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Speaker 1 00:00:41 Hi. Welcome to this week's episode of the niche website, build a podcast and YouTube channel. Uh, my guest this week is a fellow UK based affiliate. Marketers name is Sean Bart. He he's been making money in some capacity online for the last 10 years, but actually got serious about creating a niche website. Uh, I think around in 2016. So he's been doing it for four ish, four or five years. Uh, he's recently sold the site. So we talk a little bit about his exit, how we got there, how he felt, what you going to spend the money on. And we talk about everything in between. So I hope you enjoy this, this episode and this one's a little bit different than our normal in that Sean is a is, or I consider a normal person. He's not a full-time marketer. He's a, he's got a full-time job day job. He's been doing this on the side. So I hope that gives a different perspective on things. And, uh, let's get into this.
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Speaker 1 00:02:46 Hey Sean, thanks for jumping on the show. How's things, Adam. Yes. Things are not too bad. Thank you know yourself. It's good. It's good. We're we're in the UK. Are you, where are you based? Uh, in, um,
Speaker 2 00:03:00 Doncaster, South Yorkshire in the UK that's up North, right, but it depends where you come from
Speaker 1 00:03:08 South if you're in Scotland, the guest. Right, exactly. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to jump on this call with us and to share your story with us, which I think is, um, it's a really cool story. It's, it's different to, you know, some of the other, the other podcasts that we've done, where we've got people who are super established. And we did one recently with John Dykstra, who's doing like 80 grand a month with his blogs. Um, but where you're just a, you're just a regular guy. Who's got a full-time day job. Um, you're self-employed we would probably cover that full-time day job you've been doing, uh, building a niche website on the side for the last couple of years. And you've just, you've just sold it, which I think is, uh, is a cool story to hear from someone who's who's doing this as a, as a part-time part-time job. So do you, I always ask the question. Do you remember how you made your first money online? I don't know whether it was pounds or dollars because you're in the UK. How did you, how did you make that?
Speaker 2 00:04:10 I'm probably the slowest person at making money you'll ever meet in your whole life, but I have made money over the last 10, maybe 15 years online. Um, I've always been into making money and, and little ways and methods and things like that. Um, I can remember building a website 10, 15 years ago. Um, based on some things I learned when I was working at Toyota, which was, um, so it wasn't like a five way process and it was to help improve your working process and things like that. So that got me interested, but I've always looked at money-making things and it's very strange and wide and varied. Like I, um, what are these get paid to click things that were really popular 10 years ago? <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:05:07 CPA stuff.
Speaker 2 00:05:09 No, I'm, I'm going back a lot, lot longer than that. Okay. Another browser window open and someone's website would show for 10 seconds or you play it click. Yeah. You click next and it goes to the next one. And you were like, not point Northville, one of the dollar and probably doing 10 sites a day and just keep it going for a couple of hours, but yeah, your system.
Speaker 1 00:05:32 Well, we always see we're actually manually clicking the button, like a, almost like a, like a click farm, I guess, is that
Speaker 2 00:05:41 Pretty Paul? To be honest, pretty poor. Right. Okay. I've done all done. All sorts of things. Shall we say?
Speaker 1 00:05:51 Right. Okay. We'll keep that as just things then. Is it?
Speaker 2 00:05:56 Yeah. Yeah. Lots of things. I mean, I've, I was making, um, niche websites 10 years ago. Um, there was a guy who had got a group. Um, well, it was, it was a forum and it was teaching us then about making these websites and I started creating websites and I got, eventually I got up to about 50 websites. Didn't really know what I was doing, but one thing I knew I was good at was writing and that just sort of came naturally to me and also having a good personality helps a lot. Um, so I found myself writing for a lot of other people, um, writing content for them and getting good feedback from them. So that's what prompted me to get in and start doing some, um, websites of my own. And that was okay. And I've got these 50 websites and it looked good and it felt really good, but it wasn't really making much money.
Speaker 2 00:06:56 So these were the days when you could get 500 words written for like $5 and a 500 word article would be fantastic and it would get your own kin and making money. So back in them days, you know, it was all in 10, 20, 30 articles a month and the money was going, coming in constantly. And I could see it going up 200, 300, 400, $700. So there was a several times in the early years when I would be earning up to a thousand dollars a month, but then Google would do its thing and sort of saying, no, you're not. And just knocking you back down again, so, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:07:36 So, so you lost that, that was almost like a, like a, like a network then, and then you lost that network with, with one of the Google updates.
