November 17, 2025 • 9 mins
Sign up for the Semrush Challenge
https://seiq.learnworlds.com/course/semrush-challenge
In this episode, Meredith's husband explains why there was no show last week and how the very first COVID-era videos he created accidentally led to a 4,000-visitor-per-month blog. He unpacks how “document, don’t create” reshaped his business, why giving away his secret sauce made him happier, and how the new one-week SEMrush Challenge can help website owners dramatically improve their technical SEO scores.
Timestamps
[0:00] Introduction
[0:24] “Welcome to Smartless” (not really)
[0:37] Why there was no episode last week
[1:23] Recording close to release because AI changes fast
[2:03] COVID boredom → early screen-share SEO videos
[2:14] “Document, don’t create” and starting a new blog
[3:21] The blog grows to 4,000+ monthly visitors with zero marketing
[4:26] Using the SEMrush free trial + blog to reach an A score
[5:06] Running the live one-week SEMrush Challenge
[7:10] Giving away the “secret sauce” shifted Meredith's husband's career
[7:16] “Don’t be afraid to blog — it might make you happier”
--
CONTACT
Leave Feedback or Request Topics:
https://forms.gle/bqxbwDWBySoiUYxL7
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Meredith (00:24):
Welcome to Smartless.
Meredith's Husband (00:26):
That's funny.
That's funny because this isn'tSmartless.
You know there was no podcastlast week?
Meredith (00:33):
There was no podcast.
Meredith's Husband (00:34):
Can you believe that?
I cannot.
Meredith (00:36):
Oh, why?
Meredith's Husband (00:37):
Why was there no podcast for that?
And I will explain.
But I will say also, like werecord these episodes like
pretty close to when they arereleased.
Because I like them.
Sometimes we talk about stuffthat's happening, like with AI,
and it's kind of timely.
Meredith (00:51):
You want to keep it fresh.
Meredith's Husband (00:53):
And it changes every other day.
So I don't want to like youknow record episodes and have
them drop months later.
Anyway, so we record prettyclose to when we released these.
Meredith (01:04):
Yes.
Meredith's Husband (01:04):
Well, a couple of weeks ago the Dodgers
were in the World Series.
Oh, that's right.
So forget about it.
I was busy.
Meredith (01:12):
Yes.
Meredith's Husband (01:13):
On top of that, I did something last week
that ended up being a lot harderthan I thought it was.
For me, not harder, more timeconsuming than I thought it was
going to be.
Meredith (01:22):
What isn't?
Meredith's Husband (01:23):
But before I get into that, do you remember
years ago, like during COVID?
Wasn't that fun?
When I was doing I starteddoing those videos, like we were
bored off our ass.
So I started doing videos up inthe living room, just
recording, and like I would yelldown to you, I'm doing you
would sneeze and be like, I'mdoing a video.
Memories.
(01:45):
Well, that's what I'm gonna getinto.
They were so I've uh you know,on this podcast, I would say how
important it is to make yourblog a resource, yeah, to like
make it helpful for people.
And so I I struggled with thatfor uh years, like years and
years.
Meredith (02:02):
Who doesn't?
Meredith's Husband (02:03):
And it was during COVID that I started
trying something new.
And specifically, I was usingor I was kind of following,
trying to follow the advice fromGary Vee.
Remember, document, don'tcreate.
Meredith (02:14):
Yes.
Meredith's Husband (02:14):
Rather than trying to create something new,
just document what you're doing.
So I started creating theseblogs.
I started out just making themvideos like screen share videos
about how how specifically how Iwould use SEMrush and go
through and fix things onclients' websites.
Meredith (02:31):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (02:33):
And I was kind of afraid to, or not
afraid, I was hesitant to putthat on my own blog because it
was very specifically the thingI was charging money for.
Meredith (02:44):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (02:44):
And I was like literally showing people
how to do it.
Meredith (02:47):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (02:47):
And my thought was, well, no, you know,
nobody's gonna hire me if I'mshowing them exactly what it is
that I'm doing.
Meredith (02:53):
Well, nobody wants to do it.
Well, yeah, that's you can leada horse to water.
