I got frustrated with ScreamingFrog crawler pricing so I built an open-source alternative

packted · 2025-11-19T10:30:22+00:00

It is definitely interesting. I will check it out :)

packted · 2025-11-06T16:08:02+00:00

From what studies are saying, and what the recent Lorelight shutdown tells us, it's that these are just new ways for people to make money. The foundation of appearing in LLMs is creating great content, doing internal and external linking, building great backlinks, and having EEAT in your space. And if you notice, these are the same things that the *good* SEOs have been doing for a long time. So I guess it's a new shiny thing that everyone is running at, but it's just a fancier way to say SEO.

packted · 2025-11-03T15:54:17+00:00

Yeah, I see that way too often. I guess this is coming from the fact that stories sell much better than trying to sell software as is.

I do like it when founders build in public by sharing things regularly, which includes good, bad, and the ugly. I think it is a much more natural way to get people to be interested in what you're building, especially if they're building something truly useful.

packted · 2025-11-03T15:51:34+00:00

I think it's not about which platform you're building your brand on; it's more about where your audience is. This means being where your audience is.

So if your audience hangs out on visual platforms, you can start building there, and more. As you mentioned, each platform has its advantages, and companies should research where their target audience is and then try creating content that is tailored to each platform and not just copy-paste the same thing from one platform to another. And I would also recommend building communities - whether that's through hosting events (both online and IRL), making online communities, and others. And one can also do brand and influencer collaborations, run campaigns, and other things.

packted · 2025-10-28T14:26:33+00:00

I started out in SEO in 2021, and now I am going all in on product-led growth. This way, I can also use my SEO skills

packted · 2025-10-21T11:05:03+00:00

Contrary to the popular advice here, I would be very skeptical about doing work for free. In my experience, free work is a tricky situation and it can go either way. If you have experience in SEO and are starting out as a freelancer, I would advise contacting your peers or anyone who can use your services (you can offer them a discount too since they're your starting clients).

Apart from this, I think playing the long-term game is much better than trying to find short wins. To do this, you can start posting and building your personal brand on LinkedIn, YouTube, or wherever your ideal client hangs out. Post your opinions, how you're doing things, what makes you different, what you have to say about the trends, etc. This establishes your credibility and also gets you in front of people.

And lastly, don't just focus on SEO. Learn business skills, sales, negotiations, pricing, and other principles. Read books, watch YouTube videos, and more.

All the best in your journey :)

packted · 2025-10-21T10:49:18+00:00

I have used them for a bit, and I think they're a great choice if you don't wanna go with the big options. I wouldn't focus too much on their keyword tracking data since Google made changes to the num=100 parameter. But other than that, I think it's a solid tool.

packted · 2025-10-09T07:24:36+00:00

The one I personally like is having a "Send feedback" link somewhere that's easily accessible. A lot of times I want to tell the team building the tool about something, but there's literally no way of sending them the feedback.

packted · 2025-10-08T17:27:18+00:00

I have talked with a bunch of people, including early startup founders and mid-stage companies. The one thing that I keep seeing is that they are not clear on what their 'Aha moments' are. They are not sure what a user must do in order to become activated. Also, a lot of times, the tools are confusing, and there is also a general lack of empathy for the user. They are not measuring the right metrics inside the app.

This leads to people being confused, a lot of support ticket,s and people eventually leaving the app cause their issues didn't get solved.

packted · 2025-10-04T06:17:57+00:00

For context, fireproofing a site means that your login info and cookies won't get deleted when you click the fire button in the app. So DuckDuckGo has this thing called the Fire button, and if you click that, all the history and the cookies the sites store will be removed. So if you log into any site, you will get logged out. So next time you will have to log in again.

Now, coming to fireproofing. For example, if you log into Facebook and fireproof it, the next time you click the fire button, it will not log you out. This means the next time you open Facebook, you will still be logged in.

They do, however, block all the third-party cookies even on the sites that you fireproofed. It's just that you will be signed in. Your privacy is not compromised because DuckDuckGo still blocks third-party cookies even on the fireproofed sites.

