0 notes

marketingcomcaio · 5 years ago

Text

The Future of Ubersuggest

* Please read the whole post, I have some good news at the bottom, but it won’t make sense unless you read the whole post.

Do you know why I got into SEO?

Not many people know this, but I grew up in middle-class America, and I wanted a better life for me and my parents.

When I was 16 years old, I worked at a theme park called Knotts Berry Farm where I picked up trash, cleaned restrooms, and swept up vomit every single day.

I didn’t mind it because that’s life and I needed the money.

At 16, I realized I was too young to get a high paying job, so I did the next best thing… I started a business.

It’s also the main reason I fell in love with it… it gives the little guy a chance to compete with the big guys.

And over the years I wanted to pay it forward and help out all of the entrepreneurs and small companies so they can do the same… succeed without having to spend a lot of money.

So, what did I do?

Well over the years, I’ve produced a ton of free content, videos, and guides that help entrepreneurs and marketers of all sizes succeed.

And in February 2017, I decided to take it to the next level by acquiring Ubersuggest for $120,000.

When I first bought it, I had the dream of creating an SEO tool that could compete with the big players that charged $100+ a month, but of course, offer it for free.

The developers that I had at that time estimated that I could do this for $30,000 to $45,000 a month. That was perfect as I had no issue losing that much money each month.

But as we got rolling and kept adding in more features, our expenses continually climbed. Just look at what I spent in the last month…

I spent $89,930 on hosting so far in January with an estimated spend of $128,680 for February. But again, let’s stick with January…

My back-end development bill from Tryolabs was $47,885 for January.

My data feed from SEO Power Suite, Data For SEO, and Shared Count totaled $75,253 for January.

And of course, my front-end developers as well as my dev-ops team Netlabs, which ran me $22,700.

Then if you add on miscellaneous costs, such as support, design, and project management, I was out another $11,450.

All in all, I spent $247,218 during the month of January 2020.

Keep in mind that my costs are continually rising. As the tool gets more popular, it costs me more.

One of the big reasons for the server expenses is scrapers.

Don’t feel bad for me

Now the purpose of this post wasn’t to make you feel bad or guilty (unless you are scraping me). I just wanted to be transparent about my situation.

After running out of options, I had no choice but to make some changes to Ubersuggest (don’t worry it is not closing down). But you can guess what the changes are.

But don’t worry…

First and foremost, my goal is still to give as much away for free as I can. Within Ubersuggest, you will still be able to do a lot for free…

Creating projects

You will always be able to create projects and track your rankings. And just like before you always have been limited on the number of keywords you can track and that, of course, is due to costs.

Keyword research

Within the app, you will still be able to see keyword research data.

You’ll see a chart with the latest few months’ traffic volume, data on mobile versus desktop search volume, demographic data, and even keyword recommendations.

And you can, of course, continually find new keywords to target.

Sure, some of the data is blocked, but did you know that only 14.3% of people used to register for a free account to unlock that data.

In other words, most of you never even registered because the application shows you enough for free without needing to log in.

Content ideas

Similar to before, you can also see popular blog post suggestions for any given keyword.

You’ll also be able to see the top keywords a blog post ranks for and the backlinks pointing to that URL.

Again, keep in mind the majority of you only looked at the top 10 results as 14.3% of you registered for a free account to unlock more data.

Traffic Analyzer

You will still be able to look up any domain and get stats on it.

Historical data is blocked, but you can see the last few months which is enough for most of you.

You’ll also be able to see the top pages for any domain and the keywords that page ranks for as well as backlinks.

The same goes for the keywords any domain ranks for.

Some of the data is blocked, but just like before only 14.3% of you registered to view that data. Which means 85.7% of you are happy with the free data.

SEO Analyzer

Not much has changed here, you can still analyze over 100 pages on your site and figure out which errors you have.

Here’s an interesting fact: Did you know the average site that goes through Ubersuggest only has 48 pages?

The median number of pages a site has in our system was similar at 43 pages.

And of course, there is the backlinks report, which now shows new and lost links as well as historical link growth.

Similar to what I mentioned above, very few people really cared to see the blocked off information as only 14.3% of you registered.

My dream

My goal in life is to help people generate more traffic. And I believe Ubersuggest can get better results and give you a fighting chance.

But with the rising expenses, I was left with 2 options… either shut the tool down (which isn’t an option for me) or figure out a way to cover my expenses.

In the long run, I can’t keep sustaining the loss of $247,218 a month forever, especially when that number is climbing (that’s roughly 3 million dollars a year).

My team and I came up with an interesting concept that we think is fair and hopefully, you won’t be upset about it.

Remember how I said only 14.3% of people register to view more data but 85.7% never register as they were happy with the free data?

Well, nothing will change for 85.7% of you.

As for the 14.3% who register to create projects and track keywords, you can still do that for free. But if you want to add more projects or track a lot more keywords, you can upgrade to a paid plan.

Don’t worry though, I am still following my original mission.

I promise to always keep Ubersuggest affordable (and mainly free). I decided to take the Netflix/Amazon approach and try to make the cost super affordable (as my goal is to only break-even).

On top of that, I made it a 7-day free trial.

The same goes for labor. My support team in India and other regions costs substantially less than the team in the United States or the United Kingdom.

If you also pay annually, you’ll get 2 months free so you can save even more money.

And as I mentioned above, I want to stick to the original mission, which is to help people generate more traffic without having to spend a lot of money.

There will always be a very generous free plan and I am hoping that I can break even by charging for a portion of the application.

What’s next?

Ubersuggest is going to continually get better.

To make things up to you, over the next month or two I am going to release a Chrome extension that will give you tons of insights for free. And of course, if you want a little bit more you can pay.

Here’s what the free extension will look like…

Whenever you perform a Google search you will be able to see the volume for any search term in any major country. And if you click the “view all” link you will see more data on that keyword.

You’ll also see the average domain score for any given ranking page and the number of links you need to rank in the top 10.

As you scroll down and go through each of the ranking results, you’ll see the domain score for each URL, social shares, and the backlinks pointing to that search result.

You can even drill down and see the top links pointing to each URL.

Now if you head over to the sidebar, you’ll see a list of related keywords as well as data on the top 10 keyword recommendations.

If you scroll a bit more, you’ll see a graph that shows how many backlinks each result has so that way you can see how many backlinks again you roughly need to rank in the top 10.

At the very bottom of the search results, you’ll see data on related keywords.

As time goes on not only will you have the extension, but I will continually add more and more features for free.

Conclusion

I’m sorry that I have to start covering my costs, but I hope you understand at the same time.

From my projections, it will take me roughly 6 months to break even, so I am going to be out a decent amount of money over the next 6 months… but that’s life.

Again, I am really sorry, but I hope you understand that it isn’t sustainable for me to spend $247,218 a month indefinitely.

I am open to hearing your thoughts or ideas. I also want to let you know I appreciate everything you have done to support Ubersuggest and my site.

The post The Future of Ubersuggest appeared first on Neil Patel.

The Future of Ubersuggest Publicado primeiro em https://neilpatel.com

0 notes

reviewandbonuss · 5 years ago