2015 SEMpdx SearchFest Mini-Interview: Rae Hoffman

Rae Hoffman will be speaking on “Competitive Intel” at SearchFest 2015 which will take place Friday, February 27, 2015 in Portland Oregon. For more information or to purchase tickets, please click here.

1) Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living.
In my official capacity, I’m the CEO of PushFire, a digital marketing agency that provides SEO and paid advertising services to medium to fortune sized companies nationwide. I’ve been in affiliate marketing (using SEO as my primary traffic generation strategy) for about 14 years now. I always say that I entered this industry as an affiliate, and I’ll “die” in this industry as an affiliate. Affiliate marketing is a love affair I don’t think I’ll ever be able to end. However, I also love what I do with PushFire. It allows me to work with a lot of brands that have unique issues I might not otherwise get to work with on a regular basis. But, owning a slew of sites means I get to test things – sometimes with abandon. I think that has always given me a stronger skill set SEO wise.

I’m probably better known to the online marketing community as Sugarrae, which is my personal brand. I’m known for telling it like it is, even if it’s not a popular opinion to give. I’m 100% self-taught and have no formal education outside of a GED. But I’m driven, determined and a hard worker, and that’s been a rewarding combination for my career. As an affiliate, you can’t bullshit your way into “looking like” you know SEO. Either you know it or you don’t eat. I don’t spout unicorn advice that seems like it would work or treat Google advice as if it’s gospel. I’m still in the trenches – with my sites and now with client sites. The SEO side of PushFire is very boutique. I can choose who we work with, and I choose to work with companies that want to win – and that I think can be positioned to win. I love playing “the game” and I have no interest in watching my team play it by themselves while I sit on the sidelines selling merchandise.

2) What factors do you use in deciding whether to enter a niche with a new website?
There’s a lot of them. I look to make sure there are ways to make money with multiple avenues, not simply AdSense or one affiliate program. I also look to see that the niche has traffic and that its traffic is trending up (and not down). Once I know if it’s worth ranking, then I figure out what it would take to rank in the niche and research the earnings potential of the niche. Lastly, I decide whether or not I have some angle that will give me a viable (and brandable) way to compete in the niche in this day and age. You can find an entire article detailing out how to perform niche research here.

3) Please share some of your favorite website audience retention strategies.
To quote a friend of mine:

“If you’re not building an email list, you’re an idiot”: Derek Halpern

We work so damn hard to GET traffic from the engines. An email list is a way to keep it. I use Aweber as my mailing list service.

The other audience retention must for me? Always put your audience before your monetization. But let’s be clear here. I am in no way suggesting that you shouldn’t try to monetize your audience – and try to make a lot of money from that audience. I’m simply saying you need to put your audience first when choosing what and how you market to them. Find what your audience wants to buy (full tutorial on that here) and put it in front of them. Don’t try and convince your audience to buy whatever is hawking the highest affiliate commission. Never, ever sell out the trust of your users for an affiliate commission.