Hey authority hikers welcome to the First episode of 2022. i hope you had a Lot of fun i hope you met with your Family i hope you ate a lot of food but Let’s not lie now it’s time to go back To work and you’re lucky because today We have an episode that’s going to help You do just that where we’re going to be Talking about the main changes to Building authority sites in 2022 there’s No denying that building websites is Getting somewhat more complicated but Also it’s changing right and there’s Things that you should do differently This year that we’ve done in the past so In this episode we are going to be Highlighting several of the biggest Challenges that you should adopt if you Want to build successful websites in 2022 and we are going to be taking the Opportunity of this podcast to announce That we have just updated our flagship Post the authority side system with most Of the changes that we are going to be Talking about in this podcast so that is You know things like cover vitals things Like the google review update and a Bunch of other things that are quite Important to make your site successful All our trainings have just been updated In the last few days with a bunch of Lessons that treat of all these things And help you navigate the more difficult Paths that you have to go through when
You’re building a site this year and to Celebrate this update we are running a Massive discount on the authority side System that you can find on Autohacker.com system you will see the Url below me go and check it out it’s Only going to be running for a few days So don’t miss it out otherwise the price Gonna go back up but without further Teasing let’s get started with the Episode [Music] Hi everyone welcome back to the attorney Hacker podcast 2022 we are still going And to celebrate the new year we Actually just released a massive update To the authority site system and we have A bunch of new lessons and videos a lot Of the stuff that we are going to be Talking about in this podcast is Actually integrated in the course Already uh so yeah a lot of new stuff That came out and to celebrate that we Are actually running a cell right now on The auto inside system so if you want to Get it at the best price possible with All the new updates included you can go On autohacker.com System to see the current cell it’s only Running for a few more days now so just Make sure you don’t miss it but let’s Jump into the podcast and ask mark how His new year has been going and how his Christmas has been going uh so how has
It been going mark well normally in a Podcast this is the point where i would Say yeah another great christmas and new Year but let’s let’s kind of like break The fourth wall for a bit it’s not even Christmas yet we’re recording this at The end of 2021 Uh because we don’t want to be doing This uh during our vacation break Um but the sa the answer is the same as It’s always been for every episode of The podcast is i have no answer of Course because it’s an awkward question And i don’t like responding to it So nothing’s going to keep not answering Okay well that is one thing that you can Be resting a shirt that is going to stay The same in 2022 But let’s talk about uh stuff that is Changing and all staying the same on Authority sites because i think that’s What people came here for um and i think The first point i’m going to take it is The and i think that People who follow our course like do get The idea but people a lot of people who Don’t i kind of like observe i follow Them the subreddit just start uh which a Lot of people if you want like to see People talking about building sites etc It’s a cool place actually people talk About their case studies and building Websites and stuff and it’s cool um no i Wouldn’t necessarily do everything that
Is advised in the comments necessarily To my site um but um the energy on the Subreddit is really cool it’s kind of a Place where i also get like inspiration What to talk about and things like that Uh for the podcast but anyway the first Point that i don’t see always is that You should probably figure out Monetization first before you start a Website because you don’t pay your bills In rankings you don’t pay your bills in Traffic you don’t pay your bills and Unique visitors or anything like that You pay your bills in dollars And too many people especially when People follow kind of like the You know go with your passion first type Thing Usually it means don’t think about Monetization just do something that Interests you and it’s like you’re Building a business here guys so uh Figure out your monetization update like Now it’s quite easy to monetize Many many things with advertising Because ads do pay quite well now and i Think there really are uh you know an Equal alternative to affiliate marketing Whereas before it was more like You know you had affiliate marketing Making most of your money and you had Like kind of ads as a support Monetization channel i think the balance Has kind of shifted
On a lot of niches not all of them like Hyping issues for affiliate marketing Not really but like for a lot of Consumer issues it’s kind of like half Half it’s kind of the same and uh and It’s it’s quite valuable to start a site That would You know be counting on us to pretty Much make most of its money at this Point um but you need for this this high Payouts you need your traffic to be Mostly in the u.s so when you do your Market research you need to make sure You get us traffic because if you want To get on mediavine that’s drive and all The networks that pay like 20 to 40 Dollars per thousand visitors Mostly closer to 40. um although now We’re gonna enter the period of the year Was going to be the lowest you know After christmas the ad revenue dips so You know expect a bit less now but it’s Going to go up throughout the year In mostly u.s traffic you mostly family Friendly traffic right so if you write About like uh exotic sexual positions And stuff like that on your site you’re Probably not going to give you approved So just uh just so you know but other Than that most of most topics can be Monetized quite well and the thing That is interesting as well is like you Know historically the topic of your site Would matter quite a lot on how much you
Make with ads because you know ads used To be matched on like the content of the Page it is still the case to some extent Um you know some of the meetings like That but a lot a lot of the bidding is Uh is like retargeting or like you know For example google uses your search History to target azatu right so if you Are searching for if i’m searching for I don’t know what could i be searching For some of the best paintball guns uh Then uh even if i visit cnn then i could See paintball ads based on that search For example and so that means that the Entire history of what people have been Doing on the internet matters to what Others served to them rather than just The content of the page and therefore You know the earnings per thousand Visitors on like a cooking blog is now Quite close to the earning per thousand Visitors on the financial blog not Exactly as much the financial block Would still make you know probably Thirty percent more or something like This but it’s not going to be like five To one ratio like it used to be before So uh ads are great but still i prefer Running sites that at least can monetize With both ads and affiliate and i would Recommend that before you start anything Find the affiliate programs and the Products you want to sell check how much They’re paying
