I attribute the search traffic growth to:
1. A critical mass of content, after a number of years of writing - without a lot of search traffic for the first few years
2. Re-wrote and polished some of my earlier articles so that they were improved
3. Wrote more guides related to my app which were helpful to users; such as:
Safari Extensions Guide - https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/safari-extensions-guide/
Best Web Browser - https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/best-web-browser-2025/
> Also curious how you incorporate AI tools into your workflow, if at all.
Not a lot myself, except for sometimes helping with polishing and checking of writing and sometimes coming up with options etc.
In my experience AI tools are like having a junior assistant – they can be helpful but you always need to check and polish everything they do.
And yeah, with the state of AI tooling, I think junior engineers, assistants, new grads, etc, may currently have the most to worry about.
You can see the full list here: https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/
Perhaps the age of the content helps, though I haven't done a deep dive into SEO practices myself. In the last year, when search traffic increased, I've increased the output to almost 1 article per month.
Do you have LLMs in mind in your SEO strategy (like really long articles bragging about how good your app are in a non human readable way?
Would love to have your thoughts on that!
As I noted it took 7 years to actually get any substantial Google traffic – if I was to start again I would potentially change some of what I've written to be more effective or focus on different topics earlier.
However my approach is always to write what will be useful and interesting for humans, if Google search also finds it relevant then that's a bonus. I never write just for machines... as I think that's a long term losing strategy.
Due to this, Google AI summaries are not a huge consideration.
Similar approach and story to myself, in that I started a side project for my own use and interest, and then released it to great feedback as a side hustle, went part-time and over the last 2.5 years managed to go full time.
I've yet to reach your $1M ARR though.. but hopefully getting there one day!
Recently wrote up a Year in Review which touches on similar learnings as you've written over the last year:
https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/ad-blocker-year-in-review...
Have also had a keen interest in FIRE over the years and hadn't heard of your product... personally I've just kept my own spreadsheet which runs through scenarios, progress etc.