Ultimate Content Warrior Challenge Live Q&A: Blogging and YouTube Insights

hey everybody um i decided it was time to go live  again and um i i posted about this in project 24   and i wanted to make sure that uh people  there could send me some questions too so   um here we go first things first i want to give  a couple updates on the ultimate content warrior   challenge and i will be um i will be looking at  uh some of the scores and things real quick here   while

we talk just so that i can remember some  of the things i've been thinking about we've   completed the judging for challenge number  four and challenge number five is underway   um i know it might seem kind of early for  us to have uh hey guys for us to have um   started to cut people out um so i want to give a  little bit of update of what's going on here in   the challenge um first of all we

have identified  so many opportunities for teaching um there are   some things that a lot of people are doing really  well um people inside project 24 and a lot of   other you know bloggers and youtubers outside  project 24 who are doing just an awesome job of   so many things but there are a lot of other things  we've realized like this wasn't really that hard   people just didn't know what needed to be included  to do well and i'm

not just talking about how to   do well in our challenge in our judging system but  how to do well um at getting ranked on google at   getting your content to be the type of content  people are really gonna want to want to read and   so because of that there's just a ton that we've  learned so a couple things that we've identified   um looking through some of the earlier challenges  i'm gonna i'm gonna start with the blogging

stuff   um i've i talked about in the last uh live  a little bit about the blog formatting and   stuff and and what we saw there um when it came  to the about page this was really interesting   when it came to the about page uh whether  or not someone was able to establish any eat   on their about page had an impact on the score and  has a huge impact on the effectiveness of hey guys   i love i

don't like seeing you guys um it has a  big impact on the effectiveness of that about page   the about page builds rapport with people and  it builds rapport um with well with google um   in the in the long run there are a lot of  things we can do with the about page so   if you're in any sort of an industry where eat  is a ranking factor especially anything ymyl   which by the way is expanding into so

many  categories beyond your money in your life   you need to create authoritativeness around  yourself that's applicable for your niche now   it needs to be the right kind that's applicable  for your niche that means that in most cases   it doesn't require an acronym after your name it  doesn't require special um special uh credentials   of any kind in most cases for us bloggers it  just requires showing that you have some level of   experience and so whatever experience you

do have  you need to highlight it in a way that's going to   build rapport without just going nuts on  it without making it you know be a list of   resume items um so uh you know when it comes to  other aspects right building rapport with people   um that rapport needs to be applicable for the  niche there were a lot of niches where it was   like somebody came on and said well here's  my background in this niche

well fantastic   but why do i care and so if a person reads that  they want to feel like they got to know you in a   way that's appropriate for the type of content  but the one thing a lot of bloggers didn't do   that i think does more to build rapport than  almost anything else is images i understand the   desire and the need for for some people to remain  um anonymous their faces to remain anonymous   and in

some niches is actually really  really easy for people to use like an avatar   so i saw several people in the gaming space used  an avatar they never even show their face it's   just an avatar that exists that has been created  for them within the gaming world and they just   use that as their about image and it's totally  applicable for um for some people um you know   they they use the model image or a stock image and 

um and it worked right and even in some cases they   like owned up to it they said hey you know what  i choose to i like to keep my face anonymous but   um but this everything i'm writing about myself  is actually me but this is the persona that i   use or whatever and that actually works um but the  problem is that a lot of those pages miss the mark   moving on to the you know the next 

challenge um the answer targets   scoring the answer targets was tough we have  pretty high expectations for answer targets   because google is pretty particular about what can  and can't be a snippet okay and so the formatting   um of the answer target's very important  if you write it too long or too short   it's probably not even gonna ever have a chance of  being used and so we ended up grading that on kind   of a pass fail system which

we didn't tell you how  the time we're going to do that but neither does   neither does google unfortunately so the  scoring i think is kind of the the minimal   aspect of what you can take from this challenge  i think um the more important thing to take from   it is the learning what were the things  that we told you in the video would help   how well did you implement those things what was  the feedback that you can

glean from the scores we   gave you and what can you take and learn from that  let me talk a little bit about some of the youtube   things um you know there was a there was i got  i got a comment someone's pretty frustrated that   they got a very low score for their thumbnail and  title and arguably their score maybe could have   been a point or two higher um and that's totally  fine but the thumbnail that they

presented um had   some issues with what it looked like visibly and  it also had a major typo there were only like five   words and one of them was completely misspelled um  when you're entering a challenge you want to put   forth your best work and so when comparing that  to everything else there it just doesn't work and   when you combine that with the title that i think  in this case the person felt like their title was   was

good like it was interesting and exciting  but for the industry they were in the title was   pretty average at best um and so for that industry  it just did not have a chance of standing out so   um so here's the thing when  it comes to the scoring um   you know if it hurt your feelings i'm sorry every  time we go put a number anything like below five   on anything um it's like stinging for  us and i'm

like i hope that this isn't   discouraging to this person i hope that  it's a learning experience um so anyway um that's that's that that's the way that the scoring  works but the lessons learned i think are the key   getting high scores on these challenges other  than the answer target wasn't that hard the answer   target i'll be honest the highest score that i  ended up giving out that any of us ended up giving   out to anyone was

an eight nobody even got a 10 on  that score on that challenge and i think maybe we   just judged it a little too harshly because of the  expectations we have of our own riders but other   than that i mean every challenge has had several  people are in a full score and when we looked at   what they did it wasn't that it was necessarily  hard it wasn't that they necessarily even had to   put more time and effort

into the challenge the  difference was there was a level of understanding   of what was required to succeed in  that element of blogging or youtube   and because they understood it  they implemented it in a way that   they got a 10. there are youtube shorts that  got tens that were probably not any harder to   create than people who um put in who who put  in the same amount of effort but got a three   all right okay so um

this is a youtube live i  um i definitely want to take questions here i   have some questions from project 24 as well as  questions coming in from you guys here on youtube   so go ahead and keep the questions coming i'd love  to talk about the challenge i'd love to talk about   um you know how this is going to work going  forward if that's something that you want to   know about but i also just want to answer

whatever  questions you have actually let me talk a little   bit about where the challenge is going from here  guys um if this is something you're following   along with if you're out of the challenge at this  point which we have cut a lot of people out um   then anyway if you're out of the challenge  at this point it's very important   that for your benefit you continue  to follow along what we're doing now   is we've been asking permission

from everybody who  submits an entry if we can share their site or not   and if they say yes then we'll we are actually  including their entry in the the scores   so if you go do challenge five even though you're  not in the challenge once we post the scores for   challenge five you can go there and you can  look at the people who did really well look   at the people who did less well look at their  entry

and see how your work compares to theirs   um and that's going to help you immensely  if that's something you continue to do   um as far as cuts there are a lot of questions  here will there be cuts after these challenges   um going forward there are going to be some  cuts every time after challenge four i we just   finished the scores here not that long ago um we  actually cut a lot the reason for that is that  

we're getting a lot more in depth the challenges  are going to start getting more um more involved   the challenges are going to require content  creators to be able to do maybe more than just the   the main skill they came with and the judging for  that as well as the feedback we'll be providing   um is going to be um is going to be more involved  so the scoring is just going to take that much   longer and so

i really really really wish we could  keep everyone into the challenge the whole time   um literally every challenge comes in and  everybody here um we don't we're not outsourcing   this to anybody else so everybody here in the  office is literally spending like a day and a half   just judging your challenges everything behind  on everything else and so as this gets more   involved we're just having to cut back um  we are as we judge these things um

we're   we can hide the column to know who the entry is  there are some of you that we recognize um from   the youtube channel from project 24 we don't know  whose entry we're looking at when we judge it and   after the fact we see that and we sport we  rank them and we are seeing on both tracks   a handful of people coming out ahead um  and they're just doing a fantastic job and   we look back and

we're like yep they just  nailed it over and over and over again um   and uh emma just pointed out emma i'm gonna give  you a shout out here you got a 10 out of 10 on the   last challenge emma's just killing it and she's  doing really well in both tracks um but emma is   also just very engaged in what she's working on  and um and it's showing and we don't know it's   hers when we when we

score it um especially with  these entries lately where it hasn't been like   on youtube obviously we can tell who it is but on  the blog stuff when they submit an answer target   on a prompt we gave them we have no idea who wrote  it and still a lot of you are just doing a really   good job showing a high level of understanding  of these important principles um let's see here people asking are we going to do

this again  uh what this channel will look like in the   future i'm not entirely sure um it's been  a huge huge huge time commitment for us   um and so uh we'll just have to see what  we're capable of doing in the future   i would imagine if we did this again  we'd probably have twice as many entries   and so we'll just have to see what we can  do let me take a couple questions here this is a

question about our creator studio  so we'll take well i'm happy to take questions   about the ucw challenge as well  as about anything else as well   um this one's about the creator studio uh  can we can people hire the creator studio   to help them scale the creator studio  as of right now is not being used to   write articles for people you can't just hire  us to write um 10 or 20 articles or whatever it's something that we've

looked at it's something  that we're considering but um i don't think we'll   ever be doing that on the same scale as some of  the other people who are doing the same um and   writing articles in a based on the you know income  school style training and income school style   articles so even if we were to do some of that  it would be on a probably a scale um what we are   doing is building a lot of

test websites we're  building sites in various niches a couple of them   we'll hang on to um a little bit longer term what  we want is to always have niche websites outside   of you know income school right and outside of  um you know we just want a few that we just keep   very long term that we can try different things  with and same for youtube channels so backfire   is is becoming both it's becoming a blog and  a

youtube channel and it's one we're holding   a little bit longer term so that we have aged  sites that we can when you have an age site with   a lot of traffic you can try something and you  can get a quick result to see how well it works   with new sites it takes a long time to get any  sort of result to test whether or not it worked we   also want medium term sites we always want to

have  some sites that are about a year old and we always   want to be starting new sites so in the process  here we're going to be building a lot of new sites   and most of them will come up for sale so if  you're in a position where you do want to grow   but you want to grow by maybe buying another site  that's something absolutely that we will be doing   um here's one they're in an outdoor  niche

where one of the most heavily   searched terms is where to find x near me  or where to look for x in whatever state   most of the existing results aren't that helpful  do you think it's worth while to write an article   for each u.s state with in-depth information  on some of the best locations to do this hobby   um concerned about limited search volume this  is a cool one jim and i were just looking at   this the other

day not specific to outdoors  or um where to do this in x state or whatever   what we but what we were looking at is articles  that are able to rank for literally hundreds of   searches so imagine if you wrote an article  that was like all about the best outdoor   activities to do in the state of idaho that could  potentially rank for where is the best place to go   rock climbing like outdoor or bouldering in idaho  where

is the best place to go white water rafting   in idaho um i mean just imagine by having a list  of even just like 20 things on there you could   potentially rank for hundreds of different  search terms um so that that's pretty cool   um i'll take a question here if i interview three  experts for challenge five should i use the same   questions um you might you might not um sometimes  it's valuable to interview a bunch of people  

ask them all the same questions and then kind  of cherry pick the answers that you want to show   in the blog post but get kind of a consensus  from them on what you want other times it's   good to interview three different experts  that all have slightly different expertise   um and ask them slightly different questions and  again then just highlight you know each interview   in kind of that section of the article so it  really just depends on

the approach you're taking   to the article and the type the different  people that you're going to be interviewing   if they're all basically have the exact  same expertise i can see a lot of value   in asking them all kind of the  same questions to try to get   the overall consensus of what all the experts  say what they agree on and what they disagree on   so it kind of depends what you want to  show here's another one from

project 24.   with what seems like an increased focus on  the quality of blog posts in the creator   studio produces have we changed the amount of  time we expect our creators to produce each   type of blog post and have those times increase  that's a great question because we used to talk   about how we gave our writers 90 minutes and then  maybe two hours to write a shorter response post   and i and i do um i'm sorry i'm

interrupting  myself i do see the comments as they come in   the questions as they come in and i do really  appreciate you guys um you guys share compliments   and stuff and um it means a lot to me that uh  you guys care um about just what we're doing   and the effort we're putting into the work we're  doing um it's just awesome um but back to this   question what other times and have they increased  we're actually testing

out a little bit different   approach and depending on how well it works it  will probably impact the way we teach blogging   going forward some we're we're separating time  from the length of the blog post um sometimes we   say we tell the writer we want a 1300 word blog  post so the length of about a response post or   even a thousand word blog post however this  one there's this research we want you to do   you know i

want you to call these people i want  you to do this thing and sometimes it's maybe not   that specific but we just have an idea that this  has the opportunity for some really good research   if they'll just follow through with it so instead  of two hours we give them three or even four   um sometimes we'll have them write a long blog  post simply because it takes that many words to   cover the topic um but it doesn't

necessarily  need to take more than four or six hours   and so we're separating the two so in  general we're usually giving them about   two hours per thousand words um so a thousand  word blog post about two hours and that gives   them that includes by the way 30 minutes of  just research no writing we expect them to   at very least go watch youtube videos and get  more background on the subject other than just   reading other people's blog

posts okay um but it  usually also includes some sort of other form of   small form of unique research that um that might  include making some phone calls it might include   getting some data sometimes it might include  pulling a certain audience and then coming   back to that article a different day um you know  sometimes a 2000 word blog post um we're going   to give them six hours depending on the type  and amount of research we expect them

to do   but we're also identifying that sometimes  there's pillar content for a blog   that should have great research but realistically  it should only be 2000 words or even 1500 words   because a lot of the research should be shown  in more like table form or an infographic   and so we're just separating that out a little  bit and once we have a great way to teach that   um you know our blogging instruction within  project 24 will begin to

reflect that um but   when somebody's just getting started it's really  good to have a very much more rigid and structured   format so we're still kind of working on how we're  going to teach that um i have a question here from   dia reddy redde rededa sorry if i butchered that  but i wanted to give you a shout out should i   write on medium or my own website absolutely um  right on your own website um medium can be

a fine   place to get found it can be a fine place if you  want to kind of duplicate your content um and link   back to the original but um you want to own that  content you want to own where it is you want to   be able to put your links in it um having your own  website is very important for internet marketers   um and so writing on other people's platforms only  is not something that i would

recommend there's   another one from project 24. i follow steps for  youtube published over 31 videos um starting in   september i'm getting three impressions or less  per day all the titles are specific questions   how do i start getting impressions i have i have  a high like percentage when my videos do get shown youtube is another place where we're working  really hard to improve the way that we teach   and improve what we teach the youtube 60 steps  in

project 24 are good and they're based on the   experience that we've had on youtube across  several youtube channels um leading up to   about a year ago when we created those um that  course and those materials in the last year   we have learned a ton of new stuff and so  we are actually right now working super hard   um to put out a whole new approach to  youtube now it's not an approach where you   where you have to

start from the beginning um  and you know start over on your channel it's   it's more of a teaching approach where  you can come to it wherever you are   and so if you already have an existing channel  with videos it's just going to teach you some   a whole new set of skills that's going to help  you do better on youtube so one of the things in   answer to this question that we've learned is that  um if you're

coming from a blogging background   to youtube you have to forget basically everything  that you know especially when it comes to   coming up with topics when it comes to search  analysis with youtube we're finding that   matching a search is actually not something  that uh matters that much which seems crazy   um our theory before was you need to be you need  to be found in search to be able to start getting   seen at all so that people will

watch your video  and youtube will be able to push it out there and i do believe that to some extent  that's helpful and true however making   videos where the title is a question and it's  specifically answering a specific question   um is a really blog style approach  it's a really seo google style approach   and youtube just isn't working the same way  there is search and people do find you that way   and we do want to make videos

that would appear  in a search result for those topics but we want   the title of the video and the thumbnail of  the video to be still more interest-based   and we also want to focus more on the things  that we care about when we make videos so when   you make a video instead of trying to  figure out what what an audience wants   instead we make videos more about the things  that we're most interested in within our niche  

and by being more interested in the topic the  video is better um and so anyway there there's a   lot to unpack there and there's a lot to to learn  there so the youtube course we are working super   hard to try to get it out by february 1. i know  we are always thinking like oh we're working on   that it'll be out soon the same thing with our  info product course that is so close but there's   some

resources we need to finish for that one too  but that youtube course um the goal is february   1 and i'm saying that in part to um force myself  to keep sticking with that okay um core is asking   does that mean the content inversion or the source  and version is no longer a thing within youtube   um i i kind of think that um i i don't think that  it's a principle that made a lot of sense and

it's   a principle that we had kind of seen before  but um i think that that mentality might be   i don't think it's hurting anyone but i think  it um by thinking that way and by taking a more   search focused approach at the beginning um we  might be holding ourselves back so um anyway so   that's something we're working on we've learned  a ton um obviously nate's been experimenting like   crazy um with channel makers as well as on