Speaker 2 00:07:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 00:07:45 Okay. Interesting. That's a good back. That's a good backstory. Okay. So fast forward then. So you were online making money for like 10 years blasting. You'd tried all sorts of things from those click farms clicking the next through to, to building up sites and like low, low quality content, I guess. Um, so fast forward to 2016, which is when you started the site that we're going to talk about today. Um, what were you doing at the time? Because I know that you you've got your own, your own business. Tell us a little about the business. Is it a demanding job? Like how, what was your situation at the time when you started this site?
Speaker 2 00:08:25 So in 2016, I had been out of internet marketing for maybe two or three years, but I've always kept me here open to it, even though I was fed up of getting knocked back by Google, you guys kind of in my heart, really something that I enjoy the passive income, even though it's not really passive. Yeah. Um, so I decided for a few years to focus more on my offline business, which is a care business here in South Yorkshire, and it has grown and grown and grown and grown, and it's extremely busy and it's very, very successful. Now I work full time in it and my partner works full-time and she works the office and I go out and do the lawn treatments. Um, nowadays we're at a stage now where we need staff and we're struggling. That's another story for another day. But back in 2016, we're at the point where we're really, really busy during spring, summer and autumn, but then things were just tail off a bit into winter and the ability to earn extra money from extra gardening jobs, as well as the lawn treatments wasn't there.
Speaker 2 00:09:39 So my income would come down to a skeletal income and it wasn't always enough. So every single winter for a few years, it was on my mind, what can I do? What can I do to make more money? So I decided, right, I'm going to get back in. I'm going to start another website. It's just going to be one website. I'm going to focus on it and I'm going to put everything I've got into it. And all I'm going to head down focus and ranked. And that's what I did now. Bear in mind, I'm not a systematic person. I don't do five articles a month X amount of worst. I just do my best as naughty ordinary person. I sit down and I write, I do a bit of research and that's what I did. So it was around September, October, 2016. I decided to start the site alongside the, uh, the business. And I've got a few months over when to where I could put some time into it.
Speaker 1 00:10:35 Awesome. Okay. So it was more, um, what, like a forced thing. You'd always been interested in doing something else, but then this almost was like a golden opportunity where you acquire during the winter months. So he thought, why not? Um, how did you, how did you know where to start? Because obviously you you'd had some experience in the past. It sounds like what you've done in the past was maybe making use of a, you know, like a, a loophole or something with Google and he got slapped for it. How did you, how did you approach this in the, or you consider back then to be the right way? Like we will you do your research and you taken a course, how did that happen?
Speaker 2 00:11:15 No, I've never really taken any courses. I think over the 10 years of doing niche marketing, I had already built up that foundational knowledge of what you need to do. You know, I can start a WordPress website or mislead, um, all the basics, get an old privacy policy, everything else, it's something I've done. Dozens and dozens of times. Yeah. Um, yeah. So then as I was getting more and more back into it, I was thinking, well, what's working. So literally YouTube is your friend and you find various people on there or were doing quite well. And then you start looking into them and think, ah, which one of these am I going to follow up? And you, you need to follow one rather than a bit from each, I think
Speaker 1 00:12:10 You followed, like who, who it was back in the day. That was, uh, was your motivation for this.
Speaker 2 00:12:17 I can, but I can't think of his name. Absolutely terrible. Isn't it. All right. I'll still come to you as we go through. I'm sure. Yeah. I might just leave it at that, this
Speaker 1 00:12:30 Cool. Okay. So you're almost doing this instinctively then at that point, because you know, no formal course or no training or, or real experience apart from the past stuff that you've done. So you're doing it almost by intuition, following some videos on YouTube. Um, and I know you said you're not a systematic person on you.
Speaker 2 00:12:50 They'll go. Oh, Doug. Oh yes. How can you forget what that, sorry, your dog ate meal now, because I commented on quite a few of his video was a few years ago.
Speaker 1 00:13:03 Okay. So I'm assuming you were looking at, was Doug doing the keyword golden ratio back then? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:13:13 That's what, that's what sorts of sparked my interest again.
