How I Recovered $10K Worth of Monthly Traffic to My Site

00:49:48
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jldCoyNf9No

Summary

TLDRForest Bombhover discusses his experience with teachmepersonalfinance.com, detailing the challenges faced after the Helpful Content Update that drastically reduced the site's keyword rankings. He shares how he managed to recover the site through consistent content creation, leveraging YouTube for additional traffic, and adapting his SEO strategies. Forest emphasizes the importance of perseverance and maintaining quality content, which ultimately led to a significant increase in traffic and revenue. He also outlines his future plans for monetization and the impact of seasonality on his business.

Takeaways

  • 📉 The Helpful Content Update drastically affected rankings.
  • 💡 Consistent content creation is key to recovery.
  • 🎥 YouTube can drive significant traffic to websites.
  • 🔗 Internal linking enhances SEO performance.
  • 📊 Seasonality impacts traffic and revenue.
  • 💰 Diversifying income streams is essential.
  • 📝 Quality content is crucial for long-term success.
  • 🤝 Building a community can provide support.
  • 🔍 Keyword analysis helps in content strategy.
  • 📈 Patience is necessary during recovery phases.

Timeline

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    Forest Bombhover shares his journey of reviving the website teachmepersonalfinance.com after a significant drop in keyword rankings due to the helpful content update, going from 14,000 keywords to just 16. He emphasizes the importance of persistence and adapting strategies to recover traffic and revenue.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:10:00

    The podcast host, Jared Bowman, introduces Forest and expresses excitement about his story, highlighting the ups and downs of his journey in personal finance and website management.

  • 00:10:00 - 00:15:00

    Forest discusses his background in the Navy and financial planning, explaining how he transitioned into creating a personal finance website after selling his partnership stake in a financial planning practice.

  • 00:15:00 - 00:20:00

    He explains the process of acquiring the domain teachmepersonalfinance.com, which had a history but needed significant content improvement. Forest utilized existing articles and aimed to create a brandable site with a broad focus on personal finance topics.

  • 00:20:00 - 00:25:00

    Forest shares his initial content strategy, focusing on tax forms and social security topics, which he believed would resonate with his audience. He emphasizes the importance of SEO and keyword analysis in shaping his content direction.

  • 00:25:00 - 00:30:00

    The conversation shifts to the impact of the helpful content update, which severely affected Forest's website rankings. He reflects on the emotional toll of the drop but remained committed to improving the site and serving his audience.

  • 00:30:00 - 00:35:00

    Forest discusses his YouTube channel, which he started to complement his website content. He shares insights on creating engaging videos that provide value to viewers, linking them back to his articles for a comprehensive experience.

  • 00:35:00 - 00:40:00

    He highlights the recovery of his website traffic and rankings following the December core update, attributing part of the success to the synergy between his YouTube content and website articles, as well as consistent content creation.

  • 00:40:00 - 00:49:48

    Finally, Forest talks about monetization strategies, including YouTube ad revenue and Mediavine ads, and hints at expanding his services to include tax planning consultations, showcasing his adaptability and growth in the personal finance space.

Show more

Mind Map

Video Q&A

  • What happened to teachmepersonalfinance.com after the Helpful Content Update?

    The site experienced a drastic drop in rankings, going from 14,000 keywords to just 16.

  • How did Forest recover his website's traffic?

    He focused on consistent content creation, utilized YouTube to drive traffic, and adapted his SEO strategies.

  • What is the current revenue of the website?

    The site is generating near $10,000 a month.

  • What strategies did Forest use for YouTube?

    He created videos based on tax forms, linking them back to his articles and embedding them in his website.

  • What are Forest's future plans for monetization?

    He plans to offer tax planning services and continue growing his YouTube channel.

  • How many videos does Forest have on YouTube?

    He has around 692 videos.

  • What is the significance of seasonality in Forest's business?

    Traffic and revenue fluctuate significantly during tax season, impacting earnings.

  • What advice does Forest give to others facing similar challenges?

    Stay consistent and adapt to changes, as Google may eventually recognize quality content.

  • What tools does Forest use for SEO and content management?

    He uses Ahrefs for keyword analysis and Link Whisper for internal linking.

  • How did Forest's background influence his website's direction?

    His experience in financial planning and writing for an audience helped shape the content strategy.

