hey what's going on
welcome to the Doug show my name is Doug
Huntington in to this episode I talked
to John Dykstra from fat stacks blog.com
John's a friend of mine we've been I
guess corresponding for the last maybe
couple years but we never like connected
too deeply until maybe the last year or
so where we were like exchanging more
emails and I think both of us and we
sort of matured as bloggers and you know
what it is we're trying to do so this
conversation is awesome learn I learned
a lot of stuff just chatting with John
and sort of his approach to things and
the cool thing to cool things at least
that there's many more cool things but
two cool things
John's making like 35 to 40 K per month
profit not just revenue right so
expenses included on a monthly basis so
he's basically making like a full-time
income for some people each month so
he's doing really well and John runs a
very lean team much like myself he
doesn't want to create a lot of like
overhead and admin work and stuff like
that and we have a very similar approach
for that sort of a you know a lean team
however I focused mostly on Amazon
affiliate science and John focuses a lot
on ad based sites that get a insane
business model works you need a lot of
traffic and he's doing it right he's
doing it this it's amazing and the cool
thing is like when I got into like
affiliate marketing and basically making
money online I didn't do very well with
these ad based sites for whatever reason
and I like moved on pretty quickly to
Amazon affiliate sites because that's
what like the people that I was reading
about that's what they were doing like
Spencer Hawes and niche pursuits and
basically like John made these ad
ad-based sites work really well so he
dabbles a little bit with affiliate
marketing but in general he's focused on
like just a different kind of site which
is totally cool it really emphasizes the
fact that like you can do these things
in many different ways
so we talked about like publishing a lot
of content managing like huge sites and
outsourcing so a lot of cool stuff here
and if if this episode piques your
interest then there are two things that
I need to point out for you one you
should definitely go to fat stacks blog
two you should check out my interview
with Ron Stefanski who also has high
traffic ad based sites and he's making
in the 20k per month range both of these
guys publish their income reports
alright fairly detailed income reports
on a monthly basis which is kind of rare
these days it takes a lot of work and at
some point it gets weird publishing like
how much money you're making okay so
definitely check out those other couple
interviews and John is joining me soon
for another more like casual shoptalk
kind of conversation so we had such a
good time I was like hey won't you come
back on we could just have a more casual
chat and have a little bit more
back-and-forth versus like the interview
style I mean I usually throw in my
opinion anyway I mean you can't I can't
help that you know so anyway if it's
your first time listening to the Doug
show welcome have a look at some of the
other episodes or listen to some of the
other episodes if you dig it that's
great
subscribe we talked a lot about just
deep topics around making money online
affiliate marketing ad base sides deep
on the SEO sometimes we talk about other
stuff so have a look around and if you
liked it please subscribe I'll send it
over to the interview now thanks to John
Dykstra be sure to check out fat stacks
blog comm and I can feel like what you
find over there
[Music]
hey what's going on
Doug cutting thin here for the Doug show
and I'm with my friend John Dykstra how
are you today thanks for having me I'm
looking forward to this and this this is
really cool I've read your stuff for a
long time and I think we have exchanged
some emails and stuff but it's the first
time face-to-face via Skype so it's a
pleasure to talk to you and I know the
audience is really excited I got a few
questions and and yeah I'm pumped to get
rolling here so for the people that
don't know you joined can you give a
little intro about what you do now and
then we'll dive into your origin story
in this second boat what are you up to
these days
these days some publishing number of
sites i fashioned myself as an online
publisher and mostly in each sites
really topical I have nothing right now
Anthony includes that a fat stocks site
and I just work on them and their
content oriented really they wanted to
be monetized with display ads some
affiliate stuff and that's pretty much
it and I tend to focus on a few rather
than I'll kick it a few along it's use a
few for testing purposes but that's
about it and just hope them to grow them
up cool and on fat stacks you write
about like your online journey and
working online in general yeah that's
pretty much it tutorials what I'm doing
how I do it
pertaining to the other the other sites
right on
okay cool and what's your what's your
background before you got into the
online world here yeah I used to
practice law and actually enjoyed that
and most with a smaller firm the neater
websites are way back into a 5 so I was
tasked with getting a website got a
company do it all and they're like you
know you should you should try blogging
that might be good for some traffic and
readers and getting some clients I have
no idea so I thought well sure okay
I had no idea and they were right it
worked really really well and keep in
mind here is almost no competition back
then so it was it was good the SEO
worked out really really well so I
started blogging just weekend's few blog
posts a month and prospective clients
liked it they came in and grew up back
is pretty good it turned out I like
blogging more than last I I moved in
that direction and at some point had to