You you can't make it writepoetry.
Meredith's Husband (03:00):
So I put that stuff on a new blog.
I created a new domain and Ijust started, I just put a blog
on there and I just startedblogging.
I didn't do anything specialwith it.
I didn't do any uh SEO tricks,I didn't even use SEMrush on
that blog.
Like I didn't do anything.
And over the course of 12months from when I launched, it
built up over 4,000 visitors permonth.
Meredith (03:21):
Wow.
Meredith's Husband (03:21):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Meredith (03:22):
I was with no quote marketing.
Meredith's Husband (03:25):
Nothing.
I did absolutely nothing withit.
I just put stuff online andjust put it out there.
And that even surprised me.
Like the the not only just thegrowth, but how steady the
growth was.
A lot of times when you'relooking at growth, like the
amount of traffic you get overmonths, and you're looking at a
line graph, you know, that onGoogle Analytics or something,
(03:45):
it's very jagged.
It goes up and down.
You have you know spurts ofgrowth and then you know,
decline sometimes.
This line was like almoststraight.
Wow.
Um so I was, yeah, I was reallysurprised by that.
I still didn't know what to dowith it though.
Like I had this blog, it wasgetting lots of traffic.
I'm like, but what do I how howwhat do I do with it?
Meredith (04:04):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (04:04):
Well, not too long ago, I had an idea.
Meredith (04:08):
I could we all had to sit down after.
Meredith's Husband (04:10):
Yeah, right.
What I was thinking is youcould you could do that stuff.
You could use the Sumrush freetrial and do the stuff that I
had in that blog.
Like use that blog as aresource while you're using the
SUMRush free trial to get yourscore to like an A.
Meredith (04:26):
Mm-hmm.
Meredith's Husband (04:26):
To optim to do the technical optimization
for your website.
Meredith (04:30):
In one week.
Meredith's Husband (04:31):
In one week.
With the SEMrush free trial.
Meredith (04:34):
So I said free trial is one week.
There we go.
Meredith's Husband (04:38):
Yeah.
So last week I did this thing.
It was a one-week SEMrushchallenge.
Get your score to a 90 orbetter on SEMrush.
And it was kind of the firsttime I did it in a sort of live
format.
Like I rolled out the thingsevery day.
As you know, I was recordingthem, not recording them, but
like fixing things the nightbefore based on what happened
that day.
So they'd be ready the nextday.
(04:59):
Awesome.
Uh took a lot of work.
So that's why there was nopodcast episode last week.
I apologize.
Meredith (05:05):
You're working hard.
Meredith's Husband (05:06):
I was working very hard.
Anyway, that challenge is nowover.
It's still online.
It's not going to be thereforever.
It was going to expire, but youknow, I thought now it's
online.
I would actually like to giveit to my listeners.
Meredith (05:19):
Oh.
Meredith's Husband (05:20):
Some some people were there.
Some if you're listening this,you're like, wait a minute, I
was there.
Like, yeah, thank you.
Awesome.
But also, maybe some peopledidn't hear about.
So I'm going to leave it onlinefor another week.
Meredith (05:31):
Nice.
Meredith's Husband (05:31):
I will put the link below if you want to
go.
It's free.
And it helps.
It literally helps.
And the thing that I reallylike about SEMrush and the
technical SEO is it's veryconcrete.
Like you have a score.
You set your project up, itanalyzes your site, it gives you
a concrete score, and you cando some work and you see that
score go up.
It's one of the very fewthings, well, in life really,
(05:55):
but in SEO and marketing andbusiness where you can you can
really measure with accuracylike how healthy your website
is.
Meredith (06:03):
Right.
Right.
That's great.
Meredith's Husband (06:05):
Anyway, so that's online.
Uh I was going to take it downmidweek this week, uh, but it's
going to be online for the restof this week.
If you want to check it out,it's now online.
So you don't have to wait forit to drip you know, day by day.
It's all there.
There are no videos that arethat long.
And also those old blogs, ifyou want to see my old blogs
about the these are not exactlythe ones that I was screaming
(06:27):
down to you to be quiet.
I was doing a bit.