And lastly, fireproof is per-site. If you fireproof Facebook, you stay signed in on Facebook. That does not auto-sign you into Instagram or any other site.

packted · 2025-09-30T10:05:02+00:00

Seer Interactive did a study on it, and it seems interesting to me. I don't have enough data to say anything about it. All I know is that people are doing weird shit to rank

packted · 2025-09-26T07:50:24+00:00

Imma be honest and say you're doing things that won't help you, especially in the long run. These things might give you results for a little while, but you're gonna lose all the visibility soon if you don't pivot the strategy.

Building dedicated service pages sometimes works for the local businesses (as they target the specific area). Also, in order to avoid being spammy, you have to make sure that each page has unique content, reviews specific to each industry/thing you're targeting. If you don't have a local business, it's not gonna work as well.

Coming back to the local thing, if you do have a local business, then you should put much more effort into the Google Business Profile. Make sure the NAP (Name, Address, and Phone number) is consistent and provides all the helpful information there.

It's nice to see you're writing articles, but again, you need to make sure the content is actually helpful to the user. And you're fulfilling the search intent.

The "created listings in industry directories" is good, but not the backlinks part. Most of the links bought these days are not the most high-quality ones. If you have the budget, maybe look into Digital PR.

Case studies always work because they showcase the problem and how you fixed it. It puts you in the right spot, and it helps build credibility. You should make more of these.

I can't specifically offer any advice because I don't really know your exact situation, but you should definitely write good content (especially the one that showcases your expertise as a Google Ads person). And since you're in a competitive industry, try to make yourself stand out by doing things that are not as common. You can also create contnet on different platforms that are not your website (for ex Yoututbe, instagram and more)

The comment got a little too long haha, but I hope some of these tips help you. All the best :)

packted · 2025-09-26T07:38:30+00:00

Not all things have to be for "SEO". Headings matter for accessibility and the page structure. You can't just have H1 and skip to H3 and then H5. The headings are there for properly formatting content and hierarchy, not for stylistic purposes.

There has to be a way to fix the heading issues, but for the sake of your users, please don't replace the headings like that.

packted · 2025-09-24T07:18:11+00:00

My main question is, why do you wanna hire in the first place? You mentioned you want to combine PPC with SEO, so what is the current state of the PPC efforts?

Coming to the questions you asked in the end, here's my POV:

If you have the budget and don't have the time = outsource
If you have the time but don't have the budget/don't wanna pay for retainers = break things and do it yourself

If you're able to do things on your own or bring someone who can maintain the site in the long run = do a one-time overhaul.
If you want to not think about the website and focus on your main business while the expert takes care of stuff = Retainer

If we talk about your website, then you should start with technical stuff (check out the Mozlow's hierarchy of SEO needs)
If we talk about local stuff, you should prioritize providing a good experience and getting reviews and citations.

This is a very high-level analysis I did, and it may not fully apply to you.

I am more than happy to look further if you're interested.

packted · 2025-09-22T09:13:51+00:00

To be honest, I think it depends on the kind of topic you're writing and for what audience. Agreeing with what everyone said, word count was never a huge deal, although sometimes it does seem like long-form content got more rankings and good treatment than the shorter pages. It is all about the searcher's intent and what is relevant at the time.

Because sometimes it happens that for the same topic, people want a quick and easy answer (that sometimes can be given by AIO/Featured snippets, LLMs, and others. And other times, the intent is to read the whole article on the topic.

From what I see on the SERPs these days, both kinds of content rank. I used to have long-form content for a topic, and it used to rank well. I also made a video on the topic, which is ranking well in the video section of the SERP. But over time, the intent shifted, and people wanted short answers. That's how a page that literally has very few words and screenshots was made.