Try to find size that promote them and Which angles they’re doing I like to find examples of sites that i Are clearly investing quite a bit so Like in content or in like tech or stuff Like that like you know they’re spending Money if they’re spending money they Believe they can make money or they are Making money already and then i kind of Like piggyback right that good a good Tax figure I think you you mentioned this uh maybe On the podcast before i can’t remember Is to look at who’s hiring for people in That industry so if you it’s one of the Tactics in tests actually is to go to The content marketplaces Uh like a pro blogger or up work et Cetera and look at the job offers and Usually they give you niches so it’s Like if you’re looking for niches it’s a Great place to go actually yeah and it’s Interesting as well when one of our First big authority sites that we Started Back in 2013 this was a health site uh We had no idea what we were doing when It came to monetization like our only Goal in the beginning was to grow it get More visitors Of any kind we had we didn’t think the Monetization out until really a year a Year and a half in Uh and and by that point we spent quite
A lot of energy quite a lot of resources And money on building out areas of the Site that Weren’t so easy to monetize with like Some of the the products we were Promoting at the time And it was just it was just a mess uh we Ended up with this huge site which had Eventually thousands of posts but A lot of it was just lacking in focus it Was difficult to work work on and the Area of the site that made a lot of Money which was around uh supplements And stuff was was maybe what a quarter Or a third of of that And if we just focused on if we just Focused on building out that area from The beginning because we researched it And we identified that as a you know High profitable area um i think we would Have gotten a lot further with that site Certainly a lot faster as well Yeah the story is a bit different if you Do the same today because ad networks Can kind of like back that up whereas at The time when we did it there was no Many other and there was no drive so Really that content yeah i mean you Could slap adsense and like we did Medianet at the time uh don’t use media Anymore but like we did mediant at the Time Uh and we were making some money but it Was pretty terrible to be honest uh and
That is a good example of like what not To do so usually this kind of advice we Give comes from us it up Sometime in the past and just Remembering probably shouldn’t do that Again um so that’s that’s pretty much it Uh why don’t you take the next point Yeah so the next one is don’t be afraid Of the competition in fact seek out Competition it’s a good thing most People when they get into Starting any kind of business online for The first time they try and do something Different they think that oh i just need To come up with something new like mark Zuckerberg and facebook and i’ll You know become a billionaire facebook Wasn’t the first social network right it Wasn’t even the the first big one uh What was what was that one because There’s beebo nice friendster myspace Uh they were huge and mark zuckerberg Came along and just executed better than The rest so the presence of competitors Is a good thing Uh there’s a really Well kind of somewhat embarrassing story I have i think i talked about this in The podcast before but one of my first Sites one of my early sites was about Micro sim card cutters it’s about as as Niche as you can get and the reason i Thought this would be good is because It was a product which i thought well
You know some people need this and i saw Nobody else doing it no one else had a Website i think since then no one else Has ever had a website up just about These microphones And there’s a good reason why nobody did That because there’s hardly any money in It like this the products were three Dollars Uh and the commission at the time even i Think amazon was paying six seven Percent Uh was you know we’re talking a few Cents here per sale and people buy them Once and and i think they they got Replaced by nano sim cards after a Couple years anyway so it was just a Terrible terrible terrible idea And i thought i was on to something new Is writing this new wave because no one Else had done it and i wasn’t so look For look for other sites that are Present in an industry now There’s we want to get a little bit more Goal it but bit deeper into this uh You kind of have to be careful because You obviously don’t want the industry to Be dominated by 50 giant websites that are just going to Crush you yeah so domain rating or dr is The ahrefs metric which it measures the Amount of links pointing to a page Essentially But when you start seeing a lot of sites
Dr 75 8885 and above it’s very hard to Compete against those as a new site now Having a few of those present Is is a good thing as long as there are Also smaller Sites sites established in the last few Years that are maybe dr 30 4050 Which are Which are also ranking for for keywords Uh there was a good example saw recently Where if you if you google best protein Powder In the us it was all you know huge sites That you would never even dream of Competing against but if you go one Level deeper and you google best protein Powder for beginners Then you start to see i think there was One or two sites on there which are Actually dr like 45 50. uh and that’s Kind of showing you okay maybe there’s Some leeway to get in there and compete Still you probably want to be looking For you know three four sites um which Which are ranking for some of the big Bigger keywords or some of the More common keys one is the r32 actually Yeah Yeah Yeah so it’s rankable it’s not i mean It’s not easy the rest of the sites are Pretty high there’s another one that’s Small there’s two small sites So it’s not too bad but yeah yeah i