other  channels he's kind of been working on and stuff   we've been testing stuff like crazy and we've just  learned so much here's another one uh let's see   it's taking forever to get to 100 1 000  subscribers what kind of subscriber rate   should i be aiming for or should i not even worry  about this so what kind of monthly subscriber rate   um i i wouldn't um set a number for  yourself of how many subscribers you think   you

should get per month in the early stages of  the site or in a ch of a youtube channel it's um   it's if it can be very very slow um or it can  go faster and it's just hard to know what's   going to work and what's not going to work so  i wouldn't hold yourself to anything i mean um   if we set a number it's it's some people are  going to feel like oh sweet i'm soaring above  

that and other people are going to feel behind  the reality is it just really depends on the   size of the audience it depends on what the  audience is like and how open they are to new   ideas if it's an industry where there's  just like a couple big names and   nobody cares about anybody else it  might be tough to tougher to break in   you can you absolutely can and should try but um  you know it might just

take a little bit longer   for people to realize that there there's a lot  of value outside of those those big names um and   so i i wouldn't i would worry about continuing  just to make really good content and um i would   focus on in calls to action getting people to like  your videos i would focus on trying to encourage   people to comment on your videos and to interact  with those videos um getting people to subscribe who

wouldn't like any of your other videos doesn't  do any good so in a video having a call to action   hey subscribe if you liked this video it's like  cool if they don't like your other videos because   they're not quite the same and they don't  watch any of them then youtube's like well   their subscribers don't watch most of their  videos and so that's that's not great and so if   you do a video that's a little bit different 

than everything else and you get people to   subscribe because of that video those subscribers  can in the long run actually do more damage   to the growth of your channel because again  youtube sees that you know um a smaller percentage   of their subscribers watch their videos every  time they go out than other channels so their   channel must not be as good so it's better to get  people to engage and if you are going to have a   call

to action to subscribe it should be right  after you give someone just something awesome   that um you know you give them an awesome piece  of information a great piece of advice and say   if you like that make sure you subscribe because  there's more where there's that's coming from   um sometimes people will subscribe when you ask  them to and they're probably they may not be the   type of person that comes back um what do you  think of

patreon to monetize youtube audience   um you know i think it's fine if it's in the kind  of industry where people expect that sort of a   thing you may be in an industry where people are  like i really don't like ads on these videos but   i'm totally happy to give back to people that  create this content for me patreon it might make   a lot of sense it's not a um it's not an approach  we've taken most of

our channels have been   commercial enough that people are perfectly happy  and expect to see ads and we can monetize them   through affiliate links and other things  um sometimes i've gone so far as to say   if i don't have anything you're worth paying for  and my videos aren't worth watching an ad for   what right do i have to ask you to donate money  to me now i do think that's a little too harsh um   and i do

think there are a lot about industries  where where people would really appreciate that   i we're also seeing with youtube that you know  you can create content that people have to like   be paid subscribers to you on youtube to watch  we haven't experimented with that either but um   there you go see emma's like i love patreon i use  it um it's not something it's not something that   we have tried and i think that i've  maybe been too

harsh on that in the past   um that's kind of the the capitalist to me is is  saying like yeah if people aren't willing to pay   me for stuff or watch an ad before they get to my  video then uh i'm not providing enough value and   that's actually not necessarily the case um if  you're time poor covid child care everything   that's going on which would you prioritize  new content or overhauling old content   um this is a great

question that i think really  depends where you are if you are in the first   year of content creation in even if it's in a new  um on a new platform so if you've been blogging   for a while but it's your first year on youtube  content creation all the way um after a year if   you've written or created made videos or whatever  um a sizable amount of content then i think there   can be a lot of value

and starting to split  that time maybe more 50 50 um on a blog you know   if you reach a point on a blog where you've  really covered you've covered it you know and   you're like i don't to grow i don't know  that i necessarily want to expand from   you know shih tzu's to all dogs i want to stay a  shih tzu blog great so now it's time to battleship   that content go through the battleship method um 

figure out which which um topics you didn't win   and let's become just the authority on that and  you might not write that many more new blog posts   unless you're just doing a total overhaul of an  old one on youtube the same thing kind of applies   um uh on youtube it kind of applies as well um but  the difference is you can't just like edit an old   video and put it back up um so uh you have

to just  create new content and then um but you can still   kind of battleship we haven't really played with  that a lot yet but you could take a concept that   you talked about a year or two three years ago and  you could create a new video about it and even you   could even go so far as to put um a card or even a  link in the description from the old video saying   hey there's a new

updated version of this make  sure you go check it out because people will   still find the old versions um i got a super chat  here from no man's planet it says pay you did say   so thank you for that it says need help though  so um if you if you need help with something   uh you go ahead and post your question  here i i just didn't see a question there um hey this is a great question

here how  to get affiliates for my new online course   so you've got a new course online you want to  get affiliates for it there's some great plugins   that can create those programs for you but how  do you get affiliates this is where you know   we as content creators need to do a great  job of starting to work with each other um   this is a huge opportunity a lot of content  creators are never going to make their

own   course and maybe should never make their own  course they should keep things pretty passive   but for digital products like a course  um that can be a great affiliate program   where if there's no like ongoing requirement  for example an ebook or just a course that   people get at one time there's not really a lot  of support involved you can have a very enticing   affiliate program you could do a 50 50 share split  um with affiliates if

they do a good job for you   so this is where we need to be collaborating  it's time to find some other blogs in your niche   that you know maybe aren't quite as direct of  competitors you know you're not writing about all   the same topics but um you know that but you're  in the same niche right and it's time to reach   out it's time to um find people that have podcasts  and youtube channels in your niche and

it's time   to let them know look i created a product i  think it's awesome i'd like to give it to you   and if it's something that you'd like to recommend  i'm also willing to share revenue with you um we   can set you up with an affiliate link um that kind  of outreach is what's needed today there's not we   haven't identified a great network for that um it  might be something that we may be thinking about   creating

um because it doesn't exist today and  it needs to because content creators are creating   info products creating awesome courses and  other content creators should be promoting them   it's a great passive income stream for those  other content creators and a great way for   those who create the course to be able to to  spread the word on that so there you go um   this one's from apparently my numero uno fan so  two questions here is it okay to

spend more time   perfecting each sentence in your blog or trying  to use your blog to get you writing jobs as well   um oh okay so this is someone who's like should  i perfect every word because i want i want to   get a writing job too and i want to use it as a  resume builder um in that case yeah maybe it is   worth the extra time because you're using your  blog to basically show your skill as

a writer   well in that case yeah you better do a really good  job of writing for most people i would say taking   the time to perfect your exact wording every  time is maybe not the best use of time let's get   content out there and the second is is it possible  to have a ton of writing styles in your blog as   well as being seo friendly not just a little  style a ton um a lot of the

the difficulty with   um having a lot of different writing styles all  under the same author name that are very very very   different writing styles um is that it can look  like different writers that said um i can't um i   i don't know i know that google is capable  the algorithm is capable of recognizing that   but if that's something that you own right if  it's something where my niche is writing and   i'm talking and i'm using this

as an example  of my writing um and i'm using this to get   jobs writing then i i wouldn't imagine that  it would make that big of a difference i think   overall though search engines are looking at  individual pieces of content when they rank them   they're looking at the overall site when it comes  to comparing two pieces of equivalent content   or even remotely close content   and to be fair um sites that are already existing  and bigger are

probably getting indexed more   frequently and therefore their content is going to  make faster and therefore you also have to kind of   knock them off which means yours has to be a  step above if you're a newer site but in general   the search engines are looking at individual  pieces of content and then they're referring   back to the authoritativeness and the other  factors on the site like writing style   is a little bit more of a secondary approach  so

again if that's something that's important   for the purpose of your website being able to  show all your writing styles then yes do it   but for most people you want to try to have  consistent voice okay um let's all start saying   niche instead of niche or niche or niche  or joe okay what do you um let's see   i got a lot of these um the question about ucw  after round five are we moving to a bracket format  

um not yet maybe not at all i said bracket before  in a previous youtube live and we keep going back   and forth on that because um you guys are gonna  get the insider tip here right um what's gonna   happen is after round five the blogging track  and the youtube track are going to come together   um and the challenges are going to require  the ultimate content warrior to be able   to be an ultimate content warrior not an 

ultimate blogger or an ultimate youtuber   which this is good news for people like you  emma and some others on there who are doing both   quite a bit um but they're going to come  together and the problem with the bracket   is if we do a bracket and there's a youtuber  versus a blogger and we put up a challenge   that is more youtuber centric the blogger is going  to have no chance right and vice versa and so   we're

