30 March 2020
This week's additions focus on marketing, strategy, and leadership, with new digests from Founders, Masters of Scale, and Noah Kagan. Highlights include A $10,000 Ford stake returned $32 million to the Dodge brothers. COVID-19 triggered two distinct mental health waves, not one
Showing 43 digests for 30 March 2020.
The Dodge Brothers: machinists who built an automotive empire
Founders
April 5, 2020
Origin stories
10
Business models
6
A $10,000 Ford stake returned $32 million to the Dodge brothers.
Full ownership — no banks, no board — let them outbuild everyone.
They died within a year of each other, inseparable to the end.
Founder interviews
Podcast
Crisis data reveals the mental health impact of COVID-19
Masters of Scale
April 2, 2020
Founder interviews
10
Management
7
Data & analytics
6
COVID-19 triggered two distinct mental health waves, not one
Volunteer surge kept NPS rising even as volume doubled
No OpenTable for social services — fragmentation costs lives
How to think about financial crises, markets, and investing with Aswath Damodaran
Noah Kagan
April 2, 2020
Valuation
9
Long-term planning
7
Resilience & grit
6
COVID is the first total global economic shutdown — all prior playbooks are useless.
A company's balance sheet determines its post-crisis fate, not what happens next.
Your biggest investing enemy looks back at you in the mirror every morning.
How to optimise your content for a target keyword
Ahrefs
April 1, 2020
SEO
9
Content marketing
6
75% of top-ranking pages don't mention their target keyword once
Matching searcher intent alone handles 80% of on-page optimisation
Strong content beats keyword engineering every time
Finding high-quality link building outreach prospects at scale
Ahrefs
April 1, 2020
SEO
9
Prospecting & outreach
6
Target people who already linked to similar content — they'll link again.
Content Explorer finds thousands who mentioned your topic but never linked.
Daily alerts on fresh mentions beat chasing old tweets every time.
Content marketing
YouTube
Why great blog content is your best marketing strategy
Ahrefs
April 1, 2020
Content marketing
9
Growth hacking
6
Bad content makes every promotion tactic useless — quality comes first
Ahrefs content trended on Reddit and Growth Hackers with zero marketing effort
Ask before publishing: would anyone email this article to a friend?
Content marketing
YouTube
How to write effective outreach emails that get replies
Ahrefs
April 1, 2020
Content marketing
9
Prospecting & outreach
8
A compelling outreach excuse beats any persuasive wording.
Frame every email around the recipient's problem, not your goal.
Soft link requests outperform direct asks — let content do the work.
How to rank for more keywords by expanding your existing content
Ahrefs
April 1, 2020
SEO
9
Content marketing
6
A #5 ranking page can still earn 9,000 monthly visits from keyword variations.
Find traffic gaps by checking what competitors rank for that you don't.
Add keywords naturally as new paragraphs, not as stuffed-in phrases.
Advanced guest blogging tactics to build backlinks at scale
Ahrefs
April 1, 2020
SEO
9
Content marketing
7
Generate thousands of guest post prospects in under five minutes
Low DR sites can still deliver strong links from individual pages
One article can become 20 unique guest posts via two techniques
Content marketing
YouTube
Four Content Promotion Mistakes That Keep Blogs from Ranking
Ahrefs
April 1, 2020
Content marketing
10
SEO
8
94.3% of new pages never reach Google's first page.
Promotion should not stop until the article ranks, not when your checklist ends.
Updating old content and relaunching it beats publishing new content alone.
How to convert blog visitors into email subscribers
Ahrefs
April 1, 2020
Email marketing
8
Conversion rate optimisation
7
Content marketing
5
A first-time visitor who leaves unsubscribed is lost forever.
Technical and psychological tactics both drive list growth.
Beating the flatline matters more than chasing traffic spikes.
Content marketing
YouTube
How to create content that earns backlinks
Ahrefs
April 1, 2020
Content marketing
10
SEO
7
Great content alone won't earn links — four sharing triggers matter
Spy on competitors' most-linked posts to find what works in your niche
Promotion is still required; people can't link to content they haven't seen
Four Link Building Strategies That Work for Blogs
Ahrefs
April 1, 2020
SEO
10
Content marketing
6
New blogs must build links manually — natural links won't come first.
Valuable community comments drive referral traffic and trigger earned dofollow links.
One nofollow comment sparked a tweet, roundup invite, and real backlink.
How to assess keyword difficulty using backlinks
Ahrefs
April 1, 2020
Backlinks are the strongest measurable ranking signal, not content quality
Pages with massive link authority outrank more relevant pages
Target keywords where top-ranking pages have few referring domains
How to find low-competition keyword ideas using Content Explorer
Ahrefs
April 1, 2020
Filter 846 million pages to find high-traffic, zero-backlink opportunities.
Most published content gets almost no search traffic from Google.
Domain rating caps what you can rank for, even with no backlinks.