this interview I talked to Marty McLeod
who has a website that is valued at
about a hundred and fifty thousand
dollars
Marty McLeod is a student of the five
figure niche site course which if you're
watching this on the week that the video
is released you can enroll so that's
January 13th through the 17th in this
interview we talked about Marty's
content approach his link building
approach mistakes that he's made and the
journey that he's been on it's super
cool because Marty enrolled in the
course a while back a couple years ago
and he's been able to quit his job since
then he's been doing a lot of excellent
work and he's just a super nice guy so
if you are interested in the course
definitely check out the link in the
description and let's get to the
interview with Marty right now stop
cutting tenir and I'm with Marty McCloud
how're you doing today I'm really good
appreciate it and Marty's a longtime
friend of the show he's a student in
fight for your niche site he's done some
writing for a niche site project and
Marty and I actually got to have a meal
together shake hands and meet
face-to-face back in Atlanta so that was
a pleasure to meet you Marty super cool
to like finally meet you in person after
many hours of just chatting and
interacting and that's so very cool
before we dig into it I like to just get
to the amount of money that you're
making so people are like should I
listen to this dude or not so can you
share some of your recent earnings and
kind of where you're at just ballpark
courage yeah so I need to be sure to
assist I'm running ads now I had to
mention both things so October was my
highest point of 2019 and it was seen as
like four thousand hundred something
dollars before just for Amazon earnings
between my two sides with majority being
my name sorry and then last month that
month and this month will I get over
like eleven hundred five hundred dollars
and ad revenue on top of that okay so
roughly five thousand per month or so
okay and we'll we will back into some of
the other details but one thing that was
surprising you and I were chatting just
before we could record and I think you
more in November in December you didn't
have any traffic issues but you were you
were doing some a be testing some
conversion rate optimization and that
impacted your earnings right yeah
there's I mean because the whole thing
is you don't know what's going to help
muscat hurts you actually carried out
and it was also multiple pages the top
it was only top ten pages
therefore definitely those the high
traffic pages there's going to be a
negative effect that's going to come out
and lower earnings but it's that was
temporary and the whole goal was to have
them work on it and find out what works
and what doesn't and get back on track
as soon as three months or so period
wrapped up you know sure okay cool so
that aside you didn't have any
algorithmic issues or penalty it's just
a thing that was going on and we'll come
back to that later cuz we're we're
telling a nonlinear story in a extremely
nonlinear way you're just which is
totally fine so for the people that
don't know you can you let us know your
profession kind of your history how'd
you get into niche sites and that's
worth yeah so I'm gonna
right graduate Arbor University and my
background is electrical engineering my
degrees in that but I've also done
electronics and that is systems a code
for electron board in the last job
that's what I did full-time and I joined
your course somewhere around Midway 2017
starting the first site at that time I
believed my first one guy rolling in I
think it was June or the July of 2017 so
we're somewhere over two and a half
years or so for the for the main one and
then just a little bit less time for my
second site and it's been a progressive
thing and as of before my birthday July
2019 I hit my goal where if I wanted to
complete my job so I thought about it a
hard decision but all the signs pointed
to yes and so the September was my last
day working full-time I'm just I'm free
not congratulations I know in fact I was
just talking to someone today and they
were like it is it everyone's goal don't
like quit their job it's a younger guy
younger than us anyway and he's sort of
like at the beginning of his career a
lawyer in fact so a professional very
intelligent guy but he was like hey you
know is everyone just trying to quit
their job and I don't know so it depends
on each individual I wasn't trying to
quit my job but I eventually got laid
off like when you got started with this
stuff Marty what you thinking hey I want
to quit my job or you were like hey this
is fun and interesting oh my gosh yeah I
was with a burning passion I wanted to
leave an engineer is which is
unfortunate because originally it was
something I really liked it's a hobby in
my hometown but it wasn't too long after
a couple years working professionally I
just felt so trapped and the having to
change jobs building different cities
just to get bit more money and feeling
so trapped I just very very passionately
wanted to finally get free when I found
out that was possible on the Internet
other people doing it it was amazing to
me and that just fueled the fire more so
that's how I got down this path begin
with okay and how many years of
engineering work did you have under your
belt at that point
I'll probably just see that's 15 20 or
something okay gotcha
so it's kind of funny from like where I
I have a similar degree computer
engineering so we I took a bunch of EE
classes I got into management consulting
because maybe I wasn't as good of an
engineer or something I'm not sure but
what I observed was number one when I
looked at the people that were like 15
years ahead of me I was like I don't
want to do that I'm like if that's the
goal that doesn't seem right and then
the other part is like long hours even
if you did really well you were looking
at pretty small bonuses if you got one