Speaker 1 00:13:18 Right. Okay. Interesting. So keyword research is a little bit further down my list, but, um, I guess we'll talk about it now. E D it was it just down scored and keyword research method that you followed at least initially
Speaker 2 00:13:30 Again, uh, not following tradition. I looked at it and I wrote a few articles with it and they gained a bit of traction, but what I ended up doing, I just got so frustrated. I just went out and thought right. Anything. And I tried to think in my head, what are people not writing about what you don't see? And I thought, Ooh, power tools. I said, well, I wonder looking at power tools. And then I was looking around on Amazon, I thought, Hmm, construction tools loving at people's doing construction tools, cement mixers. So I thought, right, I'm going to, I'm going to write a really good article on cement mixers. And I, then I wrote one article on the best cement mixers. I think that was one of the first ones that I wrote. And, um, it was thousands and thousands of words long, but it started to work and, and it was taking me a month to write every article sometimes five weeks because I didn't have a last, I didn't have that much spare time. Yeah. Although I did have spare time, so yeah. And, um, it started to work, um, September, October, November, and then I think it was around February. So about five or six months, we could start to see a bit of money coming in and it did up quite rapidly from that point. Okay. How much, how many, um,
Speaker 1 00:14:57 How many articles were you roughly? Like were you in at that five? The five month Mark?
Speaker 2 00:15:04 Not that many. 10. Wow. Okay. 10, maybe 15, something like that.
Speaker 1 00:15:09 Yeah, because one of my questions would be, was starting a website from scratch is hard, especially when you don't have lots of time to devote to content. So I assumed it would have taken a lot longer to sort at least start gaining some traction because this, this was on a fresh domain as well. Right. It wasn't, it wasn't an expired domain or anything like that.
Speaker 2 00:15:29 Yeah. Um, around the same time as I was doing this, I was also, you know, looking for ways to make things happen faster. And you may remember a guy from 10, 10 beasts. Yep. Yep. And, um, yeah, phenomenal success and telly sold the site and then the sidecar hit my Google. I based my sites on a very sort of similar sort of setup to what he did. And I read that he was doing something with university of links to get a scholarship program, posts know a scholarship program. So, um, you basically, you offer university students like money towards their, um, funding for their university fees. So the scholarship may be like a thousand dollars and you would get people to write articles in for you. And then obviously the best one would get chosen. And, um, we'd give them a thousand dollars towards the scholarship, but what we do, I'd be emailing dozens and dozens and dozens of universities direct to the university department and at quite a good success rate with it. I mean, I've probably got 40 or 50 university links very quick. Wow. And this is where the site went from sort of $40, 200, 400, 800. And then up to a thousand dollars in about four or five bumps.
Speaker 1 00:17:05 That's incredible. And I know the site was, was UK focused. Um, well these UK universities where we would show to U S universities as well.
Speaker 2 00:17:13 Um, I only reached out to us universities. Okay. I found it easier because they were more into the scholarship program thing and that's just literally how I sort of wandered down my own path. Really. Yeah. Very unstructured. Um, but when we got there in the end, that's the main thing.
Speaker 1 00:17:36 Yeah. That's interesting. I know, I know scholarship, uh, link-building used to be a big thing and I actually remember the guy from 10 beasts almost making it like mainstream. I think it was a method and people were using it, but he's the guy who kind of open the can of worms and then everyone started doing it. And then, uh, I, I, I'm pretty sure a Google then after a while they reduced the, the impact of those kinds of links, I think.
Speaker 2 00:18:04 Yeah. Yeah. I heard that. Um, and I heard that some sites were getting hit as a result. So I actually stopped the scholarship program and I actually, um, manually removed a lot of the links. Uh, the site continued on for the next year with very little content and very little else being done to it because I was really busy throughout the next year of my working life. Um, and it carried on at around a thousand pounds, a thousand dollars a month Mark, or that then after it started to gradually phase down. Right.
Speaker 1 00:18:38 Okay. So, so you want essentially was about 10 50 articles. You've done this mind without which, for the scholarship and you just let it sit for you.
Speaker 2 00:18:46 Yeah, pretty much
Speaker 1 00:18:48 Also. Okay. In all honesty, I expected a totally different story to the shoe on, I, I, I, I, in my head, cause I've, I've, obviously we will cut, we won't reveal the site, but, uh, I looked at the site beforehand and I just assumed this was a totally different story. I was going to hear tonight, but this is, this is cool. So, okay. So that was year one. What happened in year two then? So I'm assuming winter came back around again and, and the lawn care business died down a little bit. And did you go back to work and you were two onsite or,
Speaker 2 00:19:18 Uh, I, again, I will be completely honest with you because my, my day job is ridiculously busy. Most of the year again in the second year I did very little, but I could see that the earnings were starting to come down. Right. But I just ignored it. And I just enjoyed the additional income coming in, which, you know, in hindsight is the wrong way to think about it. But it's the lesson learnt. And that is, that is what happened. And it was only when the sites, I think in year three, got down to probably attempt of their earnings that I thought, right. I need to do something about this. So then I started getting interested in the science again.
