hey what's going on in this interview I
talked to Spencer Hawes from niche
pursuits and this was a very exciting
interview for me to do I got a lot of
inspiration and learned a ton from
Spencer over the years so we talked
about that a little bit we talk about
why Spencer likes software products we
talk about why he's not gonna release
courses anymore and he actually
confirmed that it's not a marketing ploy
he actually is not gonna sell courses
anymore and some of his other current
software projects and ventures so buckle
up this is a great interview thanks
again to Spencer definitely check out a
niche site project for I'll put links in
the description for everything and let's
get to the interview now
hey what's going on it's Doug Pennington
here from niche site project in the Doug
show and this is a great honor for me
I'm talking to Spencer Hawes from niche
pursuits how are you doing today Doug I
am doing great it's great to be on your
show thank you and although I won't get
too gushy but you helped me get my start
and I obviously took the name of my blog
from one of the projects so you were
working on a niche site project so I
thank you for that very much you're
welcome it's a good name and yeah so I'm
pumped to have you on on my show now and
we're gonna talk about a lot of the
stuff that you have worked on a couple
of more current things and for the
people that don't know you can you give
a little bit of an intro like what do
you do right now
and it would all on your background sure
yeah the very quick background I came
from the corporate world working in
finance as a banker there and discovered
that I didn't enjoy that a lot
so was looking for ways to supplement my
income and stumbled through this is over
a long period of time but stumbled on to
building websites SEO and building I
learned that building very small niche
rank quickly and Google for easy to rank
for keywords was the way to go for me
and so over a period of a couple of
years I built a bunch of these websites
they earned enough money for me to help
me quit my job I was making more from
these little niche websites than I was
from my day job and this is back in 2011
is when I officially quit my day job
thanks you know all my income was
essentially Google Adsense at the time
and then you know I've gone from there
but that that's my background so SEO
building lots of little websites have a
lot of background in keyword research
when I quit my job I started niche
pursuits calm which is where I still
blog today about building websites SEO
anything related to online marketing
then I also about the same time in 2011
in 2010 created longtail Pro which is a
keyword research tool software company
that I grew became you know a
significant business for me I sold that
in 2016 so omlette about three years ago
right now sold that business which is a
great exit it was a lot of money so so
that was that was a big sort of business
check point for me there but now I do
continue to build some websites we can
talk about niche site project for where
I built a site publicly for everybody on
niche pursuits com that they can check
out and then of course blogging and
continue to grow niche pursuits I now
have a wordpress plugin called the link
whisperer
it's well we can talk about that as well
and then just launched something called
motion invest which is a sort of unique
way for people to buy and sell smaller
content websites so I think that pretty
much covers everything that I'm kind of
doing right now so a little bit of
software a little bit of building
content sites other things but yeah just
really enjoying being able to work from
home which is where I'm at my home
office here and you know enjoying
spending extra time with my wife and
kids when I have a chance to you know I
was gonna ask so you're doing all that
stuff which sounds a little overwhelming
but you find a way to do it and you have
it yeah I mean you're a family Rand
right so you have a lot of other
responsibilities and I think it's
probably the only way that this job that
you've created for yourself is the only
way that you would be able to spend this
much time with your family so I guess
how important is that to you like right
now and did you know how important it
was gonna be like when you first you
know left your full-time job yeah it's
it's hugely important family's always
been important to me you know when I
quit my job we had think
just had our third child we now have
four so I am I'm a family man married
four kids I love being able to either
drop my kids off at school in the
morning I'm there when they get home you
know I'm coaching my son's baseball team
right now and so I'm able to you know
make make that time work very flexible
schedule if I want to go out to lunch
with my wife which we do every now and
again of course I can do that I can take
an extended lunch so it's it's extremely
important to me and just the flexibility
of schedule and having that that freedom
to work when I want I don't think I
could go back to a corporate job even if
I was making the same or more money than
I am right now the freedom is hard to
put a price on big time
absolutely very cool so let's let's take
one of the projects that you're working
on it's a niche site project for and for
the people that are unaware I'll link up
all the like podcast episodes and blog
post so people can follow along it just
had its birthday of one year so can you
sort of take us through the like overall
project and like where it's at right now
yeah so obviously by the name this is
the fourth time that I've done this on
niche pursuits com I like to share
what's working for me and the best way
to do that I found is to do what I call
a public project where I basically start
from the very beginning and say okay I'm
going to be building a ditch site I'm
gonna be sharing everything publicly
that goes for you know researching what
niche I'm going into keyword research
how I'm building the website what
plugins I'm using how I'm doing the
content you know link building
everything and so that's what I've done
with this niche site project for I
started in September of last year 2018
and yeah I'll let people read all the
details but essentially yeah I started
then found my niche and I
essentially outsourcing everything
because I'm so busy and I've been very
clear that if people want to build a
site cheaper than I'm building if
they're able to write the content
themselves it's not going to cost as
much money but I've hired writers I've
you know outsource really everything on
the project I am just the mastermind
behind it doing the keyword research and
once I get the plan in place I've got
people sort of fulfilling that and so
you know I built it and it took almost
well I made some Commission's and I
think December was the first time I
actually had earnings so September
October November almost four months old
and then when it hit just a little over
six months six to seven months old it
started earning and growing much more
consistently I should probably pull up
my numbers but it was something like you
know $150 in you know after it was six
months and then it's grown consistently
and peaked at about a month ago it's
just over $1,300 in August of 2019 about
$1,300 had a small dip to like $1,100 in
September and I think that's you know
partially seasonal personally for other
reasons that I gave but the site's doing
really well it's grown I expect it to
grow significantly in the next 6 to 12
months and I've yeah I've laid it all
out publicly and since it is public like
we revealed the domain at this point
it's owned the yard calm where I cover
basically everything that's happening in
people's backyards and it could be
backyard gardening backyard games
backyard gear and so that's kind of the
niche that I'm in and the site if people
want to check it out and I think well
one of your first public case studies is
one that I followed and I learned a ton
so highly encourage people to definitely
check it out I get questions all the
time like what should a site look like
what should I do for a particular review
and so on like what should a table look
like all those details like you can go
dig in and follow like what Spencer's
done from the very beginning so everyone
check that out and by the way there are
spreadsheets it was
studying before we started to call so
like every month it's broken down like
what what the incomes from where the
expenses are going each month so you can
track it along the way and right now are
you ROI positive or you still catch it
up right now so still catching up right
now yep because I've outsourced to
everything you know I've invested
several thousand between fifteen and
twenty thousand dollars you know in in
the year the site has like a hundred and
eighty articles that's where the bulk of
the investment has come from as all the
writers there so I've spent more than
I've earned at this point but I I'm
catching up and if I were to stop
investing so heavily you know instead of
doing 15 to 20 articles every month if I
just scaled that back to three or four I
would be you know making up like a
thousand dollars every month pretty
quickly yeah so and I think it's key I'm
doing this a similar case study except I
bought an existing site that was already
six months old so like the growth maybe
is a little bit quicker but yeah I have
this you know with the audience there's
the same sort of objections if we don't
have fifteen thousand dollars like what
can we do in you can there's a variety
of things and you've covered that in
other like case studies an example so I
mean right people shouldn't think that
it costs that it has the cost that much
you could definitely DIY a ton of it so
yeah absolutely
that that's a great point some people if
they have less money and more time
that's where they should focus is
spending the time and writing the
content and you know it's also an
interesting case study I think for
people because it helps them understand
how long this can take I think a lot of
people read success stories oh I've got
a site making $5,000 a month and that's
true but they don't always see that well
that took two to three years of really
hard work to get there and yeah it's
nice to have that passive income of five
thousand or ten thousand dollars a month
but you do have to put the work in and
so I'm trying to show that
that even after a year of a lot of work
I'm only making $1,000 a month maybe
maybe that's really good some people are
