Why did I start thrivemyway.com?

Having spent years as a freelancer, building strategies and creating content for various clients since 2017, I had gathered a wealth of experience. This journey led me to an offer from SEMrush to establish their link-building team from scratch. While the opportunity provided a vast budget and substantial resources, the corporate structure required approvals for every action, which stifled my need for agile execution. Frustrated by these constraints and inspired to have autonomy in my creative process, I decided to launch my own platform, ThriveMyWay.com. Driven by a desire to innovate on my own terms, I used the insights and savings from my time at SEMrush to boldly establish my website, aiming to manage it exactly as I envisioned.

Content creation strategy

In September 2021, I initiated ThriveMyWay with a clear strategy: produce a high volume of quality content. To achieve this, I hired multiple writers at competitive rates by streamlining the content creation process. I developed detailed outlines for each article, including H2 headers and provided precise video briefs using Loom, which detailed exactly what each article should cover. This method allowed me to reduce costs significantly—paying writers around $0.04 per word—by simplifying their task to mainly research and write, without the burden of keyword discovery or topic development. By December, this efficient process resulted in the publication of 200 articles, setting a solid foundation for the website’s growth.

Why this strategy doesn’t work anymore?

Reflecting on the past, my process for creating content involved spending approximately $40 for a 1000-word article, with an average overall cost of $80 per piece for high-quality, well-optimized content from native-speaking writers. Today, the landscape has changed dramatically. With advancements like ChatGPT, coupled with efficient processes and a virtual assistant, the same caliber of content can now be produced for about $25. This cost reduction is achieved through the use of virtual assistant services averaging around $8 per hour, significantly lowering the financial barrier to creating quality content.

301 redirect from DigitalNovas to ThriveMyWay

I decided to merge my existing website, Digital Novas, with ThriveMyWay. This involved setting up 301 redirects from Digital Novas to ThriveMyWay, significantly boosting traffic and jumpstarting the new project. I prepared for the SEO migration by creating a checklist and systematically mapping out the redirects. This strategic integration helped retain valuable SEO assets, like over 2,000 backlinks from nearly 800 domains, and maintained the content’s ranking strength, ensuring a smooth transition and sustained performance on the new site.

If you are interested in learning more about how I did the redirect step-by-step – I published a guest post on Cloudways.

The result after the redirect started kicking in:

The Link Building part

Strategy 1: Guest Posts

Initially, I leveraged my relationships with editors and bloggers. Before the AI era, bloggers were eager for well-researched content that would rank well on Google, which I provided for free in exchange for a backlink. I also facilitated backlinks to and from my partners, which significantly boosted my network. After that, those friends and partners were eager to link back to me.

Examples:

Strategy 2: Creating Linkable Assets

Instead of creating new research, I accessed extensive databases like Statista and repurposed that data into engaging blog posts filled with useful statistics. These posts became go-to resources for journalists looking for data on specific topics, leading to high-quality backlinks to my site.

Examples:

Strategy 3: Capitalizing on Trends

By quickly adapting to trends, like during the mobilization of Russian men due to the conflict in Ukraine, I created timely and relevant content that captured immediate interest. I shared these insights with major media outlets, securing backlinks from prominent sources like FAZ. Similarly, post-COVID, I researched changes in the travel industry, which also garnered significant media attention and backlinks.

Examples:

These strategies not only built a strong backlink profile but also established ThriveMyWay as a highly authoritative site in a remarkably short period.

Mistakes

Enough bragging.

Let me tell you the mistakes I made in 2022:

  • ❌Didn’t publish much content. Very few newly published posts from May to October.
  • ❌Decided to delete all our social media accounts – stupid idea.
  • ❌Neglected website speed and UX issues – Big Mistake.

This resulted in a hit by the December Google update. Just 1 day before Christmas. Thanks for the Christmas present, Big G. I’ll always appreciate it.

As you can see from the GSC screenshot above, in the March update we started growing our traffic again! But that’s not a coincidence. In January we busted our asses updating all our posts.

Those are the actions we took in January to improve the website:

  • ✔️Website Speed and UX issues.
  • ✔️Created new social media profiles.
  • ✔️Started a massive content update.

What content updates have we made?

