Today I am stoooooked to bring you the incredible story today behind Chasing Foxes.
Silas and Grace Moser (the two bloggers), have managed to build up a HUGE blog in just over a year, and I really wanted to find out how they did it!
A little over a year ago, Silas and Grace were unsure of where their lives were headed…working in stressful jobs, desiring travel, wanting to create something to enable that lifestyle…..the usual.
Fast-forward a year later…and their blog is receiving over 2,000,000 page views a month and generating solid income (which will surely grow exponentially for a while. They’re only starting year two…)
How on Earth did they do it??
Stuff we talk about?
- NOT niching down(!)
- How new bloggers underestimate the hustle required
- Analyzing viral headlines
- The best ways to monetize a blog (read the mega-guide for this here)
- Talking to significant others about your blogging passion
They’re delightful people (as well as brilliant and super hardworking I might add), and I KNOW you’re going to get some golden nuggets of blogging wisdom from them. I love their story.
Show Notes
- ChasingFoxes.com
- Nick Loper interviews Rosemarie Groner (and my interview with her is here. and Nick lol)
- Sarah Titus
- The 4 Hour Work Week – Tim Ferriss (required reading for all entrepreneurs)
- The E-myth Revisited – Michael Gerber (working ON your biz, rather than IN your biz)
- Pat Flynn
- Bigger Pockets – #1 Real Estate Investing Podcast (love me some bigger pockets)
- Staff Virtual
4 key takeaways from today’s episode:
1 – The importance of niching down (OR NOT)
“The riches are in the niches!”
YAWN.
We hear this all the time in the meta-blogging world. We’re told to niche down 3 times in order that we might find a audience to connect to.
Here’s why this is generally true:
It’s easier to “stand out” in a very targeted niche (because there is less competition)
Here’s why this MIGHT not be true at all:
Blogging, side-hustles, and online business does have a “numbers game” element.
Silas and Grace have taken to a broad “lifestyle” niche, including travel, money, blogging, food, etc…and are doing so for a numbers game.
They aim to reach the maximum amount of people possible, and intend to convert those website visitors who have multiple lifestyle interests in common.
For example, I like reading about personal finance, digital marketing (I.e. how to blog), AND travel. I’d totally land on ChasingFoxes.com for a travel related article, and click-through to a personal finance related article.
If you’re good at driving traffic (which having several sub-niches lends itself to anyways), then this approach could totally work.
“Could.” Not “will.”
2 – Blog growth takes a lot of work
When we talked about joining Pinterest group boards, Grace casually mentioned she spent a number of days JUST reaching out to group board owners. She couldn’t even identify how many boards she’s a part of…because it’s dozens and dozens, if not hundreds.
This is a key ingredient to their massive growth….and it didn’t come easy.
That sort of effort takes a lot of time, and it’s tedious.
- How many times do you read an article on Pinterest marketing…and not take action on it?
- Or take action on it…but just a little? If a course says “join 50 group boards!” How many do you actually join?
- How much free time do you spend blogging vs. watching TV?
All these questions boil down to “How badly do you want it?”
Silas and Grace wanted it bad.
{{{{Speaking of blog growth, DYEB has a lovely course on Pinterest traffic. It’s a simple email course for beginners-intermediate folks…which you can opt into below.}}}}
3 – If you plan on spending time on your blog, clear it with your significant other
This is important. Your spouse (or boyfriend/girlfriend) should 101.5% be on board with your blogging efforts.
If you have a full-time job, you might be blogging at night or on weekends…when you otherwise might be sending time with your family.
This can be a tough thing for non-bloggers to understand, so it’s vital you sit down w/ your loved ones and explain to them why you’re doing what you’re doing.
9 times out of 10, they’ll totally support you, but you should present your case anyways (they’ll also just enjoy learning about something you’re passionate about!)
4 – Spend more time on your headlines (tired of hearing this yet?)
