E-mail:
jsem@patrikpilous.cz
At last I can do my annual review on my own website. For the past 3 years I have at least written an honest review in Google Keep. In February I (finally) launched my personal website. That took a while.
1. My own website
After almost 8 years working online, it is a shame that I only got round to my own website this year. Originally I wanted a website that would reflect all my areas of interest (marketing, history, property, investing, personal development and some very clever reflections on the world). In the end I decided not to turn it into a hotchpotch for enthusiasts (for now) and to focus the website purely on the areas of marketing that I enjoy and work in.
After 10 months, I have to say that the website, together with a moderately active LinkedIn, can bring in interesting enquiries and open new doors. And I really enjoy both! Thanks to everyone who nudged me into it.
Professionally, I was quite surprised by how the new website performs for the term “SEO consultant“, where a brand-new page ranks somewhere between 3rd and 4th place on Google.
Fuck-up: About two months ago I thought it was odd that I had not received a single lead. So I tested it properly and found out that one of my 20 Gmail filters was sending them to the bin. My apologies to everyone whose enquiry I answered after 4 months. Well, it happens. There was no time.
2. Leaving the marketing agency
The turn of the year also means gradually winding down and ending my work for Taste, where I spent over 3.5 years, first as an SEO consultant and later as a marketing strategist. I value this experience enormously. It was fun and a daily challenge at the same time. In that time I got a look inside so many businesses, met so many interesting people and handled a million different tasks, which I certainly would not have had the chance to do as a freelancer.
I also hugely enjoyed agency life with great people! Now a change of rhythm awaits me, which I already needed.
I am quite curious whether I will miss that sense of belonging and the banter in the team. I think I will. Sniff.
3. Content websites
Enough of the sentimentality, now for some numbers. This year I spent the least time on my content websites in the whole 7 years since I started this little hobby. The reasons are:
- I want to do something more valuable and more product-focused
- Google updates
- the development of search and AI
- I no longer enjoy it as much as I used to
- it is hard graft
What did I change on the websites in 2023?
- I have two great editors-in-chief who run everything themselves
- I added a bonus for good copywriters
- two redesigns
- I almost stopped doing affiliate
- I reduced banner advertising
- I set up two high-quality, meaningful partnerships
In the end, the result is quite satisfying. Net income is once again the highest I have ever had. Unfortunately, traffic is the same because of the updates. The big bonus, however, is that I spent roughly half as much time on this as last year. I gave that time to my personal website, the ZAKERI e-shop and clients. Of course, I am aware that I am benefiting from what I slogged away at on weekends and evenings in previous years.
Once again this year I did not reach 1,000,000 organic visits from Google Search (excluding Google News and Google Discover). In total I had a little over 700,000. The task for this year is to get more $$$ out of this traffic. I am toying with the idea of switching off AdSense.
Oh, and this year I also received an offer to buy one of the websites, which of course I flatly turned down. I have a strong IKEA effect here and cannot accept a market price for something I have put so much time, sweat and love into.
With the websites, I really value that I can keep things consistent, and even this year I did not let them slide.
4. ZAKERI e-shop
Building your own e-shop is a real education. ZAKERI has been running for over 2 years, and this year I really managed to boost traffic (mainly organic), reaching a decent level of around 13,000 visits a month. Conversion is another matter.
- I finally got the banned domain unblocked
- this year I also launched PPC (lightly) and email marketing
- I passed 1,000 visits a year and 20% of turnover through the brand
- I integrated a payment gateway
- fine-tuned the analytics and the checkout flow.
Fashion, however, is a very specific segment that needs a wide range of products and constantly rotating new collections. So in recent weeks I have been planning to expand the e-shop with a different (less demanding) range that could complement fashion and is aimed at the same target group. I already have a rough plan, so we will see in a year.
From working on the website, I now have a smart filtering system for WooCommerce sketched out, which I would like to finish.
With the e-shop, I am running into the problem that it is now a truly complex business, where you need to understand how logistics and other areas work, and I lack the practical skills there. So here is one more challenge: if anyone has a great business idea or an original product and could handle logistics and distribution, I would happily take care of the other side (web and marketing). Write or call me 🙂
5. Clients
This year, outside my agency work, I also significantly increased my client hours. I continued my SEO consulting for Manboxeo, where certain individual steps went far better than planned. We are also running continuous link building there. There is still a lot of room, though, and next year we will substantially upgrade the website structure.
Beyond Manboxeo, I am trying to position myself more outside e-commerce, typically in lead generation projects, ideally in investing or finance. In this area I have had/have 4 clients, where I can apply a whole range of activities and skills. A huge advantage is that I enjoy this area and understand how it works. In 2024 I would like to dive even deeper into this segment.
6. Conferences
This year I attended by far the most conferences ever. I was at all the Restarts by Taste, where I also had the chance to interview speakers. I would like to continue with that next year. There are 9 great conferences ahead of us.
I also attended two multi-day SEO events, SEOloger naživo and SEO BootCamp. Both events were a great success. I will definitely do them again this year. Respect to the organisers. If anyone knows of general marketing events in a similar style, please let me know.
Among the bigger events, Communication Summit, WebTop100 and ShopMasters also left their mark on me this year. I really got around a lot. And that is not counting non-marketing events.
Other interesting reviews:
- Michal Binka
- Petr Krauz
- Lukáš Konečný
- Jan Polzer
- Jarda Pajskr
- Dála Musil
- Mário Roženský
- Patrik Gajdoš
- Bronislav Markowicz
- Vladimír Pilný
- Zdeněk Matuška
- Štefan Janoušek
- Martin Prodaj
- The guys from chytryspanek.cz
- Ondra Martínek
- Jaroslav Janíček
Email: jsem@patrikpilous.cz
