Building a Million-Dollar SEO Portfolio from Bali – James Oliver Interview

[00:02] oliver.com so I ended up buying the domain for six figures so it's a bit of a a bit of a steal and a very lucky Coincidence of getting it basically how many affiliate projects and sites do you have right now nearly 25 projects I

[00:14] don't really sell sites to be honest we I like keeping them and even buying them or building them high vas from like the Philippines and like their English isn't amazing and some of the processes the struggle with it but AI just helped

[00:26] quicker and better for what they were doing originally I've been using AI content a lot so well I've got no human writers anymore so I've basically cut all the writers out and just used AI hey guys welcome back to the channel and

[00:40] welcome back to a brand new year of interviews I've got a very interesting guest for you today he's been in the SEO and affiliate marketing game for over 10 very interesting domain names and has been recently posting on X and YouTube

[00:55] about some interesting Ai and Niche site case studies that he has been doing please welcome to the channel James Oliver ladies and gentlemen hi mate appreciate you coming on do you want to give everybody just a bit of a

[01:08] introduction more so to yourself and let people know who you are yeah sure so uh I originally started SEO basically out of kind of blind look I built a Blog originally in like 2012 2014 no idea what I was doing it was

[01:23] learning a lot about copyrighting and I kind of wanted just to write and just uh kind of sub the knowledge and just put it online and I put AdSense on it and ended up earning like $214 and I had no idea like

[01:38] do that so that kind of gave me the spark with the whole making money online blogging SEO and then I kind of left it and then I I ended up leaving Australia and then needed kind of a job and I wanted something remote something you

[01:52] because I've always traveled and then I decided to go basically all in so I've been doing SEO for myself building my own n nights now for uh six plus years and pretty much yeah that's pretty much it learning and growing yeah so you just

[02:08] said you travel quite a lot there where are you currently based out yeah so currently I'm in barley and this is probably going to be my base for a while now so I moved to Dubai so I'm a resident of Dubai for because I like it

[02:21] and for tax reasons basically so the company and everything set up in Dubai uh but now I've just bought land and I'm building in barley so that's going to be interesting that should be done in April yeah barley should be home now so I'll

[02:33] that's going to be base so are you doing the uh setup where you have to be in Dubai for two months of the year I think it is so with Dubai when you've fully it is so with Dubai when you've fully got it set up it's uh only it's only one

[02:46] quite fine so you can literally just get a connecting flight and just do that and just get you basically passport stamped so it works out quite well especially with your event being in Dubai so I just go there and then do the event and then

[02:58] where I don't have to be there yeah that makes total sense I know they are changing some of the tax laws and stuff in Dubai are you looking into that at all well I spoke to a lot of people and even the people like in the government

[03:10] they they have no idea kind of what's happening so it's a bit up in the air originally it was just for like Mainland companies and people doing business in Dubai like apple and stuff like that and I think it will be because there's no

[03:23] real like grounded thing for like free zone and all that uh like remote sort of people so we'll see what happens and now for a quick message from our sponsor search intelligence if you're looking for digital PR campaigns what you're

[03:37] about to see should impress you what a masterpiece PR link building campaign with 20 links in big Publications such as the Sun Express mirror Welles online and still Landing I would say this campaign is a massive success we told

[03:52] the press that people should turn on their heating this summer if they want to save money next winter and we landed over 20 links in National and Regional UK Publications for our boiler client that's crazy the campaign Hook was

[04:07] pretty clever it is a known fact at least in the boiler trade that if you keep your boiler off for many months it might rust and it might get you into trouble if you keep it turned off from Spring to next winter we therefore

[04:20] advise the Press with an expert commentary piece on behalf of our boiler client that people should turn on their boilers this summer just when the heat wave is in full swing this way they can avoid a boiler failure next winter and

[04:34] save money massive Publications picked up our story including the Sun Express mirror Wells online and a few more dozen Publications giving our client links lots of links and lots of Happiness hormones no wonder that so many

[04:49] journalists covered our story as this headline is a massive link magnet to Their audience this case study highlights the fact that a clever hook can be applied to any insight story to make a campaign more successful and more

