On Building A Keyword Tool With Over 200 Users

Jason McKee

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Published: September 14th, 2022

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About
Business

Jason McKee

Founder, Keytunity

Founders

Employees

Keytunity

keytunity.com

from Milton Keynes, UK

started February 2022

Founders

Employees

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I’m Jason McKee, the founder of Keytunity. Keytunity pulls data from Google Search Console, analyzes it with a scan of your site, and comes up with new and unique growth recommendations.

Keytunity is designed for anyone who has their site, with some existing search traffic and is keen to grow it. The key is in the existing traffic which means a site is appearing in searches and gives Keytunity some data to work with.

Non-seos will find Keytunity especially useful as the recommendations are clear and precise–no experience needed!

Keytunity started as a set of scripts on my computer that I was using for my sites. When I realized how well it worked I wanted to share it with the world.

Since launching Keytunity has seen over 200 users sign up with very positive feedback around the new ideas and insights it gives users.

What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

I’ve worked in Financial Services around data and strategy for most of my career. I love combining data analysis with a real-world understanding to come up with recommendations.

I’d been building a couple of websites on the side for a few years and the opportunity came to work full time on them which I took nearly a year ago.

Along the way I’d noticed a few things; Existing keyword tools were expensive and used data that in some cases wasn’t too reliable.

I wanted to get data directly from the source but the Google Search Console interface is a bit clunky, so I delved into the API structure and wrote a few scripts which helped me find useful keywords.

I kept refining my scripts to produce better recommendations and found this was working well. At that point, I decided to create an app out of it.

Moving from some scripts on my computer to a web application was harder than I thought but it helped to use an existing framework (Ruby on Rails.)

Using Keytunity on my sites drove a 4.3 X increase in search traffic. This is by both optimizing existing articles and creating new articles in line with Keytunity’s recommendations.

Take us through the process of designing your first product.

Initially, I had to sort out the whole Google authentication side, which is a bit messy as it involves getting the user to authorize the app with Google and fetching and storing tokens from Google. The token needs to be sent with every request to “validate” it.

But tokens only last for an hour, after that you need to request a new token using something called a refresh token.

Just to make it harder, sometimes Google invalidates the refresh token so then you need to get the user to re-authorize. And of course, all this logic needs to happen behind the scenes so the user just gets their data.

Once I figured out Google Authentication, I then had to figure out how to query Google Search Console to get the data I needed.

The next step was to scan each page for the keywords and see if there were keywords I was ranking for that I didn’t have on those pages (or didn’t have prominently enough.) I needed to think about the page's structure: keywords in headings were “stronger” and links “weaker.”

Once it got to that point, it was a case of downloading the data into a spreadsheet and playing around with it. That’s how I figured out the algorithms that needed to go into Keytunity in the end; by coding the steps I’d taken when manipulating the data myself.

One thing to note is that I didn’t do the traditional talking to prospective users about Keytunity. This is because I built it first to solve a problem I had. Only once it was built (albeit as a set of scripts, not an app) did I think about how to build this for other people.

Describe the process of launching the business.

I never wanted a big launch as I felt growing slowly initially would help iron out bugs. I’d indeed been using Keytunity myself, but there’s always some edge case or a different way of doing things that can cause problems.

Write or build something you would read or use. If you build a project you find useful then there’s a good chance someone else will find it helpful as well.

So I first contacted a few people I knew with SEO experience and asked them to play around with Keytunity, I ended up getting 5 users and had some great conversations, including feedback around how it was presented as well as functionality, like introducing search.

Next, I posted it to a few communities I knew and got a little bit more feedback.

Finally, I started posting to directories, communities, and Reddit, being careful not to spam. Reddit in particular has given me quite a few users, and some really helpful feedback.

I know that people don’t like to pay for something unknown without trying it first, so I set a freemium strategy. There is a free plan which gives some usage and some actual value with no need for any payment details.

Beyond that prices are arbitrary, it will need to be a case of testing the market and finding out. I know I’m well below other keyword tools but I don’t have the same infrastructure to support it.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

Well, I think this is the piece I need to work on. In terms of attracting customers, it’s mainly been through word of mouth, including posting to directories and communities.

In terms of retention, I’ve been very flexible and quick to make changes to Keytunity based on feedback which I think has helped. I’ve certainly had positive feedback from this.

What hasn’t worked is Facebook Advertising, which was expensive and sent me people who couldn’t or wouldn’t use Keytunity (as they didn’t have a Google Search Console Account, or at least didn’t connect it). But perhaps I need to figure this out!

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

I’ve got 200 users, one of which is paying, so clearly something I need to work on. I want to get more validation around people being willing to pay. If I can’t get more payers, is it worth investing more time?

I plan to first increase the price and send an email out to the current free users notifying them of this to see if it drives conversions (at the current lower price.)

Secondly, I will look at launching a lifetime deal which would again be a validation that people are willing to pay money for this product.

At the moment I’m planning on growing solo for now. I want Keytunity to be bootstrapped so I would look to hire more team members when there is enough revenue to support this.

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

I think that I perhaps should have focused on content and marketing before production. Perhaps a blog on using Google Search Console, or how to find keywords. This would have built a user base I could use to promote Keytunity to.

This is likely to be an approach I take in the future.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

The main framework I use is Ruby on Rails. I also use something called Jumpstart Pro which has already done a lot of the grunt work in terms of applications built around things like payments and authentication.

The result of this was that when I was building my application I could focus on building the functionality rather than everything else.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

Go Rails and the Odin Project in terms of coding. The Odin Project taught me to code in Ruby on Rails and Go Rails has helped with more advanced projects.

In terms of SEO, I’ve learned a lot from the Authority Hacker which is focused on building affiliate sites but has an excellent, straightforward approach to teaching SEO.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

I would say go ahead and write or build. The worst thing to do is procrastinate.

But, write or build something you would read or use. If you build a project you find useful then there’s a good chance someone else will find it helpful as well.

If you are starting on your own, your biggest challenge is accountability. It’s making sure you are getting things done.

That’s not just about working all day, it’s about actually shipping and not constant tinkering with the process.

Set yourself deadlines, and have an accountability buddy, the most effective thing I found, is to push all the nice haves into a post-release to-do list. Is it an essential part of the product? No. Then it can wait until V2 (or 3 or 4!).