The Interview

1. Where do you live?

Chicago! It’s an amazing place to start your own business. Reasonable cost of living, cool culture, and so many resources at your disposal!

I’ve been co-hosting the Chicago Indie Hacker meetup for about a year and we’re building a great community of bootstrappers and builders here. 

2. When did you start creating content and your SaaS? What is the name of your SaaS?

I first started my blog and “building in public” at the beginning of 2020 when I launched my first project, Fantasy Congress. Each month I wrote re-caps sharing what I earned, what I accomplished, and my goals for the next month. Even now, I continue doing these monthly retrospectives and building in public.

My main focus today is a SaaS called PageFactory, a tool that helps people generate and publish content for programmatic SEO without code.

Ironically, PageFactory started as a piece of content. I had dabbled with programmatic SEO for Fantasy Congress, and wanted to explore it further with a new project. This led me to write a blog post about experimenting with programmatic SEO in the fall of 2021, which gained a lot of traction.

The attention I got from this blog post made realize there was a real need for help in this space. So this spring, I put my personal page generator tool online, shared it on Twitter, and this eventually morphed into what is now PageFactory. 

3. Are you working full-time on your SaaS?

For the moment, I’m working on PageFactory full time. I support myself through consulting and contracting. Typically I do long term, part time contacts. My last contract ended at the beginning of the year, and I’ve been stretching my savings in order to make the most progress with PageFactory. But I’ll be looking for a new gig soon. So, I sort of jump between part-time and full-time with my personal projects. 

4. What was the “Click” that made you decide to start your SaaS?

When people started offering me money to build pages with programmatic SEO on their websites. I realized if people were this eager to hire me to perform this service, surely they would love a tool that would allow them to do it themselves. 

5. How many niche sites and/or online businesses have you created?

A handful, you could say. Sometimes it’s hard to remember all of them. Say around 5 – 6. 

6. How many are you still running now?

The only two I’m actively developing right now are PageFactory and Garden Auntie (my niche gardening website that I used for my initial programmatic SEO experiment). But most of the others still exist. I like building things that I can take a break from when necessary. 

7. Have you sold any sites or online businesses? And what was the ROI like?

I have not. Selling small sites is becoming more popular, so I’m considering it more and more. 

8. How many sites or online businesses have failed or not gotten going?

Probably about 2 – 3. I learned quickly to do my research before investing in something, and to ship small and ship often!

9. How much are you earning each month?

• $0 – $1,000

10. What are your current streams of revenue?

• Affiliate Sales
• Software (SaaS)

11. For content, what are your Top 3 on-page SEO strategies?

For me, it’s really about nailing the basics.

1. Putting keywords in all the right places, such as headings, the page url, the meta description, etc.

2. Getting a green Google Lighthouse score, or at least above an 80. This usually means optimizing images and scripts so the page loads super fast.

3. Understanding the search intent and answering the user’s query as best as possible.

It seems simple, but it really works for me. No wild tricks. Just mastering the basics and knocking them out of the park again and again. 

12. For your SaaS, what are your Top 3 USPs?

When people started reaching out to me for help with programmatic SEO, I noticed a few common issues. These became the cornerstone of what PageFactory is today:

1. The ability to integrate programmatic SEO into existing websites, especially those hosted on WordPress. Most people are interested in programmatic SEO because they already have an established product and website they want to grow.

2. The ability to generate content programmatically without any kind of technical knowledge. PageFactory is intended for the “no-code” audience. It keeps things simple so you can get to writing and publishing quickly, instead of trying to learn the ins-and-outs of another tool.

3. And lastly, PageFactory is made by someone who has built a successful website with programmatic SEO. I’m serving a community that I’m a part of, which makes it easier to understand my user’s problems and guide them to a solution. My passion for the product is deeply rooted in being a niche site builder myself. 

13. What’s the biggest issue(s) that you’re facing today?

In terms of SEO, programmatic SEO is a pretty technical strategy. It’s not right for everyone or every product. It’s new, so most people aren’t that well versed with it. So there’s a huge learning curve to getting started with programmatic SEO. It’s hard selling a tool that can help people do a thing, but first they need to learn what that thing really is.

14. What tool(s) do you rely on the most?

I use Evernote for all my note taking and todo lists. I love it. It’s very simple and clean. I know everyone loves Notion these days but personally I find it overwhelming. 

15. What has been the biggest mistake you’ve made in creating content / SaaS?

Not validating before jumping in head first! Always, always do you research!

16. What has been the best decision you’ve made in creating content / SaaS?

With PageFactory, I decided to use a SaaS boilerplate called SaaS Pegasus in order to build the application. It made the development process so much faster. 

17. What’s one thing that you felt accelerated your journey the most?

Shipping small and shipping often. PageFactory started with a single blog post, and snowballed from there. 

18. What’s your 12 month goal?

In 12 months I’d like to see PageFactory somewhere between $5k – $10k MRR. And hopefully by this time I’d have some success stories from my users as well!

19. How do you stay up to date on SEO, affiliate marketing, display ads, and other news?

Twitter! It’s an amazing resource for news and community. 

20. What do you eat or drink for fuel to keep going?

I have a weakness for oat milk lattes from the coffee shop down the street from me. They take so much of my money. 

21. Where can people follow you?

• Blog: allisonseboldt.com
• Twitter: @allison_seboldt

Editor’s Note: Be sure to join the PageFactory Waiting List as it will be launching very soon!