How Michael Donovan Makes $20k Per Month From A Tech Niche Blog

Today's guest on the Niche Pursuits podcast is Michael Donovan.

Michael's journey into online business began by listening to the Smart Passive Income and Niche Pursuits podcasts and watching videos from Income School on Youtube during his commute to work.

Once the Income School guys simplified SEO, he grew the confidence and motivation to start his own blog in January 2020. Last month, it received 500k page views and just shy of $20,000 in revenue.

The blog is in the tech niche and focuses on solving problems.

During the chat, he tells us why he chose the tech niche and how the pandemic helped him progress.

Michael also shares tons of valuable knowledge bombs for anyone in the business, including the steps he took to grow the blog without any link building.

His site has 235 posts, most of which he wrote himself. And it's super interesting to hear his thoughts on keyword research and his process for writing content.

Other topics discussed during the interview include:

• Putting yourself in the searcher's shoes when creating content
• Having an interest in the topic
• The importance of competitor research
• Writing content himself after struggling to find good writers
• The volume of posts produced each month
• How he writes content that gets backlinks naturally 
• Why he chose the niche topic
• How he makes money on the site
• Duplicate content
• Keyword research approach
• Display ads
• Spreading revenue through multiple posts
• Researching for content
• Why he doesn't build backlinks
• Plus much more

Michael has a common-sense approach to the things he does on the blog; his approach is inspiring, engaging, and in some ways unique — so as always, please enjoy and take notes!

And since recording this podcast, Michael started a new blog with his twin brother! You can follow along with their niche site-building journey at NicheTwins.com.

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED:

• Michael Donovan Twitter – @nichedown
• Adthrive
• Ezoic
• Mediavine
• Ahrefs
• SEMRush

This Episode is Sponsored by: Rank IQ

Watch the full interview with Michael Donovan:

Read the full transcription of the interview:

Jared: Welcome back to the niche pursuits podcast. My name is Jared Bauman. Today. We are joined by Michael Donovan, Michael. 

Michael: Hello, Jared. Thanks for having me. Yeah. 

Jared: Yeah. Excited about today. I have to say, I like your background. You're going with the standing, the standing desk model. Is that a permanent thing or just for interviews?

Michael: This is, I do a little bit of both during the day. So I try to stand for a little bit. Then I have a seat. Um, this is actually a thing you add on top of a desk. So it's like 200 bucks and it was worth every dollar. Oh, 

Jared: nice. Okay. Yeah. I've been looking at the standing, the standing desks. I feel like I sit way too much, uh, with, with my, my desk job and then these website buildings, but yeah, that looks really good.

Thanks. So, um, we're talking website done today. You have a great, a great story, a great website. It's doing really, really well. We're going to get into the nitty gritty about all the different things you've done to grow it. Why don't you give us some backstory, uh, who you are, uh, maybe some of your career path and how you got into website building.

Michael: Yeah, happy to. So before I do, um, I just want to mention, so I have an identical twin brother, uh, Keith, uh, and he was the one on Twitter that responded to Spencer's requests for. Uh, and so I didn't tell him that we're doing this or that you guys reached out to me. So I love the idea that he's got poor coffee with that we've listened to like 50 episodes.

So he's going to have to listen to me for the next 45 minutes. I get a kick out of that. So, well, hold 

Jared: on. Is this Keith or is this Michael? I 

Michael: think that this, this is Michael, but you're, you know, I could, you could go either way, but, um, I find it funny that he's gotta listen to me now, so, but thank you, Keith.

Um, so in terms of the background, so I'm, uh, I was a biology major, um, and I went to school for a pre-med concentration. Uh, and so, you know, for after school, I worked at Dana Farber cancer Institute for a number of years in their clinical research, uh, space. And there was a lot that I wanted to go to med school and that ended up not panning out, but it was actually during my time at Dana Farber, you know, the commute to and from.

Then I started getting into podcasts. And so I would listen to something, you know, multiple podcasts a day. And that's when I stumbled across, uh, pat Flynn and his smart, passive income podcast. And then he was talking about blogs. I think he was an architect. He got fired and he started just out of necessity, kind of building his own thing.

Now it's, you know, YouTube podcasts, a bunch of stuff that I haven't, you know, this is my first podcast, but I haven't really looked at those things, but. Enticed me to start looking at it. Uh, and so I D I did what I think a lot of people do, which is I bought a domain, which makes you feel like you did something, but you really didn't do anything.

Uh, and so I bought clinical research, professional.com. Uh, I never did anything with it. Cause it turns out when you're doing 10 hours at Dana Farber, you don't want to go home and write about the thing that you just did for, for 10 hours. Um, but that was sort of the. Thing I did in terms of websites was by domains.

I think probably a lot of people have that experience. I went on and bought your Bitcoin techie in 2015. Um, so there was a handful of websites that I bought, but I never did anything with it. And then flash forward a little bit, uh, is when I started listening to niche pursuits. So I, I was listening to the Spencer and his journey with, you know, own the yard, uh, dot com, but it wasn't until I saw the income school guys, uh, on YouTube and the way they explained it just simplified, you know, SEO, SEO is a little scary, a lot of technical parts to it.

Uh, I think you can overcomplicate it to the point where you don't even want to touch it. But they simplified it to a formula where I thought if these guys were making this much with that website, I was like, I can do that. I think I could get into that. Uh, and so, you know, flash forward, so January, 2020, I started this website.

This was the first website that I really leaned into and stuck with. Uh, three months later, the pandemic hit. So I had been commuting in and out of Boston writing for the hour in the hour back, uh, and then the pandemic kit and that just in a weird way, accelerated everything. Cause I had a lot more time on my hands.

I didn't have, I, you know, I have my beautiful wife, Mackenzie and my son Decklin, who's just turned 10 months old. Uh, yesterday, I didn't have Decklin so I had so much time on my hands at that point. That's changed. We can talk about that a little bit, but yeah, that's the story. Yeah. So, so that's where I am now.

I still, I still work at nine to five. I liked the job. I do no plans of changing anything there, but, um, you know, this has been bigger than I imagined that it would be. 

[00:04:01] Jared: You know, it's fascinating that we've had many folks on, of late, uh, well, not many, but several folks on of late. We had Charlie on a couple of months ago that comes to mind.

I think somebody else where, who talk about how this period of 2020 we're now doing. Removed from that. And we're getting these success stories that have come out of time, born on the back of not commuting to work with the pandemic. And so it's, it's, it's, it's, it's interesting. People are putting that time to use.

And now one to two years later, we're seeing the fruits of that. Yeah, 

Michael: a lot of obviously terrible circumstances. But I think if, when we look back, a lot of people will have had done things with their lives that they never would have done if this pandemic didn't hit. So if there's a silver lining, it's probably that people tried stuff that they, you know, maybe 40 years go by.

