Speaker 0 00:00:09 Are you ready to get serious about building content sites and building a profitable business online. Welcome to the niche website builders podcast. We bring you the latest field, tested tips, tricks and strategies for building a profitable online asset. We interview industry experts, share customer success stories and reveal our own experiences. Working on hundreds of sites to inspire and motivate you to make something happen. Let's do this.
Speaker 1 00:00:41 Hi and welcome to this week's episode of niche website, build a podcast. Aaron, do you do channel this week have gone awesome. Guests meet her name is immediate Gardner now immediate isn't selling anything. She doesn't have a course or anything like that. She literally just loves helping people learn about online businesses, which is awesome. She's really good fun too, which, uh, which is great. Um, she, she's an awesome YouTube channel. Uh, the links are in the description and I say links because she has two of them. We talk a little bit about why she has to, I think that's quite interesting, uh, but the, the, the major aspect of today's interview covers, uh, awesome. We titled MIGA website, case study and MIGA stands for make making the internet great again, um, uh, where she's written over 300, 130 posts in six months. And she plans on taking that over 500 posts within 12 months. So there's some great learnings in this episodes. Uh, hope you enjoy listening to it. As much as I enjoyed recording it, let's get into this.
Speaker 0 00:01:44 This episode is brought to you by niche website builders, an agency dedicated to helping people, just like you build profitable content sites, niche website builders are the hands-off content site marketing agency. You always wished existed. It's run by content site marketers for content site marketers, and they help both investors and individuals alike build profitable online properties. They provide a fully outsourced approach to content creation, link building and done for you. Website builds the same approach they use on their own six-figure portfolios. For example, their content packages come with a proprietary keyword research process are written by in-house native English speakers formatted using templates proven to convert and uploaded to WordPress with affiliate links added so that all you need to do is hit the publish button. Check them
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Speaker 1 00:02:50 Hey, Emilio, welcome to the show. How are you?
Speaker 2 00:02:52 Hi, I'm great. Thank you so much for having me. I have been super jazzed to be here and have this chat with you, and I'm excited that we're finally doing it.
Speaker 1 00:03:00 Awesome. It's early in the morning there for you. Isn't there? Anything w where are you was
Speaker 2 00:03:04 When I first got up, but I've had two cups of coffee in my WP Eagle mug. And I'm ready to go
Speaker 1 00:03:10 Shout out to Alex. Hi.
Speaker 2 00:03:12 Yeah, I, when people's, I love free stuff, right? So when people send me t-shirts and they send me the cups, like, I am happy to use them and show them,
Speaker 1 00:03:22 Right. We, we need to get you your meager hats out now though, which we'll talk about it later, but yeah, I'd wait. I'd wear definitely.
Speaker 2 00:03:31 I worry though, that people might misconstrue what you mean, because they don't actually look very carefully at what the hat actually says.
Speaker 1 00:03:39 Well, if you just make it like a cool hat, people won't care anyway, just
Speaker 2 00:03:42 Don't make it red, like bright red with the M a M I like did that, is that hat misspelled? Like what you're wearing? I'm like, I know what it is and know it.
Speaker 1 00:03:54 Awesome. Well, thanks for taking the time out of your day to, to be with us. Um, before we kind of get into like all the, the whole online money-making stuff. I want to chat to you about, um, content, tell a bit about your background. I know you used to be, to be involved in more, and I know that because you've covered quite extensively, the whole, uh, income, uh, store, uh, you kind of store stories story. So what what's, what's your, what's your background?
Speaker 2 00:04:21 You say, can you cover your background a little bit and like how long you got, because I'll tell you what, one thing I'm an expert at is myself. Um, yeah, I I'm I'm I'm I think I'm one of the older folks who are here in this whole make money online.
Speaker 1 00:04:38 21. What do you mean?
Speaker 2 00:04:39 Yes. Well, just keep with the flattery. Like, just keep rolling it in, you know, one of the reasons I use an older camera and people say, oh, you've got to upgrade and you got to get a good camera. I'm like, no, because then they would see all the gray hair and then like all of my wrinkles, like nobody needs that. Let's just let them believe that I'm still a freshman in my twenties. Uh, no, I, I did. I followed the traditional path, you know, like a lot of people who are older coming into the make money online world, I went to college and then I went to professional school and then got a great job as an attorney. And I worked as an attorney for 10 years and had an opportunity to take a break, uh, from my practice to take care of children. And, but I was one of those people I'd always had something to do. And it was like, oh, well, maybe I'll go to see if I can make a few extra dollars doing this other thing. And instead of just this hobby thing where I make two or $3, I find now that it's like my full-time thing that I do in addition to my children, my family.
Speaker 1 00:05:46 That's awesome. So this is, this is your full-time gig now.
Speaker 2 00:05:50 I mean, I would say that, that, that, it's one of a couple of things that I do that is full-time, but I, I don't have a full-time job that I go to. So I don't do this on top of a full-time career. I don't have a full-time career anywhere. This is the primary way that I make money and to pay my bills.
Speaker 1 00:06:08 That's awesome. W was it a big change because obviously I think you, you said you left and then you had children and then you come into this, was it a big change going from a corporate world? And I'm assuming a very busy corporate job being a lawyer to work in online.
Speaker 2 00:06:23 I have three children. So you want to talk about busy and I will talk to you about busy. Okay. I will say that there was, uh, like a decompression period. Um, I don't know. I wouldn't know. I wouldn't say I was a workaholic before, but I probably was, and there was definitely like a withdrawal period where I had a lot of anxiety about, you know, my phone and like getting messages on my phone and being away from my phone or being away from the computer, or like being able to just be at peace with not working. And that is ongoing. I would say I've been out, um, three years. Right? It's been three years, almost three years, I think in July. So we're coming up on my three-year anniversary and I still am struggling with that transition because I just don't think you can turn it off when that's an inherent part of my personality. Like, my work was me. I didn't, I didn't have these other things. Like I was an attorney and for me, that's all I did. Yeah. So to take that away and do something else, like, it's almost like a whole, like changing my identity and trying to figure out what that is now. And it's not something that just like is happening. It's an ongoing process.
Speaker 1 00:07:37 I think the, I don't, I don't think enough people are talking about this. I I'm a hundred percent the same. Um, I'm almost addicted to checking things like it can be any, it sounds weird, but it's, it can be anything. It can be checking mine. I'll spend like half an hour check insights and Google analytics for the day, just to see like halfway through the day, how they compare to the day before and any research
Speaker 2 00:08:01 Into dopamine addiction.
Speaker 1 00:08:04 I definitely should because I have that. And then I switched from there and I'll check my cryptocurrency, how that's doing, and then I'll switch from there and I'll check XYZ. And unfortunately I've spent two hours just checking meaningless things that I checked literally a couple of hours ago.
Speaker 2 00:08:19 You know, the thing is, is that you, when you do that, and then you get a positive response, it's right. Like, it's almost like, I don't want to say drugs, but there's a positive reaction in your brain. You get your phone out. And I look at my analytics and then it's a good thing. And I feel good. I feel good. It's like this thing that, and I'm addicted to that feeling, but what happens when you check those analytics and it's bad, it's not like I just go off on my day. If the traffic is down on that, I'm wrecked. Right. I didn't get the chemical on my brain that I desperately need to feel good. And so it makes it all of a sudden 10 times as hard then to get to the computer and work on this project because I feel depressed. I feel low, like low energy.
Speaker 2 00:09:04 And because I'm addicted to the chemical that is released in my brain, when I get positive affirmation, it's not just from my phone right. At work. It was the boss like patting you on the back or the client, like good job or whatever like that. Those things I, I am addicted to them. And that's part of this transition out of that is okay, I'm an addict, I'm a dopamine addict. And what does a dopamine addict do when there is no longer this positive reinforcement that I have literally lived on since I was a child. And first started school, the teacher patting you on the back, getting a hundred percent on a test. What, what do you do when you don't have that anymore?
Speaker 1 00:09:44 You make websites.
Speaker 2 00:09:46 You find some way to get that drug. And for me, it is analytics. It's checking my ad network provider to see like, yes, like I made more money than yesterday that create it for myself. Yeah. But I'm aware of it now. And so what I don't do is check my analytics all day long and I try to dislike one time a day, like in the morning. And then sometimes I don't check at all.
Speaker 1 00:10:13 That's Goodwill power.
Speaker 2 00:10:14 I think it was necessary because what would happen is if I didn't cut myself off, then when things were down, it wrecked me. Yeah. And it didn't, I couldn't move my business forward because I, I would be missing out on that. And I would be depressed. I'm like, oh, what is the point of all this? I'm just going to wake up. And the numbers are going to be down when the long game is, you're going to see this as long as it's going like this, but there's going to be downtimes in anything.
Speaker 1 00:10:42 It makes total sense. It does make total sense. So how going back, uh, was it when you left your job, you then started looking at, um, uh, making money online. Did you, is that when you made your first dollar or did you, we introduced to this whole online world of making money before, how did you make your first dollar online? I guess on when,
Speaker 2 00:11:04 You know, like figuring out exactly that first dollar is hard because in my, near the end of my practice, um, one of my law partners got this idea that we would self publish a book about one of our cases. And so I, we co-wrote this book that needed to be edited a lot more, I think, before it was actually self published. So I don't recommend that people go and get it. I don't like promote it, um, because it was really like an early stage work, but that book did make some money, but it wasn't really my project. But when I got out of my law practice and I was at home, kind of like twiddling my thumbs, I thought, okay, I know self publishing, and I understand how Katie P works. And so I did write a couple of like short kind of fiction novels under a pen name.
