I Survived the Google Updates Using Authority Stacking

From working remotely while traveling around the world - to acquiring a business for 43% of its asking price and 4x'ing its revenue within a year, Mike Swigunski has a lot of cool insights on deal-making, delegation, pricing strategies, and more. In short, Mike is an inspirational example of a remote worker turned entrepreneur. Drawing from his time working at Empire Flippers, Mike gained valuable insights into the intricacies of the acquisition process for a software business. A key takeaway from Mike's experience is the importance of understanding seller motivations and using factual data to structure deals for effective negotiation. The acquisition he gets into was structured to enable a quick return on investment. Again, thanks to his experience brokering several big deals with Empire Flippers, he has a deep understanding of monetization opportunities in the online space. Pricing psychology and benchmarking were crucial in the immediate aftermath of acquiring the business. As he outlines, he prioritized testing prices, optimizing the pricing page, optimizing customer service, and ensuring mobile-friendliness for enhanced user experience.  He also chose to add a free trial of the full suite of tools, remove a free basic plan, translate the site into multiple languages, and focus on improving its conversion rate optimization. His success is also attributed to his focus on lean operations and strategic outsourcing for important tasks like code auditing. And he stresses the importance of hiring the right talent, mastering delegation, honing managerial skills, and possessing marketing and sales expertise. All of this helped the site go from $10k in monthly profit to nearly $40k per month at the time of recording—all within a period of approximately 14-15 months! Links & Resources Global Career Book - How to Work Anywhere & Travel Forever w/ Digital Nomad Jobs How To Travel & Work Remotely Forever | Mike Swigunski | TEDxVake (youtube.com) Use coupon code “podcast” to get $15 off Link Whisper to build smarter internal links fast Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. The first news item they cover is Google’s move to enforce site reputation abuse, also known as parasite SEO. He also shares a tweet from Glen Allsopp with early insights into these measures.  In positive news, Spencer and Jared talk about a potential correction from the recent Google updates.  Still talking about Google, it looks like the company’s market share has taken a dip, and Spencer shares some of the recent stats. By how much did its share of the global market shrink in the last year? Speaking of a declining market share, Google may see itself up against a new search engine, launched by OpenAI. Although it’s not official, rumors suggest that it’s in the works. In the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, Spencer shares an experiment he’s doing with a small website trying to drive traffic from Reddit. He talks briefly about some of the things he did to get that traffic and what he plans to do moving forward. When it’s Jared’s turn, he talks briefly about his newsletter side hustle but goes into more detail on a YouTube side hustle he’s working on. One of his channels has seen a boost in traffic thanks to the Amazon Influencer videos he uploaded there; in fact, it now has reached the threshold for monetization. As for Weird Niche Sites, Spencer goes first with James Bond Lifestyle, a DR57 website that provides exhaustive information about all things James Bond—clothing, accessories, gadgets, etc.  According to Ahrefs, it gets 20k monthly organic visitors, and according to SimilarWeb, 200k. Spencer also takes a look at its keywords and its optimization opportunities and reveals if it was impacted by the HCU. When it’s Jared’s turn, he reveals his weird site: This Is Why I’m Broke.  Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Looking to grow your email list? Liz Wilcox is here to help. She's worn many hats: A former Survivor contestant (yep, the reality TV show) RV blogger Virtual assistant But above all - she's an email growth expert joining us with awesome tips and tricks to help you connect with your target audience and make good money doing it! And she's an absolutely great example to learn from - she was featured as a Niche Pursuits' success story in 2023 (link below), making $20k per month, and has since "doubled that!" Email marketing helped revolutionize Liz Wilcox's business. Over the years, she's scaled her email marketing efforts, refined her lead magnets, and boosted conversions. During this process, she developed her innovative "email staircase method." This is a strategic approach to converting followers into friends by building authentic and lasting connections with subscribers and, ultimately - lasting customers. Infusing personality and relatability into email content is crucial for fostering these connections with an audience. She has lots of practical tips to help, like crafting effective welcome sequences and evaluating performance to enhance engagement and conversion rates. This not only helps with connections and authenticity but also with finding your own niche. She also discusses the importance of setting clear expectations, sharing values, and offering a mix of free and paid products in welcome sequences to nurture a loyal subscriber base. Tripwire offers transparent communication and strategic sales placements within newsletters to help her nudge subscribers from passive to paid. And she prioritizes products that address the needs she's found interacting with her audience. Check out the episode to learn all about the transformative effects of starting with a well-crafted welcome sequence, engaging newsletters, and more! Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! This week Spencer and Jared cover all the latest happenings in the SEO and content creation space and share their opinions and insight. Then they share some very interesting and inspiring side hustles they’re working on, and they wrap things up with some weird niche sites. They jump into things with the news that Google’s March Update is finally complete!  It finished rolling out on April 19th, and Spencer and Jared discuss the update in general, how long it took, and why its conclusion might not have been announced by Google until later.  They talk about Google’s original ambitions with regard to the update and the feedback form they created as well as the site reputation abuse update that’s going to get underway. They also discuss why nobody has recovered from the Helpful Content Update, whether Google even knows how someone might recover, and what this all means. They move on to discuss the winners and losers from the March 2023 Core and Spam Updates, looking at different types of traffic losses and naming some surprising sites on the list as well as looking at some of the winners. Of course, Amazon, Reddit, and YouTube come up, as do dictionary sites, Etsy, and Quora. Moving on, they share an article on HouseFresh about how it no longer appears in Google Search and how Google is killing independent review websites.  They show the article’s graph, which reflects a giant 91% decline in traffic, and discuss interesting topics it covers, such as the rise of Forbes in Search and keyword swarming. Spencer and Jared then share a public plea from Marie Haynes for Google to help publishers hit by the update.  Why is this unusual? How does Jared summarize the situation? As for their Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer talks briefly about his Amazon Influencer Program side hustle.  He shares his earnings for the last 30 days and talks about his future plans for it. Although this project provides passive income, Spencer actually gave a highly detailed presentation as part of his Niche Pursuits Community program where he talked about all the work that went into the side hustle in the beginning.  Jared then goes on to talk about his Amazon Influencer side hustle, talking about the new videos he’s uploaded in 2024 and his total earnings for March and April. How did he do? How do his stats measure up to Spencer’s? He also talks about his most recent newsletters side hustle, which of the 2 is getting the most traction, his Facebook page lead generation strategy, and his current number of email subscribers. Tune in to hear more about his strategy. As for their Weird Niche Sites, Spencer goes first with Secret Fan Base, which takes a closer look at the story and clothes from well-known brand Banana Republic.  As the clothes are now more mainstream and mass produced, the site covers its original safari style and is created by a group of original fans. Although it doesn’t get a ton of traffic, the site has a unique story and is a true labor of love. Jared shares his site, Passport Waiting Time, and shares some of the site’s interesting aspects, like a forum. This DR27 site is ranking for 2k keywords and gets 3k in organic search traffic per month. They discuss potential strategies the site could use, its current monetization, and why they think the site wasn’t impacted by Google’s updates. That concludes another great episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast.  We hope you learned about the latest events in the space and that you’re feeling inspired by the conversation. Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Today, we're being joined by Brian Winum, a long-time digital marketer who started affiliate marketing in the late '90s... He runs a marketing agency in New York and specializes in building websites as sustainable and valuable business assets - specifically focusing on securing Google News approval and executing effective monetization strategies. And he's got a lot of tips on the topic and others that may interest you, including: Authority stacking, Tips for using AI-generated content, Adhering to Google Quality Rater guidelines, And taking a strategic approach to digital marketing.

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! Are you ready to hear the latest news affecting Google, SEO, AI, and web publishers? As always, Spencer and Jared will break everything down into digestible pieces and share their thoughts, concerns, and predictions. They kick things off diving straight into a particularly spicy topic: who’s killing Google Search. They maintain that it’s an inside job, and talk about the news that came out this week about an internal meeting at Google regarding the division’s “new operating reality” and the decline in search queries and engagement. Word on the street is that the man who heads the Search team is the man who killed Google Search. Spencer and Jared talk about this possibility as well as a little bit about the history of Search, the results of updates over the years, why results have gotten worse over time, how ads have been redesigned, and how Google is trying to squeeze more money out of Search results. What incredible irony does Jared point out? What’s Spence’s takeaway for bloggers? Is Google going to implode? Spencer and Jared then move on to a related topic: how product recommendations have broken Google. They reference the Housefresh debacle from a few weeks ago, and talk about how the search for products has changed over time.  