a little bit hesitant on doing a bracket  where two people go head to head until we maybe   get close to the very end where we really are  talking about the top people and we just need to   do a bracket so what will happen after challenge  number five though and i just posted this on   the site um there's a little kind of a update  section on the challenges page where um where   uh after challenge anyway there's a

segment there  where i'm posting news and in that segment i talk   about uh right now on there it says um i'm  losing my train of thought i'm sorry guys um   oh we're gonna after challenge number five  everybody that's made it after that the scores   get wiped clean so there are a couple of people  who have done a really good job up until now   who are leading the pack by a few points which  i mean they just

they have earned it absolutely   but um at this point instead of moving to a  bracket we're just going to kind of wipe the slate   and it will begin um it was it will be cumulative  from here on out as well but it's starting fresh   so if you're at the bottom of the the winners  up until now and but you're still in there   um you're gonna get to you're gonna still have  a chance you're still going to

be able to be   competitive and for those that are leading at  this point in theory you're probably going to also   do really really well going forward and so it's  not too much for loss to you um there you go um mailing lists um time cost versus payoff of an  email list um i'm assuming you mean uh email list   by the way because uh a mailing list like actual  mail is not something i would do as a

blogger   i hate mail um it's like always bills i  there's almost never anything in the mail   that i care about except at christmas time  when i get cards from people no um an email   list there is a lot of value in email lists  it's something that we need to get better   about implementing and better about teaching um we  have some basics in project 24 about email lists   just basically how to create them and a couple of 

tips for sending out good drip campaigns but it's   something that we do want to get a lot better  about teaching there is a lot of value in them   especially if you have a really high value info  product or a really high value affiliate product   or you're going to create your own product whether  that's e-commerce or affiliate or anything like   that are affiliate whether that's e-commerce or  an info product or something of your own to sell   um

if you have something like that  that you're ever going to create   then as early as possible i would start getting  an email list the issue is once you start an   email list you need to keep that list warm  which means you need to have something being   dripped out to people not too often but often  enough that you stay relevant to them otherwise   it just doesn't doesn't have any value when you  do send something out two years

from now because   you finally launched your course um these people  don't remember who you were um let's see which one   i rather see on a new blog in the first year 50  posts that are on point and follow the recipe 100   or 100 posts that are 80 of the post recipe  that is a tough decision because the more   um lines in the water right the fishing analogy  we always use the more posts that you write um  

the more opportunities you have to determine  which ones you're likely to win which topics   you can win however if you if you're not  far enough on like creating a really helpful   piece of content as well as you're  not quite there on the topic then then it doesn't do any good right if you  have a whole bunch of lines in the water   that just have hooks on them but no bait you're  still not going to catch any

fish and so um   they need to be far enough along your search  analysis needs to be good enough that you're   probably gonna win a reasonable percentage  of these and the helpfulness of the article   and and um having good answer targets and stuff in  the blog post um those things need to be there if   the other writing and formatting isn't 100 there  but you got good answer targets and the blog   posts are helpful and they're on good

topics that  probably have reasonable search volume and that   become competitive wise you absolutely could win  then sure i'm all for getting out more content   because a year from now you're going to be able to  tell yeah some of these topics i was never going   to win but some of these maybe i'm ranking number  three and i can i can move it up to number one   or maybe i'm winning the snippet  but i'm a little bit nervous  

um because the rest of the content's not that  good and i really want to solidify my place so i'm   going to go and i'm going to tweak that okay no  man's planet says six months 160 1500 word posts   um and at 800 organic so i'm assuming that's  800 page views after writing 160 posts um   here's the thing that stands out to me is the six  month thing okay so if you've written a lot of   content in

a short period of time and for that  like congratulations um that's very good um if   i've written a lot of content and it's aged which  this content isn't aged enough yet for a new site   but if it's aged and i still only have 800 organic  page views which i do think is a little bit low at   this point depending on how well most of that  content is um then i'm concerned i'm concerned   about two things i'm

concerned mostly about my  search analysis have i picked topics that i can   realistically win and that people are probably  looking for now there's not a tool out there   that's going to really tell you how many people  should be should be coming to that article i know   i recently made a youtube video about the search  volume numbers from the keyword research tools   they all disagree with each other but even so what  we find is that you know

articles often rank for   anywhere from a few to literally hundreds of  specific search terms and so you can't know   so that's where you just have to use  the gray matter between your ears   does it make sense that enough people would click  on this topic if you're if that is good and you've   looked at the competition you've actually done  the google search for each of those topics and   you should be able to win you've created better  content

and not just a little bit better and not   just on par but a step above and you've written  good answer targets to be able to win snippets   then at this point i would say it's  time to give it a little bit more time   um because six months isn't long enough to know  for sure how it's gonna do let's see um are the   number of amazon links a ranking factor what's a  good ratio of links to other

external and internal   links do you suggest building recommended pages  to consolidate affiliate links we used to really   really recommend building like recommended gear  pages or whatever to consolidate affiliate links   and i do like that i like having a resource  because it can be used very user friendly um it   can be super helpful when somebody's like you know  what i really i'm i'm really liking the advice   these guys are giving or this gal is giving and  i

really kind of want to know what they recommend   and having that page i do think is probably  really helpful for converting some affiliate sales   we used to also say don't spam your site with  affiliate links in fact link to your recommended   gear pages and have the affiliate links there so  in your blog post don't even put the affiliate   link we used to say that i don't agree with that  anymore i do think it can be very

harmful to the   seo as well as the user experience of a website  to just be spammed full of affiliate links um   absolutely don't do that do we have a solid ratio  no um i would say though that if it feels natural   if the recommendations feel natural it's fine  the number of links within a blog post are fine   um affiliate links to other external and internal  links i don't know that there's a great metric   for that in

some blog posts it's gonna make a ton  of sense to link to other blog posts on your site   in some blog posts where you're citing  a lot of data it might make sense to   link to external sources um absolutely you know  link to the experts um especially when it's like a   expert topic and or there's statistics or whatever  um but like for each individual article i wouldn't   say well every article should have two external  links as

well as two internal links to other   posts on your site and then no more than three  affiliate links there's not a metric like that   and i would even say that overall for a site  there's not i don't think i don't think any study   could reasonably be done to prove that there's an  ideal um what i would do is do what feels natural   if it makes sense to do an external link to  another blog post put in

an external link   anywhere where it makes sense to do an internal  link do it especially in your blog posts   that get the most organic traffic go to those  blog posts that are doing really well look in   your analytics and see look by page which which  pages are driving the most traffic to your site   go to those ones and create opportunities to  link to other blog posts that are monetized   and if it's a post that talks about

a product  have a link to the product other things that   we wanna that we're trying now are um you know  maybe putting a list at the bottom of the blog   post that says hey here's a list of the products i  recommended in this post it's one last opportunity   to just say these are the products i recommended  above they're here for your convenience um if   you're not doing that or if it's a blog post  that's not otherwise

monetized we're considering   even putting a table at the bottom of your blog  post that says hey here are my top five pieces a   year for people who are getting into this so  if you had um you know you had a site about   um baseball it's like hey these are my top five  products for high school baseball players and   just put it at the bottom of every unmonetized  blog blog post if that's your target audience   um it's

going to get you some clicks and  i don't think that having a few extra   links at the bottom of a blog post is really  going to do anything algorithmically to hurt   your site and where they're consolidated like  that and it feels like it's just a helpful   thing at the end of your blog  post an extra helpful resource   users aren't going to be bothered by that what  bothers people is when all throughout the post   they feel like

they're constantly getting pitched  to buy something um and it gets in the way of the   content all right dennis karen asks better three  sites with 30 articles or one with a hundred   i generally believe in most cases it's one with  a hundred it is more work to start a new site   and get it to ten thousand page views than it  is to take a site at ten thousand page views   and get it to fifty thousand page

views um  it's a lot easier to take a site that um   is at 30 000 page views and monetize it better  to make more money than it is to take a site at   uh than it is to create a second site get it to  30 000 page views and make just as much money   with monetization we also find that there are  sort of tiers um at ten thousand page views you   can kind of reach a certain

level of monetization  reasonably well at thirty thousand fifty thousand   a hundred thousand page views we tend to find  that the earnings you can get per page view on   the site and per article tend to go up they  do kind of plateau at some point if you have   a site with thousands of articles it might not do  that much better than a site with 300 articles so   for every niche and for every website there's  probably kind of