Speaker 2 00:11:51 So don't go looking for him cause he won't find them. Um, and they're not good by the way. But, uh, you know, I made a couple dollars over there and those, I do continue to earn money from those projects to this day. I still get 20 or $30 here and there. So I, I made some of my first money there, but I also experimented with pretty much every single way that people were promoting, making money online. Like I started a Shopify store and I dropped shipped some plastic crap from China using Facebook ads. Right. I did that. What else did I do? I, um, I created an email list to promote a SAS product and I used, uh, what do they call them when you do, um, when you buy ads to other people's email lists, I forget what it's called now. Thank goodness know I'm talking about I free.
Speaker 2 00:12:41 I mean, I literally feel like I did everything and I was on the fence. I was making decisions about, you know, going into FBA because I had bought, I invested because I do always invest in things I invested in any commerce, uh, course. And I was like, I think I can do this. I, I think I understand how this goes because of my previous Shopify fail and think it just down to picking up the product. And right around that time, I came across a course, John Dykstra scores about blogging it's of course he doesn't offer any more, but it was his black room blog profits or something it's I can't even say it, but it was his $47 flagship course that you have access to it for a year. And I was like, that's a good price. His strategy makes sense to me. Let's try this before I go and invest $5,000 in manufacturing, something in China that may or may not sell.
Speaker 1 00:13:33 Yeah. Awesome. So that's, I want to ask like how you got introduced to the world of content publishing, but obviously through your book and then through John. So did you just, did you follow John's course and then start a site's runway and just dive straight in? How did you, how did that transition happen then?
Speaker 2 00:13:49 Well, see, the thing is, is I had bought a couple of courses before and had not taken action on them because once I got into them, I was like, okay, this just doesn't feel right. It doesn't resonate with me. Like I go through the course and like consume the information, but I didn't take action. And so I had decided that I'm not spending any more money on courses and less, I take immediate action and do it step by step through it. So I bought John's course, I think April 1st and launched a site, I think April 4th. So on my YouTube channel, I have my, I talk about my 2019 case study site. And that is the case study that I started modeling, uh, John Dykstra Dykstras method, uh, just taking action. And then on month three, I started making like a monthly or bi-monthly video about my progress. And that's also where my YouTube channel started to grow and started to find similar people. It was because there, it turns out a bunch of people doing the same thing, but I didn't know that I just was like, sort of alone in my own ocean.
Speaker 1 00:14:51 Do you, do you still have that site, that first one you started? Oh, absolutely. Is it doing well?
Speaker 2 00:14:57 First side, I started, by the way, I just said it was a site that I started on John Dykstras method.
Speaker 1 00:15:03 Yeah. Take, take an action is, is a massive thing I bought, um, John's Pinterest course going back probably a year ago and I bought it with all the intentions of reading over the weekend and starting it. And then I read it over the weekend and I thought, this is great. This really makes sense. I didn't start it. And then I've done nothing with it since.
Speaker 2 00:15:23 Yeah. I, at this point now I will invest in info products, but only if I'm committed to following through and implementing the things they have to do or say, because otherwise it's a distraction.
Speaker 1 00:15:36 Yeah. Makes sense. I think that's why he's. So you've got, you've got your YouTube channel. You've got two YouTube channels though. Right?
Speaker 2 00:15:43 I do. I actually have more than that, but I only talk about those two.
Speaker 1 00:15:47 Why did you decide to split them into,
Speaker 2 00:15:50 So the reason that I decided to it's a test, right? You know, you go through the world of making money online and there's no school for this, right? There's no university for this. And, uh, just about everything we know it comes from either our experience or because somebody else told us. And so I went through so much of my make money, online experience, like relying upon things that people told me. And then it didn't always work out the way that they had said it would. And it could have been me or it could have been luck or whatever. So I just decided to start doing things, um, and find out what would happen. And one of the things that, the goals that I had for 2021 was that I wanted to grow my YouTube channel. I wanted to get the main channel to 10,000 subscribers and I'm halfway through 2021 and I only have 3,400.
Speaker 2 00:16:37 So you can see how well that's going. But one of the things that, uh, I had heard from, I had observed, I had watched an interview with Graham Stephan and, uh, coffee Zilla. Um, coffee's still is the drip hour, his podcast, uh, like conversation show and Graham Stephen's recommendation to copy Zillow. He's like, get your live streams off of your main channel. And they went on to talk about the metrics and about how, um, just the metrics of a live stream. You know, it's like candy red, it's like sugar. People will tune into them right away. But then they sit on your channel and they die. People who are interested in live streams. Uh, rather than most times going back to consume the old stuff, they will just wait for the next one and then figure that they'll get all caught up in the next one.
Speaker 2 00:17:22 So what you end up having is this gigantic library of dead content and what YouTube will do when somebody subscribes is they, you know, the person will watch the video and subscribe. And then on the browse page, YouTube will serve up your old videos. And what happens is people see that it's a live stream and that it's an hour and 20 minutes long. And they'll just scroll. I'm like, I have time for this right now. Those send really negative signals to YouTube. I'm showing this person, your content. They don't like it. And so they will content to them less and less and less. And so the experiment was to see what would happen if I pulled the live streams off, but because I want to serve that audience and I just enjoy it so much. I'd put them on a second channel and then I don't give a dang about how the metrics are over there. It doesn't hurt anything because it's channel has 180 subscribers and it's not monetized. So if my old videos are going to drag down the channel, the people who want that content go get it. People don't want that. Then
Speaker 1 00:18:20 Did it, did it have any kind of noticeable, no disability impact on, on your main channel? Well,
Speaker 2 00:18:24 When I started streaming on the new channel, what I noticed is that my old library started performing better. So not the live streams, but the old videos that I had produced. I did notice that a lot of those old videos, all of a sudden started to be shown more and were being watched more. Can I say with certainty that moving the live streams off is the best way to grow a channel?
Speaker 1 00:18:48 Well, I don't know, but
Speaker 2 00:18:50 The one thing that I do know is that the people who were on the live stream channel are there because they want that content. Yeah. A hundred percent. And there were a lot of people in the main channel who were being served that live stream content. And they were like, don't need it. Yeah. We're going to watch it.
Speaker 1 00:19:06 No, as you've laid it out like that, it makes total sense. I never thought of it that way, but it does make total sense.
Speaker 2 00:19:13 I mean, and, and, and at the end of the year, it may not make any difference. Right? Alex WP Eagle, he streams on his main channel all the time. He's got 50,000 subscribers, Doug Pennington, he streams on his main channel all the time. It's fine. It's got 20,000 subscribers. I just, just took the position that, well, this seems interesting. And why wait for someone else to tell me that this was a good or bad idea? Let's just find out what happens now. And now I'm seeing it. And the people who are listening to this can decide that it's probably not a big deal for a small channel. Maybe it only matters for a really big channel, but I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm still doing the same stuff I always do. And yeah, one thing I will say though, is I do think that, um, the people who subscribe are sticking around longer, so they aren't being served content that they're not interested in.
Speaker 2 00:20:03 Like people will see things in the feed and like, I'm not interested in that. And then unsubscribe. So I think I'm holding subscribers better. Like the churn, like people just kind of thing off is, uh, is definitely better. And then the performance of the videos that I am posting, those videos are also performing better. So the CTR is higher. And then just getting more views on those, because I think I'm doing a better job of serving them what it is that they want. Yeah. They want income reports. They want videos about building sites. Like they, aren't interested in my YouTube updates. They're like, oh, well get him. But that's not what I subscribe for. I'm I subscribed because I want to make money with websites. So please serve me that. So I think I'm serving them better.
Speaker 1 00:20:46 Make sense. We'll talk, talking about making money with websites. You run into an awesome case study right now, which I want to, I don't know if I would call it awesome, but it's fun. I call it or so I think is great. I'm really enjoying it so far. Um, and I'm really, I really like the name and this is what we told you about at the start it's it's, it's called MIGA, which has made the internet great again, which I think is awesome. And I definitely think you should get pads printed for everyone. You
Speaker 2 00:21:12 Know, some people would argue when was the internet ever great.
Speaker 1 00:21:18 Yeah. I don't know. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:21:20 I don't know. Joke we have
Speaker 2 00:21:22 Is that the internet was probably only great when you could access easily. The thing that rhymes with corn. Yeah. I wouldn't go with that to be honest.
Speaker 1 00:21:34 So, um, tell us about, tell us about this case study. Then I'll dive in with diamonds or any more detail, but just kind of give us a brief overview. Why you started it, like how you even came up
Speaker 2 00:21:44 With it. The, we started, I started talking about this with niche safari, Chris, and with Morton store guard. Who's the passive income geek. They're both on YouTube. And we were talking about starting new sites and about community and about being enthusiastic. And it just, as people had the, I won't say that I had this idea because I don't think I did. I think we started talking about it and, uh, uh, Chris may have even suggested it. I will totally give Chris credit for saying, you know, we should start new sites in January. I was like, I'll start a new site with you. And I talked to Martin and Martin's like, I'll start a new site with you. Like, this would be really fun because people, uh, you know, had a really rough 20, 20 because of the pandemic. And I'm like, okay, you know, this was a total dumpster fire.
