James de Lacey is a great example of what you can accomplish in the online business space in just a short time.

He's a rugby and strength and conditioning coach who, thanks to Covid, got into SEO and online business out of necessity.

Now he has 2 successful fitness brands, multiple side projects, and is working his way towards 6 figures per month.

He joins us on the podcast to share lots of important insights into brand building, monetization, and more!

A key takeaway from James's insights is the emphasis on creating valuable content to establish authority in the industry.

Thanks to his sports science background, James produces informative and engaging content across writing, podcasts, and videos - including reaction videos and detailed reviews.

He highlights the necessity of demonstrating expertise and trustworthiness in the fitness niche, stressing the importance of outbound links to reputable sources and in-depth analysis as integral components of his content strategy.

In terms of E-E-A-T and the HCU update, he shares strategies that helped him enhance his site's visibility and expertise and shares tips on changes in review titles to improve rankings and create unbranded mentions on other platforms for brand recognition.

James also shares insights into the membership model for stable revenue, highlighting some of the challenges he's experienced along the way. And touches on social media and how Pinterest SEO can still be used to boost impressions.

Overall it's an inspiring discussion with James showing an impressive ability to juggle multiple projects while still managing to maintain quality and consistency.

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast, where Spencer and Jared break down recent events in the SEO, publishing, and niche site space. 

It’s been a very busy week and there’s a lot going on, so sit back, get comfortable, and get ready for a packed episode!

They get things started with a report from Glen Allsopp, which takes a closer look at who’s ranking for affiliate queries at the moment. 

He goes into great detail in his article on Detailed, for which he handpicked product review terms to look at. Who’s dominating organic search for these very valuable affiliate keywords?  

But it’s not as straightforward as that! 

Jared reveals a twist to the plot that’s affecting search results, rendering the results from the dominant ranking website full of spam. 

But what is the definition of spam, exactly? And when a spokesperson for that website denied that the results were poor quality and offered an example of quality search results, what happened?

Is this an overcorrection by Google? Are they aware of what’s happening? Check out the episode to find out all the drama!

Moving along, Spencer and Jared discuss an article that seems to have gone viral about how Google is killing independent sites. 

The article was published on the website Housefresh, which reviews air purifiers and was hit hard by the HCU, and looks at how large publishers are ranking for affiliate keywords with less in-depth content and without actually putting in the work to review the items.

If this trend is glaringly obvious and offers a poor experience for users, why isn’t Google doing anything about it? How did Danny Sullivan respond? 

Is there a silver lining on the horizon? Jared and Spencer have a lot of thoughts on this, so check out the episode to hear more.

Moving along, but closely related, they talk about how Housefresh’s article about Google killing independent sites is, ironically, being outranked by everyone, from Search Engine Land, Twitter, and Reddit, for its own article!

Hear what they have to say about it!

And along the same lines, they share a tweet from Glen Allsopp with the same problem: not ranking for his own article. In short, the smaller guys are getting beat by the bigger guys, for no good reason.

For their last story, Spencer and Jared talk about the big deal that went down between Google and Reddit. Google has agreed to pay Reddit $60 million a year to train its AI models. 

Why is this an important moment for Reddit? By how much would this increase their revenue? But what makes this situation so incredibly ironic? Jared gives a great breakdown of recent events.

When it’s time to talk about their Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer goes first and reveals he’s launching a premium Niche Pursuits community. 

His goal is to create a community where users can connect with each other, discuss what’s happening in the industry, and learn from and bounce ideas off one another.

The group will include weekly expert calls, mastermind groups, group challenges with monetary prizes, among other elements. It will open to the public on March 4th, so check it out!

Jared talks about his Weekend Growth newsletter side hustle, which is now1 year old. He set an initial goal of getting 1000 subscribers in the first 3 months, and 1 year in he has 4600+ subscribers. 

He’s earned slightly less than $40k during that period, from newsletter ads, affiliate earnings, and the services he offers. He offers some great motivational advice for listeners and talks about what has worked for him when building up this side hustle.

Spencer then shares his weird niche site, Let Me Google That, and shares a funny story about how he found the site. He gives a demo of how the site works and recommends sharing the link when someone asks a “silly” question.

Not only does the site sell merch, but Ahrefs says they’re getting 111k organic visitors per month while SimilarWeb calculates a million per month. How much might they be earning per month?

When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares Throx, the cure for the missing sock. What started out as a pitch on Shark Tank many years ago has actually grown to become a popular brand with tweens and teens making $1 million a year. 