[05:02] compelling to journalists can you imagine when people see this headline in the news you should turn on your boiler this summer there's no way they would not click on it I would click on it so this was the hook and this is why this

[05:14] campaign was so successful I hope this video inspires and shows you what's possible with a clever hook so I was one of the first reasons I kind of looked into you as well I remember looking at your profile a while ago and seeing you

[05:28] had oliver.com in your banner there's this massive thing on your social profile right and I thought that was just really interesting number one how you came across a onew one name domain name like oliver.com and the kind of

[05:44] story about how you managed to get that and how much it kind of cost you to acquire in the end yeah so that it was it was a bit of a pain so like I finding like the who is information and doing a bit of digging to find who owns

[05:58] a domain and I found the company what kind of had it so I started emailing them and message them and they actually thought I was the owner of the domain because I was like asking how much they like think it was worth and stuff like

[06:10] who owned it because they was just like a management company handling it for the person who own the domate so yeah so we went back and forth and then I was like trying to buy it he sent me like a monthly invoice for like a retainer to

[06:23] this and then he realized I wasn't the person who owned the domain uh then it was a bit back and forth and it took like over a few months period and then he was like the guy like just like um ghosted me he's not paid in months and

[06:38] basically you want to buy the domain so I ended up buying the domain for six figures so it a bit of a a bit of a steal and a very lucky Coincidence of getting it basically so you mostly focus on affiliate websites and projects how

[06:51] many affiliate projects and sites do you have right now so I just ch checked my analytics before the call to double check and it's like 20 nearly 25 projects so they're not all like high level some are like starters and some

[07:04] are like mid and then some are higher so it's kind of a mix but having like the multiple projects and multiple sites it kind of gives you that diversification where you can just do different stuff and different sites and just test around

[07:18] with different monetizations and SEO methods basically yeah it allows you to kind of open up your opportunities and see even environments multiple niche multiple data points and that kind of thing gives

[07:31] you a clearer path forward across all of your projects right and it gives you a really lot bigger insight into argum updates than the traditional KNE site owners that maybe own one two or three sites um a lot of that really isn't good

[07:44] evidence for arent date analysis right it's it's when you start dealing with you know dozens of different experiment cases and things um so I just want to talk to you about not only that you kind of built these sites and these projects

[07:56] and kind of what has your process being around selling sites as well so I I with you I like keeping them and even buying them or building them and just keeping them because like pretty much with KN sites it's an Roi of three years

[08:11] you're kind of going to get your money back just for a cash flow in three years um so I've kind of kept them but this year I am going to sell some sites moving kind of in barley so I'm gon to start doing real estate so I'm going to

[08:25] uh take a few off the table sell some and then invest in that i' I've always preferred buying them because you have so much leverage with buying them soon as you buy a site you just message like the affiliate Partnerships programs and

[08:38] just say I've acquired the site I want to connect a bit more if I promote you add some more content can you give me higher commissions and then instantly you you're earning extra you ear higher like multiple on your site and

[08:50] everything just from a few emails so I prefer buying yeah so is it more like a sort of an Arbitrage model where you're trying to sites to grow your capital and things right pretty much yeah yeah it's it's it's an interesting one as well it

[09:04] it's it's an interesting one as well it in terms of your selling sites is it uh is is AI part of that reasoning as well is it just because of SG and Ai and and stuff that have kind of gone and died down recently as well yeah it's a

[09:18] I've been listing one with Empire flippers and I'm GNA fully list it on February and everything has gone down and yeah it is a bit with AI but to be about it obviously things change but like AI content is it's a lot cheaper to

[09:34] gone down you can do more so it's kind of a give and take sort of situation uh so I'm not too worried about it but I do kind of want to get some sites off the table Yeah and obviously having some additional capital

[09:47] out it's pretty easy to make money when you have money you know say um so in the last couple of years aside from Ai and things and stuff has anything really affiliate and as an SEO not really like everything's I've

[10:04] pretty much done the same thing so like this past year I've been going to more techniques and more stuff that I can Implement in the business but other than that like nothing's really changed massively for me it's just basically

[10:17] more focusing on cro and trying to squeeze the extra money out the traffic the same process okay makes sense and have you been using AI in your businesses and your own affili sites and

