Today I want to talk to you about the future of the blog.
Because it’s been a pretty difficult few months for me and I wanted to share some of that with you.
You see…
Over the last few months, I’ve been working hard on a number of changes that are designed to solve some of the most common problems of the blog.
And it was my goal to create the one stop resource for all things SEO, no matter what level you are at!
So, I am happy to announce that today marks the first day of that goal becoming a reality!
Here is a breakdown of the changes and what’s been happening behind the scenes…
What Will I Learn?
Welcome To Your New Home
The biggest change you might have noticed…
…is the homepage which used to look like this-
As you can see, it didn’t really make finding specific solutions for your problems easy.
It was just a list of recent posts and nothing else. It didn’t have YOU in mind.
The new homepage however-
IS designed with you in mind by making it easy to find solutions to your problems.
It also includes a number of testimonials and some key calls to action.
Find What You Need Easily
I also needed a better way to organise content beyond the default tag and category system of WordPress.
When I conducted my reader survey, I learned that you like SEO, Blogging and Make Money type content the most-
So with that in mind I created 3x new portal pages-
Each of these portals cater to a different audience and are designed to make it super easy to find the content you need-
And not only do these portals help users find what they need, they also help search engines find what they need as well.
These portal pages will serve as the content frameworks for the future.
Currently there are another 40 SEO tutorials written and ready to go, including 10x link building strategies. We are just waiting on the final few videos.
Once they are published, the SEO Portal will be the ultimate one stop resources for all things SEO no matter your level of experience.
I felt like the header had become “dated” and that the primary navigation was more confusing than helpful.
So the MyThemeShop team redesigned the header and primary navigation to solve that.
This is how it used to look-
And this is what it looks like now-
As you can see it’s much cleaner and less busy. That is in part to the deployment of the portal pages which made it easy to reduce a lot of the clutter.
Tomorrow I’ll be setting up a split test between showing my cartoon character in the header versus an actual photo of me.
+1000% Content Quality
I revamped the entire content production process on the blog with the support of full time staff including a graphics artist and a video editor.
Before I was just a one man band, but after consolidating last year – it’s time to start raising the bar on what is considered as “quality content”.
You might have noticed that the standards have already increased over the last few months.
Take a look at the new What Is SEO page for example-
Obviously you already know what SEO is, but click through and take a look.
That represents the new “style” of post moving forward.
In fact:
We also went through all 244 historical posts on the blog and updated them!
That included updating a bunch of text and images as well as adding table of contents, optimising for featured snippets and other styling.
Take a look at these posts for example-
That is the standard you can expect moving forward (and for all historical content too).
Oh and no more guest posts!
Faster Than Ever Before
One of the biggest problems that “creeped” it’s way in, was site speed.
Not only was the blog loading slower than ever before, but it was also doing badly in things like Google Pagespeed while delivering an average mobile experience.
This is how it was performing before-
But after a lot of testing and tweaking with various combinations of different plugins…
…I was able to make some significant improvements-
Here are the headlines-
- Average page size reduced by 62% (2,262KB vs 843KB)
- Average number of requests reduced by 59% (166 vs 68)
- Average load time reduced by 41% (6.4 seconds vs 3.8)
- Average mobile Google page speed score increased by 78% (28 vs 50)
- Average desktop Google page speed score increased by 29% (72 vs 93)
A lot of those improvements were made with WPRocket along with image compression from ShortPixel.
Take a look at my full WP Rocket review to learn how to set it up properly.
I hope all of that translates into a much more pleasant user experience for you.
Video Studio Construction (and DEMOLITION)
One of the biggest problems I had last year, was with my living and working arrangements.
I bought a house and made some changes including building an extension for a dedicated video studio.
I mean:
That’s the kind of content you said you wanted-
So I decided to build a dedicated space to cater for that which was a costly decision.
Because after 5 months of delays, I finally moved in.
And that’s when the real problem started, we discovered 3 separate risks to human life.
So after some heavy demolition–
Followed by some construction-
I finally have a space to work again.
If you have ever lived on a construction site, you’ll know that you can’t get 10 seconds of peace because of the constant banging, drilling and vibrations.
That was my daily life for months.
But now:
I have a peaceful working environment, which means I’ve been able to create a peaceful learning environment for you across the blog.
Hopefully I never have to go through something like that again.
Who Are You Again?
I’m just putting the finishing touches the new about page which will be published this week.