That being said, his SEO could be improved and his website is kind of sparse. Are his products expensive? Is this a gag-gift type of product? Hear what Jared has to say.

And that brings us to the end of another great episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast. As always, we hope you’re feeling informed and inspired by today’s jam-packed episode, and we’ll see you next week for more!

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

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Behdad Jamshidi is a former engineer turned marketing consultant. A few years back, he decided to adapt his problem-solving skills to vet over 700 marketing providers and joins us to share his findings.

Why is this helpful?

He helps businesses understand marketing and marketers understand the business side of things.

In other words, his insights give those looking to hire - helpful tips to make better decisions.

And on the flip side, he helps service providers gain a competitive advantage by better understanding where businesses are directing their marketing budgets.

For those looking to hire, he stresses the significance of understanding business goals before hiring out to an agency's services.

When vetting agencies, he suggests inquiring about their growth story, longevity, and team structure, recommending stable agencies with 5-15 employees or niche agencies with strong pod structures. And he highlights the importance of passionate team members for ensuring quality work and advises building relationships with the team members you'll be working with.

He also explains how marketing trends are shifting toward building brand presence and customer connections. And shares great insights for agencies on how key investment areas are trending toward email marketing, SEO, and influencer marketing. He also highlights content repurposing and social media as increasingly attractive marketing strategies for businesses.

Another interesting area Behdad discusses both for businesses and agencies are the red flags he highlights.

Things like:

• Agencies claiming to be full-service,
• Boasting rapid growth rates,
• And showcasing big-name clients without clear involvement.

Overall, he shares how successful businesses exhibit long-term thinking, have a dedicated marketing budget, and possess internal staff who understand marketing language.

As he covers, marketing is a journey where we need to test strategies and continuously improve over time, and with advice like what's shared in this episode, we can have the confidence we're heading in the right direction.

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter 

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhi... 

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201crea... 

Welcome back to another episode of The Niche Pursuits News podcast, where Spencer and Jared break down the latest and most relevant news for SEOs, content creators, and business owners.

They kick things off by talking about the Helpful Content Update, which was rolled out in September 2023.

There has been lots of chatter of late—in Twitter threads, in Facebook posts, and beyond— where people are looking for signs that recovery from the HCU is possible. 

Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan explains a little bit about the helpful content classifier and how it works, although his explanation certainly gives rise to more questions. 

How does Spencer interpret his explanation? Does he think it’s possible to see a recovery in the short term? Have Jared and Spencer seen any sites make a full recovery? 

What interesting statistics does Jared reference in terms of HCU recoveries? If the classifier is constantly being updated and tweaked, what does that mean for content creators? 

Since no one can truly define what is and isn't helpful content, the big question remains: Is there hope? Listen to Spencer and Jared’s predictions.

The next order of business is the fact that web stories are no longer visible as Google is deprecating the carousel view of web stories in Discover.

What are the two takeaways from this brief news story?

And last but not least, Spencer and Jared talk about the recent news of an upcoming Google algorithm update.

Lots of people have noticed an uptick in traffic as well as volatility, and suspect there might be an update brewing. Have Spencer and Jared noticed anything going on with their sites or the sites they manage? 

Next up on the podcast is the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion. Spencer goes first, but instead of talking about one of his side hustles, he shares an update on the AI content competition underway on Niche Pursuits.

This competition was launched after the HCU and the goal is to grow a new site with AI content. He shares the 4-month leaderboard, and there’s no shortage of interesting things to talk about!

The person leading the pack is getting 24,000 organic visitors to his site with around 7 million articles, and after just 4 months, the top 10 people in the challenge are getting more than 1000 organic visitors per month, which is impressive considering these are fresh domains.

If you want to hear the backstory, check out the full episode and also the Niche Pursuits community.

When it's Jared's turn, he provides an update on his public speaking side hustle, reporting that he has reached out to more than 50 different conferences to see if he can speak. How many did you hear back from? And what did they say? 

He also gives an update on his Weekend Growth YouTube channel, which recently reached the thresholds for monetization. Jared shares his stats as well as some useful advice for YouTube content creators, and reports on how much he's earned to date from that channel. 

When it’s time to reveal their weird niche sites, Spencer goes first with Snow Day Calculator.  This site, which does have a social media following, allows users to calculate the number of snow days according to their zip code and type of school. It also offers predictions of future snow days. 

The DR42 site is monetized with display ads and has a relatively strong backlink profile, thanks to links from news outlets. As it's a seasonal site, the traffic spikes in winter but dies during the rest of the year. 