Speaker 1 00:20:08 And what do you do then? So you got interested in the side wall. How did you come back to it?
Speaker 2 00:20:13 Yeah, well, I knew from 10 years ago that I am not the most consistent writer. I am a good writer and engaging writer, but I know I'm not consistent. So I know I am the bottom of make. And when I employed someone to write articles for me 10 years ago, and at one point there was 30 or 40 a month coming in, I could see the income going up. So I thought Ray things are different. Now. We can't buy articles for $5 anymore. We have to pay considerably more than that nowadays, but the quality has to be so much better. So I decided to use, um, your agency to, um, create some content for me. Okay. So that was in year three then? Yeah. Somewhere around there. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:21:08 So, so yeah, I know that we, we implemented a content strategy where we, we started adding around 10,000 words of content every month for you. I think we maybe started with, with, with you in about MI may 20, 20, I believe so.
Speaker 2 00:21:24 Right. Uh, yeah. I mean, it may have been April.
Speaker 1 00:21:27 Yeah. They brought me. Okay. Um, so, so what happened to the side there? And I'm, I'm conscious that I don't want this to sound like an advert now, so I want to hear your story, but, and the side of the story I want to hear is how you were able to, I guess, manage a site with a busy full-time job and also try and grow it at the same time. Cause I think that's what people will take value from the people who are in a similar situation.
Speaker 2 00:21:53 Yeah. I think you have to realize what your own limits are. My limit is, is me and it's me that impacts the say. And I've got to hand a lot of that to someone else who is doing that all the time. Even though I want a site, which is successful at the moment, I don't have the time to put into that. So I have to give a lot of that to you guys, um, coming across your, your agency, um, you know, lots of good reviews about it. And I thought I'd give it a whirl and the first month or so was obviously strategy and deciding what direction to take things. And then the, the content plan was outlined. So for the first few months, really nothing really happened with the site apart from just getting on track, but then it did start to pick up and it's just been an uphill trajectory trajectory, um, right up until, um, recent months. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:23:01 W were you doing anything else to the site apart from just the, just as having work on a site where you add in your own content at this time, were you doing any kind of link building?
Speaker 2 00:23:13 Um, link-building no. Um, it's never been a big thing for me. Link-building never, um, sorry. Apart from the scholarship posts apart from the scholarship, uh, yeah. Um, rarely just going in and updating older content, whenever I've got spare time, it is hard when you work and you've got a family as well and lots of other things going off. So I would literally, I knew which articles you guys were working on. So I would go and update the older articles as best I could because at the time my belief was that, um, when it's like it, depending on the type of keyword, it it's a product type of keyword you'll know that that topic is going to expire fairly quickly every couple of months, if it's a best cement mix, as you know, that Newsome Amex has come out all the time. So Google in my mind at the time expects updated content on any best type review, uh, content. So I was trying my hardest to work on as many of the older posts as possible to, to make sure that happens.
Speaker 1 00:24:38 Okay. How did you approach that? How w how would you, how would you like, for example, how would you update your best cement mixer article? Is it just swapping out the products? Would you do anything to the buyers guy where you add in like FAQ's or additional content, or was it just swapping the products?
Speaker 2 00:24:57 Eight ones? Obviously, um, the first thing I'll do was go in and I would make sure if there's any hour after stock products, we'd obviously swap them for new products, but then you've got to rewrite the description for those products and make it all pretty. Um, and then I would think, what else can I add to try and enhance this? I would also check that there's no spelling mistakes, no sort of technical things like that. Anything that's slowing it down, such as images, which are larger than it should be and do just general updating of the content.
Speaker 1 00:25:31 Okay. Did you use any tools or using any tools that like we use in surfer to try and optimize or correlate, or was this just Sean going in and having a little look, see what he can, what, what looks like? Have you changed?
Speaker 2 00:25:45 Yeah. Um, surf SEO. I tried it for maybe two months, and initially I saw the jump in some of the content, but it didn't seem to last and that kind of put me off. So it was a very short-lived, um, partnership with surfer SEO. And the rest of it is just literally by me. And you know, that little hunch that you have in the back of your head, probably from all the years, I've been doing SEO and looking at the top 10 results, see what they, the ones at the top of their in, and I'm trying to make mine maybe a bit better.
Speaker 1 00:26:27 Do you think it also had a little bit that obviously your, your day job is quite hands-on like lawn care and the products that you were looking at were like construction based or, you know, labor based. I'm assuming that you are you most, most people who are gardeners or builders or whatever can turn their hand to anything. Did you, did you have like a base level of knowledge about the topics anyway? Like, did you know much about cement mixers or no, nothing at all?
Speaker 2 00:26:59 No. My, my knowledge, um, my knowledge on lawn care actually spans 20 years. Um, so I started adding some lawn care topics to the website, but the rest of the content was purely. Let's write about this. Let's write about that. Let's just give it a go and go for it. See what happens. Yeah. Really, really unfocused shooting in the dark.
Speaker 1 00:27:26 Well, that's, that's good because I'm bringing that to my next point, because I remember when we started working with you, then the site was, was, was very multi niche. Um, like you had small categories about most things on there.
Speaker 2 00:27:40 No.
Speaker 1 00:27:43 Is that, is that just a, because, because of the way you did the research and the writing that you just mentioned, w was it a conscious thing to try and do a little bit of, you know, a little bit of fitness and a little bit of kitchen equipment and cement mixers? Like, how did you end up with a martini site like that
Speaker 2 00:28:00 Just by stumbling my way through life? There's no, there's no good answer to literally just from, um, Oh, let's worry about this. Let's write about that. I think, you know, I looked at toasters and thought tapped in best false lifestyle, swim to Google, look at the top 10, you know, they looked like there could be some easy wins in there. I thought, right. I'm going to do one. I think that's pretty much all I ever did. I looked at top 10, there's some rubbish sites on there. I'm going to give it a go. I never looks at competition. You know, there's weak science in there. I'm going to write an article on it.
Speaker 1 00:28:39 She never, you, you never used like tools. <inaudible>, that's fascinating for, for someone like myself. Who's very much data-driven I find this fascinating. And it obviously worked because we were talking a little bit about how you sold the site, but, um, I mean, what you were doing, even though it seems unorganized, there was obviously method to the madness because, because it was working, I mean, at one point, what was the site doing at one point? And I think you, I think you mentioned to me before he was doing,
Speaker 2 00:29:11 Um, somewhere around 11, 1200 pounds is what? 13, $1,400 at its peak. And it had previously reached that level once before, um, two or three years ago before it went down.
Speaker 1 00:29:30 Yeah. Okay. So, so when you realized, because I think we initially spoke about the site being like quite Multinet, and I know you flipping back and forth between a couple of ideas about what you should do about him. Um, I know I saw you pause in a couple of Facebook groups asking for advice about maybe splitting the site up, go in the route almost the way the spruced it. And they had like the pet spruce and horn spruce or whatever they're called. Um, can you tell us a bit about that? Like what your thought process was, what you eventually, obviously didn't split the site up. How come she talks a bit about that?
Speaker 2 00:30:10 Um, a lot of it is, is based on hunches and, and what I read really. Um, you, you, you read about these other sites doing this because they are nation. And then you read that Google's wanting you to be more centered around a topic. And I knew I've known for a long time. My site was not around the center topic, so that was on my mind. What can we do? And what can we do? What can we do? I even bought 10 more domains, which were very memorable domains, and I've just recently let them expire. And the idea was I was going to move all the appropriate content to each site and just gradually build those up. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:30:57 Okay. No, that makes sense. So what was, so I guess, why did, why didn't you do that was, uh, is the question if you've bought them and you're on the plans were started doing that.
Speaker 2 00:31:07 I think it was, um, advice from you. You actually, it was, uh,
Speaker 1 00:31:14 I remember, I remember us having this conversation and I think at the time we talked about, um, like some of the categories wouldn't warrant like a foresight, and maybe you had a category with just a couple of posts in there. So splitting that off into a on-site didn't quite make sense. Um, and I think when we had this conversation, we'd been working on the site for quite some time. And I think the site almost doubled in revenue since that point. So it was on a very nice upward trajectory. And, um, I almost like if it's, if it's working, we don't wanna rock the boat if it's growing month on month now, so maybe splitting it out at that point, probably wasn't the best, best idea.
Speaker 2 00:31:56 Um, I'm quite happy to, um, do whatever's right. I mean, at the end of the day, I've spoken to you a few times and I'm aware of, um, what sort of path you've been on. And then the successes that you've had, um, over the last few years with websites and things. So if you recommend something I'm going to listen and then that's, that's just, it is what it is.
Speaker 1 00:32:20 Well, I, I hope, and I like to think we recommended the right way because the site eventually doubled in revenue and traffic, and then you sold it, which I want to talk about next, which is, which is the fun part, the cool part of the story. So you've got to, we went through November and Christmas. Good really good months, um, for, for most affiliate sites. Anyway. And then I think you S you started thinking about selling the site then. So talk a little bit about that, that process. You don't own the site for a couple of years at this point. Why did you start thinking about selling? Like, what was the, what was the mental process of, of, of looking to sell the site then?
