Today, I’m sharing an adventure close to my heart — selling my first side project, Opengraph.xyz.
Before this happened, I thought a side project with 0 MRR was worth nothing. But now that I’ve seen what can happen when you put in the work and take risks, my perspective has changed completely!
Trust me, it was a ride filled with significant lessons, a handful of mistakes, and an array of unique experiences.
It all started when I found out opengraph.xyz domain was available at the end of 2019.
At the time, Hey Meta and Meta Tags are the go-to tools to check social media previews. I wanted to test if I could outrank both sites for open graph related keywords using the exact match domain approach.
An Exact Match Domain (EMD) is a domain name that precisely matches the main keyword or keyphrase for which a website wants to rank in search engines. The idea behind using an EMD is to have a domain name that mirrors the specific terms users will likely use when searching for information, products, or services.
I had no idea that this simple project, which I started with a genuine desire to learn about SEO and SERP, would transform into a profitable side project.
Note: If you’re into SEO, don’t forget to check out Search Engine Journal.
At the time of writing, there are around 44,000 monthly unique visitors with over 120,000 monthly page views.
I did zero marketing for the site — I just focused on good UI/UX and let it spread organically.
It ranks #1 for the following keywords and more:
open graph checkeropen graph testopen graph testerog checkerog image checkeropen graph preview