  • ✔️Included a story in as many posts as possible.
  • ✔️Included a Pro Tip in each post.
  • ✔️Re-wrote and optimized titles.
  • ✔️Improved formatting and structure of the articles: Bullet points, shorter paragraphs, and more numbered steps in the posts.
  • ✔️Identify and include at least one new secondary keyword for each post and put it in the title.
  • ✔️Targeted featured snippets and optimized some posts to catch them.
  • ✔️Fixing up the schema markup codes. They had messed up.
  • ✔️Adding additional 2-3 images/screenshots per post
  • ✔️Fix grammar mistakes. [I was shocked there were some, you never know until you run a check]
  • ✔️Improved Internal Linking
  • ✔️Added relevant quotes
  • ✔️Added more stats

I decided to sell

Even though the traffic on my website was growing daily and the rankings were skyrocketing, I noticed a very disturbing trend from the last couple of Google updates. Google seems not to be tolerating content websites as much as software-centric businesses.

For example, ranktracker.com follows a strategy similar to what I implemented with ThriveMyWay. However, despite linking to some shady websites and publishing a lot of guest posts, Google tolerates them because they are seen more as a real business than just content site.

They receive a lot of branded searches, with people often searching for ‘rank tracker’ to log into their site, indicating to Google their importance to users. This bias made me decide to sell ThriveMyWay. I listed it on Flippa and quickly got many interested buyers. I was in talks with Nick Eubanks from Semrush. He was close to buying but went on holiday and was offline for 2 weeks. By the time he replied, ready to buy with a good budget, I had already sold the site to Nebojsa Vujic from Serbia for $102k. He was easy to work with, a very easygoing and cool guy. I definitely could squeeze another $30-40k from the sale if I tried to sell to another buyer but i preferred to do business with someone easy to do busienss with.

What’s happened with thrivemyway.com after I sold it?

I sold the website on the 27th of July 2023.

When I sold Thrive My Way to the new owner, the website experienced significant growth in organic traffic during the first few weeks. It continued to grow steadily after the March update, and every day brought more traffic, making everything look promising. However, this only lasted for two months.

In September, Google’s Helpful Content Update targeted content websites that lacked a real business behind them, such as software companies, agencies, or other legitimate businesses. Websites that were simply plain blogs without a clear purpose were hit hard, and Thrive My Way lost a significant portion of its traffic. I hoped the website could recover some of its losses by the next update, but that didn’t happen.

The new owner didn’t seem to take great care of the website. They didn’t publish any helpful or valuable content targeting relevant keywords. The only new content was sponsored posts, and there was no filter on what they accepted. When I owned the site, I was very strict about sponsored posts, only working with relevant businesses like marketing agencies or software companies. In contrast, the new owner started selling sponsored posts to gambling, casino, crypto, and other questionable niches, just to get backlinks.

On top of that, they didn’t work to improve the website or publish new, high-quality content. Instead, they seemed to be using it as a content farm for backlinks. This approach led to another major disappointment in the March 2024 update, where the website lost even more traffic and became even more limited.

I’m not accusing them of anything—they own the site now and can do whatever they want with it. I also know their strategy focuses on managing many websites, including larger ones, and they rely on producing a lot of AI-generated content to revive expired domains. Their method is based on volume rather than focusing on quality for a single website. That’s just the way they work.

Where is thrivemyway.com now?

Surprisingly, the website still maintains some organic traffic, averaging around 40,000 to 50,000 visitors per month. While this traffic isn’t particularly valuable, as it comes from less competitive keywords, it shows that Google hasn’t completely abandoned the site. This suggests there’s still potential for recovery if the right steps are taken.

Thrivemyway.com Plan for 2025

If I were the current owner, considering Google’s stance against purely content-based websites, I would take a strategic approach to rebuild and revitalize the site. First, I would establish a business or company behind it—perhaps a software platform, an agency, or even an e-commerce store. This would give the website a more substantial purpose and align it with Google’s preference for sites backed by real businesses.

Second, I would perform content pruning to clean up the site. This means removing any articles that are irrelevant, low-value, or linked to questionable resources like casino sites or crypto marketplaces. Pruning away these harmful elements would significantly improve the site’s credibility. Additionally, I would update and refresh older content that is still valuable and relevant, optimizing it to make it more competitive and useful for readers.

Even without publishing new content, these actions alone—building a business presence, pruning irrelevant content, and updating existing articles—could help the site regain significant traffic in future Google updates. By focusing on quality and relevance, the website could make a strong comeback.

Anyway, this is just a personal vision of what could be done. The reality lies with the new owner and their approach to managing the website. I genuinely wish them success and hope they find a way to make the most of its potential.