My Biggest Journal Yet: Going 10x on SEO

[Kikerinka]

@SEOMadHatter , haven't you considered moving your focus to other projects?

I know you mentioned here once buying a private island, but probably that was just a joke .
If you're well off financially, why not investing money& time rather into some offline projects (business or non-profit), or even new online projects that will give you excitement and new energy, while simply collecting cash from your existing online projects?

Looks to me like a sensible move, at least considering your latest update.

 

[SEOMadHatter]

@SEOMadHatter , haven't you considered moving your focus to other projects?

I know you mentioned here once buying a private island, but probably that was just a joke .
If you're well off financially, why not investing money& time rather into some offline projects (business or non-profit), or even new online projects that will give you excitement and new energy, while simply collecting cash from your existing online projects?

Looks to me like a sensible move, at least considering your latest update.

I like the way you think but I do still have work to do. I'm earning but at some point, my main streams will dry up before I'm ready to retire. I want to be able to reinvest as much of it as I can it's just managing how I do that.

I do genuinely enjoy building sites and converting traffic. The last couple of months have just been a learning experience on how to not do that at scale.

If I work on a single site then I enjoy creating good quality content and fiddling with the funnel. On some of them, I like working with social media and seeing traffic grow from there as well. Working with a YouTube channel for site 3 has been great fun and I have some ideas on how to push that even harder with site 4.

I think what really burned me out was twofold.

5-6 sites from scratch without someone to help edit and manage content is too much. Maybe if I was just doing this project but alongside other time commitments, it's hard to see the needle move much because I'm spread too thin.

Hiring generic writers was just a pain in the ass. Spending too much time editing crappy content I'd have saved time and money just writing site 1 myself and it'd be a better quality site.

Site 3 and 4 in their current stages are examples of how I should do it. How I'll actually enjoy doing it. Writers who know the niche so I can focus on getting it to convert, building out the traffic from social and the content doesn't take a lot of editing.

I have a meeting today with someone who might be taking over some more of the content management stuff. I am keen to continue to scale properly but I have to make some changes to avoid things dragging to a halt again.

Oh, and if I mentioned a private island somewhere I was definitely joking. My life fits into a backpack and I've just made an offer on a van to live out of for summer so my tastes aren't that extravagant.

 

[Kikerinka]

I like the way you think but I do still have work to do. I'm earning but at some point, my main streams will dry up before I'm ready to retire. I want to be able to reinvest as much of it as I can it's just managing how I do that.

I do genuinely enjoy building sites and converting traffic. The last couple of months have just been a learning experience on how to not do that at scale.

If I work on a single site then I enjoy creating good quality content and fiddling with the funnel. On some of them, I like working with social media and seeing traffic grow from there as well. Working with a YouTube channel for site 3 has been great fun and I have some ideas on how to push that even harder with site 4.

I think what really burned me out was twofold.

5-6 sites from scratch without someone to help edit and manage content is too much. Maybe if I was just doing this project but alongside other time commitments, it's hard to see the needle move much because I'm spread too thin.

Hiring generic writers was just a pain in the ass. Spending too much time editing crappy content I'd have saved time and money just writing site 1 myself and it'd be a better quality site.

Site 3 and 4 in their current stages are examples of how I should do it. How I'll actually enjoy doing it. Writers who know the niche so I can focus on getting it to convert, building out the traffic from social and the content doesn't take a lot of editing.

I have a meeting today with someone who might be taking over some more of the content management stuff. I am keen to continue to scale properly but I have to make some changes to avoid things dragging to a halt again.

Oh, and if I mentioned a private island somewhere I was definitely joking. My life fits into a backpack and I've just made an offer on a van to live out of for summer so my tastes aren't that extravagant.

Great that you've eventually found a model that works for you, and one in which you can focus on your strengths, and at the same time do things you enjoy doing (at least most of the time). Good luck, I will keep my eye on this.

BTW, the plan for summer with a van sounds great . Let's see how situation develops with covid restrictions, covid passes, and whatever. I may actually do something similar, depending on the options we have here in the summer...

 

[OlafRustle]

You could invest a big chunk of change into crypto.
Either it goes up and you can live in a van on your private island or it goes down and solves your capital problem.