Speaker 2 00:32:58 Well, you've got to understand that this website, I was very emotionally attached to very, it has been my baby. It's been the one thing that I've nurtured and it was my clinging onto hope dream. So when you hear that Google don't like multi niche sites every single week. I'm wondering if Google are going to target my sites and hit it. And, you know, at one point I did approach, um, is it motion invests, Spencer halls and, and a couple of other guys. And they, they came back with a quote once, but then they came back and said, actually they're not interested. And I think maybe at that point, it was for a reason, but maybe it's because it was too multi niche and it was targeting the UK. I don't know, but there was a lot of YouTube content as well, um, which targeted some of the niches on the website.
Speaker 2 00:34:06 So my emotions were up and down. Should I sell it? Should I keep it and work on it? And I would say there was emotions went on for about a year. Um, eventually after working with you guys and seeing the income going up and up and up, that feeling of potentially losing out on the revenue was frightening. Absolutely. Every single month shoved her cervix. Should I sell it? Should I sell it? If I don't sell it, eight might grow. It might double, it might triple. And it might not. You just never know. And, you know, I think I just know a couple of posts. And then, um, somebody approached me,
Speaker 1 00:34:58 That's the, that's the battle that all a site owners face, right. When, when to sell, I mean, me and Mark had talked about this on other podcasts where I'm very much a buy and flip and in and out kind of quick person. Um, so I know exactly when I want to, like, when I want to exit these sites, normally I've usually got a very clear roadmap Mark on the other hands. I mean, I've talked to him tons of times about, you know, he's always cited to going out, but he's like, Oh, you know, next month is better. And it's been, you know, it's almost still going up and it's still going up, but I'm saying, yeah, Marcus, that's great. Uh, but when it starts to go down, then you're going to have trouble sounding like, but you know, everyone's different and it's this, it's this whole, all age thing of, can you pick the tops like the stock market?
Speaker 1 00:35:47 Like, how do you, can you, can you pick the top in, in, in a stock price? Can you pick the top Nunes? Inevitably, usually you leave money on the table, but sometimes you get lucky, which, uh, we've talked, we've covered a little bit later with your side, but you, I think you, you got out, uh, just the right time because the site was hitting the most recent Google updates. Um, so, but anyway, before we get to that, you, you trying to buy somebody to approach you to, to buy the sites. Um, how did you, how did you go about kind of like negotiating price coming up with a price? How did, how did all that work?
Speaker 2 00:36:26 Well, I just looked back at, um, the revenue really, um, over the last 12 months and looking at the traffic predict trajectory and put mitigation. Um, and obviously, um, I'd never really sold a site before. So I looked at what other people were doing it based on my last three months in the last six months of earnings. And I'm just putting a multiplayer on, I think it was something like 30, 30 times the, uh, the earnings.
Speaker 1 00:36:55 Yeah. Awesome. And do you, do you mind sharing the actual number, like, or, uh, how do you feel about sharing the number?
Speaker 2 00:37:03 That's fine. Um, it got sold for 28,000 pounds,
Speaker 1 00:37:08 Right. So what's that about $32. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. How did you feel when that, when that happened? I guess there's a, there's a big chunk of money for lots of people.
Speaker 2 00:37:22 I honestly, for the first month out, I was a bit onshore, partly was happy, but the other part was sad boats, obviously. Um, it is what it is. You make a decision, you stick with it. And I decided no matter what, I'm going to build more websites and, uh, you guys are gonna write the content for me. So, yeah. So I just want to keep doing it because it's something I enjoy doing and it's been a part of me for years.
Speaker 1 00:37:57 Awesome. What did you, what did you, um, were you doing with the money, by the way? It's, it's, it's a, it's a question which you, which I've got to ask, like, it's a lot of money for, it's a lot of money. Like where are you? It's life-changing for lots of people that can have money.
Speaker 2 00:38:13 Yeah. I mean, my, my aim at the end of the day, that money came from something I did and it's money that's come from something I've made that makes money. So I wanted to put it into something else which makes money. And I was torn. Should I start two or three websites or something else? And I thought, well, we could do something else. And I can start some new websites as long as I start writing. But here I am, a few months later, we put the money into something else and they haven't done any writing. So I know what my inconsistency is. My issue. When he thought they'd have written or got you guys to write for me consistently, then it would be on that awkward trajectory. I can't say trajectory for some reason.
Speaker 1 00:39:06 It's all good word.
