in this video I talked to Alex Cooper
from WP Eagle and he's a good friend of
mine we've been sort of collaborating
and talking about affiliate marketing
for a couple years now and he created a
public case study which is super cool
it's called best roof box and he's been
creating videos on it and talking about
the process doing keyword research doing
like the content hiring teams
outsourcing backlinks all this stuff so
he's been covering up on his channel
along the way it's almost a year old and
I asked him if I could tear down this
site so number one he said yeah you can
do that you could do a few videos and I
figured hey why don't we kick this off
by just talking to Alex after he's been
working on the site for almost a year
just to see what's been going on what's
been going well what he wants to improve
on so that is what we're gonna talk
about so I'm gonna put a link in the
description to the site so you can check
it out number one I'm gonna link up to
the playlist that covers all this stuff
for best roof box so you can track
Alex's progress along the way it's super
cool to see you know hey I'm gonna try
something he tries it it works maybe it
doesn't work but you get to follow along
and it's kind of like well it's kind of
like reality TV except for affiliate
marketing so anyway without further ado
let's get to the interview with Alex
from WP eagle hey what's going on it's
Doug Pennington here and my good buddy
Alex Cooper from WP Eagle how's it going
good
thanks for having me on thanks for
inviting me back of course it's always
helped me out a bunch and I thank you
like when I was first getting started on
YouTube so thanks a lot no problem I say
that your channel is still growing
strong plug it along we're doing what we
can trying to train you gotta just keep
going and give it time it's all about
effort and patience and just plenty of
that and you'll be fine indeed in
weathering the YouTube comments the
gauntlet but you know what we got thick
skin you have to I think when you put
yourself out there you need to have
quite thick skin on you so for the
people that don't know you Alex who are
you and what do you do what's your
channel about
okay my name's Alex already said my
channel is WP eagle I've been doing
YouTube for a few years now and the
channel originally started as a kind of
wordpress tutorial channel just looking
at WordPress themes and plugins and how
to make websites with WordPress that
kind of thing and then it naturally
progressed into affiliate marketing
which was an area that I was interested
in anyway and now the focus of channel
is kind of all around how to use
WordPress as an affiliate marketing
business builder I guess you'd say it so
popular content on my channel right now
is around one of my affiliate marketing
websites it's called best roof books
calm which we're gonna be talking about
in hopefully today but basically I
created this website in a video back in
March I think it was around that time
did a fallout 4 tutorial video on how I
created the site and then since then
I've been publishing regular update
videos on exactly what I've been doing
to the site all the work I've been doing
all the content I've been adding and
I've also been sharing the results from
the site said the traffic numbers the
earnings all that kind of thing so
hopefully people can follow along with
what I'm doing and you know learn from
my mistakes and learn from my successes
and and yeah follow along perfect yes
it's proven pretty popular awesome so at
this point in time when we're recording
it the site is like roughly 11 months
old or so and it's doing pretty well so
we'll be sharing some of the revenue
numbers right now about like in the last
say 30 days or so like can you tell us
just like the traffic and revenue so
people understand that it's actually
making some money and do it alright yeah
it's doing okay I mean the thing is it's
it's in the roof box niche I should say
so that's the boxes that you put on top
of your car when you need to travel with
more stuff and that's obviously probably
quite seasonal I'm guessing that most
people invest in a roof box when they're
thinking about going camping in the
summer but yeah for the last 30 days the
revenue from Amazon has been around $250
and the traffic has been I think it was
around nearly six thousand users laughs
five thousand nine hundred something
like that but it has been growing month
for month so I'm just excited to see
what's going to happen in the summer any
very good
we're gonna kind of start at the
beginning and I'm curious because I
don't share my own sites and I try not
to even share people in the audience so
if I do a live stream and someone's like
hey will you look at my site I usually
tell them no to try and protect them
because I mean basically copycats are
gonna show up people can do negative SEO
so Alex why would you go public with
this site it's bananas I've not had any
problems in terms of copycats I've not
seen any other route books sighs but
maybe there is um I don't think I've had
any negative SEO I think I would despise
that and the reason I just I feel that
you know on YouTube especially there is
a lot of gurus out there I don't know if