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  • 00:00:00
    I am so excited about today's story. I
  • 00:00:03
    am joined by Forest Bombhover with teach
  • 00:00:06
    me personal finance.com. What resonated
  • 00:00:09
    with me was a domain with some history
  • 00:00:12
    on it. What did the helpful content
  • 00:00:13
    update do to this site? I would say it
  • 00:00:16
    decimated my site. I went from a peak of
  • 00:00:19
    ranking for about 14,000 keywords to
  • 00:00:22
    ranking 16 total keywords. 4 months.
  • 00:00:25
    It's recovered all the traffic and then
  • 00:00:28
    more. you've been able to find a way
  • 00:00:30
    somehow to recover a site that was
  • 00:00:32
    ranking for I think you said 16 keywords
  • 00:00:34
    at its lowest point into a site that
  • 00:00:38
    near $10,000 in a month. Last month it
  • 00:00:41
    was I think it was around 7,000 I think
  • 00:00:44
    15,000 subscribers uh last week 5 or
  • 00:00:47
    6,000 on Mediavine. I think the one big
  • 00:00:50
    takeaway that I would probably
  • 00:00:53
    uh want people to have is
  • 00:01:00
    All right, welcome back to the Niche
  • 00:01:01
    Pursuits podcast. My name is Jared
  • 00:01:03
    Bowman and today I am joined by Forest
  • 00:01:06
    Bombhover with
  • 00:01:09
    teachmepersonalfinance.com. Forest,
  • 00:01:10
    welcome on board. Thank you very much,
  • 00:01:12
    Jared. It's great to be here. Man, I say
  • 00:01:15
    this at the outset almost every
  • 00:01:16
    interview, but I will tell you, I really
  • 00:01:18
    mean it with this one. I am so excited
  • 00:01:21
    about today's story. you bought um this
  • 00:01:24
    this website, this brand a while ago,
  • 00:01:26
    and has been a crazy roller coaster, and
  • 00:01:28
    we're going to get to hear the whole
  • 00:01:29
    story of the roller coaster, but also
  • 00:01:31
    what you've been doing throughout that
  • 00:01:32
    roller coaster to get it to where it is
  • 00:01:34
    today. I'd call it a success story right
  • 00:01:36
    now through all the ups and downs.
  • 00:01:38
    Before we get into this specific
  • 00:01:40
    project, maybe tell us a little bit
  • 00:01:41
    about who you are, about your
  • 00:01:42
    background, and what you were doing
  • 00:01:43
    before you took this on. Sure. Uh my
  • 00:01:46
    name is Forest. Uh basically I grew up
  • 00:01:49
    in Tampa, Florida and then joined the
  • 00:01:51
    Navy at the age of 17 to see the world.
  • 00:01:55
    So uh spent most of my adult life in the
  • 00:01:59
    Navy and towards the end of my career I
  • 00:02:02
    realized I wanted to be a financial
  • 00:02:03
    planner when I retired. So, I spent a
  • 00:02:06
    lot of time uh building the basic buil
  • 00:02:10
    uh cornerstone for my financial planning
  • 00:02:13
    career, getting the CFP designation,
  • 00:02:16
    become a tax uh professional, all of
  • 00:02:18
    that stuff about maybe 10 years ago. And
  • 00:02:21
    then I retired in
  • 00:02:23
    2017, started my financial planning
  • 00:02:26
    practice. And by 2020, I was a partner
  • 00:02:30
    in another financial planning practice
  • 00:02:32
    that I uh had joined along the way. And
  • 00:02:36
    a couple years later, I sold my
  • 00:02:39
    partnership stake from that
  • 00:02:41
    practice. And that was the point where I
  • 00:02:44
    kind of took a step back and said, what
  • 00:02:46
    do I want to do? uh do I want to start,
  • 00:02:50
    you know, because part of my exit was a
  • 00:02:54
    non-compete where I would have had to
  • 00:02:57
    build my business from the ground up or
  • 00:03:00
    I had a decent amount of money to kind
  • 00:03:02
    of figure out whether I wanted to invest
  • 00:03:04
    in something else. So, I decided to take
  • 00:03:07
    a stab
  • 00:03:09
    uh at launching a personal finance
  • 00:03:13
    website. and that's what I've been doing
  • 00:03:16
    for the past uh three or so years. So,
  • 00:03:19
    you have a financial background. You're
  • 00:03:22
    currently running teach me personal
  • 00:03:24
    finance.com. Like, how how connected
  • 00:03:26
    from the beginning of this project was
  • 00:03:28
    it going to be to what you did or was
  • 00:03:30
    this something different in personal
  • 00:03:32
    finance than some of the areas you had
  • 00:03:33
    specialized in?
  • 00:03:35
    Well, so it's a little bit connected in
  • 00:03:39
    that when I left my firm, I had written
  • 00:03:42
    a lot of
  • 00:03:45
    articles. I kind of had a
  • 00:03:47
    basic understanding of what SEO was and
  • 00:03:50
    I had some
  • 00:03:52
    mentors, kind of a small closehold group
  • 00:03:56
    of personal finance writers that also
  • 00:03:59
    had a military affiliation, a very very
  • 00:04:02
    small group of people. And so I had a
  • 00:04:06
    shared community. I had a little bit of
  • 00:04:10
    experience in writing for an audience,
  • 00:04:12
    but
  • 00:04:14
    I spent most of my time in a person in a
  • 00:04:17
    financial planning firm. So my focus
  • 00:04:19
    wasn't on writing for SEO or finding
  • 00:04:22
    engaged audiences. It was really just
  • 00:04:25
    put something out there on a weekly
  • 00:04:28
    basis to see if it helps people. And
  • 00:04:31
    then that could have been I mean we did
  • 00:04:34
    get clients through that. So I did you
  • 00:04:37
    know use that as an opportunity to build
  • 00:04:39
    an audience. Uh it was just an audience
  • 00:04:42
    that was focused on our financial
  • 00:04:45
    planning firms services. And then I
  • 00:04:49
    figured well I grew an audience
  • 00:04:51
    once actually did it twice because I had
  • 00:04:54
    to do it for two separate firms. So I
  • 00:04:56
    figured I could do it for myself the
  • 00:04:58
    third time around.
  • 00:05:00
    Hey, just a quick word and then we'll
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    jollyseo.comfree-harero-guide. Again,
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    jollyo.com/free-harero-guide. I'll
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    include a link in the show notes as
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    well. All right, now back to the
  • 00:05:49
    interview.
  • 00:05:51
    So, walk us through how you landed on
  • 00:05:54
    teach me
  • 00:05:55
    personalfinance.com and also what was
  • 00:05:57
    the uh like the year if you could
  • 00:05:58
    because I know that that's going to play
  • 00:05:59
    a significant role in in kind of where
  • 00:06:01
    this site ends up going. Uh, sure. So,
  • 00:06:05
    uh, once
  • 00:06:07
    I once my partner and I kind of agreed
  • 00:06:10
    on the exit and the buyout, uh, part of
  • 00:06:13
    the agreement was I had a bunch of
  • 00:06:15
    articles that I wrote for the firm and I
  • 00:06:18
    figured I would use that as starting
  • 00:06:21
    material for whatever website I was
  • 00:06:23
    going to create. And a lot of those
  • 00:06:26
    existing articles were lightly, you
  • 00:06:29
    know, how do you feel about this or
  • 00:06:30
    estate planning tips, you know, general
  • 00:06:33
    stuff that looking back wouldn't have
  • 00:06:36
    ranked very well, but it served to feed
  • 00:06:40
    the needs of our audience. Uh, but the
  • 00:06:42
    ones that did really well that brought
  • 00:06:45
    in people were how to walk through this
  • 00:06:48
    social security form, how to stepby-step
  • 00:06:51
    guidance on this tax form.
  • 00:06:54
    So, I took all of that material and just
  • 00:06:56
    kind of hung it in a like a Dropbox or
  • 00:07:00
    an Evernote folder that I created and
  • 00:07:03
    just kind of left it sitting there until
  • 00:07:05
    I found a website to host it on. And so,
  • 00:07:11
    I thought
  • 00:07:13
    about buying a just a blank domain from
  • 00:07:18
    GoDaddy. And I started learning about,
  • 00:07:24
    you
  • 00:07:25
    know, how to set up your own website.
  • 00:07:27
    And something kind
  • 00:07:30
    of, I guess, clicked along the way when
  • 00:07:32
    I was learning about Ahrefs and, you
  • 00:07:35
    know, all of all of the tools that are
  • 00:07:37
    out there. I was learning this stuff for
  • 00:07:38
    the first time. And what resonated with
  • 00:07:40
    me was the thought of buying an expired
  • 00:07:44
    domain or or a domain with some history
  • 00:07:48
    on it. Mhm. And instead of searching the
  • 00:07:51
    GoDaddy listings for all the expired
  • 00:07:53
    domains, I kind of thought, well, I've
  • 00:07:55
    been going to these conferences for a
  • 00:07:56
    while, uh, FinCon for any personal
  • 00:07:59
    finance people out there. And I thought,
  • 00:08:02
    well, um, every year they have these
  • 00:08:05
    awards and every year there's the best
  • 00:08:08
    new blog of
  • 00:08:11
    2010, 2014, whatever the case may be.
  • 00:08:14
    And I and I kind of thought there's
  • 00:08:16
    probably a lot of people that have just
  • 00:08:17
    given up. So I just went through all the
  • 00:08:20
    past nominees of fairly prominent blogs.
  • 00:08:24
    And I created an Excel spreadsheet. They
  • 00:08:26
    just, you know, and I had probably had a
  • 00:08:28
    hundred different websites. And I just
  • 00:08:32
    cold contacted each each of those
  • 00:08:34
    website owners. And you can probably
  • 00:08:37
    assume that I got zero response out of
  • 00:08:39
    most of them. But then the handful of
  • 00:08:42
    people that responded, uh, this was the
  • 00:08:45
    one that made the most sense to me in
  • 00:08:47
    terms of, uh, a a clean enough slate to
  • 00:08:53
    where I could create my own direction
  • 00:08:56
    and but still one that was, you know,
  • 00:08:59
    had the potential for being brandable at
  • 00:09:02
    some point in the future. it it clearly
  • 00:09:04
    was connected to finance, but it wasn't
  • 00:09:07
    so siloed that I only had to I I could
  • 00:09:10
    only talk about one topic, you know. So,
  • 00:09:13
    uh it
  • 00:09:14
    was it met a couple of needs in terms
  • 00:09:20
    of being a blank enough pallet that I
  • 00:09:24
    could kind of create my website from
  • 00:09:27
    scratch, but not actually starting from
  • 00:09:30
    zero.
  • 00:09:32
    So, you found this website. What was the
  • 00:09:35
    condition of it? Um, you know, looking
  • 00:09:38
    at it online, it looks like it's been
  • 00:09:39
    around for a while. When did you
  • 00:09:41
    actually, uh, when were you actually
  • 00:09:42
    able to purchase it? So, uh, I was kind
  • 00:09:47
    of in a holding pattern from 2021 to
  • 00:09:50
    2022. It took about six months for our,
  • 00:09:53
    uh, transaction to kind of close. And so
  • 00:09:58
    during that time, that's when I was
  • 00:10:00
    going out and looking just looking
  • 00:10:02
    online for all these
  • 00:10:04
    websites. And I I think probably around
  • 00:10:07
    February uh March 2022 was when I
  • 00:10:10
    reached out to the person that owned
  • 00:10:13
    Teach Me Personal Finance before me. And
  • 00:10:15
    we had a conversation. He had started
  • 00:10:18
    this website I think in
  • 00:10:21
    2018. And uh he he had a full-time job.
  • 00:10:25
    he worked in corporate America and he
  • 00:10:27
    wanted to have some sort of a personal
  • 00:10:29
    finance website to, you know, help
  • 00:10:32
    mentor people, maybe make a little
  • 00:10:34
    money. Uh, but when I looked at it, it
  • 00:10:37
    was about 150 pretty lowquality
  • 00:10:40
    articles. It looked like they were
  • 00:10:43
    outsourced to VAS. Um probably I mean a
  • 00:10:47
    lot of kind of English as a second
  • 00:10:50
    language kind of you know just the stuff
  • 00:10:53
    that Google we all know is Google has
  • 00:10:56
    kind of deranked over the years. And so
  • 00:10:58
    I looked at it and I said
  • 00:11:01
    well this is something I can work with.
  • 00:11:05
    And I I kind of figured I can at least
  • 00:11:09
    work with this or the content that I'm
  • 00:11:12
    bringing over and I've got something
  • 00:11:14
    that will last long enough for me to
  • 00:11:16
    figure out what's working, what's not
  • 00:11:18
    working and and and that that's pretty
  • 00:11:21
    much where my journey began. Got it.
  • 00:11:23
    Okay. Okay. Um yeah, boy. I mean, it is
  • 00:11:26
    true. Like, especially, you know,
  • 00:11:28
    pre-helpful content update, buying a
  • 00:11:30
    site that's already been around for a
  • 00:11:31
    while, got some age, got some history,
  • 00:11:33
    got some content on it, hopefully got a
  • 00:11:35
    little bit of rankings. That's a that's
  • 00:11:36
    a head start. Um, let's get into, you
  • 00:11:38
    know, uh, deal closes on uh your your
  • 00:11:41
    sale of your u your previous company.
  • 00:11:44
    You you grab this. What are the steps
  • 00:11:47
    you take? What are the first couple
  • 00:11:48
    months like? Um, let's hear what you end
  • 00:11:50
    up doing to get the site going. Sure.
  • 00:11:53
    So, uh, from start to finish, it
  • 00:11:56
    probably took us about maybe two or
  • 00:11:58
    three weeks to go through the deal. I
  • 00:12:01
    didn't go through Flip. I reached out to
  • 00:12:02
    him directly and then I think we just
  • 00:12:04
    used escrow.com as kind of the escrow
  • 00:12:07
    holding company to actually facilitate
  • 00:12:10
    the key transfer. Uh, and then once once
  • 00:12:15
    he was kind of out of the out of the
  • 00:12:17
    way, he said, "I'll help you for a week,
  • 00:12:19
    but I want to go off and do my own and I
  • 00:12:21
    said, "Okay, that's great." Uh, so once
  • 00:12:24
    once we did that, uh, the first thing
  • 00:12:26
    that I did was I I kind of created an
  • 00:12:28
    Excel spreadsheet, figured out where the
  • 00:12:30
    current articles were ranking. I did
  • 00:12:33
    spend some time trying to see if I could
  • 00:12:36
    maybe rerank those articles or at least
  • 00:12:39
    the ones with the most potential. Uh,
  • 00:12:42
    long over the long term, all of those
  • 00:12:44
    articles are now gone. So, it took me it
  • 00:12:48
    took me I guess a series of phases and
  • 00:12:53
    probably my biggest hang-up is sometimes
  • 00:12:55
    I hold on to stuff longer and then I'll
  • 00:12:58
    go back and say, you know, that was a
  • 00:12:59
    bad idea and I So, it took me about
  • 00:13:01
    three iterations to finally get rid of
  • 00:13:03
    all the content that had previously
  • 00:13:05
    existed. But, I did work with it to see
  • 00:13:08
    if I could reank it. I took all of my
  • 00:13:11
    prior content, about 80 or so articles,
  • 00:13:15
    and I put those up there. And even, you
  • 00:13:18
    know, over the years, probably most of
  • 00:13:21
    those articles I've pulled back just
  • 00:13:23
    because they were written for an
  • 00:13:25
    audience and not necessarily for SEO
  • 00:13:27
    purposes. So, you know, but that first
  • 00:13:32
    year I was working on kind of editing
  • 00:13:37
    the existing content that I could and
  • 00:13:39
    that was about
  • 00:13:42
    25 235 articles, but then I was also
  • 00:13:46
    committed to my own new creation
  • 00:13:48
    schedule of about 12 to 15 articles a
  • 00:13:51
    month.
  • 00:13:53
    I mean, I'm sure this has changed over
  • 00:13:55
    time, but at least initially, like what
  • 00:13:57
    were your plans for the direction of the
  • 00:13:58
    website? Because personal finance, like
  • 00:14:00
    you said, is super broad. You got that
  • 00:14:03
    domain in part, as you said, because it
  • 00:14:05
    gave you so much freedom to go in a
  • 00:14:07
    whole multitude of directions. Like, did
  • 00:14:09
    you kind of map out your content from a
  • 00:14:11
    high level or did you A lot of times
  • 00:14:14
    people will publish a bunch of different