Speaker 2 00:39:09 I'm not normally this bad. We, um, w we've actually bought a caravan, um, a static caravan with the purpose of renting it out. Um, it's something we've looked at for five, 10 years, thinking about doing every time we go to seaside, you see these caravans and you think, Oh, that'd be nice. You can have a few weeks there and you can hopefully make some money at it. So we've put the money into these end into this, sorry, we'll put the money into it into a static caravan. And, um, we've already got our first book in, which is, which is great. And we've got a few inquiries coming in as well. So, um, all you've got to think about with those, as long as it's a decent caravan and decent site, you have your site fees, you have insurances and things that you've got to pay, and they come to around 5,000 pounds a year. So you've got to get enough bookings to cover that. Now in the six week holidays, you can get anywhere from sort of seven, eight, 900 pounds for a week, um, which people aren't going to pay because it's on a bottling site as well, where they've got all the entertainment and the swimming complex and everything else. So, um, you only want the six week holidays and you've made all your money back and then anything else after that is a profit.
Speaker 1 00:40:31 Okay. And I guess it with, um, with the travel industry being the way it is now, like staycations and people holding the holiday Inn in the UK is, is, is much more popular. And there's only going to be more popular over the next, at least year or two, I guess, probably wise decision.
Speaker 2 00:40:51 Well for now. Yes, we'll do it just to see how it goes. Um, if not, we'll have a really good year of, uh, going to Butlins.
Speaker 1 00:41:02 Nice. Awesome. Okay. Well, I think that that's, that's a good, that's a, that's a solid way of covering your site from kind of start to finish. And, um, I'm really happy you you've got your exit. And I was like, it was a overall course of a ride to what these last couple of years, but I want to talk a little bit now, before we kind of wrap up here about, um, you mentioned you you've done some YouTube videos for the sites, and I know that you've, you've also started doing some YouTube videos for your, for your lawn business. I know literally nothing about YouTube videos. We'll just, we'll just tell you that. Well, I think it's, I think it's cool.
Speaker 2 00:41:44 Oh, I am forever the moneymaker that the guy that tries all these different things, the next grid, I think most people have tried lots of different things. And I think only a few select people like yourself who stick up one thing and get good at that one thing. And other guys that make the big money where the people that make the little money regular anyway, YouTube. So, um, I have a YouTube channel for my lawn care business. And for the past six years, there's been about three videos on there, which were shot on a really old pixelated foam. And the quality is absolutely shocking. The sound quality is awful and you can't even see the grass properly. So they were on there for six, six years or so. And I saw over UK lawn YouTubers doing rather well, I thought, wow, one guy has got 20,000 subscribers and everyone's got 30,000 subscribers.
Speaker 2 00:42:49 I've got 200. Do you know what? I've got nothing to lose. I, I quite enjoy messing around with cameras and things like that. And I just started filming what I do. So when I'm treating a lawn, I will talk about what I'm doing and I'll record it on a video. If I'm scarifying or erase on a lawn, I'll put the camera on a tripod and I'll film it. And then I'll come back to me laptop and edit it using Camtasia. And, uh, just put it all together. I'm not loaded on YouTube. So you've got to think YouTube obviously like Google it's, is it owned by Google? I think so. It's based on similar things, isn't it. It's going to be, you know, where it is, where SEO and titles and things like that, and all your keywords and your descriptions. If you're in SEO, you can do a YouTube. There's nothing stopping you. So you've got to get your keywords in your title and your description. And you've got to talk those keywords as well. You've got to say those things within your content. Okay. Let's say it's just like an article. If you, obviously, at the beginning, you start off by saying today, I'm teaching you how to scarify all on. Right? Okay. So that's pretty much how you do it. And, um, it's been amazing.
Speaker 2 00:44:17 I don't know if I've just been lucky or it's just the experience from over the years, but it's been amazing. We've gone from 200 subscribers to almost two and a half thousand subscribers in the last four months. And as soon as we got to a thousand subscribers, they gave me the option to monetize the, um, the, the channel. And of course I said, yes, at first I bought another so quickly. And w we monetize the channel. And literally the next day the earnings said something like $40. And I looked there and I thought, what? And then the next day it was like $60. And what, and I thought this is absolutely crazy. Um, eight went off, but then it sort of calmed down and stabilize now. So at the moment it's averaging like $30 a day.
Speaker 1 00:45:13 That's crazy. How, how many, um, how many videos, how many videos have you got, or how many views do you get? Like a
Speaker 2 00:45:20 View? So we get, so, um, I think it tells you views something like 12,000 views, every 48 hours, something like that.