How do we know if the reviews are honest, or if they’re sponsored, or if they’re authentic? And what does the future hold for product reviews? The last article they discuss is how Google has become defensive when it comes to its Search quality and forum results. Experts are pointing out that the results being delivered by Google on Reddit offer very poor and misguided advice, especially when it comes to health queries. How has Danny Sullivan responded? Why do Spencer and Jared talk about the difference between “trust” and “like?” Moving on to their Side Hustle Shenanigans, Spencer talks about his Amazon Influencer videos going live on YouTube. Before his channel got shut down, he was getting between 100 and 200 views per day, peaking one day at 250. Now his biggest day has been 11 views. He and Jared talk about why this may be as well as his process for getting his videos live on YouTube. What program does he recommend using to automate the process? Jared then talks briefly about his Alt G Conference, which was held just a few days earlier, and he shares some interesting stats and stories from that online event. When it’s his turn, he talks about his email newsletter side hustle.  He recently launched a second email newsletter using content from one of his sites that was crushed by the HCU. He goes through many of the steps he took to get the project off the ground, so tune in for some great ideas! When it comes to Weird Niche Sites, Spencer shares his, which is Brick Economy, on the economics of Legos. The site offers the current value on lots of Lego sets as well as annual growth of certain themed Legos, and the ability to track the prices of your own Legos. It’s monetized with affiliate links and display ads, and according to SimilarWeb, it’s getting over a million visitors per month. When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares his site, Tractor Data, which is a small, family-run business that has been tracking data on tractors for the last 20 years. This DR61 site includes a news section and a directory and gets almost 400k pageviews a month, according to Ahrefs. What keywords is it ranking for? Does it rank first for any terms? Is it making any money? And what kind of potential does Jared see in the site? As both of these sites are doing well in Google, what can we learn from them and their strategies? And that brings us to the end of another informative and inspiring episode. See you next Friday! Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

What better way to respond to a time of uncertainty and transition than to share a true success story of change. Joining the podcast is a truly hopeful example of growth and evolution. Ben started off as an IT and web development guy and now runs of the SEO plugin All-In-One-SEO (AIOSEO) since it was acquired in 2020. Over these years, both he and the plugin have experienced massive change and transformation to be in the positions they are today. And we're gonna learn some of the key takeaways of how this was possible.  Links & Resources AIOSEO - The World's Best All-in-one SEO Plugin for WordPress: https://www.nichepursuits.com/aioseo  Benjamin Rojas | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminprojas/ Benjamin Rojas (@benjaminprojas): https://twitter.com/benjaminprojas Use coupon code “podcast” to get $15 off Link Whisper to build smarter internal links fast: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative This Episode is Sponsored by Search Intelligence - https://search-intelligence.co.uk/  

Welcome back to a new episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast!  Jared and Spencer, as always, offer an insightful take on the latest happenings with SEO, publishers, Google, and AI, and give a peek behind the curtain at their latest projects. Stick around for a laugh when they reveal the weird niche sites they found. The first order of business is to mention that the March Core Update has still not finished rolling out and Spencer and Jared decline to guess when that might be. Moving along, they jump into the first big news item: The Verge trolling Google, once again.The Verge published a new article for 2024 “reviewing printers,” when in reality the article is just mocking Google for how they rank articles. Did The Verge actually test the printers? What outbound links did they include? What did John Mueller have to say about it?  And most importantly, how’s the article ranking? Find out the amusing, and depressing, story behind this news item. Moving along to another article in The Verge, Spencer and Jared talk about how Google is experimenting with a small subset of news publishers, removing their links from Google News. It’s doing this because California is thinking about forcing Google to pay its news publishers. What are the implications for publishers? Is there any precedent in these types of situations? What happened in Australia? And will Google extend this to other areas? In other Google news, the company is launching a new ad product whereby ads appear inside your content, as hyperlinked text, which takes users to advertisers’ products. This is optional for publishers within Google AdSense. What does Spencer think? Would he enable this on his own websites? What scenarios does Jared share where this might work? Tune in to find out. The latest news item is that Brave Search has released an Answer with AI feature.  What do Spencer and Jared think of it and its impact? What does it remind them of? Moving along to the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, Spencer talks about his Amazon Influencer side hustle and his decision to publish those shopping videos on YouTube. Incredibly, his channel disappeared! What happened? How did it turn out and what’s happening now? When it’s Jared’s turn, he announces a new side hustle: an email newsletter. He talks about how he plans to build it, why he decided to dive into this project, and his experience in this area. When it comes to Weird Niche Sites, Spencer reveals Pets or Food, a very entertaining tongue-in-cheek website that does get some traffic, according to Ahrefs. It doesn’t have a lot of ads but it does have merch, which may be a source of revenue. Jared then reveals Line Rusher, which allows people to hire someone to wait in line for them at places like the DMV, Apple, and at restaurants and amusement parks. They offer some interesting services and are constantly hiring line sitters, which may be an interesting option in the current gig economy. What do the stats in Ahrefs reveal? What spin would Jared put on this service? And that brings us to the end of another episode! We hope you learned from the latest headlines in the space, felt inspired by our side hustle projects, and got ideas from this week’s weird niche sites. Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Stephen Regenold is a true digital media success story. Around 2010, when print media was starting to really feel the effects of the Internet, he decided to start his own outdoor blog. Early in his online journey, Steven made wise decisions in the site's revenue model for direct ad sales, affiliate commerce, and SEO strategies. These, combined with some viral luck when a term they helped coin was being considered for the Oxford Dictionary, helped the brand become a massive success. (He also touches on how video content, from shorts to documentaries, played a crucial role in their strategy.) Gear Junkie's achievements led to multi-million dollar revenue and partnerships with major brands, positioning the site and its editors as an influencer proposition. They engaged audiences through influencers like YouTubers and Instagram personalities, along with their SEO success. In 2018, acquisition offers started pouring in, and Gear Junkie eventually sold to Lola Digital in 2020. Post-acquisition, the company rebranded as All Gear Digital, raising $40 million, making eight additional acquisitions, growing into an outdoor media conglomerate, and bringing back Stephen to help them grow. This was well-timed as the outdoor industry saw surprising growth during the pandemic, with a surge of interest in outdoor activities and gear. Stephen discusses how All Gear Digital's brands are doing today, providing numbers and sharing strategies for adding value to conversations and maintaining a unique voice in a competitive space. As a result of all this, you won't believe how long their dwell time on site is. Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast!  Come join Spencer and Jared as they take on the latest news in SEO, AI, Google, and beyond. This week’s episode kicks off with some big news from Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, who talks about the future of Search.  The main pivot he focuses on in the interview is the shift to AI, which he expects to serve the company well over the coming decade. He notes that AI has been working behind the scenes for a long time now and that Google has to evolve to meet the changing needs of users. What does he say about chatbots? And what does he say about websites? Are they going away and is SGE going to take over? Tune in to hear what Spencer and Jared think about his comments. Moving along, they talk about a LinkedIn post from Lily Ray on the SEO visibility growth of Reddit and the mindblowing statistics she shares.  What theory does she share that Spencer doesn’t agree with? How does this all play into Google’s antitrust lawsuit, problems with Gemini, and its declining share price?  And what about Reddit’s poor-quality results in Search? Listen to the episode to hear the ridiculous Reddit response to a weight loss query. Spencer then shares a tweet from a series by Glenn Gabe on the March Core Update, talking about whether the update has finished or not, the role played by the HCU, and the lack of recoveries from these updates. What did John Mueller say about the core update? What do Spencer and Jared think about the updates and when they’ll finish? Check out the episode to find out. The last topic is that Bing usage is on the rise, having gained some footing recently, and Spencer and Jared note from the article that Bing actually powers several other search engines, including DuckDuckGo and Yahoo. What do they recommend when it comes to optimization? Who uses Bing and why does it matter? What’s happening with desktop search? As for their Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer highlights two of his side hustles, the Amazon Influencer Program and his Facebook traffic project, neither of which rely on search engine traffic at all. Jared then announces the Alt G Online Conference: Unleash Your Content’s Potential Beyond Google, which will bring together people earning money on alternative platforms. It will be held on April 25th, and both Spencer and Jared will be speakers. In line with the conference, the Niche Pursuits Community is welcoming a series of expert speakers each week who are also talking about using alternative traffic sources. Jared talks briefly about his Amazon Influencer Program side hustle and then teases a new side hustle he’s about to launch. Come back next week for all the details! As for the Weird Niche Sites, Spencer reveals iScrap App, which reports local scrap prices. They’ve got a blog and a directory and they’re doing well in search: 300k visitors per month according to SimilarWeb. They monetize with display ads, they have a store, they sell directory space to scrapyards, and the owner probably has a nice little side hustle with this weird niche site. When it’s Jared’s turn, he reveals Live Oasis, which lets you research the toxicity of many water brands and rates the water quality in different municipalities. It has a subscription model, which provides access to more information and research, but is it earning money? Beyond that, this brand-new website is doing quite well and ranking for lots of keywords. What does Jared discover when he digs into the backstory? And where is all of the data coming from? And what if they were to change the model a bit? Hear Jared and Spencer’s recommendations. We hope this episode helped bring you up to speed on the latest happenings in the SEO and content creation space and gave you some new ideas when it comes to your own businesses. See you next week! Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative