this is another success story interview in this interview I talked to Graham who
reached just about $1,500 a month now he's a five-figure niche site
student so it was pretty cool to catch up with him I also had the pleasure of
meeting Graham a few weeks back so we'll insert a little intro here and before we
get started I want to sort of warn you that the audio and video quality
suffered quite a bit through the the process so Graham was very patient
working with me and hopefully you'll be patient too now I will provide a
transcript as well so check the link in the description in case you want to dig
a little deeper and read through interview so sorry about the audio
quality and the video quality I'm not sure what happened I think it could be
some connection issues but anyway without further ado let's go over to the
interview what's up I'm actually on location with Graham here we happen to
be sort of close by so I came by to say hello how are you doing today hello
there mr. Cottington it's it's nice to meet you in person yeah and like not
that many people are in the Bozeman area so when he was gonna be close by I
thought hey we should we should do something so we're hanging out we had a
couple beers earlier beautiful weather here sort of near the Grand Teton
National Park and we're going to show you an interview in a second and we're
gonna go over three main points will sort of will have to massage this and
figure out how we're gonna say it but there are three really cool things that
we're gonna talk about in the interview so first let's talk about revenue so in
in the last month like how'd you do so I just cracked the four figure mark like
last month all right I did about 1200 and it looks like I should do about 1200
this month again cool and then how about traffic what are you looking at for
traffic traffic I'm averaging about I would say 1400 a day like that a lot of
traffic suite and I guess one of the other big points that I know just we've
been chatting about internet marketing for quite a lot of hours now but
basically I mean you really have like some persistence and a lot of people
like don't have it's interesting because when when you
first started working with me your site was a little like the niche was it was
that yeah isn't that ideal however you're so stubborn that you were like
you stuck with it and I mean I took a look and we gave I gave the blessing and
I'm like all right I think you can do it and you persevered and it's working out
now we got a full interview we're gonna get into the details but I thought we
could do like a live interest since we're actually standing here next to
each other so you ready to go to the interview let's do it
all right hey it's Doug here I'm sitting with my friend Graham how are you doing
today hey how are you doing well it's summertime here in Bozeman so I look
shiny it's actually sweat it's warm in this room and I had to turn the a/c off
while we're recording so how is it where you're at were you located by the way
I'm in Boston so it's nice I'm sure I'm sure the listeners really want to hear
about the weather weather patterns in my life but it was really hot and now it's
cooled down so the whole city like gets really happy when it's nice out because
the winners are so brutal oh yeah you know totally beautiful all right you're
right nobody wants to hear about the weather let's get into the results
Graham totally right so your your student of
five figure niche site you enrolled like last summer so we're coming up on one
year can you tell us about revenue and traffic on your site yeah I was June
2017 and then I had a site my main site was live for about probably three or
four months before I found you and found all your great content I like to preface
that because my results have been pretty good but I also have like had a little
bit more time and I don't want to be like unfair or anything if that makes
last month and that was with about forty five thousand people and this month July
2018 I'm hoping to do sixteen to seventeen hundred so I and about fifty
thousand ish people so it's growing month after month
very cool congratulations by the way that is it's an
some amount of revenue and a ton of traffic really cool I know what your
site is because you know when you when you joined up I took a look and I was
like you know this is a kind of a rough niche right I don't know if you should
move forward with it but after we talked we're like let's let's see what you can
do and how did you persevere knowing that it wasn't you know you're not
personally interested in it it seemed to be kind of a weird one and yeah just
tell us how you push through that's a very generous retelling of my friend how
I remember it as you said like probably sinners out there like Doug is the
nicest guy who's like like it's a weird niche the product price is really low
there's some weird like authority sites so you you pretty much said like don't
do it and I essentially said I'm stubborn so I kind of how did I do it
ma'am was perseverance I guess in retrospect I should have just like not
been so stubborn and I guess probably spent all the time that I've worked on
it like following the course more and you know starting a new site but I've
made it work I mean I think that's a good example to where you know it looks
like maybe it's not a great one even to an expert I would call myself an expert
so even for some people I would say like yeah you know maybe somewhere else but
you you fail like you applied the lessons from the course and made it work
and like exceeded my expectations and probably your own too right would you
