Amanda Leemis: AI, SEO, and Growing a Preschool Education Brand

Welcome to Market Movers: Building Brands & Links with Linkifi!
Your go-to podcast for transforming your business into an unforgettable brand where branding meets SEO and link-building. I’m Chris Panteli, Co-Founder and CEO of Linkifi, and I’m joined by my co-host and Co-Founder, Nick Biggs.

In this episode we welcome Amanda Leemis, founder of The Hollydog Blog, a preschool resources brand built on human-made design, practical SEO, and a mission to make teachers’ and parents’ lives easier with free, high-quality worksheets, crafts, and activities. Amanda shares the origin story behind Holly, the shift from classroom packets to a full-fledged website, and the systems that helped her go from zero to 369 posts, 30,000 monthly downloads, and 280,000 downloads in a year.

 

Key Talking Points

✅ The Holly Dog Origin Story. Holly was a rescued stray found tied to a tree. Her personality and emotions became the basis for stories Amanda’s mom told in class, which later evolved into self-published books and eventually the blog.
✅ Pandemic Pivot. When schools moved to at-home learning, Amanda illustrated printable worksheets for take-home packets. Strong parent and teacher feedback became the signal to build online.
✅ The “Holly Dog Moment” That Made It Real. A student showed up for World Book Day dressed as Holly Dog. That was the turning point that proved the character had real impact and inspired Amanda to launch the site.
✅ Learning SEO from Zero. Amanda took online classes, including Stupid Simple SEO, then did hands-on keyword research with tools like Ahrefs and Ubersuggest to find reachable targets and build momentum.
✅ Early Backlinks Were Brutal. She sent 100+ outreach emails offering free worksheets for links, landed a handful of wins, and even turned one relationship into paid worksheet work with a larger preschool site that linked back.
✅ Strategy Shift as the Site Grew. In the early days it was hard to compete against sites with 400+ posts. With 369 posts now live, Amanda can target bigger competitors and “match and beat” what’s working, while keeping the Holly Dog twist.
✅ ChatGPT as a Ruthless SEO Mentor. Amanda uses AI to compare her pages against competitors and identify gaps. Her key recurring takeaway is simple: more backlinks still matters when competing against sites with 10–15 years of authority.
✅ Monetization Reality Check. A major benchmark she followed: expect monetization around 250 posts. Amanda started monetizing around 220 posts, after about 1.5 to 2 years of publishing and building.
✅ Ads as the Primary Revenue Engine. Most income currently comes from ad revenue. Printables remain free because accessibility for teachers and parents is part of the mission.
✅ User Experience as a Differentiator. Amanda does not run ads on the homepage or silo pages, prioritizing clean navigation and fast access. She funnels visitors via a “Start Learning with Holly Dog” path and a teacher vs parent split.
✅ Pinterest and Paid Experiments. Pinterest can be powerful for highly visual niches, but it is a roller coaster with risks like stolen pins and spam flags. Amanda has also begun testing Facebook ads and community-building.
✅ YouTube Expansion with a Real Puppet and Real Songs. The Hollydog YouTube channel uses a custom Holly Dog puppet, human-produced songs, and calmer “Mr. Rogers” pacing. The goal is learning without sensory overload.
✅ Human-First Brand in a Slop-Filled Internet. Everything is hand-made: illustrations, puppet, songs, and the overall aesthetic. Amanda believes this human signal will matter more as AI content floods the space.
✅ AI’s Role Going Forward. Amanda sees AI as a productivity layer that frees her from tasks she doesn’t love, while keeping the core creative work human and brand-led. She also wants to lean more into AI search visibility over time.

 

Quotes from Amanda Leemis

📢 “The Hollydog blog actually all started with my dog that I had growing up. Her name was Holly.”
📢 “I sent out probably over a hundred emails asking for backlinks. It was so time consuming.”
📢 “Tell ChatGPT to be your ruthless mentor. That’s when the feedback becomes useful.”
📢 “If they have it, I need to have it too. And it needs to be better. With a little bit of Holly Dog.”
📢 “Coloring is so much more than coloring. Kids are building fine motor skills in ways we forget.”
📢 “Everything we do is centered around the human element.”

 

Actionable Insights

🔍 Commit to the Long Game

• Treat blogging as a volume and consistency play. Expect real monetization closer to 200–250 posts, not 20.
• Keep publishing even through early rejection. Those “no’s” are part of the curve.

🔗 Build Backlinks the Unsexy Way

• Outreach is slow, but a few wins can change your trajectory. Offer tangible value (free printables, guest resources, collaborations).
• Once you have budget, invest in links you cannot realistically earn alone.

🧠 Use AI for Gap-Finding, Not Identity

• Ask ChatGPT to compare your content to competitors and point out missing sections, visuals, formatting, and clarity.
• Prompt it as a ruthless mentor, then implement only what fits your brand voice and audience needs.

🧭 Protect UX Even If It “Costs” Short-Term Revenue

• Reduce clutter. Keep navigation simple. Make it easy for visitors to find exactly what they need fast.
• Consider removing ads from key “entry” pages if return visits and trust are the long-term goal.

📌 Master One Channel Before Expanding

• Start with the channel most likely to compound (Google for Amanda).
• Then add Pinterest, Facebook, or YouTube once you have stable systems and capacity.

🎨 Win with a Real Brand Signal

• Hand-made assets, recognizable characters, and consistent design choices create memory.
• In a world of AI content, “human-made” becomes a defensible moat, especially in education niches.

 

About Amanda Leemis

Amanda Leemis is the founder and creative director of The Hollydog Blog, a playful preschool learning resource hub built around hand-drawn printables, crafts, and educational videos. With a teacher-informed approach and a clear brand identity, she’s grown the site into a large content library with hundreds of posts and hundreds of thousands of downloads annually.

🌍 Website: thehollydogblog.com
📬 Email: [email protected]
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-leemis-90035818b/ 

 

🚀 Build Your Brand with Real Links

At Linkifi, we help ambitious brands scale organic visibility through digital PR, brand storytelling, and SEO strategy. Book your FREE strategy session today:
🔗 https://book.linkifi.io/widget/bookings/pr-discovery-call

 

👋 Connect with your hosts:
👉 Chris Panteli on LinkedIn
👉 Nick Biggs on LinkedIn

 

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