  • 00:14:15
    articles inside of a topic and then
  • 00:14:17
    they'll see what works and then kind of
  • 00:14:19
    double down on that. what were what were
  • 00:14:21
    kind of the first initial hits and how
  • 00:14:22
    did that play into your strategy and
  • 00:14:24
    what you had thought was going to what
  • 00:14:25
    you were going to move forward on?
  • 00:14:27
    So, um I had kind of done an analysis of
  • 00:14:32
    the articles that I had brought over and
  • 00:14:36
    I was still learning about SEO. So, I
  • 00:14:38
    was kind of just scratching the surface
  • 00:14:40
    on it. But I had a I had an instinct of
  • 00:14:43
    which articles I thought would do well
  • 00:14:45
    on their own. Uh it was also the
  • 00:14:48
    articles that people found on their own
  • 00:14:51
    when they were hanging up on my other
  • 00:14:54
    website. Uh, so it did take a while to
  • 00:14:57
    reank like probably one of my biggest
  • 00:14:59
    articles was one that's on this uh well
  • 00:15:03
    you and I aren't that a that that age
  • 00:15:06
    yet but when people get to Medicare uh
  • 00:15:09
    there's there's a s charge that applies
  • 00:15:11
    to high high t highincome taxpayers and
  • 00:15:16
    high income taxpayers don't like paying
  • 00:15:17
    more than they need to just like the
  • 00:15:19
    rest of us. So, there's a form that you
  • 00:15:21
    can complete to maybe see if you can get
  • 00:15:23
    a reconsideration and knock down your
  • 00:15:26
    Medicare premium. So, that form is
  • 00:15:28
    called
  • 00:15:29
    SSA44, and that was probably one of my
  • 00:15:32
    biggest performers. So, it took a while
  • 00:15:35
    to rerank it, but I knew it eventually
  • 00:15:37
    would, and I just thought, well, why
  • 00:15:40
    don't I just do all the tax forms and
  • 00:15:42
    social security forms? So that that kind
  • 00:15:47
    of shifted my focus from the content
  • 00:15:50
    creation, what do I write about to how
  • 00:15:53
    do I prioritize what I'm writing about?
  • 00:15:56
    because um at this point I'm I think
  • 00:16:00
    I've written about
  • 00:16:02
    275 articles on different tax forms and
  • 00:16:07
    I've got a spreadsheet of
  • 00:16:10
    probably twice as many tax forms I could
  • 00:16:14
    write new articles about. So I knew that
  • 00:16:18
    the US government would give me a
  • 00:16:20
    never-ending list of things to write
  • 00:16:22
    about. it was just how do I figure
  • 00:16:25
    out, you know, what order I'm going to
  • 00:16:28
    put that in. And that's kind of where I
  • 00:16:29
    went into ah refs and kind of started
  • 00:16:32
    doing the learning about keyword
  • 00:16:34
    analysis and trying to figure out, you
  • 00:16:36
    know, how to balance low difficulty
  • 00:16:39
    keywords with writability versus, you
  • 00:16:43
    know, you know, where the
  • 00:16:46
    audience's needs aren't being met by the
  • 00:16:49
    current um, you know, publishers.
  • 00:16:52
    And so that that that became the basis
  • 00:16:54
    for all right, I'm writing 15 articles a
  • 00:16:57
    month and these are the top articles
  • 00:16:59
    that seem to not have been covered yet.
  • 00:17:03
    Well, it's probably as good of a time as
  • 00:17:04
    any to ask about, you know, kind of the
  • 00:17:06
    elephant in the room for all content
  • 00:17:07
    creators who've been around for a while,
  • 00:17:09
    that the helpful content update. I mean,
  • 00:17:11
    you know, that hit initially in uh
  • 00:17:13
    September of 2023. subsequent updates um
  • 00:17:17
    related to that or core updates also had
  • 00:17:19
    similar effects on content websites,
  • 00:17:21
    websites like yours that were kind of
  • 00:17:22
    giving information and content and then
  • 00:17:24
    driving traffic by by ranking. Um maybe
  • 00:17:28
    walk us through how the helpful content
  • 00:17:30
    update had an impact on on you because
  • 00:17:32
    you you did buy this site and we're
  • 00:17:34
    working on this prior to that hitting
  • 00:17:35
    and then um you know what the kind of
  • 00:17:37
    what the outcome was from the HCU
  • 00:17:39
    hitting. Sure. Uh, so I I think that the
  • 00:17:45
    the HCU basically ended up demolishing
  • 00:17:48
    the website from an organic rankings
  • 00:17:52
    perspective and it was kind of
  • 00:17:54
    disheartening, but
  • 00:17:56
    you fortunately I'm I'm not I'm not as
  • 00:18:00
    young as I used to be. So I kind of took
  • 00:18:03
    a little bit of perspective and said
  • 00:18:04
    well I was going to give this the
  • 00:18:08
    traditional two to three years to just
  • 00:18:10
    focus on what I can do before I start
  • 00:18:13
    measuring the results. So while I was
  • 00:18:15
    measuring the results for I guess vanity
  • 00:18:18
    purposes and ch sharing my small wins
  • 00:18:22
    here and there you know those little
  • 00:18:24
    wins that keep you going when there's no
  • 00:18:26
    one else to share them with. uh when you
  • 00:18:28
    start losing those because Google
  • 00:18:30
    completely taints your site, that's
  • 00:18:31
    disheartening. But I I did know that
  • 00:18:35
    this was a big shift to turn around. And
  • 00:18:37
    so while I was focused on I was really
  • 00:18:40
    more focused on what am I going to do to
  • 00:18:44
    get where where I needed to be. So even
  • 00:18:47
    though I was making progress and we can
  • 00:18:50
    see it in ah refs like there's this
  • 00:18:52
    little peak uh towards you know the
  • 00:18:55
    timing of that HC uh update um that that
  • 00:19:00
    wouldn't have been the instate goal. So
  • 00:19:02
    just because all of that
  • 00:19:04
    got I guess reversed uh it it it forced
  • 00:19:09
    me to take a step back and say is this
  • 00:19:12
    happening because I'm not serving the
  • 00:19:14
    audience well or is this happening
  • 00:19:16
    because of some arbitrary decision that
  • 00:19:20
    Google is making? And uh one thing that
  • 00:19:23
    kind of helped me stay the course was
  • 00:19:28
    uh probably the traction that I was
  • 00:19:31
    starting to get on the YouTube channel
  • 00:19:33
    that I had
  • 00:19:35
    uh started working uh in February of
  • 00:19:38
    that year. And so, you know,
  • 00:19:42
    I took a look at that and said, on any
  • 00:19:47
    typical tax form, if I'm generating a
  • 00:19:50
    YouTube video on this tax form and it's
  • 00:19:53
    doing very well,
  • 00:19:56
    then the fact that Google tanked an
  • 00:19:59
    article that goes step by step and into
  • 00:20:03
    very, you know, kind of complicated
  • 00:20:05
    detail uh to give a better reader
  • 00:20:08
    experience. than reading the 25page
  • 00:20:12
    version on the IRS website. Um, if
  • 00:20:15
    that's not doing well, then I'm going
  • 00:20:19
    to take a leap of faith and say there's
  • 00:20:23
    there's a disconnect here because the
  • 00:20:25
    YouTube
  • 00:20:26
    version is doing pretty well, but at
  • 00:20:29
    some point that same viewer is going to
  • 00:20:31
    want to sit down and
  • 00:20:33
    actually figure it out. And they might
  • 00:20:36
    need to slow down from watching a
  • 00:20:38
    YouTube video and go step by step into
  • 00:20:40
    some of these instructions. So, it just
  • 00:20:43
    kind of gave me a little bit of
  • 00:20:44
    perspective
  • 00:20:46
    that I wasn't 100% wrong in this.
  • 00:20:51
    What did YouTube look like? Can you walk
  • 00:20:52
    us through your process? Um, you know,
  • 00:20:54
    some of the the key components to to
  • 00:20:56
    kind of what was getting traction, how
  • 00:20:57
    you were creating these videos, what
  • 00:20:58
    were the the key metrics you were
  • 00:21:00
    evaluating?
  • 00:21:02
    Right. So, I um I'll take a step back
  • 00:21:05
    and say I'm not a YouTuber by mentality
  • 00:21:10
    anyway. Uh, but I did have a site audit