Recommend that actually my next point Goes with that it’s like how to kind of Like temper the competition is usually To it’s now if i start a site Let’s say i want to start a photography Site for example i would not necessarily Start right away with a photography side I would take a sub niche of photography And kind of expand into that Um there’s kind of two ways to do that You can either buy a photography domain And then uh just write about that sub Niche so the submission i picked in my Notes was drone right now um like drone Photography you could do smartphone Photography you could do a bunch of Other ones um or you can just start with A drone specific domain and then you can Rebrand it later and 301 redirect and You can keep all your rankings if you do It properly like a lot of brands rebrand And change their domain and keep their Rankings and it’s totally fine to do That it’s not risky if you do it Properly uh anyway um google heavily Rewards specialists and i think again i Checked that keyword actually i checked Best drone for photography which is a Pretty big keyword and pretty commercial Heavy keyboard it’s pretty much all the R80 tech sites on page one except that One drone specialized site that’s like Dr 50 or something It shows you that that that’s a really
Good example of like google rewarding Specialization and what it does it gives You an opportunity to rank for fairly Competitive terms when you are a Specialist um we are doing that tactic Right now on the authority side system Case study site actually so we have a Case study site that’s running and in The previous version of the authority Site we were not really trying to rank That site this new one we are actually Putting some effort into this and it’s Going okay so far And it is ranking for a bunch of Commercial queues because we just picked A product category within a broader Niche and so we are ranking for a bunch Of these best keywords for pretty big Keywords uh in that submission you get To see us build that site if you claim The offer on System today so you know here’s the Promo um but overall that works well and I would not be surprised is If uh at some point we feel like we Don’t have as much choice in like easy Year to rent keywords we don’t we Rebrand that site to like a bigger Branded site to like the main niche but For now we still have a lot of keywords And we’re happy to stay in our Specialization especially because it’s Very commercial and so that is something I would recommend to dodge competition
Become a specialist of a smallish and Only when you kind of like run out of Keyword feels constrained in that subnet Do you want to expand uh either by Rebranding with a new domain or just by Having that wide brand domain right away And just building more hubs onto it can You give us like a practical example From maybe just a made-up niche or Another niche of what you might start With and then what you might later Rebrand well for example this drone site Right let’s say i would make a drone Site because like the r50 is like it’s Competitive but It’s it’s achievable right i mean Like the yeah the test site right now is Like one year and Three four months old something like This and it’s dr 40. so it gives an idea So the r50 is like For that side how many months maybe four Months away something like this Certainly in the first two years i think Yeah so it’s like uh it’s not too far Basically yeah in the first two years we Hit that level of authority uh so like Yeah i would make like a drone site i Mean i would need to check the industry A bit more but like i would make a drone Site i would cover all the drone Photography stuff and then i would Make a let’s say i would buy another Photography domain like
Photographygirlphotography.com And this drone site’s content would Become the drone category on that new Photography site and i would just Explain other categories um so that Gives you an idea of how you can start Become the specialist still claim some Traffic on google despite not being a Super idr like everyone else then when You rebrand your dr transfers as well so Your new photography sdr like 50 or Something when you start and you you Take it from there and then and grow and You can get traffic all along the way And you don’t have to wait till you’re Like idr to compete in a uh in a really Competitive niche i think for example in Personal finance i would do that too so Like maybe i’d make a site just about Credit cards or like this gold ira you Know there’s these really high-paying fa Programs in the gold ira I’ll make a gold ira website Try to rank for all these very high Paying affiliate keywords um and there Are like you again check the the Keywords where you find like the r30 40 Size ranking for these keywords and There Really was quite a lot of money Um build my site till i’m like the r40 And i cut all the niche and then rebrand To a more uh broader personal finance Side probably and then start adding the
Credit card section the everything etc And then keep my gold ira keywords to Keep paying for the bills at the Beginning so that gives you an idea of How would start sites now and that’s i Think that’s One of the biggest shifts that i would Add in 2022 to address the increase of Competition that has been happening in The industry we’re not denying it’s Happened but also we’re not denying that You can make size work as you can see From the test site for example so It just needs to be a little bit more Strategical start more niche expand Later and you will do quite well Basically Okay so the next point we’ve got on our List is to create content that matches Search intent now it used to be the case When we got started that you could brute Force your way to the top of page one on On google i mean way way back way way Back in the day just by stuffing Keywords on on the page loads of times Links and then more recently by uh lots Of links to to a page or even to to your Site Um That’s There’s still elements of that you still Do need to have your keyword and Variations of your keyword on the page You still do need to have links to your
Site links to your page But More and more google has gotten better Understanding Uh what the content on your page is and How it matches what the person searching For that content is actually looking for So this has caused a kind of Narrowing of the focus of the search Results page so you’ll see for a lot of Keywords now that every result Is basically the same in terms of the The content that they have on there if You do look for a review of I don’t know like a vacuum cleaner or a Paintball gun or something you’ll quite Often see 10 10 pages and they’ll have Like their intro their best Recommendation their budget Recommendation a bunch of pros and cons List for each of the products that They’re comparing against and then the Little buying guide about how to choose The best vacuum cleaner or what whatever It is and maybe an faq in there as well This like convergence of of content It’s a little bit annoying sometimes Because you you have to be a bit samey In in what you create it gives you less Creative freedom but the flip side of That is that you’re given a much clearer Map Of what you need to do in order to get Your content to at least to have a