I have I've I redid them sincethen.
They're still uh, you know,they're still uh precious.
Meredith (06:36):
They're precious.
Someday they're gonna be wortha lot of money.
Meredith's Husband (06:41):
But anyway, I was on my way to the office
today.
Yes, and thinking, you know,what I'm doing now, this SEMrush
challenge, it all startedbecause of my blog.
Oh, because I tried to, I Igave away my secret sauce, as I
as I sometimes call it.
The thing that people areafraid to, you know, give away
(07:01):
because then what are you gonnado?
And that kind of started medoing a a new thing.
That has kind of shifted thefocus of my career.
Meredith (07:08):
Yeah, it has.
Meredith's Husband (07:10):
And dare I say, I think it's made me a
happier person.
Meredith (07:14):
I think it has as well.
Meredith's Husband (07:16):
Don't be afraid to blog.
It can make you happier.
If that's not an inspiration, Idon't know what it is.
Meredith (07:23):
But also, what's important is that so Sumrush has
the free week trial and yourfree course is a week.
Meredith's Husband (07:33):
Yeah.
Meredith (07:33):
And so everything is free.
Meredith's Husband (07:36):
Yeah.
Meredith (07:37):
But it's all helpful.
Meredith's Husband (07:39):
Yes.
Meredith (07:39):
And it's all stuff that you used to charge for.
Meredith's Husband (07:43):
Yes.
So that's uh and if if you aretaking that and if it's helpful,
I do offer for a charge, it'snot for free, but the the when I
do this for clients, yeah, Icreated a spreadsheet to use
myself.
Meredith (07:56):
Yeah.
Meredith's Husband (07:56):
To keep because I've done this a lot.
I know what works and whatdoesn't.
And also to share with clientsto help them.
Because now as I have shiftedaway from being a practitioner
and to more being a consultant,I assign to the client, here,
give this to a an intern or ajunior level or your web
manager, and they will be ableto do it.
If you want that spreadsheetthat I created to do that, to
(08:18):
share with the client, you canpurchase that.
If you want, it's notnecessary, but if you want it,
that's there also.
Meredith (08:24):
And it's cheap.
Meredith's Husband (08:25):
It is very reasonably priced.
Meredith (08:28):
Yeah.
Meredith's Husband (08:28):
When I used to when I used to when I used to
like do this for clients, likethat would start, like doing
that work would start at $2,500.
Meredith (08:36):
Yeah.
Meredith's Husband (08:37):
It is not $2,500.
Meredith (08:39):
It's very generous of you.
Meredith's Husband (08:41):
Yeah, well, I hope it helps.
Meredith (08:42):
I think it will.
Meredith's Husband (08:43):
I'll link it below.
Welcome to Smartless.
Meredith's Husband (00:26):
That's funny.
That's funny because this isn'tSmartless.
You know there was no podcastlast week?
Meredith (00:33):
There was no podcast.
Meredith's Husband (00:34):
Can you believe that?
I cannot.
Meredith (00:36):
Oh, why?
Meredith's Husband (00:37):
Why was there no podcast for that?
And I will explain.
But I will say also, like werecord these episodes like
pretty close to when they arereleased.
Because I like them.
Sometimes we talk about stuffthat's happening, like with AI,
and it's kind of timely.
Meredith (00:51):
You want to keep it fresh.
Meredith's Husband (00:53):
And it changes every other day.
So I don't want to like youknow record episodes and have
them drop months later.
Anyway, so we record prettyclose to when we released these.
Meredith (01:04):
Yes.
Meredith's Husband (01:04):
Well, a couple of weeks ago the Dodgers
were in the World Series.
Oh, that's right.
So forget about it.
I was busy.
Meredith (01:12):
Yes.
Meredith's Husband (01:13):
On top of that, I did something last week
that ended up being a lot harderthan I thought it was.
For me, not harder, more timeconsuming than I thought it was
going to be.
Meredith (01:22):
What isn't?
Meredith's Husband (01:23):
But before I get into that, do you remember
years ago, like during COVID?
Wasn't that fun?
When I was doing I starteddoing those videos, like we were
bored off our ass.
So I started doing videos up inthe living room, just
recording, and like I would yelldown to you, I'm doing you
would sneeze and be like, I'mdoing a video.
Memories.
(01:45):
Well, that's what I'm gonna getinto.
They were so I've uh you know,on this podcast, I would say how
important it is to make yourblog a resource, yeah, to like
make it helpful for people.
And so I I struggled with thatfor uh years, like years and
years.
Meredith (02:02):
Who doesn't?
Meredith's Husband (02:03):
And it was during COVID that I started
trying something new.
And specifically, I was usingor I was kind of following,
trying to follow the advice fromGary Vee.
Remember, document, don'tcreate.
Meredith (02:14):
Yes.
Meredith's Husband (02:14):
Rather than trying to create something new,
just document what you're doing.
So I started creating theseblogs.
I started out just making themvideos like screen share videos
about how how specifically how Iwould use SEMrush and go
through and fix things onclients' websites.
Meredith (02:31):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (02:33):
And I was kind of afraid to, or not
afraid, I was hesitant to putthat on my own blog because it
was very specifically the thingI was charging money for.
Meredith (02:44):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (02:44):
And I was like literally showing people
how to do it.
Meredith (02:47):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (02:47):
And my thought was, well, no, you know,
nobody's gonna hire me if I'mshowing them exactly what it is
that I'm doing.
Meredith (02:53):
Well, nobody wants to do it.
Well, yeah, that's you can leada horse to water.
You you can't make it writepoetry.
Meredith's Husband (03:00):
So I put that stuff on a new blog.
I created a new domain and Ijust started, I just put a blog
on there and I just startedblogging.
I didn't do anything specialwith it.
I didn't do any uh SEO tricks,I didn't even use SEMrush on
that blog.
Like I didn't do anything.
And over the course of 12months from when I launched, it
built up over 4,000 visitors permonth.
Meredith (03:21):
Wow.
Meredith's Husband (03:21):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Meredith (03:22):
I was with no quote marketing.
Meredith's Husband (03:25):
Nothing.
I did absolutely nothing withit.
I just put stuff online andjust put it out there.
And that even surprised me.
Like the the not only just thegrowth, but how steady the
growth was.
A lot of times when you'relooking at growth, like the
amount of traffic you get overmonths, and you're looking at a
line graph, you know, that onGoogle Analytics or something,
(03:45):
it's very jagged.
It goes up and down.
You have you know spurts ofgrowth and then you know,
decline sometimes.
This line was like almoststraight.
Wow.
Um so I was, yeah, I was reallysurprised by that.
I still didn't know what to dowith it though.
Like I had this blog, it wasgetting lots of traffic.
I'm like, but what do I how howwhat do I do with it?
Meredith (04:04):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (04:04):
Well, not too long ago, I had an idea.
Meredith (04:08):
I could we all had to sit down after.
Meredith's Husband (04:10):
Yeah, right.
What I was thinking is youcould you could do that stuff.
You could use the Sumrush freetrial and do the stuff that I
had in that blog.
Like use that blog as aresource while you're using the
SUMRush free trial to get yourscore to like an A.
Meredith (04:26):
Mm-hmm.
Meredith's Husband (04:26):
To optim to do the technical optimization
for your website.
Meredith (04:30):
In one week.
Meredith's Husband (04:31):
In one week.
With the SEMrush free trial.
Meredith (04:34):
So I said free trial is one week.
There we go.
Meredith's Husband (04:38):
Yeah.
So last week I did this thing.
It was a one-week SEMrushchallenge.
Get your score to a 90 orbetter on SEMrush.
And it was kind of the firsttime I did it in a sort of live
format.
Like I rolled out the thingsevery day.
As you know, I was recordingthem, not recording them, but
like fixing things the nightbefore based on what happened
that day.
So they'd be ready the nextday.
(04:59):
Awesome.
Uh took a lot of work.
So that's why there was nopodcast episode last week.
I apologize.
Meredith (05:05):
You're working hard.
Meredith's Husband (05:06):
I was working very hard.
Anyway, that challenge is nowover.
It's still online.
It's not going to be thereforever.
It was going to expire, but youknow, I thought now it's
online.
I would actually like to giveit to my listeners.
Meredith (05:19):
Oh.
Meredith's Husband (05:20):
Some some people were there.
Some if you're listening this,you're like, wait a minute, I
was there.
Like, yeah, thank you.
Awesome.
But also, maybe some peopledidn't hear about.
So I'm going to leave it onlinefor another week.
Meredith (05:31):
Nice.
Meredith's Husband (05:31):
I will put the link below if you want to
go.
It's free.
And it helps.
It literally helps.
And the thing that I reallylike about SEMrush and the
technical SEO is it's veryconcrete.
Like you have a score.
You set your project up, itanalyzes your site, it gives you
a concrete score, and you cando some work and you see that
score go up.
It's one of the very fewthings, well, in life really,
(05:55):
but in SEO and marketing andbusiness where you can you can
really measure with accuracylike how healthy your website
is.
Meredith (06:03):
Right.
Right.
That's great.
Meredith's Husband (06:05):
Anyway, so that's online.
Uh I was going to take it downmidweek this week, uh, but it's
going to be online for the restof this week.
If you want to check it out,it's now online.
So you don't have to wait forit to drip you know, day by day.
It's all there.
There are no videos that arethat long.
And also those old blogs, ifyou want to see my old blogs
about the these are not exactlythe ones that I was screaming
(06:27):
down to you to be quiet.
I was doing a bit.
I have I've I redid them sincethen.
They're still uh, you know,they're still uh precious.
Meredith (06:36):
They're precious.
Someday they're gonna be wortha lot of money.
Meredith's Husband (06:41):
But anyway, I was on my way to the office
today.
Yes, and thinking, you know,what I'm doing now, this SEMrush
challenge, it all startedbecause of my blog.
Oh, because I tried to, I Igave away my secret sauce, as I
as I sometimes call it.
The thing that people areafraid to, you know, give away
(07:01):
because then what are you gonnado?
And that kind of started medoing a a new thing.
That has kind of shifted thefocus of my career.
Meredith (07:08):
Yeah, it has.
Meredith's Husband (07:10):
And dare I say, I think it's made me a
happier person.
Meredith (07:14):
I think it has as well.
Meredith's Husband (07:16):
Don't be afraid to blog.
It can make you happier.
If that's not an inspiration, Idon't know what it is.
Meredith (07:23):
But also, what's important is that so Sumrush has
the free week trial and yourfree course is a week.
Meredith's Husband (07:33):
Yeah.
Meredith (07:33):
And so everything is free.
Meredith's Husband (07:36):
Yeah.
Meredith (07:37):
But it's all helpful.
Meredith's Husband (07:39):
Yes.
Meredith (07:39):
And it's all stuff that you used to charge for.
Meredith's Husband (07:43):
Yes.
So that's uh and if if you aretaking that and if it's helpful,
I do offer for a charge, it'snot for free, but the the when I
do this for clients, yeah, Icreated a spreadsheet to use
myself.
Meredith (07:56):
Yeah.
Meredith's Husband (07:56):
To keep because I've done this a lot.
I know what works and whatdoesn't.
And also to share with clientsto help them.
Because now as I have shiftedaway from being a practitioner
and to more being a consultant,I assign to the client, here,
give this to a an intern or ajunior level or your web
manager, and they will be ableto do it.
If you want that spreadsheetthat I created to do that, to
(08:18):
share with the client, you canpurchase that.
If you want, it's notnecessary, but if you want it,
that's there also.
Meredith (08:24):
And it's cheap.
Meredith's Husband (08:25):
It is very reasonably priced.
Meredith (08:28):
Yeah.
Meredith's Husband (08:28):
When I used to when I used to when I used to
like do this for clients, likethat would start, like doing
that work would start at $2,500.
Meredith (08:36):
Yeah.
Meredith's Husband (08:37):
It is not $2,500.
Meredith (08:39):
It's very generous of you.
Meredith's Husband (08:41):
Yeah, well, I hope it helps.
Meredith (08:42):
I think it will.
Meredith's Husband (08:43):
I'll link it below.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.