they're all legitimate gurus or maybe
some of them are fake gurus I don't know
there's a lot of gurus out there and
they tell you a lot of stuff and they
don't always show exactly you know what
they've been doing they'll tell you that
they can help you make a million pounds
or whatever and they'll often be
standing in front of a Ferrari or
Lamborghini or some like that and I
wanted to approach you from a different
angle I mean I don't have anything to
sell I just really wanted to share my
story and I'm hoping that my honesty and
openness is what's gonna you know
differentiate me from the other guys
that are out there and that's why I want
to be clear and yeah I've just been on a
live stream right now just literally
finished and yeah people do share their
sites for me and I do bring them up on
the screen and we do look at them and
again I've not heard of anyone that's
had any anything bad happen I'm sure it
does happen but I don't know I'm just
not that paranoid not that scared of
anyone I was gonna say I've experienced
a negative SEO and last multiple five
figures so I am extremely sensitive to
it and I yeah you've been burnt once
you've been burnt you don't you don't do
it again maybe I'll learn the hard way
we'll wait and see if it happens all I
can say is all of this stuff is just
great for me to create content around
and as a youtuber you need a fresh
source of ideas you know daily weekly
any Content you need cubic content and
when stuff happens to me like when my
sites get hacked when bad things happen
to my sites it's just a great story to
tell on YouTube and people really
appreciate you know me sharing all that
stuff so if I do get a load a negative
SEO it's not
does copy my site and rip it off then
I'll put it down as a lesson learned but
I love to share the experience with with
my audience as well indeed I love it and
by the way I commend you for doing it I
think it's great I get requests for it
like on a weekly basis like to do a
public case study and I'm like no no but
probably eventually I will be worn down
and it will do the same thing yeah I
guess you'll have to just hope for the
best and maybe choose one of your sites
that isn't you know your big biggest
earner I don't know it provides that
authentic feel and people could follow
along exactly week by week month by
month on what you're doing so how did
you choose that niche well I would like
to say that it was very scientific and I
did months and months of research to
come up with it but no it was back just
before last summer so back in March just
before that and I was looking to go
camping and stuff when I wanted a roof
books and I was looking around and I
thought these these there's a lot of
products out there is quite confusing
there wasn't a lot of information out
there so I did a quick search from
GoDaddy for some domains I saw that best
roof box com was available I thought
that sounds like a great domain and the
rest is history that's how I kind of
fell into it there are much better ways
to choose a niche than that but hey
sometimes you fall on your feet and you
find a niche that seems to work and this
one does need to be working quite well
and I think it's great because I I know
personally like my dad was trying to
find a roof box cuz we did this big road
trip last year they they joined me cuz I
was driving to Alaska and we needed a
roof box and it was hard for him to find
one that fit and get like an actual like
understanding from the Amazon
description and the specs he really
couldn't understand like what would work
for him and he has a super common Ford
Explorer one of the most popular like
SUVs there's a ton of them around so
there's definitely like some confusion
around the product so you actually got a
roof box that huh
yeah yeah I've got a roof books and it's
great I know so it allowed me to kind of
understand some of the problems like how
do you store a roof books in the winter
you know what how many suitcases can you
fit in a roof books and also just the
more I dug into it I thought from a
content
have you there's so much I can write
about for example you mentioned you know
the Ford Explorer or whatever basically
there's an article that needs to be
written for every single type of car out
there because people are searching on
google for what's the best route box for
a Ford Explorer what's the best route
books for a Volkswagen Golf what's the
best route books for whatever so I just
also made if I create articles around
that you know I was doing Google
searches and there wasn't any articles
coming up for each individual car I just
thought you know I'll be able to write
content forever because there's there's
so many cars and then you start
exploring different activities which is
another great angle that I think you can
find within a product focus site like
mine is all the applications for a route
book so people that want to travel with
their skis with their camping equipment
with their snowboards you know the list
goes on so from a Content point of view
I thought it'd be great because there's
just so much you could write about
that's all pretty much product focused
which I know is an interesting approach
with a lot of people like to have more
