What if you could get there too, and actually enjoy the process?

The problem is that there are TONS of setbacks that will prevent you from getting there (believe me, we’ve had our fair share).

And no matter where you are now, eventually you will hit a wall.

There WILL be a time, or many times, when it feels like that wall is impossible to climb.

But there are a few secrets we learned that helped us soar right over it and get to where we wanted to go. I want to share those with you today.

Let me pull back the curtain for a moment and tell you our story.

Ready?

1. What To Do When Things Get Hard

We were lucky.

We got off the ground running with 0 funding. We started with smart principles of a lean startup mentality and learned along the way:

We tested ideas rapidly and cheaply before investing (Our first order came before we had a website, it was just a youtube video posted on a forum thread with a paypal link).

We had no office and worked from home (no office expenses).

We prioritized getting things done over perfection (We let the market tell us what they wanted and changed based on the feedback).

We focused on creating scalable system and we constantly tweaked and learned.

We wrote an article about it here – You can see what we were focusing on at the time.

The HOTH got up and going quickly, but growing wasn’t easy. (And if you’ve been in SEO for a while – you know it too!)

Soon after we started the HOTH in 2010, Google started releasing the biggest updates of all time with Panda and Penguin.

These constant updates sent the entire world of SEO into a frenzy every few months.

It was emotionally difficult to have a single outside entity have so much control over the perception of your business and your industry.

We survived through the updates with our hard work, but eventually we hit a wall – For about an entire year between 2013-2014 we plateaued.

Even though we had a successful business, it seemed like no matter what we did, we weren’t growing. Our sales kept bouncing up and down in an endless marathon of monotony.

And that was maybe the most dangerous situation to be in, stagnation.

You see, the plateau is The ENEMY.

It’s Groundhog’s Day every day. Waking up to more of the same until you can finally break the spell. And if you keep living the same every day – you’ll eventually go crazy.

What you want is GROWTH. Growth means life.

One snowy day in the 2013-2014 winter, that stagnation finally got to me. I remember it so clearly. I was working on my computer and then all of a sudden I couldn’t work any more. My fingers froze and it was hard to breathe. I remember going to lay on the couch and it felt like someone was pressing on my chest.

That anxiety ridden moment in my Chicago apartment is when I had a hard truth epiphany.

We weren’t where we wanted to be, and the situation was not the problem.

Our stagnation wasn’t because of the market, or the products, or anything else:

The problem was me.

This shock of stagnation created a series of events in my personal life which heavily influenced how I manage my day. In 2014, I moved out of the country to never see snow again and drastically shifted my mentality about how I saw the world and how it operates.

It was painful at first to admit how much I didn’t know. I had read so many books about startups, marketing, and could talk about it for days but in the real world, I couldn’t get over this hump.

Here’s what I learned: The reality is your business success is a reflection of your personal philosophy – conscious or unconscious.

There were lots of easy scapegoats for excuses: Google updates, the changing market, SEO being hard, not having a marketing budget, etc etc.

The easy way out is to think that our problems are situational – You can’t get what you want because of the situation that you’re in. But the reality is that the only thing that’s limiting your ability to create what you want is YOU.

You must take 100% responsibility for everything.

Even though it can be hard to admit your faults and explicitly examine your weaknesses, it’s essential for growth… and it’s empowering.

This quote from Jim Rohn sums it up perfectly:

After you understand your weaknesses, you focus on your strengths and creatively solve for all the weaknesses vs trying to mask them.

That takes true confidence – being able to be vulnerable and admit what you’re not good at. But when you can do that, you can grow by leaps and bounds.

Objective self-awareness is the hard-to-swallow antidote that will help you overcome your limitations.

By focusing on personal growth, you will create ideas about how you see the world, what you really want, and how to actually get there.

This is going to be very important because this understanding of how you see the world will heavily influence how your company will run. Pieces of you will permeate throughout the organization – good or bad.

If you are disorganized, your business will be disorganized.
If you have limiting beliefs, your business will be limited.
If you are lazy, your business will be lazy.

Conversely:

If you take responsibility for everything, you will find your solutions.
If you dream bigger, you can create the path.
If you focus on productivity, you can make it happen.

Realize the biggest limiting factor in getting to where you want to go is not your situation, it is YOU.  Take the responsibility, lose your ego, and find what you need to grow.  Through overcoming your pain will come your strength. This is the domino that will start the chain reaction that will be your success.

2. Create The Growth Vehicle: Use Your Personal Growth Experience To Develop The Culture

After the stagnation, we needed a massive change, and a massive goal.

At the time we were doing about $100k / month and we set a goal 5X the business to $500k a month.