They never would've done it. Uh, but that sort of propelled them a little 

Jared: bit. And it's also a Testament. Two knuckling down. I mean, you know, a lot of people, uh, binge watch Netflix during green that did some of 

Michael: that. So I know 

Jared: we probably all did a lot of that too, but you know, really getting an opportunity to have time and then putting it to good use.

Uh, so, well, you know, it's a cool story. I was, I told Spencer recently on a podcast that we did that I, I th I th I kind of went back and figured out that that was where I first found out about niche pursuits was actually when Spencer was. Uh, pat Flynn's podcast. And so I've had a similar connection to kind of catching up into this, in this website world and that sort of thing.

So that's a, it's a fun backstory. Well, before we dive into the details of this website that you started, uh, let's see, January, 2020. So yeah, two years and change right now. Why don't you give us the numbers on where it's at? Right. Whenever you're comfortable sharing in terms of things like revenue, page views, uh, you know, th this sort of thing, just so we can get an idea for the scale you have now, and then we can kind of work backwards and, and talk about how.

[00:05:50] Michael: Yeah, happy to. So just a quick caveat there is that I did have a little bit of trouble mentally of like sharing the stuff and putting it out there, but the reason I'm comfortable doing it and I'm happy to share it was, you know, people like Spencer, uh, sharing, you know, his income reports guys like John.

Uh, Dykstra. I hope I'm saying that, right. I've listened to him on a ton of podcasts, make an $80,000 a month. You hear these numbers and it's, it was hugely motivating. I would have never gotten into blogging. Had I not heard those guys and the success they were having. And so that, that's why I'm comfortable doing it.

Um, but it's been two years, three months. So it wasn't quick, but the site is that last month it did 503,000 page views. And it did just under $20,000 a month. 

[00:06:32] Jared: Fantastic. Wow. That is that's life-changing income right there. That's wonderful. 

[00:06:37] Michael: Yeah, it's been, it's been, uh, amazing. Yeah, for sure. It's spending.

[00:06:41] Jared: And let's see, do you mind sharing? What kind of like, what, what niche are you in? Obviously you can stay kind of broad, but what niche is this website in? Yeah, happy 

[00:06:48] Michael: to it's in the tech tech space. Um, and it's more geared towards like troubleshooting type things. So the examples, when we talk some specifics around what's working, uh, I'll I'll use cars just because I find that comparison is very easy and transferable to, to my, uh, to my.

Um, but yeah, it's in the technique, uh, in, in it's pretty broad of, of topics 

[00:07:08] Jared: that can be covered. That's great. That's great. That's um, that's, it's interesting to hear you talk about, uh, the success you've had. I mean, I. Uh, from talking to people that number of page views and that number, or that amount of revenue in that time period, you know, again, just recap like 500 and thousand and change in terms of page views and, uh, just under 20,000 in revenue two years and change in terms of site age, before we get into the details, what do you think is the biggest reason why your site is doing so well?

Uh, relative to. 

[00:07:42] Michael: Yes, it did. So it's funny because, uh, it is the numbers. Are I still like I'm coming to terms with that part of it. Cause it's, you know how this is some of it's delayed, you don't get paid for a little bit. Um, but I think the, the, the piece that, and this might be over simplified and maybe there's not some magic bullet here, but when I write content, I hit publish.

When, if I had searched that term in, in Google search, I would be happy to have found my piece of content. That sounds extremely simple. I think a lot of people forget that and they're just, they're trying to scale, you know, I think it's great. If you can build a team and you can build, you know, scale a thousand posts and get them all out there quickly and let Google do its thing and some will win, some will lose.

But if you spend the time to care enough that you would be happy to have found that. You will not do things like stuff, a bunch of crap in there. You're not going to have fluff every corner. You're going to think through the logical progression of the posts. Like if you know my case, I'm doing a lot of troubleshooting.

If I just put myself in the shoes of the searcher, there's a logical flow of what they should be trying to do and when they should try to do it. So it sounds extremely simple. But if you look on Google, there's still a ton of posts on page one. Uh, that if you read them, you're like, this is hot, garbage.

They just never cared about the reader. They don't respect the reader or the time that they have. So I think that's probably one key thing. 

[00:09:02] Jared: That's really, that's really insightful. I couldn't agree with you. I think we can all agree that there's a lot of stuff ranking that isn't great. And, uh, you know, how long will it sit there?

How long will it stay there at the top over time? So, well, let's get it. I mean, let's, let's roll up our sleeves and let's get into it. I mean, there's just so many different ways we could go. I think everyone's going to be really intrigued to hear how you built this site. Why don't we start with, um, with how you pick the niche?

You know, you, you sat down in January of 2020, you would already have. Uh, history of, of buying sites with ideas, you know, had ideas around a minimum. They should have been the Bitcoin one, by the way, maybe that we're onto something there in 2015, but anyway, we'll let that one lie. Um, but w how'd you put the niche in, in, in, in 2020 and settle on one that you were going to take action.

Yeah. 

[00:09:46] Michael: So I actually, it made me think, I think this is somewhat interesting and pertains to this as you know, I hadn't taken any action, but I did do one thing prior to starting the website. And that was, you know, I was watching curb, your enthusiasm and Larry David blogs, big words, dictionary words. I called him right to the point where I'm watching the show.

And I would take my phone out and just put the word and be like, do I even know the definition of this word? And it got me thinking, you know, I'd been studying for a test and there's vocabulary sections to the MCATs and all these different tests that you take. And I don't know what your experience is, but mine has been, you buy a book and that book is a hundred vocab words, and it's just the word and the definition and, you know, phonetically, how you say it.

Terrible experience. And so I started splicing. I'd go on YouTube had spliced 52nd clips of, you know, curb movies, anything I could find of a word being said, the context, people saying it, the reaction afterwards. And I created this account called speak while daily on Instagram, I haven't logged into three.

But it grew to like 15,000 followers of like a lot of Spanish speaking people who were like, this is the most fun I've had learning words. Cause you got that interaction in the context. Um, but I stopped doing that cause it was a lot of work. Uh, and I couldn't monetize it. I went to a lawyer in Boston and I said, Hey, I'm thinking about monetizing it as he, you know, he charged me for an hour at the end, his snippet.

You know, if you pursue this, you're going to get sued into oblivion process. Like, you know, you could have just email me that I could probably save this conversation. But anyways, my point in saying that is, that was a big moment that I skipped at the top is I took action on something. It didn't work out there.

I wanted it to, but that was the first thing. I actually had an idea and tried to do it. Right. That's important. You need that some sort of muscle of like doing, um, and 

[00:11:26] Jared: you had some successes. And maybe it wasn't success, like in terms of finance, but you kind of entered the money you made, but you kind of were able to see, oh, uh, I can, I can do this, you know, this, this big, broad thing of, uh, of starting something on.

