From SEO Worker to $2400+/Month Revenue with POD in Just 4 Months: My Real Journey

From SEO Worker to $2400+/Month Revenue with POD in Just 4 Months: My Real Journey

Hello SEO community! I am Hoang, a genuine "SEO worker". Today, I would like to share the real-life story of my journey to build a POD (Print-on-Demand) empire, achieving more than $2400 per month in sales in just 4 months. Hopefully, the experience and lessons I have learned will help you avoid costly mistakes and find success in this field.

I. The First Stumble: The "Greedy Pony" and the Price to Pay

In June 2022, with overconfidence in SEO and AI tools, I plunged into the Personalized Gifts niche like everyone else. Looking at competitors with weak content and few backlinks, I think I have a firm grasp of the win. But life is not like a dream, my website kept "matting" for 6 months, keywords were always on page 3, page 4.

Causes of bitter failure:

1. Lack of plan and strategy: I do SEO in a "like and do" style, only focusing on AI content and backlinks, without a clear direction.

2. Neglecting the user experience: I didn't optimize the product personalization feature, the product photos were bad and heavy, and I couldn't compete with the competition.

3. Choosing a niche that is too wide: The niche of personalized gifts is extremely fiercely competitive, I am like a "fighting egg" with big players such as Goosby, 365 Canvas...

The price of subjectivity: 20 million VND "wearing a hat to leave", including money for web design, tools, payment gateways, backlinks,... and countless times and efforts.

II. Makeover and Rebirth: The Journey to Build the POD Empire

After a miserable failure, I was determined to "learn the Tao", invest in learning SEO methodically, and switch jobs to a POD company to accumulate practical experience. I researched Google guidelines, plowed down foreign SEO blogs, and most importantly, changed my mindset about SEO.

New Thinking - The Key to Success:

1. Choose a niche and a smart domain name: I focus on a narrower niche, choose a domain name that is easy to remember, relevant to the product, and has some good signals available on Google.

2. Build a website with breadth and depth: I create a coherent, content-rich website structure that covers every aspect of the product niche, making it easy for Google to appreciate and users to find information.

3. Keyword research and onpage optimization: I choose strategic keywords, optimize website structure, internal links, and especially optimize user experience on the store.

4. Create unique products and quality content: I invest in my own product design, using AI to create compelling product content, catalogs, and blogs, but always ensure naturalness and pass the AI test.

5. Get out of Google's "safe zone" quickly: I build quality content with regular frequency, combined with backlinks and drive traffic from Google News and Pinterest so that the website is quickly recognized by Google.

6. Entity Building and Backlink Strategy: I not only focus on the quantity but also on the quality of backlinks, building diverse entities, and smart internal links.

Results: After just 4 months, my website has regular orders, revenue exceeding $2400 per month, and more importantly, a solid foundation for long-term growth.

Final Thoughts: My journey is a testament to how success in POD SEO is not only technical, but also requires the right mindset and perseverance. Hopefully, my sharing will help you on the way to conquering POD. Good luck!

This article aims to help you have a better view of SEO POD, avoid losing money on courses that are not effective during difficult economic times, and at the same time support those who are looking to start or improve their POD project.

I. The first failure of SEO POD due to "greedy young horses"

In June 2022, I was quite confident in my SEO and content AI skills, so I decided to enter the Personalized Gifts market. Analysis of competitors and their metrics shows that they have few backlinks and product content is not optimized. I think this time will definitely be successful because I have invested effort in each product content and blog using AI. However, the reality was not as I expected, my website was stagnant for 6 months and the keywords were still flat on page 3 and page 4.

Here are some serious mistakes that I encountered:

1. No Specific Plan and Strategy: I do SEO according to emotions, only focusing on building content with tools and backlink entities without a clear plan.

2. Not Optimized User Experience and Personalized Features: My product page only has basic text and photos, while my competitors have a beautiful design and use clipart. The number of products on its store is much smaller than that of its competitors, and the images are duplicated because they are loaded from other sources.

3. Choose a niche that is too wide: The personalized gifts niche is too wide and highly competitive with many big competitors. I only have a few hundred products while my competitors have tens of thousands of products and strong advertising strategies.

The total loss for my first time was about 20 million VND, including the cost of web design, AI tools, building a payment gateway, and hiring collaborators.

II. The journey to build a POD store with a profit of > $1000 / month

After my first failure, I invested in in-depth SEO learning, re-researched SEO strategies, and made some major changes in my approach. Since joining POD company, I have helped the company's website grow 2-3 times more traffic. Here is my detailed itinerary:

1. Niche and Domain Mindset

• Select Niche: Depending on your goals and audience, you can choose a niche by product line (like t-shirts, canvas), theme (like NFL, Anime), or seasonal (like festive products). For each type of niche, it is necessary to have a suitable SEO strategy and seasonal optimization if necessary.

• Select Domain: Choose a domain name that is concise and easy to remember, and test its signal using search syntax to ensure it has good SEO potential.

2. Thinking About Building a Web with Breadth and Depth

• Width: Make sure that your website covers all topics related to the products you sell, from product types, materials, sizes, styles to trends and care.

• Depth: Provide detailed and useful content for each topic, for example, the product page should have detailed information about the type of shirt, material, size, style, and meaning.

3. Keyword research thinking, website structure, internal links, store optimization

• Keyword Research: Choose high-volume keywords for your product categories. The website structure should follow a silo model to make it easy to find and understand the content.

• Internal Link: Link product pages to homepages, product catalogs, and other related products to improve SEO.

4. Thinking about building products, content for products, cate, blog, EEAT

• Products and Content: Create high-quality product images and write engaging content. Use AI tools like Bard and ChatGPT to write content, combined with editing to avoid content being identified as AI entirely.

5. Quick Google Sandbox exit mindset within 1 month

• Content, Backlink, User: Provide a sufficient amount of quality content, build backlinks from high-quality sources, and attract users through media such as Google News and Pinterest.

6. Entity Thinking and Link Building

• Entity and Link Building: Build quality social entity profiles with rich descriptions. Link categories in a closed circle and use tools like Semrush and Ahrefs to search for keywords and build backlinks effectively.

Final thoughts

Although my achievements are nothing compared to other SEO experts, I hope that this sharing of personal experiences will help you in your SEO POD journey. I wish you success and achieve your goals. Constantly improve your skills and expand your knowledge to achieve worthy results.