Speaker 2 00:22:28 Like let's, uh, try to pick up our community together. And then people that were interested in doing this with us, it'll be a good reason to make videos and also to talk to each other about it. And I really do think it has had that result is a lot of people who are in initial process of sites, like, or are talking to each other about them. And it's been just a really great exercise and building this community because it supports us again. I need it because otherwise we're sitting at home like you don't see an office here. There's no water cooler, like right here there, because somebody gonna come over in a little bit and asking you how I'm doing. I mean, this is it. So that was initially the reason to get it started was just 20, 20. It was hard for a lot of people. Why not take some time to make 20, 21? Like let's get in the driver's seat on this year and build something that is positive and is valuable and to have a good time with it. And that's, I think what at least set it off.
Speaker 1 00:23:26 And you've said, I think you've taken that community aspect to, to another level. Cause you've, you've got this spreadsheet going out where everyone, who's kind of following along with you, um, put in their, their daily work for the day, for the month essentially. And kind of everyone's being kept accountable by each other and encouraged by each other. And is it too late for people to join that number by the way? Or is it kind of like there already
Speaker 2 00:23:51 Now? It's, it's ongoing people come and go. And here's the thing like the first month in January, it was full of people, right. There was 30, 40 people in it. And right now there might be 10, you know, it's just slowly like people, like some of those people are still doing the work, right. They're just not doing the spreadsheet. And some of those people are not doing anything. And some of those people are just crushing it. And I honestly hadn't planned on doing it after the first three months. I figured after March, I would just stop. But there were a lot of people who just said, no, this is really helpful. And I said, well, I'm, I'm not going to be the, like the cheerleader, like the coach. I do this spreadsheet because it helps me. Right. If other people know that I'm supposed to be doing something and I don't like failing, especially failing publicly.
Speaker 2 00:24:38 So they are going to know that I didn't meet my content goals. So it brings me to the table. That's my accountability lever for myself that doesn't work for everybody. But for other folks, I think it is helpful to know one they're not alone. Right. They're doing it with other people. And then also to just see what kind of work other people are doing as they do it. So it's actually to see these people are posting content every day. I can't keep up with that. Right. I have kids and their days I don't work, but these people, like, some of them are just like consistently just getting there. And that, that I, I want to be them. I want to be with them. I aspire to be them. And so it does help me stay on, on track.
Speaker 1 00:25:22 That's awesome. Yeah. I love, I love that. I think that's great. That's a great idea. So if anybody wants to join, um, you've got six months to catch up essentially, but um,
Speaker 2 00:25:31 Starting new sites, we're going to start again, I think in July. So people will want to start from scratch in July. Like I'm going to start a new site in July.
Speaker 1 00:25:40 So if you want to get involved in this, that 1000000% recommend go and jump on a YouTube. And don't forget to leave a comment because we were chatting before the call and I sold
Speaker 3 00:25:52 That you were going to the videos and watching them and lurking and I, that
Speaker 2 00:25:57 Is not acceptable. You must like, if you're going to be there, let us know you were there.
Speaker 1 00:26:03 Yes, I agree. And I will do, oh, I'm a full on Luca. All right. So let's get into the, let's get into the specifics of the side next. I've got a, I've got a couple of topics I don't want to dive into in more detail. So the first one is niche selection. Um, and I kind of want to get your, want to get your take on how important it is and, and how you approached it and know the audience that you're targeting is very passionate with this website, but just from a, like a high level, high level perspective, um, what's your take on, on niche selection and how do you approach it? Gosh, I, I'm gonna need
Speaker 2 00:26:41 You to be more specific about that. You say, oh, tell me about me selection. And I'm saying, well, I think niche, selection or niche selection. However you say it is really dependent upon where you are in your journey. So somebody who was a straight up beginner, who's just picking up their keyboard and getting WordPress for the first time. Like the things that I would tell them about picking a niche is going to be wildly different than I would talk through with somebody who's three years in because the niches pick
Speaker 1 00:27:07 What's that? What, why is that? Why, why is there a difference between where you are in your journey is, is a good niche, a good niche regardless, or what's what I guess the better question is what would be the different, the different approaches for a beginner versus someone who's further away.
Speaker 2 00:27:23 So when you first start your first site, you don't have any success. You are pretty much like walking around in the dark. Like we said, there's no university for this. So if you don't have a course, or even if you do have a course, so much of what we do is based upon our experience, right? You go to work and you perform well at work because you've done it before somebody trained you to do it and then trained you with support and correcting you as you go. But when you're working on a website, unless you're paying thousands of dollars for mentorship, you're on your own. All right. Yeah. And you were given essentially every opportunity to quit along the way seriously. And, and it's, and it's unnatural, right? Humans. We are given pain to tell us to stop, right? Discomfort is a signal that says, you should stop this.
Speaker 2 00:28:09 It's not good for you, but with a website, you have to overcome that because you will work and bust your tail for months before you have any success, any positive reinforcement, anything good that happens to tell you, this is a good idea, and you're doing it right. You have to work through this discomfort when discomfort is a signal to you to stop. Yeah. So if you are in over your head in a niche that is very technical that maybe you should be doing outsourcing, you don't know how to do that. You need to be doing schema. You don't know how to do that. You need to be doing ABC or D you don't know how to do that. And you hate it, right? It's, it's like a topic that you hate or have no interest whatsoever. That is a recipe for quitting. So for somebody in the beginning who is just picking out a niche, you know, the, the advices, you know, pick something that you're passionate about.
Speaker 2 00:29:00 And as somebody who's three or four years in to this, I would not pick that because I perceive those topics to be competitive because, you know, in the beginning, um, I started one of my first sites about parenting, because I'm passionate about that. But just about everybody who has kids, that's one of the initial sites that think of starting, because it's like one of the topics that's right in front of them. Right. I don't know how to pick a niche. I dunno how to discover what niches exist and you're doing your brainstorming. And the usual advice is, you know, write down everything you know about, right? Like get a list and like write down everything. You're interested in everything you do. So they're writing down like cycling, like I'm a hiker. Um, I make food, I have kids I telecommute, you know, and all these things, but every single person who is starting their first blog is writing the same list.
Speaker 1 00:29:52 Right? Yeah. Pretty much, you
Speaker 2 00:29:53 Know, so you're jumping into an extremely competitive world, like a lifestyle blog. Yes. You can be successful your first time around with a lifestyle blog. But if I'm three or four years in, I'm not starting a lifestyle blog because I know that everybody in their mom's over there and I'm lazy. I don't want to compete with those guys. I want to create a hundred or 200 posts that have no competition against I'm not competing against anybody, but how do you find those in the beginning? And what happens is that people who are just getting started, who don't have the skills to go and like hunt through niches and do competition analysis, they get stuck there because they're like, oh, the site is going to be, it's going to be too competitive. And then is this the right one? And then there's this like, cycle of like hunting, like treasure hunting.
Speaker 2 00:30:38 Like, I'm going to find the right one when really you just have to pick that, that competitive niche started learn how to do it. And then maybe that blog. And I have like five of them where I did that. Right. Like I don't just have one or two or 10. I have like five or six where I started them. And then they failed and I let the domain go. Even though now I realize I should have held onto those domains. They were making $25 a month. I could have sold that, but I didn't know that. Right. So I have all this, you know, experience from starting and failing that. Now, as I'm picking out a niche and I'm continuing to learn literally to this day, I'm still working on niche selection. That's not something that's just like, oh, like, yeah, Nope, got it. Like, I think I can do a better job every single time.
Speaker 2 00:31:24 But for somebody who's just starting out, I say, pick a topic that you can write about that will bring you to the computer as often as your goals get you there. And if it's a competitive niche, then so be it because then the next time you do this, you'll have all that experience to lean on and you'll do better. Maybe it won't be the one where you knock it out of the park, but it's going to be better than the last one. You're going to be better than the last one. And I can not think of a single person in our community where they took their first site. And it was like the one, you know, of a single person who took their very first site and sold it for six figures because I don't,
Speaker 1 00:32:03 I only know one person, um, one out of hundreds that I've spoken to,
Speaker 2 00:32:07 Not just a hundred, but hundreds, maybe thousands of people. Yeah. It's it's and it's they got lucky. Yeah. And they worked hard probably, but the luck was a big component of that.
Speaker 1 00:32:18 So do you, do you think it's a, do you think it's a bit different if you are planning on outsourcing most of your content? Like if you, uh, so one of the questions we get asked a lot is, is niche selection important? Should I pick something that I'm passionate about? Or should I pick something which I think can make me money and, uh, the way that we normally answer that is if you want to write the con any south and stay motivated, especially if it's a scene, if it's your first time and you don't, you haven't seen that full process end to end, then you've got to have a ton of feed when you're six, eight months in, and he's still writing content and not seeing results, then pick something you're passionate about. If you're going to outsource it, then that doesn't mean make too much of a difference because you're not going to have to stay motivated to write that content day in, day out.