an optimum somewhere but that   optimum is probably never going to be as low as  30. there you go um more questions coming in here   in there in project 24 there is advice to post  two videos per week how many shorts currently   performing and publishing one per day won't  cannibalize the weekly longer videos posted   um not letting the longer videos reach their full  potential so there is a concept on youtube that   um if i post too frequently

then a video that i  post will prevent a previous video from reaching   its full potential and that that is true um a  video needs an opportunity to run its course   with your audience that's usually going to happen  probably within about two days and by that i mean   by your audience i mean your actual subscriber  base the people that are subscribed and get   notifications from your channel if they see that  notification and they're going to watch the

video   from that notification it's probably going  to happen for most of them in the first day   and um for the rest of them probably within  the second um the rest of them some will sort   of trickle in because it'll still show as an as  an unviewed notification on within their youtube   app or something and so they might still click on  it and we see on our videos that they'll they'll   usually i mean it's a spike the

day they come out  and then it drops off and then um kind of reaches   a plateau within a few days so um two videos a  week as long as they're spread out about every   three-ish days i don't think you're going to run  into an issue with cannibalizing youtube shorts   are a little bit different the issue with shorts  though is that they're published as a normal video   and so a notification does go out to your audience  the

thing with shorts though is because they're so   short and they're easily recognizable as such um  does that cause a viewer from your channel to not   watch the longer video that they were anticipating  already and i don't know we don't i don't think we   have enough data on that to be able to actually  say um if i had to guess i would say probably not   um if anything having shorts coming out is is  going to keep me

more engaged with your channel um   but they're also um i don't know they're  so short to watch that i don't think it's   gonna prevent me from watching the video that  came out yesterday if i haven't watched it yet   um i don't know that i would publish a short the  same day i publish my long videos each week though   um if that makes sense because you might  get people that do choose one or the other   um but

again at this point it's still speculation  um there's there's just not i don't think enough   to go on there yet all right i'm gonna take  a few more here um yeah start creating videos   every two days uh and honestly if you  can like if that's something you can do   you know you could um i don't know even  though it wouldn't necessarily cannibalize   the previous video um there is such thing  as just burnout um if your audience

is just   if you don't have anything really great to say and  you're just putting something out every two days   um then you know at some point they're  just burned out and they get tired of you   um we maintain normally a weekly schedule  with the occasional second video in a week   um and that works really well for us but in  you know it was mentioned in project 24 we   talk about doing two in a week um when

a channel  is new you've got to get more content out there   only having 52 videos in a whole year is not  enough when your channel is brand new and so we   do recommend we do recommend creating content  a little faster in the beginning for sure um   is youtube shorts worth it or is tick tock still  better we have found um that and see nancy i saw   that uh she's got to go work on an article which 

is awesome um we found that on youtube shorts can   do really well at spreading more so than just a  normal video we can make a video on a topic that   should be interesting to a very wide group of  people and over time it will reach a big group   of people um and spread but the short seems to  be able to do that much more quickly and so um   for people that are already on youtube are shorts 

worth it i do think so um is tick tock better i   don't know because i don't know really how people  engage with tick tock and how that turns into   um real income for you right on a platform where  everything is short form content like that um   getting people to convert and come  over somewhere else to buy a product   um getting people to make an affiliate um you  know purchase based upon your tick tock video um   it's

just a different it's a different approach  than than what we do and um i don't know that   it would be as effective for again the way that  we like to monetize that kind of traffic um and   so i don't think it's gonna be effective with a  youtube short people can subscribe to your channel   and because it's something it's a topic they're  interested in and end up coming and watching   your other longer videos and um and that

does  seem to have been pretty effective we did that   on backfire and they're not guaranteed to take  off and to be honest we've noticed that already   youtube shorts are already taking on a little bit  of that tick tock feel and um where you're you're   being pushed videos um from the bigger channels  that are starting to do it and from celebrities   um more so than from small channels in the  beginning it was a huge opportunity because   little

tiny channels nobody else was doing it  and so their videos were spreading like crazy   um you know now if you've got like hugh  jackman making a little short about something   you know people are going to watch it and  so uh youtube seems it used to be that   um youtube would always promote shorts  they would on my short shelf it would show   um it would show a whole bunch of shorts  that were all relevant to channels that

i've   subscribed to even if they're not from  channels i subscribe to if that makes sense   um now we're finding that it's just becoming  a little bit more virally content those other   ones are still mixed in and we're still  seeing a lot of benefit from it but um   eventually it's gonna become just as crowded as  the rest of youtube so when we see opportunities   like that i think that just highlights how  important it is to jump on

top of it i think   right now it's still a cool plot it's still a cool  format and i don't think that's a format that's   going to disappear anytime soon and i do think  it will continue to adapt uh what types of videos   and whose videos are showing on that short shelf  and so um i'm i'm certainly not going to give up   on it anytime soon but it'll be interesting to  see where that goes from here darren

perky says   i have rescued and raised several rottweilers do  you think a single breed site is okay or should i   go after something more broad like large breeds  um we have worked with a lot of people who have   single breed dog websites if that breed is um a  common breed one that people know about and that   a lot of people are likely to be interested in  um not a really like super specific hybrid breed   um i

think that it can do very well generally  speaking though i do like to purchase a domain   that's kind of one level further up um in sort  of the breadth of content um i do think that when   you as you brand your site as you get a logo  um that you know having the rottweiler there   and just and even in the tagline talking about  rottweilers is a great way to start if that's   where your focus is going

to be and if that's  where your expertise lies and it may be that   that's all the site ever is is about rottweilers  because you determine you know what it's a big   enough breed the thing is you can't really know if  it's going to be a big enough topic until you've   created the content and been out there for a while  and so um and so i do like to be careful about um   niching down too far and

then building like  my entire branding including the domain name   around that so i would i would take a step back  choose a domain name that doesn't necessarily   say big dogs you know in it anywhere but that but  that could be broader we also are finding that   because domain names are it's just getting so hard  to find good ones that aren't super long um that   finding something that's a little bit less on the  nose and a little

bit more brandable is actually   working really well it used to be that like exact  match domain names um was was the thing for seo   you wanted to make a site about tungsten wedding  rings for men you bought tungsten ringsformen.com   that's just the way it used to be 15 years ago um  today it doesn't matter so much so you know when   we created our pet site we struggled and struggled  and struggled um to find a domain name

that was   available and so we ended up picking embora pets  embora's a portuguese word um and it really had   nothing to do with anything but it was brandable  and pronounceable and we went with it um backfire   um the channel is something you know we talk about  firearms and hunting and things like that but   by picking a name like backfire yes it alludes  to firearms but it also is just kind of a cool   kind of a cool

brand um that we can work with and  it allows us now as we start to move forward to be   able to expand beyond just firearms and be able  to talk about camping gear and hiking gear and   just the things that people that are interested  in those other topics would also be interested in   and so um you know when i say pick a domain name  that's a level higher it doesn't necessarily   mean uh that you have to

pick a domain name that's  like oh well let's pick a big dog's domain name um   instead rather it could be something you know just  a little bit more fanciful or something like that   you say you own rottie.org so  you're thinking about definitely um okay so defining it with content  and i don't i do think that roddy.org   i think works um and it's definitely rottweiler  focused um but could it be expanded in the future   even though it's

like rotty focused rottweiler  focused um it probably could domain names are   mattering less and less and less content is  mattering more and more especially for seo so   if you already own it it's nice and  short that's what i like about it   um i always prefer dotcoms.org feels like it's  an organization not a informational site but i   i don't know that that actually matters that much  anymore either um and so yeah sure run with it um   oh

asking if there's a list of the things that  are in project 24 um i do think that somewhere   we have um i have to figure out exactly where  it is um if you go to income school.com project   24 there's a lot of information there about  what's included um but not a complete list um   i think that it links to another page with  more additional information that may have a   video with a tour now if it does

that video  is probably a little bit outdated um but   it would be accurate in the sense that it's  going to have at least those things in it so   there you go there's the start um are we  hiring va's we're currently not we're um   we're moving more and more toward  um working more locally with people   um we're finding that it's just more  effective and so we're not really needing   needing vas that are remote as much as i'd

love to  be able to work with more and more and more people   we're finding is much more effective when we can  all be co-located even if we do end up working i   mean we're online so we certainly can work remote  but anyway um what's the best way of doing this   if you don't have access to footage my blog is  animals but i don't have footage um honestly   it's harder if it's not something that you're  really doing

