E-mail:
jsem@patrikpilous.cz
So here it is again, the time for taking stock. It is great that today I can read my report from last year and see that I have come some way since then.
This year also showed me how important it is to make changes. Changes are the best possible impulse for growth and moving forward. Looking back, every time I made a change, it gave me a big kick in a positive way.
So the lesson for me is to make changes sooner and not wait, even when the current situation is actually good and comfortable. I want to follow this in 2025 too, and it is probably my main goal.
My first year as a freelancer showed me how great complete freedom is, but also that you have to know how to crack the whip on yourself a bit.
1. Consulting
When I left the agency a year ago, I thought I would freelance as a consultant only part-time and spend the rest of my time on my own little projects. Through a combination of circumstances, that got a bit out of hand. Consulting itself became my main project. At the moment I do 60% SEO and 40% other services.
I found that it is a bit different when you play fully for yourself and under your own name. You carry full responsibility, you can do things your own way and you are also fully rewarded for it. I started to enjoy it and began to take on more. In February I had only 35 client hours, and in summer it was well over 120.
I was surprised how much you can handle when you focus only on what matters. And the results this year were great. I can see the biggest impact on my clients in all the time I have worked in marketing. Two clients even grew by over 100% year on year in organic search! When things go well, that is of course the best engine for enjoying my work, and I kept trying to push it further and work hard.
In my main strength, which is a focus on results and profitability, I also partly see my biggest weakness. Especially in the first half of the year, I simply did whatever brought results and did not invest in my own development. I am changing that now.
A year ago I promised myself that I would end work with clients where my work did not make sense to me or who drained my energy. It did not happen once. Maybe that is because I filtered out several of them at the proposal stage. Or maybe I was just lucky.
All in all, I am very happy here. I am just curious how and where I will take it next year. I already have some plans 🙂
2. Travel and a flat
This year I finally tried what it is like to get away from the Czech Republic for two months. I was in Bali in Indonesia and in Thailand (more here). It is fascinating how little you need to work in Asia to live there very well and for a long time. I thought I would go back to Asia really soon, but I stumbled and jumped into something I had been putting off for a long time.
A flat in Prague and a mortgage. There were a great many complications with buying the flat and getting the mortgage, and mentally it took up a lot of my time. Because of the flat I had about 350 phone calls and dozens of emails. Even though I think I know my way around this topic, I felt that someone was constantly trying to con me or mess with me. The biggest troll was definitely Komerční banka, and after that experience I closed my account with them and sold all their shares. In the end it worked out, though, and the flat is exactly what I wanted. By the end of summer I was already enjoying working from the terrace of my new flat, which was also a pleasant change.
3. My own website
This point is closely linked to consulting in general. I have to say that a personal website was a very good decision. It gives me credibility and brings in active enquiries.
I also enjoy developing it and fine-tuning it. In summer I even had to put a stop to it, because I was starting to obsess over tiny details. I also use it as a notebook and write up topics here so that I can look back at them at any time.
In 2024 the website generated 10 times more visits than the year before, and for my still main keyword “SEO konzultant” or “SEO specialista” I now rank in 1st to 2nd place in organic search. It also generated quite a few interesting enquiries. And quite a few crazy ones too 🙂
Because my personal website is doing well, I have even received offers to build 3 to 5 personal websites for other people. For now I am politely turning these offers down, because I know how much work it takes to make it really work. Building a website and building a website that brings in leads are two extremely different things.
4. Organising my work
This year I also started tracking all enquiries, including their status, in Notion, which I put several dozen hours into. To be honest, apart from the excellent tracking of project activities and leads, I have somewhat given up on other tracking. It simply annoyed me, and you cannot squeeze your whole life into spreadsheets. My work tracking, however, works brilliantly and does everything I need: very low effort, clear, easy to analyse and plan with.
When I am at home, I work from the living room. This year I tried a coworking space and an office, but it annoyed me a bit to have to spend 30 minutes commuting in the morning and afternoon. Once or twice a week a change of environment is good, but getting up in the morning because I have to be somewhere is something I will no longer do voluntarily.
I like waking up without an alarm and not overdoing it. The only thing I try to stick to is working from 9 to 12, when I am at my absolute most productive. Otherwise I shape my day according to my mood. At least 5 times a week I do sport and meet friends, which is a necessary counterbalance to working alone at the computer. In summer I played beach volleyball about three times a week and went to the water a lot. When the weather was lovely, I adjusted my day to it and closed my laptop after lunch. On the other hand, when I felt like working on a Saturday, I was happy to sit down to it. But it is definitely not like 2 to 3 years ago, when working at weekends was completely normal.
Morning routines: I have been taking an ice-cold shower every morning for about 5 years now, and I did not skip it this year either. Except perhaps in Thailand, where there was no cold water, so I went swimming before breakfast instead. Since cold exposure works so well for me, I also tried adding some new routines (exercise, breathing, a glass of water). I could not make any of them as automatic as the cold shower. This year I even upgraded it by buying a water tub for my new flat, but somehow I still prefer the shower, which has a similar, constant temperature all year round.
5. Content websites
Last year I wrote that I had scaled back my activity on content websites, and this year I continued that trend. I did not create a single website, which is a first in all my time online. Even so, this year was financially the most successful in this area, and that is without counting how much these websites help me with link building, for example.
What did I change on my websites in 2024?
- gradually switching off AdSense
- two redirects and a clean-up
- the biggest earnings come from direct partnerships
- significantly fewer copywriters
- managed to get into Google Discovery
- not stressing over shortcomings
6. E-shops
One of my goals for 2025 is using content for e-shops. I got involved in two more e-shops where there is a lot of work to do. But I treat them purely as a playground where I try out different things. As with the content websites, I have reduced the time I spend here.
I still partly work on ZAKERI, which also grew by about 20% compared with last year, but it is still below both its potential and my expectations. Organic growth was slightly lower.
7. Conferences
After going freelance, industry conferences and meetups became even more important to me. This year I was definitely not lazy and tried to get out to something in Prague at least twice a month.
Apart from that, as has become a tradition, I attended the multi-day SEOloger naživo and SEO BootCamp.
Besides conferences, towards the end of the year I also started devoting quite a lot of time to professional learning, which I had otherwise neglected all year. In 2025 I would like to do better in this area.
And any challenges for 2025? I would definitely like to spend less time on my phone and in front of the TV. I feel that over the last 2 to 3 years I have increased my time on these devices far too much. If I can keep very good discipline when it comes to my work ethic, sport and finances, I can hopefully manage this “small thing” too. It probably will not work without tracking, though 🙂 I would also like to try more new things and places (in work and in life).
More year-in-review posts and their summaries:
Petr Krauz and his escape to the offline world
Bronislav Markowicz and his tips and lifehacks
Jan Polzer on web development and burnout
Jarda Pajskr and his life as an online marketer
Dála Musil and his life in Notion
Mário Roženský a jeho SupportBox
Lukáš Konečný and his turbulent year
To add your report, write to jsem@patrikpilous.cz