Silas and Grace made a dedicated effort to analyze Buzzfeed and Upworthy headlines, learning what worked and why.
Who does that??
We all know headlines are important, but the truth is we all still skimp sometimes. (I totally do).
Can anyone here tell me the purpose of your blog post headline?
- To get the post read?
- To make you look good?
NO.
***
The purpose of your headline is to get your first sentence read.
The purpose of your first sentence? To get your second sentence read.
This is copywriting 101.
***
(Also, Grace and Silas took it to yet another level…they didn’t just choose 1 headline. They chose 5-6, and ABCDE and F tested them via different Pinterest images. Smart!)
34 Responses
Pete!
This was pretty awesome! You were born for this. I’m getting myself ready for the day I become worthy of the show. 🙂
Seriously, your podcast is competing for my attention with all others following Tim Ferriss. That’s pretty good company to be in, in my book.
Are you ever going to offer downloads on this site? I listen to all my podcasts while driving or working out and I don’t like to use data. Just askin’
Those are incredibly kind words Darren. I appreciate all the support you’ve shown.
Few things, you should be able to download every episode via the built-in Apple podcast app, as well as the overcast.fm app, etc.
I usually wait till I’m home on wi-fi, and download them to my phone. Doesn’t use up data 😉
More info –> https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-download-podcasts-in-itunes-2438849
And more –> http://honey.nine.com.au/2017/02/24/07/26/guide-to-downloading-and-listening-to-podcasts
I HIGHLY suggest downloading and using Overcast. I switched to that for all my podcast listening…and highly recommend it. (It’ll take a few days to get used to, but it’s far better than anything else I’ve used.)
Pete, seriously loving your podcast. This episode was awesome with Grace & Silas. Such great questions! Learning a ton through your podcast and feeling super inspired! Thanks!
Thanks for the kind words again Jamie. Seriously glad you’re getting a lot out of it 🙂 🙂
This in the queue for drive home today. And signed up for Pinterest course
sweeeeet. P.S. I think we’ll be in the ‘ham all weekend.
You blogging Friday?
Great podcast Pete. Really enjoyed Grace & Silas. Learned a ton. Thanks again my friend. Much love, RH
Appreciate the kind words, as always RH! Thanks for listening 🙂
Pete, this was excellent. I found Chasing Foxes a few weeks ago when they guested for Michelle at Making Sense of Cents. I’ve been consuming all of their “learn to blog” and “Pinterest is my FT job” content to find ways to build my blog, Run The Money. So, I was thrilled to see you did a deep dive interview with them.
I’ll be listening to it again actually to make sure I’m covering everything. Creating a massive spreadsheet of bloggers to contact based on their Pinterest group boards using the advice from your podcast. Trying to be that person that puts it into action!
As a fellow accountant who longs to escape the cubicle, I want it pretty damn bad!
Nice Dave! Always glad to meet other blogging accountants 🙂 🙂
1 – Silas and Grace are damn pros.
2 – So is Rosemarie Groner, so allow me to recommend her interview as well. It’s my most downloaded episode for good reason. She’s amazing, especially when it comes to Pinterest.
3 – Thanks for listening Dave. I appreciate your visit to my site/podcast. 🙂
Pete, I just wanted to leave a comment and say thank you for all of the great content you provide. After listening to this interview, I’m binge-listening to the rest of your podcast episodes.
I loved the ones with Rosemarie Groner and Eden Fried – so much helpful information! Keep up the good work!
Thanks Veneta. That means a lot. So glad you enjoyed it 🙂
Pete, what can I say, i keep coming back to this post to glean. So much great information. As someone new to the blogging world, let me just say your blog has greatly inspired me. Keep blogging my friend. I celebrate you.
Hey Pete,
This is the first time we have listened to any podcast and we must say it was worth the time, absolutely fantastic work there by you.As someone who has freshly stepped into blogging word( just 2 weeks), we learnt a lot from your podcast and feeling super inspired! we would definitely put this into action.We were in super-doubt whether our step of not niching down was correct or not, but after hearing this podcast we are pretty sure it won’t matter if we have good content and follow proper strategy, it worked for Silas and grace then why not us.
Thanks for making this podcast.
Well you are more than welcome! I’m thrilled you got something out of it 🙂
Your site looks fantastic, especially for being new at this. 1 thing I’d add = a more compelling reason to join your email list. (on your sidebar). At a minimum, give us 2-4 sentences on WHY we should join, what we might expect, etc 🙂
Keep me posted on how it goes, and let me know if you ever need anything 😉
Thanks for appreciation and feedback, we will definitely implement what you said.
Sure, will keep updated.
You did a great job with the interview, it was very thorough. This answered a lot of my questions. I’ve seen their blog before and thought it was great. But as a future blogger, it was inspiring to hear their story. Also thanks for tip with headline analyzer.
Yay! Thanks for that Jesse 🙂 Appreciate you being here.
Thank You SO much!
Hey just got hooked on your podcast! I heard an old one from Chasing Foxes where they mentioned a Ted talk on the creator of Upworthy about Virality.
Can you link it I cant seem to find it!
Carry On! Such great info Thanks !!!
Thanks, Christine, I appreciate that!
I actually remember looking for that and never finding it when I published this episode :/
I’ll double-check and report back to these comments if I find it!
Is this it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moc2azeagDs
Good follow-up! That’d be the one 🙂
Hey Pete,
I listened to one of your podcasts a few weeks ago and initially I thought… Meh!!
Now it is hands down the podcast I am listening to!! Every other podcast has taken a back seat and that’s saying something for me (even more than Tim Ferris, Pat Flynn, Rich Dad and all the property ones!)
Your work has really helped me to focus and really take my blogging seriously.
I’m looking forward to learning some more Pinterest knowledge from you course over the next few days!! Man I find Pinterest so alien…
Thanks again
Mike
ha! I’ll take that compliment–but I’m also curious which episode your initial experience was with 🙂
and good luck on the Pinterest front. It can be a tough cookie to crack. 🙂
Wow, I have a long “To Do” list after listening to just half of this episode so far! When they talk about coming up with 20-25 titles, is that just for Pinterest pins?
In your blog post, you mention “(Also, Grace and Silas took it to yet another level…they didn’t just choose 1 headline. They chose 5-6, and ABCDE and F tested them via different Pinterest images. Smart!)”. So are they creating 5-6 blog post headlines and then putting each headline on 5-6 different Pinterest images, creating roughly 25-36 pins for the same blog post? I’m not following that very well. Thanks.
Awesome. Very different approach. I like that. Hope to see more of this. I like the idea that you can go about 1 thing several different ways. I also really love that you capitalized this and flushed it out so it was easier to understand the differences. See what they did and why. But most of all, I like knowing the WHY. Thank you. Great podcast. Added this to my “listen again” list.
side note…. why did you change from numbers to their names? Its SO much harder to keep track of their names!! I suck at remembering names, haha!
Hi there can you guide me how do you do the underlining blue color on your site,i like it
You’ll have to experiment w/ some CSS! Here’s the custom CSS I use on my site: https://cl.ly/2b09b070d920
🙂
Pete, love your content and podcast! I know you’ve mentioned a previous personal finance blog in the past. Any specific reason you decided to ditch it? It’s a crowded space and was wondering if that was the reason.
As someone early on (well…. 6 months in) in their blogging career (specifically in personal finance), any advice would be awesome!
Also currently going through #2 and #3. Blogging takes TIME.
Hey thanks Forrest 🙂
I ditched it because I was actually just way more interested in the behind-the-scenes stuff (blogging, marketing, etc).
Tips? Relationships, relationships, relationships. Twitter and Instagram. Use the same profile pic and engage with people every day. Then write interesting content aimed at staking a stand on something.
This is a great interview with really useful information. Interesting to hear about the Pinterest strategy.