at all very small raises so I see you
nodding but like can you describe like
your situation and then how do you feel
when you have a job where you're like
I'm smart I'm accomplishing a lot and
then I'm not getting rewarded for it
that's very discouraging and I mean
that's that's that alone is not great
but a lot of times what my personal
experiences were that I had that plus
also had other things on top of it like
my opinion doesn't count burning out
from repeatedly working on late hours
working on frustrating technical stuff
some weird design and I stuck with it is
hating it painting the work so it was a
for me it was a number of things but
that is definitely a factor because I
could look back now seeing this is
possible to make some even more money
that I have what is an engineer which is
crazy because this is actually more
enjoyable it gets easier work that's
it's fascinating that you get rewarded
for your for your being motivated making
your own decisions win or lose the
payoff can be huge as opposed to
engineering work I add to look you said
so and just only a few jobs were any
kind of bonuses available dollar you
know across your fingers you might get
it just a tiny phrase if you know yeah
yeah if
it's ridiculous and then we'll move on
from us complaining about the corporate
world but basically I remember actually
most of the companies that I worked for
they're like oh yeah if you come up with
a great idea maybe you can get a patent
but the company owns it so you get like
maybe a tiny bonus which is nowhere
close to the value of the patent sure
the company may be able to push the
patent in a certain way but like when
they were telling us about it I was like
oh yeah like you get all this
recognition but like the payoff is like
nothing overall so I don't know the
whole the whole system's broke that I
don't know let's go in a little too far
there's a lot of hard stuff about what
we do
the cool thing right at this point you
make your own decision so how
challenging is that to figure out like
what to work on how to do things and so
on personally I think when you're
beginner it can be kind of hard but once
you get them all wrong you've got a
better understanding of things and you
can have more experience and success I
think personally I feel like it becomes
more clear and it becomes easier at this
point is just mostly that I have had a
good work ethic when I was doing it in
my spare time so I built that those good
habits now it's just more of the same
and then I the more I learned from other
people see that begin to get a clearer
picture of what I should be spending my
time and effort on or I'd like to use
where resources because it could be a
lot of things time running blah blah
sure it's cool awesome and I think we'll
move more towards like the nuts and
bolts of your site and first off how
many sites do you have I do have to have
my main one could accuse me being a
slightly over ambitious my starting to
set that one so many recommended good
but it was a good idea it was a little
bit a little bit extra my too and now I
can grow that site which I couldn't do
before I had a focus you know decide
where to spend my time before okay cool
so you have two sites and how old is
each one so yeah the first one is the
one I think it's roughly two and a half
years and another one would be about two
just
okay so you got get the other one
started pretty quick just six months in
probably to get some age in there and
you were thinking hey why not
yeah later on that year once I what's
the first one or it's a long time I had
asked somebody about things he said well
I know their affiliate marketer do I
know that and he had suggested that I do
that it happened to be a something that
was used to be a hobby and poured out
they had forgot out of college my own
town or when I worked in my own template
earning that so it was an idea I thought
well I can start deciding if it doesn't
work at that it's okay so I was almost
biting off more than I could chew at the
time so that's why I tend to caution
people now about doing that yeah no one
believes us but then after they do it
and they end up realizing that it's too
much I have at least three or four sites
that just sit there they're aged there
years old but like I still haven't gone
back because at some point it's just
it's kind of its work right after you do
something for a while it's work and I'm
like you like go to the gym or go walk
outside for a little while instead so I
usually do that yeah maybe I'm lazy so
well for that initial site we'll just
focus on one site for now and then I'm a
pepper in some other questions about the
second site but for the first site are
you making the majority of the money
from that once like I calculated that
roughly so just to say 90% about cool so
perfect we'll just focus on that main
part how many pieces of content are on
the first site and how did content come
about I just hit post number 100 about
we can have maybe two at the most I go
just finish up some more brother reviews
so I started off with the ten spring of
ten Mike we you recommending your course
and then just went from there whenever I
could you just had to do the best I can
oh it's limited free time spent mohkumat
most of my weekends where especially
starting off I was much lower at writing
content because I
very good time so it took me a long time
but let's say we get out on a good month
I could get up for two states maybe
because what kind of post and until I
got more fester and I could get might
get two or three on a weekend I had to
do a lot of it on the weekend
you know work or at night cool
and during this like period of time
you're working what like 40 to 60 hours
a week
definitely at least 40 you know
sometimes I'm stay late at night but I
would have I think that's supposed
to that everyone smile squeezing working
on my side it worked
no one watches me so I I so I never I
never did that because I was doing this
