hey what's going on this is the Doug
show in this interview I'll be talking
to Brett who's a college student and he
was making 500 bucks a month at the time
of the interview now this is an
interview I did a little while back
originally published over on the YouTube
channel so by the way if you're just a
podcast listener that's that's awesome I
understand some of the limitations on
where we can consume certain content but
if you haven't checked out the YouTube
channel yet you should definitely check
it out I'll put a link in the show notes
and description but if you just go over
to youtube and search for Doug
Huntington or if you search for a niche
site project or keyword golden ratio
you'll probably find my channel and then
you can subscribe and you can see some
of the other content that I have out
there
so Brett shares his story with us and
you'll find that he actually got started
with affiliate marketing and stuff a few
years ago so like a lot of the stories
that I cover people have a little bit
more experience than you know being
brand new basically so it takes a few
years sometimes to figure things out and
as you gain more experience you gain
more confidence to try things and I
don't think it's an accident I don't
think it's a coincidence that people
have a few years under their belt before
they have you know some groundbreaking
very interesting success story as normal
after the interview I will answer a few
questions and most of the time I get
these questions from YouTube comments or
emails that are sent to me by the way if
you want to ask some questions you can
go to youtube and ask questions in the
comments I usually just kind of scour
those and filter for questions over
there or you could shoot an email over
to feedback at Doug show just feed back
at Doug show and if you are a little bit
bold you can even leave me a voicemail
message and that number
is 406 eight one three zero six one
three four oh six eight one three zero
six one three now that is not my actual
cell phone number that is a Google Voice
number so you know keep that in mind I'm
not gonna answer the phone but you will
be able to leave a message there and ask
a question you can tell me where you're
from
other details stuff like that and would
love to you know get a voicemail that
would be cool we can start putting them
on the show here
all right so without further ado let's
get over to the interview with Bret this
is a super interesting interview because
I don't even know where it's gonna go
so I'm sitting with Bret right now Bret
how are you today I'm doing great how
are you doing pretty well it's snowing
right now it's snow like three inches or
the house I mean I could drive around
but I'm just like I don't want to go out
there it's like wet nasty snow so by the
way where are you located
well I am currently at Greensboro North
Carolina nice got some good barbecue
right on there pulled pork up stuff
right before I missed that up here in
Montana so so here's the deal with this
interview everyone and I guess Brad I'm
gonna bring you in on this because Bret
contacted me months ago we exchanged a
couple emails he said he was gonna like
try and work on his niche site fast
forward several months he said I've done
that I've made a lot of progress I've
published a lot of stuff and are you
actually making money right now
I am I'm making between 500 to 750 a
month super cool so congratulations by
the way that's like the top half percent
like most people and never even started
a site even after they like know that
they can and then even fewer people
continue iterating on so congratulations
like that's really impressive and anyway
so I really don't know much about Brett
at all other than we exchanged a few
emails so now I know you're from or
you're in South Carolina so what are you
doing there can you tell me like what
you do for your job how did you
find niche sites so I'll just turn it
over to you about foot intro so I'm 22
years old currently a senior in college
and gonna finish up this year and I
really got into niche sites in affiliate
marketing right six years ago maybe
through micro niche sites kind of super
small sites and kind of been on and off
since then had a little success in the
beginning and then kind of got lost
along the way
gotcha gotcha and so you said six years
ago yeah
program little gotcha and then did you
like launch his site but if I did the
math right you were like 16 or so so did
you actually launch the site back then
what happened I want my very first site
actually purchased of blackhat world I
bought it for like $49 or something like
that was one of those pre-built sites
yeah and I bought that and actually paid
I don't know $50 or so for backlinks
actually ranked pretty high and made a
couple hundred dollars nice the venturi
I got penalized but he's kind of you
know then from there launched a few
sites had a little success and then I
don't know over the past five years I've
probably made twenty sites or so okay
cool cool it's always interesting
talking to people when they are making
some money on the side especially you
know five to seven hundred I think
that's a really good spot that's
probably worth like you probably priced
it out you probably have a better idea
but that's probably worth like twelve
eighteen thousand depending on a couple
factors so pretty impressive but like