How much money might it be making during those peaks? And what other clever strategies are they using to earn money? Listen to the episode to find out what Spencer and Jared discover as they poke around.

Things take a morbid turn when Jared reveals his weird niche site, Aerial Ashes, a company that uses drones to scatter people’s ashes over land and sea in the UK.

The site, which is clearly for a local company, is a DR8 and is ranking for just 45 keywords, so it's difficult to say how successful it is. 

However, Jared makes a great point about this section of the podcast: Every day, people are executing on their business ideas and using their skill sets, passions, and hobbies to create something unique. And you can too!

Well, that brings us to the end of another interesting episode! join us next week for a look at all the latest news, and updates from the hosts, more weird niche sites and, above all, lots of inspiration.

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Appsumo founder Noah Kagan joins the podcast today to remind us that we all start small.

Noah's own path to success began by experimenting with various small online niche ventures, a few of which eventually led to the creation of several multi-million dollar businesses. 

He shares his process of experimenting with different ideas to find product-market fit, highlighting some failures along the way, and the valuable lessons they taught him.

But as he mentions - business is the one game where you only need to win once. 

You just need to start to have a chance. 

He acknowledges the importance of time though and urges the rapid validation of ideas, offering solid examples of how to do this efficiently. 

He also shares invaluable advice on generating business ideas and stresses the importance of interaction with people throughout the process.

A key part of his message is the power of asking for what you want, exemplified by starting with small acts like requesting a 10% discount on coffee to help build resilience. 

Some other key takeaways are:

• To focus on basics,

• Revisit successful tactics,

• Employ an experiment mindset,

• And persist with what actually works.

By experimental mindset, he means running short experiments, identifying problems as opportunities, and validating ideas through quick tests - offering up concrete examples

He discusses learning the "language of making money" as a skill that fosters financial success over time and underlines the importance of self-belief and action to achieve your goals.

Overall, persistence and consistency are major themes, and Noah advises you to give an idea with potential at least 100 tries before considering quitting.

He also highlights optimism, intelligent risk-taking, and pitfalls to avoid when starting and growing a business - with personal experiences and insights from tested strategies to help you on your journey. 

And don’t forget to check out his book The Million Dollar Weekend for more in-depth insights into his awesome and inspiring success. 

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast!

This is the place to hear the latest news in the SEO and content publishing industries and it’s where Spencer and Jared break it all down. This week, as always, they also share progress on their side hustles as well as two very, very weird niche sites.

The first topic up for discussion is Google’s decision to rebrand Bard as Gemini. Google certainly is putting a lot of effort into building out AI tools, and this will be one of their flagship products. 

What do Spencer and Jared think of the company's decision? And what new features will this tool have? 

The next topic is how Google's updated its SEO Starter Guide.

The guide originally dates back to 2008 And is a guide specifically for beginners. Although there's probably nothing meaty there for people that are familiar with SEO, Spencer and Jared did highlight a few interesting items, in particular, from the section on things you should not do.

What kind of advice did they share? What does Google say about article length? And how about PageRank and EEAT? And what about business cards? 

The last news item they discuss is how Google won't be able to proceed with third-party cookie deprecation. This means that the phasing out of third-party cookies may or may not be delayed as Google has been asked to comply with additional safety requirements in the UK.

This is big news because it could potentially affect content creators’ earnings, Although it's true that advertising is Google's bread and butter and it will likely do everything it can to maintain it, this is definitely a topic you'll want to keep an eye on!

In the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, Spencer goes first with an update on his Facebook traffic side hustle. He was able to reduce the cost of his likes campaign to grow his page. He shares a lot of the data behind the campaigns, but the real question is whether those likes are driving traffic to his website.

Is it working? What does his Google Analytics reveal? And what is he going to do moving forward?

When it’s Jared’s turn, he provides an update on his Weekend Growth YouTube channel, which officially qualifies for monetization. He shares the stats behind his growth and reveals that the site is less than a year old. 

He also offers an update on his public speaking side hustle with an exciting announcement. Check out the episode to hear what it is!

When it comes to weird niche sites, Spencer takes the lead with a very weird site called Is It Friday Yet. According to Ahrefs, the site doesn’t get any traffic, although there is a very entertaining video on YouTube that reviews the website, so tune in to hear more about that.

When it was Jared’s turn, he revealed a 1-page weird niche site: The Office Stare Machine, which lets you input an emotion and it will show stares from Office characters conveying that emotion. They test it out, and the results are pretty funny! 

This DR30 site ranks for just 28 keywords, but it does have 49k likes from Facebook. It doesn’t get a lot of organic traffic, and Spencer and Jared talk about the potential strategies the owner might be using on Facebook. Where does it have the potential to do well?