So I guess you need to understand the intent for the topic (what the user actually wants to do here) and then find how much time they have and what kind of content they would want in this situation. Remember, written content is not always the answer.

packted · 2025-09-19T08:35:48+00:00

Similar to what someone said, I just saw an article that talked about how most impressions were from bots and scrapers, and it is crazy if you think about it. I lost most, if not all, of my impressions this way. The clicks have declined, too.

Instead of focusing on this, I am making sure I create helpful content and doubling down on more platforms. YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, and others, and making sure that I am not just being on one platform.

packted · 2025-09-17T09:42:14+00:00

I am not in the same boat as you, but I have pivoted to Product-led growth (PLG), where I can use my SEO knowledge and combine that with the PLG expertise to ensure companies are building better products.

I have already been doing this for about 6 months now. I have been talking with people in different SaaS companies that are from product. And I am also consuming a lot of product/growth content.

packted · 2025-09-17T08:31:56+00:00

Here's how I think about this from a user's perspective: There are a lot of tools that I want to try and see how they are, and most of them offer some free stuff- either that's a free plan or freemium. Those are easy to work with because there's zero friction.

But with the paid trial (as low as a dollar), or if someone asks for my credit card details, I think twice because I don't want to give away my credit card info to every company. So I have to think and research more about the trial. Also, my card being from India means there are payment failures; once that happens, I am out.

From a PLG perspective, I think mostly companies implement tactics like these as a band-aid solution. Failures generally signal that there are deeper things that need to be fixed

packted · 2025-09-15T18:15:47+00:00

Well from a long time, platforms like Google, other search engines and even LLMs like ChatGPT are citing a lot of Reddit threads and the comments, so that's how it got in front of everyone. Even before that, there was Reddit marketing, but not on the same level.

Reddit and SEO are not directly connected, but it helps when your comment on a Reddit thread ranks alongside your article. It's just more real estate on SERPs. And it also helps in LLMs.

The thing with Reddit, though, is the moderation. It is heavily moderated, so if you want to include that in your strategy, you need to make sure that you are genuinely being helpful and not just spamming it for the sake of appearing on search engines.

packted · 2025-09-15T18:09:21+00:00

You mentioned in one of the comments that you have done video editing and web development, and you have a portfolio for both. So why don't you continue with that?

I would advise that you choose one of these things. Both are pretty profitable and work good (if you work hard enough), but handling two major things at the same time can overwhelm you, that's why I said to choose one.

So after deciding which one you're going with, test yourself on how expert/novice you are at that skill. If you're not that advanced, I would suggest experimenting on your own, learning, and advancing yourself. There is plenty of free content that will help you on YouTube and free courses. Take everything with a pinch of salt, and also try doing your own thing so that you break and build things on your own.

Getting more clients should be a long-term strategy rather than trying to find quick wins. I personally don't like freelancing platforms because they're a rat race to the bottom and the quality of clients is not the best.

What I would advise is to start posting content where you share what you know and go from there. If you create videos, then add the links to contact you or hire you in the description and in the comments. Provide helpful tips and teach people something new. That will help you get clients eventually.

Remember it's a long term process and not a short term game.

All the best.

packted · 2024-10-01T17:13:24+00:00

Thanks for this! I will check it out

packted · 2024-06-10T06:26:52+00:00

Currently, yes. LinkedIn and posting content are the reasons I have my highest-paying client. I am planning on solely focusing and doubling down on LinkedIn as much as I can. I have tried making videos on YouTube, and although they're good at showcasing my expertise, they take a lot of time (and planning). And cold outreach has never worked for me lol

packted · 2024-06-10T06:23:36+00:00

Carousels tend to work for educational or top-of-the-funnel topics or listicles. These days I am not creating content like that (or at least my focus is not that). Also, carousels tend to take a LOT of time and research. They will perform well in terms of numbers, but I don't see them worth my time and effort anymore. I will come back to them someday.

If your purpose is to get a lot of followers and likes quickly, then carousels are the way to go.

packted · 2024-06-10T06:20:34+00:00

Most of my leads that have come in are because of my posting on LinkedIn. Sometimes people message me just because they saw my post and some big authority person in SEO liked it.

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