have imagined a year ago that we would be doing a success story on you after
you made like 1500 bucks probably not on this first site but again I think part
of its just like a temperament thing like I would like to say that I work
really hard and like to sink my teeth into things but I think the reality is
I'm like stubborn and maybe slightly obsessive about this stuff so like I
kind of had to make it work I don't know I think I'm a good example that like I'm
not sometimes you'll go like on YouTube or on
their authority sites to throw shade and you'll hear these these stories about
people who it's like oh I made 50k in affiliate marketing my first in my first
you know year you know I'm already doing 5k a month to fork a month or whatever
like I'm not one of those examples like I'm doing great and I'm super grateful
for all the success but like I think like if I can do this anyone can do it
and anyone can do it in a bad niche I mean you should but like as long as
you're moving forward you can't fail and I say that only because like and you've
a code this and some of your other in your lovely lovely content like most
people fail in the beginning right they like I don't know they never even
finished the course or they register the site and then Georgie or they they put
out four articles and they don't see anything and they quit you know like
just get through that hump and like it will come just keep moving forward
indeed yeah and I think I mean that's a perfect way to put it now I'll pull us
back on track a little bit cuz I Georgie distracted me
for a second but I'll recap the results really quickly so you're making about
fourteen fifteen hundred dollars a month currently you've been growing it and you
know the site's roughly like 15 16 months old something like that yeah yeah
excellent now we'll dig into the details some you
know some of your strategies and stuff like that before we do just curious
about like your background education stuff like that
background educate you shouldn't who is Graham I graduated from school here in
Boston with a degree in information systems so I was always kind of tech
business oriented I suppose I come from a long line of
salesmen so I guess this is this is kind of sales yeah right I was working in
real estate for a while and then I found this and honestly I I just kind of fell
in love with affiliate marketing I don't know what it is it's it's something
about watching the the numbers hiccough it's just like I think it's a
cool singing the world it's pretty fun and you know from the intro people know
that you and I hung out for a little bit because we were sort of in the same
region it's not often when someone comes anywhere close to Bozeman Montana so we
hung out some I was gonna say I had to give you some advice on not being so
obsessive on checking your stats but it's totally natural when you're just
getting started so I hear you on like just liking the
affiliate marketing model because it's so it's like you control it at that
point like versus having to work for a company which I did for a long time all
right let's get into like the nuts and bolts of your site so like from a
Content standpoint how did you approach it sort of like before you started
working with me and then afterwards and what's your current approach with
content when I started it was all just really bad right and I had no system and
I was just like throwing things out there and you know I was I had some kind
of guidelines I'm shooting for a thousand word articles or whatever but
it right here like a newbie and you don't know what you're doing and it was
it was just all bad right so I I think before I stumbled across your content
which like really was the game changer for me and it I found a way to like
systematize it and all that stuff I had like two sales and I made my first
dollar and I was I was just hooked right I didn't know I knew I wasn't doing
things like optimally but I knew that like this this dream is real and you can
do it so I got my first few sales and then I was really excited and then
actually Amazon rejected my first application which was a real gut punch
it turns out I was just you know the site was just not good you know it
looked kind of spammy and I was pulling the images wrong anyways found your
stuff learned about kgr the cage er is really like the bread and butter for
everything I do like that's probably been the most important thing in the
development of my life as an affiliate marketer I honestly I applied everything
that you said in the course you know the framework it works yeah
okay works so you were writing like about a thousand words per post or
something like that how long's your content now by the way I'm up to about
70 posts now and at around the probably the 4550 post mark I I was getting
burned out right because it's it's hard right it's hard to write a thousand
2,000 3,000 words every day usually what I do I have a couple writers and I'll
find the keywords and I'll send them stuff and then usually what they send
back to me isn't anywhere from 80 to 90 percent complete so like and that's fine
for me I can spend like an hour or two like adding little products or adding
stock images or add links you know share all that stuff and I'm honestly I'm
really happy with that system because what I do best
I feel like is fine the keywords find the opportunities right and then I let
like I let these lovely writers like time to do the the grout work and I'm
happy cuz like I get to do what I love and they're happy because I'm paying