decide like do them both was got to be
difficult so I a juncture into full time
blogging have a look back Wow
so yeah that's that's kind of crazy and
let me make sure I got the timeline
right so in around 2005 you were
starting to like dabble and blogging but
it was for the law practice yeah that's
quite good I did that for a number of
years quite a while until 2012 okay and
were you doing the actual blogging and
stuff yeah I didn't outsource anything I
mean you know you're writing about law
and in a particular jurisdiction I mean
it's got to be it's got to be
technically correct right and so that
was all me I already enjoyed doing it
and so yeah I spent the time writing it
all out so when you got I mean you you
enjoyed your other job which is rare
that's super weird actually cuz most
everyone that I worked with they hated
it you know even even the people that
said they enjoyed it like they hate it
they hated it
so how did you decide to like stop
practicing law and move into the you
know online area
well yeah what was fun I did criminal
defense work and other litigation so
it's exciting it's very exciting and I
miss I miss some of it you know I work
with my dad which was just fantastic I
really enjoyed on and missed the clients
you know he you know get to help people
and so I missed out but there are things
you don't like like you don't have
control over your life
but it's trials or you know very
time-consuming all consumers really and
and it's more stressful frankly I mean
you've got you know you're dealing
criminal matters it's pretty serious
stuff and flexibility vacation that sort
of thing really really being more of a
full-time website publisher you get a
lot more flexibility in your life and
that was something I really wanted so
yeah it wasn't an easy decision I can
tell you that because I really did enjoy
it and but ultimately this what I
decided I don't regret it I'm I'm very
happy with what I do now so and carry on
but it is nice having that ticket you
know about a back-up plan a plan B if
ever necessary so you know yeah it's
good to have a back-up plan
right right and I think I mean I I I
mean I was not a lawyer but I had like a
professional career you know I was doing
that for about ten years so I can go
back if I need to and it is nice to have
like you know to understand what it's
like to work in a corporate job or a
professional you know career like a
lawyer so versus like if we just got out
of high school and started doing this
like I don't think I'd be able to
operate very well and just like execute
like I understand so I don't know do you
have any thoughts on that or well not
really I think having a ticket of some
sort
it is a nice back-up plan you know let's
face it this this is in a way a risky
business I mean
there are a lot of factors beyond our
control and a lot of us talk about that
regularly I mean we rely on Google for
traffic we all a lot of us relied on
Facebook once upon a time until that
party ended abruptly Pinterest you know
and we don't really have a lot of
control over these things we do the best
we can so there are risks built in we do
our best to minimize so but you know
it's it's happen to other people and
other businesses have closed I mean it's
just that's the way it is but I mean if
you look at a broad or two
I mean jobs aren't you know bulletproof
in a job you're not bulletproof with a
brick-and-mortar business it all has
risk and you know I think for me I'm I'm
well aware of it you try to diversify
and it's possible but and I do a little
bit but yeah I mean I'm just aware of it
so when you say having a back-up plan I
think I think it's good I like the fact
that I that idea is so right here so
actually that's a great segue and I
actually I enjoy just like talking to
and getting to know people so we're
gonna circle back later with more like
personal stuff and just random things
that I want to ask you about but why do
people want to know about like your
portfolio of sites you mentioned you
primarily like publish a lot of content
you have ads on most your site so you
have about eight sites can you just tell
us a little bit about like the ad based
I guess a word about looking for
business model the ad based business
model here and why you ended up there
versus some other area yeah that's a
very good question actually for the
first half I would say of being on right
here
I did all affiliate stuff because I read
constant affiliates you know that's
where the money is and you know ads are
a waste of money it's pennies versus
dollars and and I bought into it and I
don't I started up in each site at one
point and doing the affiliate thing
hammering away and was going nowhere if
I did have an adsense account this is
way back when the essence was very easy
to get
so I just had one languishing him and I
decided well I'll throw a few ads on
there to see what happens then it was
like I mean for relative to what the
affiliate stuff was doing it was amazing
and that was like right away I just saw
the potential of what ads could do for a
site with traffic so I completely
shifted and I still do a fair amount of
affiliate but the display is a
definitely exceeded the affiliate stuff
and so yeah I I shifted focus and now
pretty much every site I brought excel
for fast axis ad supported and I like it
and I like it primarily because I love
the flexibility coming back to
flexibility again I like flexibility in
my life but I like it for publishing to
you because with affiliate stuff if you
want to make money with affiliate links
you have to publish a certain type of
content which we call buyer intent then
there needs to be and intent behind it
where somebody's gonna let click and
potentially buy if you put a bunch of
affiliate links on just some general
