NOVEMBER 19, 2021

Welcome to The Tilt, a twice-weekly newsletter for content entrepreneurs. Each edition is packed with the latest news, strategies, and tactics, plus inspiring creator stories and exclusive education, all to help you create, grow, and monetize better.

Features in this issue (view online):


full tilt

SEO for Content Creators Who Want To Build an Audience

Every content entrepreneur creates and distributes content with the goal of building a loyal audience.

But no matter how many followers you have on Twitter, you never truly own the platform or the audience. And that’s one of the four factors that separates successful content entrepreneurs from the rest.

To build audiences for your newsletters, blogs, membership programs, etc., on your owned channels, you can leverage SEO – search engine optimization.

Creating valuable content consistently is only the first step. You also need:

  • Traffic from people who are interested in reading and viewing your content, and
  • Conversions from that traffic, indicating that visitors found your content valuable enough to subscribe to your channel, buy a product, visit another page on your site, etc.

SEO can help you attract traffic to your relevant, high-quality content who are more likely to take the action you want them to take. That’s probably why, according to The Tilt’s 2021 content entrepreneur benchmark research, SEO (56%) is the most frequently used tactic by content entrepreneurs.

Tilt Advice

The search engine behemoth Google crawls and indexes the pages on your website. It gives a limited time to each site, so be sure to set up your site to maximize that analysis.

Get to the content in less than 3 clicks

A clear and simple site structure is a must. It improves the user experience and decreases the bounce rate from the website.

Make every important page of your site accessible within no more than three clicks from the home page. This is called flat site architecture.

Promote relevant content on your site

Internal links are an often ignored yet powerful way to indicate your site’s topic authority to Google (and your audience). They encourage the visitors to click to go to another page on your site that contains content that they might be interested in.

Internal links can take several formats – anchor text, standalone mentions of related content, and category sidebars built into the site.

Submit a sitemap to Google

Make it easier for search engines to understand which pages are most important on your site by creating a sitemap. You don’t have to be a coder or tech expert to create helpful sitemaps. If you’re a WordPress user, you can create it using plugins like YoastSEO, RankMath, etc., then submit it to Google Search Console.

Building your fans on rented places like Twitter or Facebook may be good for the short term. But having owned channels is the safest and sustainable strategy that every content entrepreneur should follow.

– Sk Rafiqul Islam

To learn more about SEO, writing calls to action that convert, and how to know if they’re converting, read the longer story.


content entrepreneur spotlight

Making A Career From Career Advice: How Alex Fasulo’s Freelance Career Made Her Famous

Entrepreneur: Alexandra Fasulo

Biz: Alex Fasulo: The Freelance Fairy

Tilt: Teaching how to earn high freelance income

Time to First Dollar: Less than five months

Channels: TikTok (544.8K), YouTube (23.9K), Instagram (150K), MentorCamp

Rev Streams: Google AdSense, TikTok Creator Fund, sponsorships, workshops

Our Favorite Actionable Advice:

  • Do what you do: Alex found inspiration to create a content business from a topic she was already living – freelancing.
  • Stop the fear: Don’t delay publishing or posting your content because of what you fear others may think. Not everyone has to like it.
  • Add a repurpose fee: Alex has seen creators add a clause in their contracts requiring additional payment if the brand uses the content in more ways than the original posting.

– Kelly Wynne

To learn about Alex’s beginnings, why she prefers the anonymity of Fiverr, and her advice for content entrepreneurs, check out the longer story.

Know a content creator who’s going full tilt? DM us or reply to this email.


quick talk

Caught on … Twitter

Web 2 = I’m gonna make it. Web 3 = We’re gonna make it.” – Ellio Trades


things to know

Money
  • Pay up: Creators in YouTube AdSense program already know it takes weeks to see the monthly revenue they earned in their bank account. Creative Juice wants to help change that. Its new Juice Boosts’ program advances creators’ earnings up to 30 days before they’re due. (tubefilter)
    Tilt Take: Delayed payments of earned revenue can be problematic for early-stage entrepreneurs who need the money to support themselves. This alternative could be helpful.
  • Now you know: The U.S. Internal Revenue Service now requires payment apps like PayPal and Venmo to report all transactions for goods and services totaling at least $600 as part of the America Rescue Plan. (Fox 19 Now)
    Tilt Take: Your business revenue accessed through payment apps always needed to be reported on your taxes. Now, the IRS will know if you don’t.
Audiences
  • PayPal gaffe: PayPal never bought Pinterest, but it should have – not for its advertising business model but for its audience of 444M people who could have been potential users of PayPal. (Prof Galloway; h/t Chris Conner)
    Tilt Take: Hear, hear! It’s another reminder that content businesses have (or are building) a tremendous asset – their audiences.
  • Import big: Medium now lets its users import email addresses from other platforms. (Medium)
    Tilt Take: It’s smart for Medium creators and Medium itself – keeping a single source of truth for your subscribers is critical and it’s good business for Medium to be that host.
Tech and Tools
  • Sewn up: Twitter acquired Threader, an app that lets readers compile Twitter threads and share them. Users who reply to the thread, tag the “threader’s” profile, and write “compile,” get a shareable link for an easy-to-read format (created by the Threader bot). (Tech Crunch)
    Tilt Take: The thread-sharing links can be helpful for creators who publish content from their own platforms and/or on other social channels too.
  • Living longer: Instagram is letting Live Stories live forever. Since their debut in August, Live Stories would disappear when they ended. Now, Instagram lets users save the video to the camera roll or gallery on their phone, so they can share on other platforms. (Inc.)
    Tilt Take: It’s an attractive option for creators who don’t like to create one-and-done posts. Now, you can repurpose your Instagram Live Stories. (One note: The audience comments and reactions are not saved.)
And Finally
  • Plan your exit: Substack and other newsletter platform creators are finding it challenging to migrate to other platforms. They have to deal with refunds, reader criticism, and more. (Vanity Fair)
    Tilt Take: As fans of planning your exit strategy when you launch your business, we think it’s smart to plan your platform exit before you ever start on it.
  • Wired up: Gen Z is getting wired. Though earbuds aren’t out, wired headphones are definitely in. They even have their own dedicated Instagram account: WiredItGirls. (Mashable)
    Tilt Take: As long as they’re listening to your content, the mode doesn’t matter.


we’re a stan for Roshida Dowe

On Shida’s On The Loose, Roshida Dowe teaches burned-out millennials how to take sabbaticals without hurting their future career aspirations. Roshida became an expert at grown-up gap years after a surprising layoff. She chose to travel and visited 23 countries.

As she reflected on her travels online, an outpouring of support led to a new gig Shida’s On The Loose, as well as online life coaching. Roshida earns anywhere between $3K and $5K a month between the coaching and frequent YouTube video uploads.

Why we’re a Stan: Roshida shows you can build a content business that earns a moderate income without having millions of fans. We also love her tilt – grown-up gap years.

– Shameyka McCalman


the business of content


the tilt team

Your team for this issue: Joe Pulizzi, Ann Gynn, Laura Kozak, Marc Maxhimer, and Dave Anthony, with an assist from Sk Rafiqul Islam, Kelly Wynne, Shameyka McCalman, and Don Borger.