them a fair wage very good and you know I've kind of find that too cuz I am a
slow writer and typer and stuff so it's much better for like people that are
qualified to write to do that and then I could add it okay but yeah cool and
where'd you find the writers was just on up work I can remember I think I I got
this advice from from the course so just like higher
I hired like five and I came over the exact place the exact numbers but I I
set out like I hired five and then like two were really bad and one just like
plagiarized another article and then two were like pretty good and then like over
time they adapt to kind of your style and you're the one it's in your needs
and so now I have like two really like great writer so I'm really happy with
but for like for the newbies out there like definitely stick at it because the
first time I hired a writer it just went like horribly and I was like item
we're doing this again it's really good and like it like anything else it takes
time to really like optimize the system it's a skill for sure and I think yeah
that is from the course like you're probably gonna have to hire about twice
as many people as you meet because some people are bad I mean you may get lucky
and 80% of them we're gonna be good but you also may end up on the other end
where I don't think like one out of five is good but yeah it's gonna be a little
rocky at first for sure yeah and I always tell people like keep
in mind it's it's an investment like people are really adverse like like they
really don't want to spend the money sometimes and I'm like I'm living proof
that like with my not great niche lucky you the money comes back and it comes
back over time I think I pay my writers like 20 25 bucks an article something
like that with change gears and talk about keyword research so you mentioned
that the keyword golden ratio has been really helpful for you so you smile a
little and then also like just if you had
trouble at the beginning finding the keywords oh absolutely I have a tendency
to like get meta in rants so I apologize but like any other like part of this
it's the hardest at the beginning right so in the beginning I distinctly
remember seeing I think your original video on the kdr I remember being like I
don't want to do all this work and then I like try doing it and I like for those
of you who are familiar with the cage you are anything above like 0.25 ish is
like hard to compete right are slightly more difficult to compete and then
anything over like one is like really hard to compete I was finding like
threes and fours and fives like no like terrible keywords right but eventually
over time you just get better at doing it and you get better it kind of like
feeling out like oh this could be a good part of this niche this could be a good
informational guide and then you find them and I think I mean that's a great
point like anything that you're just starting out at and then you see an
expert do it it looks impossible right I mean you could pick like any example I
don't know if like juggling or playing basketball or
anything like that the first time you go out on the court or you're trying to
juggle I don't know why I picked those examples by the way I have to do it boss
I think that's why so the thing is it looks impossible but once you spend some
time like you can really get better at it so nowadays gram right like you can
find kgr terms much faster right yeah it feels really good because it's like
you're like oh this isn't this is another opportunity I don't know what
I'm doing keyword research you'll just go on this little run we find twenty of
them and you're like you know awesome so stay with it do you have any tips on for
like you know down in the weeds like technically do you have any tips on like
how people can find them a little more easily definitely download keywords
everywhere for those of you who aren't familiar it gives you a little it's this
like browser extension that gives you an estimate for local monthly search volume
and that makes it like really easy to just like everywhere you go on the
internet when you're doing your daily life you can like just kind of start to
get a feel for things and you can find them much more easily I suppose nice
yeah I use keywords everywhere as well and yeah it's it's a great tool and it's
free so we'll definitely link it up alright so moving on to like link
building so this is one of the things that people hate doing by the way
so have you done a link building I don't need to know this is like the area where
I am most efficient I have done some kind of basic blog commenting and stuff
like that but like no real outreach or anything substantial like that and I
know I should cool what I mean the thing is a lot of people don't like link
building so there's so many of these key word golden ratio stories where it's
basically I just published some content that was pretty good
followed the kgr didn't have to do link building that's great I mean if you do
that fantastic now if you can you know managed to build some links I mean I
usually see things get better but I mean if you could do it without building
links I mean more power to you of course it's
the kind of thing where like the barriers to entropy for this are so low
that like if you're willing to take the time to like reach out to people like in
organizations and all that sort of stuff because it's 99.9 percent of your
competition is never ever going to do any of that stuff and it's just one more
way to kind of mode your self off from from your competition do as I say as I
do right and I think I mean you made a really like the whole like point is the
barrier to entry your right is super low like you can start a site and buy like a
premium theme and get a year of hosting and probably a tool or two for like two
hundred bucks right really low amount of like investment and then if you're
willing to say look up keyword golden ratio terms that seems hard to do right
it takes a little while to do it and then you're willing to you know do some
outreach where most people are not going to go to LinkedIn you know find people
that will interact with you and potentially like promote your site let
you do a guest post link to your site whatever right most people are not gonna
do like any of that stuff mm-hmm so yeah really good point on that that's
a good process that you describe to where you're like go to LinkedIn you
know check organizations like reach out to them in a channel if that is not
crowded like I mean I get and you probably do too I get like two three
emails per day asking for guest posts most of them just get delete it.now cuz
there's just so much garbage but on LinkedIn I mean no one's reaching out to
me on LinkedIn at all no one reach out to me
good good point good point there so let's talk about mistakes all right so
we want to learn from your mistakes you made a couple at least along the way
maybe more so what can you share with us well the first big mistake was like
picking a terrible niche and then picking a terrible domain name
like a not very brandable domain name so I would say like rule of thumb just make
sure it's not make sure sounded awful domain name you know like make sure it's
not something where people are gonna go like what you know what I mean
and I know I know Graham's domain name and I'm just imagining like if you have
like hats and t-shirts and stuff really go I mean I can't say it but it would be
pretty funny to see that you know no good Graham is super patient we've had
many technical issues probably on my side I made him switch laptops made him
do all sorts of stuff we're coming back to talk about mistakes so Graham was
just saying that the domain name he made a poor decision at the beginning before
he started with five-figure niche site so that would be something to tweak but
it didn't hold you back you know it didn't hold you back that's a good
lesson there so what are some other mistakes that you know you've learned
along the way you could share with the audience I would say one of the big ones
like in the beginning when you're new you're always super focused on things
like what color should my button be and like what's the best theme to optimize
conversions all that stuff and like those matter but like not really because
like the old the old phrase like content is king if I could go back in time and
like redirect all that time and energy I wasted worrying about the color of my
buttons I'd have like 50 more and a lot more money coming through every month so
just like focus get everything like done it's better than perfect
so like make sure it's passable it's fine and then just like the the job is
the content you know the moneymaker is the content and end link building and
all that stuff but sure the summation is don't spend time on things that don't
really matter focus on the stuff that'll make you money indeed yeah you know I
hear that often where it's like you know just get something out that's good
enough you can adjust along the way in your
site's a classic example of that cuz the domain name isn't
great but it's good enough and wouldn't when I first saw your site it looked a
little spammy but it was good enough and you know you made weekd a couple things
and eventually you you know honed in on the most important parts so and that is
the most important thing all right very cool any other mistakes that you want to
share I know I harp on this all the time but the other thing is like people
expect this to be quick and easy money and in reality it takes a lot of time
and hard work and patience so I guess the big mistake I made was
like expecting fast results and like not enjoying kind of the journey not to make
it all hippie-dippie but like set reasonable goals that you can accomplish
and then feel good about it right like alright I want to put out 10 posts this
month or whatever five posts all right I want to make $50 on this new site within
six months okay that's doable people like set these incredibly high
goals like I want to make 10k a month in six months and then they never start
because it's not you know that would require so much work and it's just not
feasible huh sorry so this success of your site is impressive given you know
all the hard work and time you've put in how has it impacted your life it's been
tremendous it's given me so much more kind of like just time you know I do
this from home I don't have to commute I don't have to change into a suit you
know I can decide to go to the gym during the middle of the day when it's
busy because that's what I want to do I mean I've said it before and I'll say it
again like Doug cutting can has changed my life and this stuff works and it's
incredible so literally all those changes have been it I will say it can
be isolating at times but like that's a super small price to pay and like you
just don't know you called your buddies you Skype with your friend dog or
whatever right on yeah thanks for saying that really appreciate it of course and
for people that are I mean you've given you know bits and pieces of
advice for for new people but for some person who maybe they just started their