Yeah, 

[00:11:39] Michael: exactly. Uh, and so, and now I'm going to blank on what, how we got to this side, because I went on a tangent there. It's fine. I'm curious how 

[00:11:45] Jared: you picked the, the technique that's right. No, kind of what led into that and how you, how you validated it is a good niche to go into, or did you, I mean, we hear a lot of stories about people kind of stumble into things and they just make it work and looking back, maybe it wasn't the right niche to go with.

They, they just, they make it worse. I'm just curious how you picked it. It's obviously doing very well. 

[00:12:03] Michael: Yeah. So that, that's an interesting point. And some of this is luck. I think with a lot of this, there is a luck component. Um, in this case, you know, I just bought a house and this particular thing I was interested in at the time.

Uh, and so I am interested in the topic that I write about. And so in some ways I definitely stumbled into this particular. Topic there, it wasn't as if I would do things very differently actually. Now. And what's interesting about that is when I built my competitive list, like of all the competitors in my space, the list is over a hundred websites long.

And looking at that, I think I would have talked myself out of doing the, what I landed into. So I think unquestionably, there was a piece of luck that got me into the new. That I'm in, but I was very interested in the topic. And I think a lot of people on your show talk about this, but you need something.

Uh, if you are not interested in the topic, you can outsource it and we can talk about the challenges there, you know, good luck in my, and my people do it successfully. I have not yet. Um, but good luck trying to start a site from scratch with much experience trying to outsource from the get, I think you need to do a lot of the stuff yourself, uh, to figure it out.

Um, but yeah, that was how I got into the space was a little bit of luck, but I was also interested at that time. Uh, in the space and was motivated to try it. 

[00:13:16] Jared: You talked about how you have a list of competitors that, you know, it's a hundred plus long now. And I think a lot of people would echo that sentiment in terms of the niche they're in.

And how, how, how influential was competitor research for you when you decided to go for this niche? Um, you kind of touched on how maybe I would have been scared off if I'd really. No, that that many competitors might be scary, but other people might argue that having that many competitors validates it as a good niche and gives you a lot of keyword opportunities and a lot of backlink opportunities.

So there's kind of this juxtaposition. How influential was it for you in deciding to go into, into this. 

[00:13:51] Michael: Yeah, it was actually huge because while there were many, which does validate that this is being searched, right? Like there's something there that the quality was pretty bad. And you look at what was ranking.

And I was reading these things, thinking, I know I can do better than what I'm seeing. And I think that's a good tell. Like if you're looking, we can get into all the specifics of what you want to see on page one, to think if you can actually rank for it. But if you're looking and reading content that you just.

You kind of have a sense that it's not right or even wrong in some cases are not well-written. Um, that was a tell for me. Uh, and then, you know, the building, that list is super important. Uh, I actually, there's a funny story here. So the income school guys, I went down that rabbit hole, uh, in the middle of 2020.

So halfway through that first year as I'm building myself. Uh, I had a guy, his website on my competitor list. He was like the number one guy I was going after in my space because he had a lot of low competition keywords. He was killing it. He does a great job, but I thought I could beat him in some areas.

Uh, but anyways, he got interviewed by the income school guys and he didn't disclose his website, but I knew his site like the back of my hand. So I knew his bio and I instantly recognized them and he disclosed, he was making 10,000 a month and I heard. And I went into hyperdrive cause I had like backed off a little bit.

Um, but I just leaned in heavily. So competitive research is huge. One for the niche. I would do things slightly differently. Probably. I think probably the main thing I would do is build the comprehensive list. First. I built that over time, over the first couple of months of already having chose my niche and it worked out for me.

Uh, but I would have done that probably the other way around. I would have built that list. I would have looked at the space a lot closer. And now knowing what I know, I wouldn't be scared off if there was a lot of people, that's a signal that it's right. But then I would dig in and I would at least do some keyword research, which I had not done any, uh, like any.

So that's how I got lucky is that it worked out then there's I could write for the next three years and I have topics I can cover. 

[00:15:47] Jared: So when you, when you launched the site, was this one of these things where you came out of the gate with a lot of content, you were publishing a lot of content. Was it a slow build, something where over time you picked up momentum, um, you know, how did you start with those first few articles?

Uh, you know, take us through that process and maybe how it's different now, you know, tease that it's a little different now compared to when you first got going. So I'm kind of teasing you with that question, but, but, you know, 10 to 15 articles are really tough for people to get out of the gate sometimes, especially when they're brand new at it, which basically you were brand new at this.

Yeah, 

[00:16:19] Michael: I was not basically. I was definitely new. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure. Yeah. By the domain again, it feels like an action is not very easy to hit by. Um, but doing the writing is very challenging. If you had told me that I, you know, I would write for me. I would have laughed at you, um, you know, seven, eight years ago because writing was pain for me.

It's painful. I, you know, the first, so if we get into numbers, I looked back at this the first year I only hit publish on 40 articles total and 234 now. Totally. But the first year I only hit publish on about 40 and 

[00:16:53] Jared: it was very 

[00:16:54] Michael: slow, very slow build. And I actually stepped away for a period of time in 2021 for probably about four months.

Uh, so I hit publish on those 40 and as anyone that's in this space, You're in the sandbox. It was a new domain. I don't even know what an aged domain was at that point. Uh, so I, you know, a little bit interested in that space and maybe what that holds, but I didn't, you know, I bought a new domain I'm in the sandbox.

No matter how many times I heard people say prepare for a year of crickets, uh, it is mentally draining. Like you do all this work. You're waking up early, staying up late, hitting publish, and 40 does it sound like a lot, but for me that was like a ton, but you get better. Like the more I write and we can talk about the outsourcing piece.

I write 90 plus percent of the posts on my site. Um, but the more that I've done it, the easier it gets. Uh it's to a point now where it's pretty streamlined. I can write a post from scratch in three hours in, in a lot of cases, uh, that would have taken me seven or eight when I first started. And that's because I was trying to be a perfectionist.

I do all the mistakes that people make of like this. This has to be perfect before I hit publish. Uh, but that was the story. And then as I started to see a little bump in traffic that way, and I, and I that lined up with finding that income school interview with that guy in my space, telling me he's making $10,000 a month.

And I heard that and I went into hyper drive. So. Doing, you know, between 15 to 25 posts myself a month, I tried outsourcing a little bit. That was a terrible experience. I was on Fiverr or Upwork. I put a post to paid for a post on pro blogger. Uh, the quality of content is just really, really poor. There was a handful of people that I found were good.