um because you don't have footage now   there are plenty of places where you can get stock  photos and even short pieces of stock video um and   so if you're talking about like specifically the  ucw challenge and you're like hey yeah for my   blog it's working great um but how do i make  a youtube video if i'm a blogger for the ucw   challenge that uh that's about pets when i don't  have access to any right now um

and i could see   that being a little bit tough um i will say one  thing for the challenge um you can make your video   um unlisted and um submit it if it's private  we can't see it but if it's unlisted we can   um and if that's the case rather than buying stock  footage that you're allowed to use commercially   you could use other footage um for the purpose  of the challenge to just to show what you would  

do what you're capable of um if you were going  to use it like actually on your youtube channel   publicly you would need to buy the stock footage  it's very difficult it's much harder to do youtube   than blogging if it's not something  that you're currently living   you know it would be really really really  hard for us to do the backfire channel   if we didn't have access to the resources  that we have um the things that we're   buying

and using and we've even created  some relationships with some locals um   stores and things where we're able to get a hold  of gear sometimes that we don't even have to buy   um and that's something you could absolutely do um  but the more you immerse yourself in your niche um   then the the easier it's gonna be to do youtube  blogging it's a little easier to get away   with emma don't worry i won't make you go on a 

cruise ship right now it's gonna be tough to do   um asking again about the bracket for the ucw  challenge we're not sure about the bracket we're   still contemplating if we're gonna do a bracket  um i think at the very end we're gonna have to   um but it might be more of a 32 and work our way  down or it might be something more like world cup   where we do um like pods of three or four  um

we're just gonna have to see what that   looks like uh we just want to make sure  that it's something that's going to   um fairly uh as we eliminate people that is going  to do it in this fair way as possible wow um   going for over an hour here and i'm  just actually having a lot of fun um   so there you go um i will go ahead and  um i'll just take one more question um   so let

me look for something that  will be really good to end this um you know what maybe i'll take a couple because  there's a couple of ucw type questions coming in   and so i'll take a few here prices for the runners  up we haven't figured out yet i'd like to do   something we have some ideas um because honestly  like there are so many of you guys like you   guys are just content warriors it's just awesome  what you

guys are doing um and so that's awesome the future of blogs versus  youtube that's a nice big question   honestly video is amazing it's uh certainly  growing in popularity people are coming to   youtube for everything from their entertainment  like leaving tv and cable for youtube um   also for information and so video is becoming more  and more prominent but i don't think blogs are   going away anytime soon i don't think  that bloggers who are doing a good job  

are going to notice a significant decline for  some time quite some time i do i do recognize   the the issues we face i recognize that google  is keeping more traffic for themselves um   i think we can continue to play that game for  several years to come i don't think it's in   google's best interest to eliminate us anytime  soon somebody has to provide the information   but i do think that there are some niches and  some types of

content that will become obsolete   in the future um i what exactly those are i don't  know i have some ideas of what that might be um   you know anything where it's like you know what  the information for this is pretty simple and um   publicly available um in a digital form you know  in that case like google's just gonna give it   to us like they've done with weather like if you  had a blog ten years ago that

was like hey here's   what the upcoming weather is gonna be in you know  throughout idaho you could actually probably have   had that as a blog 20 years ago um and you could  have looked at the newspapers and watched the news   and followed certain um you know meteorologists  and stuff and presented that information   that doesn't work today obviously right and i  think that type of content where we're taking   information that's readily available in a digital  format um

and we're just pulling it together and   putting it in a blog form um it's not going  to do well for organic search in the future   um i've had a couple questions where's jim today  jim is jim is driving he's uh traveling a little   bit um he's having some trouble with his truck so  he was out getting it fixed and then taking a trip   um to go be with uh some family so that's  where he's at today

jim is super involved   in this challenge he's been doing a lot of  judging um and we've been just meeting a ton um   here in the office and stuff so um it's been it's  just been a blast but um anyway okay uh how do we   know if a niche is competitive i know you've  asked that question like two dozen times so um   it's not totally cut and dry but  frankly when we're looking into a niche   we do

dozens of google searches and we don't  just start with the high level stuff we   we we try to dive in deep on the types of  questions people probably have um we do look at   we we call it the inverted period pyramid so the  wide parts at the top but we look at the inverted   pyramid and we think about what are the types of  questions in this niche that the largest number of   people are going to have

which is often beginners  in that niche experts have very specific questions   but there are very few people asking those those  are the high search volume questions and we just   start googling those and see what the competition  looks like and that's what it is if we can   if we can in a matter of you know half an  hour identify even you know five or ten   pretty good cracks that they're just gaps in the  information that's available it's

a really good   indication that we're going to be able to identify  several dozen more and that's going to be enough   for us to build enough authority to be able to now  start competing for some of the topics where there   are other people writing about it but we just will  do a better job and we'll build some authority who   scores the challenges um the blogging challenges  are predominantly scored by me jim and nathan um   nathan if you

guys don't see him a ton on this  channel nathan is awesome he's over in the other   room um nathan runs the creator studio nathan  managed the first version of the creator studio   um as a college student and we uh sniped him up  and brought him over here he's been working um   hand-in-hand with me and jim for a couple of years  now and um is now running the creator studio doing   more search analysis than almost anybody um

in the  world is probably doing um running several teams   of writers and um just doing a fantastic job so  um anyway nathan knows when it comes to blogging   he knows what jim and i know so he's helping us  judge those um jim and i are also helping with   some of the youtube nate is judging a lot of the  youtube anna has been judging if uh the youtube as   well and she's been doing some of the blogging 

she's kind of been doing an awesome job she's   um she's doing a lot she's doing a lot of  blogging she's doing a lot of youtube and so   she's kind of been more across the board i don't  think nate's been as involved with the blogging   but um mostly on the blog inside me jim and  nathan and on the youtube side me jim and nate   i hope that's not confusing what do we think about  answer the public's tool

is it worth it um why is   it worth it um i don't think it costs anything  the only version of it i've used has been free   um i do think like a lot of other tools um so  hey thanks better shutter i appreciate that   um we all gotta stop procrastinating [Laughter]  um no um i think that those kind of tools where   you kind of you put in a keyword or some  keywords and it spits out a

whole bunch of   um ideas i think they have some value um some  real value especially when you get stuck um   that helping you identify the types of things  that people are looking for it doesn't give you   any indication um of how good that topic is or  that question would be to answer in a blog post   i would not use any tools like that um as uh  as like the tool said i should write this blog   post

the tool said this is a question um that  needs to be answered and i will go answer it um   in a blog post but i do like to use those as ideas  i do like to use them as a starting point to um to go down different paths and brainstorm  um and from there doing some competition   analysis and again using the gray matter  between my ears i'm able to figure out   some good topics so yeah absolutely

they're great  any of those tools are great for just identifying   ideas question about what is this frame um there's  two of these these are both um flies like fishing   flies um and they were actually given to me by um  a member of project24 and a youtube subscriber who   um who had those from uh flight time club from  years and years ago and just knew that i was into   it and so um we sent them over i

thought that was  just awesome so um anyway so they're on my wall   um let's see leave it on a controversial  note what do you think of neil patel   no man's planet um you know what when  it comes to a lot of the other people   um that are teaching seo um that are teaching  blogging that are teaching youtube we only follow   them to the extent that we need to to keep up with  what's just going on in

the industry i don't watch   almost any of his videos um frankly i don't  have time to i'm too busy testing stuff myself   and so um you know i i can't really say i you  know it's easy to tease and kind of make fun uh   i'm sure people absolutely could do that about me  um i've certainly seen youtube videos where people   criticize our methods and stuff um i think neil  has a lot of experience in certain aspects

of seo   and i think that he uh he knows what  he's talking about a lot of things   i also think if you're asking for honesty i  think that um most of his videos um the tips are   highly repetitive and um sometimes like  surface deep and not super actionable um   a little bit philosophical i think that a  lot of a lot of big people on youtube in   most industries are big because they were  first that said he

has some amazing advice in you know a lot of his videos really really  good advice so i'm not gonna overly criticize um   i do things differently um i don't watch most of  his videos so i can't say he's great or he's bad   um but what i do watch there's some really good  stuff in there and there's a lot of stuff in there   that i feel like is not all that glad i watched  it so there you

go aqua bottle update so more news   question um acabato has had some updates recently  um some of the things that i'm most focused on for   kind of the next round is core web vitals  i want to make sure that acabatto is just   handling things to be able to score really well  um and not cause any sort of negative impact   um from an seo standpoint because of you know page  loading um beyond that we really really want

to   provide some new designs um so there's the current  there's kind of one layout for the home page   you can create in aqua bottle you can create a  custom page if you have a custom page builder   or even just want to use gutenberg you can  create um you know any sort of page like   you can use a bottle with like divi page builder  and have just an awesome home page but we want   acubato to be able

to be complete so we're adding  i think it was either four or five different   totally different layout skins um for  what like the home page and just the   general feel of the site would look like how  the sidebar would look and work everything   and just the overall theme of the site as well as  some custom pages for things like a sales page we   want to have that more built in so that you can  do that without

necessarily having to go buy   an external page builder if you have another  page builder like we have a lifetime license   for divi i like their page builder it's really  easy to use not lightning fast though but it's   really easy to use you can you can build  custom pages within aquabato with that and   already do all of those things but i'm excited  for that i'm actually really excited for that it's   going to be a little bit before

the designs are  ready the designs are done but it's maybe a little   bit before the developments ready because so many  things we're doing including one other project um   this affiliate plugin we've been working on is  going to be awesome we're close to getting back um   kind of a first version of it but it's gonna be a  while before it's like ready for the public but um   yeah it's it's gonna be super cool what  it's gonna do

to help you monetize your site   um for affiliate as well as just for  everything so um yeah what software are   we using to host the courses on our website  i'm just gonna i'm just still going guys um   the courses are run through learndash is the  lms software the learning management system   so that's what handles like creating  courses lessons and that whole structure   now we have had a custom theme  built around that for project 24   and you

know learndash is capable of being built  out that way but sort of the default look is kind   of meh but it's capable it's more about just  the learning management system to handle the   access we're using member press but again we've  had some custom development done around that   member press is like 90 of the way there um and we  keep asking for like these couple of features that   would just that would just make us love them and 

they're like okay maybe someday and we get very   very very few feature updates from memberpress  so we use it um it's working really well for us   member mouse is great too and a little bit  simpler to use in setup i think member press   might be a little more capable than member mouse  but a little bit more tough to set up anyway   when will the account update happen  i wish i could give you a date um   it

uh i don't know every time we give a date with  development projects it ends up being a struggle   our development work is being we're working with  developers but they're not in-house employees   um and so it's it that's something that we'd  like to improve upon we'd like we want to have an   in-house um developer who's just working on these  projects full-time i think we can move faster that   way but right now we're working really really  well with

uh with another local company here um   that is able to come meet with us and  because of that we don't have total control   over how quickly things happen i'd love to be able  to turn things around really really really quick   um and yes emma like when people ask me about  my competitors it's like what am i supposed to   say right um i'm not gonna i'm not gonna really  badmouth somebody especially when i think they're   they're doing

what they think is best and they're  doing a a good job um they're gonna do things   different than i like and they're going to say  things that i disagree with sometimes that's just   that um so there you go um in no man's planet you  say you're a developer hey if you want to move to   to idaho we're we want somebody in-house and so if  you do there may actually be a job listing posted   um that you

can search for on our website uh for  a wordpress developer with experience so there   you go um people talking about neil now see this  why i don't do this um yeah his target audience is   totally different and so where our differences of  of uh approach come in is because we're talking to   independent bloggers and some of the things that  he says aren't applicable but people watching him   don't necessarily know that which is why in the  past

we've had to clarify a few things in for   our audience because there are people who watch  both and i do think that if a independent blogger   followed all of his advice sometimes they'd be um  misled not i think because he wants them to um and   i don't know who craig campbell is um  there you go that just goes to show that   i am just not following um not following  everybody anyway so there we go [Laughter] uh

any sites for sale not right now but soon um and  last time last time we posted a site for sale   we announced it uh we announced it in project 24  we announced it here on on youtube and we set this   is just kind of a funny story we set the um uh we  set it so that it only could be bought one time   um so the person that was gonna buy instead  of applying like they've done

in the past   they just had to put down a  deposit and then it was reserved   and um and so we put down like a thousand  dollar deposit right and somebody had to   make that payment and it was set to only allow  that to happen one time 17 people got through um   yeah 17 people bought it within a short  enough period of time that the computer   couldn't tell it definitely knew which one came in  first but they

were all happening concurrently and   so they all got through and next thing you knew we  were refunding 16 people who thought they had won   the site and hadn't so next time around we will  be giving a little bit of a heads up at some point   um but it's mostly just gonna be we're  not gonna give an exact day an exact time   um we're just gonna kind of post them for sale  as they come in on incomeschool.com

garage sale i   think and it's going to be first come first serve  um and so if you're looking to buy a site the best   thing i can tell you is to just come back often  starting probably early february mid february   just come back often and you may be the lucky  person who finds one um i wish we could create   websites for everybody that wants to buy one um  it's currently not feasible um okay let's see um

so this is a good question somebody  launched a business about ebooks and   they're wondering do they need to make  videos and do blog as a part promotion um   and of course i'm gonna say you should that's what  we do we uh create blogs we make youtube channels   we make videos um to drive traffic to be able  to market anything um sometimes that's marketing   our own products a lot of times it's marketing  other people's products through advertisements  

and affiliates but basically at the heart of it  we are marketers we gather an audience of people   together if you have a business about a specific  topic a great way to market that business is by   driving free organic traffic um to your content  and to do that you need content so if you have   a business about ebooks um maybe if it's about  creating ebooks how to create and sell an ebook   then absolutely you would want to

create content  about creating and selling ebooks how much you   can make by selling ebooks there's so many topics  you want to cover that as people search for those   things they come they read your content and then  um you know somewhere along the way you say by the   way we have this entire guide or whatever for how  to create um an ebook how to launch it and how to   make the most money with it it's a great

way to  market your product and way cheaper than paying   for ads or trying to promote it through other  ways so that's why i love i love organic marketing   because that's pretty much what we do okay  is our free stock image is bad for seo my   concern with free stock images is that it  is really hard to know if you're actually   legally allowed to use them um a lot of times  they'll show up as royalty free or

whatever   but the people who posted them there who say  they're the original creator are not necessarily   and we see that happen all the time and you  can get yourself in trouble by using uh you   know something that you actually didn't have the  rights to use that happens almost never with paid   stock photos although we just came across this  um we have used an image that we paid for the   stock image and it was an image that

we used  repeatedly in thumbnails on one of our channels   and we found out completely without knowing it  that this image is basically almost a carbon copy   of like a branded logo that a canadian company  uses we've never seen it before because we're not   in canada but it's all over their marketing  it's close enough that it's a it would be a   trademark violation like if we weren't careful  and so we have to um even that one like

now   even though we paid for it technically the  original i mean it's part of their logo   and so we're just gonna we're gonna change it  that happens very rarely with paid stock photos   um it happens a lot with free stock photos um  google images with commercial usage rights that's   kind of what i'm talking about that and some of  the other places where you can get free ones um the people who who say i'm the original  creator

and even like um you know they   anyway they say they're the original creator  they even like check a box saying i certify   the original creator they're not necessarily  so um you know you got to be really careful   with that and so that's why we choose we pay  for them um that way we definitely have a paid   license for it and so even if somebody comes after  us we can we can say oh i'm so sorry i

didn't know   we have a paid license for it from this agency  and then they're gonna be mad at the agency way   more than they're mad at us so there you go  um thoughts on people hiring native content   writers for more rates and indians for less when  they provide the same quality is that racist   wow now i'm getting into the racism question  here the thing with blogging um with any writing   is that a native um a native

speaker and not  just um somebody who speaks that language but   who speaks it like locals right so many people in  india speak english like all the time that's like   their normal language or one that they speak  regularly right but the some of the terms that you   use are going to be different um and so i do there  there are a couple things going on there one is um   it may seem like the same quality but if

it if one  of them feels like it was written by like it was   written by a native right whether if i'm in the uk  it sounds like it was written by somebody there um   and yeah exactly americans can't say niche um  can they yes we we can say niche but why should   we it's niche no um and so there's that right so  there is benefit in hiring somebody who is very   familiar with with the not just

the language but  also just the terminology and vernacular um the   other issue though is the marketplace so if you're  somebody who's going to be really particular i   want someone who can write perfectly in american  english so i'm going to hire an american americans   are going to demand more income for the work that  they do um and they can because they can if they   don't write your article they can go get a job  down the street flipping