BUT:
If you want to learn more about me and who I am, you can take a look at the video below-
You know:
Just in case you forgot!
UPDATE: The new about page is live!
So What’s Next?
So with all of the changes live, you might be wondering what’s next?
Well let me tell you!
SEO Portal Development
Every month for the next 4 months, I am going to publish a new “section” on the SEO portal page.
At the moment, the first section is live which provides all of the base knowledge anyone new to SEO needs-
- What is SEO
- How do search engines work
- What are keywords
- Keyword research: everything you need to know
- The 7x types of keywords
- What are LSI keywords
- Google keyword planner
Next month I am going to publish the on page SEO section, then the link building section and so on.
This content marks the culmination of nearly 14 months of planning and execution and it’s my goal to provide the most comprehensive, organized and highest quality SEO tutorials on the internet.
And most importantly, everything will be FREE!
Google Image SEO Discoveries
Members of my private Facebook group know that I’ve spent the last few months experimenting with Google Images.
After building ~30 test sites and 9 experiments I’ve learned a lot-
- How to control image search rankings for virgin keywords and low-medium competition keywords
- 2x new optimisation factors that no one has ever spoken about (nor can I find reference to anywhere)
- Barely anyone pays attention to Google Images – but for many results, it’s easy to appear as an image result
At this point I can comfortably say that with my final strategy I can rank any image #1 for any medium-low competition keyword.
I haven’t yet failed to rank anything #1 but I am going to try some heavy weight keywords like “mortgage” and “credit card” soon.
In fact, not only can I control the #1 spot – but I can also control the #2 and #3 spots just by under optimisizing the strategy I apply. I can literally choose which image I want to rank in which top #3 positions.
How did I figure this out?
I just built a ton of test sites and test cases, each designed to isolate a single ranking factor.
After finding out the best way to optimise for each individual ranking factor, I combined those learnings into 1 strategy.
I’ll be releasing a free plugin for you to take advantage of my image optimisation discoverys soon.
But That’s Not All…
While that’s all I am willing to reveal publically at the moment.
I also have a number of other things in development like a free desktop based link building tool that will help you to build high quality links from real websites.
And well….
I’m not willing to reveal any of the other plans yet. Make sure you strap in because I’m here to flip things upside down.
The New Generation of SEO
And last but not least…
…I want to introduce you to the new generation of SEO-
He was registered on October 1st 2018.
Naturally:
He already has his own blog and personal domain name.
The new generation of SEO is here.
I want to extend an extra special THANK YOU to all of my readers, without you – this blog wouldn’t be possible.
Please let me know what you think of the changes in the comments below.
168 Responses
Very Nice Blog.
Thanks very much Anjna
Nice blog posting.
Thanks Saiful, much appreciated.
Well, there are only some websites and blogs, I ever read. I find the reader-capturing capability in only some, including yours. I loved your ideas and was mesmerized by the way you represented them.
Thanks Steve! Hope you find what you need.
A great information you have shared keep it up.
Thanks Zeenat
Congratulations brother
Thanks a lot :)
Congrats for become a [email protected]!!!
Thanks very much :)
I get a good idea for my website… Thanks a lot
Great news!
Congratulations Matthew!
The Best
Cheers!
So much give….you are the man. Thank you.
Hey Leon! No worries :)
Hi Mathew,
Well done, innovation is key; waiting eagerly to be part of the new blog site looks and functions.
Thanks for the announcement.
Thanks very much Pat! I hope you like it.
Congratulations! And thanks for keeping us engaged in your content.
Thanks Reena!
You are the best!! Go ahead.
Many thanks for your magic.
Haha – thanks very much :)
I really appreciate all your work and the help and information you give. It is very beneficial, thank you so much.
Congratulations on becoming a Dad and your new home!
Happy I can help Tom. Thanks :)
Congrat Mat Awesome work and congrat for the new born, it s always a pleasure to read and follow you
Thanks very much Amine! I’ve got plenty more on its way… articles, not children haha
At first, I thought you were going to say the blog is closing! Glad to see that wasn’t the case and that you have an ambitious future for the blog and you’re brand.
Congrats on becoming a dad! And I look forward to following you’re next chapter.
Haha no Stuart, very much the opposite! Thanks :)
You have really put 110% into the site and the content upgrades. The end result is fantastic and I am sure the improved UX is going to help bump your website up in the rankings and more important be a better experience for your website visitors.
