Just Sold My Portfolio for 7 Figures USD, AMA.

[MrMedia]

Wow. Congrats.

No focus on building backlinks, all pure content.

I wonderd about this churning out content thing.

Do you think pages with longer content are better?

ie:
400 words vs 1k words vs 10k words

Same level of quality.

Does search value more words?

Do you get a lower bounce rate on a particular one?

Does user retention go higher with one?


Also do you think this can work for building a brand? I did this for a store once to help them generate traffic.

This is purely my experience so take it for what you will.

My best performing articles were all 2,000 words+ so yes it would appear search values longer content. I think this is largely due to how many long tails you can pick up in a longer article.

My bounce rates were always 85%+ lol. I think it is widely misunderstood metric.

My sites were informational so when someone found what they were looking for they left. Therefore I had a high bounce rate.

The real metric for me to look at and what I think Google looks at is returning visitors. All three sites had about 30-40% repeat visitors because the content was good. Who would keep visiting a website if it was absolute shit?

I think Google sees this, alongside branded searches as a major positive indicator of quality.

This question isn't about niche or topic.

But what were these sites?

Are they sites like news sites, how to sites, Amazon sites ( Im thinking now since you didn't monetize that way )? Im not wanting to know the niche, just what "style" or "kind" of site it was just for reference.

That is, if you can allude to it.

All I will say is that they were information based sites that provided useful content to readers. Not how-tos necessarily - more interest based content.

If your strategy is built around uploading a lot of content, why do you spread the content across multiple sites instead of one?

In other words why do you start multiple sites? Is it because you find that all of your sites have a saturation point in terms of content or is it because you don’t know which site is a winner until much later and you want to diversify to improve your chances?

If you have a winning site that is growing, would you still start another site?

To mitigate risk and because I can.

Once I am maxing out content production for one site and I have three writers sitting on their hands it makes sense to scale to other websites.

I am always looking to spread to other sites and niches once I feel that I am reaching max capacity on content volume for a particular site.

This approach doesnt make sense if you are a noob with $5 in the bank but I look at the money coming into my account and think how can I use this best to make more money.

More often than not that means more content, which I view as an investment.

 

[mikey3times]

Why did you decide to sell instead of continuing to drink up that sweet monthly cash flow? Was it a risk assessment or something else?

 

[MrMedia]

Why did you decide to sell instead of continuing to drink up that sweet monthly cash flow? Was it a risk assessment or something else?

The monthly revenue was amazing and very hard to let go off but ultimately I wanted to cash out on many years of hard work and start fresh.

I'm at my best when I have to start from scratch and make something work so selling all my income producing assets basically puts me at zero income right now.

Up to me what I do with that thought.... and already I am planning projects

 

[Sutra]

Congrats on doing such a great job! Inspiring me to work even harder.

1) When you're blasting out articles, my assumption is that you're not trying to create the 100% perfect article (please correct me if I'm wrong); that you're just looking for "good enough". If that's the case, I'm wondering at what point you consider an article "good enough".

For example, even when tools are used, like spellchecker, or Grammarly, there are still times where the writing can be weird but the tools think it's correct. Do you check for that kind of stuff and manually go through each article to make sure there are zero spelling, grammar, or formatting errors in every article? Or do you just give each article a quick scan and if nothing immediately jumps out as "wrong" then just publish as-is (even though there might be some weird grammar in spots, perhaps missing a comma or period somewhere, possibly a couple misspelled words, etc)?

2) It's easy to get cheap Filipino/Eastern Euro writers who have a very good English level but there are still things "off" that a native speaker will immediately recognize. So, similar to above, and assuming you don't only hire native English-speaking writers, what level of English speaking/reading/writing do you consider good enough?

 

[andreint]

Great stuff! Nothing to ask - just wanted to congratulate you and let you know that you just inspired me to start 5-10 sites from scratch this year after a 2-year hiatus

 

[MrMedia]

Congrats on doing such a great job! Inspiring me to work even harder.

1) When you're blasting out articles, my assumption is that you're not trying to create the 100% perfect article (please correct me if I'm wrong); that you're just looking for "good enough". If that's the case, I'm wondering at what point you consider an article "good enough".

For example, even when tools are used, like spellchecker, or Grammarly, there are still times where the writing can be weird but the tools think it's correct. Do you check for that kind of stuff and manually go through each article to make sure there are zero spelling, grammar, or formatting errors in every article? Or do you just give each article a quick scan and if nothing immediately jumps out as "wrong" then just publish as-is (even though there might be some weird grammar in spots, perhaps missing a comma or period somewhere, possibly a couple misspelled words, etc)?

2) It's easy to get cheap Filipino/Eastern Euro writers who have a very good English level but there are still things "off" that a native speaker will immediately recognize. So, similar to above, and assuming you don't only hire native English-speaking writers, what level of English speaking/reading/writing do you consider good enough?

Good questions.

When I say "good enough" I mean that it covers the topic to an adequate degree and level of detail that will satisfy the query.

But to be clear - I do not simply load up sites with poorly written content and NOTHING will ever go live on any of my sites that does not follow my strict formatting instructions.

Spelling, grammar, short paragraphs for mobile UX, H tags, and article structure are crucially important so DO NOT simply fire up a ton of shit content and expect this to work.

Training a team and investing in them is crucial and took many weeks to perfect at the start of each site. I normally get my team from PH and Eastern Europe.

Hire fast and fire faster in the early days then reward the good ones so they stay with you long term.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Can you give us more insight into a breakdown of your costs regarding content, formatting, image sourcing, and posting?

I'm asking about specifics such as:

• How much do you pay on average per 100 words or per word?
• How much does the uploader / editor / formatter charge per article?
• How much per article in general does the image sourcer / cropper / resizer cost?

Thanks again, and congratulations again.

What about the feelings involved in this? Did you have much anxiety during the whole prospectus, buyer interviews, due diligence, and escrow periods? Was it a giant relief once it was over? As much as I love my projects I can't imagine how much a relief it would be for them to disappear and be replaced with a pile of cash. Also, did you agree to any earn-out periods, like $500k up front and $250k in the next 3 months, and again in another 3 months?

 

[MrMedia]

Can you give us more insight into a breakdown of your costs regarding content, formatting, image sourcing, and posting?

I'm asking about specifics such as:

• How much do you pay on average per 100 words or per word?
• How much does the uploader / editor / formatter charge per article?
• How much per article in general does the image sourcer / cropper / resizer cost?

Thanks again, and congratulations again.

What about the feelings involved in this? Did you have much anxiety during the whole prospectus, buyer interviews, due diligence, and escrow periods? Was it a giant relief once it was over? As much as I love my projects I can't imagine how much a relief it would be for them to disappear and be replaced with a pile of cash. Also, did you agree to any earn-out periods, like $500k up front and $250k in the next 3 months, and again in another 3 months?

Happy to share.

I paid around $35 per 1,000 words.
The uploader was about $400 per week for 50+ articles including formatting.
The image guy was like $2 per image.

These numbers are the reason that these sites make sense. I cringe when I see people saying they paid $150 for 1,000 words on some random lifestyle filler content. Even I would struggle to scale with those costs.

Granted, some technical and research heavy content requires more $ investment but really content sites like these are not rocket science so I stay the hell away from content companies and find my own team members.

Again - this will take trial and error and the outcome is 100% dependent on how well you brief your team.

In terms of feelings - I hear you.

My first site sold within three hours - full asking price lol. I could not believe it.

The bigger sites took some time to sell just because of the money involved and yes there was an earnout on the largest.

At this level that is to be expected and I have no issues at all knowing the Empire Flippers are in control of the process and will keep me protected.

All the sites I sold are rock solid and I believe that in each case the buyers have got an amazing deal. That said, I felt anxiety around selling each of them and it really was not a done deal until the money was in the account.

At that point the relief and satisfaction was incredible and two days in to my early retirement I am already planning new projects to get the next 7 figures within the next 24 months.

 

[bopeep]

Congrats on the sale.
I want to ask the exact url, and your bank password, but, forget it.

Income school will love you.
BTW do you have a template that your content uploader use with short codes and such, or you just give a general guideline and he follows.

 

[MrMedia]

Congrats on the sale.
I want to ask the exact url, and your bank password, but, forget it.

Income school will love you.
BTW do you have a template that your content uploader use with short codes and such, or you just give a general guideline and he follows.

Not sure who Income School is?

I create a dummy article and mark it up with all my required formatting.

H2 here, H3 there, External link here, Internal links there... etc

 

[secretagentdad]

Posting on behalf of people that I can't annoy into signing up.
From Reddit

1. What CMS they were using (if any)?
2. If it was WP, what plugins they were using and how?
3. What features do they wish the CMS or its Plugins had?
4. What SEO mainstream techniques you completely ignored?

 

[MrMedia]

Posting on behalf of people that I can't annoy into signing up.
From Reddit

1. What CMS they were using (if any)?
2. If it was WP, what plugins they were using and how?
3. What features do they wish the CMS or its Plugins had?
4. What SEO mainstream techniques you completely ignored?

1. Wordpress.
2. Just the usual WP plugins, yoast, etc.
3. None that I did not have.
4. Link Building.

 

[illmasterj]

Congrats man.

For the larger site (approx $700k), what multiple did it go for, how long did it take to sell and what sort of investor purchased it?

Can be vague but my assumption is that that price range is too small for PE money but too big for the little guys. Keen to know if you had to hold out for a long time or take a lower valuation multiple to get the deeal through.

