I think it is important for people to
realize that you know even a well
qualified person hopefully like myself
working on a niche site or you know an
internet marketing project in general
runs into issues like there are always
issues that pop up there's a lot of
things that are outside of our control
so you just heard me talking that was an
interview with my friend Dom Wells from
human proof designs the blog in the
human proof podcast in a while back
Dom interviewed me because I sold a site
with a partner of mine for two hundred
and thirty five thousand and in this
episode we go deep into all the issues
that we ran into Dom does a really good
job introducing that concept so I'm not
going to repeat it here I'll let him
sort of introduce everything before I
send it over to the interview I will be
answering some questions at the end as
normal and one thing I'll point out I'll
probably point out a couple of times is
I covered this in a I think twelve or
thirteen part blog series called project
go white hat on niche site project and I
got a lot of questions throughout that
time period through all those blog posts
that I that I published so I'm gonna
answer a few questions from there that
you may have as well I'll put a link in
the notes for project a white hat the
blog series so you could check that out
and you know what I'll just send it over
to Dom right now to get started with the
interview Doug had a project where he
partnered up with somebody and they had
a gray hat site that was doing very well
it was making a lot of money but the
link profile was grey hat so that means
they used some web 2.0 some pp ends and
they wanted to make it white hat so
guest posting and other legitimate links
like that so that they would get a
higher earnings multiple when they sold
the site sometime in the future and as
usual Doug's got a ton of in
some really good tips but what is
interesting about this episode is that
we're not actually gonna talk about all
the great things that happened we're
actually going to talk about all the
that Doug and his partner had to
overcome when they were actually doing
this site it's something that there
aren't a lot of people talking about
because you know we all like to focus on
the great things that have happened like
oh how I increased this or how I did
that and what we've done is create
another two part series where in this
first episode that we're on now Doug's
just going to give the overview and he's
going to talk about some of the issues
that he had to overcome and then in the
next episode we're gonna spend a lot
longer diving into all of those things
and talking about what Doug actually did
so give this first episode a listen and
then wait for the next episode I'm
recording this introduction after we've
already recorded the episodes so I know
there's an immense amount of value in
the hey Doug I just wanted to hop in and
say that was the intro portion and now
we're heading over to the interview as
we'll soon find out you've just sold a
site for a lot of money and whereas it
could be very easy for us to just focus
on how how great that is and everything
that you did to get that what you've
suggested is we focus on the actual
issues that you encountered along the
way and that's a fantastic idea because
I just know that there are so many
people out there that have these issues
and no one really talks about it in the
kind of blogosphere right yeah you know
now that you mentioned it out loud it
sounds funny that I want to talk about
my issues but I think it is important
for people to realize that you know even
a well qualified person hopefully like
myself working on a niche site or you
know an internet marketing project in
general runs into issues like there are
always issues that pop up there's a lot
of things that are outside of our
control so yeah I'm happy to dig into
some of the problems that I ran into
with selling the site
why do you think it is that maybe people
aren't talking about their issues as
much like you know the so-called experts
like us basically I think we're probably
embarrassed a little bit we don't want
to you know air the dirty laundry and
let people see that we made mistakes and
it puts us in a vulnerable spot where
you know perhaps you know we think
people could use it against us but I
think I'm finding a little bit that
people appreciate the realism and the
authenticity of you know sharing the
real story behind what's happening yeah
I think you summed it up pretty well
there it's definitely embarrassing like
I I'm doing an over-the-shoulder case
study and my membership right now and it
just feels like every week I'm psyching
myself up to say yeah yeah this thing
didn't work I'm gonna try something else
and I know that you know maybe 10 weeks
from now or I don't know at some point
I'll be sharing the successes but I just
feel like I need to keep saying this is
fine guys okay don't worry I'm not
useless so yeah maybe we put pressure on
ourselves as well not to reveal all of
the kind of failures along the way right
and I think like since not that many
people talk about those mistakes less
people write about it in general because
it's not a common thing and they don't
want to be the outlier but apparently
I'm bringing that to myself and I'm