There is not one thing that you showed that is not improved and your new studio is like a wet dream for anyone using videos as a part of their business (and who isn’t these days?).
I really was intrigued by the research that you are putting into ranking images. This is a backdoor to more free traffic and, of course, leads and sales too. I will be following you closely on this…
Overall, you have converted the website from a VW Beetle into a Porsche and I can appreciate all the work you have done each time I stop in, thanks for that! Congratulations on the end result, it looks super and you’ve added a ton of value too!
Hey Dave, thanks very much. It’s been a long hard slog but I am pleased with the results and excited with whats in the pipeline :)
Nice work.Please keep up the intensity and focus on direction as well as target of development.
Oh I will be, thanks Lokesh
Congratulations, the new generation of SEO is super cute.
Look forward to more awesome content from you. Thank you.
Thanks Charmi and there’s plenty of content on its way!
Congratulations – son’s birthday. I know that he will be like his dad who always help people provide the right information to solve our Internet problems.
Thanks very much :)
You are an inspiration to me since i discovered your website, thanks for the knowledge you impacted on me, and congrats on your new home, baby and the new redesign website. Keep it up mentor.
Thanks very much Thomas!
Someone once asked a question about the most valuable personalities in online marketing. Took me a while to figure this out, but here’s what I think.
SEO MVPs (in alphabetical order):
1. Brian Dean
1. Matthew Woodward
2. Neil Patel
Top Internet Marketing Gurus
1. Neil Patel
Thanks for including me in your top 3. Just gotta get to number 1 :)
Same here but I just want to add more ( my experience). I am nobody to judge anyone. I am just doing the advocacy of three people. I am a strong advocate of three. because –
1. Brian Dean – Great Article
2. Neil Patel – Personally solve my all doubts
3. Matthew Woodward – Both
I am lucky to find this blog while searching for PBN. I was shocked when I see the articles on this blog. I mean Amazed Waoooo
I do not have money to join SEO classes so I learn whatever these three people write on the blog. I wish I would start in 2009 instead of doing computer science. I think I am late. Now I came to know that my interest is in SEO when I already spent 30 years searching for my career or life.
Thanks Nishant! It’s never too late!
No more guest posts! Awesome!
I’ve been reading this blog since 2013 and the one thing that turned me off most for the past two years has been that the guest posts just didn’t contain the same depth that your own posts do.
Looking forward to the new blog!
Thanks Sean, the future is bright :)
Thank you for sharing and including myself in your blog consideration congrats on the new blog, new house and the new baby. you always share your info free and may God continue to bless you.
Thanks very much Terence.
Hello Matt,
Very good work with the site. It is looking very good. It was time for an update :)
Dragos
Thanks Dragos, it certainly was!
I also want to work like you as a successful blogger
Well you best get cracking then :)
Nice upgrade sir! Your blog has been a very big resource for me. Have been following you from onset of my blogging career and I must say you have put a lot of hard work in this blog and am glad it is paying off. Looking forward to climbing this same ladder
Thanks very much, hope to see you at the top!
Congratulations on all things good. Stay Blessed
Cheers Ubed!
Congrats on the new add!
Cheers Rob :)
Hey Matt well done on the new seo addition. The blog is looking fantastic and being an avid follower and reader of your material im looking forward to listening to you speak in Chiang Mai with my son is is also now an web designer, Seo and FB ads lead generator.
Thanks Paul! Will see you both there!
you are doing an amazing job, Matthew, can’t thank you enough for your inspiration. Keep up the great work
Glad I could help and thanks very much :)
Yes to TEAM DAD! Welcome aboard!
just starting the moving house process myself and redevelopment of my blog – will be checking in to see what else changes – thanks for the great content too by the way!
Thanks a lot Martin! It’s been one hell of a ride :)
Hey Matthew!
I am really exited about upcoming and already released changes.
And, of course, congrats on becoming a dad!
Wish you all the best!
Hey Petro, yes I’m very excited to show everyone the next sections too :)
Matthew, congratulations! And super nice work on the site….
Thanks a lot Arlen!
Did you check your blog in safari? A lot of your images don’t show up there.
Your new image format does not have mass browser support.
Oh snap, you’re right! That should be fixed now!
Thanks!
Matthew Woodward, you are an awesome human being.
Thanks Terry!
