Marketplace Academy

**This is a one-off cross-promotional episode of our new podcast: Sharetribe Founder Stories.**
This new podcast features interviews with founders building successful online marketplaces with Sharetribe. Discover how founders identified opportunities, overcame challenges, and scaled their platforms—from their first transaction to millions in GMV. Each episode dives into both the strategies that worked and the mistakes that taught valuable lessons.
In this first episode, you can hear the story of Marcel Fairbairn and Gearsource.
GearSource is a marketplace that helps rental companies sell professional audio and event production equipment they no longer need. Marcel Fairbairn built the company in 2002, which makes GearSource one of the oldest online marketplaces still in operation, alongside giants like eBay and Amazon.

What you'll learn:
How a self-funded founder built one of the oldest surviving marketplaces on the internet
How Marcel identified an “invisible inventory problem” that became an idea for a marketplace business
The critical "aha moment" when Marcel realized his 16-year-old business was actually a marketplace, and how that changed everything in Marcel's approach
Why lowering commission rates accelerated growth and scalability
The painful lessons from three platform migrations before finding stability with Sharetribe
How to transition from a high-touch service model to an automated marketplace
Marcel's unconventional strategy: "Be aggressive on growing revenue, conservative on growing expenses

Learn how Sharetribe has been helping marketplace founders succeed for a decade. This bonus episode walks you through key moments in Sharetribe's history, from launching the world's first no-code marketplace builder, Sharetribe Go, to creating the developer platform Sharetribe Flex.
On January 30th, we launched our best product yet: the new Sharetribe, a no-code marketplace builder you can extend infinitely with code. And scale to any size. We were featured as #2 Product of the day with over 900 votes. Thank you so much for your support!

Give Sharetribe a spin: https://www.sharetribe.com
Check out Sharetribe on Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/sharetribe-2
Read the post: https://www.sharetribe.com/balanced/introducing-the-new-sharetribe/

Backlinks are votes of confidence from other websites to your marketplace. This final article of our marketplace SEO series discusses how you can build quality backlinks for your marketplace.

Article available at:
Link building for marketplaces. Mira Muurinen, Marketplace Academy 

Sources and further reading:
Google’s John Mueller: Total Number of Backlinks Doesn’t Matter, Matt G. Southern, Search Engine Journal
Lessons from two decades in two-sided platforms with Casey Winters (Eventbrite), Two-sided: The marketplace podcast
Thumbtack Apologizes After Google Penalty; Asking For Link Removals From Businesses, Search Engine Roundtable
How to do local content marketing for marketplaces, Sjoerd Handgraaf, Marketplace Academy
How to use PR to grow your online marketplace business, Eve Laird & Elle Tucker, Marketplace Academy
How to Kickstart and Scale a Marketplace Business, Lenny Rachitsky, Lenny’s newsletter
How to start a marketplace in an industry you know nothing about - Emmanuel Nataf (Reedsy), Two-sided: The marketplace podcast
A Simple Guide to Turning (Unlinked) Brand Mentions into Links, Joshua Hardwick, Ahrefs blog
Shoot Your Shot: A Guide to Effective Cold Outreach, Amanda Natividad, SparkToro Blog
Spam policies for Google web search, Google Search Central
Google Analytics and the GDPR, Cookiebot

Mira’s favorite SEO resources:
Beginners’ Guide to SEO, Moz
Professional’s Guide to SEO, Moz
SEO tutorial video series, Ahrefs 
Whiteboard Friday video series, Moz
Semrush Blog
Search Engine Journal
SEO Insights, BlueArray 
BlueArray Academy, Blue Array 

Domain authority checkers:
Ahrefs Website “Authority” Checker
Moz Free Domain Authority Checker
Semrush Backlink Analytics

Tools:
HARO, Help A Reporter Out
MozBar Chrome extension
Cookiebot

SEO experts to follow:
Areej Abuali is the founder of the Women in Tech SEO community who writes about technical SEO and inclusivity in the SEO field.
Kristina Azarenko tweets especially about technical SEO and has a great educational approach in her content.
Gregory Edwards works as SEO Manager at BlueArray and runs SEO training at BrightonSEO, the UK's largest SEO conference.
Carie Fisher tweets about a broad range of website accessibility topics and best practices.
Rand Fishkin is a marketing thought leader who also discusses the challenges and shortcomings of SEO.
Mike van der Heijden, CEO of the marketplace SEO agency Portal Ventures, frequently posts on LinkedIn about marketplaces and SEO.
Kameron Jenkins’ tweets about SEO and content marketing leverage her extensive experience at Moz and Shopify.
Amanda Jordan writes and gives talks about SEO from the perspective of a broader digital strategy.
Himani Kankaria runs an SEO content marketing agency and is a sought-after speaker in SEO events.
Chima Mmeje tweets about SEO content strategy and starting her own content consultancy company.
Amanda Natividad writes insightfully about content marketing and audience research.
Ross Simmonds’ threads about content marketing and growth inspire you to think about content as an asset you can keep leveraging.
Aleyda Solis has worked with marketplaces like Eventbrite and Zillow. Her weekly #SEOFOMO newsletter shares the latest in the world of SEO and highlights SEO experts you should follow.

The Marketplace Academy Podcast is hosted and narrated by Katri Antikainen.

You can learn more about building a marketplace at www.sharetribe.com/academy/.

Looking to build a marketplace of your own? Visit www.sharetribe.com to learn more about our marketplace builder!

In the previous episode of this series, we learned about doing keyword research for a marketplace. Now it’s time to put those keywords to work.

Article available at:
Keyword-targeted content marketing for marketplaces. Mira Muurinen, Marketplace Academy 

Sources and further reading:
Keyword Cannibalization: What It (Really) Is & How to Fix It, Joshua Hardwick, Ahrefs blog
Topic Clusters for SEO: What They Are & How to Create Them, Rachel Handley, Semrush Blog
Google is Rewriting Title Tags in SERPs, Matt G. Southern, Search Engine Journal
An update to how we generate web page titles, Google Search Central Blog
What Are Title Tags? How To Write Them for SEO, Joshua Hardwick, Ahrefs blog
Meta Descriptions: How Do You Write Them?, Brian Harnish, Search Engine Journal
Google Cautions Against Using Too Many Internal Links, Matt G. Southern, Search Engine Journal
How Airbnb Created An SEO Moat That Seems Invincible, Ross Simmonds, Foundation
The SEO Moat: Why SEO Can Be A Competitive Advantage, Ross Simmonds, Foundation
63 Content Marketing Statistics for 2023, Mateusz Makosiewicz, Ahrefs Blog

Experts and companies to follow:
Ross Simmonds
Foundation
Animalz Blog
SparkToro Blog
Rand Fishkin
Amanda Natividad

The Marketplace Academy Podcast is hosted and narrated by Katri Antikainen.

You can learn more about building a marketplace at www.sharetribe.com/academy/.

Looking to build a marketplace of your own? Visit www.sharetribe.com to learn more about our marketplace builder!

This episode helps you find your initial set of keywords and get started with a marketplace keyword strategy.

Article available at:
Keyword research for marketplaces. Mira Muurinen, Marketplace Academy 

Sources and further reading:
How to Kickstart and Scale a Marketplace Business, Lenny Rachitsky, Lenny’s newsletter
The Advanced Guide to Keyword Clustering, Tom Casano, Moz
Domain Authority, SEO Learning Center, Moz
Long-tail Keywords: What They Are and How to Get Search Traffic From Them, Tim Soulo, Ahrefs Blog
Almost Half of GSC Clicks Go to Hidden Terms - A Study by Ahrefs, Patrick Stox, Ahrefs Blog

Experts to follow:
Chima Mmeje is a founder at Zenithcopy, a Senior Content Marketing Manager at Moz and works as a content marketer for SaaS companies.
Ross Simmonds is an entrepreneur and marketing strategist who helps B2B and SaaS brands use content marketing, SEO, content distribution, and technology to grow.

SEO tools mentioned:
Google Search Console
Google Analytics
Answer The Public
Google Keyword Planner

The Marketplace Academy Podcast is hosted and narrated by Katri Antikainen.

You can learn more about building a marketplace at www.sharetribe.com/academy/.

Looking to build a marketplace of your own? Visit www.sharetribe.com to learn more about our marketplace builder!