[10:31] things yeah so ai's been massive because I I um hire vas from like the Philippines and like their English isn't amazing and some of the processes the struggle with it but AI just helped massively just to basically get the

[10:45] outputs quicker and better for what they would do originally so it's just then just getting them to follow the steps and AI kind of does the rest so it's made everything a lot quicker and made me be able to expand a lot big a

[10:59] lot easier basically yeah make the individual Vaas far more efficient than they were previously right yeah so what are your thoughts on AI content and affiliate and Niche sites and stuff have you been using it at all for your own

[11:13] sites do you think that it's risky do you think that it's mostly to do with uh you know kind of more mass page kind of style sites or can you do more higher level AI content as well for affiliate new sites yeah so I've been using AI

[11:26] content a lot so pretty much more or less to start because with with the writers I basically it's made me reduce well I've got no human writers anymore so i' basically cut all the writers out and just used AI so it's it's a tool

[11:39] the time in and do format in and make sure it's like good enough it's it's fine it just speeds up the process a lot more with like the bigger sites I've not really been adding AI content to it with those I've been more focusing on

[11:53] updating content and doing YouTube reviews and expanding that way uh just because I've basically done most of because the bigger sites are just pure affiliate so I've pretty much done everything there is to to write about it

[12:06] content it kind of dilutes everything else so with those I've been updating but with every other sites pure AI content and getting as much out there as possible basically yeah just trying to kind of um yeah like you said getting as

[12:20] much out there as possible do you still use Link building at all yeah so link building I kind of do it in batches so I I'm mainly focus on like on page updating stuff like that but when I do link build I do like a outage campaign

[12:34] another six months and then go back to it like when I'm doing a new site I obviously do all the like citations directories profiles and all the stuff like Google stacking I just basically just do everything for it uh and then

[12:49] for link building as well I a few little hacks there well ones most people know is basically turning off ads of the page you're trying to get links to uh but for like mine with like say for mattress reviews they change like quite a lot the

[13:03] products always get updated so what I like to do is Google that review um well Google the review and then check from like page two to page eight and find all like the mummy dad blogs which are like relevant but like may not have hidr or

[13:15] hida and just basically say oh there's an updated review on the product we've got it here do you mind linking to us and we'll give you like $200 or whatever any money because it's like lower down on Google but really like highly

[13:28] relevant links and they don't mind doing stuff like that so that's kind of how I do it's more like manual Outreach I kind of like have a try diversify but manual Outreach is generally what I do when link building so essentially a direct C

[13:41] competitor is linking to you as well at that point right because it's one relevancy match yeah it's perfect so like Google's putting it in the Surs for relevant so it's it's the perfect kind of links you want to get and with those

[13:55] page like second and Below like they're not getting any traffic or money from it anyway so they're quite happy to do those sort of links yeah so you said pillow links and stuff like that have you got any other favorite you know

[14:10] Niche edits pbns guest posts uh link insertions anything like that that you favorite techniques that that have been working really well in the last 12 months so Niche edit to me is mainly kind of what I focus on just because

[14:23] it's a lot easier and you can kind of get it a bit more relevant with the anchors or just to update like certain bits uh guest posts I I do like the reverse s or Swim so it's make sure like the URL and the title are relevant to

[14:36] the kind of the page it's linking to uh but other than that there's nothing really too too extreme or too kind of out the ordinary it's just kind of basic link building and uh and like for the citations and stuff like that they're

[14:49] just connections I've made but generally just like Fiverr or or legit kind of links sort of thing yeah through through specific vendors that are probably you know the best at that specific kind of type yeah so you kind of learn like with

[15:01] people and just kind of you build up your like network of the people to you kind of use so that's kind of yeah that's what I do with that nothing too special no yeah well I appreciate you coming on is there anywhere where people

[15:15] can find you online apart from obviously oliver.com yeah oliver.com and then on I'm trying to build that public case study and build a few sites on there so that's a good place to find me so check it out I'll put the links in the

[15:30] and Twitter I appreciate you coming on and I'll see you guys in the next and I'll see you guys in the next episode Peace