Speaker 2 00:33:08 I think everybody should start and fail with the site. I think everybody should start a site and spend 12 months on it and have it crash and burn. And I will speak from experience here because one of the things that I learned early on is outsourcing, right. But when you don't know what a good blog post is, how are you going to coach that from a writer, even somebody you're paying, I'm going to pay them 25 cents a word it's going to be the greatest content ever. How do you know you don't, if you don't understand on page, you don't understand SEO. You don't understand any of it and you just throw the money at them. How do you know? And the reason I know this is because I did this, I did this, I don't what hundreds, I don't really want to tell you how much money into posts that I look back now and realize they were not good.
Speaker 2 00:33:58 And that is not the fault of the writers. I didn't know what to tell them. I didn't know, to tell them to do a, B, C, or D. That is my fault, my fault. And just cause I didn't know any better because I had not sat down and actually worked on a site and pounded our content for enough time to learn that. And I like working at the content until it became good enough. And now do I think my content is good? I do not. Right. I don't think I'm that good at it yet, but I do know that I can write content that, that at least gets traffic. Think I'm on the hunt for that. But that's, that is one of the reasons that my 2019 case study in my opinion, did not do as well as it should have. It's because I jumped into outsourcing
Speaker 1 00:34:48 Way too soon. Right. Interesting. Because this case study is doing a lot better. I think isn't it. Uh, at least what you showed me before the call, when you, uh, you showed me your analytics screenshot of a monthly right now for the people who are yeah. I think you shared, it's really impressive.
Speaker 2 00:35:05 I'm just going to make sure that the URL is hidden. Yeah. That's the, that's the last, what? 30 days
Speaker 1 00:35:12 Is crazy. The timber percentage. I think there's just show the percentage on there. How much increases though?
Speaker 2 00:35:19 Uh, since last month it said it increased by users is 163%. That's great. Yeah. We just crossed the 5,000 page view. Mark.
Speaker 1 00:35:28 This is the difference of three years in lots of trial and error, lots of mistakes and failures and putting all that knowledge into, into practice
Speaker 2 00:35:36 Then. Yeah. I mean, that's a good reason to start a new site at the beginning of this year is okay. I, and that's the reason why I'm thinking of starting another site in July is because I already can see the places where I did not stick with the plan already, places that I know I screwed up and things that I want to just continue to hone this skill, because I think I can do it better. I think I can do a better than this.
Speaker 1 00:36:02 I really do. It's crazy. It's such a short space of time, like six months in when you think I can really do a better job. I do. I,
Speaker 2 00:36:09 Because this, this business right here, and I have a friend of mine who I talked to online, she will know that I'm talking about her, but you know, she was like, I can't imagine where I'm going to be next year. And I said, stop thinking about next year, start thinking about next month. You think about what you learn in 30 days, if you are like putting in the time. And the effort is a year's worth of experience in the corporate world or in the offline world. Like you learn so quickly here that you just will look back at what you were doing four or five months ago, when you will cringe, you will literally be embarrassed to look back at your old videos. You're like, oh, did I see that? Did I really think that, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1 00:36:53 What's the rationale. But the bias between start a new sites versus just continuing to work on the one, but with a better model now, then,
Speaker 2 00:37:02 I mean, there's a rationale for both right there when you're in this place where you've started a site. And then for some people starting a second site or third side or fourth side or fifth site, it is a shiny object, right? It's it's I need to be doing something and feel like my business is progressing. So for me starting another site, it's not about quitting on my mega site because it isn't the only reason that I'm going to start another site this year is because I want to test some things, but only if it is not at the expense of the mega site, right. That makes, so this one, like I'm committed at least 12 months. Yeah. Consistent work, because that's been really hard for me to do. Usually I'll build a site three or four months and then I'm like, Ugh, you do, you know, or, uh, like something else and then take my foot off the gas on that.
Speaker 2 00:37:52 Yeah. And that is another reason why I think my 2019 case study or I would call it a fail is that I got, um, distracted and I got hit by the may, the fourth update on that site. And it just took the wind out of me. Like, yeah, I look back now and I literally did not write hardly anything forward for what nine months. And I was just like, I was, I lost all my momentum on it. And I think, man, if I had just kept working on that, like where would that site be? Which is why I'm not, it's like paying for itself and it's still making some money, but it's in my garage right now because I, I want to build this other experience and say, okay, learn enough that I can back and actually pinpoint exactly what is wrong with it and how do I fix it? And I guess that's part of the hunt for starting new sites so that I can really understand what I can do to fix that thing because I'm not giving up on it. I think it was a good idea. And I think the keyword research I did for it was good. I just was missing something and I'm still like trying to work out what that was because I think I can fix it.
Speaker 1 00:38:58 Awesome. Okay. Well, one thing that I've delve into, uh, into more depth about with this serverless meager site is, um, the idea of topical relevancy. You brought it out and mentioned it specifically as something that you were focusing on and it's important. And I think everyone's got a different, slightly different idea of how you build topical relevancy. Um, w what's your take on it? How are you approaching, like building top of the relevancy and how you, well, that's the first part of the question, I guess the second part is how are you making sure that you are staying on topic? Because I know it's easy to stray off topic quite quickly and destroy top of the relevancy. So what's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 00:39:41 I think it's extremely hard for somebody like me who loves to do keyword research. Um, I think finding great keywords is like hunting for gold. It's sort of like the dopamine rush, right? When you come across it and you're like, oh, this is awesome. Um, and then, you know, that was a, it's a problem that I've had in the past. Um, and I also think that's one of the reasons why my 2019 case study failed is because I didn't go deep enough into anything. It was, it was using these lifestyle, older lifestyle blogs as a model, and they already had traffic. They already had a following, but they could easily do, you know, this craft and then this recipe and then this idea, and then this thing, you know, but not necessarily build out a, a cluster of keywords around like recipes or, um, any depth at all into crafts, like using the cricket or cry cutter does machines that I'm not a pronounced them.
Speaker 2 00:40:35 You know, just like, just do a little bit here and a little bit there and they could get away with that. And so it was something that I look back at that site and think, man, maybe the site would have gone better if I would have gone deeper and established more. I don't say authority if that's the right word, but to communicate to Google that I really know a lot about sandboxes, like a lot, like I've got all kinds of articles here. Somebody could come in here. And even though this is a general blog, I've got like all kinds of stuff about sandboxes. Now you say, well, you know, how do you establish topical relevance and topical relevance I think is not the one and done like the only ranking factor you've got competition. You've got all the other factors that Google is looking at.
Speaker 2 00:41:21 So you could be, um, maybe the, the most comprehensive site about I'm looking out my window about fence posts, right? You could have a hundred articles on fence posts, but if you're competing against home Depot, you know, that has crazy authority and they have all kinds of stuff on fence posts. Like that's just not going to be enough. And then you have to have the combination of all of these things, uh, you know, competition. And so what I try to do though, is avoid doing what I did in 2019, which is just doing a one and done type of situation. So if I've got a topic, I try not to write on it and less, I think that I can produce sort of eight to 10 articles that I could link to it. Yeah. So if it's like something that won't link to anything, then it's not going on the site period. Like if it's just an outlier and it honestly doesn't fit and you say, well, how do I know if it fits? And I says, does it naturally linked to something else? Could you naturally refer to it in another article without saying, oh, Hey, and by the way, check out this article about fence posts when the article is about light fixtures.
Speaker 1 00:42:29 Okay. How would you, um, how do you approach that from a research perspective from a like, is it, are you looking at it as a, from a keywords perspective? Are you looking at it from a, a top, like an all rule topic perspective? Because I think, um, one, one area that you, that, that potentially could trip people up when they take this method or approach this approach in this way is, is cannibalization. Like they go, they don't know how to split that out. Like all of the keywords they find and they just end up writing like so much on the topic, but in the individual posts that it ends up like cannibalizing each other. Cause there's so much crossover. Um, how are you, how are you approaching that your classrooms have together? Are you covering everything like about hot, you know, sub topics of the main topic in massive articles? Are they broken down into smaller pieces?
Speaker 2 00:43:24 When I have the answer, like the a hundred percent certain answer, we'll do a follow-up, you know, honestly, I try to think of, um, what seems natural, you know, cause I don't honestly know what the formula is. Right. I try not to, um, cover the same topics. So if I answer a specific question in one article and it's not like a basic question, like sometimes you can see people repeating the same stuff in FAQ is like you have your fence post article and one of the, and then you also have fence boards. That's another separate keyword, but one like a common question with, uh, fence boards and fence posts is how much does a fence cost. Right? So you might want to answer that question because you know that somebody who's looking at fence boards and fence posts, if those are two separate articles, that they may also want that information.
Speaker 2 00:44:18 So you will have to make the decision to, instead of putting that information in there as create a separate article, which is how much does offense cost, and then trust that those people will see that and link to it and go to that article. And the answer is, I'm not exactly sure what is the best, because one, I think it's a, like a moving target. So you might say that, um, like a comprehensive article that is fences, everything that you need to know and that Google will use the passages update and jump you when you type in fence posts and just jump you to that place. I think in the end, worrying about cannibalization is less important than really trying hard to provide the best information possible. And then Google is going to sort out what they, what it, this, this machine thinks is that best information is going to go to the article that has the best information.
