Posts on Grow With Less

I Got Pi Working Inside Tidewave

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I got Pi working inside Tidewave.

Not the terminal version where Pi talks to Tidewave’s MCP server — the version where Pi runs as a Tidewave External Agent, inside Tidewave’s own UI, with access to the shared browser window.

It works. It’s been working well since the fixes.

What Pi is

Pi is a minimal terminal coding agent by Mario Zechner. It’s intentionally stripped down — no built-in MCP, no sub-agents, no plan mode, no permission popups. The philosophy is that all of those are extension concerns, not core features. You build or install the parts you need.

Germany Used to Know How to Change

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I grew up in Houilles, a suburb of Paris, and my first real encounter with Germany was a trip to Berlin when I was about sixteen. I was visiting my penpal Juliane. I remember thinking I wanted to be there forever. The city felt like an infinite canvas, raw and open and full of possibility. The remnants of the Wall were everywhere, and what struck me wasn’t just the history but how Germany dealt with it. Here was a country that had done the worst things imaginable and then, instead of burying them, built memorials in the centre of its capital. The stumbling stones in the pavement, the Holocaust memorial near the Bundestag, the refusal to let itself forget. I admired that deeply. The ability to reckon with your own past, to stare at it without flinching, felt like the hardest and most important thing a country could do. And Germany had done it.

Is Your Language Learning App Lying to You?

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A user emailed us this week asking for a refund.

“Your app doesn’t understand my pronunciation. I used Rosetta Stone before and never had to repeat phrases five or six times.”

My first instinct was to investigate. Maybe our speech recognition was broken. Maybe there was a bug.

So I pulled up her session data, watched her replays, checked every error log.

Nothing was broken. The speech recognition transcribed her correctly. She could see exactly what the system heard. She could even edit the text before submitting.

Why I'm Shutting Down Lorelight (And What It Taught Me About GEO)

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’m shutting down Lorelight.

Not because it didn’t work. Not because I ran out of money. But because I realized something that probably should have been obvious from the start.

Let me explain.

What Was Lorelight?

A few months ago, I launched Lorelight—a generative engine optimization (GEO) platform designed to help businesses improve their visibility in AI search engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.

The pitch was simple: as more people use AI to find information, brands need to optimize for these new platforms. Lorelight would track your brand mentions in ChatGPT, monitor visibility across AI-generated answers, and help you understand what was driving citations in AI search results.

The unexpected end of the slow, ramp of death

Tue, 01 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

6 months ago, I had just finished creating my first SaaS: the French Together app.

My goal was simple: launch it and reach $20k MRR.

Writing this, I can’t help but laugh.

$20k MRR for a first SaaS? Really?

Only 2 types of people would set such an ambitious goal:

Someone who never launched a SaaS
Someone who launched hundreds of SaaS

Let’s find out how it went, shall we?

The big launch

The 27 tools I use to grow my online business

Sun, 30 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

People often ask me what tools I use to build and grow French Together so I thought I would put together a list of my favorites.

These are not necessarily the best and trendiest tools, some may even be considered old-fasshioned. But they are the tools that help me build and grow my business.

Here they are!

Basic tools you need to grow your online business

Tech stack

The French Together and Grow With Less blogs run on WordPress. Not fashionable but works great and loads fast enough for my needs.

My SEO traffic collapsed so I built a SaaS (Early 2022 retrospective)

Mon, 09 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Sometime last year, I decided to turn the French Together course (a self-study French course for English speakers) into a language learning app.

This was done in 3 steps:

Learning how to code
Building the French Together app
Launching

Here is how I went about each step and what I learned a long the way!

Step 1: The decline (or why I learned how to code)

After years of growth, my blog French Together started dropping in March 2021.

A Quick and Easy Win for the New Year (and an Important Check)

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

2020 is finally over (thank God.)

Which means it’s time for some New Year cleaning.

You may have articles or copyright notices that reference previous years.

Now is the perfect time to update these and make sure they say “2021” and not “2020” or even “2019.”

To find pages referencing previous years, head to Google and search:

site:example.com intitle:2020
site:example.com inurl: 2020

The first query will give you a list of pages with “2020” in the title such as “The Best Free Software of 2020 - PCMag UK” or “16 Back-to-School Recipes for the Weirdness of 2020”.