informational based sites whereas this
site is very product focused and I think
that's one of the reasons why it does
quite well in terms of revenue because
it's not getting huge traffic numbers
but the traffic does get does generate a
reasonable amount of revenue from Amazon
which as we know the commission rates
are quite low so yeah I think that's
what because the people that come to my
site they're looking to buy roof box
they're there in the market they're
ready to buy one they just need a little
bit of help in terms of deciding which
one's the best fit for them and their
vehicle or or their their sport whatever
they're using for excellent so you chose
best roof box which is sort of a exact
match keyword situation which I
literally advise people don't do that
you're painting yourself in a corner so
can you just why did you pick something
so specific and you've already talked
about how you can expand it based on
activities there was plenty of content
because there's like an endless number
of cars but I mean you could have said
something a little bit more broad I
don't know what but maybe like outdoor
activities or something like that yeah I
don't know I mean I've also it wasn't
exact match keyword and I was kind of
hoping to rank for the keywords best
move books I thought that would bring in
tons traffic and in fact the site does
its page one for best route books it's
somewhere in the middle of page one I
think it's just I was a little bit naive
maybe when I
when I was on the site and in hindsight
I probably wouldn't do that again so I'm
I'm gonna do another site so you know
because I love these projects and this
time I'm gonna take a lot of the
experience that I've learned from this
site and all the advice that I've taken
from people like yourself and other
experts and and guess that I've had on
my channel that have come in and torn
down my site and they've all said why on
earth did you go for that domain name
why on earth did you push yourself into
a corner with a very specific product
group and my answer is because at the
time I thought that's what I should be
doing and you know maybe go forward I'd
probably go for something like roof box
advisor calm or something that's a
little bit more general and kind of
explains a little bit more about what
the websites about but hey you live and
learn and what I've learnt is that
actually if you do make mistakes at the
beginning it's not the end of the world
your site can still do well and you can
you can carry on and be fine yeah
absolutely
I mean in that's the key like always
give yourself like the flexibility to
grow if possible and then yeah if you
don't it's not a catastrophic mistake I
mean you can change the domain name and
then redirect a few things like it's
just a technical problem a fairly small
technical problem so and we all know
that everyone's gonna do more than one
site so you just know that for the next
site it's gonna be even better because
of all the stuff that you learn on this
on the site before and they just keep
getting better and that's just you learn
your map your best lessons when you make
mistakes don't you that's the yeah you
only really kind of learn by failing you
never learn anything if you get it right
for the first time indeed well hopefully
a couple people learn from the mistake
that you made yeah yeah that's what
they're learning from and we can share
that with with people so you were
scratching your own itch in that you
we're doing research for roof boxes and
other storage applications for your your
car so as far as keyword research how
did you approach it like initially like
right when you were choosing and then
how are you approaching it now as you're
thinking him and expand content and all
that stuff back in the beginning I was
originally I was using a lot of keyword
tools just typing read books and then
getting a little idea so answer the
public was one of those I used quite a
lot so just creating content around
people's questions that people were
searching for around Ruth books
but nowadays I don't tend to use hardly
any keyword tools I just use Google
generally and just typing stuff into
Google I'm seeing what related searches
come up I'm seeing what the questions
Google of threat is throwing up and I'm
just noting all them down and then once
you get all that laid out in front you
can start to naturally see opportunities
for articles and for content and
basically building it out from there
I've been using a new keyword service
which I'll quickly mention it's called
keyword care comm which was set up by
one of my viewers and one of your
viewers as well I think Karl and that's
for people that you know you don't wanna
do any keyword research you can just
literally pay Carl and he seems to have
a great knack of identifying key words
that do rank really well of course me
and you we did a big playlist on the
keyword golden ratio awhile back and
that used to be a big factor of mine but
nowadays I've just been anything that
suggested in Google I just tend to
create content around it because I just
you know need content all the time so I
just start by doing a lot of kgr stuff
but nowadays it's just literally if I
haven't got an article around that