happy I'm happy to get that out there
because I think it is really important
you know from the beginners mindset of
like running into issues like you'll run
into so many issues along the way and
surprisingly that doesn't go away your
issues just change to be bigger most of
the time and sometimes a little more
complex yeah that's very true and I
think until you've had your first
success you don't really know what to do
about these issues so when I go to a
site now and I'm having issues I'm
thinking okay well yeah this is what
happens or like if a site isn't ranking
or if progress seems slow I just kind of
go back to my previous
sites in my memory and I just think okay
this is normal this is what happens but
for all those beginners out there that
haven't got that they need podcast
episodes like this for reference so that
they can say to themselves oh actually
what I'm doing is fine because Doug had
those issues too and then they'll keep
soldiering on absolutely okay so when it
comes to issues what do you think is a
good starting point for your story so
well I'll sort of lay the groundwork a
little bit to just this give people the
context so I was working on what I
called Project go white hat and
essentially this was a niche site that a
friend of mine created and along the way
we figured out that he wanted to sell it
and that he figured that it would
probably sell better if it was white hat
based versus a grey hat based so he
built the site using web 2.0 Xand pbn
backlinks and it was starting to make a
lot of money like I said since he wanted
to sell it he wanted to get the highest
multiple possible and to do that he
needed to convert over to white hat now
turns out I actually had the skills to
you know work on a big project number
one number two I knew how to do guest
posting I was actually running guest
posting service for a little while so I
had a lot of experience and I I mean I
could do a good job at it so we
partnered up on this site last August so
that's 2016 so almost a year ago we
started working together on it and right
away right when we started working on it
he let me know in a Skype chat he said
hey I got some bad news
we're getting negative SEO on the site
oh wow yeah so that wasn't great and you
know if people are unfamiliar negative
SEO typically is when you know a
competitor or or someone will start
sending a bunch of spammy looking links
to your site usually it's like over
optimized
Anker tax and I'll use some sort of
automated software typically that will
throw up a red flag Google will see that
and you'll get like a message in your
search console that says you know
unnatural links or something like that
and you know obviously it's a bad thing
you have very little control over it
yeah so essentially they're trying to
make it look like you've tried to do
some link building to your site and
you're bad at it and they're trying to
get you like a penguin or a manual
penalty exact so did anything happen did
you lose any rankings or anything so we
didn't lose any rankings that we know of
and immediately my partner Rob who if
anyone reads a niche site project
they'll know Rob a little bit so Rob let
me know that this was happening and you
know the normal course of action is to
you know record those links and disavow
them in the search console and it's a
bit of a tedious process and it's not
fun right so you're copying lists and
submitting list of bad backlinks but it
is something that you could work around
so you know Rob took up that portion of
it and for several weeks he was you know
monitoring the backlinks and then
disavowing the ones that were bad and
had you know over optimized anchor text
okay so yeah that could have been pretty
pretty bad if Google had not spent about
seven hundred years trying to get the
new penguin out you guys could have got
ripped by the algorithm that's right
that's right it is a reference point I
don't think I mentioned it like the site
was making ten thousand dollars a month
when we were working on it so you know
not only was it a pain in the butt but I
mean that's that's real money that's a
significant amount of cash on the line
yeah that must have been pretty
stressful yeah it wasn't great okay
so in the end it turned out to be a bit
of a you know I guess a false alarm what
happened after that did you just switch
everything over to gray hat sorry so
and then and then it was all good or how
does the story continue sure so a couple
things were happening and I'll just sort
of lay them all out and we can dive into
each one as we we go on sort of
chronologically but another thing was
the site's content was just not that
good there were a couple issues with it
one you know the person that wrote it
was a you know hired freelance writer
they really didn't have much background
knowledge on like the topic so the
content just was not well written it
wasn't informed on the products and that
was definitely an issue impacting
conversions you know when it comes down
to it we would actually see comments
about like just having poor information
in there
so that was one aspect of the content
trouble the other was it was you know a
fairly small site 45 Post or so and you
know we wanted to sell the site for you
know multiple hundreds of thousands of
