Jimmy Wrex: Niche Marketing Experiments

Matt: Yeah, now internet’s fine I knew just by doing just some Google search just by typing in and just, I think about price searching just for two blog posts, that’s kind of how I came across your website. And I was like hey, I want to give this Jimmy a call.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah.

Matt: Anyway, just kind of quick background. I’m the affiliate manager for a website called elementsofmemory.com. It’s a Click Bank product so I took over that website and basically just revamping the whole affiliate program trying to breathe fresh life into it.

So I was kind of like want to provide some content to affiliates and if they happen to be new or just I figured hey why not talk to some people that are actually doing this and people learn from other people so, there it is in a nutshell.

Jimmy: Yeah, cool man oh yeah happy to help out.

Matt: Right on so anyway and then ask some kind of a couple of quick housekeeping things. Once we’re done, I’ll get the audio cleaned up a little bit and then I’ll get a transcript for you, and then I mean do whatever you want with it, however you see fit.

Jimmy: Cool, yeah definitely.

Matt: So sell it or give it away, whatever it is. Anyway how long have you been doing that internet marketing, affiliate marketing, just kind of what’s your background?

Matt: So it really all started back in 2008. I was doing a job I didn’t really like and I was kind of, you know just not really making the money I wanted to make and I pretty much just started out like a lot of people and just Googling things like how to make money online, you know I just literally started there.

And didn’t get off to the best start really. I ended up kind of going into this MLM, you know Multi Level Marketing thing it was never really, never really felt right but it was kind of while I was Googling and searching ways to promote that I came across affiliate marketing.

And I thought oh my God this is so good because I don’t have to go to these meetings, I don’t have to speak to people on the, go to these meetings or speak to people on the phone. I could just make websites which I didn’t know how to do at the time or I could just do it that way. So yeah affiliate marketing just seemed like the perfect solution for me really.

Matt: Right on. So you run on a blog, correct?

Jimmy: Yeah we’ve got lots of I’ve actually got a partner and we’ve got a blog in the IM niche but we’ve also got lots and lots of affiliate sites which is where we made our money initially.

Matt: I see. So, what’s the name of your marketing blog?

Jimmy: So, the blog is nicheexperiments.com.

Matt: Okay. And what’s kind of the main focus of that, did you share just your experience through trial and error or what works and what doesn’t, what you learn what’s that focus?

Jimmy: Yeah, that’s it really we were online kind of niche marketing for a couple of years before we ever really did anything in the make money kind of space. So we decided to start a blog so we could share the things that we knew and we could kind of make a name for ourselves like that. And also we could have a bit of fun because you could kind of be yourself in the IM niche you could speak more from your own experiences.

Whereas if you’re niche marketing and you are just trying to focus on key words and selling a product most of the time it’s kind of you are creating, you are researching and then you are using your research to create the content.

So it’s really, it’s kind of nice it’s almost relaxing to write a blog post about our actual experiences and the results, do you know what I mean?

Matt: Right, that makes total sense. So, one of the questions that you see constantly especially if you visit it frequently a lot of times people get very hung up on do I promote physical or digital products or I don’t know what to focus on.

How do you, what’s your process in terms of finding a niche, researching a market and go hey I think this looks like solid, a solid candidate what are some criteria you look for?

Jimmy: Okay, yeah, well one the reason I think we do quite well at first is we learned this concept called High on Fire Niche. Basically a really, really pressing problem or issue that needs to be solved. So that’s kind of what we looked for first off, something which is going to be the extreme end of sort of pleasure or pain, not really extreme, you know what I mean but something which is going to be a problem.

So we joined a network called Market Health originally and we looked at kind of the products that they sold and branched out into a few other different affiliate networks but mainly in the health niche at first.

And what we did is we’d kind of hang around in the forums and things like that for probably about a week. Most people don’t do this but we would literally join a couple of forums, hang around in the forums just chatting to people and seeing what people were interested in and taking note of which adverts were being shown.

And also nowadays, we wouldn’t have done this back then but nowadays you’d hang around in Facebook groups and see what people talk about.

And we would basically just make a list of the different products that people in that niche seem to be interested in and seem to be buying.

And then we’d build a funnel and try and sell more than one product. So we never really worked with making those sites which literally rank for one keywords, which is like the name of a product or something like that.

We try and build a sales funnel, establish a rapport, catch the email address, give some really good content.

Usually we do like a five-day kind of like an e-course so everyday they get a lesson and tied in to that lesson would be a recommendation for a product. Not everyday we put a product in there because you want to build rapport but that seemed to be the process that we ended up finding work.

Matt: Right on so now you had mentioned said necessarily not targeting just one specific keyword for a site, are you a fan of the whole Google sniper method or do you focus more on building a more of a [0:06:50] approach, which is kind of what I gather is your method.

Jimmy: Yeah, that’s right, we do. We’ve got a few kind of authority sites, well you could say authority sites they are not ones that have been around like forever you know like the ones run by experts.

We do target key words and things like that but I really think that as we go forward these smaller sniper sites they are going to fall out of favor. So personally I think you want to build a big blog, tons and tons of content.

You want to go after some big keywords but you also want to rank for the smaller keywords as well.

So what I found actually is you shouldn’t put so much focus on the keywords because if you build really, really good content and get some social sharing buttons on there a few social shares here and there and some back links and literally your blog will get found for all kinds of really long but really targeted key words that you weren’t even sniping for.

So if you are actually, as long as you are putting on lots and lots of content I’d have to say you want to write blog posts which are like 600 words at least, that way, you are just going to stand out online, you are not going to look like all these other sites.

Matt: Got it. Now you had mentioned writing blog posts right on a consistent basis, you said 600 words, is there a let’s just say writing is not my strength I may be better at some of the technical stuff I get all that. Do you have any recommendation maybe for hiring out the article writing, do you have any resources that you use personally or what, I mean what do you do?