most of the time if I talk to someone
who has a site like that usually they've
like launched several maybe not twenty
but like they've launched several along
the way it's crazy you get started when
you were 16 it blows my mind I was like
cutting grass and like washing cars at
that point in time so things are
shifting a little bit so cool so what
are you studying in school what school
to go to there to the University of
North Carolina at Greensboro and
Business Administration major got it I
guess I'm curious like how you started
following me like what did you implement
cuz I know you contacted me a while back
just I guess bring people up to speed
with what you've done over the past say
eight months or so mm-hmm so the main
thing that stuck out to me about you was
the adding a bunch of content and not
focusing on backlinks as much but more
about finding low competition keywords
to go after so site I think I have
messaged you in the beginning of summer
somewhere in spring and late spring and
my original plan was to add 100 or so
articles based on low competition
keywords and put them all onto this site
and just see how it would improve
traffic and revenue and since then I
think I've added about 85 articles cool
and I mean I've seen great results so
far awesome and through the I guess
through that period of time did you do
any backlinking or anything
I had a few backlinks before then I
probably had five guest posts or so okay
period I probably got five to ten more
but not a huge amount okay cool so it's
like under 20 total and your main focus
was content for sure like 85 articles is
a lot to orchestrate I expect you did
you write them yourself or did you hire
someone out sourced 95 percent of them
okay yeah that's the way to go I mean at
that volume it's like an insurmountable
thing I mean that's kind of unless
you're a writer yeah then it's really
hard to do so cool very cool and how old
is is the site right now okay cool and
then when you first started it like what
was your approach just obviously it
wasn't like the content angle like you
shifted to so how did you approach like
keywords and stuff like that building
out the site our main focus then was
really on putting out like three or
1,000 word articles and just being the
best in my market because I thought
there's a pretty big gap and there
wasn't very much information in this
market so I just thought well I put out
a few of these big posts I'll probably
be ranking pretty high since it's the
best content right and then did that
work it took a little bit I kind of got
discouraged from the beginning because I
put out the content and then it did
immediately rank but right three months
later it started to rank so okay and
would you say rank did it rank like in
the top or where did it ring so I guess
in the first month or so is probably 40
or 50 maybe
and then that's worth three months it
was probably top ten are pretty close to
top two gotcha and then has it reached
like number one or is it still like in
the top ten or whatever there most of
them now are in top three or top five
okay and that's just with the you know
under 20 backlinks generally okay cool
nice well like I said congratulations
it's pretty pretty impressive overall
and I can probably in not in this
interview but in another interview you
send me some stats over so I'll share
those stats at least like where they
were at the time but it'll be
interesting to like keep you know track
of like the trajectory I'm particularly
interested in the retail season so I'll
tell you a secret that I don't talk
about too often don't tell anyone okay
so the keyword golden ratio by the way
everyone that is sort of the root of
what Brett has been working on what I've
like talked about for a couple years now
like the key word golden ratio is a way
to like publish content without having
the build backlinks backlinks will help
but you generally don't have to build
backlinks and you'll start getting some
traction the thing with the key word
golden ratio is you publish a lot of
content and like individual users are
going to your site thereby buying
something at Amazon and they're putting
other stuff in their cart let's say one
person is shopping for one particular
item which you review they buy that item
and they buy 800
for example the interesting thing right
I spend so much time trying to convince
people that it works that I don't even
get into any of the advanced stuff like
more savvy people eventually ask the
questions but instead of like revenue
going up like two or three times over
the retail season it goes up by like
eight or ten times because there's more
individual customers right and each of
those individual customers are doing
their holiday shopping they're all
buying eight items so instead of like
three individual customers you have like
ten and they've been all buying the
eight items so the math works out crazy
and I like hypothesize this a couple
years ago and sure enough when the
retail season hit like my revenue went
up by like way more than I expected so
fingers crossed that it will hold up for
me that it'll hold up for you because
instead of making you know five to seven
hundred it could be like four thousand
you're like wow like that came out of
nowhere so you'll have to let me know
I'm really curious now I talked a lot
I'm gonna shut up you had some questions