dollars and there's a certain amount of
value to having you know well rounded
site we didn't have that we knew it so
that was sort of like part one content
was an issue interesting so like I
totally get what you're saying and it
makes sense and I've had a site before
where maybe I didn't research something
and people let you know in the comments
and it's a bit yeah it makes you realize
oh I should do a better job here but at
the same time if the site's bringing in
ten thousand dollars a month it's very
easy to be like I don't really care this
contents fine you know so that's for all
those people out there who think their
contents not good enough to get
conversions well it might not be good
enough to get amazing conversions but
you can still make some money there yeah
it was very enlightening to see that you
know poor content can actually work
pretty well you know maybe people just
they wanted to get off the site and get
over to Amazon as fast as possible which
you know that's
flint to happen yeah they were like this
is terrible I'm gonna go see Amazon has
to say instead and you know thinking
about the I guess the importance of the
authority site model where people have a
higher value of higher perceived value
at least with like a larger site even
though it may not make a huge difference
in the long run and we definitely can
see examples of sites that don't have
many pages that are worth a lot and make
a lot of money but there is a perceived
value for sure and maybe real value and
having you know more content on a site
so that you know other aspect was
something that we needed to take care of
just in general
yeah that's a good point and I think it
depends on the niche as well like some
niches you just aren't gonna cut it with
a smaller 2040 page site and other
niches maybe you can get away with it
right right so that was you know issue
number one issue number two was just the
fact that we were you know trying to get
a bunch of guest post and I can sure you
know the actual real numbers of what we
were trying to do so there were about 45
private blog network backlinks going to
the site it's a pretty good number you
know significant number of them
additionally there were you know I think
a dozen or so web 2.0 links you know
from the Hoth specifically and you know
those gray hat links did a pretty good
job obviously like getting the site to
rank for a few very key terms now our
plan right was to just replace those
links the pbn links specifically with
guest post links the white hat outreach
that I was gonna do and we're just gonna
do a one-for-one the hard part is
there's not many case studies where
people take a gray hat site take those
powerful PBM links and replace
with white hat guest posting links and
if people do it they usually don't take
the time to write a case study about it
and tell you how they did it so are you
familiar with any other projects out
there similar to it those people just
sell the site and don't worry about it
yeah I mean as well like I guess I'm
more familiar with taking a site and
adding white hat links to it but
actually then removing the grey hat
links as well is something that I don't
think many people would do yeah
so and that isn't one of the mistakes
that I made I don't think but I will add
our rationale for doing this so when you
sell a site you get some valuation on it
and it's normally based on a monthly
multiple of the income the profits for
the site and the monthly multiple is
typically based on a variety of factors
the age of the site how long has been
making that current level of money if
there's some seasonality you know any
other external factors and another is
sort of the risk factor and one of the
risks that a broker or a purchaser can
consider is the kind of backlinks the
site has and from the perspective of a
buyer if you have the choice if you have
the choice to buy a site that has
private blog network links or just
regular guest post links natural links
in general most of the time a buyer is
gonna pick the white hat links and
because of that our assumption was that
we would get a higher multiple for the
site when we're ready to sell it that's
why we did it yeah I think that makes
sense and especially when you've got a
site this earning 10,000 because the
difference of like a 25 times 32 times
multiple was a significant amount of
money right and we got a 33 X multiple
to you know go ahead and solve that
mystery we did get a 33 X multiple which
was great and you know the other factor
which you know later
our friends Empire flippers let us know
that if you have those white hat links
you can normally get more interested
buyers looking and making offers for
your site and you'll usually get a more
favorable type offer where there's more
cash up front and that sort of thing
versus some sort of seller finance type
of a offer which turns out you see quite
a few of those because there's not many
people that have you know multiple
hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash
to make a purchase like that yeah I've
always wondered how that comes through
at the higher end of any other solar
site for five figures so I always write
who are these people that have got like
two hundred grand to drop on a site I
imagine they're you know a lot of them