  • 00:21:12
    done probably about six months in and
  • 00:21:15
    you know just kind of
  • 00:21:17
    a SEO. Hey, what am I doing before I
  • 00:21:21
    make 400 of these
  • 00:21:23
    articles? You know, I'm only at 150 or
  • 00:21:27
    whatever now. So, tell me what I'm doing
  • 00:21:29
    right wrong. And they gave me a bunch of
  • 00:21:31
    technical, you know, advice.
  • 00:21:34
    we created a template for, you know,
  • 00:21:37
    hey, if you're going to write a tax form
  • 00:21:38
    article, here's your tax form template,
  • 00:21:40
    blah blah blah. And uh he encouraged me
  • 00:21:44
    to start creating video content. Said,
  • 00:21:47
    if you're writing about tax forms,
  • 00:21:49
    sometimes people would rather watch the
  • 00:21:51
    video. So, if you shoot a video and
  • 00:21:54
    embed the video, then you should be able
  • 00:21:58
    to, you know, kind of get a wider range
  • 00:22:01
    of that audience that would be
  • 00:22:03
    interested in in that article. And then
  • 00:22:05
    I thought, well, what if what if I used
  • 00:22:08
    a YouTube video? What if I just created
  • 00:22:11
    that video and uploaded onto YouTube?
  • 00:22:12
    And he said, yeah, you can embed YouTube
  • 00:22:15
    videos. WordPress allows you to do that
  • 00:22:18
    in Gutenberg, so why not? So, I just
  • 00:22:21
    started making YouTube videos um still
  • 00:22:25
    primarily to help bolster the website.
  • 00:22:29
    Uh but then it kind of took on a life of
  • 00:22:31
    its own. And I guess that leads us to
  • 00:22:33
    the question of what my process was. So
  • 00:22:36
    my process was if I'm writing a article
  • 00:22:40
    on a tax form then I would just use the
  • 00:22:43
    I would just take I have a Mac so
  • 00:22:47
    whatever the screen recording software
  • 00:22:50
    and I had to actually figure out what
  • 00:22:51
    the ideal featured image size of a
  • 00:22:54
    thumbnail was but I would just take that
  • 00:22:56
    1200 by
  • 00:22:58
    675 picture of the top of the tax form
  • 00:23:01
    and uh that was my featured image and
  • 00:23:03
    then I would just screen record this
  • 00:23:06
    beautiful voice uh going step by step
  • 00:23:09
    into whatever tax form you know we were
  • 00:23:12
    covering that day and kind of uh I
  • 00:23:16
    actually when I first started I didn't
  • 00:23:18
    even fill out the form it was kind of a
  • 00:23:21
    viewer suggestion hey why don't you give
  • 00:23:23
    us examples so after about 50 of those
  • 00:23:26
    videos I started actually kind of
  • 00:23:28
    creating like mini case studies with
  • 00:23:31
    like a fictional character that I made
  • 00:23:33
    up John Doe and his knife and John Doe
  • 00:23:36
    does all of his tax returns on my
  • 00:23:38
    YouTube videos. So, you know, uh I just
  • 00:23:42
    kind of started thinking about, all
  • 00:23:45
    right, how do I take this tax form and
  • 00:23:48
    make it into a relatable story for the
  • 00:23:50
    person that's consuming that video?
  • 00:23:54
    So, I mean, it's so funny you mentioned
  • 00:23:56
    this. I mean, we're recording this
  • 00:23:57
    during tax season for the record. I
  • 00:23:58
    don't know where you got the time to do
  • 00:23:59
    this during tax season, but maybe all
  • 00:24:01
    your stuff's published already.
  • 00:24:02
    I just I mean my wife and I just did up
  • 00:24:04
    our taxes over the weekend and it's so
  • 00:24:06
    funny to hear you talk about this
  • 00:24:07
    because there are certain things you're
  • 00:24:08
    like what is this what is that and you
  • 00:24:10
    just you want to hear someone talk you
  • 00:24:12
    through it not necessarily read
  • 00:24:13
    something about it and it's already
  • 00:24:15
    stale content for a lot of us so it's
  • 00:24:17
    kind of just fun to hear you walk
  • 00:24:18
    through what you're doing on YouTube. Um
  • 00:24:22
    so I I mean like let's start getting out
  • 00:24:24
    of the HCU and what you started doing
  • 00:24:26
    past that. You started seeing some
  • 00:24:27
    success with YouTube. Um, I'm just
  • 00:24:30
    curious to hear like a lot of people
  • 00:24:32
    were looking for other ways to get
  • 00:24:34
    traffic to their content. Were you doing
  • 00:24:37
    YouTube along with the articles, along
  • 00:24:40
    with the the written content in an
  • 00:24:42
    effort to get people back to your
  • 00:24:44
    website or did you just start to pivot
  • 00:24:46
    straight into YouTube and look at that
  • 00:24:47
    as your primary driver of content and
  • 00:24:50
    viewership and eyeballs and that sort of
  • 00:24:52
    thing?
  • 00:24:53
    So when I first started YouTube, I had
  • 00:24:57
    had a bunch of articles I had written
  • 00:25:00
    that I needed to go back and reformat.
  • 00:25:03
    So I used
  • 00:25:04
    that whatever 50 or 75 article list as
  • 00:25:08
    the basis for my first 50 to 75 YouTube
  • 00:25:11
    videos. So for every video, let's say I
  • 00:25:15
    did a video on W2, which is the tax form
  • 00:25:19
    that you get from your employer at the
  • 00:25:20
    end of the year. Uh, so I already had an
  • 00:25:23
    article about that and I would just, you
  • 00:25:26
    know, shoot the video. Uh, when I put
  • 00:25:29
    my, you know, my author notes or the the
  • 00:25:33
    the
  • 00:25:35
    the description, uh, I I I still keep a
  • 00:25:40
    notepad of all the articles that I've
  • 00:25:43
    written, you know, the name of the tax
  • 00:25:45
    form, uh, the corresponding article, and
  • 00:25:48
    the the the link to the video. So, if I
  • 00:25:51
    mention a form or a schedule in the
  • 00:25:53
    video, then I would link to it in the
  • 00:25:55
    show notes on the YouTube video and then
  • 00:25:58
    I would also embed that YouTube video
  • 00:26:00
    into the content. So, it kind of had the
  • 00:26:04
    if you liked watching this but you need
  • 00:26:06
    to dig deeper into this or any other tax
  • 00:26:09
    form, you can find it in the YouTube
  • 00:26:11
    show notes. Or if you wanted to go from
  • 00:26:14
    the article to the YouTube video, then
  • 00:26:17
    you could do that as well. Okay. Okay.
  • 00:26:21
    So, I mean, the cat's out of the bag to
  • 00:26:25
    some degree. Like, at some point, this
  • 00:26:26
    site starts to gain traction again. And
  • 00:26:29
    I think the traction looks different
  • 00:26:30
    because you're having success with
  • 00:26:32
    YouTube and then you start to see
  • 00:26:33
    success again with with with organic
  • 00:26:36
    rankings. Um, you know, what was the
  • 00:26:38
    process leading up to that? And I'm just
  • 00:26:40
    curious, I know a lot of people
  • 00:26:41
    listening will have had similar um
  • 00:26:44
    things happen to them with the HCU and
  • 00:26:46
    now subsequently um are still looking
  • 00:26:49
    for strategies that have worked for
  • 00:26:51
    people who have turned things around. So
  • 00:26:52
    I mean dive as deep as you want into
  • 00:26:54
    this, but I think everyone is really
  • 00:26:56
    excited to learn about what you've done
  • 00:26:58
    since things tanked uh both YouTube and
  • 00:27:02
    on on your website to to kind of pick
  • 00:27:04
    things back up again. Okay. Uh so I
  • 00:27:08
    guess uh I
  • 00:27:11
    can I can verbally describe what anyone
  • 00:27:14
    can go into AHFS and look and see for
  • 00:27:16
    themselves but in September that's kind
  • 00:27:19
    of when things started started dropping
  • 00:27:21
    off if I look at keywords right so you
  • 00:27:25
    know I I had a peak in midepptember of
  • 00:27:28
    the keywords like what the site was
  • 00:27:31
    ranking for and
  • 00:27:34
    by literally the end of April In
  • 00:27:37
    2024, I was I went from a peak of
  • 00:27:41
    ranking for about 14,000 keywords to
  • 00:27:44
    ranking
  • 00:27:45
    uh under a 100
  • 00:27:48
