I think everybody should study ants. They have an amazing four-part philosophy. Never give up, look ahead, stay positive and do all you can. – Jim Rohn, Entrepreneur
Ants are industrious, but they are also strong, with the ability to carry between 10 and 50 times their own body weight. What would that kind of strength look like when translated into human digital education? What if that strength was found in providing people the knowledge and training in SEO to make them several times more powerful than when they started?
This is what David Zimmerman aims to do with Curious Ants, his Paid Memberships Pro powered SEO courses. The owner of an internet marketing agency, David saw that with another kind of platform he could offer his in-depth knowledge of SEO practices to a market for whom his agency work might not be a fit. With Curious Ants, he gives his clients the tools and knowledge to strengthen and extend their abilities for success in carrying out SEO campaigns for their own businesses and those of their clients.
Why a Membership Site for Training
David’s inspiration for creating the Curious Ants training as a membership site was three-fold:
1. Ideal for SEO Training
Not all businesses are ready to commit to comprehensive internet marketing agency services, and smaller businesses in particular may not be in the position to afford an agency. But individuals can learn SEO processes, tasks, and best practices, for their own businesses, as well as to provide SEO services to support their own clients. As more and more people approached David, asking him to help them learn SEO, he realized he had a market for training.
2. A Membership Site Can Be Future Proof
David turned to Paid Memberships Pro in 2020 to create a second business that provided recurring income, and that was also scalable. Unlike his consulting company that depends on him as its principal agent and motivator, a membership site can stand on its own and eventually be sold. As David looks toward the future when he might eventually retire, Curious Ants will be easier to sell to a buyer.
3. Love of Coaching
A born teacher-coach, David, loves to interact and encourage his clients, something he has not been able to do in his agency. Within the framework of Curious Ants he can engage with his subscribers, filling a gap that was missing from his work life.
In particular, David considers his weekly coaching call the highlight of his week, in which members call in to work through challenges with him.
One day I’d like to retire. It will be hard to sell a company that completely depends on me. If I, however, can create a membership site that is a scalable business that I could sell to someone else.
—David Zimmerman
The PMPro Advantage
David also wanted to own and manage his own content and website, and have it hosted on his own server. As he considered the amount of time and effort he put into creating content, he recognized that putting it on a third party platform could be a gamble, since the possibility of a SaaS platform going out of business would mean losing all his work. Using Paid Memberships Pro, he has full control.
Certain PMPro Add Ons make his tasks easier. David particularly likes:
The Add Name to Checkout Add On
The PMPro Add Name to Checkout Add On adds fields for first and last names in the checkout, which by default usually only asks for a user name. With a site that relies on personal connection as Curious Ants does, David considers having a subscriber’s name a valuable asset.
Require Strong Passwords Add On
The free Require Strong Passwords Add On ensures that certain characters are used in a password for optimum security. Users can see how strong their passwords are, and developers can use webhooks to further customize the Add On.
Zapier Integration Add On
Paid Memberships Pro has built-in support for Zapier, which allows for connecting PMPro to a myriad of other web services. “Zaps,” or automated connections, are easily set up without coding, and can automate tasks and build workflows. For David, this was critical to connect with Active Campaign, which he uses for email management and drip campaigns.
With PMPro, I can host [my content] on my own server and manage the website on my own-–protecting my hard work.
—David Zimmerman
The Curious Ants Website
Curious Ants is built on the WordPress platform, with a tech stack that includes:
- Paid Memberships Pro
- Advanced Custom Fields
- Gravity Forms
- Termageddon
- PMPro’s Memberlite Elements theme
- Active Campaign
The website’s branding reflects its mission toward improving Google’s search engine results, with a palette similar to Google’s. Meanwhile, the names of the three membership tiers David offers cleverly extend the ant theme: Worker, Colony, and Queen.
Curious Ants’ membership training offers:
- An easy-to-follow checklist for important SEO tasks
- A plan and schedule for implementing the tasks
- How-to videos illustrating each process
- Lessons on analytics, technical SEO, content generation, keyword research, and link building
- The opportunity to participate in a weekly group coaching where Colony members can ask SEO questions
- Free access to David’s keyword research process
For anyone interested in Curious Ants but not ready to become a member just yet, a mountain of information (or should we say an “anthill?”) is available in David’s Curious Ants blog, as well as on his YouTube channel.
