Zuck's long game, niche site attack, growing this newsletter

This week has some juicy goodness to it. Here’s a teaser of contents.

1. Did Google just attack? What to do now.

2. Did Meta just make a comeback?

3. Rituals.

4. How I’ll grow this newsletter.

No filler - let’s get to it.

Google’s update and what I’m doing about it

In addition to this letter, I also started a niche site in July. If you’re not familiar with the idea of niche sites it goes like this:

• It’s most often a blog/article based site

• It’s highly optimized for SEO

• It’s focused on a very specific topic

• It’s end goal is to monetize its traffic

• It is not a personal diary or journal

And, in my last letter, I outlined the exact AI stack that I’ve been using to create content for this site.

Well there’s a big problem.

It turns out that Google has not been too happy with me and many other niche sites like mine.

Last month Google released its Helpful Content Update which really tanked a number of niche sites.

But some sites were unscathed. In fact, soona’s site was one that didn’t notice any impact of this update either.

I’m lucky, my own niche site, launched in July, is too young to be impacted but this update dropped it at the right time to teach me some early lessons. Here’s what I’m doing…

1. It’s me. Hi. I’m the author - it’s me. I was using some weird fake pseudonym on the site. Luckily I chose a niche that I’m really passionate about. In fact, writing for the site over the past few months has made me realize just how passionate I am about the topic. So, I’m putting my name on it and doubling down EEAT.
   

2. Diversify. Diversify. Diversify. Essentially, I’ve decided to switch from a niche site to an actual brand. One that has a social presence, a newsletter, and other distribution. Google will look at this presence, as well as diversified traffic sources favorably.
   

3. Scrubbing the AI out. AI has a huge role in content production but this was Google drawing a line and setting the tone: create real content, add real value.

I have a few things to do but then I’m going to share the site on Twitter soon - along with its progress.

Hey Meta.

In the history of tech, if 2023 is the year of AI then 2024 will surely be the year of AR.

Apple’s Vision Pro was announced earlier this year but it’s sticker price of $3,499 puts it squarely in an early adopter category.

But then came Facebook Meta. This week, Zuck got up and showed off to the world something he’s clearly proud of, something he’s bet the business on for the long-term.

And, while a headset is impressive tech, it still has its doubters or at least limitations in fully replacing our laptops. But they also unveiled the Ray Ban Smart Glasses and I’m pretty impressed.

I’m an early adopter - fuck, I bought the iPod Shuffle when it was a white stick and loved it - but maybe we’re further up the adoption curve than we know. These glasses already give off give off first gen Spectacles by Snap vibes and the implementation of AI and a WFH world where we’re all used to a live-stream-everything lifestyle has me thinking things are different this time. This is an inevitability.

What’s most shocking is that Meta seems to be right in the mix of it and Zuck’s long game on the metaverse is beginning to take shape.

My struggle with rituals

When I started Marketing Clarity earlier this year I set out to achieve a few things:

1. Become a better writer

2. Share my marketing learnings

3. Connect with new people

4. Build something of my own

5. Build a new habit

Looking at these goals it’s clear that #1-4 are unachievable without succeeding at #5. If I don’t make writing my habit I can’t expect anything else out of this.

So far, I’d be scoring a C- for the year.

But, there’s time to turn things around and I knew this wouldn’t be a 1 year endeavor.

This specific newsletter marks the second time that I’ve successfully hit publish 3 weeks in a row. I’m actually quite proud of that.

Anyway - I share all of this because I believe it’s important to find our own operating systems and I’m not sure that I’ve quite figured mine out.

There’s a lot of folks who talk about how they wake up at 4am, gulp down 5 egg whites, beast a 5k, and do it all over again the next day.

That’s not me.

My mind tends to bounce around from one thought to the next. And with the number of work streams I tend to take on at once it gets really disruptive.

But I’ve started to realize that there are these moments when I have a quiet mind. Moments where I’m not overthinking things. And when my mind is quiet I focus, I get things done, and I think with clarity.

I’ve also begun to recognize the things that stop the quietness.

• My phone nearby

• Slack messages

• Twitter

• Meetings

Meetings, especially unstructured ones, have been a real terror. I find that I enter a meeting by leaving a state of calm flow and now all of a sudden my mind is going a mile a minute and the words are coming out just as quickly. By the time the meeting is over I’m not burnt out, I’m hyper. Hyper is not productive. Hyper is not a good backdrop for a quiet mind.

Headspace has been helping. Cliche?

Another thing that’s been really helpful is adding more structure to my meetings. It’s something I learned from this talk on Rituals given by Yukhi Yamashita who I had the pleasure of working with while at Uber and Sishir Mehrotra.

In it they talk about three types of meetings: Cadence, Catalyst, and Context. Each one having a specific purpose. Here’s the TL;DR.

Cadence: A recurring meeting to check-in on the progress towards a goal.

Catalyst: A small nimble group brought together to answer a specific question, make a specific decision.

Context: A share out so that other stakeholders are more informed and can do their job more effectively.

The two go on to explain each of these in much more depth but when you structure your own meetings this way and stop yourself from devolving a specific type of meeting into an open-ended conversation you protect yourself from depleting your mental bandwidth - from getting lost in the sauce. You protect your quiet mind.

Growing Marketing Clarity

I’ve written a dozen or so posts now and only grown this newsletter through organic means. However, I want to truly push the limits with intentionality and I’ve decided to turn on advertising to do so.

I don’t think I would have felt comfortable doing that if it weren’t for the fact the I use Beehiiv to host these letters.

The team at Beehiiv are shipping new product releases faster than anything I’ve seen in tech right now. Their addition of boosts and referral programs has got me really intrigued and I see this as an investment in myself.

I haven’t been great about Marketing Clarity but I’m realizing that I really enjoy writing this and enjoy the discipline muscle that it’s building in me. I’m also trying to be better about hiring other folks to support my efforts and investing in myself because it’s better than investing in crypto.

Anyways, whether you’re intrigued or already manage a newsletter I highly recommend switching to Beehiiv.