How I'd grow Good, Cheap and Fast

Good, Cheap and Fast is a website that displays above-average products sold at below-average prices using data and price trends.

Unlike other product review sites, they’re honest, helpful, and don’t use ads or trackers. They even talk you out of purchases (if necessary).

I want to take a second to underline that good branding is a powerful (but underrated) element, and GCF is the perfect example.

Before I’ve even started scrolling, the name, domain, and logo have already responded to my “What’s in it for me?” question.

GCF differentiates itself from the thousands of other anonymous websites by putting the founder’s face front and center, and using first-person POV copy.

It’s a great way to establish trust and make visitors feel like they’re getting advice from a skilled friend.

Being honest is great, but I feel like their USP should emphasize their secret sauce: data analysis.

This is the real deal, but it’s currently hidden on the “About” page. It should definitely be the pillar of their positioning since it makes them different from competitors.

GCF’s north star are repeated visits. They need to become a starting point for their visitors’ purchases.

This is because of their affiliate business model. Random visitors might click through and generate a commission, but a loyal visitor offers a 10/20/30x higher LTV.

To achieve that, GCF must consider the customer journey. The key moment is when they first land on GCF’s page without much context.

Firstly, they need to be able to communicate their uniqueness before visitors finish reading the article and leave forever.

Stopping there would be like driving traffic to a leaky bucket. Only a small portion of these visitors will be proactive enough to bookmark the site.

GCF needs to start collecting visitors' email addresses. It’s the best way to turn random visitors into loyal website users.

For example, they recently wrote a great article about the best Amazon holiday deals. But without a mailing list, many won’t see it on time.

They could create a newsletter with a compelling value proposition. E.g. Send deals with products at their all-time low prices.

Every affiliate site needs a lot of traffic, and the only channel that can drive so much traffic for free is Google.

GCF knows that. They’re putting a lot of effort into SEO. Just look at their ultra-detailed article bios (to demonstrate EAT).

Pro tip: when you want to rank for a keyword but don’t have an authoritative domain with a lot of links, remember that Google’s goal is to satisfy searcher intent.

Look for low-DA sites in the SERP. If Google put it on the first page, the content must be really good.

Their articles are extremely well-written and target the right keywords, but there’s one thing they could do to get more traffic.

By adding relevant filters to their pages, GCF could generate dozens of different results. Each one would target a specific long-tail keyword.

Surprisingly, GCF could improve their search performance with mobile speed optimization.

When you’re competing with higher DA sites, you need to optimize everything you can to outrank them. Their site is great, so the current speed performance is not acceptable.

GCF is also ignoring one channel they shouldn’t: YouTube.

When you search for many of their target keywords, the SERPs have video sections.

When you see this happen, it’s a signal that Google thinks a lot of searchers prefer that format. You need it in your strategy.

GCF isn’t really using social. They have a couple of semi-abandoned accounts.

I think this is a mistake. Social might not drive as much traffic as Google, but it can be powerful for branding. One true fan might be worth tens of random visitors.

Normally, affiliate sites using ads to acquire visitors doesn’t make sense. But in GCF’s case, retargeting would be great.

Retargeting allows them to affordably nudge past visitors who already used the site to start regularly coming back, and form a habit of using GCF.

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