The Exchanges

Q So let's talk about this for a second. This trend is very hot. You see substacks. You see ConvertKit with a product that meets with substack. I think you're using ConvertKit for your growth memo. Um, how many people do you have subscribed to it today and are you monetizing it?

A Yeah, that's a good question. It's a bit over 4000 people right now. Um, and, uh, I did actually use Substack when I first started out, um, and then I migrated away, uh, to ConvertKit. When I say at this point, I'm not a, you know, I, I actually want Substack to be successful. I think they're a great company and they're necessary in this space. It just didn't really satisfy my needs because I wanted more customization and, uh, a bit more, uh, a hand on things. I currently monetize it very little. Um, it's more, mainly through sponsorships. Um, there was, there's a brand that, um, Has, uh, closed a larger deal with me for six months to be the exclusive sponsor. So they sponsor, they have a sponsorship on every episode. Um, but then generally it's more like a, like a bidding model where people can bid on a space. However, uh, I would say that, you know, I don't directly monetize. It's even a better tool for my, for just my career building an audience and a following. Um, and then for a while I also tried a paid membership, which was very successful. But when I joined Shopify, uh, I had to, to put That to rest.

AI assessment note: “It's a bit over 4000 people right now... I currently monetize it very little.”

Q in terms of which schemas to be using in the metadata. Uh, when I do that for you guys, there are some, it looks like the tests that are being run where you're actually using the FAQ schema and putting a little dropdown so people can review and get answers without actually clicking into the Gitu site. Is that good or bad for you? You don't get the search traffic.

A Yeah, it depends. You know, it's, it's, it's very counterintuitive. Uh, at the very beginning, when Google wrote FAQ schema out, um, there was a lot of controversy around this and, and some sites reported lower click rates. We, on the other hand, we're, we, we noticed the opposite and it's interesting because it seems that FAQ, or at least the questions that people see in the search snippet or under the search snippet are more like an appetizer and stimulate people to, to, to learn more. And so the hypothesis here is Is that people, first of all, get a taste of the quality and depth of the content based on the questions. Second of all, because software is a very research-intensive field, it, it stimulates people to click through instead of just reading the short little snippet and then not clicking through. So I think it also depends a little bit on what, what niche or vertical you play in. Uh, but for us, it certainly worked pretty well.

AI assessment note: “We, on the other hand, we noticed the opposite... for us, it certainly worked”

Q What are some, besides putting the number of reviews, For a certain taxonomy in the metadata when people searched? What other sort of creative things do you test over, I guess, your one or two years there?

A Yeah, you know, there's a lot on the site itself that you can do that's, that, that's not surfaced in the search snippet. So first of all, we spent a lot of time on, on SEO hygiene, um, which is basically a list or catalog of things that you do, you need to do to kind of not waste Google's resources in a nutshell. And that in itself can take You know, a lot of time and resources because it's a very quick, a huge site and growing very quickly. But then we also experimented a lot with the quality of content that people can find on the site. And that is not just an SEO topic. It's, it's a, it's a topic for the business, for UX, for design, for, for all these kinds of things. So we've got pretty in depth in understanding where people actually find value, where they don't, and then did some research to add more value to the site. And that can be content in the form of Just graphs to make certain concepts easier to grasp, or it can be just more, more extractions from reviews. Uh, it can be all sorts of things. And that's varied a little bit from different or from page type to page type. So you mentioned that we have alternative pages, comparisons, categories, the review pages, and each of those pages has a different, um, expectation to fulfill in the user's mind. So we invested a lot of time in terms of what users are trying to find and then trying to top their expectations and Not o…

AI assessment note: “we also experimented a lot with the quality of content that people can find”

Q When you look at an SEO hygiene list, what tools were you using to then, so that you could like spit out that list and then go tackle it?

A You know, the very basic level, there's a, there's a tool from Google itself, which is free and called Google search console, where Google will report problems that they find on your site. These problems sometimes are very easy to solve, but sometimes they're also very complex, especially when Google reports that they find the content on your site of very low quality. And that is a, that's a fuzzy, broad concept, right? So there's some follow-up work where you have to understand what they actually mean and how to improve that. But there are also other tools which help you understand how Google understands your site. Um, one of the most effective is, um, Um, what, what we call a log file analyzer. And there, there, there are certain, there's a list of brands out there that provide log file analysis. Um, and that's a very in-depth technical, um, exercise or tool where you really look at.

AI assessment note: “there's a tool from Google itself, which is free and called Google search console”

Q Talk to me a little bit. There's a lot of psychology happening on these review sites when you can convince people to put a G to top rank badge on their page, on their footer, even, and get a backlink that obviously really helps. How did the psychology of those badges influence SEO strategy, if at all?

A It does, uh, to a great degree. And, you know, one of my goals was always to make G-II something like a Michelin star, where when people see the badge on a software vendor's site, they would see, okay, they're rated well on G-II, that means they must be of high quality. That was, that was kind of the meta goal or the north star. And so it's funny because, you know, from an SEO would say, oh, cool, we got a backlink from that site. That's so valuable. And sure, that's true, but it's even more valuable as a trust signal in getting the brand out there, you know. Backlinks, still important in SEO, but the overall perception and visibility of the brand is much more important, right? So we think that Google even looks at unlinked mentions on other sites, meaning you don't even need a backlink, but when, when Forbes or New York Times or these big publishers write a lot and mention your name a lot, that could be a signal that Google might be able to pick up. We don't know for sure, but that's where the, the, the badge of G two goes way beyond just the actual backlink, right? It's a way also for, um, the vendors who have that badge to, to first of all, show value, right? And show trustworthiness very quickly. Um, but then also bring them back to the review site and have the visitors leave a review. So it's sort of a flywheel that doesn't just benefit G two, but also benefits the vendors…

AI assessment note: “even more valuable as a trust signal in getting the brand out there”

Q So what are, what are some of those loose ends that you close very quickly to show value fast?

A Yeah, sure. So, uh, connecting certain people in certain teams, um, that's, that's one of the, that's, that's a huge value that you can provide as an executive that, uh, some people in a team cannot, because you just know where certain projects are. So I, I saw, for example, that there are a couple of things that they said that, that different teams are working on that would have a heavy overlap. So by just bringing those teams together and make them talk to each other, it's a, it's a quick win, uh, where you can help them out. However, I also brought some of the things that I learned from G to To the Shopify team, right? So we're very, very heavy on test, measure, learn at Shopify. Um, and I had done, had done some of that work at G two previously. Um, so I felt very confident and bring that over to Shopify.

AI assessment note: “bringing those teams together and make them talk to each other, it's a quick win”