Jimmy: I’m quite lucky really because a few years ago when I very first got started in this, I kind of knew that I was not going to be able to take it on myself so I tried a few article writers and services and they were never quite that good.

And then I just happened one day to meet someone on the forum who was looking for work and I’ve been using the same person for like three years she’s really, really good.

So I’d say be careful of the article writing sites which are like $5 and $4 and things like that because what you tend to get is what I call keyword targeted rambling. You know that you get a keyword and then it’s just words and it makes sense but there’s absolutely no content there whatsoever.

I would pay someone $12, $15 if they go on to write a really, really solid, really good article. Because what you can then do is you can, if they write you a load of articles and okay they are quite expensive but they are really good.

You could then pay them a little bit less just to rewrite those articles and you could give those articles to other blogs but with a link back to your site, you know guest posting. Because there are a lot of blog owners out there who are desperate for the content, they don’t want to outsource it because they get these rambling articles.

So if you can find someone who’s really good, pay them triple but then also get them to hand rewrite their articles and you can put their articles on other people’s blogs if they are good enough and also get some links back and some traffic back to your site that way.

Matt: So, really building – in terms of building back links you don’t really keep the focus so much on basically rewriting an article 400 million times and then submit it out through automation. You are keeping the focus on the quality and content and then also on what sites you actually submit that content is that correct?

Jimmy: Yeah that’s right so I did try all that stuff back in the early days I had every different article spinner and different kind of automation tool that there was.

But I just found that over I get some okay results, I was a big fan of something called SEnuke back in the day but what I found was that you’d work so hard to get these rankings and they would just be, it was much easier just to create really, really good content, share it in the right places and watch it take off.

You’d do much, much better if you write really epic content which is a phrase I got from a Jimmy called Corbett Barr who writes for a site called thinktraffic.net. He talks about if you write a really, really good post that’s going to be shared and passed around, it’s worth a million times all these different ezine articles or spun articles that you can send around.

So, yeah it really all comes down to content and it depends on your niche but if you can make it funny, or put a bit of humor in there that seems to make a massive difference. Hopefully people who read our blog will see that we try and do that now and again when it’s appropriate.

Matt: Right on. So how often do you find that it’s necessary to actually update your site, I know that’s a really big thing now with Google after the whole Panned Update or should I just say multiple panned update throughout last year and a lot of people.

Do you see that this is going to be a switch now in terms of let’s go out for good quality content and not just put up just random crap ten times a day that makes no sense?

Jimmy: Yeah, definitely, definitely I think people are, all these updates as far as I’m concerned are a good thing really because it’s going to set you apart. Google is getting good finding the good people so yeah if you are just looking to make a quick few dollars here and there just by throwing things out and hoping for the best, then that’s fine.

But if you’re serious about IM and you want to build a long-term business then really it’s all about getting the content, getting the eyes on the content and building long-term customers.

S, the blog posts are really, really, great for getting shared around and getting traffic back to your site but what you really want to do then is capture the email and then have really, really, really good content in your email as well so in your autoresponder series.

Anyone who wants to do that kind of thing by the way I would recommend a product called Autoresponder Madness which completely changed the way I do email marketing by a Jimmy called Andre Chaperon. He does it completely different to everyone else and I highly recommend that.

But yeah that’s it really it’s all in the content. So the great thing about having really, really good blog posts out there is you can keep linking to them and you can keep, in your emails if you do a lesson on a particular thing and you happen to write a blog post you can send people back to the blog post.

And it’s content that’s out there all the time and it will be keeping people interested and engaged for months and months on end, it won’t just fall to the bottom of Google and be lost forever, kind of thing.

Matt: I see, got it, have you found the kind of a certain sweet spot in terms of updating a blog post on a consistent basis like three, four times a week or does it vary on your niche, I mean what’s kind of your take on that?

Jimmy: No, not really. I tend to often internet marketers and I’m really bad for this is that you spread yourself a bit too thin. So I’m also in the Forex niche I spend a lot more time on that because that our most profitable thing.

And so I really just update that blog the internet marketing one whenever I get the chance and with the other ones I pretty much, a lot of the other sites we’ve got they just work on autopilot now because they’ve just been around for so long and they’ve got so many thousands of back links and so many thousands of shares and so I just keep an eye on those.

I just make sure that they don’t lose the rankings they’ve got but I’m kind of, I’m letting them settle in the places that they are in because you get to a point where you think it would take a monumental effort to move this site from position three to position one let’s say, because you know you’ve got some really, really monster sites at the top, you know the ones that opened around for ten years kind of thing.

So you kind of get to a point with some where you let them plateau and you say I’m happy with this here and that’s when I start to lay off really.

I only update them say once every, some of them I haven’t updated for months and they are still making money.

So if you want to make money blogging you have to do it at least a couple of time a week but if you are really just looking to make commissions from affiliate marketing, you can leave them up there once they are done, does that make sense?

Matt: It does, now you are saying once they are done, do you find yourselves spending more time in the initial beginning of a project, building on affairs, getting it out there, getting the rankings and then kind of switching over from creation to maintenance?

Jimmy: Yeah, definitely because you kind of get, with me anyway I’ll get excited about a project or a niche, I get really, really into it, and then after a while I’ll kind of get bored with that and I’ll want to move on to the next thing and I know that can really kill your success.

If you want to stick with something it’s best to do it long term and that’s exactly what I’m doing now with the Forex because I’m looking to make that into a really, really massive income stream.

But in the early days when I was niche marketing, I could only stick with something for so long, you know what I mean? After a while I’d get to the point where I’d think I just can’t write on any more on this you know, it feels like you’re just saying the same things over and over again, so yeah now I would be.