are investor group types but you know
there are individuals that are you know
they made a lot of money on you know
maybe their own sites and they you know
see the value in you know maybe adding
to their portfolio and they do have you
know the cash ready to deploy like that
yeah that's definitely a case as well so
for everyone who's listening we're gonna
resolve these issues or we're gonna talk
about how you resolved them in the next
episode so what other issues did you
encounter there is one other big issue
and this was probably the most stressful
and most dramatic of of everything so in
February of 2017 we got wind that Amazon
was probably going to be changing the
Commission rate structure and we thought
hey it's probably not going to be a
really like great thing but hopefully it
won't be too bad and eventually we did
get the news and you know this is
something that people already know so in
March 2017 Amazon changed the
mission structure and basically
effectively lowered the Commission
structure for most people this was you
know really more of an impact for anyone
that was already making money so if you
weren't yet involved in the you know
Amazon affiliate niche site area then
you know it didn't really matter to you
it's just a different game that you're
walking into but if you are already in
it really was a significant hit overall
yeah I remember when that happened there
were some people that took a pretty big
hit like going from 11 percent or 10
percent down to well for in some cases
right right and you know ours went from
eight and a half to you know five and a
half roughly so you know pretty big hits
about thirty five percent overall yeah
okay well obviously we're gonna talk
more about that in the next episode but
that must have been a pretty depressing
time did you think can we still sell the
site now or like what kind of thoughts
were bearings for your head at the time
Robin I worked pretty well together
we're very pragmatic about these type of
issues that came up and you know of
course this was a really tough one
because you know overnight the value of
the site went down so you know we looked
at the overall project the overall
impact and tried to figure out you know
what can we do is there anything that we
can do to try and recover it and you
know how do we approach it like you know
what actions are we gonna take and how
long might it take to recover you know
some of the earnings yeah I think it's
pretty important not to get too
emotional about it I mean obviously to
some extent it's impossible to shrug
something like that off but at the end
of the day I was and made the decision
and there wasn't really much we could do
about it I mean I did see some people in
other Facebook groups talking about
trying to tweet Jeff Bezos and send
emails saying please don't take away our
commissions and I just kind of felt like
I don't know like I was just like what
are you doing
right I mean you know the great thing
about working online using you know
Amazon affiliate niche sites is you know
you have a lot of freedom and what you
can do it's very easy to get started
it's very cheap to get started compared
to other businesses they can scale in
this way but the reality is you know the
SEO side the Google side we don't really
control we're at risk in that area and
on the other side we don't control the
affiliate program so you know we're
playing by certain rules and we have to
respect those rules and every industries
like that I mean if you're in the
healthcare industry some policy changes
could you know make your job go away if
you work and you know banking there's
regulations you have to follow and you
know any industry is like that so we're
not unique but there are areas that you
have to respect that you don't control
yeah that's very true
I've actually had on two occasions I've
had a web site have it's the product
that it was promoting removed so and
they weren't may even shady products or
anything just for whatever reason one of
them the vendor was like oh I'm doing
another project and I can't have any
other existing projects so I'm just
taking this one down and that site was
making me like five hundred dollars a
month of the time it was my first ever
successful site and like you know then
the next day is making nothing and then
I had another site where commissions
went from like I don't know twenty-seven
dollars to three dollars because they
had moved
they've restructured staff and I had to
promote different products instead and
again I was just kind of like that sucks
but it's the game we play and like in my
mind and I blogged about it as soon as I
happened I felt like well that sucks but
I'm still gonna be on Amazon sites
because in my opinion they're still one
of the best networks out there not gonna
make as much from the same amount of
clicks as before but just get more
clicks or build more sites or something
right my wife told me yesterday that she
heard it on the radio so I assume it's
true something like half of the money
spent on wine is spent with Amazon
something like that yeah
I mean I don't know if that's true or
not but it doesn't surprise me
right that's what I thought I mean even
if it's not exactly true like it's
probably it's within the realm where we
believe it so and I will mention I think
I started you know talking about the
guest posting area and basically we did
run into some issues with a guest
posting we had to get like 45 guest
posts and it was slower than we expected
and it's sort of you know bled into the
Commission rate stuff because I mean
technically if we would have got all the
guest posts that we needed very quickly
we potentially could have you know
listed the site months earlier and
avoided the Commission rate change so
you know in hindsight it looks like man
like we could have sold the site sooner
but you know just the way things played
out we didn't have the opportunity to do
it and it cost us you know a lot of
money yeah and I don't know if you've
thought of it either but you probably
would have got 27 or 28 X when it was
grey hat and then by waiting you may
have got a higher multiple but less
overall money so that yeah right yeah
and it was interesting like if you
looked at the earnings you know was
making about 10k a month when I joined
and it had been for about three months
or so and you know we're gonna talk
about the content later but I could tell
you that the content work that I did
helped a lot so the revenue went up by
about 40 percent in about 45 days or so
and by December the site made 32,000
plus and just in December so like the
content was crit
goal for you know hitting those kind of
numbers that fast and then presumably by
the time you sold it it was still
earning higher than it was when it was
like before you did all that yes yes
overall in general it was making more
than it would have so there were other
factors involved to which you know part
of the uncertainty of you know
converting the site is you don't really
know what's like converting a site from
gray hat to white hat you don't know
what's gonna happen to the rankings and
that sort of thing and in general right
just over time the new competitors come
in some competitors go away so there
were a lot of you know there's a lot of
factors out there that we just don't
control even if you have your own you
know your very own private blog network
you still can't control the competitors
out there yeah that's very true
so I guess continuing on the guest post
issue one issue that I thought of
straight away when you said you were
trying to replace links one for one was
did you struggle to get white hat guest
post links to like money pages like I
assume you had pbn links built to money
pages that's true actually we didn't
have much trouble getting links to
Affiliate post and I guess normally I
don't have much issue with that so you
know one thing to note is we made sure
like any of the affiliate content that
we were linking to was really good we
made sure it was you know some of the
best content on the internet on the
topic and you know the other part is I
really tried to have good relationships
with the bloggers that were publishing
the guest post and you know with that
they normally you know not a hundred
percent of the time but they normally
would link to you know whatever posts we
wanted them to okay that sounds about
right
so you know what other kind of issues
were there you mentioned that the link
building took a lot longer than you
expected so did you have any kind of
frustrations with the speed or the lack
of program
laughing yeah and that was the that was
the main thing like I basically hired a
it was a friend of mine who was also
like a competitor in the best posting
service area that I was in for a little
while and I knew he needed clients and I
had a lot of work that I needed help
with so you know I was working with a
person who you know generally had the
same skills as me and it just you know
wasn't going as well as it should have
it started really fast and I think we
got like the first 10 links within you
know three four weeks something amazing
I was really impressed and then it just
got slower and I think you know part of
it is a symptom of the fact that you
know yes people are trying to scale the
guest posting system that worked say 18
months or two years ago so they're you
know sending out templates that you and
I were using a couple years ago and
they're sending them out now in mass and
they're sending them to hundreds of
people and like hundreds of people per
week and it's saturating the internet
and I think you know the person that
hired that I was working with he was
using those same methods and like he
failed unfortunately to adapt so I mean
one skill that I have in my corporate
world I had a team of like 15 people
right
I had one-on-one meetings with them I
coached them I you know helped him solve
problems and adapted when things didn't
work I helped him figure out how to
solve problems and you know
unfortunately this person who is working
with didn't adapt you know he wouldn't
really take my feedback he just you know
would send out more emails which of
course you know if he's doing something
that doesn't work and you just do it
harder then you just get more frustrated
and you know after some period of time I
realized that you know he wasn't
adapting and growing like I needed him
to and he didn't have much interest in
you know doing anything else
yeah that's really interesting and
that's definitely the it's the problem
