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Yesterday RapGenius posted the following announcement on their Facebook page:

As a contributor to various blogs and an endearing fan of RapGenius, I took a special interest in this opportunity. So, I emailed Mahbod for more details:

Mahbod quickly responded:

What you see here is the beginning of a potential growth hack for RapGenius. To understand this growth hack, you must be aware of the business of RapGenius, and why Bieber is important to their growth.

The Business of RapGenius

RapGenius makes its business off music lyrics. Millions of people search the lyrics to their favorite songs daily. RapGenius wants to be the first result that people click on when people are searching for any lyric.

Their business depends on their search engine ranking position (SERP’s) on Google. Hyperlinks connect the web and determine SERP’s. Thus, the most powerful weapon RapGenius can deploy is a series of powerful hyperlinks. You can see in Mahbod’s email that he is asking for hyperlinks from high-page rank sites (personal blogs) with anchor text that mentions tracks from Bieber’s most recent album.

Furthermore, the 80-20 rule applied to RapGenius’s business indicates that 80% of their traffic comes from only a select 20% of their lyrics database. According to Alexa.com, “Get Lucky” and “Holy Grail” were the top traffic drivers to RapGenius for most of 2013. However, music is highly cyclical, and the traffic from previous winners will eventually fade. Looking forward into 2014, it’s only logical that RapGenius would hope for Bieber’s new songs to refer them enormous traffic.

Why Bieber Is Important to the Growth of RapGenius

Justin Bieber just released his new album “Journals” last night; Beliebers will be searching for the lyrics to his new tracks repeatedly in the upcoming months. To demonstrate the magnitude of the Beliebers, check out this graphic: Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus were the most searched musicians in 2013, but Bieber is consistently the most searched person over time.

High SERP’s for Bieber are the top prize for RapGenius, assuming they want to continue to dramatically increase their traffic.

Summary

• RapGenius wants to grow quickly.
• In order to grow quickly, they need to rank well on Google searches for Justin Bieber’s new songs.
• In order to rank well, they need backlinks with anchor text that specifically mention Bieber’s songs.
• They are reaching out to their friends asking for backlinks in exchange for a tweet.

It’s surprising to me that RapGenius, a company with $15 million in financing, would openly execute such a frugal strategy for their link-building efforts. There are many consulting firms and savvy internet marketers that specialize in this work. We’ll see what Google decides for their efforts.

Update 12/23: Just added these links. Let’s see what happens to the SERP’s…

1. Justin Bieber – Heartbreaker Lyrics
2. Justin Bieber – All That Matters Lyrics
3. Justin Bieber – Hold Tight Lyrics
4. Justin Bieber – Recovery Lyrics
5. Justin Bieber – Bad Day Lyrics
6. Justin Bieber – All Bad Lyrics
7. Justin Bieber – PYD Lyrics
8. Justin Bieber – Roller Coaster Lyrics
9. Justin Bieber – Change Me Lyrics
10. Justin Bieber – Confident Lyrics
11. Justin Bieber – Memphis Lyrics
12. Justin Bieber – One Life Lyrics
13. Justin Bieber – What’s Hatnin’ Lyrics
14. Justin Bieber – Backpack Lyrics
15. Justin Bieber – Swap it Out Lyrics
Justin Bieber – Journals Tracklist Lyrics

Update 12/24: Removed the links.

Every time you find yourself physically boxed in, take at least a moment to consider the perspective of the window seat. Whether I’ve been sitting in a small cafe in Aix-en-Provence, France, or gliding on final approach into Newark airport, I’ve come to discover a lot about the world by simply looking out of windows. Windows provide an opening to the world that surrounds us, and we certainly pay the price along the way.

Consider for a moment: the most expensive amenity in any New York City apartment is the ability to clearly see Central Park, or that having a window in your cabin on a cruise-ship may double the cost of your stay. People are stimulated by visual senses, and there are often fewer window opportunities than people. It’s for the same reasons why the “corner office” is so coveted. Therefore, it’s natural for something as simple as a window to demand high economic power.

Beyond economic opportunity, windows provide stimulation to entertain even the most restless minds; man made creations such as the television and the web browser provide easy examples. The naming of the “Windows” operating system by Microsoft testified to the power of a window, and it’s name proved it’s worth by becoming the most popular software in the world. Regardless of natural and man-made creations seen through windows, there are incredible things to be seen all around you, as long as you put in effort to look. Here are some of my favorite examples:

From an airplane:

• Lake Michigan
• Staring off into space (literally) miles above the dark deserts of Nevada
• Identifying your home amidst endless suburbia
• Summer fireworks
• The fiery red low-angle sun of December, reflected across fields of white snow
• Farms (the physical manifestation of The Homestead Act)
• Farms of windmills
• The Rockies

From a car:

• Seeing your house through the rear view window when leaving home
• Straight roads on a rural highway
• The waffle house sign
• Rare license plates
• Long empty roads
• Hairpin turns of the Amalfi coast, or the French Riviera
• The mega windshield-wipers of a London city bus

From a house, apartment, or building:

• The mailman
• An epic cityscape, such as New York, Miami, or San Francisco
• The ocean
• A lightning storm
• The traffic flow of Astor Place in New York City, from the window seat in St. Mark’s pizza at St. Marks/3rd ave.

On most occasions these examples provide a gut feeling that wouldn’t be possible without simple awareness and observation. So, next time you have the chance, take the window seat, you might be surprised with what you see.