site or maybe they're looking to start their site what advice would you give
them to help replicate what you done this might be boring but it's kind of
it's really the same the same advice it's just like he keep working hard
focus on things that matter and be patient and it takes time it'll take
that time the more you learn and you know refine your skills but it takes
time I'm sure you can attest to this like and I know you're I'm sure your
students and listeners can when you first start doing like research in a
certain for certain keywords or for a certain niche or whatever you see like I
mean I saw dozens and dozens and dozens of just like dead sites right so I said
have ten posts fifteen posts they were ranking you know they're ranking for
what I was searching for but like people just want like they just expected too
much too quickly and and if they instead were like slow and steady they could be
making you know well into ten four or even five figures yeah now for sure all
right good advice and I mean I agree on all
points now one last question depending on when people are gonna watch this they
may or may not be able to enroll in five four your niche site but enrollment
opens soon right enrollment is probably coming up soon from like when we're
recording this I recently received an email someone was like hey who would pay
you Doug two thousand dollars to buy a course I thought you were a genuine guy
but I see I'm wrong and I was like hold on the price of the course does not make
one genuine or not the person by the way how did we had a good interaction but
why would you pay you know two thousand bucks for a course where maybe you can
learn that stuff for free on YouTube or whatever so how did you make that
decision in the past I took another course and I won't mention the name the
market or anything like that but it really wasn't good and it you
know kind of led me to create this P site and I felt burp I absolutely and
and I'm sure many people have been burned by it I stumbled across your
content like you have such a rich amount of great free content and I emailed to
you and he seems like not a snake oil salesman and I was able to implement
like some of your ideas and I saw I started seeing success like almost
immediately you know within a month or so so I knew that it was at least had
the gut feeling that it was JIT I purchased the course you know we're
friends now but like I'm I'm not just out here shilling me your stuff like
it's phenomenal it changed my life and the reason why I would say like it's
worth it to be a five-figure Nick side student is yes you can find a lot of the
information online for free there's no doubt about that and you've always been
upfront and honest about it the thing of the many people who want to start on
this journey don't have hundreds of hours to digest all this just scattered
information through throughout the internet and they can't tell you know
there's a lot of stuff out there that's not good advice and you can't in the
beginning you can't tell us it what's good not what's gonna harm you what's
gonna set you up for success by enrolling and if I figured they'd say
you're essentially getting the blueprints to success right I don't know
it was totally worth it for me if you're not gonna buy the course but you still
like love what is teaching you then like be a nice person and use his affiliate
links because I know him and he spends hours and hours and hours like hell just
helping people without any sort of like monetary or turn heard from it so thanks
I wish I used your hosting affiliate links in your SEO affiliate links but
come on man you gotta use the links alright I'm glad you said that stuff
I mean when you look I mean the course isn't for everyone right some people
just don't like me all right so that that's fair too and
they like other people instead when you look at you know the actual ROI from
like you bought the course and like in the last two months you've already made
more than the course cost and then you have an asset worth potentially you know
twenty thirty five thousand bucks something like that right I mean that
worked so I mean obviously you put in a ton of time I'm not taking into account
your time and the hard work and all that but yeah from a monetary standpoint it's
like if it's the right person at the right time the course could be a great
investment and I personally had bought courses that were I didn't buy any
courses for like first three years I was doing any of this stuff but in the last
couple years I bought courses that were like you know 1,000 to 4,000 dollars and
100% like made their money back you get access to ask questions to experts which
is part of like one of the big values is you can send me an email and I'll answer
your question or you know potentially you know talk to you and help you
through an issue or whatever so anyway we'll get off that soapbox all right so
thanks Graham for taking the time to talk to me in the niche type project
audience you're you keep a low profile which I appreciate so if people want to
get in touch with you get ask questions in the comments or grams in the five
figure niche site Facebook group so if you do join up as a student he looks in
there a little bit so thanks Graham really appreciate it
thank you talk to you soon I want to thank Graham for joining me
and sharing his story so hopefully in a few months we'll get an update from
Graham and we can do a follow-up interview so if you have any questions
for Graham be sure to leave a comment and I'll check them out thanks
you
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