I've encountered when it comes to doing
guest posting at scale and to some
extent it's quite hard to teach somebody
to do that like you can do it if it's
your site and you're living in the niche
I do it with you my booth designs you do
it with a niche site project but when
you're trying to hire a VA it's a lot
easier to just say send is email to 500
people and hope that you get three links
than it is to say do proper outreach as
it works and it's kind of purest form
right right and I think you know the
ability to adapt is really important for
the kind of work that we do where SEO
changes fast and you know we're racing
against our competitors and we're also
trying to work with the confines of you
know the Google algorithm so that we
don't you know go too far we're trying
to make sure that we don't you know over
optimize anchor text like little stuff
like that like every detail matters and
being able to adapt and like change when
you know you try something and it
doesn't work well that's really
important to do okay so I'm assuming you
managed to crack it in the end when you
ended up adapting and you were able to
figure out so I'm really looking forward
to you sharing that in the next episode
I guess yeah and I'll just make sure I
covered everything so number one we had
content that we were trying to figure
out we were trying to work with you know
guest posting and how we were actually
gonna replace all these pbn links with
guest post and then finally we had the
commission rate change in March of 2017
by Amazon's that we had to deal with as
well yeah so we got those three main
things and I guess to some extent
there's the fact that you weren't even
sure if it was going to work as well and
you know you've got this kind of
feedback loop issue that everybody has
with internet marketing yeah it sounds
all that scarier now that we're talking
about it
yeah I'm like why didn't you just build
white-hot links and keep the great looks
like the thought of removing a link is
quite scary even though I guess
theoretically even if the link was
removed you may not lose any rankings
it's quite a when you're messing around
with $10,000 a month
that's quite a scary thing right and
then you got scarier when we actually
you know we hit the 32 K in December it
got very scary yeah it was probably
quite exciting as well but yeah I know
what you mean
[Music]
thanks again to Dom Wells you should
definitely check out his podcast the
human proof bide cast and I'll put links
and stuff in the show notes and
description and all that before he gets
to the questions of which there are
fewer than I thought actually recorded
the intro and I hopped over to look at
the project a white hat blog post and
saw that some of the questions were very
specific to the blog post and therefore
a little bit out of context so there
were only a handful that I'll be able to
do however I do want to tell you about
writing that blog series like I
mentioned it's about I think it's like
12 or 13 parts and I wanted to write it
in a more thoughtful way than I have
most of my other blog post what do I
mean by that at the time I was watching
Breaking Bad my wife and I were like
plowing through Breaking Bad and it was
like I think it was a few years after it
was off the air already but we were
obviously you know just catching up
really enjoying it and one thing I
noticed with Breaking Bad and a lot of
other serialized miniseries like that
you have say maybe two or three or five
conflicts that happen during an episode
then like one or two of those issues or
conflicts are resolved within that
episode and the rest are open there's an
open loop and you have to watch the next
episode to get any sort of closure or
conclude
and guess what in the next episode three
or four new conflicts are introduced and
one or two are resolved and you just
have like a drive to watch the next
episode which is totally makes sense I
mean we want closure we want some
conclusion so that is the mindset that I
tried to have for this blog series
project go white hat and if you if you
go and check it out you go and read it
you'll see that I I introduced it the
pretty much the beginning of most of the
blog post I introduced some you know set
of issues that we were dealing with and
then I only resolved a few of them
luckily you know I knew how the story
was going to end so that was the other
part a lot of times I think internet
marketers are very guilty of doing a
case study coming up with some concept
or an idea and we are writing the case
study as we go we don't know how it's
gonna end we don't know what the
conclusion will be and we don't know if
it's going to be good or bad the danger
there is you could be leading a lot of
people astray so if I did a case study
and I was like hey I'm gonna do this
it's gonna be fantastic and then it
doesn't work out and like a few hundred
people were following what I was doing
and it didn't work out I just kind of
screwed over all those people and by the
way that's exactly what happened to me a
couple times when I first started in my
internet marketing journey I was
following some case studies that were
written by people who were you know
doing it as they went and they would
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