Speaker 2 00:45:09 They're going to jump right over the headline. They're going to jump right over your schema. They're going to jump right over your images and everything. And just go to that place where they think the best answer is. And if we get really hung up in, well, should it go over here and go over here and go over here? You might've written another article in that time. And then I'm just like, I'm more of like a spray and pray like, and then just hope for the best at this point, because I feel like topical relevance is something that is changing. And, uh, and the only way to like stay up to date with this and to learn is to continue to write content and see how it performs. So I write, um, listicles that I'm terrible at listicles, by the way, but like writing big long, like, okay, I'm going to write the ultimate guide, but then also on other topics.
Speaker 2 00:46:00 So not the same topic on other topics instead of doing the ultimate guide where sometimes the ultimate guide, you know, is also questions about fence posts and fence boards and top rails and cabs is breaking other topics down into individual articles and then see, which is going to do better. Okay. And it could be, um, updates specific, like what's going on in may of 2020, or it could be topic specific. It could have to do, like if you're writing about fence posts versus writing about fence lighting or porch lighting, it might be different. I don't know. I'm just going to try to do my best to get that good information out there. And then to continue, I guess, to play the lottery, it was that the 80 20 rule, like you try to get as much content out there and hope the 20% of it just crushes it for you. You know, you can't win if you don't play. And so I'm I'm of the model, like, get it out there, maybe it sucks, but I learned something at least, and then I'm going to move on and that's my model.
Speaker 1 00:47:01 It makes sense. I think, I think it's a good model. Um, and like other people will do it differently. Right? Like
Speaker 3 00:47:07 I don't want to come at it like full on guru.
Speaker 2 00:47:10 Like do your thing, man. Like what's working for you. I'm just trying to figure that out.
Speaker 1 00:47:15 Yeah. And I think that's the good thing about the speech room. Everyone everyone's got a different approach, but it still works for a lot of different approaches. There's no right or wrong way of doing this. Um, so I think that's, that's really good. Um, one thing you would, you did, which I think is interesting is you plan though, all of your internal LinkedIn before you even started the site. And that to me just sounds like so daunting. Like how did you even, how how'd you even do that?
Speaker 2 00:47:43 They didn't, I tried, I basically set up like, all right. I decided that I was going to have the link plan. And so I set up the, you know, what I thought of as the structure. So I chose not a circular structure. Like some people will go money page and then just go around it with all the supporting, um, articles like pointing at the money page. This is an info site. The mega site is mostly an info site. So I thought, all right, I want to do like more of a, um, like a top-down hierarchy. So I've got the homepage. And then on the homepage, I would have links to either category pages or specific pages that I created that would have certain articles on them. And then I planned, all right, if the article can't be written and posted into one of these categories, then I shouldn't write it.
Speaker 2 00:48:26 Right. Because it wouldn't fit in the silo or the cluster or whatever, but, you know, as like, what do they say? What's the saying, like, I forget what it is. Like, not all good deeds go unpunished, although that is true. Uh, but you know, like their best laid plans is that what it was. And, um, the thing that I struggle with is in keyword research where I stumble upon like one keyword that is like, could probably fit in there, but then you go down the rabbit hole of like modifiers of this keyword that probably don't fit in there, but it's like, well, if I can rank for this one version of it, could I rank for this other version of all of them? And then it's like that, like, so then I'm like, bootstrapping, like just like, it's, it's gonna, it's going to be fine.
Speaker 2 00:49:11 Like it just fits in there, but it doesn't. So then I create another category and then I'm like, okay. And then I've got a whole new thing over here and then cross-linking them. So I, I think it's, um, I have, that's another thing that I want to be more methodical about, which is another reason to start another project is to, you know, can I be more disciplined about that and starting, you know, with a specific niche and then just again, committing to be disciplined about the topics that I write about so that I can really just focus on this whole topical relevance thing and see, does it really matter? And I'll have two sites that are kind of growing around the same time. Like this one that is better than 2019. It's definitely more related. It's not like here, here, here, here, here. I have multiple topics that go deep and like a similar deal, but it's probably not, in my opinion, it's not good enough. And I try again and I'm going to keep trying again until I just can really nail this down so that when I start something I can trust that it's going to work.
Speaker 1 00:50:17 Okay. No, I think that's a, it's an ever evolving process to be honest, this, uh, yeah. Uh, and like we mentioned before, the core, I I'm guilty of the same. I find a keyword and I think this looks great. Right. And then I follow the radical and before, you know, it I'm like, I can actually make a whole new cycle on this, this topic. Yes.
Speaker 2 00:50:37 And sometimes you should, sometimes that is the answer is like, oh my gosh, look at all these keywords, this, these all belong somewhere else.
Speaker 1 00:50:45 Yeah. So did you do the same as with the side structure then? Did you preplan everything on the site structure beforehand and then tried to stick them, but maybe didn't quite, or
Speaker 2 00:51:00 Yes, I planned it all out and then like, like the best laid plans, you know, I got, I went down this way and I was like, holy cow, I think I can get traffic for these keywords and they don't fit and I've got to make them fit. And I think that they are close enough. Um, but yeah, no, I, I, I, my plan, I think is after I get this initial run of 500 articles, assuming that I can get there is to go back and work rework the site structure it, especially since it's like interlinking, right? You say, oh, well I'm only going to link this to that or whatever, but sometimes you can't link articles to anything because the content that needs to link to hasn't been written yet. And so sometimes you don't know what's going to link to what until you've created it or how, right.
Speaker 2 00:51:47 Like the anchor text, like you, you don't necessarily know because that article hasn't been written yet and you haven't done the research for it. So what is the anchor text going to be? Is it going to be, um, you know, the best fence post, uh, cleaner, you know, versus just what it's going to be like, what are you actually targeting? And sometimes you don't know until you get in there. So I think having like a reasonable plan, but then not necessarily beating yourself up about it, if it doesn't necessarily go that way. I mean, have you ever been on a road trip where you would exactly every single place that it was on the map like that you plan, like you might, but you're missing out on a lot of cool stuff on the way
Speaker 1 00:52:25 In the UK. We do, because like a road trip for us is like two hours. I
Speaker 2 00:52:30 Bet you, I, you know what, and I bet you like have a cooler with snacks and you're like, oh yeah, like an extra change of clothes. Like in case we don't make it back. Yeah, definitely for me getting to the airport,
Speaker 1 00:52:45 Me and mark met up the other day and, uh, it was a, it was like a two and a half hour drive. And as soon as I got to the car, I phoned him up. I was, I said, yeah, I've got my snacks ready. I've got my music playlist ready is like two hour drive. Um, do you, so all this planning you did pre kind of started. Did you use any funky tools or are you just using good old fashioned sheets, Excel sheets, Google sheets, pen and paper. Well, old-school
Speaker 2 00:53:13 Pencil, Google sheets and sometimes a pen and paper because I find that my brain like take some things differently. And when I hand write it down versus on the computer and I guess part of partly because I'm old, right? Cause I, I grew up in a time when we actually wrote things and, and it just works for me. I also discovered that in law school, like the way I would process information was different. If I wrote it by hand versus taking notes with a computer. And so I just know from that experience that I would be more engaged with the material and think more when I'm using my hands to write. Okay. Yeah. No, I don't. I I'm like anti tool, like to the best of my abilities. So people are like, do you use this? No. Do you have this? No. Are you going to buy this?
Speaker 2 00:53:59 No, I use this. It's really great. I'm like good for you. That's awesome. If that helps you. That's great. I don't know. Not yet. It doesn't mean that it won't change. Right? Like people are after me. Like, oh, you need to get us, you know, SERP tracker. I'm like, oh, but it's more money. I don't want to spend that. And I'm like, how do you know? I'm like, I don't, I just watch this thing and like, watch the traffic go. And I figure if the traffic is going this way, then you probably do it all right. But you know, it probably would be good to know these things if I was, if I'm serious, I am serious, but I just, I'm not there yet.
Speaker 1 00:54:35 Makes sense. Okay. So one thing which I think he did with this site, where, which is, uh, maybe a change from site you've created in the past was you didn't throw out a ton of content on it. Initially you will go in more for consistency over quantity, at least for the first six months to teams. And now you want to, you've increased your kind of plans for the site, but it sounds like maybe you'd had a bad experience in the past where you'd gone really hard at a site and didn't kind of pay off. Do you mind talking about that?
Speaker 2 00:55:06 Oh yeah. It's the 29th. Well, it's not just the 20 I've had, uh, probably three experiences like that. So I started that site. I started an affiliate site that we haven't talked much about here, a SAS product site and affiliate site in 2018, which was one of those ones where I went out really, really hard for four solid months and it never really went anywhere, but that site does still earn me like what, two to $3,000 a year. I just don't touch it. I haven't updated it literally in two years. It just does that. Um, but
Speaker 1 00:55:37 I just, I thought you were to say a month, then I was going to say what, like, oh
Speaker 2 00:55:41 No, I should see you see me all over on YouTube. If I had a site that hadn't touched in two years and I was making two to three grand a month, I'd be like, look at me now. It was just one of these things where you it's a fail for the effort, but still nice to get a check for, you know, or deposit for 500 bucks here or there it's like playing a lottery. Yeah. Not expecting that. It's like a windfall, but you know, I think I get obsessed with the work and like working for work's sake and like trying to find the balance between producing enough content, but not just hitting the publish button, just because I made the goal, because what would often happen is like, well, I'd be obsessed with, I need to write two or 3000 words before the end of the month to meet my goal and just write anything.