    keywords. Uh and eventually got to a low
  • 00:27:51
    of I think um I think 20 no 16 16 total
  • 00:27:57
    keywords and that was uh the summer of
  • 00:28:00
    2024. So, right after tax season and
  • 00:28:04
    again, you know, when I keep my
  • 00:28:06
    statistics, I try to track
  • 00:28:07
    year-over-year because it's largely
  • 00:28:09
    seasonal. So, you know, a drop off in
  • 00:28:13
    May doesn't really count as much to me
  • 00:28:15
    emotionally as if I dropped off from the
  • 00:28:19
    preceding May. Uh, so I I expected a
  • 00:28:22
    drop off. I got the drop off, but then
  • 00:28:25
    when I looked at the rankings, I said,
  • 00:28:26
    "Well, this is a lot different."
  • 00:28:29
    And usually with this site, I I've seen
  • 00:28:31
    that it starts to pick back up towards
  • 00:28:34
    the fall and then once you get into Q4,
  • 00:28:38
    it goes up and then obviously during tax
  • 00:28:40
    season from January to April, you know,
  • 00:28:43
    that's the peak of it. But what I
  • 00:28:45
    noticed was that uh the
  • 00:28:49
    website
  • 00:28:50
    analytics kept creeping up. So,
  • 00:28:54
    year-over-year statistics, all of like
  • 00:28:56
    my July 2024 was still experiencing
  • 00:29:00
    growth over the previous July. And I
  • 00:29:02
    started digging down into the organic
  • 00:29:04
    search. And I said, well, I'm not
  • 00:29:05
    getting really anything from organic
  • 00:29:07
    search. And I'm getting more of my
  • 00:29:10
    traffic directly from Google,
  • 00:29:12
    but I'm getting some traffic from
  • 00:29:14
    organic search. It just doesn't look
  • 00:29:16
    like it's Google. So, I looked into it
  • 00:29:18
    and Bing happened to be my biggest
  • 00:29:20
    contributor. So, I talked to the SEO my
  • 00:29:23
    SEO uh guy and he said, "Oh, yeah. Bing
  • 00:29:28
    is usually about two to three years
  • 00:29:30
    behind Google." And I was like, "So,
  • 00:29:33
    you're telling me that in two to three
  • 00:29:35
    years I'll be shut off from all organic
  • 00:29:38
    go growth, you know, to include Bing and
  • 00:29:40
    everything else?" He said, "Yeah,
  • 00:29:42
    maybe." Said, "Okay,
  • 00:29:44
    well, hopefully that's wrong." Uh, but
  • 00:29:47
    you know, in in the summer I was looking
  • 00:29:49
    at I was looking at the stats and I mean
  • 00:29:52
    I was getting more traffic from AOL than
  • 00:29:54
    Google. So, I thought there's got to be
  • 00:29:56
    a way through this. And the way through
  • 00:29:59
    this logically would be by just doubling
  • 00:30:02
    down on the YouTube while still
  • 00:30:05
    maintaining growth on the content
  • 00:30:08
    creation on the website and then just
  • 00:30:11
    hoping that eventually Google recognizes
  • 00:30:14
    that it made a mistake in terms of the
  • 00:30:17
    ranking difference between a video and
  • 00:30:20
    an article that cover the exact same tax
  • 00:30:23
    form. And so I it did take a while. The
  • 00:30:28
    entire year of 2024 was one big testing
  • 00:30:31
    period. Uh but right around Christmas
  • 00:30:34
    was when I noticed a a very dramatic
  • 00:30:37
    increase uh in in the rankings. So, it
  • 00:30:41
    literally went from zero and then the
  • 00:30:45
    core update in December apparently
  • 00:30:48
    started putting some of
  • 00:30:51
    my pages back into good Google's good
  • 00:30:55
    graces. And that recovery was about as
  • 00:30:59
    about as dramatic as the drop off. So,
  • 00:31:02
    in uh the
  • 00:31:04
    past four months, it's recovered all the
  • 00:31:07
    traffic and then more. saw. Well,
  • 00:31:12
    congratulations. Yeah, I mean it really
  • 00:31:13
    does if you look at hrefs. I mean, you
  • 00:31:15
    know, I was just glancing, but it's
  • 00:31:17
    definitely tied to that December core
  • 00:31:20
    update and um I mean, the site ranks for
  • 00:31:22
    just a handful of keywords at the time,
  • 00:31:24
    under a thousand keywords. Um, it
  • 00:31:26
    started to pick up. It looks like there
  • 00:31:28
    were a couple core updates in December
  • 00:31:29
    that we know about and stuff. So, I
  • 00:31:32
    guess from a high level, um, I would
  • 00:31:36
    imagine it's next to impossible to say
  • 00:31:38
    for certain, but from a high level, what
  • 00:31:40
    do you think are the factors that led
  • 00:31:42
    your site in this December core update
  • 00:31:46
    to um, gaining back, you know, all of
  • 00:31:48
    its traffic and then some versus other
  • 00:31:51
    sites? Like, what are some of the things
  • 00:31:52
    you think that probably contributed to
  • 00:31:54
    that? knowing that, you know, I'm not
  • 00:31:55
    gonna we're not gonna pin you to to to
  • 00:31:57
    tell us exactly what it is, but just I'm
  • 00:32:00
    curious to hear what you think having
  • 00:32:01
    been inside of that process and the
  • 00:32:04
    content creation. We've talked about the
  • 00:32:06
    ties to YouTube, but I mean, are there
  • 00:32:08
    anything else that you think led to your
  • 00:32:10
    site completely rebounding in Google?
  • 00:32:14
    Um, I I think
  • 00:32:19
    that there is a chance this website
  • 00:32:23
    would have recovered without the YouTube
  • 00:32:25
    content, but I don't think that the
  • 00:32:27
    recovery would have been as dramatic.
  • 00:32:30
    When I look
  • 00:32:31
    at when I when I look at the statistics
  • 00:32:35
    between Google Analytics and the YouTube
  • 00:32:39
    metrics, what I did notice is that uh at
  • 00:32:42
    first
  • 00:32:44
    the the website was feeding a lot of the
  • 00:32:47
    Google traffic to YouTube. So, it was,
  • 00:32:51
    "Hey, I found your article
  • 00:32:54
    and you know, I appreciate the article,
  • 00:32:56
    but just give me the 10-minute version.
  • 00:32:58
    Okay, I can watch this video and and I
  • 00:33:01
    think now people are
  • 00:33:04
    finding because frankly I'm putting a
  • 00:33:07
    lot more Google or YouTube content out.
  • 00:33:10
    I'm able
  • 00:33:12
    to I'm able to put out on average a
  • 00:33:16
    video a day whereas my articles I've
  • 00:33:19
    kind of scaled back my production. I'm
  • 00:33:21
    editing existing articles so on and so
  • 00:33:24
    forth. So, I'm able to keep up the flow
  • 00:33:26
    of
  • 00:33:28
    uh traffic that's getting referred from
  • 00:33:31
    YouTube to the website. I think that was
  • 00:33:34
    just as strong as any kind of behind
  • 00:33:38
    the-scenes correlation of the howto
  • 00:33:41
    video matched up with the how-to website
  • 00:33:44
    article. Um, so I think the the fact
  • 00:33:48
    that, you know, there
  • 00:33:51
    was such a strong link connection, uh, I
  • 00:33:55
    also I I also think that within the
  • 00:33:58
    articles themselves, I I do use link
  • 00:34:01
    whisper. I know that's a plug, but I I
  • 00:34:04
    do use that to find, you know, because
  • 00:34:08
    my keywords are pretty obvious. uh name
  • 00:34:11
    of tax form and then name of relevant
  • 00:34:14
    topic and I can use link whisper to
  • 00:34:17
    quickly scan through as I'm editing
  • 00:34:20
    articles to find new articles I might
  • 00:34:22
    have published that that I that present
  • 00:34:24
    a linking opportunity. I think all of
  • 00:34:26
    that linking really does help uh whether
  • 00:34:29
    it's linking from YouTube and and back
  • 00:34:32
    and forth or linking within the article
  • 00:34:34
    itself. So, I think all of that was just
  • 00:34:37
    I
  • 00:34:38
    mean that and just a consistent
  • 00:34:41
    approach. I mean just waking up every
  • 00:34:43
    day no matter how crappy you feel and
  • 00:34:45
    saying all right another day another
  • 00:34:48
    article.
  • 00:34:50
    Uh maybe maybe now's a good time like
  • 00:34:52
    talk to us about monetization
  • 00:34:54
    um and any other relevant you know
  • 00:34:56
