5 первых неудач в бизнесе, создал Skyscraper Technique, приобретён Semrush

Backlinko grew out of Dean's earlier, failed SEO 'niche site' businesses. Starting around 2009, he built 150+ thin, exact-match-domain sites for passive AdSense/affiliate income; Google's Panda update wiped that traffic out in 2010, and it took him roughly two more years to realize the sites themselves, not the algorithm, were the real problem. Backlinko launched in December 2012 to teach the SEO lessons he had extracted from that failure.

Dean's April 2013 'Skyscraper Technique' case-study post became the site's biggest reader magnet: organic traffic to the whole site (not just that post) doubled within two weeks of publishing it, and that single post has gone on to drive millions of referral visitors over time.

“organic search traffic to my entire site – not just that post”

The first paying customers were free readers off the email list. Dean opened enrollment for the SEO That Works course in 2013, about a year after starting the blog, and announced the opening only to subscribers rather than selling from the site; over 4,000 people had enrolled by the time he wrote the course's about page.

“Since opening enrollment for STW in 2013, over 4,000 people have signed up for the program”