Speaker 2 00:56:28 Right. It doesn't matter how good it is. It could be fluff. It could be, I mean, personal stories, like whatever, just to meet the word count, um, limit. And, uh, I, I definitely think I've fallen in the trap of just not producing anything. That's going to go anywhere because I want to meet my internal goals. Yeah. So I decided with this site in the mega site is that I would be, um, more, I guess, um, conservative about what it is that I could produce, not just because I would produce what I considered to be garbage content, but also because I am very prone to burnout and you know, the, the burnout thing where you work, work, work and you're, and then, you know, you get to this point where like, there's literally nothing you could do to make yourself sit and work. Right. And it's painful and you feel bad and you feel tired and you feel uninspired.
Speaker 2 00:57:21 And I have done this to myself. Literally every time I have started a site, like just gone at it like 18 hours a day, you know, just like sunup to sundown, like, and then you get to a point where it's not sustainable and you've hurt yourself. Right. You've hurt your health. You have, uh, you know, your mental health, you're tired, you haven't slept. And then it's really hard to keep going. I can not tell you how many times I have done this and not just with, I did it with writing eBooks. And KTP, I mean, if you sit me down in front of a computer, I could generate what, 10,000 words a day easy, because I did it, I wrote like a hundred thousand word book. I mean, you know, I could do it, but it doesn't mean it's going to be good. And it doesn't mean that I'm going to be able to do it next week.
Speaker 2 00:58:13 Yeah. Most cases the answer is I won't, because I'll be wrecked. I like my, by like, like this risk thing, like from this thing and like the typing, like I injured myself, like it hurts right. To like, like I hurt myself because I was literally doing nothing else. But like, yeah. And so just being, I, I wanted this case study to be maybe more realistic. So what most people would be more likely to do is, um, and, and to make it sustainable, right. Is it's not realistic for most people to produce 200 articles in two months. And the truth is it wasn't realistic for me either. It wasn't. And so it's, I want this to be a long term project and I have to look at it like it is a marathon versus a sprint, right. Plus if you write all your content in the first month, like all of it, right.
Speaker 2 00:59:12 You plan it all out, you do all the keywords and you produce it all in advance and then you load it up on day one. A lot of what I do now that I do before is I watched the initial runs of content and how it performs, how the, what sort of earnings what's ranking, you know, cause like competition, like we're using tools and our own eyeballs, but we don't really know. Right. I mean, we're guessing. And so, uh, how can I see a thousand keywords and knowing before any of them have started doing anything what's going to be successful? I don't. So what I like to do is do this runs of, you know, 20, 30, 40 articles. And then over time, look at this is one of the reasons I like you to work. Is there a big data analytics stuff is being able to look at each individual page, what's earning me money and how much like what's the RPM or the EPMP for it.
Speaker 2 01:00:02 And then I look for the ones that are in the most compared to traffic. And then I make more content like that. And sticking to my like plan, what I think are the best keywords ignores that I'm here to make money, right? Like that's what I want. I want the site to earn as much money as possible. And sometimes that means changing my plan as I go. I mean, I'm writing on my mega site right now and topics that I did not expect to write about, but because I was observing these particular posts, the top 10 posts are this. I'm like, well, you show, I'm definitely going to be focusing on stuff like that to see if I can replicate that because I want to make money
Speaker 1 01:00:42 Makes total sense. Yeah, it does make sense. Um, so on that, on that vein, you kind of, you went out, you went a little bit slower than you normally would, but still done. You still push out a lot. So by month three, you'd cross the a hundred thousand words, mark. And you were at like 92 posts, I think I saw from your video, um, which, which is, which is just over a thousand words per post. How do you determine like your, your article length? Do you, do you just write until you think you've covered the topic info? Do you look at competitors? Do you use tools like phrase or surfer?
Speaker 2 01:01:17 Well, we did talk about how I'm really like anti tool. I don't like to, um, you know, and, and a lot of this is sort of guessing, right? You say, okay, well, how do I know that 1,279 words is like the length answers? I don't really, and most of us like, like surfer, you know, they're looking at the top five articles and then kind of making the best guess at what the article should be. Yeah. I think the focus needs to be on not making it short. So if it's 300 words, then it's probably a topic that should be combined in with other similar topics over a broader umbrella, um, or just not writing on it. Um, because a short, like something that's really short, like what is the temperature in Boise today is going to be caught up by the snippet by Google is just going to provide that answer and people aren't going to click on it.
Speaker 2 01:02:12 So something that could at least get 750 words or I do Morton's, um, army ants style where I'll just answer lots of questions in one article and then, um, you know, try to create a good headline for that. Okay. Assuming that Google passages is just going to jump the person to that answer, but you know, is it, is it going to work? I'm thinking less about a specific word count and one in, uh, looking at the top three folks and seeing what have they written about, you know, can I answer the question better than them? Um, how long is their article? So if it's reasonable to make the article longer to do that, but ultimately I'm not stressing and obsessing necessarily about this needs to be 2000 words. It needs to be 5,000 words saying, okay, you know, can I, in at least a thousand words, cause usually it's like great to get at least over a thousand and then where it goes from, there just depends on the topic and if there is room for it and it's helpful and necessary then great, but I'm not sweating necessarily it being perfect. And I guess, and I guess we'll find out right in, in 18 months, like where's the site app. Was this a good idea?
Speaker 1 01:03:23 What seems to be a good idea so far it's worked well, we'll see. Right.
Speaker 2 01:03:28 I think there are people who are doing better than me at five months in, in our MIGA challenge. And then looking at other people's case studies from years past, you know, that just crushed it in month four or five, six, not doing as well as those, but that's, I'm, I'm learning. And that's what I'm really focused on. I mean, I can't help but compare myself, but ultimately I'd like to have the answers to these questions myself and I, that's what I really encourage other people to do. So they say, okay, well, how long should the post be? I don't know, test it out. See, see if it works, it didn't work. Don't do that.
Speaker 1 01:04:05 Love it. Okay. So that's where you were in month three and then month four, you, you, you crossed more, obviously you push out more content, but something changed in month four because you don't start it outsourcing content. Um, what, what was the trigger for that? Because obviously you still writing a ton of your own content, right? You still writing, you're just supplementing it with outsourced content. You
Speaker 2 01:04:28 See this Cheshire smile, like yeah, something happened around then something did happen around then. Um, I put Zohak on the site really early through their access node program in the middle of February. So the site was six weeks old. And of course, you know, you don't expect a site that's six weeks old to be making any money. Right. You make a couple pennies, whatever. And, um, it was around April when I think that there was enough traffic going through the site that the Airbnb, the RPM was starting to get established. And I had figured that since this was going to be info content and not really product focused content, that the RPM would be fairly low. And I was okay with it because I figured I would just crush it in content. Right. And, uh, traffic. So, you know, a low RPM is okay if you're getting a million visitors, like you can still money there.
Speaker 2 01:05:18 And you know, it's not a bad business model. So initially the RPM or EPMB was under $10 and I was kind of disappointed, but I was like, well, still like the site's growing. And so it'll be fine. But then in April, um, the, the EPMD started to go up and so week on week, it was like, okay, $12, like, all right, I'm throwing a party. Then it was $14 and it was $16. And then I was starting to see days where the ultimate RPM for the day was above $30. You know, then it would bounce down to 11, but it was like right now I'm looking at it. The last seven days, the EPMB is averaging $21 and 40 cents. And I was like, okay, this seems like a site. If the RPM is consistent, that's worth investing in because I think that I'll be able to earn more money back.
Speaker 2 01:06:09 And it's also, if it's going to continue to grow this way that, um, I would like to make this happen sooner and focus on those articles that are the most valuable. But the hard part is that those articles that are the most valuable are not articles. I like to write. They're also really hard to write because that information is not readily available on the internet. So like people go to the internet and don't find that information. And so then they'll go offline and buy a book or whatever, but most of us use the internet for research. Yeah. And so if that information is not there, then it's really hard to write those articles. So I, one of the reasons I decided to outsource them, it's like, okay, I will push that burden upon someone else. You find the answers to that. Those are valuable articles.
Speaker 2 01:06:57 You find the answers for me. And I will focus on these other articles that are easier to produce that maybe aren't as valuable, but at least I can have that stuff going, because I think that content is really valuable. And so if the, if the EPMP had stayed below $10, I don't think I would be outsourcing right now because I wouldn't be looking at trying to build this site too. I was going to be excited if this site was earning $500 a month by 12 months, and I'm going to be disappointed. Now, if the site isn't earning a thousand dollars a month by the end of 12 months and just like, it's a trajectory. So that has become my goal. I'm like, all right, well, how do I get there? And do I feel okay investing in it? And I feel okay investing in it because I think the RPM is going to be higher. So that happened in April is the RPM jumped pretty dramatically and has been fairly consistent sometimes. I mean, it's just like week on week, it's going up. And it could be that the site is somewhat seasonal. Right. And so this could be the good months. Yeah. Maybe that I don't know. Right. We're going to see how it plays out, but I'm going to write it.
Speaker 1 01:08:06 Okay. I think you mentioned something really interesting. There was about the other, the RPM or the EPMB is higher for certain of posts, but they're more difficult to write. Um, is that niche specific or do you think that's, uh, like have you got any tips for overall kind of creating content that gets a higher RPM rate
Speaker 3 01:08:32 Without giving too much away? I have a list
Speaker 2 01:08:34 Of articles that you need to write and find it easier to pick up some articles than others. Yeah.
Speaker 1 01:08:39 But it sounds like you found some, this structure different way or were there certain types of information they included, which is like hard to find, like you saying, like, um, I guess I want to try and get to the bottom of what that looks like. Just so, uh, I think it's useful initially.
Speaker 2 01:08:59 It wasn't so much that, so I always have like a running list of drafts. Right. I see a keyword I want to write about and I set up a draft in my WordPress dashboard. And so when I decided to having to sit down and write, I don't go to keyword research again, I just go to that and like focus on that. And the inherently, there's some articles that never get written because I don't want to, I think they're going to be hard. Right. I just, I just know they're going to be, and so they don't get written, right. They just like, I continue to add keywords and they just get pushed down further and further and further and further and further. And so what I discovered was the articles that are down here at the bottom were also probably, or possibly high value articles, right.
Speaker 2 01:09:40 Based upon what I observed in, in their cousins, in my analytics. And so I was looking at why it is that I was having trouble getting to them. And it was just literally, because I'm a little lazy, uh, you know, I I'm tired. Like at the end of the day I had the kids, we did school, I did the song dance, like the mom's salmon dance and they're in bed and I'm getting to the computer at 10:00 PM to write an article that is not going to be dissertation material. And those articles need dissertation level material I can not provide that just cannot. Okay. So it's like, like more practical, like, okay, how do I get the articles written that needed to be written if I cannot get to them because I'm, I'm tired. Yeah. You know, and you say, okay, well what, what else can be gleaned from them?
Speaker 2 01:10:38 Like what makes these articles more valuable? Yeah. And that, I mean, that's a different question entirely, right? Like what makes a particular article on a particular topic valuable? And usually there's two reasons. One, well, there's one reason which is somebody wants to advertise on it. Yes. Now the reason why somebody wants to advertise on it is one, because the topic on there involves a product or something they want you to buy, or it could be retargeting, meaning you went somewhere else and now they're just chasing you all over the place. And so it's just, is one of the things I'm still working out honestly, is whether or not they're trying to sell the product or they're retargeting my person who just happened to go somewhere else. Yeah. And so that's something that I'm working through right now.
Speaker 1 01:11:28 Okay. I've never, yeah. I'd never thought about the retardant aspect, but that makes sense. Um, and I guess this comes back to the niche selection part is if that plays a big part in that people are retarded in your audience more often, like, do you go for a, an affluent audience over, uh, does that become part of the niche selection because you know, retirement is going to become part of a, so you, can, you, I guess what I'm trying to see is would you go after an easy, low competition niche with a high affluent audience readership because, you know, they would have been to, you know, maybe, uh, a finance site before or some kind of high value product, and now they're following them around and they're willing to pay a higher rate. I don't know.
Speaker 2 01:12:15 I mean, the, the, that question may be answered differently in the near future, depending upon what happens with third party cookies. Right. It's like whether or not retargeting dies, because if that wasn't an issue, then my answer would be yes. Yeah. But you know, again, it's only something you experiment with and I don't think it would happen in every case, but it's something that I would definitely be experimenting with. And I may still do that, but it is still with this uncertainty of their ability to retarget. And for those of us who are making money online to benefit from that, because it may not be an option in the near future, but yes, I mean, yes. And you know, one of the, the, the, the, the things that I think about is actually, uh, I have a tech site, I have a couple of tech sites, you know, back in the garage.
Speaker 2 01:13:02 And, um, there was a product that was really valuable and that, that keywords, that product, you know, for Amazon affiliate was extremely, um, competitive, right? There's no way with my little side, I was going to rank for it. And so instead I wrote for the alternatives to that product. So, and not doing an Amazon sale for just doing a review of the likely cheaper versions of this and those articles get a lot of traffic around Christmas. And ultimately, I don't think that the advertisers are trying to sell that product. I think they're retargeting the people for the very, very expensive project, because people probably went to the sales page for the very expensive product and then are now like, do I really have to spend this much? And so, like the alternatives page is catching the re-targeting, uh, traffic, because the alternative is really cheap product. Like there's no way somebody is going to be spending a hundred dollars a click for this cheap product. It makes sense to go, you know, to the product page. It is the people selling the expensive product that have the big ad budget that is chasing them around. And that's why I get the benefit of it. Will that happen in the future?
Speaker 1 01:14:14 Who knows? We'll see. We'll soon. See, so what's the, what's the long-term plan for this surface site. I know you've kind of upgraded your expectations. You did initially plan to build out like 200 posts, but now you upgraded that to 500. Are you building this as for longterm cashflow? Do you want to sell it? Like, where do you want to, do you want to take it to, where do you hope,
Speaker 2 01:14:39 Man, I really flip-flop on this. Uh, because I feel like it's a bit like the chickens before they're hatched sorta deal like spending your money before you have it in your pocket. I didn't necessarily give a lot of thought initially to whether it was going to be a build to hold or a build to sell, because I thought of it mostly as a community building project and also like a place to test out new skills. But as I'm watching it grow and thinking, okay, maybe this is something that is valuable. It actually requires me to look at where I'm at personally. And I think my personal financial goals will influence what happens with this site. And so I thought, oh, well, it could be great to hold onto it for three years. And if it keeps going the way it's going, you know, it could be something that's making so many X dollars a month.
Speaker 2 01:15:26 And then those so many X dollars a month could achieve these other goals. Like I've got college funds to create, right? Like the sooner I get those done, the better, the sooner I can check that box off. And then it's this anxiety that I'm like, get it off my shoulders. Yeah. But you know, then again, like N selling it sooner, right. Like selling it at 18 months, if I could get a six-figure sale on it. And I'm not saying that's going to happen because I don't know. Right. Um, you know, that could also serve some other financial goals. And so I, somebody asked me this the other day and they said, what do I want to do with it? And I said, I think I'm going to sell it. If I can get it to a place where I can get six figures for it, then I'll sell it, which is an, also the impetus to start another site this year.
Speaker 2 01:16:12 So is that if I could have like start two sites a year, because I don't want to gigantic portfolio, I don't want employees or PA's or anything, but if I could start two sites a year and then sell one or two sites a year and make a reasonable amount from an investing, mostly my effort. Yeah. That would not be, uh, a bad way to live. And, you know, it would also be kind of low stress, right. Because I'm not managing people. And I did that, right. Like I already did the high stress job and all of those things, like, I want some peace, I want some freedom. And then, you know, I just want to get all my debts, like all gone so that, um, when, like when the pandemic hit, there were a lot of people who were really stressed out because they owe this and know that, and this, like, I didn't have a lot of those concerns because I've been working on trying to get to a place where my, my health and wellbeing is, has nothing to do with what is going on with the economy and what is, what other people are doing.
Speaker 2 01:17:16 It's like, all right, I got myself squared away. I'm gonna be okay.
Speaker 1 01:17:21 Awesome. I think that's a good call to have. And if you, uh, if you do plan on selling it, then let me know. I'm always interested in buying,
Speaker 2 01:17:30 You know what, that's funny. You're the second person in the last couple of days who was like that MIGA side of yours. I said, well, you know, it's not worth very much right now, but if somebody wanted to make me an offer on it's future worth, I mean, cash in hand, when I was a lawyer, we used to say all the time, a burden, a hand is worth two in a Bush and
Speaker 1 01:17:54 Noah. Yeah. I wouldn't buy it on future value. That's still the problem.
Speaker 2 01:17:58 Yep. And I wouldn't sell it for what it's worth right now, because I've got probably a handful of posts that are honestly really ranking. And then we've got a lot, we've got a lot of runway to go for this
Speaker 1 01:18:08 Year. I didn't, I didn't, I actually, in the future, I mean, not in that, like when you come to salad, like, yeah.
Speaker 2 01:18:14 I was, you know, people will say, oh, I want him to empire flippers and this or that, like I've bought from empire flippers. And I respect them a lot. And I've also seen other folks do direct to their audience. Like Alex just sold his, um, roof box site, you know, to somebody who was in his community,
Speaker 1 01:18:30 Trying to buy Alex's site for like six months to Maureen kidding. I must have sent Alex like seven different offers. I never do that. I always make one offer and stick by it. But yeah. And then, uh, we, we recently, uh, we couldn't come to a deal because, um, because interestingly people were both in the UK and I'm actually about to charge me back because it's through his company and that adds a 20% increased premium where a us buyer doesn't have that. So, yeah. <inaudible>,
Speaker 2 01:19:07 That's awesome. Yeah. He never said anything about that. So, I mean, he did talk about people wanting to buy it from him, but he never said who so now. Oh, I know. That's funny.
