“What is your best advice on creating great content?”

The question is asked loudly; eagerly.

Five hundred expectant pairs of eyes turn on where I sit onstage at the Melbourne Convention Center, microphone in hand.

I’ve known for a while now that my “breakthroughs” tend to occur in two specific situations: during shower time and when I’m struggling to fall asleep.

I can now expand that list to include times like this one — under immense stress, with awkward silence looming and no time to think.

At times like these, I sometimes surprise myself by coming up with an original…

*click* *click*

I’ve learned to love the sweet sound of screenshots being taken on my Macbook.

This is a little hack that I’ve discovered for tracking any interesting ideas I stumble upon online, or just to make sure that I don’t forget a discussion I had on Slack. Every once in a while, I sift through these screenshots for ideas that still seem relevant and exciting.

While my collection of cool growth hacking ideas has become quite impressive over the years, here’s a fun fact: we at Ahrefs never implemented the overwhelming majority of them.

Don’t get me wrong; I…

Hi. I’m Tim, and my official job title is “Chief Marketing Officer and Product Advisor” at Ahrefs, an industry-leading SEO tool.

I’ve been “CMO” for four years now. It’s a fancy title that calls to mind leading huge marketing and sales teams — but the truth is, I was a one-man show for a large part of my stint so far. (I even wrote about this journey, but that’s a separate story.)

In other words, while I’m perfectly happy rolling up my sleeves and doing everything myself, the problem is just that: I’m incredibly used to doing everything myself.

You…

His palms are sweaty.

Knees weak; arms are heavy.

There’s vomit on his sweater already.

So raps Eminem in the film 8 Mile, describing his character’s nervousness while performing on stage.

These opening lines perfectly represent how I felt before hosting my first webinar for Ahrefs — minus the vomit, thankfully.

I’d decided to experiment with webinars as a marketing channel after hearing about their high potential to convert.

So, I did what any responsible internet marketer would do:

I spent countless hours writing the best script I could and creating a few dozen good-looking slides to accompany it. I…

If you build it, they will come.

…except they didn’t.

I’d worked my heart out over 12 months’ worth of evenings and weekends, all to bootstrap my first premium Wordpress plugin.

The result? A whopping $100 in sales.

“What’s your favorite marketing campaign of all time?”

It was a simple question.

But I didn’t have an answer.

My brain shuffled through past campaigns like a deck of cards. The seconds passed like minutes, as I considered examples I had seen.

However, none of the marketing campaigns from our SaaS company, our competitors or outside industries stood out.

Occasionally, I’m invited to speak on podcasts. I’m accustomed to answering questions about SEO, content marketing and building marketing teams.

However, in this particular moment, I was drawing an embarrassing blank: What kind of CMO doesn’t keep up with marketing campaign…

Allison: Dude, he showed up with donuts.

Me: What? Donuts?

Allison: He said he wanted to talk things over.

Me: Did he spring for the good kind or just your standard glazed?

Allison: He went artisanal — we’re talking pineapple basil!

Me: So, what happened?

Allison: I said there was someone else; it was too late…

Based on the above excerpt, you might assume Allison and I were discussing a breakup. However, you would be mistaken.

Allison works in the marketing department of an enterprise-level company. …

Your blog traffic is plateauing.

Can I take a stab at rewriting your homepage?

The UI/UX of that feature could be better.

These are the kinds of messages Ahrefs’ CEO and founder Dmitry received from me in 2015. The funny part?

I wasn’t even an employee yet. I was a freelance marketer who wasn’t afraid to be honest with my clients, and Ahrefs was one of them.

Dmitry got in touch with me while looking for marketers who would write quality content for his 8-figure SaaS company.