A 10-Minute Guide to Finding Low Competition, High Traffic Keywords

Thu, 16 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

You may have heard of unicorn keywords: low competition, high volume keywords.

Some say they are extinct. Others say they are so plentiful in some niches that any blog can easily rank without backlinks.

As often, the truth lies somewhere in between.

One thing is for certain though, finding them isn’t always easy.

Let’s discover how to find these mythical creatures no matter what niche you are in!

Note: The techniques in this article will help you find potential low competition keywords but not all of the keywords you will find will be low competition. Read my article about keyword difficulty to learn how to find out how competitive a keyword is.

How to Use Haro to Build Backlinks from the World's Best Websites

Tue, 14 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

You know you need backlinks

You may even have tried broken link building, the skyscraper technique, and other link building tactics but they made you feel desperate.You don’t want to send hundreds of emails, you just want to build backlinks.

You are in the right place.

I love HARO because anyone can use it to build powerful backlinks by being genuinely helpful.

No more outreach emails trying to convince other websites that linking to you is good for them.No more time wasted trying to find link building strategies that work. No more hoping that backlinks will magically appear when people finally realize how great your content is.

Don't Trust Keyword Difficulty Scores (Do This Instead)

Tue, 23 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Keyword difficulty or SEO difficulty is the likelihood of ranking for a keyword. And the way most bloggers estimate it is dangerous.

They use SEO tools like Ahrefs, Keysearch, or SEMrush and rely on their keyword difficulty scores to tell how easy ranking for a keyword should be.

The problem is that keyword difficulty scores are guesses and trusting them blindly is more likely to hurt you than help you rank.

64 Weak Words and Flabby Expressions That Clog up Your Writing

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Weak words are everywhere.

Like ants invading your home in summer, they slip through the cracks and slowly distract your reader.

They turn fascinating ideas into never-ending articles people can’t wait to run away from.

Worse, they undermine you and make you sound insecure.

Luckily, getting rid of weak words is much easier than getting rid of ants.

Here is a list of common weak words and flabby expressions, and their alternatives.

10 Proven Meta Descriptions Templates Top Blogs Use to Get More Clicks

Wed, 20 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I face the same problem every time I need to write a meta description.

I have no idea where to start.

Should I first mention the problem the article is solving? Should I use a call-to-action? Is it bad to repeat what I already wrote in the headline?

To find out, I analyzed hundreds of meta descriptions from the New York Times, Lonely Planet and other popular blogs.

The result is a list of 10 simple meta description templates you can use to create powerful meta descriptions no matter what niche you are in.

7 Dangerous Meta Description Mistakes That Are Ruining Your CTR

Tue, 05 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I have some bad news.

Writing great content, building quality backlinks and having catchy blog post titles is not enough.

You could have all this and still get very little traffic.

Why?

Because you need people to choose your article over competing articles in the search results.

And the best way to do that is to have a catchy blog post title and an awesome meta description.

Luckily, writing a good meta-description is not that hard.

9 Real Examples of SEO Titles (And Why They Work)

Fri, 17 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

You just finished writing an amazing article and can’t wait to share it with the world.

But first, you need to come up with a great SEO title. The kind of SEO title that’ll not only help you rank in Google but also make people excited to read your article.

Following the advice I gave a few months ago is a good start.

But you may wonder: how does a good SEO title look in the real world?

Want More Traffic? Here Are 77 Headline Formulas You Need to Use!

Fri, 27 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Your headline is the first part of your articles your readers see.

And it may very well be the last part they see.

That’s why a catchy headline is not nice to have, it’s essential.

Without it your article may as well not exist because nobody will read it.

But how do you write a headline that’ll capture your readers’ attention and bring thousands of visitors to your blog?

Hint: headline analyzers are definitely not the answer.

The 8 Best Free Blogging, SEO and Marketing Courses

Tue, 24 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Blogging is hard and the COVID-19 epidemic is not making things easier.

Luckily, several businesses have started offering their blogging, SEO or marketing courses for free to help bloggers and small business owners who are struggling because of the pandemic.

This page lists the best courses I have found. If you know of another blogging course, please post a comment below the article and I will add it to the list.