Speaker 1 01:19:18 Awesome. Well, I think this would be great. Are we, we've kind of got over a normal, like hour time slot, but, um,
Speaker 2 01:19:25 I already tell you that this always happens because I stopped talking. I like start talking and then people can literally not stop me,
Speaker 1 01:19:32 But I think it's been useful. I think, I think it's been good. Um, is there, is there anything that you think, well, is this a good question to ask? Just based on what you've said, is there anything I've missed that you think I should have asked? That's my
Speaker 2 01:19:44 Favorite question to ask when I'm on my podcast and it always makes the guests like, like hurt, like hurt. And then I, then I'm feeling like, ha ha like, look at me. Like I, you know, made them think, but no, I, I didn't come here with a purpose, right? Like I'm not here to sell a course. I'm not here to build an audience I'm here because I thought that talking with you would be interesting and enjoyable and it has been. And so if there's anything else that you think would be valuable for your audience, I'm happy to try to serve that because that's why I'm here. But I know, I don't think that there's anything about me that people really ought to know about because that presumes that I think anything that I have is valuable and I don't always think that I sometimes think people should just focus on doing what they're doing and not worry about what folks like me have to say, because I think their own personal experience has the most value, but yet we are. So poned in on what people are trying to tell us that it sort of quiets mutes, that, that, that little voice inside of us that says, um, that doesn't, that doesn't make sense. Or I want to try this and maybe it fails. Maybe it does, but
Speaker 1 01:21:02 Why not? I think one interesting thing we haven't mentioned is where people can find, find out more about you, where they can follow you, where they can get involved with this, this meager, uh, case study, get involved in the spreadsheet that you've got set up and the community that you've got there, because I think it's, it's useful. So where's the best place for people to find all that?
Speaker 2 01:21:21 Well, I will send you if you like my links to my YouTube channels and also to the spreadsheet, the spreadsheet is literally a Google doc. It's a to the public Google doc. There is no money. There is no up, I don't want your email, like your name. It could be even be fake. I don't care. Um, it's just, you know, it's not a place to try to sell people anything. So, you know, people come to YouTube and then come to the weekly live stream, like come Wednesday, we were on at 10:00 AM, uh, Los Angeles time, which means we catch people in the UK around tea time, as I understand it, which means that we miss some people because they're busy cooking for their families, the T, um, which I think is hilarious. Uh, but you know, that's mostly what we're doing is just trying to support each other because we all have common goals, which is, um, try to build these sites into a revenue producing source that we can then use to further our other goals, which are, you know, caring for the people we love or changing our life or improving the quality of what we do.
Speaker 2 01:22:26 And it's feels really good to be surrounded by people who have that goal because offline the people out here don't understand, they think we're selling weapons to Ukraine. I mean, there's just like, is that legal, Google sends you money, like the Google, like, do you work for Google? No, I don't work for Google. Why did they send you money though? I guess.
Speaker 1 01:22:55 Awesome. Okay. Well, yeah, I will definitely include the links in the show notes. Um, and I really appreciate your time. I've really enjoyed our chat today. I've enjoyed the, I've enjoyed the chat beforehand is that we had as well. So yeah, I think it's great. And I will come and make some comments on your YouTube videos too, as promised
Speaker 2 01:23:15 You see my look, I'm giving you the look right now. It's like, I, I, we, you better not edit this part out because now I'm going to be looking for them. They're on record promising to come and participate in the community, which I think is, would be really valuable for other folks, pokes folks who follow your podcast and like to know more about what you guys are doing. And thank you so much for having me and providing me with this opportunity. I went and looked at, plus I listened to your podcast by the way, but looking at the other folks that you've interviewed, and it's a pleasure and, uh, I guess it feels like, and not a reward, but it, it feels good to be shoulder to shoulder with some of these other folks that I really like and respect you deserve to be considered one of them like,
Speaker 1 01:24:00 Yeah, you are, you definitely are. So I think, I think you should give yourself more credit.
Speaker 2 01:24:05 Yeah, that's my shriveled ego is, is a continual problem that I I've struggled,
Speaker 1 01:24:10 But I do want to put, I don't have a personal, um, interest question where, um, I, I know that, uh, you, you were following the income store, um, case quite closely.
Speaker 2 01:24:22 Oh, I miss some of that. You had a blip. I
Speaker 1 01:24:24 Know you were following the income store co uh, Katie's quite closely, and they'd just put out this update where they're trying to sell like, uh, the portfolio. Now, will you be doing a video update on that when the, when you thoughts and, and that kind of stuff, or are you done with that now?
Speaker 2 01:24:39 No, I'm definitely not done with it. It's just a matter of, um, producing content for the sake of producing content or feeling like I have something valuable to say, I think the auction speaks for itself, which is they have the domains and like a handful of computers and things. And they're trying to, um, the minimum bid is $2.5 million, and they somehow think that they're going to get a gigantic, what people are going to fight over it when the, like the minimum threshold is 2.5 million. I mean, I don't understand how they're going to get people one to, to understand the value of those domains when most people, I don't think, um, most people aren't into domain, right? So they, unless they, like, there's a project that they have, or they think, okay, I could take these domains and do, I think there's just a really small window of people who might be interested in it at all.
Speaker 2 01:25:34 And, um, I just don't know that there will be anybody who will bid on it. It doesn't seem like any sort of development that's going to create something good for the investors. Yeah. Plus 2.5 million, how many hundreds of people are potentially in line to try to get a chunk of that? And so 2.5 million is still works out to some really small amount for the people who invested $500,000. And that's all. Yeah. I mean, that's, it, it doesn't, it's not going to serve them. I would much rather see the criminal case moving. I think that will be much more interesting to cover. And we'll do a lot more, as far as I'm putting my air quotes like justice for these people who have been harmed is to see that case move forward. The, the auction is kind like a nah, because you know that the receiver is probably going to get the majority of that because they will take those funds and then they will put them in the pot that they then use to pay the experts and themselves.
Speaker 2 01:26:38 Yeah. So you say, okay, how many of these dollars are going to reach the investors? I'm not sure that any of those dollars are going to reach the investors. And it's because lawyers, and I'm not saying that some people will say, you know, oh, you know, the receiver, this receiver that I want to do this or that, or whatever, these cases are expensive and lawyers are expensive. And so the more work that they do, they have teams, they have people who they charge on an hourly basis. Forensic experts, like all of that stuff costs money.
Speaker 1 01:27:08 Yeah. Agreed
Speaker 2 01:27:10 A lot of money. I don't think most people, unless they've been through something like that, realize how quickly a lawyer could blow through a hundred thousand dollars retainer. Just one, when you've got a team of like eight charging, $400 an hour or $800 an hour, plus the minions. And then the forensic experts that charge $650 an hour or a thousand dollars an hour, a million bucks.
Speaker 1 01:27:34 How do I, how do I become one of those forensic experts that you are charged a thousand bucks an hour? How do I do that?
Speaker 2 01:27:40 No, I, I, I actually wonder if in the future there will be room for, uh, digital property, valuations, especially as more people become, uh, owners of these types of portfolios, because you would see the need for these types of experts in like, um, business disillusions. So what are the assets valued out of the partners can't agree on the windup, see them in divorces, right? The husband or the wife owns a website. What is that worth? And so then the battle of the experts to say, okay, this is what it's worth. And I think that someone who wanted to get into that business probably would need to start a website that said something searchable like website, like, like digital property, forensic valuation expert or something, because the lawyers will begin looking for like, Hey, I need an expert to help me to present evidence to the court about this. And it could be done. They fly you in, I, I fly somebody in from across the country to come in and testify about this. They look at everything and they say, here's my opinion. And then the other side has their own expert who says my opinion is different than his believe me, and then judge or jury decides, but I
Speaker 1 01:29:00 Can start a new, uh, like next week about
Speaker 2 01:29:07 Like funny enough, I just happened to have the domain digital property, forensic expert.com right now. He's like, he's like on the side, like, yeah, don't, don't, don't mind me. I'm just in the, I'm over there named cheap right now, like call by the.co and the.net just in case.
Speaker 1 01:29:28 Awesome. Well, no, I really appreciate your time. It's been great chatting with you today. Um, thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure and I think we should get you back on in another six or 12 months to food to see what the outcome of this media is in,
Speaker 2 01:29:42 In December to see if I made it, it'll keep that it'll help me. It'll be my accountability lever, because I'll be like, oh my God, I have to get these 500 posts up, or I'm going to have to come back to Adam's audience to tell them that I screwed it up and I couldn't get there. So,
Speaker 1 01:29:56 And there'll be, I'll tell him to be nasty about it as well, so.
Speaker 4 01:30:02 Awesome. All right. Thanks. Thanks again for tuning in, and I hope you enjoyed the show. If you're listening to the podcast version of this episode, please subscribe on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts, please rate and review. As this will allow us to grow our audience and create more shows like this one. If you're watching on YouTube, please subscribe to the channel and click on the bell to be the first, to know about any new episodes that we release until the next episode. Goodbye.