    metrics people love you know kind of
  • 00:34:57
    hearing to get their mind around whether
  • 00:34:59
    it's uh traffic um earnings where you're
  • 00:35:02
    earning from and I'd also be curious to
  • 00:35:04
    hear you on the YouTube side of things
  • 00:35:05
    you know how many videos you have live
  • 00:35:07
    maybe if you can like rough metrics on
  • 00:35:09
    how many views you get per month or any
  • 00:35:11
    um AdSense earnings over there. Sure. Uh
  • 00:35:14
    so uh with YouTube I launched in
  • 00:35:18
    February
  • 00:35:20
    uh reached the thousand subscriber
  • 00:35:23
    threshold
  • 00:35:24
    uh I think by October so was able to
  • 00:35:27
    monetize it within 10 months uh eight
  • 00:35:31
    months and uh from there I mean I've
  • 00:35:35
    kept a tracker of every day um you know
  • 00:35:39
    how much content or h how much revenue I
  • 00:35:41
    I get every day. So obviously the first
  • 00:35:44
    couple of dollars literally and then uh
  • 00:35:47
    now consistently you know in the low
  • 00:35:49
    seasons probably 1 to 2,000 a month like
  • 00:35:53
    in that's what I would expect in July.
  • 00:35:55
    That's what I got last July and then you
  • 00:35:58
    know last month it was I think it was
  • 00:36:01
    around 7,000. Uh but then that's also
  • 00:36:04
    kind of the segue into, you know, paid
  • 00:36:07
    services and things of that nature that,
  • 00:36:09
    you know, that's kind of given me the
  • 00:36:11
    opportunity to
  • 00:36:13
    to, you
  • 00:36:15
    know, maybe ex expand my service
  • 00:36:19
    offering, right? So, as I as I continue
  • 00:36:23
    to keep feeding videos into uh in into
  • 00:36:27
    YouTube, uh I think as of this
  • 00:36:30
    recording, I've got just s shy of 700
  • 00:36:35
    videos out there. So, 692 videos. Um so,
  • 00:36:41
    you know, one video every day or I
  • 00:36:43
    strive for that. And then one at this
  • 00:36:46
    point edited article uh article
  • 00:36:49
    revision. I use rank IQ basically to
  • 00:36:53
    kind of just rescreen the the article
  • 00:36:57
    and you know change happy to glad or
  • 00:36:59
    whatever the keywords that I need to
  • 00:37:02
    take a look at it update it for you know
  • 00:37:05
    for the current year and then republish
  • 00:37:07
    it. Um, but
  • 00:37:10
    the the YouTube I mean the only metric I
  • 00:37:14
    I I track a lot of metrics. The ones
  • 00:37:17
    that really matter are probably the
  • 00:37:18
    revenue ones to me. Uh, but we just went
  • 00:37:21
    over I think 15,000 subscribers uh last
  • 00:37:25
    week. That's really a vanity metric. Um,
  • 00:37:28
    my uh RPMs on YouTube are
  • 00:37:33
    probably I I every month I keep wanting
  • 00:37:36
    to say that they're wrong, but I don't
  • 00:37:37
    think that they are. And I hope that
  • 00:37:39
    they're not, but they're a lot harder or
  • 00:37:42
    they're they're a lot higher than your
  • 00:37:44
    typical what I made on YouTube this
  • 00:37:46
    month with, you know, 10,000
  • 00:37:48
    subscribers. their their their RPMs seem
  • 00:37:52
    like they're they're off a little bit,
  • 00:37:54
    but then uh with the
  • 00:37:58
    website, I joined Mediavine
  • 00:38:03
    Journey whenever it first came out last
  • 00:38:06
    year and I thought, well, I was really
  • 00:38:08
    close to making Mediavine during last
  • 00:38:11
    tax season. So, I qualified for
  • 00:38:13
    Mediavine, I think well about a month
  • 00:38:16
    ago, and um got published or got um
  • 00:38:21
    approved for Mediavine, got enrolled,
  • 00:38:23
    and I've been in Mediavine for um about
  • 00:38:28
    a month. Uh and I've noticed a pretty
  • 00:38:31
    significant difference in my RPMs there
  • 00:38:33
    as well. So, I guess it's not a
  • 00:38:36
    misnomer. Um, I'd probably be on track,
  • 00:38:39
    I guess, this month to,
  • 00:38:42
    uh, make
  • 00:38:44
    probably, I don't know, five or 6
  • 00:38:46
    thousand on Mediavine. Uh, it's still
  • 00:38:49
    kind of in that stage of don't do
  • 00:38:52
    anything to break it within the first 90
  • 00:38:54
    days. So, we'll see if that kind
  • 00:38:58
    of that holds true. But understanding
  • 00:39:02
    the seasonality means that I'm just
  • 00:39:04
    going to get a lot lower traffic numbers
  • 00:39:07
    in in June and July. So, I'll have to
  • 00:39:11
    kind of keep an eye on all of that for a
  • 00:39:14
    year or so to just compare where I am
  • 00:39:17
    now versus where it's going to be in the
  • 00:39:19
    future. Seasonality wise, I want to
  • 00:39:22
    touch on that because I'm sure a lot of
  • 00:39:23
    people listening have a component of
  • 00:39:25
    seasonality to their business. I mean,
  • 00:39:27
    looking at your numbers this year for
  • 00:39:28
    YouTube and for Mediavine, like what do
  • 00:39:31
    you anticipate earning um during the
  • 00:39:34
    high season this this year and then like
  • 00:39:36
    how much will that end up do you think
  • 00:39:38
    dropping uh in the in the offseason if
  • 00:39:41
    you will, you know, the summertime when
  • 00:39:42
    when taxes aren't as high on people's
  • 00:39:43
    mind? Um, so it doesn't go to zero. I
  • 00:39:48
    mean, most of mo most of these even the
  • 00:39:51
    most seasonal uh sites don't really go
  • 00:39:54
    to zero because at least in our world,
  • 00:39:57
    there's some baseline level of tax work
  • 00:40:01
    that gets done throughout the year. So,
  • 00:40:03
    just because April 15th comes and goes
  • 00:40:06
    doesn't mean that someone else isn't
  • 00:40:08
    trying to file an extension or pay down
  • 00:40:11
    their taxes or adjust their withholdings
  • 00:40:14
    on their on their W4. Uh, so there's
  • 00:40:18
    always a need. It's just that it's
  • 00:40:21
    probably the most obvious drop off when,
  • 00:40:23
    you know, April 15th on YouTube looks
  • 00:40:26
    like up here and then April 16th
  • 00:40:30
    looks keep going down. Um, so I would
  • 00:40:35
    say I'm I'm looking at last year's stats
  • 00:40:38
    at least from the YouTube channel and it
  • 00:40:40
    look like there was probably I mean it
  • 00:40:43
    was a 60% drop from April to May and
  • 00:40:46
    then from May to June pretty much flat.
  • 00:40:49
    Um, a slight decline in July, August was
  • 00:40:52
    flat and then it started picking up in
  • 00:40:54
    September. But even at that baseline it
  • 00:40:57
    was still a,000 to 2,000 a month on
  • 00:41:00
    YouTube.
  • 00:41:01
    um last year at this time with the the
  • 00:41:04
    website I was just getting started on on
  • 00:41:08
    uh Mediaine uh Journey and so I can't
  • 00:41:12
    really tell like I mean whatever I make
  • 00:41:16
    now is orders of magnitude more than the
  • 00:41:19
    couple of dollars a day that I was
  • 00:41:21
    making when I first on boarded with
  • 00:41:22
    them. But that dead period was about the
  • 00:41:26
    time that I on boarded with Mediavine.
  • 00:41:28
    So it would be very tough for me to kind
  • 00:41:31
    of give any indication, but I did notice
  • 00:41:34
    that my Mediavine, you know, kind of
  • 00:41:37
    growth through the fall was in kind of
  • 00:41:41
    concert with the YouTube growth.
  • 00:41:44
    So, you've been able to find a way
  • 00:41:46
    somehow to recover a site that was
  • 00:41:48
    ranking for, I think you said, 16
  • 00:41:50
    keywords at its lowest point into a site
  • 00:41:53
    that, you know, granted seasonality, but
  • 00:41:56
    uh a website and YouTube channel is
  • 00:41:58
    going to make, you know, near $10,000 in
  • 00:42:00
    a month. Um, you've talked through a lot
  • 00:42:04
    of your strategies at using YouTube in
  • 00:42:06
    com combination with the content online
  • 00:42:09
    and you've talked about monetizing
  • 00:42:11
    through YouTube's um, ads and then
  • 00:42:13
    Mediavine ads. You did tease though that
  • 00:42:16
    it could open the doors for some other
  • 00:42:18
    things, some other services. Like what
  • 00:42:20
    other things are you considering or
  • 00:42:22
    maybe even have started to implement for
  • 00:42:24
    monetization outside of just ads on
  • 00:42:26
    these platforms?
  • 00:42:28
    Um well so so I do tax returns now. Um
  • 00:42:33
    that was something that I never used to
  • 00:42:35
    do even when I was a starving financial
  • 00:42:38
    planner. Uh I said I'm going to go
  • 00:42:42
    through this life without doing tax
  • 00:42:43
    returns. And last year there were
  • 00:42:47
    probably about a dozen or so people that
  • 00:42:49
    asked me if I if I could do their tax
  • 00:42:51
    return. And it was so difficult for me
  • 00:42:54
    to find a an accountant to refer them
  • 00:42:57
    to. Hey, what's your name? Where do you
  • 00:42:59
    live? Let me see if I can find someone.
  • 00:43:01
    Of course, they're all busy. Uh so this
  • 00:43:04
    year I said, "Okay, I'll get a basic
  • 00:43:08
    license, tax preparation license. I had
  • 00:43:10
    already been registered with IRS. Uh so
  • 00:43:14
    all I needed to do is just hang my
  • 00:43:16
    proverbial sign and say I'm open for
  • 00:43:18
    business."
  • 00:43:19
    So I do that
  • 00:43:23
    um as a service offering to people
  • 00:43:27
    that are not able to find an accountant
  • 00:43:30
    but I don't plan to make that like a
  • 00:43:33
    mainstay. I I think I think we are
  • 00:43:37
    teasing kind of or at least in the
  • 00:43:40
    opening
  • 00:43:42
    um opening stages of creating a tax
  • 00:43:46
    planning uh opportunities. So people can
  • 00:43:51
    schedule one-on-one time with me to talk
  • 00:43:53
    about whatever they want. And a lot of
  • 00:43:55
    people have tried to come up with tax
  • 00:43:57
    planning, Roth conversions, things of
  • 00:43:59
    that nature. Oh, I've got this source of
  • 00:44:02
    income that's going to come in. How do I
  • 00:44:05
    pay the least amount of uh money on
  • 00:44:07
    that? So, I I think that we've got some
  • 00:44:11
    uh we've got some uh market opportunity
  • 00:44:15
    in terms
  • 00:44:16
    of, you know, the target audience that I
  • 00:44:22
    feel like I have, which really is either
  • 00:44:25
    do-it-yourselfers that just need help on
  • 00:44:27
    that one tax form or your occasional CPA
  • 00:44:31
    that needs help on that one tax form.
  • 00:44:33
    But most of the audience is
  • 00:44:35
    do-it-yourselfers. And when it comes to
  • 00:44:36
    tax
  • 00:44:37
    planning, it it's hard for a lot of
  • 00:44:40
    these people to find the CPA that they
  • 00:44:43
    want to partner with because their CPA
  • 00:44:46
    either is focused on just tax returns
  • 00:44:50
    and that's all they do or they might
  • 00:44:52
    focus on something that the client
  • 00:44:55
    really isn't a good fit for. You know,
  • 00:44:57
    like business owners, they like to keep
  • 00:45:00
    books or, you know, some some other
  • 00:45:02
    specialty. But there are a lot of people
  • 00:45:04
    that want to find tax planning
  • 00:45:07
    services and the only way they can
  • 00:45:10
    really do that is through maybe a
  • 00:45:13
    financial planner that will ask them to
  • 00:45:15
    commit to a lot more stuff that they're
  • 00:45:17
    not that they're than they're
  • 00:45:19
    comfortable doing. So I think there's an
  • 00:45:21
    opportunity there that we're looking to
  • 00:45:24
    explore. Um, you know, as we wrap up
  • 00:45:26
    here for us, like anything that we
  • 00:45:28
    didn't touch on that you think is really
  • 00:45:30
    important to share as it relates to this
  • 00:45:32
    journey. And again, like it's just
  • 00:45:34
    always so fun to have here on the
  • 00:45:36
    podcast, these stories of uh a down and
  • 00:45:40
    then back up, you know, and the the
  • 00:45:42
    process and the trials and the
  • 00:45:44
    tribulations you go through to get back
  • 00:45:46
    uh to being where where you are now,
  • 00:45:48
    growing, and you know, hopefully that
  • 00:45:49
    will continue. But like we touched on a
  • 00:45:51
    lot of different stuff, but I just
  • 00:45:52
    wanted to ask one final question. Like
  • 00:45:55
    is there anything we didn't get to
  • 00:45:56
    anything I didn't ask you about that you
  • 00:45:58
    think is really important people to know
  • 00:45:59
    about this recovery and growth story? Um
  • 00:46:03
    I think the one big takeaway that I
  • 00:46:05
    would probably
  • 00:46:06
    uh want people to have is that I listen
  • 00:46:11
    to niche pursuits. I listen to a lot of
  • 00:46:16
    uh the podcast that talk about the world
  • 00:46:18
    of SEO and how Google is impacting
  • 00:46:21
    things. Uh I wouldn't say that Google is
  • 00:46:25
    always right or wrong. Uh I would say
  • 00:46:29
    that in my case
  • 00:46:31
    uh I stayed the course because I felt
  • 00:46:33
    like Google was sending a mixed message
  • 00:46:38
    and it was very clear on one side of the
  • 00:46:43
    equation that Google really liked the
  • 00:46:46
    content that I was putting out and on
  • 00:46:48
    the other side that message was being
  • 00:46:51
    received by everyone except for Google.
  • 00:46:53
    Right? if AOL is ranking me for keywords
  • 00:46:56
    but Google's not. I kind of took a look
  • 00:46:59
    at that and said, well, either Google's
  • 00:47:01
    gonna correct
  • 00:47:03
    everything in my favor or against my
  • 00:47:07
    favor. And I I figured that um as long
  • 00:47:12
    as Google is taking its time to decide
  • 00:47:14
    which way it's going to go, I might as
  • 00:47:15
    well just stay the course. And so just
  • 00:47:18
    kind of keeping consistent and doing the
  • 00:47:22
    same thing knowing that Google at least
  • 00:47:25
    appreciated part of my work and then
  • 00:47:27
    allowing it the opportunity to kind of
  • 00:47:29
    catch up with recognizing the rest of it
  • 00:47:31
    was I mean if I gave up like a lot of
  • 00:47:36
    people reportedly did when the HCU first
  • 00:47:40
    started really decimating websites, I
  • 00:47:43
    would have never seen that recovery.
  • 00:47:46
    Well, Forest, I mean, I can't thank you
  • 00:47:48
    enough. Um, you know, you reached out
  • 00:47:49
    and said, "Hey, I I listen to this
  • 00:47:52
    podcast. I think I got a story that
  • 00:47:53
    people would get a lot of value out of.
  • 00:47:55
    Thank you for doing that. Thank you for
  • 00:47:56
    coming on and sharing." Where can
  • 00:47:58
    people, you know, follow along with what
  • 00:47:59
    you have going? Obviously, you know, we
  • 00:48:00
    have your website. We'll keep we'll put
  • 00:48:01
    that in the show notes and your YouTube
  • 00:48:03
    channel, but anywhere else that you want
  • 00:48:04
    to direct people? Uh, I mean, that's you
  • 00:48:07
    can reach me via email, forest
  • 00:48:12
    twopersonalfinance.com. I'm always uh on
  • 00:48:14
    the website or on the YouTube channel.
  • 00:48:17
    Uh probably to my detriment maybe
  • 00:48:19
    sometimes, but um I'm always happy to
  • 00:48:22
    have a conversation with uh anyone that
  • 00:48:25
    wants to kind of learn a little bit
  • 00:48:27
    more. Well, for thank you so much for
  • 00:48:30
    coming on. Congratulations on the
  • 00:48:33
    success. I hope it continues. Um thanks
  • 00:48:35
    for giving us your time during tax
  • 00:48:36
    season. I mean, man, uh uh we're
  • 00:48:38
    recording this right there on the tail
  • 00:48:40
    end. So, appreciate it. Good luck and
  • 00:48:41
    we'll talk to you again soon. All right,
  • 00:48:43
    sounds great. Thank you, Jared. Hey
  • 00:48:45
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Tags
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  • tax planning
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