7 Lessons Every Blogger About to Quit Should Know

Wed, 11 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As someone who has been blogging for 10 years, I find most articles designed to encourage people to start blogging infuriating.

They paint blogging as this wonderful activity that will free you from your 9 to 5 job and solve all your problems.

They show you pictures of happy bloggers working on the beach.

What bothers me is that while blogging is wonderful, it has pros and cons like any other job.

9 Inspiring Examples of Successful Blogs (And How They Got There)

Thu, 27 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Looking at blog income reports from popular blogs, you could think that the only way to make money blogging is to blog about blogging.

Luckily, you would be mistaken.

The reality is that there are successful blogs in all kinds of niches. You simply hear more about the make money online blogs because they are the ones sharing revenue numbers and posting income reports.

While make money blogging bloggers are highly visible, thousands of bloggers earn a living by helping their audience in niches such as dating, automotive, grooming or ultralearning.

The Do's and Don'ts of Finding Your Blog Niche

Tue, 21 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

There is a lot of bad advice when it comes to finding a blog niche.

“Write about your passion.”

“Choose the most profitable niche.”

“Don’t choose a crowded niche.”

This advice is well-intentioned but ignores key psychological principles and causes many bloggers to give up blogging after a few months.

That’s a shame because finding what you want to blog about is simply finding the intersection between what people want and what you want.

Is Your Article's Date Destroying Your Rankings?

Fri, 10 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Having a recent date associated with your article could be the difference between a page 1 ranking and a page 5 ranking.

This means that you should not only keep your content up-to-date but also make sure that Google knows it’s up-to-date.

This article will show you how to find out the dates Google associates with your articles and make sure these dates don’t hurt your rankings.

It will also answer a question lots of bloggers ask: should you remove dates from my posts?

This 20-Minute On-Page SEO Checklist Could Save Your Rankings

Wed, 11 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

What’s the worst thing that could happen to your blog?

For many bloggers, the answer is getting blacklisted by Google and seeing all their organic traffic vanish overnight.

And a common way this happens is when Google realizes your blog is infected before you do and simply blacklists you.

This almost happened to my friend Anna from Garlic Delight a few days ago.

Luckily a few simple SEO checks allowed her to notice the malware and get rid of it before being blacklisted.

How to Get Interviewed (Even If You Are Not Well-Known in Your Niche)

Wed, 03 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

When people talk about interview link building, they mostly talk about expert interviews, you interview experts on your blog in the hope that they will then share your interview and link to it.

But doing the opposite also works. If you have interesting hobbies or any kind of expertise, there are likely dozens of blogs and podcasts that would be happy to interview you and you may find getting interviewed easier than finding experts to interview.

The Best Way to Come up with Catchy Blog Post Titles

Wed, 22 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Copywriting legend David Ogilvy once said that “on the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

That’s great news because it means a great blog post title has the power to attract lots of readers to your blog and to help you build your business.

Unfortunately, it also means that nobody will read your article if the blog title sucks. Luckily, creating a great blog post title is not as hard as it may seem.

A Day in the Life of a Full-Time Blogger

Wed, 15 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Search “blogger working” in Google Image and you will see thousands of smiling bloggers working on their laptop while drinking coffee in a trendy coffee shop.

And while these things can definitely be part of a blogger’s day, they are only the visible part of the iceberg.

Blogging isn’t just about drinking coffee, traveling to beautiful destinations and relaxing on the beach, it’s also about answering emails, fixing technical glitches and all sorts of invisible tasks.

How to Write a SEO Title Google and Your Visitors Love

Wed, 08 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Writing a SEO title (also called page title or Google title) is considered difficult because you are writing for 3 main audiences.

Visitors coming from search engines.

Search engines.

Visitors from social media.

And writing a SEO title that ranks high on Google and gets shared on social media can often feel like mission impossible.

Luckily, it turns out it really isn’t as difficult as it sounds.

All you need to do is follow a few important rules.

A Bittersweet First Blog Income Report

Tue, 07 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The internet is full of success stories and my 6-figures language-learning blog French Together could be considered one of them

But things don’t always go as planned and every business experiences ups and downs.

April was definitely in the down category for me and that’s great because it means the first blog income report I ever published will be full of valuable lessons about blogging.

Grow With Less

The story of Grow With Less (and why I switched niches 3 times)

Grow With Less had an interesting start and changed a lot over the last few months.

Journorequest, Snowmaker and 20 other Link Building Strategies That Work Great in 2022

Wed, 01 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Creating awesome content is not enough.

If you want traffic, you need to build high-quality backlinks. But how do you do that?

There are hundreds of articles listing the best link building strategies but the reality is that you don’t need 100 strategies that make you feel pushy and overwhelmed, you need one strategy that works and makes you feel good about your link building efforts.

This article will help you find it and show you how to avoid a few “backlink killers” that could render all your link building efforts useless.

Stoicism: Can the Ancient Philosophy Make You a Better Business Owner?

Thu, 18 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I have always considered philosophy to a strange topic full of mysterious sentences and complicated concepts.

So I was pretty surprised when I read Epictetus’ Manual for the first time.

The advice in the book was not only understandable but also surprisingly actionable.

I have since read many more books about Stoicism and found that the ancient philosophy is full of useful tips for living a good life, and more surprisingly, full of useful lessons for growing an online business.

Here Is What a Disappointing Experiment Taught Me About Headline A/B Testing

Wed, 10 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

After reading about the huge conversion boosts many bloggers got after A/B testing their headlines, I assumed A/B testing the headlines of 73 articles I have published on my language learning blog French Together would be a no brainer.

I could already picture myself writing a triumphant article showing how A/B testing my headlines helped me double my traffic and get an extra 3 million visitors a year.

Unfortunately, the magic never happened and the article you are about to read will instead share the 5 lessons I learned along the way.

4 Simple Strategies I Use to Never Run out of Article Ideas

Wed, 03 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Want to know a secret?

I never run out of article ideas.

In fact, my main struggle is usually choosing between a myriad of topics I would love to write about.

You may think it’s because I’m very creative but the simple truth is that I simply use 4 simple strategies that guarantee that I never run out of blog post ideas.

#1 Hang out with your prospects

Your blog is not about you. It’s about your audience.

The Overwhelmed Business Owner's Guide to SEO

Thu, 28 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

What do you do when you spent hours writing awesome articles only to realize your mom and your best friend Dave are the only people reading them?

That’s the question I asked myself 7 years ago after writing dozens of articles for my new blog French Together.

I followed 10,000 words guides showing me how to optimize my site for traffic, sent hundreds of outreach emails, wrote guest posts and installed fancy Wordpress plugins.

How to Overcome Information Overload and Make Real Progress with Your Business

Wed, 20 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Being a solopreneur is exhausting.

You wake up in the morning, check your emails and find dozens of new strategies waiting for you.

Double your subscribers with this new pop-up!

Use this little-known copywriting trick to get 32% more signups!

How this simple tool helped me get 201,456 visitors from Pinterest!

You then read a few of the emails, consider implementing a few tactics and feel terrible when you realize you really don’t have time for all this.

Do Headline Analyzers Work? A Data-Driven Answer

Tue, 12 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Headline analyzers are a popular way to come up with great headlines and try to predict their effectiveness.

All you need to do is write your headline and the tool will give it a score telling you how effective it’s likely to be.

But can these free headline analyzers accurately predict which headline will perform best? Or are they yet another tool that keeps us busy and prevents us from focusing on what matters?

The Best Headline A/B Testing Tools (And Why You May Not Want to Use Them)

Tue, 15 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

What if you could bring 28% more visitors to your blog and get 75% more shares just by rewriting your blog post titles?

That’s exactly what content marketing agency Priceonomics did.

And today, I would like to show you how you can do it too by reviewing the main AB testing tools.

But first, let’s see why A/B testing isn’t always a good idea!

3 good reasons not to A/B test your blog post titles

Before you even begin AB testing headlines, there are 2 important questions you need to ask yourself.

Journorequest: The Little-Known Twitter Hashtag That Will Help You Get Quality Backlinks

Fri, 14 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

If you have ever tried to do outreach to build backlinks, you know how frustrating the process can be.

You spend hours looking for the right people to reach out to, crafting your outreach emails and finally send them, already picturing yourself receiving a ton of quality backlinks in return.

And then.

Crickets.

That’s because in most cases, SEO outreach emails offer no value except for a weak “your readers may find my awesome article useful.”