Speaker 1 00:45:30 I think I've got to give it to sure. I mean, you say that you just heard him lucky again, but you seem to keep falling lucky with these things. So I think you, you, you're doing more the way you learn on here. I think, uh, you're doing something right. I mean, you did well when you side and then coming around with it now you're stumbling around with you to where you sound like you do it. All right. To me, God loves us. Try it. I'm I try it. So is that going to be, where will YouTube now that you've kind of done it for your lawn business, would that make up a bigger part of any new sites that you start in the future? Would you think about adding like a YouTube channel or you create YouTube content for any sites going forward?
Speaker 2 00:46:16 Well, YouTube is very, um, I believe it's more time-intensive than, um, niche websites. It depends on how you look at it. I suppose, for me, it's more time intensive because you've got to put more into it. You've got the recording. You've got to take your camera gear with you everywhere you go. You've got to get the tripod out. You've got to press your buttons and get your settings out on your camera. Yeah. Then you've got to tell the customer what you're doing, because they think you're a bit stupid. There's a lot more to it. And then you've got to come home and edit the content. And this naturally impacts on your family life. And even now I've, I renovated my own lawn at the weekend with $2 topsoil, and I've got five videos I've got to edit now, which are waiting to be able to just, that's going to take me a week. Is that down till 11 o'clock every single night. So it's more time-intensive, but I've enjoyed the journey so far, but I would sell, like, I want multiple streams of income, I think.
Speaker 1 00:47:23 Yeah. So this is just going to be one of the, one of the streams then I guess, well, with video condoms, it's harder to outsource as well. Like you can outsource content creation, but you it's harder. It's much more difficult to outsource video.
Speaker 2 00:47:38 Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 00:47:40 Yeah. Okay. So what's next for you then? What are your future plans? And I'm assuming they involve, you mentioned you're going to look to build some more sites. And when you do that, what would you do differently this time around, like, if you had to give yourself Sean, some tips four years ago, like, what would they be and how would you do it differently? And what advice would you give yourself?
Speaker 2 00:48:04 Well, Sean do not build a niche website. Don't build a site that is best, this, that, and the other build a website that's actually helpful and actually useful. And yeah, everybody says that, but it's true. And you've got to answer every single thing about a topic, everything there's thousands and thousands of topics and content, and FAQ's, you've got to become the full package and you've got to become the expert within your little area. So you'd have your main keyword and clusters of keywords around it. Um, FAQ's built within to the main article and maybe the cost of topics linking back to the main article. That's my current level of thinking that could change over the next year. Um, things just happened so fast on the internet. So yeah. Um, back into niche websites, our offline business has got ridiculously busy and we are desperate for staff desperate. We need someone full-time in the office and someone full-time alongside me that will give me more time to then do more in other things.
Speaker 1 00:49:24 Yeah, that makes sense. Well, if there's anyone on to highly unlikely up, up in Yorkshire who was looking for a job in the lawn care business, Sean's your man reach out to him? Is there, um, did you want people to maybe reach out and contact you after this? Or like, do you want them to go and check or your YouTube channel? Like
Speaker 2 00:49:50 We're deciding whether to go with a young apprentice or someone who is a bit older with commitments, who's going to turn up to work every single day and not be on his phone when every single day, um, we've never hired anyone. So it's a big thing for us. We're going to have a talk about it, and then we're ever going to put a job listing on indeed, or we'll just announce it on our page by all means our page is long, right on YouTube. We're on YouTube and we're on Facebook. L a w N R I G H T. Um, there is another company with a very similar name. Um, but we are the lawn rag HD.
Speaker 1 00:50:34 We'll put a link to it so people can check out your, your channel and what you're doing on YouTube as well. Might give them some ideas for how to create content for their, for any shots, which will be cool. Yeah. Awesome. Is there anything you think I should ask you I've missed out that you want to think might be useful for our audience?
Speaker 2 00:50:53 Um, have you got any tips to throw into the cutting edge at the moment, Adam? Um,
Speaker 1 00:51:03 Yeah. That's a good question. I love the way you just turn that around.
Speaker 2 00:51:08 Well, obviously things have changed changing quite dramatically and, um, I'm interested to see, um, you're right. Yeah, I know. Well, I look up a chat about this later that I don't know all the people might be worrying, wondering what to do as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:51:23 Awesome. Thanks, Sean guest really appreciate your time and good luck in the future. Good luck with the long business and good luck with any sites that you were that you're going to start in the future. Thanks Adam. Cheers, Sean. Thanks mate. Bye.
Speaker 3 00:51:37 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.