saying wow you're making a thousand you
know I'm it's not you know quit your job
type money yet but in a couple of years
I hope to 10x you know where it's at
right now
and I think that's feasible and I mean
it's a good point everyone's coming from
a different spot and I don't know if you
can remember this but maybe you blogged
about it but do you remember like the
first dollar or so that you made and
like do you remember the site can you
talk about is it still around that kind
of stuff I the site is not around
anymore but I do remember it for sure I
had started a blog
my very first site is I started a
finance blog because my background is in
finance and so it started a little blog
I just didn't understand you know
competition levels and so I got very
little to no traffic right I was talking
about credit cards and getting out of
debt like the most competitive thing on
the planet almost right but I do
remember some of the first Lake Adsense
clicks that I got and just how
validating that was to see like whoa
this is really possible because for a
long time you might read about other
people that are making money but until
you see that first dollar come in then
it clicks and you go ok this is a real
way to make money you can do this and so
I remember that still vividly and and
yeah that sort of changed everything
yeah same for me it was like actually
exactly what you said absence I didn't
know what I was doing but I think it was
like 37 cents or something and I showed
my wife I was like this this is the
start of something of course I spent
thousands of dollars later on stuff
before I actually turned it around but
yeah it's pretty humble like the mindset
totally shifts it does one thing before
we shift cuz you know obviously you've
had some success to be to understate it
quite a bit you had some success but
like if you had an
issues you know I've found this to be a
rollercoaster ride where you know things
grew really fast I thought I was going
to quit my job and then in my case I got
a Google penalty you know it was a Roth
and I was like huh I don't know if I can
do this
so do you have any like mistake stories
that are interesting I've got a lot
probably more than I'd like to share
yeah like with the successes comes the
the failures as well so I blogged
publicly about a few of these you know I
I quit my job I was making over $10,000
a month from my Adsense websites things
were going along great and then Panda
and Penguin came along you know 2012
like a year after I quit my job and
those were devastating not to just other
people but to my sites as well
so a lot of my sites overnight traffic
was cut in half or worse and so that
yeah I I went through that and if people
aren't familiar with Panda and Penguin
they were Google algorithm updates that
that decimated a lot of sites including
a lot of mine and so I I wrote about
those and and that so that goes way back
but I not only that but I had my Google
Adsense account shut down at some point
I don't remember you know the years it's
getting a little hazy now but you know
2013 I don't remember but that too you
know I had I want to say like close to
$10,000 ready to be paid out to me and
the account shut down and when you go to
log in it doesn't give you any reason it
just it's like two sentences it says
this at Google Adsense account is shut
down
and that's like it you don't get paid
out you have no recourse there's nobody
to contact a Google Adsense so all of
this happened to me so I've had lots of
devastating things happen to me just
sort of a follow up to this story
recently you may have heard about the
the lawsuit the class action lawsuit
against Google Adsense because of that
very specific reason that I just
mentioned they closed lots of accounts
and gave no recourse
there was a class-action lawsuit that
just finished this year against Google
and so I did get a small Google Adsense
check that or a class-action lawsuit
check for that I mean it was peanuts
compared to what I should have actually
got paid out it was I don't remember a
few hundred dollars so I got that this
year which is kind of funny like six
years later you know Google doesn't say
they're sorry but I you know I get a
couple hundred bucks so good grief yeah
and again I just wanted to emphasize
that I think you alluded to it before
like we hit the I mean we're marketers
right like we're trying to share
exciting stories we have some nice
headlines that if you don't dig in and
you don't understand that it was like a
couple years and maybe a couple dips
before people figure things out usually
those are when we learned the most and
sort of like have to deal with the
adversity
do you have any tips for people that are
like experiencing perhaps an algorithm
update and their traffic has dropped by
30% like any specific tips or just a
mindset sort of way that you approach it
yeah maybe maybe two things one is is
definitely mindset that at least I found
this and so I can share that business
has always been very much a roller
coaster and so you know a lot of times
we hit those highs and we celebrate but
there are loads like that either it's a
penalty or just business isn't going
well and that certainly happens even to
me still to this day and I just need to
remember
that it's not the end of the world that
if I look over my history I can see that
it's always been these ups and downs and
if I sort of average that out life is
still very very good and so there is
part of that as a mindset that it's okay
to have those downs as long as you're
willing to maybe adapt and change
don't put your business plan in stone
because we work online and online
businesses change quickly and so you
need to be willing to adapt and change
so that's one the other one that's
gotten me through a lot is
diversification of my business to be
honest and so when my Google Adsense
account got shut down thankfully some of
my income was Amazon Associates
thankfully I had longtail Pro and niche
pursuits and other things going on that
were making me enough money that I
didn't have to go back and work at a
corporate job so I look back on that if
I hadn't started a software business or
done some of these other things I
probably would have had to go back to my
full-time job and so that would that
would be my tip is to maybe diversify
and don't always put all your eggs in
one basket perfect segue I could tell
the Europe odd caster so link whisperer
I recently picked it up actually it's
the weekend you release it or whatever a
week that I could get my hands on it I
bought it you didn't give me a free copy
or anything I want to make sure
everybody knows that I really like the
tool I've seen epic results I haven't
shared it what's in it I'm gonna be
doing a blog post I'll give you a heads
up on what's going on but yeah really
good results can you let people know
like what the idea of the tool isn't the
problem that you have solved with link
whisperer
yeah thanks for picking it up I'm
looking forward to seeing your results
I'd love love to hear those as well so
you and I we build lots of sites and one
thing that we know is really important
you
is on page optimisation and part of that
is building internal links links are
important google has made that very
clear and internal links still count as
a link in Google's eyes you can pass
link juice from one of your pages to
another page on your site and so we know
this is important the problem is is that
it's quite a chore or we're forgetful I
know for me and talking to other people
I know they're the same way you get
really excited you find the key word you
get that content published and you hope
it ranks right but you don't always
think about well I should build some
links from my own articles to that page
and if you do I applaud you that's what
you should be doing and even if you know
you should do that it's still a chore
right it takes time to go and find ok
what are the related articles now I need
to go into each individual article and
edit that and add that internal link
it's time-consuming so I built link
whisperer to answer this problem link
Whisperer is a wordpress plugin that
really does three things when you're
writing an article in the WordPress
editor right below that as you're adding
content it will suggest internal links
for you it's smart enough to read your
content and say we found you know here's
a sentence and you're mentioning this
phrase it's related to this other page
on your website and so it might have 10
or 20 suggested links all you have to do
is go through check here's 3 4 5 links
that I want hit update and those links
are added automatically it's a huge time
saver for people you know writing
content whether it's you or your authors
the other thing that it does is that
scenario that I just mentioned
after you published an article you
should build internal links to that page
and so you can go into link whisper and
pick the article that you want to build
a link to and it
we'll then suggest you know 1020 links
you select the ones that you want and
it's done again huge time-saver and it
can be hugely beneficial the final thing
is just overall reporting for your site
it reports how many internal links each
page has how many external links it has
and overall gives you you know a big
picture of how many links whether
internal external that each individual
page has and so you can quickly sort and
find those orphaned pages that have zero
internal links or one or two and help
you improve the site structure you know
using link whisperer so that's what it
does in a nutshell it meets a huge need
I know for me and it sounds like for you
and for a lot of other people building
websites yep definitely in the other
three things that you mentioned the step
two is like the huge huge one because
it's fairly straightforward like if you
published a new article you can link you
know in our brains we know other stuff
that we can link to and we do it in an
article we post however it's very
tedious to go back and find the old
articles to link to the new one and
that's that's the game changer I think
now right I know some people out there
shaking their fist perhaps and saying
hey like I can pull this report
somewhere else and do that stuff and
again like you said I applaud a person
that knows that they should do it and
they have like the discipline that are
using like screaming frog or some other
tool or right you know there's a lot of
them out there that will crawl your site
but they tend to be more technical in
nature and you end up with a CSV which