Chance of ranking on page one and we’ve Got a pretty good story maybe you want To tell it gail about the um make money Blogging how much do bloggers make page On on authority hacker yeah how it Switched on us that’s a sad story but uh To get your tissues ready because uh You’re going to be very emotionally hit Here uh it’s okay maybe i’m overselling This um You know it’s i had that page that Was targeting that how to make my work And was number one for a long time Actually uh which is a pretty good Keyword i would say and it ranked for a Bunch of longer tail variations as well Um but This was you know ultimate blogging People were just making a list like Here’s 10 ways to make money blogging Right Uh and uh And i decided to tackle The problem in a different way by uh Gathering all the income reports i could Find online and uh look at what these People were doing and then try to do Some correlation factors with like you Know how many twitter followers do they Have how many linkers and do their sites Have etc and try to correlate revenue With different metrics to understand Like which blogging metrics correlated With making money right based on their
Income reports and so that was kind of Like a a unique take on the problem not Necessarily solving fully the issue but Like bringing something new to the table Rather than listing the 10 10 same ways Of making money and that did really well Uh that page has hundreds of linking Root domains it was shared around a lot Of people mentioned it when they wrote Content et cetera and they were able to Use the correlation data to Make a point when they were writing Their own blog posts etc And that’s how that page ranked number One for Probably two or three years on google For that query right And that was before search intent Arrived and google was like nah that’s Not how we’re wearing stuff anymore we Don’t really care how many links you Have even if your content is great and You’ve spent all that time doing all That correlation study what we want now Is we just want lists of ways to make Money blogging and so like as soon as That started happening that page just Starting decaying decaying all the way To like number 50 or something from Number one for like three years to like Page six or something and as soon as we Rewrote that page to just be Kind of at least it’s like it didn’t Really take this number one ranking it
Never really took it back even though we Wrote it twice etc Um but it is i think it’s like Top of page two bottom of page one now Something like this like it’s much Better it was but basically as soon as We changed the content on that page Google just immediately shut it back up Uh all the way and it shows you like how Powerful search intent can be and that Regardless of the amount of links of f Or effort that you put in you will not Rank if you don’t match that search Intent because that’s how google works Now and it’s You just as i said it’s more of a Production value While there is an originality wall which Personally i hate i enjoyed being able To tackle things in an original way but It’s not no here’s here’s a question Though Are we saying with this that you just Need to straight out copy what other People are doing like is that the way to Rank no You can still have some creativity Within the limits of the search intent Right so it’s like um You like you know for example i we wrote The article recently and it jumped up Quite a bit but still i think now we Fell back behind in links because we Were like down quite a bit for a long
Time so we need more links to that page But So i made the list of monetization Methods but what i did is for each Monetization method i found a practical Case study slash example of a site that Does it And you actually it’s probably one of The most underrated posts i’ve published Last year because we didn’t really Promote it i just updated it spent hours And hours doing it and we didn’t really Tell anyone so if you’re gonna go and Check that blog post uh i’ve made i Think there’s like 40 case studies or Something and you know i made that video On fool.com that was really popular on Youtube that was just one of these case Studies or something and uh and there’s One for each monetization method so that Gives you an example of like how to stay Within search intent in terms of Structure while still adding some Originality and you know there is a Movement of people talking about on page As well that say that like having kind Of like original data probably does help Eventually where you match all the Criteria of search intent but on top of That you have some extra original data That would help you rank better i Haven’t it’s hard to like tell how Correct that is because we haven’t Really like
Done some heavy digging into that so i Don’t want to come on the podcast and Say that’s exactly how this works um but I think it would make sense that google Now that we’re leaving the post search Intent well we would now be looking for Original pieces of data that are unique To your page on top of the main search Intent to add some value you know um so Yeah it you can be original but you Can’t deviate very far from the expected Format either so you’ve got to match That and Again if if you go in the other side System we’ll show you exactly how to Identify that structure and article do All this stuff so that you do it Properly Uh let’s talk about tech then now like How what tools to use what platforms to Use and what’s changed because this is Something that that does change More frequently than in some of the Other areas here Yeah i feel like the more time passes The more minimalists we are getting with Our sites uh where we used to be like Big proponents of like page builders Making a fancy design site etc and now The size that we start in terms of the New sites That do the best are usually the size to Have the least Tech and that are kept extremely
Minimalist uh most of our sites now are Like Very bare bones in terms of design they Have they still have like a logo Fonts and colors that match the brand Etc so it feels branded but like it’s Mostly like the logo on top A little bit of menu is like a slightly Interesting font and then just your Article content and that’s it and then The rest is super clean um so actually In the in the updates of the Authenticity system one of the updates Is that we show you exactly how to do That site setup that we do on our new Sites now so it’s a new track on the Site building you can still do the page Builder version that we had before Because i think for some beginners still Going to be useful because it can be a Bit overwhelmed on how to do it with Default wordpress but we also show you The full way of how we do it currently And that is using a basic theme we use Generatepress but cadence is also really Good and it has a bit more um like Design options out of the box astra is Also pretty good Um We also have a plug-in for gutenberg That has more design options so we use Generate blocks that goes with generate Press it’s free so if you want to try it Even if you don’t use general press you
Can use it it’s only four blocks but if You learn how to use it you get like the Column stuff so you can do columns the Headlines allow you to do really a lot Of stuff it’s more than headlines you Can do normal paragraphs but with a lot Of styling options etc buttons and Sections only and with just that You can build pretty much the auto Inside system sales page that you see For example uh we’ve built like the code Vital sales page was built on that for Example and it was a full sales page With just four elements plus basic Gutenberg so it’s possible to do that Would you recommend someone starting out As a their first site use that or use Elementor or another it really depends How comfortable they always take all Right it’s kind of interesting in your Text system because you know it’s not The first thing we do right there’s all The niche research et cetera and i make People use like ahrefs google docs like Stuff like that before when we do the Niche research so Basically when we get to that point in The course i’m like all right look at All the tech stuff we’ve done together So far in the course how comfortable Were you doing all this stuff did you Feel very comfortable not very Comfortable etc and based on how they Felt about all the work we’ve done prior
To building the site i tell them well go For this easy version with a page Builder or go with the slightly harder Version that will give you better Performances but it’s going to be a bit Harder to do But the thing as well is the way we Teach people to build size with Elementor is it’s basically Less than one day to do the swap over to The non-page builder way because we Still do the page content without Elementor we just use it for building Your header your footer etc so you can Replace it later so even if people pick The page builder version They can quickly switch to the other Version later when they feel more Comfortable um but overall it really Depends like personally even as a Beginner i’d be quite comfortable doing The the normal version because i’m like Very tech oriented but like if my mom Was building a site i’d probably tell Her to do the page builder version you Know yeah um so so it really depends it Really depends on people’s levels and You can rank sites the albeit on page Builders still it’s just that um You know if you want the better way to Do it it’s better to do it without um But if you can’t finish it it’s better That you do it with a page builder Finish it make some money and an
Adventure it gets more comfortable and Eventually do this transition you know So it really depends so anyway we also Have uh seo plugin on our site so we use Rankmas also free so that’s kind of Convenient uh we have a caching plugin We use wp rocket file stuff but you can Also use uh when we teach people to use Siteground for example their their Caching plugin is pretty good now inside Ground it does image optimization makes Transforms your image into webp has a Native integration with cloudflare et Cetera so overall uh pretty good you Don’t necessarily have to pay for a Caching plugin when you use siteground And you get started On cloudways they give you a plugin Called breeze as well that’s pretty okay It’s less good than the The sideground one doesn’t do image Optimization etc um But if you have the budget wp rocket is Better than both but siteground is good Enough to start and then a chip cdn so The good news as well with siteground Which we recommend for newbies is they Have native integration with Uh cloudflare and they offer full cache Page page caching so basically they give You a pretty decency if someone is Listening and doesn’t know what cdn is Explain it briefly Uh cdn is a content delivery network
What it does it takes the heavy files of Your site like your images your Javascript files your css project Basically the big files that you need to Load to load a web page and makes a copy Of these files on servers all around the Planet so if for example my server is in New york and someone’s in singapore Trying to open my web page the html so The very small text will be downloaded Still from new york because it’s a fast And quick file to download but the Images the javascript files the Animations etc will be downloaded from The server that’s the closest to my Visitor so probably the singapore server In that case and so that means the Website would be a lot faster on average And that’s also how google measures page Speed it’s like you know the average of Users not just like their one server so It will help you with that it will make Your site faster and also it will reduce Your hosting bills if you are paying for Bandwidth actually so Um basically if you are using the Siteground setup we’re teaching the Autoexercise system they give you a Decent integration with cloudflare and It’s free i mean it’s it’s on top of the Service um if you are not we promote a Bunny cdn because it’s very cheap and It’s quite powerful and it works quite Well with wp rocket which is a good
Value for money setup and actually um One of our pro members Did switch from the old setup to a new Setup last year on his site and messaged Me and told me that within seven days His traffic increased by a hundred Percent uh on his site uh so sometimes It can boost traffic but i wouldn’t say That this tradition always boosts Traffic we have some cinna on some sites As well but we’ve also seen people Transitioning and not really seeing much Difference so it’s not like it’s Something that could help you Immediately or it’s something that will Just make you in a better place to do Better in the future But uh sometimes people see boosts in Rankings when they do that and boosts in Traffic so this uh minimalist approach To to building sites is definitely uh Helping quite a bit and also you pass Cover vitals with this setup so that Helps All right let’s talk about link building Now which is the part that uh seems to Divide a lot of people in our our Audience um you guys either either love Doing it or hate doing it i think most People the whole thing i know anyone who Loves doing link building but people Love the results of link building yes Yes and that’s do you love link building When you know that what you’re doing is
Going to get you these results you kind Of start loving the process of it So In our industry in our industry people Tend to be a little bit more introverted A little bit more like working on their Own things Um it’s it’s just i don’t know a natural Industry for for for introverts like i Guess and so when it comes to link Building it’s something you inherently Have to talk to other people Reach out to other sites build Relationships Cold call them cold outreach This stuff like i it’s it’s just not Something a lot of us myself included Like doing naturally It doesn’t come doesn’t come easy it’s a Hard thing to to do so We tend to then focus on the elements we Can control and we can do ourselves like Building the site like creating content Like optimizing the site speed and all These other things When we also needed to be doing link Building in order to get results uh There’s a site we sold three years ago And we sort of created the site started Doing content all that as soon as we Started building links The trajectory of the site just started Taking off and and going up and that’s Pretty consistent sometimes there’s a
Little bit of lag you build the links And then you know a few months later Stuff starts starts happening but you Have to consistently build links they Work kind of like To just to break it down for anyone Who’s really new they work kind of like Votes so the more links a site has from Other sites around the web and certainly The more links from better sites uh out There then the more trust your site has In the eyes of of google So this helps your Your site in two ways uh first it helps You to push say a specific page on your Site if you have a paintball gun review And you have a lot of other paintball Sites linking to that paintball gun Review then that page is going to on Average do do better The other way it works though is if you Have uh lots of links just to your Domain different pages in your domain Your homepage things like that then Your overall authority of your site Will increase and this makes it easier For you to Create a new blog post and then without Even building any external links to it That that post can just rank sometimes When you hit this kind of established Mode on your website it is great it’s Really easy because you can just put out Content and it starts starts ranking
Obviously there’s a lot more to it than That’s a vastly oversimplified uh Version of the the algorithm depends on What your competitors are doing and on All sorts of other stuff like like this Also depends on internal links you have As well But my point with all this is that you Absolutely need to build links like your Life depends on it’s probably the most Important thing maybe you could argue Content uh getting high quality content Is is more important these days having a Website probably helps as well yeah Assuming you have a website and Well let’s be honest you can have a Less well optimized like not so fast Website and if you’re doing really well On content and links you’re still going To do well right yeah you need the Content like especially with search Intent links will not solve that problem Like yeah you need to hit that minimum Quality level of your content it does Not have to be always that high Depending on the niches But if you don’t hit that no link Building will save you so i think there Is a category of people who focus only On link building and have complete trash Sites and i want to guard people against That that it’s like it’s not going to Solve your problems if you haven’t put The minimum level the minimum
Effective dose to talk like tim ferriss On your website Uh if you if you hit that then yes if You don’t hit that You will not get benefits and that’s the The change there is because of search Intent right that strategy six seven Years ago it would actually work you Could brute force your way yeah with With loads of links and loads lots of People made a lot of money doing it but You have to be a little bit more Balanced these days uh anyway how do you Actually do this uh for a new site the First thing i would do is start doing Harrow so that’s help a reporter out Help help a reporter.net is the website I believe just search for hiro and You’ll find it This is a free Three times per day 15 times per week so Every weekday newsletter uh which where There’s maybe like 50 to 100 questions From journalists publishers other Websites Out there and they’re looking for Sometimes like specialist topic experts Like vets or doctors but more often than Not just people who have an experience Of something there’s been a lot in the Last couple of years about working Remotely for example and if you if you Work remotely if you work at home then You’re qualified to to answer them we’ve
Used that a lot for a lot of random Sites actually because like you can be Like i’m working on building this site About uh interior design uh remotely and Then you just answer the remotes uh Working questions and you get links you Know so i found Actually Just today as we’re recording i found a Journalist for like a top-tier Publication in the uk who’s looking for Small business owners who have uh Who work work online work remotely with Her team and has questions about that so I sent her a message with some some of The tips that we have but i also used i Found like six or seven harrows which i Didn’t even know we had done because our Team had produced them all i just Searched for my own name authority Hacker work remotely work from home and I found all these these ones that we’d Replied to over the last year and gotten Loads of links so i i kind of used it as A social proof i was like yeah i’ve been Featured on here here i talked about it On here and this newspaper and this Publication uh so i don’t know we’ll see If that pans out but uh there’s another Another sort of like side use of apparel There um anyway you answer the questions On on haro and sometimes Our hit rates around 20 Give or take so one and five it doesn’t
Take too long to answer each query Though and you’ll get a link and Sometimes these can be really really Good links such as from i think our Highest ones dr 91 from Americanexpress.com there’s loads of dr 70 and 80 sites Um and they tend to be you know real Publications often newspapers and and Bigger places online so there are links That you definitely want and are hard to Get by the other method which we talk About which is outreach Now There are various kind of strategies and Ways you can phrase your outreach you Can talk about guest posting you can do Skyscraper link building and You know link exchanges all these these Kind of things but at its core Outreach is when you find a list of People who you Want to ask for a link from and then you Email those people and ask for that link Uh the Best way i would say of doing it the Most effective way is to look at the Links which your competit the external Links which your competitors have so if They’ve been doing link building then You want to be trying to get their links As well because Your competitors are already ranking Those links are obviously helping them
And so the way you can do this is you Can use a tool like ahrefs or sem rush Or ubersuggest to find the links which Your competitors have You can filter them out so maybe you Want to get rid of all the the smaller Sites or even the the very large sites And then you should have a list of sites Which you can you can outreach to you Then need to that’s called prospecting You then need to Send them some kind of message So the there are tools out there there’s Free tools out there like hunter dot io Hunters Primer the way hunter makes money is They You pay them and they will find email Addresses of of sites now you don’t need To do that you can use another part of The tool which is their their email Outreach tool which is totally free and It allows you it’s kind of like a mail Merge you can put a list of prospects And a template File in there so a message and there’ll Be kind of form fields for the the name Or Um the the email address that you’re You’re sending to and it will just kind Of send the same thing out but Personally you can personalize each one As well it’s pretty cool And then you ask them ask them for a
