Starting and Managing a Successful Niche News Website w/ Barry Schwartz @rustybrick #VCBuzz

Starting and Managing a Successful Niche News Website w/ Barry Schwartz @rustybrick #VCBuzz It’s everyone’s dream to build a successful blog to cover industry news and trends. But not many people realize how much work it is.

The prime example of how hard work can be rewarded in our industry is seroundtable.com, the one-stop destination of search industry news that has been keeping us updated for years.

This week we are honored to have seroundtable.com founder Barry Schwartz @rustybrick teach us here at #VCBuzz!

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About Barry

Barry Schwartz is the CEO of RustyBrick, a New York Web service firm specializing in customized online technology that helps companies decrease costs and increase sales.

Barry Schwartz is the founder of the Search Engine Roundtable and has covered search for over 14 years. Barry is also the News Editor at Search Engine Land (founded by Danny Sullivan).

Questions we are going to discuss

Q1 How did you become a “search geek”? Please share your career story!

I am on the web dev side of things and learning and loving SEO came natural to me.

I have recently been adding my new site to citation sites and have an account with whitespark found that quite interesting although I build websites I'm learning more about seo now though #vcbuzz

— 👨🏻‍💻 Phillip Dews | Ex Freelance Fullstack Dev (@BrumPhill) March 20, 2018

But you could argue that marketers have a “leg up” on marketing, PR folks for links, designers for UX and so forth, just as easily. “Good SEOs” have built from a specific core specialty but understand the whole spectrum IMO

— Chris Boggs (@boggles) March 20, 2018

I agree that every specialty brings its strengths. Maybe a better way of putting it is: if you lack technical knowledge, it can be a little harder to understand how search engines work, how to diagnose unintentional technical impediments (had plenty of those!), etc.#VCBuzz

— Anita Campbell (@smallbiztrends) March 20, 2018

I really think our industry has opportunities for just about anyone with brainsÖ I have no tech background/ skills, still managed somehow 🙂 #VCBuzz

— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) March 20, 2018

Q2 Why did you decide to start Search Engine Roundtable? How did you do that? How long did it take you to set it up?

A2 I'd plan for at least a year before you see an actual activity on a new site (a year of hard work, mind you!) #vcbuzz

— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) March 20, 2018

I wanted a place to keep notes on what is changing in the search space.

So I started a blog to do that. I started with a MovableType blog, that was before WordPress was available.

I then switched it to a custom CMS that my company built.

It took no time to set up the MovableType blog but a few months to launch the custom CMS.

Q2: Depends what you mean by "getting a new site off the ground." You can get a simple small site launched fast today with the tools out there, but I think you're looking at about 6 months to make meaningful traffic happen.

IMHO. #vcbuzz

— Small Business Trends (@smallbiztrends) March 20, 2018

when did you decide it will be one of your businesses (writing and blogging)? #vcbuzz

— Jessy Troy (@jessytroy) March 20, 2018

Honestly, I do not consider it a business. I consider it a hobby.

This is a good reason to start a blog, as @rustybrick points out. And then let it develop and see where it goes …#vcbuzz https://t.co/725FkmKzij

— BizSugar (@bizsugar) March 20, 2018

but how many hours a day does this hobby take? 🙂 #vcbuzz

— Jessy Troy (@jessytroy) March 20, 2018

2-3 hours in the early morning. How much time do you surf the web, watch tv, spend on entertainment?

But isn't your site really a form of marketing, too, @rustybrick? That's how I came to know of you the most. (And there's no law against having some enjoyment with it, too! ) #vcbuzz https://t.co/6wSHVhZ0rM

— Small Business Trends (@smallbiztrends) March 20, 2018

I don’t sell SEO services so it doesnít drive much business. Why do people think this canít be a hobby? 🙂

Because itís hard to imagine working daily for 2-3 hours can be considered a hobby 🙂 #vcbuzz

— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) March 20, 2018

Q3 How were you promoting the website when you started it? Are you still marketing it (beyond daily updates)?

I don’t think I promoted it much. I got some industry people to help me write stuff early on but that died down as people are busy.There were forums but forums didn’t like when you linked out, so I didn’t do much of that.

@rustybrick No FB or Twitter but Sphinn was around, wasn't it? Or was it later? #vcbuzz

— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) March 20, 2018

Sphinn was way later, way after I started SER

@rustybrick Also do mention your favorite forums back then please! #vcbuzz

— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) March 20, 2018

Favorite forums were SEO Chat, WebmasterWorld, JimsWorld, Cre8asite and Jill Whalens forum

JimsWorld was the original name for SearchEngineForums. When I was there we used both names, but mostly SEF #vcbuzz

— Gail Gardner (@GrowMap) March 20, 2018

Here's a followup question from the audience to Q3 (if I may): how would you promote a site like SEO Roundtable if you started out today and wanted to get a wider audience? #VCBuzz https://t.co/jRBewYvqcq

— BizSugar (@bizsugar) March 20, 2018

I guess today, if I had to promote it, Iíd use social media

@rustybrick “The industry honors you” column could be some kind of marketing, no? Does it drive increased engagement from the featured people #vcbuzz

— Jessy Troy (@jessytroy) March 20, 2018

The purpose about the honor you column is to make people happy, not for marketing at all

Sphinn launched in July 2007 https://t.co/rGfyiyQVHB @seroundtable launched in December 2003 #vcbuzz

— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) March 20, 2018

I would think there was more organic traffic from search engines then than there is now. Remember when blogs got tons of organic traffic without knowing #SEO? #vcbuzz

— Gail Gardner (@GrowMap) March 20, 2018

@rustybrick FYI, hobby or not, I know folks who planned starting a SEO news site but were too afraid to offend you for stealing your business model 😉 #vcbuzz

— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) March 20, 2018

Many have done it, it would not impact me financially, I don’t make my money from blogging. People should not worry about offending me, they should do what they want. But SEO blogging doesn’t make much money, so I wouldn’t recommend it for a business model. 🙂

Q4 What’s your daily site management routine? How much time does it take?

I run through my data sources normally between 6:30am and 7:30am, then I spend the next hour writing about those findings.
So on average, I spend about two hours each day, give or take.

—>>> Entrepreneurs: when get up early and have a system, you can accomplish tremendous things. This person has been maintaining a site for 15 years. See how he does it.#VCBuzz https://t.co/mongfk0DnX

— Small Business Trends (@smallbiztrends) March 20, 2018

Consistency is super important IMO in terms of everything you do, from business, family, friends, etc .

Q5 Which SEO and blog management tools are you using on a regular basis?

I built my own CMS and my own blog budgeting software – I named it RustyBudget. I also use Feedly as my RSS reader and I have a nice number of bookmarks I use to check on things.

Of course things like Google Alerts and Google News are also in my toolkit.

why did you decide building your own instead of using the existing solution? #vcbuzz

— Anna Fox (@manifestcon) March 20, 2018

I started before there was much of anything out there, so I didn’t have much of a choice.

Tools we use: Hootsuite, https://t.co/zkChd2mJsV, Yoast SEO plugin, and a couple of writing assignment apps we've built using @Zoho Creator. #VCBuzz https://t.co/d1r0UaZukB

— Small Business Trends (@smallbiztrends) March 20, 2018

Barry's blog (for news :)), then: @Cyfe WordPress @Serpstat @Ahref @Semrush Tweetdeck… RT @vcbuzz: Buzzers! What are your daily blog management tools? #vcbuzz

— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) March 20, 2018