And that brings us to the end of another great episode of The Niche Pursuits News Podcast. We hope this weekly dose of the latest news has brought you up to speed in the SEO and content creation space and you’re feeling inspired by Spencer and Jared’s side hustles.

See you next Friday!

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

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You can probably list loads of reasons why starting a community could be valuable.

And Chris Yates, the founder of Rhodium, is on the podcast to share a BIG reason with his awesome success story.

He talks about his journey of transitioning from owning a digital marketing agency to buying online businesses and eventually founding Rhodium to connect with others in the industry.

He emphasizes the importance of building a community and the benefits it brings:

• Learning from others
• Making deals
• Forming partnerships

Chris also highlights the value of community in providing tactical ROI for businesses - like how engaging with a core group of customers with direct feedback can lead to valuable insights and improvements on everything from pain points to pricing.

He gives lots of examples but the stand out is definitely his own experience.

He was offered to buy a business from a Rhodium member for 5 figures thanks to the inherent trust from shared beliefs. He then grew it with help from the community and sold it to another Rhodium member for a multi-7-figure exit.

Overall, this is a discussion that is both a great success story and guide to the benefits of building and nurturing a community of like-minded people in your niche.

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter 

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhi... 

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201crea... 

Welcome back everybody to the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. Join us as Spencer and Jared tackle the latest headlines about Google, SEO, AI, and content creation. 

Get inspired hearing about progress with their side hustles, and learn about some weird niche sites and the unique strategies they’re using.

The first news item up for discussion is Google's own reporting on the future of SGE during its recent earnings call. Although Spencer and Jared have hypothesized in the past that SGE might hit a dead end, this call confirmed Google leadership's commitment to, and belief in, this new tool. 

The company is investing heavily in SGE and expects it to be extremely useful and popular in the future. Spencer underlines the diversity of results using this feature, where the first 10 SGE results are different from the first 10 organic search results, and Jared shares a few highlights from the article about the breadth of search and Google Assistant.

How do Spencer and Jared interpret the CEO’s comments on SGE? What do they think about his comments about long tail searches? What did the company have to say about publishers? And how did its ad revenue perform?

Check out the episode for their take on these questions.

The next topic up for discussion is Google Bard’s ability to now create images. What happened when Spencer played around with it? What happens if you use them on your website? And how good are the photos it generates? See the images it created for Jared and judge for yourself!

The last article they share features a podcast guest, Brandon Salt, who asked for help on Twitter when his traffic tanked. Surprisingly, Danny Sullivan from Google Search Liaison answered him directly and their exchange was highlighted in an article on Search Engine Roundtable.

What do Spencer and Jared think about Danny’s response? Is his feedback useful and do they agree with his comments? What do they say about embedding videos? And what advice do they give to publishers who like to update their article dates each year?

As for their Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer once again spoke about his experiment where he’s to grow his Facebook page and drive that traffic to his website.

How does he run a Facebook likes campaign? What does it cost and entail? He recently launched several campaigns and he shares the results and a little bit about the strategy. 

How many likes does he have at the moment? And how would he use this strategy to get into the Amazon Influencer Program? Listen and find out!

When it's Jared's turn to talk about side hustles, he shares the latest on his efforts to land public speaking gigs. He has discovered that there are more opportunities than he had anticipated and he talks about his plans going forward. 

Both he and Spencer share an update from their Amazon Influencer side hustle. How did they do in January? What do they expect in February?

Moving on to their Weird Niche Sites, Spencer shares his site which, unlike the usual sites he shares, is not a content website. Weather Embed is a SaaS tool with a very simple website that is very niche as it’s specifically for embedding in newsletters. 

Who might use this type of tool? Who might have built this tool? And can it be used beyond newsletters? How do Spencer and Jared think people could use this for their businesses?

He doesn’t know how much they’re making and it barely gets any traffic from Google Search, but it is a very cool, very niche website.

Jared then shares his Weird Niche Site: IMCDB, an internet cars movie database. It’s essentially a Wikipedia of every car that was ever used in every movie.

Although the site is not very user-friendly, it is extremely extensive and includes information and photos about all the cars.

It’s a classic, old-school directory with a DR of 68, it ranks for 95k keywords, and it gets around 32k organic sessions per month. Which keywords are getting the most traffic? What kind of affiliate program is it using? Listen to find out!

And that wraps up another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast! Thanks for joining us, and we hope that you’re feeling informed and inspired to keep on building, creating, and publishing. See you next week!

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative