Just Sold My Portfolio for 7 Figures USD, AMA.

bopeep said:
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
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30k+ backlinks which obviously includes a ton of shit.
 
Where did you hire your team/writers/uploader? And congrats for the achievement!
 
Not sure if this is completely on topic with this thread but I figured I'd ask anyway- how are you going about finding so many keywords for the Avalanche project you're operating? Do you use keywords as H2s or do you create H2s that help improve the flow of the article while not worrying about if they are proven search terms? Reason I ask is because I've found 60 primary keywords for my site but it's starting to get harder to find terms, but I did use keywords for my H2s fitting the same set criteria (0-10 monthly searches).
 
@DanielS, if you run out of terms, then graduate up a level. Nobody said you have to produce content in the baby range until you're not a baby. You just need enough baby range content to get you out of that range eventually. Those articles won't hit their max performance for months. If you keep staying in that range you'll waste months where you were capable of graduating upward but didn't. The ones that are above your range at the moment will be aging and you'll have a head start once you leap to the next level. It's not as strict as you're imagining it. It's a general guide, not hard, firm parameters.

@MrMedia, when the first payment hit your bank account, did you do anything to celebrate? Did you sit on the back porch with a fat cigar and watch the sun set? Did you splurge on a gluttonous meal? Will you be giving yourself a short vacation before you get back to the grind? And have you shared this info with family and friends yet? If so, how did they respond? Did their responses vary based on their own success in life?
 
Thanks so much for making this AMA.

I've joined (discovered) Builder Society on a link from reddit and extremely glad I did. Have since taken notes on this whole study, as well as the Avalanche Keyword technique.

Could you please elaborate on what briefing you give your writers? I understand you're creating lists of thousands of keywords, but do you just give them the keyword and say "write an article on this"?

I've started outsourcing writing for the first time (built the site to 100k/m traffic myself). After a bad experience with a writer going in the wrong direction, I've started preparing briefs for each article. Stating the general aim and looking into subheadings they should include.

Do you provide any more detail beyond just the keyword? Is this a case of needing an "A Team" good enough to take the term and run with it?

Also, did you sort/categorise your keywords at all? I'm definitely looking forward to trying the avalanche method but concerned that the low level search terms would just be long tails of larger ones. So you could end up with 7 posts on essentially the same topic!

Thanks again. Huge kudos on the sale - enjoy the freedom :smile:
 
Congratulations on the sale. I appreciate you doing this.

How's your tax situation after the sale?
Were the sites registered to a company? If so, where's the company registered?
Did your specific setup help you reduce the tax burden from the sale? How?

Thanks for taking the time. Good luck on the new sites!
 
@MrMedia: Congratulations and thank you for doing the AMA.

Question on cashflow: what did your cash flow situation look like for your first project? How long, in terms of both cash flow and time, did it take to move over from writing by yourself to hiring a writer / team of writers?
 
DanielS said:
Not sure if this is completely on topic with this thread but I figured I'd ask anyway- how are you going about finding so many keywords for the Avalanche project you're operating? Do you use keywords as H2s or do you create H2s that help improve the flow of the article while not worrying about if they are proven search terms? Reason I ask is because I've found 60 primary keywords for my site but it's starting to get harder to find terms, but I did use keywords for my H2s fitting the same set criteria (0-10 monthly searches).
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Start at the end point.

For this to work you need to find a market that has the search volume to get you to 1M+ sessions per month.

60 keywords is tiny. You need thousands of all degrees of difficulty. Most will not be major winners for you but it is the cumulative effect of thousands of keywords all sending 100-1000 sessions per day that makes this work.

Ryuzaki said:
@MrMedia, when the first payment hit your bank account, did you do anything to celebrate? Did you sit on the back porch with a fat cigar and watch the sun set? Did you splurge on a gluttonous meal? Will you be giving yourself a short vacation before you get back to the grind? And have you shared this info with family and friends yet? If so, how did they respond? Did their responses vary based on their own success in life?
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Excellent question.

Today I will be smoking a cigar and drinking Dom Perignon with my buddy. I have had a week of eating whatever I want and drinking a few cold beers each night just to reflect on the journey so far.

I am not a flashy person so there has been no major blow out style purchases (yet).

When I was struggling for cash if I read someone saying it was the sense of achievement rather than the money I would have called bullshit, but truthfully - the achievement is what makes me smile, not the cash.

Checking the stats on my new site and seeing 38 sessions a day (lol) vs the 10s of thousands per day makes me realise what a journey it has been.

If you guys are sitting on sites and thinking about cashing out - from a sanity point of view I would highly recommend it. I truthfully feel like a different person haha.

No one, other than my mum knows the details and anyone I have told have been very happy for me irrespective of their own position.

MinstrelJunkie said:
Thanks so much for making this AMA.

I've joined (discovered) Builder Society on a link from reddit and extremely glad I did. Have since taken notes on this whole study, as well as the Avalanche Keyword technique.

Could you please elaborate on what briefing you give your writers? I understand you're creating lists of thousands of keywords, but do you just give them the keyword and say "write an article on this"?

I've started outsourcing writing for the first time (built the site to 100k/m traffic myself). After a bad experience with a writer going in the wrong direction, I've started preparing briefs for each article. Stating the general aim and looking into subheadings they should include.

Do you provide any more detail beyond just the keyword? Is this a case of needing an "A Team" good enough to take the term and run with it?

Also, did you sort/categorise your keywords at all? I'm definitely looking forward to trying the avalanche method but concerned that the low level search terms would just be long tails of larger ones. So you could end up with 7 posts on essentially the same topic!

Thanks again. Huge kudos on the sale - enjoy the freedom :smile:
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Congrats on getting to that point so far. Let me know if you want to sell :wink:

I use excel to brief my team with detailed instructions on headings and sub heads. I list the keywords in one column and then tell them to work through the spreadsheet as per my formatting instructions.

I would highly recommend excel for this type of operation.

Keywords were sorted by category and labelled so the uploader knew where to post them.

DD1 said:
Congratulations on the sale. I appreciate you doing this.

How's your tax situation after the sale?
Were the sites registered to a company? If so, where's the company registered?
Did your specific setup help you reduce the tax burden from the sale? How?

Thanks for taking the time. Good luck on the new sites!
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I am in the UK so standard corp tax on profits. No special arrangements or other things in place.

It is what it is as much as tax sucks donkey balls.

southpaw said:
@MrMedia: Congratulations and thank you for doing the AMA.

Question on cashflow: what did your cash flow situation look like for your first project? How long, in terms of both cash flow and time, did it take to move over from writing by yourself to hiring a writer / team of writers?
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Early days was $0.15 per day for months. Grim times indeed.

I would say around 6 months in I hired my first writer and started paying out of my own savings.

Once you commit to something properly the difference is night and day and a few months after that I had 3 writers full time cranking out 60k words per week.
 
Congrats!

Did you sell all three on Empire Flippers?

Why did you pick EF over other brokers?

What was the sale process like?

Did you sell it for the full initial listing price?

Did you try bringing down their listing fee?
 
MrMedia said:
Congrats on getting to that point so far. Let me know if you want to sell :wink:

I use excel to brief my team with detailed instructions on headings and sub heads. I list the keywords in one column and then tell them to work through the spreadsheet as per my formatting instructions.

I would highly recommend excel for this type of operation.

Keywords were sorted by category and labelled so the uploader knew where to post them.
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Genuinely will do :smile: Hopefully just getting started on the real growth now that I'm outsourcing!

Okay, think I understand. So you're taking your main keyword and also giving subheadings based on long tail keywords. All into an Excel writers can follow, which then gets translated into the final article.

Two quick follow ups..
1. By detailed instructions, are you leaving them notes on what angle/resources for the keyword?
2. How long do you spend preparing each keyword to outsource? It takes me 5-10 minutes - which I'm not sure is scalable to prepping for 30-60k words a week. Would massively appreciate a point of comparison!

Thanks so much again. Enjoy that Dom Perignon :cool:
 
Thank you for your amazing share, and of course congrats with this outstanding success!

My question concerns this...

MrMedia said:
Potential for me = High search volume + low commercial intent + topics that can written about at volume.
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Why low commercial intent? With high commercial intent keywords, you could probably earn more, especially should you have walked Amazon / affiliate offers route.

From another hand, low commercial intent = less competition, hence easier to get to the first Google positions, so more traffic.

This, or do you have other reasons?
 
Golan said:
Why low commercial intent? With high commercial intent keywords, you could probably earn more, especially should you have walked Amazon / affiliate offers route.

From another hand, low commercial intent = less competition, hence easier to get to the first Google positions, so more traffic.
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He mentioned he did a variation of the SEO Avalanche tactic, which is low competition keywords.

I've done some testing in this regard and it's crazy how easy it is to rank for these non-commercial keywords and they yield a surprising amount of traffic. On the other hand, I've had success doing pretty much the opposite, I'll eek out 20 visitors a week from a high competition keyword, but I'll earn like $5 a visit on average. I guess it all depends on the strategy. If you can scale at the costs that MrMedia mentions, then it's different than if the costs are twice or tripple that.
 
F5K7 said:
Congrats!

Did you sell all three on Empire Flippers?

Why did you pick EF over other brokers?

What was the sale process like?

Did you sell it for the full initial listing price?

Did you try bringing down their listing fee?
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All three with Empire Flippers.

In my research I talked to the other main brokers and tbh I just liked the whole approach at EF. They are very methodical and always strike a fair balance between the seller and the buyer and in my experience they are excellent.

First 2 sites sold for full list price and the third sold for very close to what I wanted. I got a great deal and so did the buyer in each case and that makes me happy.

Regarding fees etc, I will not go into detail as that is commercially sensitive information however I will say that like most things in life things are always up for discussion.

MinstrelJunkie said:
Genuinely will do :smile: Hopefully just getting started on the real growth now that I'm outsourcing!

Okay, think I understand. So you're taking your main keyword and also giving subheadings based on long tail keywords. All into an Excel writers can follow, which then gets translated into the final article.

Two quick follow ups..
1. By detailed instructions, are you leaving them notes on what angle/resources for the keyword?
2. How long do you spend preparing each keyword to outsource? It takes me 5-10 minutes - which I'm not sure is scalable to prepping for 30-60k words a week. Would massively appreciate a point of comparison!

Thanks so much again. Enjoy that Dom Perignon :cool:
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1. No - I mean detailed regarding formatting of the article not tone or angles. Eg. short paragraphs, short sentences, etc.

2. No time at all other than the initial research. Then import keywords into excel and done. Using SEMRush or similar.

Golan said:
Thank you for your amazing share, and of course congrats with this outstanding success!

My question concerns this...



Why low commercial intent? With high commercial intent keywords, you could probably earn more, especially should you have walked Amazon / affiliate offers route.

From another hand, low commercial intent = less competition, hence easier to get to the first Google positions, so more traffic.

This, or do you have other reasons?
Click to expand...

I have always enjoyed the simplicity of display revenues. Dicking around with Amazon has never appeal to me at all for some reason.

low commercial intent = less competition - got it in one.
 
MrMedia said:
The image guy was like $2 per image.
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What exactly is an "image guy" and what is he doing? Do you provide premium stock photo account and he is just grabbing photos there and adding them into the aritcle? Or does he provide the photos? I assume there is some editing of photos ie. adding words over the photo or resizing... etc?

I always assumed an image guy was only needed for custom graphic design work like creating infographics and the like. Really interested in hearing about how you used this specialist in your workflow.

Also, if you could provide any other detail on how you got your articles written I would appreciate it. I understand you listed the keywords and then had a format template for the writers to follow, but I have found that I have to go into much more detail with an outline to get good results.

Is it just because you are using a custom team? Or is it something else that you are doing that makes it easier for the writers to give good work at a good rate? Is it a unique keyword per section of the article?

Just trying to figure out how to improve the efficiency of my workflow.... Your publishing numbers are impressive to say the least. One big bottleneck for me is preparing the outsource orders since I need to do a detailed brief for each one.

Thank you for doing this ama. This is so valuable. You've provided so much good info already.
 
Guys most of you are over thinking this. My spreadsheets etc are custom to me and will be useless to 90% of you so take the principal and apply it and stop obsessing over the minute details.

In relation to the images - my guy gets a format to work to (image size and stylistic requirements) and then he gets a spreadsheet too. He uses free to use imagery in all cases.

_____

After an awesome weekend of relaxing and reflecting and getting fat I am now back on the grind.

So, if you have a website that is generating revenue - large or small - hit me up via PM.

I am buying sites again and if you want an early payday I can help make that happen.

Cheers.
 
@MrMedia
"I am in the UK so standard corp tax on profits. No special arrangements or other things in place."

May or may not apply but you should be able to claim entrepreneur's relief which is 10% tax instead.

Massive congrats btw. I'm inspired by this story.
 
MrMedia said:
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
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This! I think this is the KEY to wealth creation...

Creating flippable businesses so you can advance X number of years in your life, and then starting fresh with a survival mindset again. Have I summed it correctly?

Some questions:
- While operating such a large website, do you employ any sort of silo structure, and did it become hard to manage the internal links or you created some kind of process for it?

- Did you operate the site as an authority/brand like having dedicated social media profiles and posting published content there as well?

- You mentioned your bounce rate being 85%+, so I presume you have good reason to believe that if someone comes to your site and exits in the next 5-10 seconds, it won't have any negative impact because his query was answered?

- DId you or would you steer clear of YMYL topics because of the risk of Medic penalty and E-A-T shizz?

- Lastly, would you ever consider working this model with expired domains?

Cheers mate, and many congratulations on achieving this milestone, wish you great luck for your next projects=)
 
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MTUK said:
@MrMedia
"I am in the UK so standard corp tax on profits. No special arrangements or other things in place."

May or may not apply but you should be able to claim entrepreneur's relief which is 10% tax instead.

Massive congrats btw. I'm inspired by this story.
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Seems unlikely as I will be continuing the business as it stands - ie. developing other websites to sell.

But- something I have the accountants working on :wink:

fatalityhawk said:
This! I think this is the KEY to wealth creation...

Creating flippable businesses so you can advance X number of years in your life, and then starting fresh with a survival mindset again. Have I summed it correctly?

Some questions:
- While operating such a large website, do you employ any sort of silo structure, and did it become hard to manage the internal links or you created some kind of process for it?

- Did you operate the site as an authority/brand like having dedicated social media profiles and posting published content there as well?

- You mentioned your bounce rate being 85%+, so I presume you have good reason to believe that if someone comes to your site and exits in the next 5-10 seconds, it won't have any negative impact because his query was answered?

- DId you or would you steer clear of YMYL topics because of the risk of Medic penalty and E-A-T shizz?

- Lastly, would you ever consider working this model with expired domains?

Cheers mate, and many congratulations on achieving this milestone, wish you great luck for your next projects=)
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Great questions.

No issues with silos or internal linking. The uploader handled everything based on my instructions. In this case - include 3 internal links to 3 random posts within the same category.

Socials were barely used in each of the three sites.

Time on site is important and different from bounce. If someone spends an hour on one page and leaves that is a technically a bounce. That is why I think it is a misunderstood metric. TIME consuming content is much more important and if they get what they need after spending good time on site then I believe that to be a positive signal.

I would never dream of going near YML categories. Not my bag (yet)

One of the sites used an expired domain and gave me a 6 month head start but nothing earth shattering.
 
MrMedia said:
Great questions.

No issues with silos or internal linking. The uploader handled everything based on my instructions. In this case - include 3 internal links to 3 random posts within the same category.

Socials were barely used in each of the three sites.

Time on site is important and different from bounce. If someone spends an hour on one page and leaves that is a technically a bounce. That is why I think it is a misunderstood metric. TIME consuming content is much more important and if they get what they need after spending good time on site then I believe that to be a positive signal.

I would never dream of going near YML categories. Not my bag (yet)

One of the sites used an expired domain and gave me a 6 month head start but nothing earth shattering.
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@MrMedia Just a follow-up question on that then, what was the session duration roughly across your 3 sites?
 
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