question that I've seen on Google then
I'll just create an article and hope for
the best
sure and generally I think coz the
site's got a little bit of authority now
it does tend to rank quite well I mean
not for everything but for a lot of
those longer tail searches it does seem
to do quite a cool and for the the
people that went deeper analysis I'm
gonna be doing a series of videos where
I tear down best roof box with Alex's
gracious permission and I'll be
analyzing some of the keywords and and
some of the other things like behind the
scenes that maybe we don't we're not
going to talk about today because it's
like the deep minutiae very detailed so
I'm gonna be going into that yeah I'm
looking for him and so so basically at
this point you're like you understand
what keywords are gonna work pretty well
usually you're using the like the
featured questions in Google so you'll
Google a term and then you'll see what
questions people are asking yeah yeah
and then you can just keep clicking on
that and it just keeps giving you more
and more questions forever I think it
doesn't ever run out but yeah so that's
mainly what I've been doing so they vent
they're very much response articles I
guess you'd call that the good response
articles I think where you're basically
creating articles around people's
questions
awesome do you have any like I guess a
big successes by doing
one where you just picked one out and
now it's like whenever that your highest
traffic kind of situations that's a good
question which I'm not prepared for let
me ever quit the commodity I'll put it
right here I know a lot of them are
ranking well and they do kind of bring
in traffic I don't know let me just see
what what does bring in those traffic
and I've had some quite good luck with
weave snippets that kind of thing by
adding a nice image and by making sure
that I build up the answer to the
question and in the first couple of
paragraphs that's done really well but
yeah let me just have a quick look at my
thing but what all you doing that you
can ask me with a question sure actually
I could just talk so okay one of the
cool techniques that I've branded the
FAQ technique which just means
frequently asked questions you literally
do what Alex said and you hop over to
Google you put in a term and there's now
these featured questions right common
questions that go on endlessly some are
a bit redundant and repetitive but
generally you can get a ton of ideas and
it's a great way to beef up almost any
content for any kind of site because
there's usually questions associated
with them and then you could add a few
hundred words to any piece of content on
your site very easy to outsource as well
yeah exactly
so I was the last 30 days interestingly
the the home page gets the most in trend
entrances so people coming to the site
the second biggest page for entrances is
an article that I wrote a while back
which was a buyer's guide for a roof
cargo box for a Subaru Outback which is
a car that I've never seen because I
think that's a car that's in America by
the way much light is targeting US
traffic so again a completely random car
I think to come up with my first ideas
for articles around cars I did a search
for like the top 25 most popular cars in
America because you know we have
different parts I'm in the UK and the
different cars in u.s.
obviously the Subaru Outback must have
been one of those creating an article
around a roof box is full subaru outback
and now it's the second most popular
entrance page on my site bringing in 430
people last 30 days it's random I mean
you would never probably be able to
predict that and again I find that with
content marketing and creating content
is you just got to sometimes just
as much at the wall as you can and
sometimes some of it's Dixon and does
really well and you would probably know
be able to predict that there was a lot
of people looking for roof boxes for a
subaru outback indeed a lava sea isn't a
much other content out there the caters
for that need that's interesting and
then the next one is how to pack a roof
box carrier yeah and I was I'm chuckling
on the inside because I live in Colorado
now I lived in Montana before I have
some family and like Pennsylvania and
anywhere where there is like potential
for like slick conditions some wintry
conditions Subaru Outback sand all-wheel
drive type cars are like hugely popular
yeah they're everywhere so kind of I
guess they're kind of reliable they get
you out of trouble if you if you get
stuck somewhere that kind of thing so
yeah I don't see a lot of people want a
Reebok for them yeah
that's amazing in my the extent of my
knowledge for like cars in the UK did
you watch mr. bean yeah yeah yeah so he
drove that little mini so I assume you
that's what you have I'm not really yeah
everyone in the UK has a meaning of
course that's no I mean you have many
over now and we do the new mini the new
chirps which obviously they're German
now
but yeah there's a lot of minis here are
cause our cars are generally a lot
smaller than your cars because our roads
our Camry a lot smaller we have a lot of
tight corners and whereas you guys from
what I know from been to America you
have a lot of long straight roads that
are straight for a long time you don't
really need to worry about grammar out
too many corners but so yeah the cars
are different but yeah we all wheel
drive minis oh yeah typical American
okay we can move on to content so how
many articles are on the site at this
point okay we're up to about 85 I've got
a few more in the in the queue at the
moment they're just being edited and
being written and whatever I'm trying to
add maybe five every couple of weeks
something like that it really depends on
my workload and how quickly my writers
can get get stuff over to me I've got a
big list of stuff that I want written
it's just a case of getting it written
and getting it edited I only have one
editor at the moment and one writer so
it's a bit slow but then yeah just
regularly putting the content out I mean
I've got the ambition of maybe getting
it up to two three four hundred articles
and I don't know as big as I possibly
can as I said there is limitless really
ideas in terms of the content that I can
produce around roof boxes very good and
it sounds like most of them are sort of
product focused do you know the
percentage of like product versus
informational type content I'd say it's
really at least 85% product focused okay
I'm there are a few few articles that
aren't Ruth boxes reduced sorry are
ebooks focused but I'm just trying to
see if any of them are performing well
in my analytics not really no yeah
generally all product focus their buyers
guides how long her most of the buyers
guides they're between 1,000 and 2,000
words some like that okay and if you
experimented with like like shorter
content under a thousand or a very long
content maybe over 3,000 words just
curious yeah I've got a few that are
short maybe five 600 words I'm not got a
couple of them not not more than a
couple of them I've got a couple of long
ones I did a big dried on Thule which is
a big manufacturer of roof boxes that
seems to be doing okay so I called that
the ultimate guide the Thule roof box is
- I noticed there are a lot of questions
in Google or around Thorley like are
they waterproof how do they make them
how do you pronounce thoroughly all
those it was it through I don't know I
thought I'd package all those questions
together into one article and call it
the ultimate guide but yeah that's like
14th on my list of of content that's
pulling in traffic so I don't know I
don't know whether it's worth always
investing in these longer I don't know
I'm still kind of fun in my feet on this
sure and then well you sort of describe
like that particular ultimate guide it
sounded like you just did research on
the questions and then answer those do
you is that usually how you format such
a guide or was it that one-off case
that's not only how I'd approach ya I'd
see a lot of questions around a
particular theme and then I'll just use
that as the subheadings
in an article so yeah I could have had
maybe four or five 600 word articles but
I thought in that particular case I've
just put them all together into one and
see what happens because I was hoping
that quite often you see when people and
do a search on Google with a question
sometimes it's not the the main title of
that article that comes up but there'll
be a hot link on Google or a quick link
that jumps you straight to that question
on that article and that's what I was
kind of hoping to get that kind of that
extra little link that you get on Google
where it's got the article but then it's
got you know just skip straight to the
answer to this question I've achieved it
on the article I only need to look into
a bit more detail traffic very good okay
so just to sort of wrap a couple things
up before we move on to like your
off-site SEO approach so initially you
had a bunch of keywords that you were
kind of thinking of using keyword
research tools and you kind of moved
away from tools and realized hey there's
so many long tails with questions I'm
gonna focus on those you have about 80
plus articles or so and you have roughly
85% of those are product reviews and
before we move to the link building as
far as your team so it sounds like
you're not writing the content what's
your content team look like welcome at
the moment I've just been outsourcing it
to brokers on anyone on my own writer so
there's a couple of companies out there
that's you just literally order you
content you give them some keywords you
give them what your on the article to be
tell them how many words you want and
you pay them some money and then they
deliver an article I know I need to do
better at that that's an area that I'm
lacking mainly because I just haven't
got around to go through the process
which I know is quite a long process of
actually finding my own writers but I
think because the problem with using
these guys sometimes you get some
articles and they're fantastic they're
well-written they're exactly the kind of
tone and everything that you want and
then you put another order in and you
get something completely different and
it's because you know these these
companies have got the whole teams of
writers and you never know which one
you're gonna get so that's something I
want to do in terms of my editor I found
a guy who actually he contacted me
through my channel I think I'm one of my
live streams I was saying I could really
do with someone to help me with
publishing the articles because I want
them to look nice I want to add Prada
tables I want to you know to I want to
find some videos on YouTube that are
related and just kind of make the
articles really rich and I didn't have
the time and and he popped up and said
I'll do it for you and he's abroad the
rates are very good and I've been
getting a good relationship with him so
I have him he publishes all my articles
I get them back from the article
creation company I send them over to him
with all my affiliate links and I do the
imagery so I send him over the featured
image I send him over a Pinterest
graphic and any other images that I
happen to want to include I've got a
nice stock subscription so lots of nice
stock photography and then he lays it
out he does some more research he puts
all the products into a nice table he
finds any relevant YouTube videos that I
can embed and just generally makes the
Articles that really good and he's done
a fantastic job and he's really well
priced so really happy with that and
it's really kind of increased the
productivity of this way I'm able to get
stuff up a lot quicker sure and thanks
for not mentioning any of the specific
content companies I know it's always a
challenge to like get good quality and
like you said it goes up and down I know
you've had some struggles with some
content companies which you don't have
to mention them specifically but can you
just if you're willing to can you talk
about that a little bit if anyone who
goes back through some of the videos on
my channel will probably better see who
that was they're not around anymore I
don't think but I found that content is
a big area for a lot of people and
people were constantly asking me you
know who do you recommend for content
and I do have a couple of companies I'm
not gonna mention them now they don't
even have affiliate programs I just
mentioned them because they're good
they're not they're not bang me but yeah
a little people ask me about content so
I actually thought about selling content
services which is what I did for
cover-ups but yeah I found that the
content I was getting was unreliable I
found it was difficult to communicate
you're just a complete nightmare so I
think ultimately the best bet and you'd
probably agree with this is you find
some writers that you can work with and
stick with them and keep them happy and
build a good relationship with them and
that that's probably best way to do it
but it's just that entire process of
finding writers and hiring them and
getting some good ones and getting your
head clear in terms of what you want
from a writer and it's just I haven't
really had the time to sit down do that
it's all my things of list of things to
do because again I want to create a
video around that entire process of
I don't know if you've done one on this
where you were you basically document
going on to up work looking for writers
and just share the whole thing and
that's what I'm looking to do but I'll
go to that point yet
so I've done I've talked about the
process of doing that but I haven't like
gone into upwork and done all the
details like in a public fashion I I
have shared that in some capacity
elsewhere I do have a student who she
actually followed my process wrote a
just killer guest post on my site I paid
her for it wasn't really a guest post
and if you follow it it will crush it
works really well and I think she
published like it was like 80 89
articles and 90 days or something like
that where she published just like a ton
of content and hired all the people from
up work went through the process so I'll
send you that link I'll put I'll put a
link in the description for anyone but
yeah if you follow it like it works I've
done it she improved on my process and
then she's done really well with it but
there must be a bit of burn of writers
that's right word where you you hire
lots of people but then you also have to
fire quite a few of them as well because
they're just not not delivering I don't
know the right tone the right the
grammars not good or yeah they flake out
is that I guess that's thing because the
other thing is you want to create all
this content but you don't want to spend
too much do you you want good quality
articles at the the lowest possible
price otherwise yeah you know it comes
up and I guess that you know that's the
thing there with all these kind of sites
there's an investment and you know
people need to know that there's an
investment and it's gonna be time or
it's going to be money whatever you've
got most of I guess oh yeah and for me I
feel the I guess be success in failure
rate about 50 percent so if I needed a
team of five writers I'd have to hire
ten now I just chatted with someone
who's publishing a lot of content over
the past like year or so Morton which
I'll put a link to the video whenever
whenever it does come out
but he has about ten or eleven writers
at this point in time he said he had to
go through about a hundred I'm not sure
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