informational stuff your chance of
generating any clicks and sales is very
low so but with that you can write on
any topic you like and I really like
that I like to be able published I'm
just some random informational article
that I find interesting or topic thats
related to the niche and I could still
monetize that and that was really
freeing so that's that's that was a huge
point and I was able to really go after
a lot of topics with almost no
complication or very little competition
and focus on publishing content and know
that that content would be monetized and
I'm not saying this each piece of
content makes a fortune formats it
doesn't but it's in the aggregate I'm
able to publish more content I'm able to
go after more traffic and so it's a it's
a higher traffic volume model but it's
for me it's worked out very nicely
yes and I'll put links and stuff but you
do publish some income reports and just
say for about
like the last several months like what's
the average profits from your portfolio
of sites that you publish income reports
on but it ranges from playing out ranges
about I would say thirty or forty five
thousand us a month my expenses
fluctuate a little bit and obviously
revenue fluctuates but yeah that's the
range we're talking about right now okay
excellent I just want to give everyone
like the scope of what we're talking
about so most people would say that
serious money beyond like you know
full-time what most people are are
making like in general so that's awesome
congratulations John
thanks like it and the thing I want to
do is sort of like focus in on sort of
like one of the sides of course will be
not revealed or anything like that but
one of the sites is sort of like the the
big the big guy right it's making most
of the money and what kind of traffic
are you seeing on this site that's
approaching a million visitors a month
right now yeah so and the page views are
quite a bit higher I get quite a few
page views per visitor so yeah you say
yeah it's it's it's hard to focus with
that intensity on more than one site so
so it does get the lion's share of
resources and my time and I'm going to
be dumb not because that's the big
earner but like you say I've got a
better friend and he's got the same
thing it was a bunch of sites and he's
got it's got the big guys or the big
guns and then you know the little sites
that you kick along and I actually like
having some smaller sites or right now
I'm doing a bunch of ad testing so if I
want to test a different ad network or
something I got a handful of sites that
together get 10,000 page views a day or
visitors and that's enough I can test
stuff without testing on on the biggest
training site so that that's actually a
nice arrangement for me so I'm currently
doing and some testing and which helps
me you know give me good information to
write about on that stacks but I do
definitely focus that on and resources
on on one side of the shore
that was my dog Georgie sorry about that
this is a very casual situation so
sometimes she helps us out here and okay
so a ton of traffic and most of the
money is made on that one site you have
the other sites you could do some
testing that's fantastic so like I guess
can you tell us about like how old the
site is like how much content are you
publishing and some of the details as
much as you could share I know some of
this is proprietary information but as
much as you could share on that sure the
site launched in February 2014 and it's
definitely had ups and downs which I I
used to be able I started buying face to
foot traffic and building up a Facebook
page with it and buying fans I mean I
think you've been around long enough to
remember those days when Facebook was
very fact about that so that definitely
helped get the ball rolling first couple
of years now Facebook is there's no
point in really using it so I really
focus on Google search but so yeah we're
approaching on protein low over five
years now with that site in terms of
there's both 3,300 articles on the site
right now I add one two three new ones
in BA I slow the whole bit down in the
weekends of also in the last year -
you've been putting a lot of effort into
updating older content let's say I've
learned a lot since 2014 on what's a
good article and quality and what works
within the niche I've learned a lot
about working within you nation what
doesn't work so I'm going back and
fixing up some of the older stuff so so
that's the process right now it's the
volume I'm doing it's actually not a lot
of volume what one to two or three
articles a day new is there's nothing
compared to a lot of sites out there but
do you take a lot of work that yet
that's alarming for some people and then
other folks would think okay that's not
so bad
and I take it at this point you're not
doing the writing yourself you have some
folks that help you out with writing I
do I have use of variety of services
and but I do rate sometimes something if
I'm interested in topical I'll write it
good I like right yeah but yeah I rely
mostly I would say the lines here the
content is it's done with other people
hold it out okay gotcha
and it sounds like you hire services
you're not managing or like doing any HR
for like writers or whatever right no no
I do use services I have I have a site
manager that oversees a lot of it and
she's a huge help and really know she
pretty much knows everything on the side
and then yeah I attended these agencies
but I use a variety of them because I
find that each one has pros and cons so
like I bring it down to two different
types of agencies okay there's the
agency by agency I mean writing agency
or writing service so there's the one
that you would hire you pay them a bunch
of money and you order let's say a
hundred thousand words for an order and
you're giving her list of topics and
what they do is they will sign your work
to one or two writers and they will drip
feed content they'll say we'll do a
turnaround time of six weeks but we'll
be able to kick back you know a few
articles a week to you and and that's
great and so that model works for a lot
of one of you because I don't publish
everything in one day and not do
anything for a month we I do it daily or
every other day so that's one type of
agency the other type is something where
you submit your your project or writing
tasks and then basically submitting it
to a huge pool full of writers all right
and then so you can you kids literally
submit a hundred thousand words let's
say broke it up into 50 articles and you
can have them all picked up by 25 or
maybe 30 different writers within a day
or two and it'll turn them around in a
week so you could literally get a
hundred thousand words back to you in a
week so that's a different agency model
and they both have their advantages
right like sometimes I need something
fast I don't want to interrupt the flow
of the agency that drip feeds to me so
I'll use that I'll submit the couple
projects they get it back to me in three
days and then and then I have my main
writing agency that just sort of
continuously drip feeds article
to me and then we get them published on
the side perfect that is a great
explanation and I've been in the same
boat where like sometimes you you're
just in a little bit of a hurry and
other times you can you know put it on
the autopilot and let things happen so
that makes total sense now it just it
could be a very short answer but like
you you're obviously working with
agencies and/or you know the services
that can handle it versus hiring people
on your own and just the other day on
YouTube someone was like hey Doug you're
an idiot for paying that much for an
article you could hire someone like a
college student and manage them and
train them and do all this stuff and get
it for pennies on the dollar so why
don't you try to hire people at a
cheaper rate because I don't like to
manage that's straight up I'll tell you
that I don't want to manage to report
now I'm not saying I want to do it and I
think there are huge advantages I think
you might get better quality control but
you know my main writing agency that I
use I have a point person there who
manages it and should it's not a perfect
service nothing will be but it helps me
out a lot because I don't have to deal
with that and I don't want to manage two
three or four people at all so um that's
that's principally why in terms of then
the other ones the other types of
writing services where I can get all the
articles back in you know three or four
days I tend to manage out but that's
more of a one-off situation that's not
something where I'm doing that every
week ram submitting with a huge order so
I try to keep my management to a minimum
because I'm not a money good manager and
I don't care to manage I have other
areas of elected focus once so so that's
why I don't do that perfect great answer
John love it yeah I said virtually the
same thing I think I I'm a pretty good
manager but you know there's so much
other stuff to do in the works like then
try to wrangle with college students who
don't give a about like what you're
working on you know so yeah
I was like if I'm going on vacation I
can't babysit writers that are not
professionals versus I think we can
mention the company I think we used the
same one I found them through you
content development pros right yeah
that's the one that's the main outfit
I'm using right now yeah yeah and like I
gave them thank you for the
recommendation by the way you've gotten
Sur affiliate commissions over there
from me but yeah they've pushed out
while I was on vacation they pushed out
like 50 articles in about 30 days and I
had my one VA similar to you I have some
folks that are sort of in the inner
circle and they took care of everything
while I was gone I answered no questions
it was great so for sure so yeah I think
people have to look at like what's
important to them and what they like
working on if you really like hiring
people from up work that's crazy but
maybe you should open an agency but if
not if that's what you want to do this
totally cool so okay for let's hit some
of the questions that were sent in by a
couple of my students who are big fans
of yours a lot a lot of common folks so
this is from Graham and he has a
specific question here so okay so if if
you had a site that's been penalized by
a Google update and most of the traffic
went away what would you do
he had a couple like you know things
that maybe he would try but I'll just
leave it open and yeah go ahead I would
probably build on it start something new
or by buying an existing site oh it's
not penalized I've been there though I
bought a domain it was rotten to the
core and I didn't you know it's so been
there I've been on it I mean I don't
know I mean I guess why my first
question to that question is is I mean
have you already put tons of time and
money into it or you just it's kind of a
new thing you know going too far down
the rabbit hole and that's case just
just walk away
be someone else I don't know see I'm not
I'm not a real technical SEO so I know
their people seem to claim that they
know how to do disavow with links and
get sights on penalized or other you
know no more problems I don't know how
to do any of that so and I don't really
care where I don't I I suspect they're
very expensive to hire to do it for you
so I'm not sure that would be working
this so I don't think I have a choice
but to walk away okay and again good
answer I think I think I'll add in my
some of my own thoughts here I think if
it was like a viable viable niche like
overall potentially like grab that
content go to a new domain like work it
out I think in the last like year or so
Google has been coming down harder on
some of those they call it the your
money or your life sort of topic so if
it's not health-related or if it's like
financially related you may have trouble
it may take a long time to recover that
so unless you happen to be like a doctor
or a financial adviser or something I
would probably like move on and pick
something a little easier so as far as
like the disavowing and stuff I have
some experience like helping I've had
some stuff penalized by the way and at
some point it's like yeah you just gotta
take what you learned move on so well
that said let's let's move on to sort of
link building areas so I kind of have an
idea what you may save for this but what
do you do for the link building aside
from a few experience experience or
experiments or one out of testing and so
forth I don't do anything I try to focus
on the content the track like rather
than build them and well it's it's not
that I have a moral issue with link
building and I only get some moral issue
whatsoever it's a business decision for
me I kind of prefer to hunt out low
competition keywords and topics publish
good content
putting some stuff in there that may
attract links I kinda find like custom
graphics and images can can do well to
attract links frankly because people rip
them off and they'll give you a source
link which is great steal all the stuff
you want my site as well as give me a
link and a happy one so yeah that's what
I do I don't really do outreach I don't
you do guest posts but I do so I run
experiments yeah like I said I've got a
bunch of sites and so on my knees as
guinea pigs I try stuff but that's
really about it
so yeah frankly nothing and can you talk
a little bit more about like the content
that attracts links you mentioned images
and any other like tips maybe people
could test out yeah I think well I I
kind of came across this because I like
linking out to good resources in my
content that will help readers so I find
out like statistics or data tables
charts illustrations a good photo if you
take a good photo for a licensed one
these are all things that other sites
for years on their site they'll either
just take it from your ask you to use it
I've had printed publications the email
being asked to use various media in in
there for that reading I don't get a
link because it's print but you know
they usually give some form of
attribution and I'm like yeah of course
great thanks for asking so you know just
I don't know give really technical stuff
that's not covered elsewhere and then
different types of media will tend to do
it but I'd only get the impression like
oh if you put on to cool graphics on
your website the links are gonna pour in
because it's not gonna happen it's it's
sort about it's it's a big push and it
takes a lot of them and some will work
and some won't and it takes a lot of
content and it takes a lot of time for
other sites and find these but what's
interesting is it's almost kind of an
exponential effect as as you do attract
links over time you attract more links
at a faster rate because your ranking or
content other publishers find you more
easily and they link to you so it's it's
sort of the self-fulfilling site
so you just gotta hang in there in the
beginning so you know don't go spend
$5,000 on graphics and then expect like
you know in three months you're going to
have all the trafficking because that's
not going to happen
and I tried because I I did Commission
an expensive infographic once upon a
time thinking oh if I get this gradient
for graphic I'll do all the outreach
again you know 100 sites will put it on
there say I mean the results were
terrible and the infographic was good
the results are terrible so yeah I I
agree like I've actually tried the
infographic stuff and the thing is well
honestly people like you and I will
publish a case study make it sound
relatively easy even though it may have
been a few tries and a little more
iteration out there but if you give it a
shot and you know you know you're not
gonna stick with it like for iterations
then it may not work that well but
you're right that exponential like link
growth if it's like actually the keyword
golden ratio is like super helpful for
that because you could rank for some
obscure terms I'm sort of like head
shining gel for bald people or some kind
of you know product that you and I would
look at and then you ranked number one
because no one else is publishing
anything and then you get some links
from that and then like you said this is
self-fulfilling you know it just pushes
everything else up so very cool so and
anything else from like an SEO
standpoint maybe on the content side it
sounds like maybe you're mostly focusing
on the keyword research and then like
just a huge volume of I assume pretty
high quality content before the site so
any tips on on-page you know I don't get
that all that technical about it I use a
lot of header tags or header tags h2 h3
h4 z-- I like to structure I'm actually
pretty fanatical about how its
structured and
a lot of headings proper use of
subheadings and then a table of contents
at the top to tie it all together so
that works well for me I use a lot of
images as well and I take the time to
write a really good alt text usually
either a phrase or sometimes a full
sentence in there sometimes I had
captions sometimes I general but yeah
you know all of these little things
taken and this this adds up in terms of
consuming time so that takes a long time
I mean you had 15 images to an article
and do all the alt text I mean that that
alone will take time to mention
optimizing the images but yeah I just
trying to structure it really well I try
to be thorough I'm using clear scope
right now which basically analyzes you
know whether you've got all the proper
keywords or phrases or so forth within
the article and I started use them a few
months ago and they're like markup use
but just as much money I think market
means is a fantastic raqqa in fact I I
did use in the for a while and they're
right they're just very expensive and
you know if you're if you're a fortune
500 company and their rate is obviously
not gonna you know put a dent in you but
for me it was a bit hefty so Clara scope
does a really nice job simple to use so
I've been using that and actually what's
nice is the I've got the writers who use
a - you can add users so pretty much all
the content that's going out right now
is getting run through clear scope and
and again using clear scope it's not
going to guarantee that you're gonna
rain for everything it's just another
step to take to sort of help things
along and that's why I use it I don't
expect miracles from any one technique
and just sort of try to do the best you
can and everything and some stuff will
work out gotcha
yeah good I didn't even know about that
tool but yeah market Muse is quite
expensive I mean it's really for like
you said fortune 500 hundred like big
agencies or something like okay cool now
one other question around sort of a bit
kind actually - is there a certain
length of content that you aim for or it
just depends on the topic
really depends on the topic but I would
say I'm gonna habit of 1,500 to 2,000
words okay so generally long for most
people would say okay very good and then
do you have a strategy you said you're
going back and auditing some of your old
content and you have a lot of content
you said like over 3,000 pieces of
content so how are you handling that
from like a sanity and system standpoint
to actually get through it and like hit
the most important stuff while you know
ignoring that noise over here right well
I've learned a lot since then so it's a
piece of content that was published here
four years ago I probably didn't
structure it with heading tags as well
as I do now so that's an easy fix and
may not have a table of contents because
I manually insert that in each article
so I do that I can run it through clear
scope which has helped that's a
time-consuming process but it'll help me
figure out what additional topics I
should add to the article so I've been
doing that I mean one fairly easy way to
do this I would do and some frequently
asked questions adding them into some
articles if they make sense if there's
an angle for I think you in there saw at
that and yeah really clear scope is
helped quite a bit even just looking at
it you know I know my Nisha is pretty
well so I can look at an article and be
like okay well a year ago we started
doing you know we've expanded how how I
outline articles and how deep we go into
a topic so I will look at some of the
older stuff say well you know I miss
this this and this and that can easily
be done so that's that's what I do
sometimes it's it's a 20-minute process
sometimes it's almost like writing a
whole article from scratch so atrocious
it was yeah I am I can relate like as
I'm going through a couple of my sites
even in site project when I look back at
some of the early post like it's just a
mess and across my multiple sites I have
you know upward oh well over a thousand
like pieces of content so I'm like okay
what what do I
to work on here it's kind of hard to get
like for everything but interesting okay
now you mentioned you have like you know
the service of rioters that you're the
services that you use you have it sounds
like a site manager so do you have any
full-time folks that work with you or is
it all like part-time freelancers huh
how's your team look yeah I have five
full-time das right now that I had a lot
of things so one does just graphics
somebody talked about creating custom
illustrations and charts and all that
sort of thing that's what he does he
does a renewed his job so he sometimes
you get three done a week sometimes one
a week depends on the size of it and
then I have one who manages the other
four as well as the content coming in
and then I have the three others who
just help with optimizing images fixing
hangout older content doing a big
project right now updating some older on
the closer more image focus so it's a
lot of managing the images rather than
the text so they're doing that right now
gotcha and how did the team like grow
over time I assume when you first
transitioned over it's probably just you
so how did the trajectory look yeah but
it's just me for quite a while I the
person you met who manages right now she
was first arrested I got really lucky
with her like I didn't know you know I
just I think she was one of the first
outlet kids and sound like she could do
it and I worked out with her for three
or four years and she's great and so
yeah I just slowly over I used to have
more employed sometimes I have a huge
project that might take three months so
I'll wrap up I'll hire but I tell them
up front you know this is a isn't one a
project the position is gonna be into
you know roughly around so and so but
right now I think we've got you know
ongoing work for four or five right you
know I don't know it just sort of just
sort of happened
justkeep hire people and as
came along yeah okay I'm a scale down
again in the future kind of depends on
money needs any scale up and just sort
of see how it goes on a phone once a
month by month basis but maybe yearly
basis gotcha do you have any tips for
people who are on the cusp of like maybe
hiring someone or they're not sure if
they should any tips
the one thing I've found out is as parla
hiring processes I'll actually send them
assignments actual real assignments
similar to what they would be doing I
usually tell them I'll pay them for the
time the families that work because I
don't want to just get a bunch of free
work for people and so I'll do that and
I'll maybe shortlist anywhere from five
to seven and let them actually execute
the projects I tell them to track their
time so I know what I paid them but I
also use that time tracking so I can see
how quickly they get the work done and
match it to how well it was done so then
I know it adds up three or four days so
the hiring process and I know when you
want to hire someone I'm like hire
instantly but I find that actually just
taking that extra time and doing that
has helped find good people that was
particularly useful the guy who I hired
for graphics because I had seven people
actually do some graphic projects and
the range in quality and how quickly
they could do it was huge and there was
one standout and watching he accepted
the jobs yeah makes a big difference
God you sound like a pretty good manager
and maybe you're not giving yourself
enough credit but in terms of hiring you
know I used to do shortcuts that you
said not just take the time to and it
resulted in in some some bad hires
lately though well now I've got to the
point that this is actually great
because my project manager who's been
with me for three she now does all hire
which is great so she posts as the a she
post the yeah and adds she bets them all
so I'm no longer doing it which I really
like because because hiring is am but
not are not a fun process it's hard it's
you know you and I think I think the
stuff that I don't like doing is often
when it's when there's uncertainty about
it
and it's like I don't know if you're
gonna hire the right person it's really
a crapshoot and I think every business
will tell you that and you just don't
know it's like you gonna hire oh you're
gonna train them which is a ton of work
and then and then you're gonna pay them
and it doesn't work out it's really
frustrating and this can happen over and
over and over in fact the last round
that we hired I think she hired a total
of six or seven people and and three
stayed on so you know it's it's a
frustrating process
yep and that you know what I were like
paralleling quite a bit here like I have
been training one of my VA s to hire
folks on Pinterest create the job
posting do all like all the things and I
don't do anything it's great and she's
learning right the VA that's hiring
folks she's learning so it's like more
interesting work for her she's building
skills like she hadn't done these pieces
she hadn't fired anyone before so I had
to teach her how to fire someone in a
proper way you know all that kind of
stuff yeah so like it runs the full
spectrum and yeah like it sounds like
you got a great you know assistant doing
the PM work and all the HR garbage that
you know you don't want to do so okay
let's let's move on to some mistakes so
it sounds like you've had like a rich
career in this online space
have you made any like awful blunders
that you could share and hopefully we
could learn something from and I didn't
prep you ahead of time so if we need to
come back to it that is totally okay and
I'll just mention one of my big mistakes
was just like under estimating a Google
penalty so back in the day when I got
started there were I mean everyone was
talking about private blog networks and
my mother link-building the thing so in
fact I learned a lot from like smart
passive income and Pat Flynn and even
Pat Flynn was building like link
pyramids
link wheels and hiring you know folks to
spin articles and kind of crazy stuff
which seems just insane now considering
where Pat is but anyway I got tangled up
in that stuff and I got penalized a few
times until I was like all right I've
had enough like I just don't want to
work with that sort of area anymore like
you said maybe slightly unethical in
certain ways so anyway any big mistakes
out there John oh well yeah we're
talking about way back in the good old
days of SEO yeah I mean I got I got
Peter on this big-time are you right
away I didn't I knew right away Thomas
yet like the SEO has changed forever
and I recognize that Mike completely
shift your computer that was that was
2012 when the first penguin dropped so
yeah I'll never forget I mean we were
all doing Washington but a lot of people
for dealing you know just like he said
article spinning the software the I mean
it was it was just ridiculous it's like
yeah a long ways it was cool though the
same because I mean ranking was pretty
easy with a lot less competition and I
mean it was it was pretty cool a little
rank for a lot of crazy stuff back then
but anybody's that party came to a
screeching halt so but do I do I call
that a mistake no because I think that
was the industry norm back in the day
and do it if I have one regret about it
all matters is I think sometimes imagine
if I had started like a really really
good side way back then and just slowly
you know took took the tortoise route
and kept growing it where it would be
now but you know I I took shortcuts that
I did I did the link building stuff but
I think a lot of big sites today also
did and they somehow come through it all
and survived so I mean I I have a couple
of sites that made it through I just
didn't happen to do a whole lot of and
they're good size so I totally regret it
but I wish I'd started a good site
before chance turned against like 2014
infinity since
I wrote I regret a mistake is I didn't
take advantage of pre Facebook traffic a
whole lot more when that was going
because that came about right after the
the first penguin I mean after that it's
like everyone is jumping onto Facebook
and the free traffic and getting getting
fans and then get I mean the free
traffic was incredible I think it was
just me I couldn't post it's fast enough
every day I was like 1 an hour for 24
hours it was just this like massive
stream and I was great I wish I had got
a lot more that I wish I had set up like
20 pages and just totally gone after
that but that came to an end as well
terms of what I'm doing these days you
know sometimes I think is a mistake kid
to run as many sites as I'm doing some
weeks I think you know maybe sell them
or put on the back burner maybe it's I'm
spread too thin and I think probably
it's true but they are serving a good
purpose because I get it a lot of
testing on and that's proved really
helpful so even though they're not
growing as fast as I would like just
because I don't have the time or the
money to invest in them the fact that I
had 10,000 visitors a day two testing
sites I could do some pretty cool stuff
on there and I don't I don't care like
if I if if an ad network proves to be
really bad or I get bad results for a
week it's we're not talking to
tremendous amount of money
the results are valuable enough that I
can make better decisions going forward
so yeah but there are weeks I think you
know maybe I should just dump everything
and focus on one or two projects and
there's probably pretty sound advice but
we'll see what I do very good so and I'm
just I'm just thinking I'm like I mean
if you could hire like a semi pro semi
qualified or a very qualified person to
come on and like manage the other sites
I mean like would you bring on like a a
junior part I mean I'm just I don't want
to get people sending you a bunch of
stuff but I'm like
sounds like a full-time job to manage
that and then you could like crush it
and grow like the other the other site
and just kind of like get some of the
mental strain you know just away yeah I
don't know if that's a good question but
yeah just I'm just like hey you could I
mean you have enough revenue you could
bring someone on they can learn an
apprentice sort of situation you know
well actually my project manager is able
to handle all with the content side it's
not bad but you know I do have to you
know they're there it's funny you think
well I like I mean I really don't pay a
lot of attention to those sightings of
protesting but sometimes they do require
my attention and it is a bit of a
distraction it's also I tell you the
bigger issue is being able to finance
content for eight sites versus two
that's a huge difference in terms of the
monthly spend and I spent a fair amount
in certain months really loading up a
bunch of sites the question is is
whether that money can be used in better
ways and sometimes I think definitely
yes but I've managed to grow a couple of
them too I mean they're not huge sites
but I grow into where it's like oh
that's great I'm pretty happy I have
those sites and so you know to keep
plugging away on it so it really comes
down to you know to keep them to keep
trying to grow them it takes a lot of
money every month they are profitable
which is pretty so I don't really need
someone to come on board like actually
take over an entire site and manage it
at this point but maybe down the road I
don't know I'll see anyways these are
these are sort of the things that go
through my mind weekly so make somebody
yeah we're gonna tackle all night sites
other weeks I'm like I just want to
focus on this one what gives you the
confidence to spend the money I'm doing
a case study right now where I'm laying
out a fairly significant amount of cash
a lot for content and I don't know if
it's going to be successful but I've
done this a couple of times so it kind
of happened
okay this will be interesting even if it
doesn't work out so what gives you the
confidence to like invest in those sites
that aren't you know doing like a huge
amount of revenue just over time how do
you do it because I believe they have
potential and I'm in a good position
where I could be patient
four years ago I wasn't patient but I
can't be now and so you know you look at
the RI of these web sites let's say I
put it you know 300 a month into a site
that's called a thirty five hundred and
year and I do that for five years what
is that eighteen thousand blacks let's
say investment but if I say it's even
remaining two thousand dollars a month
with a sale value that's that's a very
good return on the investment and that's
fairly slow growth over the past five
years so I think you know I believe I
mean I've seen the tremendous return on
investment with this so I definitely
look at it that way the site said I do
keep around I see that there's potential
it's Anish I think has potential it's a
niche that I like tend to cheese leashes
I have an interest in and so it's
something I'll continue working on it
and wanna continue working on it's just
sometimes you know someone says don't
really have the time to really go on a
hammer and tongs but yeah I mean I think
the return on investment potential is
always good the thing is the bigger part
of the question now is we're always
gonna buy content that is that it's
going to lose us money because not every
piece is going to be a winner but I
think once you've done it as long as we
both have and we've ordered and
published so much content the winners
are gonna make up for the losers and
that's the goal and you just hope that
that keeps happening more and more and
so that's why I take the gamble and buy
all the content awesome very well said
again
I think I run across folks that try to
calculate the ROI per article sometimes
to justify the spend and I see where
they're coming from but when you average
it out right you're gonna have some big
winners that you didn't even think we're
gonna show up you know and then it makes
up for the the difference so do you run
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