 

[DanielS]

Did you do any traffic leaking for your websites? I noticed you mentioned you monetized primarily with ads, and I would imagine the quickest way to get some ad impressions would be through traffic leaking.

 

[MrMedia]

Congrats man.

For the larger site (approx $700k), what multiple did it go for, how long did it take to sell and what sort of investor purchased it?

Can be vague but my assumption is that that price range is too small for PE money but too big for the little guys. Keen to know if you had to hold out for a long time or take a lower valuation multiple to get the deeal through.

Mid 30x for the multiple and took around 6 months to sell to a very smart portfolio manager.

Did you do any traffic leaking for your websites? I noticed you mentioned you monetized primarily with ads, and I would imagine the quickest way to get some ad impressions would be through traffic leaking.

Not much, unless you count Pinterest lol

 

[Darth]

Where the site topics something you had an interest/passion in, or purely just topics you saw potential for/a gap?
How did you identify the niches?

When starting from scratch, you literally just posted a ton of content and waited for Google to slowly find it and realise it was satisfying user intent, and then rank it accordingly? How long did that take to build up? Like when did you break 100 and 1,000 visitors per day. How did Google even find the site in the first place with no links?

 

[MrMedia]

Where the site topics something you had an interest/passion in, or purely just topics you saw potential for/a gap?
How did you identify the niches?

No interest at all. Just spotted some potential in each.

Potential for me = High search volume + low commercial intent + topics that can written about at volume.

 

[propipper]

No interest at all. Just spotted some potential in each.

Potential for me = High search volume + low commercial intent + topics that can written about at volume.

I was going to ask you about this. In an earlier post, you said you were responsible for the KW research while your team did everything else.

With writing 1,000+ articles (and that's your lowest as your other sites have closer to 2,000), at what level do you consider KW search volume/metrics to be "high search volume"?

According to your post above, you look for topics that can be written about at volume - so I assume you're not niching down too much?

 

[MrMedia]

I was going to ask you about this. In an earlier post, you said you were responsible for the KW research while your team did everything else.

With writing 1,000+ articles (and that's your lowest as your other sites have closer to 2,000), at what level do you consider KW search volume/metrics to be "high search volume"?

According to your post above, you look for topics that can be written about at volume - so I assume you're not niching down too much?

Basically I was doing a version of the @CCarter avalanche technique without really knowing it in the early days.

My biggest terms had volumes in the 400,000s searches per month right down to topics with 50 searches per month.

My focus was covering every search term with content and then when some started to pop I would continuously update and improve them until they hit position 1-3 and then it really took off.

Meanwhile all the long tails where cooking and adding up to a ton of traffic.

 

[Potatoe]

My focus was covering every search term with content and then when some started to pop I would continuously update and improve them until they hit position 1-3 and then it really took off.

Can you share some insights into your methodology for updating and improving content once it has started to get some traction? When a post starts to get some traction, what types of things are you looking to improve about the article to move it further up in the rankings? What sort of updates would you do to it?

Thanks!

 

[MrMedia]

Can you share some insights into your methodology for updating and improving content once it has started to get some traction? When a post starts to get some traction, what types of things are you looking to improve about the article to move it further up in the rankings? What sort of updates would you do to it?

Thanks!

I would look at all the keywords that were ranking 4-15 and add 500 words to them, an image and point some additional internal links at them.

Once completed I would change the publish date.

 

[bernard]

Thanks, I'm learning a lot from this thread.

You say you hired mostly filipinos and eastern europeans. Did you find culture to be an issue in managing and how you did you screen for good writers taking different culture into account?

 

[MrMedia]

Thanks, I'm learning a lot from this thread.

You say you hired mostly filipinos and eastern europeans. Did you find culture to be an issue in managing and how you did you screen for good writers taking different culture into account?

No issues at all once I got my A Team together.

Getting there was the hard part but that was not because of cultural differences.

I've had multiple writers from UK/US/PH/AU/EU scam me by passing off copied content or trying to at least. This is not a cultural thing - it is greed and laziness which is a human nature thing.

I always make them do a FREE test article for me with the promise of generous bonus packages and long term employment if they are good.

If they say WTF - they were never going to work out anyway so no loss.

 

[mikey3times]

Great thread. Thanks for doing it.

...passing off copied content or trying to at least.

Are people still using Copyscape for checking? I got nailed by this after doing a late Copyscape check and made the guy rewrite the article. Thankfully he complied even though I had already pushed the payment through.

 

[bopeep]

I always make them do a FREE test article for me with the promise of generous bonus packages and long term employment if they are good.

If they say WTF - they were never going to work out anyway so no loss.

This is a unique test and i love it. Will filter good people who trust in themselves.

Income School is a blogging training company and they focus on content. Lots of bloggers had success with their course.

One more question, you said you didn't build links but got a lot of natural links. How many links did your biggest site manage to get at the end, naturally