That was a bit scary, since we hadn’t really officially set goals like that previously. Even more difficult was that I didn’t really know what it would take to get there.

We had to change a lot, but the most important thing that had to change was how WE operated.

Anything that works well and consistently is a system.

As an operations guy, I’m always looking to create systems. These can come in many forms – processes for creating products, marketing, services, training docs, SOPs, hiring protocols etc.

This is where most businesses go wrong and why some of the top business books of all time are essentially operations books that teach well-intentioned business owners to create systems.

But the MOST important and often overlooked system that needs created is your Culture system.

WARNING: I know that last sentence might stop you in your tracks as pictures start racing to your mind when you hear about “culture”: hippy business books, corporate jargon, nonsense vernacular like “synergy” etc. Hear me out on this one, I’m going to show you some raw and vital tactics on how to drastically increase the numbers in your bank account.

We have a document called The HOTH Culture Doc. It defines our purpose and dictates how we, the people of The HOTH, operate by working together as a company.

It’s an evolving document that became vital especially after we started to struggle – and that’s exactly what it’s for:

The Culture Doc should allow us to solve any problem that we run into.

In reality it’s just a simple Google Doc that evolves over time. Every person that gets hired goes through it in their on-boarding and has access to it all the time.

The secret about The Culture Doc, while it’s masked as a company operations document, is that it’s really a personal development and growth philosophy. It gives purpose to waking up in the morning and shows how we should act during the day.

In this case, to get to that 500k, we had to redefine and follow our own Culture Doc. This was the practical application of the core beliefs that we have.

To create your own, you need to clarify YOUR PURPOSE, and use your ideas about how the world works (from your growth experiences) to create a set of principles that will guide your company.

As defined by our doc: Our #1 purpose is to help as many people as possible achieve success with SEO, and our number #2 purpose is to have a blast while doing it.

By really defining that, we knew what we had to up our game.

If we wanted to serve more people, we had to reach more people. We drastically scaled our marketing, we released new products to broaden our scope, we brought on some amazing talent to get us to the next level and we went to WORK.

The main reason we were able to make it through this period and hit that goal was because we lazer-focused on what our mission was and HOW we were going to get there. This all came from what we wrote in our culture doc.

The second step is to use your experiences, your personal revelations, your own ideas about how the world works to create your own Culture Doc. The Doc will give structure to dealing with and crushing the inevitable problems your company will face and become the operating manual for your growth vehicle.

3. Coming Full Circle: Find The Hidden Rockstars And Give Them The Opportunity Become Their Best Selves

In 2016, we hit the goal of $500k a month and then set out to do something even bigger in 2017:

Get to $1,000,000 in a single month.

Despite that number seeming unfathomable, a recurring theme had been pounded into my brain is that YOU create the future.

Your job is to DREAM UP what you want, then be a professional problem solver to get there.

Once your revenue gets high enough, you’ll have to bring on people to support that revenue. It will no longer, and can no longer, be you making all the decisions.

In the beginning of the company, it was our goal to create a lifestyle business, specifically so we did NOT have to go to an office.

We had previously been a “virtual” company with the majority of people working from home.

But as the company grew and we defined our mission, our path to get there also clarified – and that included expanding then team in an office environment.

Thanks in great part to George’s (our now COO) leadership, we were able to bring on a rockstar team of talented people and introduce them to the culture that we had defined.

Every single one of these employees got the HOTH Culture document in their onboarding.

In the beginning of 2017, we had everyone sign a huge banner pledge declaring our goal of $1MM in a month.

That buy-in that we got from everyone started working, and it came to the point that we were bursting at the seams with employees working from bean bags due to the shortage of desks.

Just a few months later, we moved into a brand new office with a million dollar view.

The train took off.

On top of the office, we hit the Inc 5000 list, the Tampa Bay Fast 50, and George won a spot on the Tampa Bay Business Journal Up and Comers Under 30 list.

The culture that we defined was alive. We knew our purpose. We clearly knew where we were going. And everyone was working HARD to get there.

The day that we hit a million dollars in a single month was September 30, 2017.

What’s strange is that even though it was a Saturday and the office was technically closed, we had a full house.

From the beginning of the day, 1 by 1, the whole crew started showing up, and by the time we crossed the finish line there was a PARTY.

Everyone was working together to make it happen. We hit the $1MM mark and the slack channel lit up with pictures of celebration, cheers, and people hanging out for the rest of the night.

In that moment, what was previously impossible became possible – and it was a blast.

But what was more interesting was the WAY it happened.

It was clear that the #1 reason we were able to get there was not what most businesses focus on. It wasn’t because we had some big investor, some marketing trick, or the latest startup app.

It was THE PEOPLE.

This was the culmination of the work of every single person on the team, together, working inside the culture that we created.

We have found some of the best people on the planet to run The HOTH. True rockstars.

When you think about hiring the best, you might think that an hiring an A player means getting someone that’s the best in your industry.

But the truth is that biggest rock stars, the true A players on our team are former Target employees, babysitters, bartenders, rock band members.

What we did differently is give these amazing people an environment to thrive through the culture – a place for growth, personally and professionally.

“The greatest gift you can give someone is the power to be successful. Giving people the opportunity to struggle rather than giving them the things they are struggling for will make them stronger.”  – Ray Dalio, Principles

By creating a growth culture, and taking the right people and putting them in the right environment, you’ll be blown away at what you can create together.

The growth culture permeates through the employees not just in the workplace, but also into our daily lives.

It’s not just a job. These are hours of your day, hours of your life. This is your growth vehicle.

It comes full circle – the culture is sustained because we get buy-in. The employees protect the culture because they see the value. The output of all that combined is the ability to create something bigger than you.

The last step is to give the right people the right environment to succeed within a contagious growth culture. Everyone has something in them and it’s up to you to create the culture vehicle. When this happens, it all comes full circle as each individual creates their own growth path.

That’s how you get a whole office full of employees to show up on a Saturday, crush down a million bucks in a month, and enjoy the shit out of it.

What a wild year. Thank you 2017!!

A post shared by The HOTH (@thehothseo) on Dec 22, 2017 at 11:50am PST

Clayton Johnson
CMO @ The HOTH

P.S. If you’d like to join our team of rockstars, check out our open positions here. We’re always hiring!

The post The surprising secret to creating a million dollar a month business that you love. appeared first on The HOTH.

We’ve followed it every step of the way, proudly showing every client and business partner our view via Skype for years now.

We even captured a time-lapse video of the construction throughout the years, and we’re excited to announce it’s officially done!

The $92 million pier opened to a limited audience on Monday, July 6 with the help of an online reservation system.

But don’t worry, you can still see the “Bending Arc” sculpture, renovated main building, and the row of new restaurants from anywhere in downtown.

Before we get into some of the AWESOME features of the new pier, let’s take a quick stroll down memory lane to see just how we got here:

A Brief History of the St. Pete Pier

The city’s first pier, known as “The Railroad Pier,” was constructed in 1889 by entrepreneur Peter Demens. You can now find a beautiful park in downtown named after him, exactly where his pier used to sit, just 2 blocks over from the pier now.

Different piers were built over the years to compete with the original, but couldn’t quite do it. One from 1900 even claimed to be the Fountain of Youth because the water contained higher levels of lithium.

Whether it was the 1926 Million Dollar Pier, or some iteration in between, each version has attracted thousands of tourists and boaters to the city.

Image Source: St. Petersburg Museum of History

The most recent rendition was built in 1973, and it’s the one most St. Petersburg residents know as “The Inverted Pyramid” Pier. It served the community for decades before ultimately shutting down in 2013.

Image Source: St. Petersburg Museum of History

Constructing a New Pier — Easier Said Than Done

With slowly crumbling seawalls and an outdated inside, residents wanted a new pier to replace The Inverted Pyramid. However, they just couldn’t agree on what exactly they wanted.

A 2013 design concept known as “The Lens” was rejected by 63% of voters in a citizen-led referendum.

Image Source: Tampa Bay Times

Mayor Rick Kriseman was later elected in 2014 and began working on a new concept for the pier.

His administration settled on a 26-acre revitalization that would also connect the pier to downtown St. Petersburg. It doubled the project’s budget from $50 million to $92 million, yet voters were pleased.

Pier Opening Plagued by Delays

After years of designing, voting, and planning, Mayor Krisemen scheduled the groundbreaking ceremony for the new pier in 2017. The project was supposed to be finished in 2018 but got pushed back an additional year (until December 2019).

The official public opening scheduled for May 30 was delayed by Florida Governor Ron Desantis who was concerned about large crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nevertheless, they found a way to get the public to it. They created a reservation system where 3-hour slots had to be reserved in advance, and visitors were encouraged to wear masks.

Prepare Yourself for an ‘exPIERience’

No one is more excited about visiting the new pier than all of us at The HOTH!

Twenty-six acres of beautifully landscaped greenery was added to downtown St. Petersburg, making it the perfect spot to walk, bike, or gaze at while daydreaming at work.

Image Source: Tampa Bay Times

Some of the new features of the pier include a new marketplace that showcases the city’s “buy-local” initiatives. And of course it wouldn’t be St. Pete without delicious food options including Doc Ford’s Rum Bar & Grille, Fresco’s Waterfront Bistro, Spa Beach Bistro, Driftwood Cafe, Teak, and Pier Teaki.

The city also set aside $2 million to showcase public art projects like Janet Echelman’s “Bending Arc,” with over 180 miles of twine, as well as Nathan Mabry’s “Myth (Red Pelican),” Xenobia Bailey’s “Morning Stars,” and Nick Ervinck’s “Olnetopia.”

Image Source: Tampa Bay Times

Looking for more details on the pier? Visit The St. Pete Pier website to learn more.

The post Our New Backyard Is Finished: St. Petersburg Pier Opens appeared first on The HOTH.

We knew we needed to hire, and fast. We needed team members for support, production, sales, everything.

We had extremely talented people on our core team with a thirst for knowledge and development who not only lived our culture but enhanced it.

But the question was – could we continue to keep this culture as we scale?

Over the next 4 years, we brought on over 45 people to the team, and it was a massive challenge.

Some days I doubted whether we could pull this off. Some days, I wondered if putting in this much effort into building an amazing culture was even worth it.

I was wrong.

On May 6th, 2020, The HOTH was named a Best Workplace by Inc. Magazine.

For me, this was a dream come true. This was the culmination of all the work that we’ve done; Not only becoming one of the fastest-growing companies in the US, but simultaneously making it a great place to work.

I want to share with you a behind-the-scenes look at how we did it, and how you can too.

What is the Inc. Best Workplaces and how do you make the list?

Here’s what the official website says about the award:

Now to make the list is much more complicated than a simple application.

To qualify to gain this recognition first takes an application.

After that has been approved, then you have to provide a survey to your team, of which you need a certain level of participation.

After that, your overall survey score then is calculated. If you score high enough, then you make the list.

According to Inc., “more than 3,000 companies applied to be named one of Inc.’s Best Workplaces.” and you need to score in the top percentile to make the list.

Why Does The Award Matter Anyways?

We did not just grow our culture for the sake of awards. None of this is surface level.

Culture is the lifeblood of the business. It’s infectious. It’s what permeates throughout the decisions we make, the products we create, and the direction we go. It’s what ultimately touches our employees and our clients.

Plus, on a more obvious note, who wants to dread going to work every day?

Getting the award just makes it official.

How Culture = More $$

Now you might be thinking, “Great, but does this help the bottom line?”

I have great news for you – it does!

Cost Savings with Recruiting

Corporate recruiting is one of the more costly ways to recruit talent and one that may not be an option for you. Having a solid, kick-ass culture can be your main recruiting tool.

This is supported by data we have gathered from the survey we send to our newly onboarded team members.

In our onboarding feedback survey, 75% of respondents said that our company culture was a primary motivator for accepting a role.

We use Breezy.HR for our applicant tracking system. Currently, we have over 7500 applicants that have applied across all positions. Other than the fee we pay for the applicant tracking system we have spent $0 on recruiting efforts. We let the culture recruit for itself.

Employee Retention

Your next cost savings will be in the form of retention. People are going to leave your organization. There’s nothing you can do about it. It is an inevitability.

However, how long you keep your people is controllable. Having this solid culture will significantly improve your overall team member retention. Turnover will cost you time, and ultimately money. It is indirect, but you will feel it.

Great culture usually means people are genuinely happy. Working with genuinely happy people will improve your life and help you make better decisions in running your business.

Customer Retention

Genuinely happy people also provide genuine customer service. This is my favorite part because this is when you begin to share your culture with your clients. It’s infectious in the best way.

The culture you provide your team will trickle down to your customers. The more this happens, the better retention you will have with your clients, leading to a higher lifetime value.

All of this combined is going to save you money and make you money. With a great culture, you are developing the perfect recipe to hit that scale button.

How To Build A Great Culture

I’m a big fan of action. With all these fluffy awesome things I’m talking about, I want to give you all actionable items to accomplish to begin to grow your culture.

Here’s what I recommend:

1. Create A Physical Culture Document

In a period of growth, you need something for everyone to fall back on. I can’t tell you how many times I have been in situations where I felt a solution was impossible, yet when I reference our culture document, all of a sudden the roadmap to finding a solution becomes much clearer.

Having the culture document ready and available 24/7 to all our team members has helped us solve the most basic of problems, but also the most serious of issues.

Apart from just solving problems, a solid culture will save you money in the long term. Recruiting talent, both W2 and Freelance, will become much simpler.

First, you need to know what a culture document looks like.

It doesn’t have to be a grandiose document with multiple chapters and stories. It should exemplify your values. It should show your team and your partners how you operate your business on a human level.

For instance, The HOTH’s Culture Document includes the following headings:

1. Our Purpose
2. Accountability & Responsibility
3. Think About What You Want, Not What You Don’t Want
4. Identify Problems Clearly & Move Toward Solutions
5. Ask for What You Need & Want
6. Communicate Openly & Clearly
7. Find What You Do Best & Do That
8. Cross Pollinate Ideas
9. Lead by Example
10. Don’t Be Afraid of Hard Conversations
11. Give and Receive Meaningful Feedback
12. Mess Up, Fess Up
13. Make It Fun
14. Working Hard
15. Healthy People = Healthy Company

From an onboarding perspective, you also solidify your non-negotiables and expectations so that there is no gray area with your culture. You are providing constructs that your new, and existing, team members yearn for.

2. Hire The Person, Not The Position

This can be tailored for really any level of talent you’re hiring. Whether it is a very technical role or an entry level position, making sure the person is the right fit BEFORE qualifying their abilities and talents will be your secret sauce to hiring the best talent out there.

Remember, you’re spending more time with your team than your own family, significant other, and/or friends. You need to be able to mesh with them on a human level. You might find a technically qualified candidate, but if your personalities don’t mesh well, then you just hired a ticking time bomb.

Qualify the personality and values of a person before you jump in to assess their technical abilities. If they don’t mesh with you, move on to the next candidate.

3. Put People In Positions To Succeed

Someone who is an exceptional executor in one department and/or role may not even come close to the same level of success in another department and/or role.

Understand what your team member’s strengths are and what they’re capable of. From there you can reference your team’s strengths versus the needs of your business. It’s like putting a puzzle together.

Your puzzle pieces are a mixture of what your team is great at and what your business needs.

Some pieces don’t go together no matter how hard you push, and some pieces are a perfect match. It is your responsibility to find those perfect matches.

4. To Be The Best Leader, Be The Best Listener

Too many times we think as leaders that we have to have the answer to every question or every issue. We all know this is not the case.

Be ready to use your team as a resource to help formulate plans to solve issues, no matter how big.

Team members will likely have better solutions than I do; however, the team looks to me for the final say.

The team is likely more in the day to day than I am. With that, I ask people’s opinions on how we should move forward to solve a problem(s). Once I have somewhat of a consensus in my head, we then execute.

This is only possible if I open my mind and listen to what the team members have to say. I’m not listening just for a response. I’m listening to formulate a plan to execute.

This by nature builds so much goodwill, but also increases your trust with your team because you are allowing them to help solve problems by working with you. It also allows you to see their potential from a problem-solving standpoint.

5. Be A Human

Your team does not need a superhero. They need a resource. They need someone to learn from. They need direction. Showing that you’re a human in any and all scenarios accomplish all of these.

This means admitting things you don’t know, admitting your mistakes, answering questions straight and to the point, letting someone else take the lead, lending a helping hand if a department is behind, etc.

Showing that you’re just as human as your team will help keep your culture and your work relationships strong.

6. You Betta Recognize

Recognition is so important when it comes to building your business.

It’s simple. Tell your people they’re doing a good job.

This drives motivation. It drives purpose. It also provides your team member an example of what great work looks like, only because you were able to verify what they did via recognition.

While top-down recognition drives motivation and purpose, peer-to-peer recognition drives teamwork and collaboration.

At The HOTH, we utilize software called Bonusly. In Bonusly, everyone in the company is able to recognize literally anyone with an amount of “points” and a piece of written recognition at any given time.

Below are some examples of what this looks like right from our HOTH Slack Channel that every HOTH team member has access to:

By having this software we can quantity AND qualify the recognition our team members are sending.

We’re able to see what’s important to them and how much of a help their peer was to them. Bonusly changed our game.

Get Started Building your Best Workplace

This is what we do on a daily basis. It works for us and it will work for you.

In due time, you’ll be celebrating your culture’s success and hopefully be recognized as a best workplace in the process.

The best part about building and sustaining a great culture is that you also get to share it with your clients.

If you’re a new client, I hope that we can share our culture with you and always be a resource.

If you are an existing member of our HOTH Family, thank you for your continued support. I hope we can continue to strengthen our relationship this year.

To check out more about how we can share our culture with you, feel free to schedule a free consultation with a member of our Client Experience team. Who knows, maybe you’ll even get hooked up with some swag.

Thank you for reaching this. Please let me know your feedback and thoughts at George@thehoth.com. Happy to hear from you.

The post How To Become A Best Workplace in the US: A Case Study appeared first on The HOTH.

From new products to new features, new designs and more, we’re working hard to serve you better every day.

Here’s a recap of our 2019 initiatives:

We Launched 9 New Products

Our product development team was on fire this year and we launched 9 new products this year based on customer feedback!

Here’s what’s new:

Need industry-specific writers for your blog?

We launched Blogger Pro to get you connected with niche writers and provide even higher-quality content!

We got a lot of requests for guest posts with guaranteed publisher site traffic, and our team worked hard to launch this product!

Now we offer Guest Posts with guaranteed traffic from 1k-25k visitors per month here.

After over 8 months of testing, we launched HOTH PPC to help you build and scale your lead gen campaigns with Google Ads.

We’ve been getting some amazing results! Check out these case studies:

• How we drove 752 leads for a car dealer in 90 days
• How we reduced lead cost by 85% with PPC

If you’d like some help with running Google Ads, check out HOTH PPC here.

Some of the biggest sites in the world use content syndication as their secret weapon to get more eyeballs and quality links, and now you can too.

With HOTH Syndication, we’ll distribute your content to over 300+ high-quality news sources.

Click here to check it out.

Our Video department expanded from spokesperson videos and added product videos to the lineup.

If you have an e-commerce store, just ship us your product and we’ll produce a high-quality product video for you!

Update: Unfortunately, our Product Video service was retired on March 31, 2021.

Need original content for your product descriptions?

Check out HOTH E-Commerce Product Descriptions!

We just released an update to HOTH Press, our press release writing and distribution service.

With this update we now have:

• Improved writing
• Option for distribution only
• Links that stick!

Check out HOTH Press here.

Do you need writing for your homepage, about page, product or service pages?

Now you can order all these types of content in 1 place with HOTH Web Copy.

9. HOTH Speed: Pagespeed Optimization

Want a faster website? With HOTH Speed, we’ll optimize your site to load ultra-fast!

Check out HOTH Speed.

New Features

Not only did we work on updating and launching new products, we also gave the ordering & reporting process some attention.

Here are the new features that we launched to make your life easier:

This year we launched all-new reporting for nearly all products. Not only do the reports look better visually, but they also are white-label, easily sharable, and show the value behind what happened in production.

They are organized into neat sections like this:

Check out more on our new reporting here.

We launched a new way to organize all your clients in the backend:

Now you can organize them all into projects and easily see client information and stats at a glance!

Learn more about our Client Project Organizer.

We made it even easier to order large quantities of blog content in our backend. You can use our normal purchase form, or even upload a bulk spreadsheet.

Click here to check it out!

P.S. Need to order way more than 100 at a time? We have an order API as well.

Ever wanted to just shoot your client over an article for approval without copying and pasting? Well, now you can with our white label content approval feature!

Learn more about white label content approvals.

New Designs

You may have noticed we launched an all-new blog design!

Now the articles are easier to read, easier to navigate, and look beautiful!

Just a month ago we launched our new learning hub with over 30,000 words of free marketing training.

Check out some of our guides:

• Learn SEO
• Learn Local SEO
• Learn Content Marketing

Inc 5000 3X

This is our third year in a row on the Inc 5000 fastest-growing companies list!

TBBJ Fast 50

We also placed #5 in the top 50 fastest growing companies in Tampa Bay

TBBJ Best Places To Work

Not only are we growing fast, but we also received our “Best Places To Work” award for the 2nd year in a row.

A portion of every dollar you spend at the HOTH goes to charity. This year we donated to 14 different charities.

Check out our HOTH Hitt’em Over The Heart Charity Awards here.

Conclusion

2019 was surely a year of hustle, and we have even more in store for next year.

Thank you for being a part of the journey!

The post The HOTH Recap 2019: 15+ Things We Launched This Year appeared first on The HOTH.

Since then we’ve seen an increased demand for content. Most of you know that more quality content = better SEO and don’t want to be limited to how much you can get at once.

So we updated our system. You can now order 1-100 blogger articles at a once, making it much easier to order the exact amount of content you need.

Here’s How It Works:

Just go to the HOTH Blogger Cart page and you will see the new options available. Place your order for 1-100, and everything else works like normal!

Note that each order should be for 1 domain / website as the articles are all tied to one order form.

If you’d like to place bulk orders for multiple domains, you can do so with our easy bulk Blogger order upload option here.

Package Pricing & Discounts

We’re deprecating our previous 1, 2, 4, 8 packages and pricing. All quantities are now the same price throughout.

If you’d like to save on your HOTH Blogger orders, you may be interested in our bulk buyer program where you can get up to a 15% bonus.

Note: If you are currently on a Blogger subscription, no prices will change with any current subscriptions.

Feel free to reach out to your account manager for any additional information you need on purchasing here.

Conclusion

We hope this update helps you meet your content needs and simplifies the process for you. Let us know if you have any feedback in the comments below!

The post Now You Can Order Up To 100 Blogger Articles At A Time appeared first on The HOTH.

As of May 28, 2019 we are depreciating the ability to change a scheduled order date.

If you’d like to change your subscription, you do have the ability to cancel the subscription and start a new one.

You can see all your scheduled orders and subscriptions on the scheduled order tab of your dashboard.

The post “Ability To Change Scheduled Order Date” Is Being Depreciated May 28, 2019 appeared first on The HOTH.

Keeping track of projects for multiple clients can be frustrating for even the most organized business owner.

Which orders are for which clients? Are they done? Where are all the reports?

In the past, we solved this with tags – the ability to tag and sort by anything you’d like.

But we listened to your feedback and wanted to give this a complete overhaul to make your life much easier, and keep everything organized in one place.

So today, we’re introducing the Client Organizer Beta!

What Is The Client Organizer?

With the Client Organizer, you can now sort your orders into folders that you create, giving you the flexibility to manage multiple projects at one time.

Here’s what it looks like:

The Client Organizer was designed with time-saving improvements like:

• Quick categorization of orders when you place them
• Special highlighted sections to give you an at-a-glance view of orders that need your attention
• The ability to track notes on a per-client basis so you can organize your project details

Using the Client Organizer is easy, and we aim to make it even easier, so be sure to send over your feedback on the process. To get started with Client Organizer, just join our beta by clicking here:

Using The Client Organizer For Projects

Client Organizer is flexible as well – you don’t have to use it strictly for client work.

When you add a new “client”, it acts as a folder to hold orders and notes.

These “clients” can be called anything you want – so you may find it easier to create multiple Client Organizer entries to track a long-running project for a single client, for example.

In-House Marketers With Multiple Projects

In-house marketers who don’t deal with clients can benefit as well.

Now, you can create a Client Organizer “client” for each department you are working with to better help you keep track of deliverables for the marketing team or the brand management group, for example.

Webmasters With Multiple Customers

Webmasters with a small number of high-touch customers could break down orders into multiple “client” folders.

It may be easier to call your folders “BigCorp – Content” and “BigCorp – Links” or to use the client names to remind yourself about the types of orders that are organized inside.

Getting Started: How To Add A Client

Once you’ve joined the client organizer beta, you’ll see a condensed view of all of your existing un-sorted orders.

To add a client, just click the “Add Client” button on the left panel:

Then type the client’s name and click save:

Boom. Now you have a new client!

Adding Existing Orders To A Client

If you’ve been placing orders for a while, you’ll want to add your existing orders to your client. There are a couple of ways to do this.

Adding orders individually

1. Go to “All” orders on the left side:

2. Use the checkbox selector to select the order or orders you want to add to a client.

3. A new assignment dropdown will appear where you can assign the selected orders to the client.

Adding multiple orders with filters

If you have a lot of orders, it may be easier to first filter the orders by URL and add them. Here’s how:

1. Go to “All” orders on the left side:

2. Use the filter box and type in a URL or keyword that you have used for your client. Press enter and it will filter by any orders that used that URL or keyword:

3. Use the checkbox in the header column to select all and use the assignment dropdown to assign them to a client:

Unassign or Reassign Orders From A Client

Accidentally added the wrong order? No problem, you can easily unassing orders.

1. Just click the order you want to unassign or reassign to another client:

2. Then click the appropriate button in the drop down.

How To Make Sure All Your Orders Are Organized

Want to make sure you’ve assigned all the orders to your clients and didn’t miss any?

Just click the “Unassigned” orders button on the left panel and you can see any orders that do not have an associated client:

Add Client Notes

If you click on a client from the left side of Client Organizer list, you can use the “Edit Note” link to add notes for the client.

This is perfect for storing contact details, upcoming strategy ideas, or even pertinent reminders to yourself about the orders you have in progress.

Conclusion

We hope that you enjoy using the Client Organizer and find it easy to use.

This is our beta version so we would love to hear your feedback! We are already working on v2, but we hope this helps you stay organized as you grow with The HOTH!

If you have immediate concerns like bugs or problems using the system, don’t be afraid to contact us.

The post Introducing: The New Client Project Organizer appeared first on The HOTH.

On top of the $1,000 grant, this years scholarship winner also received lifetime access to all of our private SEO training material, learning courses and blueprints.

We’ve designed this program to help students achieve their dreams and become future industry leaders by providing them with a significant monetary reward and the necessary tools to learn, study, and effectively perform search engine optimization.

Our mission here at The HOTH is to successfully help business owners grow their business through SEO. Providing students with this scholarship opportunity helps us further down the path to achieving this goal of ours.

In order to qualify for our HOTH SEO Scholarship, all applicants had to:

• Write an essay of 1000+ words on the topic of “How Companies Can Take Advantage of Digital Marketing.”
• Publish the post online publicly.
• Include at least 3 links citing authoritative sources on digital marketing, including 1 link to www.TheHOTH.com.

The winner of our 2019 HOTH SEO Scholarship is…

Ethan’s passion for digital marketing is reflected in his essay “How Companies Can Take Advantage of Digital Marketing.”

Ethan is a Business Administration Major who’s minoring in Integrated Communications. He is also a student-athlete, as an active member of the University of Charleston Men’s Soccer Team.

He’s grown up in West Virginia and it was no surprise that he chose this school so close to home. University of Charleston has a great Business Admin program and a very talented soccer team.

When he’s not playing soccer, he enjoys mountain biking and reading (SEO books of course).

Ethan found his passion for Digital Marketing and Social Media in high school, as he was the manager of the schools social media accounts.

“The owner of a local social media consulting agency gave a speech during one of our classes and I was immediately interested in the space of social media/digital marketing,” said Ethan.

Over the past few years, he’s studied this space and paid close attention to entrepreneurs and authorities in the industry.

After college, Ethan plans to start-up his own Social Media & Digital Marketing Agency and later transition into business consulting.

The HOTH is extremely proud of Ethan and we are looking forward to hearing about his successes both in his profession and in soccer.

Stay tuned for info on our SEO Scholarship Program!

The post 2019 HOTH SEO Scholarship Winner Announced appeared first on The HOTH.

The HOTH, a white label SEO and online marketing agency based out of St. Petersburg, Florida, has been named the 561st fastest growing company in the United States on the Inc. 5000 2018 list. In 2017, the company made the Inc. 5000 list at number 820 and this rise is due to their company’s industry-leading SEO products and services. The HOTH has grown to service thousands of agencies and businesses around the world since 2010.

“As Google has changed over the years, so have we. We have expanded our product lines into high-quality content creation, video SEO, full-service managed SEO, local SEO and more.” Marc Hardgrove, CEO of The HOTH, explains.

The HOTH offers a wide range of products and services to help increase website traffic, all available on its website at www.thehoth.com.

“The goal of the HOTH is to make SEO accessible to everyone, and we’ve grown rapidly because of that philosophy. SEO is one of the most powerful marketing channels, and we help businesses rank highly in the search engines through our affordable products and services.”

With Google’s algorithms constantly changing, business owners need to stay up-to-date in order to grow their traffic. Search Engine Optimization best practices change, even from month to month as new technologies become available on the web. In the last year, search engines have put a big focus on quality content, mobile optimization, and video.

“Companies need to be focusing on creating quality, optimized content so they can attract their target customer. Google is looking for who is the biggest authority in each niche and location. The HOTH works by helping businesses create this type of targeted content and grow the authority of their websites through targeted promotion.” Hardgrove continues.

SEO and online marketing tasks can quickly overwhelm many businesses as SEO becomes more complicated each year. Hiring in-house staff to support a variety of marketing channels is not always possible. With the help of The HOTH, businesses can keep pace with updates and best practices to grow their traffic.

“In a world where SEO is complicated and difficult to understand, our goal is to make SEO easy for everyone. We offer a variety of plans and services to suit your needs whether your a local business or a Fortune 500 company. We have built an amazing team and culture and we’re excited to serve you for all your SEO needs.” Hardgrove states.

About The HOTH:

The HOTH is a White Label SEO and online marketing agency based out of St. Petersburg, FL.

MEDIA CONTACT

Marc Hardgrove
111 2nd Ave NE #1500 Saint Petersburg FL, 33701
877-720-4684
marc@nextnetmedia.com
https://www.inc.com/inc5000/list/2018

The post The HOTH SEO Company Makes The Inc. 5000 List for 2018 appeared first on The HOTH.

In this video, Andrew talks about moving from a different industry to SEO and what it’s like working here. He also shares some of his favorite things in the world that keep him going. He also hates on Tesla even though it’s the fastest production car in the world.

Click here to subscribe to our YouTube for SEO training!

The post Inside The HOTH: Interview With Andrew Hardgrove – SEO Account Manager appeared first on The HOTH.