 

[SEOMadHatter]

Great that you've eventually found a model that works for you, and one in which you can focus on your strengths, and at the same time do things you enjoy doing (at least most of the time). Good luck, I will keep my eye on this.

BTW, the plan for summer with a van sounds great . Let's see how situation develops with covid restrictions, covid passes, and whatever. I may actually do something similar, depending on the options we have here in the summer...

Cheers, and I do appreciate the suggestion. If I genuinely hated all of it then you'd be right about moving on.

The ideal for summer is still to get away to climb in France but worst case I figure I can stash the van somewhere for a bit or maybe just drive it down there. The slight snag with this whole plan is I need to actually learn to drive and lockdown has killed lessons and test times. I think I get the van next week, sadly it's probably going to be sitting around over Spring.

You could invest a big chunk of change into crypto.
Either it goes up and you can live in a van on your private island or it goes down and solves your capital problem.

Hah!

I own some BTC and, once I figure a few things out, I'm aiming to get about 10% into crypto but I can't bring myself to make a crazy YOLO play.

 

[gamingseo]

What parasites for Site 5 are you using that are performing well right now ?

 

[SEOMadHatter]

We're starting to make some headway again.

Site 3: Handled.

I met with someone who's now completely taking over site 3 for me. Well, 99%. I'm still doing a little of the site management giving the editing a quick once over but that's a five-minute job and gives me a little peace of mind.

They're being paid upfront for the written content and they're keeping 100% of the ad revenue from YouTube which I do the promotion work for. They'll also get a percentage of anyone clicking through from YouTube to the site.

The funnel has a bit of a problem with email deliverability at the moment but I think I know the cause and it's on my to-do list for this week. The site picked up a couple of sales over the weekend and while it's likely going to be in the red for a while it's one of the better quality sites, especially with this new writer handling the content.

I am looking at the possibility of doing a little more growth hacking with this content.

For example:
Producing shorter videos for both YouTube shorts and TikTok.
Images for YouTube community posts and IG/Facebook/Pinterest.

What's really moving the needle is the SEO content and I don't want to be too distracted from that, but if I leverage the SEO traffic to boost the social profiles then in the longer term it's bringing in organic traffic from these sources as well.

Site 4: Getting There.

I'm hoping to have the first draft of a product for this site done by the end of this week at the latest. The funnel will take time to test fully but if I get something basic out I can start running a little traffic towards at least.

I have someone putting together a YouTube channel for this site and that's been going well. I'm putting maybe 2-3 days into working with them and getting some promotion done and probably $2-3k into the content creation for it. I've honestly no idea if I'll see a return on it. I wanted to experiment with YouTube a little more and worst case it can't hurt the organic ranks for this site so I'm going to give it a try.

Once the funnel and product are ready I'm hoping this site starts to make more of a return. The organic growth for this one has been growing almost on a daily basis. I might have to find a new writer for it to help finish it off but it's close to being off my plate. At least for the time being.

Why This Matters So Much

Trying to edit low-quality content for so many sites at once has no appeal to me.

Site 3 is now a resource I can actually be pretty happy with and the quality is only improving from here. Site 4 I'd like to put a week into editing some of the old content (and I'm hoping to in the near future) but that's the same.

I might end up paying higher prices for each site and spending a bit more time creating content myself for the next one I work on (I'm thinking site 1) but I'll actually enjoy it so I'll get more done and (hopefully) that quality gets rewarded in the SERPs.

Published and Spent

Not as much actually out as I'd like because there was a lot of setup work and training time but this should pick up now. The product work is taking most of my free time at the moment but published word count moves the needle and I want to get back to focusing on that going forward.

Parasites: 9,000
Site 3: 3,400

Spent: $400

What parasites for Site 5 are you using that are performing well right now ?

I pick parasites depending on the niche. Sometimes there's a niche-specific parasite or Google has a preference for a certain domain for that topic.

The parasite from site 5 had a bit of age to it if I remember rightly. It was part of an older blackhat project so I knew Google liked it for that niche.

 

[SEOMadHatter]

Thought I'd finish up the week with an update.

Spent most of the week training the person who is now producing content for sites 3 and 4. I'm not sure how available they're going to be but their quality is good and I can be pretty hands-free there. Give me a couple of people like that and I'd be killing it.

Growth has been good this week. Sites 2, 3 and 4 all reached new all-time highs. Even site 1 grew a bit on organic traffic and I've not managed to start work on it yet.

The site 4 product ballooned into more than I'd planned. The rough first draft is ready and I'll run some traffic at it for a while and see what happens. I don't expect much from the first go but it's always fun to see a new product make a sale so I'm looking forward to that. I've got some plans to expand it properly but I wanted to get something out at least. It was time-consuming and might never sell a single time but I'm glad to have it ready.

Started the new YouTube channel for site 4. 99% of it is outsourced and the quality is looking pretty good. Bit of work to do to get the ball rolling and get some traffic and subs to get it started. I don't suggest this for anyone just starting out with a blog honestly. The channel for site 3 has been growing well and brings in sales but I don't expect it to cover costs for a good while. I'm curious to see how sites 3 and 4 perform in the SERPS with a fleshed-out YouTube channel vs the sites without.

Most of the week was bogged down in training and product creation. Hopefully at least one of those pay off but it looks like next week I can start moving on to something else. I might take a week or so to fix up some of the older content on site 4 before completely moving on but that'll be a nice change of pace still.

I'm definitely preferring working on one or two sites at once. 1-2 good writers and a chunk of my own time I figure I could put together a half-decent site within 8 weeks which could earn more than a physical rental property would. From there (like I'm doing with sites 3 and 4 now) leave a writer who knows the niche to continue to build them out on their own while I move onto the next one. This feels like a plan.

In other news: site 5 has a new competitor. Someone seems to have taken my business model except they're trying it with PPC. Watching their funnel but unless they're money laundering for some sketchy mafia I don't expect them to be in the SERPS for long.

 

[SEOMadHatter]

It wasn't my most productive week ever but there's some good news.

I Sucked But the New Writer Was Good

The weather picked up a bit so I spent a good couple of days out climbing this week. It was good to be out and always fun to come home from a day like that and see the passive income for the day - but I didn't get nearly as much done as I'd like.

I have a (relatively small) overtraining injury which is fucking with my usual training routine at the moment. That's been having an impact on my overall energy and structure of my day but it seems to be getting there.

The good news here is the new content creator for sites 3 and 4 is way more productive than I am. Their stuff is great quality and requires very little editing or input on my end. Not only was the training time there time well spent but it does prove that this is possible if I do a better job hiring.

They've set the new standard for writers and I'll be using this standard to find a new writer for site 2 next.

Site 4: Product, Channeling and Content Fixing

The product and YouTube channel for site 4 was finished and put up this week. It won't be reflected in the costs until later this week but I think it'll be roughly $1,500.

The product converted a little bit so far but makes less than the original affiliate offer which was there. Not surprising or unexpected, it'll take some split testing to get it fixed up. I want to put a couple of hours into it this week to start split testing things properly. The longer-term goal here will get testing this product out with some paid ads but let's get the free traffic converting on it better first of all.

The YouTube channel is an appealing project to me. The channel for site 3 has been doing well and without a doubt, grows faster than the organic traffic on the site itself. I'll be doing a little work on promoting the channel to get the ball rolling a bit over the next week or two and then leaving it to sit for a while.

The real time-consuming part here is going to be fixing up some of the site 4 content. While putting together the YouTube channel, some serious quality slippage of the original writer of that site came to light. I should have caught it myself but didn't. I'm going to go through and fix a chunk of the site content myself and probably drop that writer.

This is going to be the worst part of the project but it'll be a job worth doing.

Site 3: Growth, Funnel and Blackhat Competitor

Site 3 is now one of my favorite sites because I don't have to do much with it. The writer for that site is now pushing towards 200 posts, the growth is consistent and working with the YouTube channel there has been a good learning experience.

The funnel for this one does need some serious work. The site made around $100 this month which makes it the lowest in the entire portfolio but I don't expect it to stay that way. Once I finish tidying up site 4 I'll be putting some more time into this funnel - but that's work I actually enjoy.

One interesting thing is I stumbled across someone doing some blackhat stuff in this niche. It's very similar to a project I did a while ago except I was going wide into hundreds of niches and they've really drilled down into this one. It's working well for them and it's certainly given me a black hat itch to scratch but (for now) I'm going to keep focused on what I'm doing here.

Other

I'll roll the published content count and costs into another update next week because that'll be more accurate. There's a bit of a backlog sitting for me to confirm and publish, plus content that is going up and hasn't been invoiced yet.

I'm going to lose a bit of next week to some stuff I have to do for my accountant and I'm already dreading how much editing I might have to do for the older content on site 4 but (hopefully) I can get through that this week.

Generally, growth is going well and I'm slowly getting through the bottlenecks I created for myself. I'm looking forward to working on the funnels and conversion side of things for sites 3 and 4 while the new writer handles the growth.

Also looking forward to finding a similar writer to handle site 2 but I am going to have to tidy a lot of the old content there as well which is going to be the next step.

 

[SEOMadHatter]

Let's start with the good news. Sites 3 and 4 have continued to grow with new all-time highs almost on a daily basis, sales have been picking up on both and there's growing traffic coming in from YouTube, Pinterest (which I've been neglecting) and the parasites. All in all, going pretty well.

I got a chunk of work done for the accountant but it did take more time than expected. Editing some of the lower quality content for site 4 is also taking more time than I'd thought and I'm not sure which is more boring. Still, it's giving me a chance to improve the interlinking and if the traffic continues to grow it'll be a profitable project.

As my time starts to free up I'm starting to think about where to focus next. I need to hire at least one more writer to keep the content coming but I want to get someone who actually knows the niche. So I need to figure out what niche to work on.

Site 5: Stuck at $500/Month

Site 5: It's making roughly $500/month at the moment. Probably a little more with a recent spike in blackhat traffic. I'd really like to make some more time for this one but, for whatever reason, Google really doesn't seem to like this site. It has a weird structure, not a ton of content and it's fairly competitive niche but pages for fairly low comp keywords aren't even in the top 100. It got smacked in the December update for the little organic traffic it had but I published a bunch of content months ago and expected it to be somewhere by now.

Going to take a couple of hours over the next couple of days and change some things around. I don't need page 1 results overnight just tell me this domain has a chance Google.

I did make a bunch of changes since the December core update so it might just bounce back after the next update but the changes I'm planning are just generally good ideas for SEO anyway.

Site 1: $300/month and The Dreaded Revamp

Site 1 has been plodding away for months now. Also smacked in the December update it gets steady organic traffic but it's fairly low compared to the rest of these sites. Most of the traffic and sales comes from Pinterest. It cross promotes affiliate products and is probably around $300/month I think. Again, could be higher but the funnel is a rough draft here too.

By far the worst in terms of onsite quality and I'm dreading trying to fix that much content. Buuuuut it's a niche that makes sales. I know the niche well enough to know I could probably 10x that site with a decent funnel but I really want to see the organic growth going again before I put too much time into it.

Site 2: $200/month and Zero Interest

I made some changes to the site 2 funnel... I want to say a couple of weeks back. It makes a sale here and there but it's nothing to write home about. Maybe $200 in the last 30 days. The conversion could be a heck of a lot higher. It's capturing a ton of emails that it's not even using is a fairly expensive niche...

But I can't find the motivation to care. This would probably be the hardest site to grow in terms of traffic.

Hiring Writers

I don't know how much of site 4 content quality slipped so I don't know how long this is going to take me to finish up but I'm hoping to get it done within a week so I can move on.

The growth of revenue and traffic on sites 3 and 4 not only out perform the other sites - it's far easier to work on them. The content is better, the user engagement is good and I can feel proud of the product I'm putting out there.

So, once I figure out which site I'm working on, I'm going to try offering a higher rate (again), finding someone who's familiar with the niche and I'm going to take it slow until I find someone who produces content I'd actually read. I won't get the publishing rate I was before and I'll pay more but I think that'll be worth it.

I suspect I'll get someone for either site 1 or 5 and get them working on new content while I revamp the existing stuff.

Published/Spent

This still doesn't reflect a fully accurate number. The person working on site 3/4 gets paid on milestones so there's probably about $2k waiting for them once they reach that point. They're a little slower than I'd like but the quality is there and I'd much rather have someone churn out consistent quality than fast rubbish. This expense is abnormally high but that included a big chunk of the product creation which I overpaid for. It'll make a return so I'm not too worried about it.

Spent: $340.80

Published:
Site 3: 14,400 words
Site 4: 12,600 words
Parasites: 12,000 words

 

[SEOMadHatter]

I don't think I did a single productive thing all weekend. Perfect Scottish weather I was climbing in snow, abseiling down in the rain and sunbathing on the ground 20 minutes later. That wasn't a one-off - that shit happened two days in a row. At least it was consistent in its inconsistency.

My van purchase fell through because driving tests are heavily backed up due to COVID. Leaves me without any actual clue about what I'm going to do next. Wait for COVID restrictions to lift later in the year and get my backpack packed again? Buy a house in Scotland and stay here? I have a date this week and women tend to want to know if you're going to be in the country so I should probably figure that one out.

I did notice one cool thing while trying to figure out what to do next. While my income has increased my lifestyle hasn't really changed. I still look like a hobo and I don't see my tastes changing anytime soon. What I have been able to do over the last couple of months (and by far my biggest expense) has been loaning money to friends and family. I helped friends who were struggling due to COVID shit without batting an eye and helped my brother get his first house. My mum has not been able to work much in lockdown and I can send her money when she needs it.

That's a pretty fucking cool feeling. Next time I'm struggling for motivation I just need to remember that.

So how about some actual updates.

While I was away getting snowed on all weekend sites 3 and 4 hit new all-time-highs for both traffic and sales. Even site 1 spiked out of fricking nowhere to a pre-December update high. There's a lot I want to try and get done this week but the focus is on the content push for site 4 getting some of the older stuff updated. I've been getting some done and it's a good chance to improve the quality as well as the inter-linking but it's slow going.

I've also noticed a good spike in Pinterest traffic. I've not been consistently pinning and I might set something up for that or look at Hootsuite or something to get it loaded up in one go.

 

[SEOMadHatter]

Alright, only a couple of quick updates today.

Truth be told it wasn't my most productive of weeks. I spent several days climbing, had to put a day into another project and I wound up spending a couple of days with the girl from last week's date. I'm going to have to catch up on the productivity front but I can't say I wouldn't do it again.

Luckily the new content creator was more productive than I was (again). I sent them a second monitor to help make things more productive and I'm working on finding another writer like that just to keep the written content coming.

Feeling pretty good about how sites 3 and 4 are doing. Their growth has kept steady, we're pushing a lot more content now and sales are picking up on both. Wasn't half bad to be sitting under the rock in the sun and hearing my phone beep with new sales from new projects.

I'm going to have to put some time into the sales funnel for each in maybe a week or two - in the meantime I want to get the ball rolling on focusing on another site.

Part of that is going to be (finally) getting to the site 1 revamp. Going to redo some of the content myself and working on getting a writer to handle some of it as well. Can't say I'm entirely looking forward to that workload but it'll be good to get it done.

On the other side, I'm starting to take a better look at buying websites. I think it is crazy people are buying Amazon review sites at a 35x just now considering the changes from both Google and Amazon lately but I'm setting up a couple of scrapes and filters to keep an eye out for a good deal.

As a bonus - if I happen to spot a good niche in the process I'll get another site started for a new writer to start building up.

Content and Costs

Published site 3: 14,000
Published to site 4: 7,000
Spent: $1,704 (Spiked for YouTube content, extra monitor and product creation)

 

[Kikerinka]

Alright, only a couple of quick updates today.

Truth be told it wasn't my most productive of weeks. I spent several days climbing, had to put a day into another project and I wound up spending a couple of days with the girl from last week's date. I'm going to have to catch up on the productivity front but I can't say I wouldn't do it again.

Luckily the new content creator was more productive than I was (again). I sent them a second monitor to help make things more productive and I'm working on finding another writer like that just to keep the written content coming.

Feeling pretty good about how sites 3 and 4 are doing. Their growth has kept steady, we're pushing a lot more content now and sales are picking up on both. Wasn't half bad to be sitting under the rock in the sun and hearing my phone beep with new sales from new projects.

I'm going to have to put some time into the sales funnel for each in maybe a week or two - in the meantime I want to get the ball rolling on focusing on another site.

Part of that is going to be (finally) getting to the site 1 revamp. Going to redo some of the content myself and working on getting a writer to handle some of it as well. Can't say I'm entirely looking forward to that workload but it'll be good to get it done.