Congratulations Matt! Really looking forward to seeing you in Chiang Mai this year :)
I’ll see you there!
Very impressed by the effort that went into the upgrade and the images testing. Cannot wait to learn more about that from you and dominate my search terms!
Thanks Ryan!
Hey Matt, Congratulations on being a new dad. Love Matt 3.2 and the changes. Great you’ll have more video. Looking forward to seeing where you take your site next.
I’m looking forward to showing you!
Matt, this will be my first comment on here, but I’ve been following your blog religiously since it’s launch. To say I’m proud of you is an understatement. What you have built is incredible, and what you are building now is even MORE incredible!
You have made me a much better SEO, and at my most recent startup stint, we ranked over 700k high-value keywords using many of the strategies outlined in this blog.
I also became a papa in December! Isn’t it amazing??
Cheers, mate. Looking forward to more, and I promise to interact more from here on out.
Ohhhh thanks for commenting Mark. Glad I finally persuaded you :)
Congratulations with your success, keep up the good work!
Not a critic, but a suggestion…I think comments should de dated, as this way one puts into perspective when the comments were placed. Sometimes a certain comment would make sense or be useful a year earlier, but not in the current time.
Good feedback thanks I will take a look!
I think I have been following your blog since way back in 2012(ish). I can’t thank you enough for everything I have learned along the way! Congrats on the next generation of SEOs and all the best in the future!
Thanks Laurie glad to have you on board!
Wow these are great moves and really inspiring. One of the reasons why I have been following this blog for more than six years now is that you try everything possible to give readers the quality contents they are looking for.
Once again, this is awesome. Thumb up.
Thanks – I intend to raise the bar even more!
Congrats on the new babies. I pray that the little guys grows healthy and strong, and smart and kind. The new site, kudos. Looking forward to growing with you.
Cheers Daniel! Let’s see what the future holds…
Hello friend, I’m from Chile.
all your projects are good, success
Gracias amigo!
I really liked your picture instead of the cartoon… and congrats on your new baby!
Thanks, I am going to test :)
Congrats specially on your copy abilities that dragged me to the site and down the article, I can notice your continuous improvement, keep the good work. Cheers
Hahaha and eventually into a comment :P
Awesome. Well done, it seems you’ve been busy in more ways than one (them!). Keep up the good work.
Haha very true!
I wwant these image SEO secrets! Waiting for you plugin…
MWahaahahaha!
What a year! Congratulations on the New Generation. Looking forward to the new age insight.
Thanks Patrick!
Yeah man, loving the changes, I can see it must have been a mountain of work, but the results will speak for themselves! Your little one is so cute too. Excited to see the next evolution
Yes it sucked to say the least hahaha
The best part of this amazing update is the ‘new generation of SEO’ and the blog he is having. Really Great Matthew.
Keep putting the great value as you do and all the best for the future plans. Great Job
Hahahah yeah the SEO world should be scared!
This is really great. The whole revamping thing with your site.
And I can say I really love the new design. Makes locating content easier.
Your blog has really helped me a lot. And I want to say thank you.
I could not win anything in your recent giveaway but was able to get SEO powersuite at a huge discount. You made my wish come through.
Thank you.
Again.
Thanks Chidi! I hope to continue serving the community!
Hi Matt, hats off to you for all the great changes – and congrats on your newest addition to the team :). I’m a good bit older than the little fella and have bouts of thinking i’ll never be able to master SEO, so it’s great to see the site has a section for relative beginners. Cheers
Hahaha practice (and fucking things up) makes perfect
Who cares about the blog – Welcome to the new world of being Dad.
Must have been awful to live on a construction site with a newborn around.
All the best to the 3 of you
Thanks Tommy!
Congratulations – you realise nothing else is as important as your little one.
Can you clear something up though re the site , when you say ‘portal’ do you mean a wordpress category ?
Im going through a similar process with my business site re speed metrics etc – did you use generic theme ie like genesis theme or was yours custom built ?
No the portal pages are static WordPress pages
Wow… so many wonderful changes. The blog is even more beautiful and very easy to navigate. The next few months look amazing already.
And most of all … Congratulations, the new generation of SEO is super cute.
Thanks Leonarado!
Many Congratulations,
Welcome to the club of work from home dads (your neighbors will think your a bum or living off a inheritance!)
Hahaha true story!
Baby, extension and blog revamp. Brave man. :)
Tired man, very very very tired man!
The changes look great Matt!
Look forward to more great stuff from you.
And congrats on becoming a dad!
Tired man, very very very tired man!
Congratulations Matt!
Thanks Rich!
Great blog layout and explanations as usual! Love the way you design it whit uex in mind!
I dint knew you had a baby to deff will check out his blog, where can we find his blog? ;), congrats DAD!
Its internal for now
Matt your blog has helped me a ton. Credit where credit is due, you’ve killed it. Great to hear more about your plans in the future and your plugin coming out soon. Congrats with the baby!
Thanks Tom, plenty more to come!
btw you have a type under “success stories” under ‘about me’
It’s spelt ‘storys’ it should be ‘stories;
Good spot, thanks!
Marvellous – Thank you :-)
No problem Mike :)
Nice one Matthew!
Thanks Eze!
Hi
First and foremost congratulation on the birth of your child!
Secondly, I’m so glad you have added the menu features. Sometimes I used to get, lost looking for specific articles but now they are placed via topics it should be much easier to navigate through.
Everything you’ve changed seems a great improvement.
Good luck with the future Mark
Thanks Reece, yes hopefully it’s a better experience for every one
Hi Matthew, your site is looking great and I really like the changes – much easier to follow! My site is fairly new but I have bookmarked yours for reference as I know it will be a big help.
I know you mentioned about split testing your logo – I think the image of you speaking on your YouTube channel header looks professional if you have that image in mind.
Cheers and congrats on becoming a Dad,
Loretta
Thanks Loretta, yes I will give that image a try and a couple of others to see what clicks
I did not think it could get much better. Looking forward to what comes next, especially with images and link building help.
Have you got a post lined up that shows how to find and stop crap backlinks, and why people link to just an image on a website rather than to a post? Are they stealing bandwidth etc? That would be great.
I am getting over 100 backlinks a day and most of them are of no value at all.
Cannot wait for more…
I wouldnt worry about crap backlinks anymore and a link to an image is still a backlink!
I love the new format, and it is great to see you enjoying being a family man and bringing your little dude on board. Made me smile and brightened my day :)
Thanks Julia!
Congratulations with your baby!
Thanks Peter!
I have followed you for ages and have learned such a lot along the way. Congrats on the baby and on the revamp of the website – it certainly does look a lot cleaner.
Super excited to see what you dream up next as the Illuminati of the world of the internet – for me at least.
Building work is always noisy and glad you are getting some peace for your family. Good luck too going forward.
Thanks Ian, lots of things are in the fire!
Congratulations on your sons birth. Well if he turns out like his dad he will
be one of the good guys !
Nice layouts too. Many thanks for all the “good” information that you share Matthew.
Haha thanks Bonnie!
Hello
If you are not revealing your image optimization strategy than you waste my 12 minutes bcz its core of whole post any way other stuff is also good
waiting for image SEO part
If you want it early before the rest of the world, it’s available for $5,000 or if you want exclusive rights it’s available for $25,000.
Your work ethic is so cool man.
I’ve been following you for years. Thanks for everything
Thanks Nicolas! Theres no substitute for hard work!
Thank you for sharing the improvement methods. I am too working on improving my site in term of navigation, content, and SEO. Hopefully will have some positive result.
No problem Neelam. I hope so too.
Congrats on your son, Matthew! I’m also happy to hear all your hard work is paying off :)
Thanks Davina!
Man I have always thought that you are a single person but you have a baby dude.
Happy day..
Haha yes I do!
Congrats Matthew, and I always like to read your posts, Cheers!
Glad to hear it and thank you.
Congratulations Matthew!
You are a daddy now. May the baby bring fortunes to your life.
Thanks Chandra
Congratulations Matt for becoming a dad.
I look forward more awesome content from you.
Your new studio looks cool.
Just wanted to ask if you would be open to sharing your studio set-up details. Could be helpful for those who might be planning to have their own studio.
Thanks!
You can find everything here https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/tools-of-the-trade/
Congrats on becoming a dad and the Looking forward to the new seo content:-)
Can’t wait to publish it :)
Wow!!! Really looking forward to seeing these developments. As always you are so helpful and generous in your approach to helping people with their SEO.
I look forward to utilizing the free tools you’re working on.
Thank you Matthew.
No problem Brian – hope they prove really useful
Dude you had a baby? That’s awesome! Welcome aboard “Team Dad”!
Thanks Josh!