burgers for 15 an hour   if they live in certain places and so why should  they take such a small amount to write an article   the market is very different in india  cost of living is very different in india   and so there are plenty of riders in india  who are willing to work for a lower rate   and so this is i mean this is basic economics but  if i if i come across a several writers in india  

and i'm not particular about having perfect  local terminology i just want someone who's a   good english writer who's giving me quality  content and one says no i want to be paid   as much as an american and the other says hey  i'll take whatever you give me because for me   what you can pay is a living as a living wage  for me you know i'm i'm going to be inclined to   pay the person that charges me the

least that's  not racist that's that's like how we do things um   we we don't pay more for something if we can  pay less and get the same thing um so anyway   that's why to me it's not that it's uh it's not  that it's racist it's it's economics and it's   normal human psychology and sometimes there  is a reason to pay more to an american writer   there are many services where americans say it's  not worth paying an american

and they absolutely   outsource them to countries like india because it  doesn't need to be an american and americans are   pretty demanding about how much they want to get  paid for stuff and so there you go um there you go oh man are western countries still higher  rpms well yes they are um once again because   western countries western european countries  north american countries because um   you know people their incomes and well  cost of living too but overall

just um   the incomes are higher in general right and we  spend more money on stuff um there are plenty   of places in the world where incomes are high but  people are just a little bit less uh vain maybe as   we are they buy less stuff and because we buy so  much stuff and spend so much money um an american   market is who advertisers want to advertise  to and so again rpms are driven by the who the  

audience is both where they come from but also a  lot of it's contextual too if the topics of your   content are bringing in certain types of people  um people that typically have more money because   the content of the blog is geared toward people  who are homeowners or executives or whatever   then that's a target audience that is more likely  to buy stuff and so advertisers are naturally   going to want to have their ads featured there and  are

going to be willing to pay more for that um   wow i could probably go on for hours guys um  you guys these questions will never stop um okay if the site gets hit by a google update  should you wait a year before making changes   or you can update after the post is a year old  we like to wait till the post is a year old to   make changes simply because we want to make sure  that it's

been given ample time to rank where   it's going to rank okay um that's why we don't  make major updates too soon on a blog post if   you're constantly changing it then google's  constantly having to reindex it retest it   if google makes a major update and it hits your  site um and you see a dramatic change in certain   blog posts i would give it a few weeks because  oftentimes it takes a while for that to settle   and

sometimes people recover some of that traffic  very quickly um but i think after a few weeks   even if your content is nine months old and it  was going really well and now suddenly it got   slammed um i might try to look for why i might  try to understand why and go ahead and make the   updates now because it's not likely to just turn  around on its own um so there you go um okay guys   i said

like one more question like half an hour  ago but i just keep going um i have seen this   issue page is not showing insight colin search um  or google hiding it from the serp um there have   been some issues around indexing lately um we have  and just this particular thing where people do a   site call and search and their content's not  appearing that's kind of a it's a recent issue that's that's on google side i don't

know if  they're just kind of hiding that within that   feature or if there is just an issue with indexing  right now um they say i heard the other day they   said oh it's fixed but um anyway uh i don't  exactly know what to say there i don't think   there's a quick work around uh if you're concerned  about indexing you know submit a sitemap to   search console um and but just let google  do its job it'll um

it'll work um let's see do we have a schedule for our lives you know  what i'm going to kind of end on this one   i that might be true that might not um but  do we have a schedule for your lives um okay   two integrating site with azoek and then i'll  come back to our lives um i don't want to talk   about the best content mill um simply because  we haven't tried them all um there are

some   well-known content mills out there that we made a  video about about a year ago um probably wouldn't   use any of them anymore because there's better  alternatives there are several members of project   24 who are writing articles and having their  writers write articles much more like how we would   and i think they're doing a good job they all have  slightly different pricing and slightly different   structures and stuff and without doing a thorough  test i don't necessarily

want to make one solid   recommendation anyway integrating your site with  the zoic zoic right now is working on um they're   working on their integration their rollout um i've  noticed and given them the feedback on this that   um when you sign up for zoick and you get approved  uh yes they kind of have a one two three four   five step approach but then they have like all  these other tools and things and you're not sure   what you

need to do and what things are just  added features and it can they have so much   to offer that it can be overwhelming um they  are they have been hard at work on creating   more of an onboarding um to the point of they've  like made a little class that you can take to   walk you through step by step all of the different  things that you need to do to get fully integrated   and showing you what the

other features are  and how you could use them if you wanted to   i'm excited to see how that works um they they are  rolling some things out for members of project 24   right now um for that onboarding process to make  it easier uh and make it cleaner um so for members   of project 24 there is kind of a special process  for kind of the general public i don't know   for sure how that process gets implemented across 

the board for them so i do think they still have   kind of the class that you can take which i think  is really beneficial back to the schedule um   you know uh week by week day by day we've  tried over and over and over again to have   like a weekly schedule that we're going to  follow every week and we keep breaking it um in   general though what we do like to do is um for our  business

and for our lives is at any point in time   we have specific objectives that we're working on  now it's not quite the same as like what a lot of   corporations will talk about with objectives it's  it's very very tangible um very action oriented   very specific and um we as a team all  work together towards certain objectives   i in my life am doing the same thing and  they're time-bound um and they're milestone   specific so like i at

this point i need to be  here on this in order to achieve my objective   and uh you know we do that absolutely um i don't  have like a five year plan um so talking about   scheduling our lives um because frankly in  this business it's a little bit hard to see   a year ahead um we have a pretty good idea at  this point what we're going to be working on   for the next couple years um because we've

kind of  got to that point um but you know i i don't have   career-wise like a five-year plan i i'm doing this  i'm gonna keep doing this um i love doing this   and but what exactly that looks like five years  from now i have no idea um in terms of it again a   day to day week to week month to month schedule  um i don't i don't live by a rigid schedule   jim certainly doesn't either i

do practice i  have had to learn how to practice really good   work-life balance though um i have a tendency  when i care about the work i'm doing for it to   be very pervasive throughout my thoughts like  i go home in the evening and i'm having a   hard time um like letting my mind relax and  just be present and i've spent a lot of i   had a lot of effort in the last year to to do that 

for my family and so as content creators and as a   lot of you um still like working a job and stuff  it can be hard um there can be a lot of work to   do and for the last couple weeks i have spent some  time in the evenings um judging ucw entries um and   and that has eaten into the time and my family  understands that and gives that to me sometimes   which is a nice gift but

um generally speaking i  have worked really hard so that when my day ends   which it will here pretty shortly i need to run  some errands on my way home when my day ends at   work um i've been trying really hard to let it be  done um and i think that's been really valuable   and if i need to do additional work i set aside  designated time and within that time i go do it   but outside of that

time it's been important for  me to be present i know jim um is also someone   whose mind is always racing he's always like you  know wanting to just i mean that guy is one of   the best researchers i've ever i've ever met he  is constantly listening to something to learn   something new um and so but he also sets aside  time and his family does it very different than   mine so that's why i'm being a little bit

um kg  with the details his family does it very different   than mine the way they spend time together  but when it's family time for him it's still   family time and he's just off i you can't  get a hold of them practically um and so   i think that's important um even when we have  to work our tails off uh to to um to get work   done and and it's hard um when you're doing  this and you're still

working a normal job   or you have other obligations you have family and  other things going on in your life it's hard and   sometimes you do have to eat into time that you  would otherwise be sleeping watching tv relaxing   or doing the other things that you used to do  to kind of wind down and now you're eating into   that to create content um i think the important  thing is that we recognize that when we have to   do

those kinds of things um that maybe there's  a finite timeline associated with that so that   we have a light at the end of the tunnel at which  point we know we're going to be able to come back   to having more of that family time or that  personal time of that downtime if we have to   do that and we have to do the grind but we can't  see a future where we aren't going to have to   um

that's i think where um you can really start  to struggle with mental health and emotional um   issues and anxiety related to that and i've  certainly been through my share of that too   so um anyway i love talking to you guys this has  been a blast um i think my laptop battery's gonna   die here soon and um and i know that was a long  answer um a little bit of a deep answer too but um   it's just

such a blast i love getting to interact  with you guys the ultimate content warrior   challenge has been one of the best opportunities  that we've had as of yet to be able to   have a little bit of a one-on-one interaction  but with a much bigger group of people than   we're normally able to do so thank you all  for participating in this live i went um   probably about an hour longer than i  thought i would but it's been

a blast   so we'll see you guys next time um  and thanks for tuning in see you guys