On the other side, I'm starting to take a better look at buying websites. I think it is crazy people are buying Amazon review sites at a 35x just now considering the changes from both Google and Amazon lately but I'm setting up a couple of scrapes and filters to keep an eye out for a good deal.

As a bonus - if I happen to spot a good niche in the process I'll get another site started for a new writer to start building up.

Content and Costs

Published site 3: 14,000
Published to site 4: 7,000
Spent: $1,704 (Spiked for YouTube content, extra monitor and product creation)

In my opinion, 35 multiple is still a bargain. Of course you must know what you are doing, but if it is an established site, and the multiple is based on last 12 months, it is hard in my opinion to find a better investment opportunity.

What's more, with your skills in sales funnels, you can easily find a website that under-performs at that front, and potentially double the monthly income, with no growth in traffic, just improving the conversions, in no time....

On a site note, glad that the date went well. Hopefully you won't abandon the journey now

 

[BrotherBrother]

I think I've said this before but I'm a fan of funnels. A basic funnel took a little affiliate site making about $300/month to over $7k+ with just a few tweaks. Generally, I prefer figuring out how to sell to a niche rather than figuring out how to get enough traffic to make ads make that kind of money.

Holy crap, dude! That's insane! thats more than a 20x increase in earnings!

How did you do that? I would like to hear more about your funnel

Any idea is welcome! I mean, imagine having a $3k/m site and suddenly with a funnel you turn it into a $70k/m site. AMAZING.

 

[doxul]

Holy crap, dude! That's insane! thats more than a 20x increase in earnings!

How did you do that? I would like to hear more about your funnel

Any idea is welcome! I mean, imagine having a $3k/m site and suddenly with a funnel you turn it into a $70k/m site. AMAZING.

I would also love to know what your process is OP. This is a huge improvement.

 

[JinxerCraft]

How do you hire writers? Which marketplace and strategy?

 

[SEOMadHatter]

The funnel improving conversions isn't something you're going to consistently get 20x on any site. There's no magic sauce here, I wrote better copy and convinced more people to buy.

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) can be done to any site but there's not really an A->Z. I took the traffic it had, split test it with other things until it worked out better.

With that site I actually know I could push it further but I don't want to be too reliant on a single domain so I'd rather spend my time on other sites.

In my opinion, 35 multiple is still a bargain. Of course you must know what you are doing, but if it is an established site, and the multiple is based on last 12 months, it is hard in my opinion to find a better investment opportunity.

What's more, with your skills in sales funnels, you can easily find a website that under-performs at that front, and potentially double the monthly income, with no growth in traffic, just improving the conversions, in no time....

On a site note, glad that the date went well. Hopefully you won't abandon the journey now

A decently established site with a good mix of content and quality links I might still consider. The majority of these sites do not have that long of a history and I don't see a lifespan ahead.

I think what I'd like to aim for is domains with lots of content and poor CRO or decent links in a niche I wouldn't mind expanding. If I stumble across a site with good numbers but low DA then that's another bonus, I'll start one of those and find a writer to run it.

 

[BrotherBrother]

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) can be done to any site but there's not really an A->Z

Of course, totally understood. But, how or what was your inspiration to be able to take your $300/m site to $7k/m ? Was it the competition? What kind of funnel did you do?

 

[MrDearSir]

Of course, totally understood. But, how or what was your inspiration to be able to take your $300/m site to $7k/m ? Was it the competition? What kind of funnel did you do?

I would def like to know more, OP. It's insane to get a site from $300/m to $7k/m with just a funnel.

 

[SEOMadHatter]

On a site note, glad that the date went well. Hopefully you won't abandon the journey now

Oh, and I appreciate this. She's had a fortnight off work and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a factor on my productivity the last couple of days but she pulls 12 hour days herself so I'll catch back up.

Of course, totally understood. But, how or what was your inspiration to be able to take your $300/m site to $7k/m ? Was it the competition? What kind of funnel did you do?

I would def like to know more, OP. It's insane to get a site from $300/m to $7k/m with just a funnel.

I don't really know what you guys are expecting here. My inspiration to make more money was an easy one. Money. Competition doesn't matter it was my traffic. I warmed up the traffic with copy and emails rather than just linking to an offer. There's no one size fits all solution, just testing and copy.