Week 1 Update: 4/21 - 4/27

I'm giving myself 30 days to turn Sam's List into the Yelp for Financial Professionals

Author

Kimi Green
April 28, 2025

Hey,

Listen to this…

I just went on my first ever podcast.

We talked about how I thought I was getting catfished by a Sam Parr impersonator...and ended up quitting my corporate tech job to build the Yelp for Financial Professionals with Sam & Joe.

To my surprise (and mild offense), they didn’t include a backlink to Sam’s List.

So now I get to awkwardly ask them to add it after I hit send on this.

Kimi, Cofounder of Sam's List with Cofounders Nik

Quick Recap:

I realized I let Sam’s List drift too far into being a marketplace instead of what we’re meant to be, the Yelp for Financial Professionals.

So for the next 30 days, my focus is:

  • Re-center Sam’s List around client reviews

  • Fix our SEO (because gawd it’s awful)

  • Build stronger inbound traffic for accountants, fractional CFOs, and advisors

My Goal: Keep the main thing* the main thing! Don’t get distracted!

*main thing = client reviews & SEO

Week 1 Update (April 21–27)

Does this mean anything to you? Do you care?

I guess it’s more for my own record keeping, but, pretty bad right?

These are my takeaways (and remember, IM LEARNING so don’t judge):

  1. We have decent brand awareness. Our top 5 search queries are branded searches (Sam’s List name iterations), which is neat but not enough.

  2. CTR needs help. We’re showing up... but people aren’t clicking as much as we need them to.

  3. Non-branded discovery is still early but kinda growing:

    • (More on this below, but some blogs I wrote months ago about annuities and 1099s are finally ranking!)

My focus for Week 2

  • Create a Sam’s List badge vendors can put on their websites (for backlinks)

    • Might need your help on this below 👀 

  • Rewrite page titles and meta descriptions to boost CTR

  • Keep publishing new & supplemental SEO-driven blogs (especially for SMBs, solopreneurs, and HNWIs)

  • Explore backlink opportunities

  • Update our About page

  • Mock up a more actionable homepage flow

  • Start building out lead magnets

A little transparency

Thanks to Google Analytics, I discovered that a random batch of blogs I wrote months ago about annuities and insurance are now some of our most discovered pages.

I didn’t realize that if a blog starts ranking for a non-branded term, the best move is to double down on related content to build authority. My bad…

(you’re probably thinking, “uh yeah, no sh*t”)

This is me learning out loud. It’s brutal.

@notkimigreen

Day 6/30 building the Yelp for Financial Professionals (accountants, fractional CFOs, and financial advisors) someone give me a backlink p... See more

👆️ One more thing:

This week I had a meeting with a fractional CFO, and we’re going to collaborate on some content & SEO articles to cross-promote and build backlinks.

Which got me thinking...

  1. If you’re reading this and you’re an accountant, fractional CFO, or financial advisor and want to also help with my backlink journey, I’d love to set something up that’s mutually beneficial!

I’ll make it super simple for you.

  1. Also, if you happen to know a decent freelancer that could help us out with creating a Sam’s List Verified badge, I’d love to meet them!

Something in the same vein as these…but a Sam’s List version

Alright, that’s all I’ve got for you today!

👋 Kimi

If you want to keep up, I’m documenting the 30 day challenge everywhere:

🎙️ TikTok

🐤 Twitter

✍️ LinkedIn

@notkimigreen

I’m building the Yelp for financial professionals (Samslist) to bring more transparency to this space. If you’ve had a good or bad experie... See more

P.S.

If you want to help out…

If your current accountant, fractional CFO, or financial advisor is on Sam’s List, go leave a review! The good, bad, and ugly are welcomed. We don’t censor around here!

(but if it’s harmful or threatening i hope you can understand if it gets removed)

If ‘your guy’ isn’t on Sam’s List, well, tell them to get on there!