The Interview

1. Where do you live?

I currently live between Birmingham and Barcelona.

Barcelona in particular has a massive SEO tech and entrepreneurial community, so it’s a great place to network when there.

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

I recently created Query Hunter, but my main focus is my agency FATJOE.

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

Query Hunter is a small hobby project, I’m spending most time working on FATJOE, developing SEO services and marketing them.

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

I had started building a few niche sites again this year and realised I was spending a lot of time in Google Search Console and refining content.

This means, looking at content that is ranking well, and seeing what queries it is already ranking for, and looking for opportunities to weave those into the content to bolster up the relevance for those queries.

The big opportunities are queries you’re ranking page 2 for, queries you’re getting a real low CTR for, or queries surrounding topics you don’t cover in your post.

This process takes a lot of tab switching, control and finding, copy and pasting, so I wanted to refine the process with a little WordPress plugin. The plugin augments the data in GSC with the post content.

Once you’ve set up, you don’t need to open GSC. You just go to the WP post you want to refine and you have all the data there, organised with the popular filters you’d need.

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

FATJOE the only real online business, this is 10 years old now. Others have been small side projects, including many niche sites and an old abandoned FBA project.

6. How many are you still running now?

My focus is FATJOE for 90% of the time, but I’m running around 5 niche sites right now, and use them mainly for experimentation.

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

I’ve sold a few niche sites in the past, but not for record breaking sums of money.

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

So many, more than I could possibly count. Mostly niche sites that have started and failed or been abandoned haha.

9. How much are you earning each month?

• $100,000+

10. What are your current streams of revenue?

• Affiliate Sales
• Link Building
• Content Services

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

• Relevant headings.
• Internal links.
• Refine content every 6 months using search console (or Query Hunter)

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

Query Hunter USP’s

1. In-line content refining
2. Augment GSC data with WP content
3. Built in query filters (page 2, questions, etc)

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

Finding lots of good writers for content site projects.

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

I outsource the development of the SaaS.

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

Should have launched in beta initially to stress test all the potential bugs.

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

Launching for free on Gumroad. Easily accessible and has meant I can build an audience for future updates. Donations have largely covered the development costs.

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

Highly recommend Twitter for networking and advice.

18. What’s your 12 month goal?

Grow 2-3 successful content sites to earn a significant side income.

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

Twitter.

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

Black Coffee

21. Where can people follow you?

@fatjoedavies – Twitter. Spend most time online there.

Editor’s Note: Be sure to check out Query Hunter as it’s a great tool to easily find ways to optimize and refine your content. It’s all within WordPress and the individual posts too, so you don’t even need to leave WP.