on the side as well so I never did that
but I did work remotely so I always had
like a second laptop or whatever so if I
did personal stuff cuz I was like I want
to make sure I'm not doing anything on
my work computer I don't know if you did
that don't answer but basically yeah
like if you work remotely usually you
have a lot more free time and you you
actually went into an office though
every day right yeah okay and from well
we'll keep focusing on the on this site
so you have about a hundred pieces of
content so I think this is a good good
point because I often has literally just
answered a question today someone was
like well how many pieces of content do
I need to make say $1,000 per month and
you know some people may say 300 posts
they they have like astronomical number
of words but you're saying get a hundred
pieces of content and that is basically
making you if I do the math right like
forty five hundred dollars per month
roughly okay and I would argue
potentially right we will never know
because we can't go back in time but I
think if you didn't do the CRO testing
in November in December
like your earnings would be like oh you
know a lot higher so more like 8000 per
month if I just had to estimate
so yes who from your observation you
don't have to have as much content you
have a hundred pieces can you tell us a
little bit about like how you format it
and how long it is images all that kind
of stuff
um so honestly sometimes mine are too
long but it's just because I honestly
try so hard putting some really good
stuff but basically they've money easily
or about 2,000 2,500 to say to say for
it it's use the example of I post
because the info post is a different
case
it'll be 2,000 2,500 and I'll have
sections with the two knurled content
like what is this product how does it
work what does this do what is the best
yeah yeah one of those I have in there
I'm getting credible stuff like I start
off with the intro table of contents
it's very clear and easy to click on and
then I go into the general content
section and then I have my product
tables if it's a best extra-wide post
and then I have my detailed product
sections after that and I basically each
one of those is all my posts are very
similar to each other it's that general
layout for example for viral posting you
can say likewise for a single product
review or a post you know I have a
general similar style as fairly
consistent okay great
and as far as like images and stuff like
that for example I see you have some
lighting set up behind you so you're
taking some home some images yourself
right yeah definitely so I got in
inexpensive light light stand or a
couple light stands that's from eBay and
I got some some good bulbs which is
another learning experience and for a
single part of used my niches I mean
it's fairly competitive and there's a
lot there's a lot of sites of favorites
for some reason it's one of the ones
it's a lot of people think of first so I
needed some kind of advantage and I
think I heard like Stewart Walker or
someone I could mention one time that
they actually buy the product take
pictures and in a lot of cases part of
this was I couldn't find it in just from
the manufacturer or whatever the case
might be there might just not be any out
there there's something a rule
ruining begin say what can I do suffice
- I depart and so I said okay well I
don't I give a shot by one of these now
take my own pictures I started off in
just mild mild sony camera phone I used
to have camera was pretty bad but I made
it work and people responding well to
that note that what I'd like to do even
better job so I got some like blood
stands and you know table to take little
pictures of the products and I take your
detailed products now have a better so
much romantically better camera so I can
do even better and not have to edit it
quite as as much you know for two and it
was mainly trying to be a step ahead
above the other guys because women can
companies should they don't care about
quality all it's all they do is put up
large they're just trying to get your
clicks I really want to deliver what
people are looking for answer the
questions is just good or not and then I
wanted to also make it do it in a way
that lets make smile so I look
authoritative me to trusted so that that
makes a huge difference you know okay do
you have
any other tips for content or making
someone's content stand out yeah you
know I because I've seen so many
different sides by this time and after
having changed the way I I do it now
from when I started off so there's an
article in your website about second
year keywords so that had me a lot for
getting making the content longer not
just because I'm trying to fill it in
with something but it's a it's a section
I took secondary keyword and use that to
make a section of content they actually
contribute something to reader that
gives me that feels in that that
necessary spaces say it was gonna be
very short otherwise but generally I try
to lay things out in a way where it's
easy to read easy to find where you're
going if it's just information there's a
table of contents there's clear h2s he
said everything sectioned off it's not
too long break it up make it you know
easy to keep both especially phone
smaller screen and then brought it
related stuff I make it easy to find
what I recommend is to know what to
click on it call to action either link
or button whatever it may be good
pictures as much as possible things like
that you know okay and it's funny when
you mention it a lot of it just seems
kind of obvious but like when when
you're in the trenches and you're
thinking I need to publish more content
and you have a big list of keywords
people can get overwhelmed and overdo it
under do it like all the things that you
mentioned it's not necessarily trivial
to you know find a solution for like
tables or the table of contents or etc
so with that said sort of move on to
like link building and stuff so far as
link building outreach promotion of your
site what work can be done there so the
last time we spoke I think you asked me
something like that but basically I had
done what was the recommended in your
course and then I someone need some
guest posts so because that was it's
been an area where I've been really
lacking in that comes a lot sure about
it I actually just finished that
negatives course where there's a whole
section about huge section about
outreach so I'm going to be implementing
that pretty soon I mean that's the best
answer I have right now because there
was so much that I didn't know and now I
had the information about how to take
the right approach this time I plan to
start doing outreach I'm a pretty
student try to do as good of a job as
possible and some examples are very cool
at this point in time how many like
guest post or backlinks do you have to
your site let's see because that's a
party one of the house housekeeping
things that is get everything documented
clearly uh about 35 or 40 I guess it is
playing okay not that much not that much
I'm probably really forgetting a lot oh
sure oh okay so you have a handful a
couple dozen so that's pretty I think
one thing I want to emphasize is
can be hard right especially when you're
first getting started but also you don't
have to have that many like per month so
you've been at it for a couple years or
so if you just get like one guest post
per month or one link per month over
time that adds up you know that's twenty
four and a couple years if you you know
try a little harder you can double that
you know if you're trying to get a lot
of links in a short period and do a
campaign and I know a lot of people are
just in a rush but if you just step back
take your time it's not so bad it's not
as intimidating but there are other
people who are like you know I'm sending
out a hundred emails a day which I hate
giving those emails by the way I Markham
almost BAM everyone by the way so we're
sending them out they're being marked as
spam a lot of times so I also went to
number one I'll mention I should
probably get Matt on on the show so we
can talk about it as his course and
stuff like that I haven't talked to him
in a while but I guess I'll just ask you
were were the techniques in five-figure
niche site like not sophisticated enough
to boring were you having trouble with
conversions like where's the gap between
like Matt's course and his outreach um
well for example a buckin answer this
question appropriately I see very well
so there's actually had outreach
specialist who created that information
not Matt in this case so they had you
know they had everything from examples
of outreach emails to data and
percentage about cover typical
conversions and I think it was just the
specific information that's probably
well that doesn't mean that what was in
five every shot wasn't good at not
saying that at all just that this was
like oh gee I hadn't seen these numbers
before or here's some other ideas I
hadn't gotten for cool and somebody's
somebody who actually works in that
business in this case this is ninja
outreach people from India average
saying here's what we do and to show you
gotta show that makes any sense yes it
does so it's like a little more data in
there and yeah I'm not necessarily
trying to defend it my course but
because I know this stuff works so I'm
comfortable with that
however there are many different ways to
present information
funny story I know the founder of one of
the original founders of ninja outreach
so it's small world I know he sold it
they sold her he got bought out under
some kind of situation like that
but anyway yeah crazy I need to catch up
with that guy - so you're gonna sort of
refocus on link building in what why
were you I guess hesitant to put more
effort into it
previous well this goes back to and a
lot of what I talked about is is based
off where I was before because I it was
on so it's recently out so odd and even
spin it like nod some time so I had such
limited time you know I'm hard pressed
to decide what I'm going to do because
let's be honest when you're silent is
one thing was Mike messiahs gaining
momentum on organic traffic rising
readily so I said well I just want to
keep focused on putting out content
especially when I was having a lot of
the using kgr and mothers of low
competition keywords post were ranking
without links they happened quite a few
times so that the discard lot says well
maybe he can put that up until later it
was kind of a case like that you know
okay and part of it honestly was me not
doing too confident about how I would go
about things I I can honestly say that I
had a lot
okay and you are not alone I've been
doing success story interviews this week
with students and generally it's exactly
what you said
so it's over and over again it's like I
know if I spend X amount of time or
money on a piece of content I'm pretty
confident because I've seen the past
results that it's gonna work out but
there there's a disconnect between the
guest posting even though I prescribed
in the course to follow along moving
forward at best people will do you know
what you did maybe get 30% of the 30 to
40% of the links as compared to the
content generally I'm trying to get
those to go like one to one so you do a
sprint of content sprint of link
building but a lot of people just don't
they're like I got a couple links
nothing happened but the cool thing is
after someone does some link building
for a little while and by the way I
think you're 30 to 40 guest post out
there probably like are very good and
are helping your site like I think
there's some baseline once you reach
that you're probably in good shape but
I'm sure you've looked at some
competition where content subpar
everything subpar links outstanding and
they have a lot of them so you're
nodding you've seen that out in your
competitors yeah sometimes
disappointingly so yeah and I find like
I had some experiences where it was like
you know people have
poor content not much content but a ton
of links because that's what they're
good at versus having a lot of content
and its high quality with no links and I
think somewhere in the middle I don't
know where but there's some balance
where you have a little bit of this a
little bit of that so I try and just mix
it together 5050 as far as resources
time however you're classifying like
your efforts so with that said do you
have any specific goals on like links or
guest posts or whatever moving forward I
basically that I want to do the
foundation as far as a one thing I
learned from got the idea from here
recently was that I should have been
tracking very closely my anchor text
where I chose my links all that and
that's where I really missed so I don't
just want to go out and do more but I
want to do the right way that is major
goal those those two together because
those you might you know definitely very
good and so there's no specific goal of
like X number of Link's over the next
year or anything like that
no I didn't have a number like that yet
no kind of question I just think about
yeah I wouldn't know I mean most of the
time it's like as many as you can get
like basically but one one thing I've
I've been like talking about a little
bit but I haven't tried at number one is
to be like a guest on podcast what
you're kind of doing right now but like
there's a lot of podcasts out there and
if you could be an expert in a specific
area you get links from you know plenty
of different podcasts
I'll have websites maybe you get a
little more name recognition someone
else asks you to be in their podcast but
have you ever thought about doing that
do you think you're in a place where you
could do it it's where the John Dijkstra
image in that and I had that was a
really good idea yeah that's I thought
that turns on a light bulb cool I had
kind of wanted to before I thought about
it but I didn't act on the living
interested me but maybe I should
actually look into it yeah
and I think like what what I would do
for a pitch you try this let me know if
it works but you know you you've been
featured as a guest poster on a few
different sites probably at least three
are significant like bigger sites right
like you can say have been featured here
I mean I've been running this blog for a
while and I'd love to be a guest and
talk about like one of these two topics
and probably you know if the people that
you can say you were featured on like
their blogs if they're reputable enough
people will probably like go for it
I'm at least at least chat with you to
see if it's a good match
there's podcasts on like every topic or
you can even do like YouTube videos but
I think podcasts may be more effective
just because it's an actual like do
follow link yeah and from my perspective
like if you actually land a guest post
you have to write a guest post or have
it written and then rely on them to
publish it but usually podcast a little
more streamlines there's not necessarily
as much noise or effort you just have to
talk for like 30 40 minutes something
like that
so and you've written all that content
so it should be a no-brainer um any
other details on like link building or
your experiences with a promotion okay
she didn't say like any Pinterest or
other kind of solo basis I did actually
I was just thinking the other day so I
did
I hired a nanny and lady on fire
somebody who had I think it was a two
level one or level two sort of seller on
there and I had hired her one to two
months to do great pans and and run that
for my my boards and what have you and I
think you could go back and buy her
again because it was only like $50 a
month okay I may have to get telling now
because of the trial ran out but that's
I still get emails and see where people
were interested in depends on you know
the depending what the topic is
obviously the nature
okay how much traffic were you getting
from Pinterest while you were that was
running you know uh I I think it could
have been five to couple thousand a
month I you know I really had to go back
and look to give you some hard numbers
okay cool
it's pretty good I've tested Pinterest a
little bit and it wasn't clicking for me
I'm not a hundred percent sure the issue
because I've talked to some other people
kind of weird niches and like they're
doing really well with it
so I think like it can be hidden mist
maybe I was doing it a little bit
incorrectly or something like that but I
know I've been told many times Pinterest
as a search engine there's an algorithm
behind it and I know that over this past
summer in 2019 a lot of people had a
reduction in traffic from Pinterest
because they adjusted their algorithm so
did you hear about that at all no begley
remembered or something does that affect
wildhack yeah I mean I told I don't in
my particular case because I know other
people have had much more success I
don't consider it like a primary thing
that I would make put about other stuff
the basic Thailand it's just that you
know it's nice to try out and see how it
works every for a while and it is how
you might cool so you quit your job so I
think that is cool and that is an impact
if that the website has had on your life
but what other impacts is just like
starting the site growing your learning
and all that stuff where you i/o
as far as impacts or yeah that's him
well let you know it's I feel a lot I'm
a much happier person and I stressed out
and noticed like you said what time I
kind of sort of chilling out and I and
don't have to move around as fast when I
go to do stuff I can take my time or and
I'm like much more that easily used to
be doing the routine I'm so grateful
when I go out and I'm going to just go
to run here and I see how bad traffic is
but people had to put up with every day
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