has you know 45 columns and it's kind of
unusable and link whisperer
gives it to you right there in fact I
recommended it to two students of mine
that picked it up and they you know they
thanked me later so awesome I didn't
even give them an affiliate lis you know
I liked it that much so thank you but
yeah it's super easily like you said if
you're if you're really technical you
could probably find tools and and get
spreadsheets and do it this is
WordPress plugin you install and that's
it like you just go to the reports and
it's done and so people are probably
thinking while you're a Renaissance man
you can write you're building all these
sites you have the finance background
and you're a coder but you're not a code
or write how did you develop this thing
yeah I am NOT a coder
that's not my background at all I wish I
was a lot of times but no I've
outsourced all of that I've hired mostly
freelance developers to do that you know
so I'll go to like up work and post a
job and you know pick a developer that I
think is gonna work well and I manage
that whole process I come up with the
ideas and the plan and they implement
okay now how do you deal with support
because that you know getting the
plug-in and a proof of concept kind of
way you can test beta you can improve it
but over time WordPress is always
updating there's all these other pesky
plugins that are causing problems so how
do you deal with that in a freelance
environment yeah so support specifically
for link whisperer I started doing a lot
of the support myself plus like a VA so
we were both in there but I wanted to be
in there seeing all the bugs you know
seeing all the questions seeing all the
issues that people were having and to
respond a little bit quicker when I
first launched it call it for the first
month month and a half and then by that
time my VA my support person was kind of
ups to speed and and now she's doing all
of it I'm I'm very rarely in doing the
the tickets and the support at this
point only if there's something
escalated or more important so so I have
been able to outsource the support as
well as long as you find somebody that's
a little bit familiar with WordPress and
really good at customer service you can
make it work yeah and you don't have to
answer this but can you share like how
much it cost roughly like the magnitude
to develop a plugin Oh to develop the
plug-in I'll give you like a
cost per hour right so I pay my
developer like 45 dollars an hour right
and it took let me let me give you like
a month timeframe it took like four
months to develop the the plugin that'll
that'll give people it may be a rough
range right it's not an exact things
they sometimes we're full times
sometimes we're you know skipped a week
you know but that that gives people a
range okay cool yeah very very
interesting like you obviously like
software you've done a few of these like
what is it with software that you enjoy
so much one is I think I come up with
good ideas so I you know sort of pat
myself on the back you know I I made
yeah right right I know I tend to be an
idea guy you know I write down lots of
ideas and the ones that I really like I
want to see them come to fruition so
that's one thing is I just kind of got
that creative bug the other thing is I
really like software as opposed to and
we can compare this if you want another
rabbit hole to like online courses
because software tools I know people are
using right it's it's it's a tool that
they apply in their business and they're
definitely getting utility they're
getting use out of it and so I like that
I'm creating something that I know
people are using and benefiting from and
I you know online courses and I have
written about this as well something
like ninety percent of people that buy
an online course don't even go through
the whole thing right so that's why I
like software so much more than a lot of
other things because they use it they
buy it they use it very cool that
totally makes sense and I have a couple
courses out there so definitely
understands what you're saying and
actually you know ask for a few
questions from my audience a couple
friends and stuff and they were like ah
is this just a marketing thing from
Spencer that he's getting
of courses so you're you're good to go
you have some other stuff you want to do
right absolutely yeah so people
listening to the podcast on YouTube like
I just within the last month have stated
very publicly that I am never going to
sell another online course so if you're
hoping to buy an online course for me
sorry you get all my information for
young you pursuits calm like go read my
blog right it's all free
I really am getting out of selling
courses it is not a marketing tactic I
vacillated on this for years honestly
and I finally just put my foot down and
said it's just not what I've enjoy the
most I enjoy software more and I enjoy
other things more like building websites
more than I do selling courses and so I
finally I put the put my foot down not
only publicly for other people so they
know but also for me I've drawn a very
public line in the sand that if I were
to ever go back on I would look really
really really bad and so I've done that
as a way to keep me from ever going back
but no it's not a marketing tactic I'm
done the doors are closed now so people
can't even buy anything anyways if they
wanted to so I like it I like it so
let's see here before we move on I
totally lost my train of thought
so I knew it was gonna be no worries
always mad that's all right I've done
lots of podcasts and it's crazy like
just the line of questioning or you know
the answers that are given just take
things in a different direction and you
know that's okay yeah I had a good one I
may leave it in for the podcast people
people actually enjoy these you know
they're in their car they're not going
to switch it they're forced to listen to
us now we mentioned earlier that you
have motion invest and you literally
just launched it publicly I think today
is we're recording this did what's
what's that all about yeah so motion and
best calm is I'm a partner in that one
of the co-founders there's there's
other people John Gilliam from authority
website income comm and then then Kelly
is another one of the co-founders that
isn't as public people don't know but so
there's three of us running the business
we saw a gap in the marketplace for
buying and selling smaller content
websites so if you're looking to buy a
site let's say making around $500 a
month there's really no place for you to
go as far as a traditional brokerage if
you're to go to Empire flippers or fei
internationally quietly brokerage you
probably are not gonna find a site
listed making only $500 a month it's too
small for them right these guys are
focused on selling million-dollar
businesses that's where they make money
they would love it if every site they
sold was you know seven figures that's
just the reality and so you're left with
either going over to flippa.com which
there's you know lots of sites there
making in that price range perhaps but
I've heard tons of stories of people
getting scammed
there's no verification of income you
know flippin isn't on there somebody
doesn't verify that this is a legit site
sellers go and self-serve sellers will
make their own listings create that and
so unfortunately it does become a little
bit of a Wild West you might buy a great
great site but you might not you might
just totally get get scammed and so
motion invest we're hoping to fill that
gap we are selling sites making between
$50 and $2,000 a month and we have pre
vetted all of these sites and in fact we
are not a brokerage we actually own all
of the sites that we are selling so
we've vetted it enough to feel
comfortable actually buying the site and
so once we've purchased the site you
know we then list it and so hopefully
that gives people a little bit of
confidence knowing two things one they
know that we've at least pre-vetted that
site we verified the traffic where it's
coming from the the links
the income and we provide all the
screenshots and everything there but -
they know who they're buying it from
they're buying it from us they're not
going to be dealing with other sellers
you know if you want to get a call and
actually talk to somebody about the site
the owner of the site we are the owner
of the site and so you can call and talk
to us so that's the gap that we're
meeting that's what literally just today
we just launched and so we're really
excited about it we've gotten on some
early positive feedback already very
cool and I I hear from quite a few
people who are in that range exactly
with their sites and they they don't
have anywhere to go
they try and get me to buy it and I
expect that's probably what happened to
you and John chatting with him a couple
weeks ago so I imagine that's exactly
what happened and how you you were like
you know what we can help everyone out
because it's interesting you know you've
known you know Empire flippers for a
long time right and they started
downstream and they've slowly gone
upstream is the market has grown so
there's this big gap I mean there's
still a lot of money for most people on
those sites have you I guess like if I
can ask
I imagine the business model is you're
able to you know buy a little bit
cheaper and then maybe add a little
value
somehow or another there's a lot of ways
to do that and then you're able to mark
it up enough where it makes sense for
you guys to do this whole thing right
yeah yep so I'll I'll give you insight
into the business model here no problem
and I should clarify you just mention it
that we are buying sites so if you have
a site to sell we want to buy it you
know we're looking to buy sites that are
you know in that range content affiliate
niche websites the things that Doug and
I talk about all the time that's that's
what we're looking to buy and so that is
how we make our money we hope to buy low
and sell high you know that's basically
it and because we're not a brokerage we
are not charging a brokerage fee so if
online earning,make money online, earn money online, online earning, online earning sites,
make money online free, online money income, earn money online free, money online, best way to earn money online, online income site, money earning websites, best online earning sites, easiest way to earn money online, earn money payment bkash, online money income site
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment