Key Numbers
100+
Google impressions in the first 4 months
0
ChatGPT citations earned on a brand new domain
0
Organic keywords ranking on Google in under 4 months
Key Takeaways
The Challenge Jay Baer had built a tequila newsletter with over 53,000 active subscribers and a loyal audience, but when he launched it as a standalone website, it had zero search presence. The site was built on Beehiiv, a newsletter platform with real technical constraints, and there was no SEO foundation, no content strategy, and no roadmap to turn that existing audience into compounding organic growth.
Our Approach
Full technical SEO audit of the new Beehiiv-based website: indexing, crawlability, schema, performance, on-page structure, and paywall mechanics
Prioritized action plan delivered directly to the Beehiiv development agency for implementation
12-month content strategy built around two layers: a Resource Hub targeting ~170 tequila education topics and a Celebrity Tequila Brands content series to capture high-volume celebrity search demand
Internal linking and information architecture plan to communicate topical authority to Google and AI search systems
Backlink strategy leveraging Jay's existing domain authority at jaybaer.com as an immediate zero-cost win
Ongoing consulting retainer to guide the Beehiiv team through implementation and answer strategic questions as they arose
The Outcome
52,400+ Google impressions in the first 4 months, starting from zero
165 ChatGPT citations earned in under 4 months, plus 54 on Gemini and 5 on Perplexity
32 organic keywords now ranking on Google, up from near zero (+27 in 3 months)
170+ keyword opportunities mapped across an estimated 144,000+ monthly US searches
The Hook
Most websites take 6 to 12 months to gain any meaningful traction in organic search. The Tequila Report was already trending ahead of that curve within weeks of the audit. But early momentum without a clear strategy is a wasted window. Jay needed to know exactly what to fix, what to build, and in what order - on a platform that does not give you full control over your own site.
Our Strategy
Starting Point: A Technical Audit on a Constrained Platform
Beehiiv is built for newsletters, not for SEO. That creates a specific set of challenges: limited control over page structure, schema implementation constraints, and a development agency as the middleman for any technical changes. The audit covered every layer - indexing and crawlability, redirect chains, mobile performance, on-page structure, schema implementation, and paywall mechanics - and produced a prioritized action list sorted by impact.
Critical issues included a mobile page load time of over 10 seconds, 14 pages missing H1 tags, 161 images without alt text, and 15 orphan pages that Google could only find through the sitemap. Every fix was written as a clear instruction that the Beehiiv agency could implement without interpretation.
The Content Architecture
The real growth engine is the content strategy. We mapped out two distinct content layers to serve different parts of the acquisition funnel.
The first layer is a Resource Hub covering the full breadth of tequila education: history, production, regions, terminology, tasting guides, brand comparisons, and FAQ-style reference content. The goal is to become the go-to reference for everything tequila - not just reviews. Roughly 170 articles targeting over 144,000 monthly US searches.
The second layer is Celebrity Tequila Brands content. Celebrity-owned tequila brands represent a largely uncontested opportunity to rank on high-volume celebrity name searches - George Clooney's Casamigos, Dwayne Johnson's Teremana, Nick Jonas's Villa One - and to attract backlinks from entertainment media that would never link to a standard tequila site. This layer also functions as a live news desk, capturing search demand whenever a celebrity launches, sells, or creates controversy around a tequila brand.
Authority and Links
One of the most immediate backlink wins identified in the audit was already sitting unused: a link from jaybaer.com, a high-authority domain Jay had been building for years. That link alone carries more authority than most outreach campaigns could achieve in months. The broader backlink strategy positions Jay as a tequila industry expert available for media commentary on celebrity brand trends - a natural extension of his existing positioning as a keynote speaker and author.
AI Search from Day One
One of the core principles of the strategy was building for AI search visibility alongside traditional Google rankings, not as an afterthought. The results reflect this directly. Within a few months of the audit, The Tequila Report had earned 165 citations on ChatGPT, 54 on Gemini, and 5 on Perplexity - on a domain that barely existed when we started. As AI tools become a primary research channel for consumers discovering new spirits, this early footprint is a compounding asset.
Ongoing Consulting
After delivering the audit and strategy, we stayed on as a consulting partner for several months while the Beehiiv team worked through implementation. This meant answering technical questions as they came up, reviewing planned changes before they went live, and keeping the strategy on track as the team built out the content architecture.
The Results
The Tequila Report launched from zero organic search presence. Within four months of the audit, Search Console was showing over 52,000 impressions and nearly 2,000 clicks, with an average ranking position of 9.9 - meaning the site was landing on the first page of Google for a meaningful set of searches on a domain that did not exist as a website less than a year before.
The AI search picture is even more striking. ChatGPT alone now surfaces The Tequila Report 165 times - up from essentially nothing - alongside 54 Gemini citations and 5 on Perplexity. The site is not just being discovered through traditional search; it is being recommended by AI tools as a trusted source on tequila.
The newsletter itself continues to grow in parallel. Over 53,000 active subscribers, adding nearly 4,000 new subscribers in the last three months alone at a 43% open rate. The website is beginning to feed the newsletter, which is exactly the funnel the strategy was designed to build.
The deeper result is a clear forward roadmap. The content strategy, keyword map, technical foundation, and AI visibility infrastructure are all in place. The Tequila Report is not just ranking - it is built to keep ranking.