Link or you ask them um some people ask Them if they can buy a link straight Away some people ask them for a link Exchange for a guest post Usually what happens is that people Outreach for some kind of like free link And then Ninety percent of the replies you get in 2022 are going to be people asking for Money You can always negotiate a bit there um You can always maybe do a link exchange You link to them they link to you or Offer them value in some other way If you if you don’t want to pay for pay For links by the way we did a podcast on Paying for links towards the end of last Year so go and check that out wherever It is we’ll link to it if you’re Interested in it And yeah the idea here is that you you Ask enough people uh for for links and Some of them will link to you some of Them will ask for money you can Negotiate you can pay for links and you Can kind of what’s our standards for on Paying for links in 2022 2022 is pay you Should pay for links i i i would say now The We talked about this many times last Year i know but People people have missed it yeah so The risk is that google doesn’t want you To do it
And That can potentially Hurt your site if they find out this is What you’re doing now The reality of the the landscape is that In 2022 Everybody or almost everybody is is Doing some of the very big sites they Don’t need to do it because they’re Already very high authority but any they Don’t do outreach probably though Or like they You know it’s like yeah Some of them do but it’s more in a kind Of like Like a Relationship building way they have Maybe they have like do do Collaborations or they’ll like sponsor Or someone else and you know there’s This kind of ways around it which is Isn’t really building links but they Probably end up getting some some links From it Or some promotion from it rather Um But yeah it’s it’s It’s a risk That you may get penalized somehow i Just i haven’t seen a site get penalized For Paying for links for Quite a few years now and with the Disavow tool that google has where you
Can kind of get out of jail if that does Happen these days the risk reward ratio Has changed a lot it’s changed a lot and But my question to you is how does it Affect people who are starting new sites Like how much more money does it budget If they start paying for links and how Much how much time do they save For making that decision you know first Of all there are certain niches like if You start a personal finance niche i Mean if you’re not willing to pay for Links forget it Uh because it’s almost impossible to get Free links in that space if you’re in Health and fitness or even like Parenting and Niches where people Are a bit more friendly let’s say and Less less money driven then uh Then it is still still possible uh i Would just be prepared in the same way That you you would probably at some Point spend money on on content on your Site on your hosting it’s just another Marketing cost at the end of the day as Is link building now obviously you want To get maximum value for for your money Especially in the the early days um but You know it’s It’s kind of like how long is a piece of String how much money you spend on Content for a site uh well you could Write it all yourself or you could hire
Writers it depends how much content you Want to create same with links like how Many links links do you want to want to Build so if you want If you want a Very rough guideline for how much a link Costs and there are many cases where This this goes out the window but Figure around a dollar per dr of a of a Site this this doesn’t work at the top End so if you’re talking about dr 70 Plus links it’s going to be way more Than 70 dollars right but for a dr 50 Site dr 60 site 50 60 bucks is probably about right Okay And so how much does it change the Budgeting of someone’s like let’s say i Just want to get to the break-even point With my site where Uh you know let’s say i spent a few Thousand dollars building it outsourcing The content doing all that Like how much should i budget for links I don’t know Okay I’m gonna i’m gonna i’m gonna take the Uh the fifth amendment of seo and say it Depends Uh because it really does i mean how Many links do your competitors have you You need yeah you need to be aiming for You know something sort of similar but Bear in mind if you look at the number
Of links that site has on on ahrefs most Of those links are They’re not the links that they’ve Actually bought and paid for are built Manually there are links which have Another question then Let’s say you have a limited budget to Build links to your brand new site Because you’re just getting started you Don’t have a lot of money yeah where do I build my links to like which Page um so i guess there’s There’s three options you could think of One is or two options really there’s a Kind of like higher level page you’re Talking your homepage your category Pages that then link to your your blog Post or there are specific posts you you Want to push and link directly to them If you’re paying for links by the way One of the biggest benefits is you can It’s easier to get links to commercial Content to reviews and the highly Monetized stuff which people don’t like To link to Uh naturally Uh so I would say Like if you’ve done your research Properly if you you really know your Monetization what your strategy is just Build links to those those pages that You’re trying to monetize like if you’re If you’re going for uh affiliate
Uh reviews and stuff and then if you’re Doing haro at the same time you’re gonna Get a ton of links to your your domain Anyway so it kind of like ticks the box For for that side of things I would say so i would say like go all In on like two three pages on your site Get that top three rankings on like some Commercial keywords make some money Because of these rankings And then it’s going to be a lot easier To justify ideas And that’s a it’s a good point because This is a zero-sum game like google has At the moment at least 10 results on the First page and no one goes to page two So if you if you you’ve got to be in That top seven to ten in order to To make any money uh right so You know if it’s either someone else is There or you’re there so if you if you Have a hundred pages on your site and They’re all kind of on page two three Four five because you’ve spread your Links then and you know you haven’t Really pushed any page um Hard enough then you’re making no money Right but if you have 20 pages on your site and you’ve you’ve Pushed 10 of them super hard and they’re All on page one then they’re gonna be Making money for the for you they’re Gonna be bringing in money and then you Can afford to you know roll that forward
And then buy more links and grow your Content grow your site and and all that Kind of like snowballs in in that way Yeah so for me to amid competition Keyboard like something with decent Volume but not too hard you know so you Need to find that ratio of like Traffic Intent And difficulty And then kind of like try to find the Best ratio here and just go ham on these Two probably pick three pages and just Go home on this three it’s also really Important i think for your Um like mindset as well to to have some Wins like like this because i mean the Biggest problem for most people when They they start is they don’t believe or They’re not really sure that this is a Legit thing like are are you and i just Making 275 podcast episodes about some Fake ways to make money online in order To sell a course well maybe you don’t Know for sure until you Have your own results right or you you Have a good friend or something that That i think Is a lot a lot more legit yeah exactly Uh so like getting getting to the point Where you even if it’s like you make 10 Bucks off of a post it’s such a an Eye-opening feeling when that happens For the first time and you
You know it’s like that bit in the Matrix you know he’s starting to believe When you’re like oh actually this is This is a real thing uh this is good Timing because the new matrix movie just Came out so i haven’t seen it yeah Actually Because it’s not out at the time The time it goes out it is so i’m trying To talk in terms of hey it’s 20 22 now Uh anyway My whole point with this stuff is that Um You kind of need to Get to that point where you have a win Of some of some kind and then it it Snowballs from there now the biggest Danger In getting to that point is that you you Give up because a lot of the time um You’re not seeing enough progress Because you’ve spread yourself too thin And you’re not not focused enough or And this is probably more common is that You succumb to shiny object syndrome uh Which is something that affected you and I for like a great number of years i Believe until last week Yeah So So Shiny object syndrome is basically when You Hear of someone making some money in
Some other kind of business model and You’re like oh i should do that instead And then you stop what you’re doing You stop all that hard work the the Energy the money that you’ve you’ve Spent getting your site off the ground Um and Where it perhaps hasn’t reached that Point where it’s making money yet and Then you start something brand new Thinking it’ll be easy and fast but it Never is it always people always Oversell it always takes longer more Work and more money to get going in Another business so my point is with all This even if you don’t choose authority Sites content sites if you’re doing Anything else just pick one thing Uh stick at it and do well That sounds like very wise words to Close this podcast Other than if you want to make sure if You want to get the latest Updates that we’ve done to our biggest Schools you can go and claim that uh new Updates plus the original course that Was all we shot last year by the way so Like the whole pretty much everything is Pretty new now in the course um Another iaco.com system we are running a Special offer until How many days are left on the other side As the time this podcast goes out it’ll Be up for another four days so thursday
At midnight this offer closed closes And just to let you know as well Like maybe how we’re a little bit Different from other people who sell Courses on this stuff is first of all we Actually do this stuff so we have our Own websites that make money um the site We built in the authority site system it It now makes money yeah you could you Can see us Literally do this from like zero or two We’re just making something yeah to Actually making money online with with This which is You know somewhat unusual for the the Industry i would say and Uh when you buy our course the authority Site system it also comes with lifetime Updates and that’s not just we’ll throw A few more videos in there when Something changes but we’ve reshot the Whole thing uh two times now Uh from start So we filmed the whole thing three times But then there’s two updates in between As well and people who bought at the Beginning yeah all everything all the New episodes all the new versions of it Totally free um there’s a change log on There when you you log in so you can see All that stuff That we’ve we’ve added uh and so and and One thing you forgot to say is that we Actually added a new bonus module by
Kevin mang that Is a friend of ours that is a copywriter That specializes in writing reviews who We we like his style a lot and so what He did is he took a topic i think his Best bicycle best indoor bicycle or Something like this and he wrote the Article from start to finish but like With all the research etc it’s pretty Long he’s it’s like four hours of him Like Walking you through exactly how to write A review that makes money around the Preview that makes money rather uh and Uh this bonus is on like you get it for Free if you join Now during this launch but other than That it is going to be a paid upgrade Normally so actually you get more than Just the discount you get here you get An extra uh an extra thing that people Would pay for on top to get more Information on how to write this Affiliate content that makes money so uh Yeah It’s Yeah and if that’s not enough as well uh Our our course is one of the few in the Industry that has a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can Join try it all out if you don’t like it For any reason just let us know support Authorityhacker.com and we’ll give you a Refund if you don’t like it
Yeah it’s mostly people getting annoyed With me when they refund but other than That People like the course we we have Actually had I would say a double-digit number of People have refunded because they they Don’t like your accent or can’t can’t Follow it Criticism You know it’s been a real problem we put Subtitles in all our uh Lessons And the subtitle companies can’t work With us because gayle speaks too fast in His his accent i mean if you’re Listening to this podcast You hear what it sounds like If you can if you can understand what He’s saying you’ll be fine right but Some people some people i guess not Expecting that so Yeah and we still give them the money Back because we want them to be happy so You know it’s exactly it it shows like That and it’s fine i don’t get pissed Off you know it’s like i’m like sure It’s a fair criticism uh but like well i I like to be honest you know when these Speeches like i sometimes feel so Comfortable to like pitch your product It’s like i don’t i shouldn’t because we Put a lot of work but i like to kind of Like give both sides of the coins and
Explain to people like what what really They’re getting into and so that’s Pretty much it so that’s it for our Picture i guess so that was an unusual Speech where we ended up by slaughtering My accent um but if you if you do want To online marketing and have a sexy Fracture accent at the end of the of the The course then go ahead and check it Out otherwise thank you for listening to This episode and we’ll see you next week Or in two weeks rather for the next Episode bye [Music] You