Uh, but I, you know, the headache that, that was, I decided to back off that, and just what I was doing was working. I was seeing it work and I was like, I'll just lean into me focusing on great. And writing great content and it ended up working out. I probably need to reevaluate some of that strategy at some point, but for now it's.

[00:18:47] Jared: How long was it before you started seeing some traction? Um, you know, how many months in you weren't posting a ton, you know, 40 posts in the first year? Was it, I mean, I think it's important to put into context. So if you're writing all the content yourself, uh, you have a family, you have a home, you have a job full-time job, even without the commute.

Like that's still more, that's still more than three posts a month, right? So it's still a lot of work, especially when you're brand new, but. You know, without the outsourcing you're, you're, you're, you're going to the first year with, with, uh, with this amount of content. When did it start to uptick? And when did you start to see that bump that gave you that much?

Yeah. 

[00:19:20] Michael: So I actually wrote this down because I like, as you see this happen, then you kind of look backwards. You're like, when did what changed or what maybe happened? I, it was a really amount, month. 15 is when I started to get that's a wall, that's a slow burn, but I do want to say, I do want to say that if I had not struggled for that first year and a half and did all this myself, and it was painful.

And again, this is all relative, right? I'm not digging coal out of the side of a mountain or anything, but writing that myself, I did learn. How to do it in the right way to do it. And so I, that was invaluable to me, but it was month 15 when I got 10,000 page views. So there was a slow build up to that, but then this is the interesting part.

So that was month 15 month, 18. I'm at 25,000 month, 24. I'm at 350. Um, so we're talking over the span of it. And I think a lot of people experienced this. I also was pushing content out at that rate that we talked about 15 or 25 posts in logs at the end of 2020, beginning of 2021. But I think people don't appreciate.

Hockey stick growth that a lot of these sites experience and they give up a little bit early for too soon. And I, you know, I had multiple times where I thought I might stop doing it. Um, but seeing interviews, listening to people were doing it and they were showing proof of it. So I knew it was possible, but it's that hockey stick piece where you go monthly.

Twenty-five thousand pages, 1 24, 350 that's $716 a month to 17,000. Right. Uh, and I actually tweeted about this recently cause I was thinking, and I think people probably heard this example ad nauseum at this point, but uh, exponential growth is so hard to appreciate or even understand. I think a lot of people quit before that because they just don't see.

The bigger picture, but the example I love is that, would you take a million dollars today or would you take a penny in double it every day for 30 days and take the result of that? And if you, you know, I'm priming you, so you'd probably take the penny. Th you would have left $4.3 million on the table if you took the million, because at the end of 30 days, that penny turns into like 5.3 million.

Right. But it's really day 28, 29 and 30 were all that compounding. And that's, that's the growth that you see in Google. I'm not saying you don't know what scale you're going to get to. Maybe it goes to 10,000 from one that's still exponential growth over a period of time. Right. So it's not forever it'll level out.

People give up a little bit before they see that result. Uh, and if they had kept going. You know, maybe they see that, that growth that I just 

[00:21:50] Jared: described. Well, I think you're now going to be the inspirational story for a lot of people who are going to come on later on and say, well, I was at month 12 and it was still crickets.

I mean, that's a fascinating growth curve to go from. I mean, month fifth for the record month, 15, 15 months in grinding away. And you're, you're, you're at 10,000 page views, which at least you're getting. Some sick. Um, yeah, you're getting something to at least validate, but you know, you're not making a lot of money at that point.

And, um, and then to look, I mean, that was, that was basically exactly a year ago if I'm doing my math. Right. Cause now you're at two years, three months, you said, which is, um, which is exactly 12 months ago. You were at 10,000 page views. And this last, most recent month you cracked over 500,000 page views.

So, um, congratulations. That's phenomenal. Uh, if people like these kinds of stories too, I'll reference them. Also, we had Luke Jordan on a couple of months ago who had a very well in a different way, but a very similar growth curve of just this exponential growth. Um, so let's talk about the, uh, Let's talk about, maybe once you started writing more consistently yourself, how were you able, w what was the process to crank out 15 to 20 high quality posts a month, um, while still having a full-time job and all that?

Like, what was your walk us through, maybe at your keyword research process, your writing process, how you're able to, to research the topics, validate them, write them, and get them done in a, in a relatively quick amount of time at a very high. Yeah. 

[00:23:19] Michael: So let's talk about keyword research because, well, one thing I love about this space is there's so many right ways.

There's some things you can do that will kill you, right? But there's so many right. Ways or different ways you can do things and see success. So what I'm describing works for me, you know, someone else might say, build backlinks or do you know, there's right. Ways to get success in this space that will work that maybe I'm not describing.

Uh, and also this isn't new either. So for keyword research, I build it all off of my competitor. And so I use , I use SEM rush and I will do like, you know, reverse engineer, right. Just look at what's working for people who are ranking in my space and in my niche for topics that I want to rank for. And I look at all of those keywords that are showing the numbers are all wrong.

I think everyone acknowledges that and accepts that that's okay. Right. It's just a data point along the way that you're using to do your keyword research. But I think if I could say anything, it's spend more time. Figuring out keyword research. Some of this I'll get into the specifics of my approach, but some of this is I wonder how you feel about this.

Some of it is an intuition that you build over time where like, I can look at a page on Google and I can get a sense pretty quickly of whether or not I have any shot of being on that page and how I would go about doing it. And that's just repetition of doing this over and over again. Um, so, but the, the actual method is I build the competitor list.

I use a tress or. Get the keywords that they're ranking for. I look at those and then I validate them by maybe plug it into like an Uber suggest or even a keyword, Google keyword planner. They give you a range for ads. I don't do ads, but I just use it for a gut check of like, if it says 10 to a hundred or a thousand to 10,000, that's enough for me to validate their search there's volume.

There there's something there. Uh, and then I very quickly go to looking at the page. I think a lot of people skip this. Maybe they look at the page, but they don't jump in at like a detailed level. So when I say go to the page type, that exact. Into Google. Look at the articles that are ranking there. If you see forums, great sign, right?

Google doesn't love, ranking, Quora, and Reddit. And some of these other ones, that's a very obvious signal, but then like very simple, basic stuff is the exact phrase in the title. Is it in the URL? Um, what kind of sites are you seeing on that first page? Are they, do you recognize those sites? Are they big players in the space now?

Not going to have a good time trying to compete with big people in that space, but if you have like a bunch of. Uh, uh, I call it like mom and pop websites, right? Where there's like, they're the top five. You absolutely can get in there. You can check domain authority and stuff using Atrius domain checker.

It just gives you a sense of like how strong and how, uh, you know, vulnerable potentially they are to coming in with better content. And then I. Uh, to each post, uh, in more depth. So how long are their posts? What are they writing about specifically? You know, in terms of my writing thing, I jump into YouTube right away.

I don't even want to be clouded by what's ranking on number one, because those first five regurgitate what each other wrote and just put like, you know, this space is so, uh, there's a lot of parasitic stuff going on online, right? Where people just take your work. And I have had this happen multiple times.

They'll just change a couple words. But I'm trying to do better than that. So I don't want to get clouded by what they wrote. I'll do my own research and YouTube is where I spend a lot of my time. Um, but that's the key, the key part is going through that in depth. So when you find a word that looks like it has high value, Checking in across multiple of these tools, just to confirm, and then digging in deep on that first page to see if you have a shot at ranking for it.

Um, for my particular niche. And I want to talk about duplicate content because I, I wonder what people will think of this, but I have posts in clusters. Uh, where it's a troubleshooting thing. So in the car example, if you said, Hey, my Ford won't start. I will write my Hyundai. Won't start my Jeep. Won't start my Jaguar.

Won't start. I will have individual posts for each of those. And the words within them are 80%. Or more exactly the same. And that's only because I think, and I'm ranking. So I have a cluster of those call it 20 articles that bring in 70,000 pages between that cluster. And they're all 80% the same. Um, and I think the reason it works is because those steps are honest and true to that.

It just so happens that, you know, cars, there's certain things that you absolutely should do when it won't start. Uh, and what's the sense of changing all that language, if that is what the reader is looking for and that's accurate. Right. Um, and so I just do I look now for certain clusters where I can do that.

I think what's referred to as duplicate content. I heard a bunch of podcasts where they're like, never do it. You know, you'll get banned. It is, it is one of the things that I think in terms of leverage, I'm able to pump out a lot of articles when it makes sense. I don't do it in like a spammy way. Um, but that's working really well for the site.

Right. You 

[00:28:06] Jared: know, that was first mentioned here by that I know of by Shauna, Shauna Newman, I feel like, I feel like I'm internally linking all of our podcasts interviews today. I don't know why a lot of the things you're saying are sparking other things that other people have said, but she talked about something very similar and you're right.

There's. I'll call it stigma, just cause I can't think of a better word, but there's this kind of overarching thought that Google hates duplicate content. You have to make sure that your content is, is different page by page, but it's really interesting. I mean, that's a lot of pages generated by. Changing the, uh, the, the, you know, a few, a few details about it when you're looking for those, are you actually seeing all those keywords?

Are you seeing one keyword and then thinking, you know, I could then take this and I bet there are search volume for all these other brands or variations. 

[00:28:55] Michael: Th the ladder. So it is, I will find something that looks super, like, I, I want to write for it. And then in my space there's products for days. Right.

And so you can look at the different manufacturers. So I actually have lists of the products and the manufacturers, and I will just substitute out, you know, Ford won't start substitute out Hyundai. I just, I go through my entire list and that is a good, so that's like one of my keywords sittings I'll sit down, I'll look at just that grouping.

And I'll just say. This one's gets a thousand who knows? Maybe it's 5,000 maybe, but it's good enough, a thousand, 2000, and then I'll prioritize it based on the keyword volume that these tools are telling us again, we know they're wrong, but close enough. Um, and I'll just go and write that first one. I'll spend probably three days in some cases getting it so that I really exhaust that first one.

Um, and so it will be broken up, right? Like, but I'll just do research for a day, really make sure that this is a comprehensive piece of content. And then I feel comfortable copying if it's right. I still do research on these other manufacturers because maybe job Jaguar, it has a touch star and you got to do something slightly different and that's worth adding to the content.

So I do not just ignore the fact that there are some nuances between some of these things. Um, but like I just said, I'm very interested to see cause I, for another cluster, I just hit publish on about 30, some odd not doing this exact thing. So I'll be very interested to see how those. 

[00:30:18] Jared: So basically to recap, you'll, you'll find a keyword, like why won't my Ford start and then you'll just say, Ooh, that's a good keyword I can write about.

Let me just go pull up my list of all car brands that I'm, you know, that I think are worthwhile and write about. And just, I'm going to crank out 30 articles now, why won't my Ford start? Why won't my Hyundai start? Why don't my Jaguar start? And then, you know, you could do that again for, uh, how to move my car seat and a Ford and then see, oh, there's I found that good keyword it's validated.

And I can go down and write all of these and make them virtually the same, but add little pieces and add something unique about that specific brand. Yeah, 

[00:30:54] Michael: that's a, that's exactly it. And again, I, you know, who knows if maybe this gets penalized or hit at some point. And so I'll be interested to see if there is an impact, but the reason I don't think there will be is if I'm the reader, I put myself in the surgery shoes, my Ford.

I'm going to click 10 out of 10 times the article that's Ford specific and maybe it's Ford Explorer. And that to me is even better signal. And if I, if the person who wrote that looked at Ford Explorer and there was even just two differences, uh, about that, that I should try. In addition to everything else you should try.

When a car won't start. That content is better to me than a generic thing that might miss the Ford Explorer specific pieces. So I think that 20% gives it enough, like enough of a value add that it'll rank. This is all guessing, right? A lot of this is guessing. And while we're guessing, 

[00:31:40] Jared: let me get your thoughts on this.

Cause you're kind of, you're kind of leading me down to the direction I wanted to go, which is how detailed do you think. You should go. Why won't my Ford start? Why won't my Ford Explorer start? Why won't my Ford Explorer XLT. Start by what? My 2014 Ford Explorer XLT start. How far down do you go? Where you start actually diluting that, you know, we'll call it this.

[00:32:03] Michael: Yeah, it's a, it's an interesting question. So I keep it at sort of that higher level. I don't go snitch it down to the point where you get 40 people a day or maybe a year they wake up in their Ford Explorer, 2014 red car won't start, right. Like, yeah, I think that's like a bit much. But I do keep it at that higher level because even Ford, you know, even the difference, this, this example is we're probably exhausted a little bit, but it's like, even if you go across some of these different makes of cars, Ford itself, the way that they make cars or something, there's something specific about that.

At least in my space, my technique specifically, every product has like a, it doesn't matter what maybe even what year it is in some cases it's going to apply. So if you're like, so it works in my space for me, and I will say, That is my recommendation is for I'm putting this out there. I don't want people to do this and then get like their site killed or something or something happened.

But I would say, just look at it and think about it when you're doing keyword research and you think through, is there an opportunity here because that's the ultimate leverage, right? If you don't have to sit down and rewrite. From scratch every time you hit publish. I mean, that's like, you know, I hate to use the word hack because it implies that you're gaming it.

I don't think this is actually that I think it's serve the user that searching it and Google's business model is around surfacing the best piece of content. Right. And if you're doing that, I think how, however you get there, uh, you know, that's up to you, right? 

[00:33:30] Jared: Well, I think to me, what stands out about what our conversation around your keyword research approach, um, is that your.

You're thinking, uh, on a number of levels. And I think a lot of people will get trapped into just following what the tools spit out for them. And so, um, number one, you talked about, you take these keywords, but you go validate them in multiple places and then you go actually read the articles and you actually see.

If there are worthwhile topics to write about. So that's one thing, but then the second thing is you're actually making up articles because you're thinking about it, you know, and you're looking at a keyword and saying, Hey, I see that this is a keyword, but there's also variations that are really applicable.

And I'm pretty sure that my users would be well-served by me writing that. So I'm going to write it and sure enough, it's working out for you. Um, I think that's a good lesson for all of us is, um, you probably are smarter than the tools and you know, the success comes from how you blend both the tool. And you're thinking about the niche and your knowledge.

[00:34:26] Michael: Yeah, it's not a binary thing. Right? I think a lot of people want the zeros and ones, and this is the approach to follow. That's why I say there's some gut and intuition to it too is it's not binary. Um, and you know, again, those are all data points to get you to a decision, but ultimately you have to kind of meld a lot of the stuff.

[00:34:43] Jared: So you talked about your negative experiences outsourcing and how you really landed on writing the content yourself. What were the big problems with outsourcing? Um, and do you know, do you think that, uh, there are any ways to get around that going forward? Or are you going to just stick with what's working for you clearly it's working, um, and just continue to write all the content.

[00:35:02] Michael: I I think, uh, to answer the last part, I'm going to continue on this path for now and just see where I can take it. Um, I'm not feeling burnt out. I feel energized maybe more than ever just given the recent success that has happened. Um, but the, I mean, I should be good at this cause I'm a program manager by trade.

That's what I do for my nine to five. Uh, but it is just so challenging. So. You know, you spend, it's hard enough to try to get all the contents out, but then when you're spending a lot of hours of your day, getting back to people, reading the content submissions that they sent, you, reading their application, weeding through and trying to find, you know, someone who's maybe good enough.

Um, that part was difficult. And then when you get the content. Nope, just what I have found. And this is not to say they don't exist. They're out there. They're hard to find. Most people will never care as much as you care. And especially about that post about a Ford, not starting, that could be very boring, right.

To talk about, to think about, to write about, but I am not so much worried about the content as much as what it's going to do for the site and for, you know, so I care a lot that the quality's there. It's hard to find people who care even a fraction as much as you do. Uh, and so that's been challenging, you know, keyword stuffing.

I try to build some processes around this stuff and it didn't work as well as I had hoped. Uh, but you know, keywords, they're not keyword stuffing. Sorry. I'm just fluff. Just words like, you know, trying to get. Uh, for the word count or some, you know, number, cause I'm paying by the word. Uh, you know, I have intros that were 400, 450 words long before there's any value given to the reader.

Um, you know, that's just not something that I would want to read if I searched it. Um, and so it, it, wasn't a good experience overall. Um, I have two writers, uh, they write like one or two posts a month. It's very slow, but they're good. Uh, and I pay them pretty well. Uh, and so I'm going to just keep going with that plus.

Uh, my approach and go from there. But I think there's just so much I can write about that. I feel like I don't, part of me wants to put stuff up there quickly, but I don't want to hurt the quality of the site by doing that. 

[00:36:58] Jared: Let's talk link, building the site, earning $20,000 a month with a site getting into over 500,000 page views a month, two years old.

That was. Yeah. You know, scream of, of, of, uh, an authoritative site on a strong domain with a good amount of. Uh, I know from what we talked about prior to, uh, to this conversation though, that you haven't done much link building, we talk about that. Yeah. 

[00:37:24] Michael: So again, link-building works for a ton of people. I've seen their results.

So I know it works. Um, it wasn't for me, I couldn't get my mind around like, you know, guest posting, you know, paying for links. I just wanted to spend time on building content, building the site. Um, One thing that has worked. So I haven't built a single link. I haven't done any guest posts. Um, but one thing that's worked really well.

And actually I learned this either. I think it was on this podcast, but it was writing content. His research and unique, um, and that has crushed it for my site. So I have three or four posts that get maybe the least amount of volume out of any of the other posts. And they attract the most amount of backlinks.

Now, maybe 50 people a month or a hundred are searching that particular. But I've got backlinks from two or three, you know, Dr. 90 plus sites that are sourcing my unique research and they sourced me just like it ranks number one and it looks legit. It is legit. I did the work myself. I showed my work. Uh, but I think that's a tactic that I either heard on this podcast.

I hear it. Actually. I'm hearing a lot more. John Dykstra talks about it, a ton. But that tactic works and I saw a noticeable difference. Once you start getting some of these big time sites that are linking to your content, that's how I know backlinks obviously matter a tremendous amount. That's not going away.

Uh, but that happened organically. That just sort of happened naturally by writing content, um, and putting it on. So 

[00:38:51] Jared: great. It's so true though. I mean, if you can get those kinds of topics to rank, uh, they sit there and there's just journalists, uh, and other site builders that are constantly searching for, for reference points for this kind of, uh, this kind of information that you'd use in their articles.

And, you know, everyone's a bit lazy not saying that your article isn't the best on the web, but it's number one and it's there and that gave them the data they needed and they can link back to you and. It's a, it's a great way to link though, without having to do any 

[00:39:18] Michael: outreach. The only thing I'll say, which made me think of it, when you said that made me laugh is, uh, I was number one and now a site saw that and they have like a domain authority of like 80.

I'm never going to be the snippet is blah, blah, blah says this data. And I'm like, come on, like, I'll get out of here. They got 

[00:39:34] Jared: the number one ranking by using you domain. Yeah. 

[00:39:38] Michael: Yep. Well, you know, you got the link, I guess. Yeah. I got what I, I guess I got what I needed out of that article, but, uh, it was funny.

[00:39:45] Jared: Oh boy. That's, that's a bummer and you're probably not gonna ever be able to take them down cause they're a 

[00:39:48] Michael: DRA. 

[00:39:50] Jared: Yeah. Okay. So no link-building man, this is just getting better and better. The plot thickens here. We have a site doing. Yeah, but maybe 

[00:39:57] Michael: sorry to interrupt, but maybe, and I look back now, you know, this slow burn, maybe it would have been ramped up massively if I had focused on some backlinking.

Right. So again, it's not to say it doesn't work or don't do it. This worked for me not doing a single line. Maybe 

[00:40:10] Jared: you're exactly right. Maybe. Um, it's it's. Ah, that's why I love doing these interviews. I just love getting to sit here and learn because there's so many different paths to success. Uh, and, uh, and so it's really great to see.

So, um, you know, we've, we've danced around it, this kind of, some of the numbers around how you're making the money, uh, and you kind of tease some different things. I've written some notes down, but let's talk about the revenue and let's talk about your monetization strategies here on this website. So you've got 500,000 page views you're making $20,000 a month.

How's the content. Are you doing a lot of affiliate? Are you doing a lot of ads? Are you doing a lot of other things to make that money? How's that revenue split up? Like give us kind of an insight into how that $20,000 a month looks? Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's 

[00:40:49] Michael: really simple. So it's like 90% display ads, uh, in 90% informational content on my site, some of the earlier stuff was more like product affiliate type a and then I make.

$650 a month on Amazon affiliates. I don't have any other affiliates on there. I struggled with, you know, their rates are, I think a lot of people crushed affiliate marketing. Um, I've had a very hard time, you know, getting that ramped up to where I want it to be, and I feel the competition and what I've seen, or what I've experienced is that these informational posts are less competitive than a lot of these affiliate, you know, uh, buyer intent type topics for obvious reasons.

But it's a gold mine. Right? If you look at the informational thing, I don't think people, I didn't believe that display ads paid as well as they do. Like when I look on what some of these websites, even my own website, I'm just shocked that there's that much value being created. Obviously I believe in the content and what I'm putting out there, but it's not anything special.

You know what I mean? It's just a very simple website. It's just posts, but those display ads generate a ton of right. And now that I'm in this space, I look at it more. And year over year, they fluctuate a lot seasonality and the marketers budgets and, you know, quarter by quarter that changes. But the trend over the last five or six years is up into the right.

Like there's just more and more ad spend in the display ads. Um, so that is an approach that actually, if I started another site, I think I just go after information on from the get, I think I would ignore the affiliate part. I think there's maybe an opportunity to probably do better there. Um, but the display ads pay very well.

And if you can get the traffic, uh, it makes it all worth it. 

[00:42:25] Jared: Well, and that was going to be my question. So it's 90% informational, but you know, did it start off with that focus or did you start off with this. Being more of an affiliate minded revenue generating site at first 40 posts in that first year.

Was it kind of more evenly split and then you, you tangented into all this info content. 

[00:42:43] Michael: Yeah. I'd like to say that I even had a strategy, uh, in terms of the monetization, but I did not. I just wanted to write content that would rank the thing that I think helped me very early on was a, and this might've been something I heard too.

I kind of blend all these podcasts and YouTube videos that I've consumed over the years, but. It was like, if you're writing for yourself, that's your journaling. Right. Uh, and but if you're writing to make money, you know, that's keyword research, that's blogged and that's intense, right? Like you're not just, Hey, I ate a lot of people get that wrong and that's such a simple first step, but a lot of people do that.

Um, but that was my only strategy was like, I want to make money and I know I need traffic in order to do so. Uh, and then later I would write a post and be like, oh, That's a product. That's a link. I started off with Amazon. Actually my wife framed my first check because I didn't even have my, uh, I didn't even have my, uh, automatic payments set up.

So they sent me a paper check from Amazon affiliates, which is funny. But, um, but yeah, so I didn't have a strategy there, but I just found that the, those comp those words were so much more competitive on the affiliates. Then the informational. And then I eventually trended that way very quickly when I started to see, you know, Zohak I started out with, uh, and then I went to address.

And it's after that exponential growth part is that I applied to media vine because I had 50,000 sessions. Uh, but the, they took so long to look at my application that by the time I was like inpatient, I had a hundred thousand page views. So I went to add that. So I just ended up with AdThrive at that time.

Yeah, display ads are where it's at, in my opinion, again, very biased at one site. And that's been my experience. 

[00:44:17] Jared: Well, I mean, we're recording this in April, you know, so I'm guessing some of the numbers you're sharing are from, in terms of revenue are from quarter one, which is historically the lowest paying.

Uh, a quarter for ad revenue, right? Like, uh, you talked about how, uh, advertisers are spending more typically it's it's niche dependent, but typically they're going to be spending more in Q3 and Q4. So, I mean, even without any more growth in terms of traffic, I bet your, your, your revenue will continue to grow over the year as those RPMs and those, uh, those advertisers spend more in 

[00:44:52] Michael: the coming quarters.

Yeah. That's why, so I talked about media vine taking awhile. I had saw it, heard people say November and December are out of this world. And I was getting a lot of traffic and I did not want to wait a whole other year to experience what that was like. And so I pushed as hard as I could and I got it out.

So. Did something like 16,000, which just blew my mind. But the fact that I'm in March, you know, March, it's an April, but this is I'm talking earnings from last month that it did close to 20. Right. I've had my best month of the website in March. And so I'm really looking forward to seeing, you know, again, it fluctuates, but up into the right, especially towards the end of the year.

Uh, very excited to see what like J R uh, sorry, November and December look like. Uh, but for sure those months are, are much bigger. 

[00:45:37] Jared: So at five, like over 500,000 page views, and I think you said 235 posts. I'm like, how's the traffic split up? Is this, are there just a couple of posts that are just getting a gargantuan amount of traffic or is it really evenly spread?

Cause that's a lot of traffic across only 235 posts. That's a significant amount of traffic. Yeah. 

[00:45:55] Michael: I love that. I started this Twitter account cause I just had a post on this and all this stuff. Very fresh. I did a screenshot from my Google console search console, the number one post. Just 3% of my overall chaff trout.

So it's very evenly distributed. I think that's fit that represents 15,000, 16,000 pages for that one post. But then I have like another four that get that. And then I have a bunch that get 10 and nine and eight. And so it's very nicely distributed. You know, I could get knocked out of the rankings for the top five and the site's still going to be just fine.

Like there's not, I'm not relying on a, you know, a hundred thousand page. 

[00:46:30] Jared: That's it. Yeah. I was trying to picture my head, like, is this, did he just strike gold with like two or three keywords? And somehow he's ranking for, you know, iPhone and he just gets all this traffic or, but it's really, really encouraging because it means, like you said over time, like, yeah, you can have the, the, the typical fluctuations, um, uh, but you're not going to get, you know, knocked it down too far.

If you lose a ranking here, there's a ranking there. 

[00:46:55] Michael: Hopefully not. Yeah, but hopefully not, but it is evenly spread and I, I do. That's another thing when we were talking about duplicate content, uh, someone on Twitter responded like, Hey, have you ever tried just making one big post, right. And trying to hit all those keywords and like this big skyscraper posts.

And I think that's an interesting concept, but I'm very risk averse that post could pull in 70,000 pages based on what I've seen alone. But I have. 10 20 posts that are each trickling in 5, 7, 10. Now I don't know how the algorithm God's work. Maybe if I get hit all those go away. I don't know. But it, it mentally, uh, I feel a lot safer.

I feel like I got a little bit of a moat around those gauges because it's not like this high risk high volume page. And if I lose my revenue cuts in half. 

[00:47:41] Jared: I don't know how the algorithm God's work either, but I would, um, I would agree with that sentiment more, more or less. Well, so what are your plans going forward with this site?

Uh, I mean, are you going to, um, if you're gonna quit your job and move to an island in Fiji, are you going to keep growing, you're going to sell it? I mean, w where are you going next to the next 12, 18 24. 

[00:48:01] Michael: Yeah, it's always funny there there's uh, if you go online, you think like, oh, you just go buy a Jaguar and go live on it.

It's so far from like reality, which makes me laugh. But, um, no, I think, you know, nothing really changes in the near term. Um, Producing 15 to 25, uh, posts a month and see how that goes for me. I think I might revisit outsourcing in a very small scale. Um, again, I actually, the benefit of getting all this traffic and ranking high is that writers are reaching out to me now.

And they're saying, Hey, I'd like to, and I have a couple people that sound interesting. And so I, I probably will pursue that a little bit. Um, But no, nothing, nothing drastic is changing. The house I'm in now is 1100 square feet. And so we, our son will, um, you know, the walls are closing in on us. Uh, you know, each floor is 500 square feet.

There's no, I don't have an office here. You know, I work remote. So, uh, the next goal is to get, uh, you know, get a house that we can fit in, um, and grow into a little bit. But now other than that, I think it's more of the same and leaning into what's been working for them. 

[00:49:01] Jared: That's great. That's great. Well, you've created a wonderful base obviously, and I do think a lot of people are going to get inspiration from this story today.

And I think I know I'm inspired certainly with, uh, with my websites to, uh, to, to, to take some of the things you've been sharing, especially interested in that duplicate comments. Right. Duplicate content conversation that we've had. I think we can do a whole episode on that. Um, as we wrap up, where can people follow along with what you're doing?

You mentioned a Twitter account where you're kind of sharing some of your, uh, your, your statistics, your metrics or strategies, but where can people catch up with you and follow along with, uh, with, with you in this website? 

[00:49:38] Michael: Yeah. Thanks. Uh, so I started an account on Twitter. It's at niche down. About seven days ago.

I think it's up to a thousand followers already only because I'm sharing screenshots of all this stuff. I don't share my site because as we know, people are ruthless in this industry, it's just not worth it. You know, maybe if my domain authority gets super strong at some point I'd, I'd feel more comfortable.

Uh, but yeah, it's at each down on Twitter and I just keep sharing, uh, screenshots of, uh, progress. Uh, and, and what's possible. I think that if there's, you know, this doesn't get talked about, I hope this doesn't come across as like some motivational soapbox type thing, but I think what doesn't get talked about enough is limiting beliefs.

And if you. It told me that you could make 80 or a hundred thousand dollars a month on blogs two years ago, I would not have believed it, but you know, people publishing this stuff, you're sharing it. It tells you my goal right now is making a hundred thousand dollars a month. And I can say that, and I don't even feel like it's crazy.

And that if I had, you asked me that a year ago, I would have, I would just be like, it's not possible. Um, and so I think there's a story. I think people probably heard a bunch, but the four minute mile, right. Uh, you know, Roger banister, the world's collectively. Could it be done and under for four minutes, right?

1952, Roger Bannister breaks. That wasn't the interesting thing. 50 days later, and Australian broke it. So you might look at that and be like, oh, that's a coincidence, but that is what it is. Is that Australian saw Roger do it. And tried you realize that you could do it. And so I'm not saying I'm at some scale, you can't get to, but a hundred thousand dollars a month on blog.

It sounds ridiculous until you see someone else do it and they'd share it. And you're like, I can do that. That's achievable. And if you fall short, the nice part is you could do 10% and still change your day-to-day living. You know what I 

[00:51:20] Jared: mean? That that very famous and incredibly corny phrase. If you shoot for the moon and you miss you'll land amongst the stars, 

[00:51:26] Michael: there you go.

That's a nice, that's a nice way to wrap up 

[00:51:29] Jared: my wife's in education. So I hear these from time to time. 

[00:51:33] Michael: I'm used to it. 

[00:51:35] Jared: I get these pamphlets and papers that come home from her to her work and stuff. So, well, I, I think it's really inspirational whether you, you know, you can, you can kind of gauge it a bit, all you want, but it is very inspirational.

It's um, uh, I I'll, I'll bring it back because I get to host these every week. And for me, some weeks it's just a shot in the arm I need, you know, uh, it'd be less on tactics and more on inspiration for some people, and then others are gonna list. And take a lot from the different tactics that you brought to your website that you have.

And again, just to recap, I mean, you've had great success, obviously the numbers speak for themselves, but you also have a good story behind it. Just 12 months ago, the site was getting 10,000 page views fast forward to today, we have this exponential growth. And so for people out there who are putting in the hard work.

It's also really good to give them that, uh, that storyline that you have that translates to rapid growth. And it's, it's very motivating. 

[00:52:34] Michael: Thanks, Jared. Bye. Last thing, my expenses, this in the month of March, we're under a hundred dollars and I don't buy any keyword tools. I don't pay for any courses, nothing wrong with that probably would have expedited things.

If I had. You do not need to take out debt. You don't need, you can do this with hosting and with time and your results will vary, but that you can put in that work and you don't need a loner. You know, what other business can you have that low of expenses and this high of return. I can't name any that are legal.

You know what I mean? And you've got 

[00:53:05] Jared: a site by the way, when someday you want to sell it. A large sum of money right now. And, uh, and that's another, we didn't get to talk about it, but you've built an asset for yourself. And not only are you building monthly income, but these sites present opportunities for people to own assets going forward and stuff.

So you're, you're totally right. You're 

[00:53:21] Michael: totally. Thanks, Jerry, this was fun. 

[00:53:24] Jared: Well, Hey Michael, it was really a treat. Thanks so much for coming on board. Thanks for sharing. So openly, glad to hear your story and much continued success to you. It's been a great interview. 

[00:53:34] Michael: Same to you looking forward to listening to a future podcast.

Appreciate 

[00:53:37] Jared: it. Yep. Yep. Thanks so much. We'll talk to you soon. Bye. Have you been frustrated with your Google traffic lately? Are you tired of tools that make you search through millions of keywords and require a math degree to figure out there's an SEO tool called rank IQ that can. They're ranked number one on G2 for both ease of use and customer satisfaction.

Rank IQ gives you a list of the lowest competition, high traffic keywords in your niche. And they're all clear when. When you choose one of their handpicked keywords, their AI takes over and gives you a simple report telling you what Google wants you to cover in your blog post. Whether you have a new site or have been around for awhile, rank IQ will take your Google traffic to a whole new level.

Go to rank iq.com/niche pursuits to lock yourself in at 50% off their monthly. I'll put this special link in the episode description. .

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