for me and I think it'll be useful
because a lot of people are sort of at a
stage where maybe they had a lot of
content they have a little revenue and
it's kind of like all right like 2.0
like what were you aiming for now so
I'll turn it over to you and you ask me
questions so my first question really
relates to finding Amazon keywords
because when you're interested in adding
all this content of course it's gonna
get harder and harder to find these
keywords that are real competition I go
to Google and I'll like look for like
the main term I'll use like permanent
marker I've just bought some new
permanent markers here I'll say like
best permanent marker and then I'll see
what comes up in like the autosuggest
you probably heard this before from you
but the autosuggest and then once you
find like a couple terms you can keep
looking at the you know also related
searches down at the bottom so those are
great in conjunction with keywords
everywhere the Chrome extension the free
Chrome extension you could like see this
search volume there so that's really
helpful with that you could find like
and tons of different keywords now the
couple paid tool options that you can go
after you can use semrush which is a
great sort of keyword research tool it's
an SEO marketing search engine marketing
suite and then a drafts provides really
similar information they have great
backlinks as far as their database go
semrush has kind of a poor database of
backlinks but that's not their thing so
either one of those tools could be good
to go to say your top 10 competitors
like look at all of their keywords like
download the CSV is combine everything
and then start filtering in like smart
way so I can tell you some options that
I usually do they can get you in the
right direction but like the best stuff
is gonna be things that you figure out
on your own based on what I'm telling
you so I usually look for longer phrases
so like 4 words or more I'll look for
anything that contains best because
that's a buyer's head keyword I'll look
for verses right product X versus
product Y so you can look for anything
with verses those tend to convert really
well because of someone like far down
the sales funnel at that point they know
the two products are comparing and I
mean I don't have the math in front of
me but if you have like five or six
products that you could compare to each
other that's like many many like several
articles that you could write not all of
them are going to be like perfect as far
as like keyword volumes and the kgr if
you could find it as an autosuggest you
should probably publish it because that
means at least like one person's looking
for it and then further with those two
things you're gonna have like more
keywords then you'll be able to publish
anyway just because some rush and age
refs have so much data so as far as
finding keywords that's sort of like the
deeper dive that you can go into perfect
then a second question is just general
internal linking for large sites this my
site has 125 posts or so once it gets
bigger and bigger
I think internal linking gets pretty
important right
oh I guess like what struggle do you
have with it right now so I mean my
basic strategy has just been I have a
camera what it's called the one of those
plugins that just shares related posts
and I also try to include at least one
or two or three links to somehow related
articles on my site okay I think both of
those are probably good I don't go to
plug-in route I I don't know if this is
true but I have a feeling that Google
doesn't like value those as much as the
in content link so it may be sort of
like a something that I think because of
like what I know about backlinks and
stuff like that so I don't know if it's
true but I don't use one of those type
plugins I do the you know like in
content like in the body of the post
I'll do links to other articles it's
great if they're related but I even link
to other stuff that's not really related
you know it's an article about the the
marker but maybe I'll link to notebooks
or something like that so it's kind of
related but not not really I mean it's
the same kind of user that would be
interested in it but it's not really
tied to it and as far as like
implementing it or something like that
like there's no real shortcut right like
the way I do it so I get every single
URL on my site I did this I've done this
a couple times every single URL on my
site and then you just make sure there's
a link I mean you could hire I hire
someone to do it right so it's basically
like web research and like being able to
use WordPress but they go in and they
check to see like external links they
actually logged them and document where
they are there are tools that could
probably do this for you like faster but
at the point where like I see like a
certain post doesn't have outbound links
to you know intern or sorry internal
links to the same to my site right then
I'll want to have some added and then
vice versa I want that many links coming
in so it is a purely manual process I
don't know a way to like do it
automatically because you have to
puttin anchor text to write every time
you put a link in like you're impacting
the anchor text and that's important too
as far as like a strategy just like slow
and methodical if you look at like the
whole thing that you have to do it's
overwhelming but if you're just like
head you need to look at one post today
to post today do them then and this is a
remarkable thing like when I actually
interlink to my site like everything
moved up a little bit it creates a
really good passing link juice through
the site as what people like to say so
to help I guess piggybacking off that do
you have any strategy for anchor text
when you're doing internal linking first
I just got anything that's well then
I'll make sense yeah really
anything that's relevant and makes sense
I know it can be more of a science and
there are you know specific ratios that
you want to stay and and all that stuff
but usually because I don't want my I
mean these are like writers and editors
who are doing this work for me so I
usually they're not SEO experts and I
don't actually want them to be SEO
experts because like I don't know where
they learn their chops or anything like
that so these are just like people that
can communicate well and they can read
and write well which is all I need so I
just tell them you know make it a long
phrase like a full sentence like it's
usually gonna be keyword rich maybe you
have the title in there but not always
so it's kind of just like hey whatever
makes sense team you can do that so
that's how I manage it another question
is do you use any other affiliate
programs other than Amazon no and then
the caveat like on my sites where the
main goal is Amazon I don't
there is one site where it's like in
another niche and I I have some like
Clickbank product summer physical
products summer info products but it's
in like another area I'm not as
interested in that it doesn't bring in a
lot of money there's not as much traffic
there it's like a hundred bucks a month
so I kind of I usually don't talk about
it but on the Amazon site like the goal
is Amazon like sales so I only focus on
that point
as far as like ShareASale or commission
junction or anything like that
you can get like higher commission rates
potentially but often times you're not
gonna sell as many items this stuff I
was talking about before like if someone
is picking like one item they buy
Commission Junction you obviously only
get credit on that one you don't get
credit for everything in their cart that
they're buying from Amazon so it's a
trade off and I'm sure for certain
niches where products aren't offered
well you're better off going with
something else or if there's an info
product that fits you could do that but
I just I haven't messed with it and I
have a low interest in it what is your
favorite type of backlink whether it's
the easiest or what you found the most
effective for these white websites yeah
I think probably just like the guest
post angle just because that is the most
straightforward you know it seems to
have positive impact it may be a little
slower than other types of links but you
can do those in a way that is really
hard for your competitors to emulate and
copy and that's what I'm going for
I don't want someone to be able to just
go to my site check out my backlinks and
then pay to get the same links that I
have because they can see that all they
have to do is like offer money and then
they can get it so through building
relationships and making it like hard to
copy and hard to recreate it sort of
builds a moat hopefully around the
competition there around my site from
the competition rather to stick with the
moat metaphor is there such thing as too
much cons are probably but I think the
risk is like keyword cannibalization and
for the people that aren't familiar it's
like if you have to post on your site
and they're like really similar Google
is ranking the wrong one for what you
want to rank and like basically your
cannibalizing your own results and Ziff
like that and with the keyword golden
ratio it's like likely to happen because
things are so closely related and it's
one of the biggest you know
people are really afraid they're afraid
of putting too much content having thin
content and they just don't do anything
right you didn't do that you published
stuff you tried it and you see what
happens and sometimes something ranks
for what you didn't intend to and then
that's what I do I just publish
everything and then I see what Google
reacts to because I could do something
with data right let me do something with
the results and I can adjust but the
people that are scared to even try to
publish something or they're afraid that
Google isn't gonna like it well then
they have no data and then either they
don't do anything or they're publishing
stuff it's just not gonna rank the same
what I usually do is combine the post
and then 301 redirect the one that I
moved right it's a slightly technical
kind of a pain in the butt
but I don't do it that often because
frankly I don't check that often as far
as too much content like that would be
the risk otherwise I would say like for
these types of sites you could publish a
whole lot of stuff and you're gonna have
a whole lot of traffic it's probably
gonna be fine and do you have like a
specific example where like maybe I just
didn't mention it I think you covered it
pretty well so if you had a site that
said my site has 125 or so posts and I
potentially had enough keywords to go a
thousand posts in the next year or two
right and they weren't too closely
related say you'd recommend just going
after it yes in general however I will
tell you I just published like over 200
articles in the last like two months or
so and it costs six thousand ish dollars
maybe a little bit more so it was a
little pricey like the site's making
good money I've just reinvested so it
wasn't like out of pocket reinvested it
and when I took a step back I realized
that it was easier for me to spawn up a
Content team because I had pieces in
place already so I did that because it
was easier thing is if I would have
spent $6,000 on white hat outreach and
link building activities I maybe could
have gotten
like 50 or 70 guest posts I would have
taken more time from me because I would
have to train the team and stuff that's
a lot of posts that I could have gotten
maybe would have taken a little bit
longer and stuff like that but I mean
links can make a huge difference
especially let's let's just pick a I
guess a hypothetical example without
specific keywords or a specific keyword
if I would have gotten like 20 links to
a specific post that would say ranking
number 3 and it has 8,000 searches per
month that one page alone could be worth
like 10k a month so you have to look at
like the cost the best ROI and as I took
a step back I was like ah I published so
much content I have been publishing a
lot of content but I haven't been doing
the link building part which is
important when you look at content that
is not kgr compliance so now I'm like
okay I need to dedicate resources to
link building and potentially like
instead of adding more content Brett
like you maybe would want to improve
content that's doing well maybe
something's ranking number two you only
have a thousand words what would happen
if you made that four thousand words
long maybe you get like tons of long
tales that you didn't even know we're
out there and then you know even if you
don't move up to number one you could
like improve the traffic to that page by
a lot so instead of publishing new stuff
maybe just like double down on what you
already have that being said I don't
know if you have a specific answer for
this or if it depends on the site itself
have you noticed between link building
and content if one has a better ROI I
think there's too many factors yeah
there's too many factors so I know like
for project go white hat if people
aren't familiar this was a site that I
worked on with my friend Rob and we took
it from like a grey hat site with
private blog network links and then we
got a bunch of white hat links to
replace him so this particular site I
think it only had like 45 pages when I
started working on it with Rob we added
more right we had a kid to our content
we
dup the content was a good ROI but also
was a small site like comparatively
speaking and was pulling in like 10k a
month
the thing is Rob dedicated his resources
to the link building portion of it and
the private blog networks I don't know
his like upfront cost on that but I mean
he didn't have that many links going to
the site but it was pulling in you know
five figures a month so looking at that
I expect there's some blend there's
actually like best I think if you just
did content you're gonna have some
trouble and if you just did links you'll
have a little trouble but a lot of times
and that your project or whitehat site
was like sort of proof of it the content
was not great it was passable at best we
had like powerful links not many but we
had powerful links from this private
blog networks before we converted him
over and that like did pretty well if
you have a site I see more sites with a
lot of content with no links that don't
do anything so my my hunch is links are
probably like they're a little bit
harder they're a little more expensive
to do you can make more mistakes with it
so I have a feeling like there may be a
slightly better ROI on links okay but
there's too many factors like if you put
the relinquishment of content that was
on that site and it was because like the
way the links were created the way they
were done these were white hat links too
but just the way everything played out
like it wasn't making rankings which is
sad cuz like that's a lot of links you
should be able to like just about rank
for anything with like 50 pure white hat
links so cool any other questions that
you could think of here
unrelated question in the future of
affiliate sites do you think we're gonna
see Wes and Wes I don't know small sites
1015 page sites compared to a hundred
page sites you know probably I feel like
people are shifting that way our sites
are shifting that way just generally
because I mean I think when affiliate
marketers we're doing like more gray hat
stuff sites tended to like get penalized
more often there was more churn I feel
like there's a group of people that are
building sites now that are doing stuff
that like you know cements them in
they're trying not to break the rules
like myself and stay there and reinvest
so sort of like firmly plant the site in
place and thinking brands and media
companies not just affiliate marketers
so I think like with that in place yes
however there are so many new products
and like longtail keywords and you know
key word golden ratio ideas out there
that like you could just keep going sort
of or keep going and finding keywords
and have like smaller sites that like
start getting traction and then from
there of course you could like grow the
site a little more now the other part of
it is I mean things are going to shift
right so like affiliate marketing will
shift and maybe there's a lot more video
out there right like maybe the there's
like a whole slike group of people a
whole set of I guess youtube type
affiliate sites where it's like based on
YouTube channel and I mean I know people
do have they push those products on or
push products for example like if it's a
I watch a lot of like how to do YouTube
channel stuff so they talk about cameras
and stuff and they're like recommending
products I'm sure they're doing really
well those are high-end items like I
purchased through those links because
you know they have good reviews so I see
like a shift like sort of like that but
I think all the skills will stay the
same
I sort of like went I talked about what
you asked but I also give like more
stuff too so
cool alright so Brett question for you I
guess what are your what are your goals
your senior now you're gonna graduate
soon are you looking to go into the
corporate world are you gonna keep stuff
on the side do you have any idea like
where where you're leaning right now I
mean the ultimate goal will definitely
be to make a full-time income from sites
I know graduating and six months might
not be possible currently but eventually
down the road I think I'd like to be
doing affiliate marketing full-time cool
cool well it's totally possible a lot
can happen in a few months but the
slight risk with the affiliate sites is
like you don't control the traffic you
don't control the program so there's a
little dicey however you have you
probably have like fewer
responsibilities now than you will in a
few years so if you're gonna ride if
you're gonna pause on the the corporate
stuff now would be the time but it is
I'm sure there's like good recruiting
stuff happening around there but yeah I
don't know you know and I did I talked
to Matt diggety the other day for an
interview and he did like a corporate
job for like nine years I did one for
like ten and it sucked but I think like
the the stuff that I learned in there
the politics all the stuff that we had
to deal with we learned a lot through it
and it really translated well but both
he and I had sort of a tech background
and like an engineering background so
sort of the project management the
deliverables like all the sort of
structure stuff was good the politics
were bad we hated a lot of it but yeah
it's just interesting cuz like I learned
so much and it would have been cool to
be doing this sooner but I think I had
to go through all of it put everything
together so that probably doesn't help
you it probably confuses you more but
just wanted to throw that in Thanks sure
sure well it's great catching up let's
check in and you know a few months see
where you're at and like January is
something like that so thanks a lot
Brett do you want people to follow you
anywhere
or not follow you anywhere or whatever
death totally up to you
I have a blog called passive niches but
it hasn't been updated in a little while
so I have to get back on that too
passive niches calm okay cool we can
edit this to put the right thing so how
about fate doing people to follow you on
facebook or now okay so yeah maybe
people can follow you on Facebook and
that'll be like the place where you know
if they want to connect with you or
something like that in fact don't
connect with me connect with Brett
because I try and stay out of Facebook
but all right thanks again and we'll
talk soon of course thanks a lot to
Brett I really appreciate him taking the
time to tell his story and do check out
his site which I'll leave a link in the
show notes and description and stuff
like that so you'll be able to get to it
now I don't mention it too often I don't
push it too hard but I do have a course
called five-figure ditch site and it is
my premium course on starting an Amazon
affiliate site and one of the key things
that you get out of the course there's
two main areas that are a huge
differentiator I think between like
other courses and my other content that
you can get either on my niche site
project blog or on youtube so there's
tons of content out there and you know
once you start looking around there is
an overwhelming amount of content so
number one I think one of the huge
values of the course is what is not
included there are many many endless
number of things that you can do that
maybe even could help your site a little
bit or help the process of you creating
an Amazon affiliate site however maybe
they don't help that much maybe they're
more of a waste of time and like I said
there's like endless endless numbers of
things that you could do that may or may
not be helpful maybe it doesn't hurt you
but it doesn't really help you that much
so the one of the key things of the
course is it's a framework it's
framework of what to do in the right
order and I outline you know like a
framework would be outline you know what
you do and take you step by step so you
don't have to worry about you know step
75 when you're on step 2 right that is
part of the overwhelming thing that
happens for example and how be easy for
me to go off on a tangent here so I'm
gonna rein it in a bit but when you are
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