Want actionable tips and strategies to help grow your site’s traffic and affiliate earnings?

Hope so because that’s what today’s episode of the Niche Pursuits podcast is all about.

Shelley is a relatively new blogger who managed to take her travel site earnings from $8,490 in all of 2021 to multiple six figures and $52,604 in just one month by the end of 2022.

She generously shares her revenue breakdown and the changes she made to her site to make this happen.

The discussion includes:

• The importance of good hosting and a good theme
• Doubling down on what works (with actionable examples)
• Using long tail variants to boost earnings
• Ways to ensure your content is the best in the SERPs
• Understanding the customer journey to ensure you go after the best topics
• And much more…

Considering what she’s managed to accomplish within such a short time, this is a truly inspiring episode.

And the fact that she shares specific advice that anyone can follow to reach similar results regardless of niche makes it even better.

Hope you enjoy!

Topics Shelley Marmor Covers

• Whether her journalism background helps with blogging
• Revenue breakdown
• Airbnb affiliate program getting shut down
• Understanding the customer journey
• Building your way up to the pillar page
• Affiliate program selection
• The main topics for travel affiliates to profit
• Proactive link building
• Internal linking with Link Whisper
• Content production tips
• Power of backlinks
• Why it’s so important to rank keywords
• When to start a second site
• And much more…

Links & Resources

This Episode is Sponsored by Search Intelligence & Nichesites.com

Watch The Interview

Read The Transcription

Jared: Welcome to the Niche Pursuits podcast. Today we’re joined by Shelly Marmor. She is a successful travel blogger running several websites of her own. Shelly joins us and we joke a ton, the podcast about the theme of this episode being a lot can happen in a year. And boy is she living testament of that today, Shelly and her collection of four websites earns her something like $275,000 a year.

And just surpassed the $50,000 per month Mark. If you rewind just 12 months ago she was earning about $8,000 in a full calendar year from her blog and her website. So a lot has happened in a year. She’s grown her number one travel site to getting a lot of traffic and a lot of revenue, and we go into the depths at the beginning of the podcast on how she quickly transitioned that website from where it was a year ago to where it was.

Now, if you’re looking for inspiration, if you’re looking for a path to go down to grow, your website is a great interview for you to listen to. We talk about a lot of the specifics that she used to get there. We talk. In depth about how nuanced you should go when it comes to your keyword research and understanding the buyer intent behind every keyword.

She gives a lot of examples about what she’s talking about, and I thought she had a really interesting approach about how she really niches down for each topic and writes these really complete articles that end up really making a lot of affiliate commissions. We bounce around and talk about the role of back links, how she builds back links, how early she builds back links to a site.

We talk about internal linking. We talk about making your post the very best that it can be and making it the very best thing that’s available on the internet for that topic, she shares some of the, the little nuance things she does to make her articles fit that, and then we start talking about why she chose to start sites two, three, and four, how she’s starting sites, how she’s starting to let go of being the only one to write for this site, how she’s scaling out a writing team, and some of the conversations that spin out of that.

Shelly has a a little minicourse and a website you can visit if you want to get her tips for how to do better at affiliate marketing. She shares that website and we put it in the show notes as well. So if you wanna go grab her free minicourse, you can do that. Listen along for a great story of inspiration, but also a great story that gets into the weeds about exactly how to really scale out your website.

I hope you enjoy introducing niche sites.com. Are you looking to scale your niche site portfolio or build your first website? Look no further than niche sites.com. With a portfolio of successful websites and over 700 plus satisfied clients. The [email protected] have the skills and experience to help you succeed From keyword research to link building content writing to done for you websites, niche sites.com offers a full range of services to help your content site grow.

As the sing goes, the trial is worth more than a thousand words, and they’re offering a special trial just for new customers. You get 5,000 words of content completely free with your order of 10,000 plus traffic back links. Don’t miss this opportunity. Head on over to niche sites.com/trial and take advantage of this amazing trial offer.

Again, it’s niche, sys plural, niche sys.com/trial. Go claim your free content today. Before we jump into the podcast, I wanted to let you know that today’s episode is sponsored by Search Intelligence. Here’s a short clip of Ferry from Search Intelligence showing you how their agency built digital PR links to a client’s.

In this video, I 

Shelley: will show you how we landed a placement on BBC and dozens of links in massive regional online publications such as Wears Online, BOLs, and many more. This PR campaign was about the easiest place to pass your driving test for the first 

Jared: time in the uk.

Shelley:

This is how we’ve done it. We simply went to D Value website, found the latest car driving test data by test center, and downloaded the data in a CSB format. Once we had the data, all we have to do is to look at the number of total tests per test center, then look at the number of. First time passes to calculate the percentage of people who passed their tests for the first time.

Once we had the percentage numbers, we created a press release with our findings. Then we went to Rox Hill and found journalists who talk about driving tests and also looked for journalists who write in regional publications in the uk. In total, we have found about 1,800 journalists and sent them our press list by email within less than a day.

Our story got picked up by BBC Corn Life Wells Online, and dozens of other publications in the UK providing our client a tsunami of backlinks. Perfectly relevant to the audience of the client who is a specialist in Learner Drive car insurance. I hope this video is helpful and it shows you how you can also build links with freely available data from 

Jared: official.

If you want similar link building PR campaigns for your website, head to search intelligence.co.uk and get in touch with them now.

Welcome back to The Niche for Suits podcast. My name is Jared Baumen, and today we’re joined by Shelly Marmur. Shelly, welcome on board. 

Shelley: Thank you, Jared. I’m so excited to be here. This is my first time doing a YouTube, so. 

Jared: Well, for those of you, I was gonna say, and you are bringing the background to YouTube, if you’re not watching the recording, tell us where this background is and, and what you have up in the background there.

Shelley: The background is Mexico City. Little known fact there is a Chinatown in Mexico City. I mean, what major city doesn’t have one, but most people do not know there’s one in Mexico City. I used to live in Mexico City. I am now living in Oaxaca, Mexico, but I’ve been traveling around Mexico for a while, coming up on five years here.

So yeah, Mexico City is behind me. 

Jared: Your background sets the stage nicely for today. You are a travel, you’re on a travel website. A couple actually. At this point we’re talking about your travel website and how you grew it and all those sorts of things. And so I love that you’re bringing the theme all the way through the podcast , which is great.

Let’s see, so before we get into to all the nitty gritty about, about your websites and that sort of thing, maybe bring us up to speed on you, your background, who you are and, and those sort, those sorts of things. 

Shelley: Sure. So like many people maybe who are in this universe of like online working, online digital nomad stuff working for yourself, I got my soul sucked out in corporate America, and was like, how do I do it?

What do I do? Oops. You know, and I built it everything up step by step, but I do have a degree in journalism. So some people are like, well, that gives you such a ba a leg up. As far as blogging, and honestly it does not, I had to completely relearn writing for SEO o writing for print, and writing for seo.

O it is comp Su, it’s so different. So, but also like, I like to tell people that everyone has a leg up in some way. We just kind of. Identify them or not. So don’t think like, cuz I did like that is like put me to the front of the class for blogging. It didn’t. But you know, I left corporate America. I was trying to figure it out and one step at a time started blogging, then I started networking Facebook groups, realizing people are actually making money doing this

And I just was like, what can I know? What can you tell me? And then the kind of, the free content sort of dried up because there’s good free content and bad free content. Put some skin in the game, invested in some courses. And that kind of brings us up to today. I’m now a multiple six figure blogger. I have four travel blogs and a fifth blog about blog.

That I just started. 

Jared: So I wanna ask about the journalism comment because you are right. We do tend, I tend to think, cuz we’ve had a couple journalists on before, I tend to think, oh my goodness, you’ve been trained how to research, you’ve been trained how to write, but you say not an advantage. Why? I mean, I’m curious, why not?

Shelley: So I was a magazine editor, but before that I worked for newspapers. It’s writing to SEO is me talking to Google. Essentially it’s, it’s me talking to a machine. There’s a lot more, let’s say logic or strategy. Writing for a magazine or a newspaper is a little bit more storytelling. I think there’s some people who start a blog because they think they’re wonderful storytellers, and that’s very cool.

It’s harder to make money doing that. That’s honestly, I feel like that really falls more under a lifestyle blog. Like for me, a travel blog is someone puts a question into Google or a query into Google. Google sends them to me, I answer the question, and they most likely kind of go on their merry way.

So I don’t really necessarily see myself as a storyteller in that sense, where I think that’s pretty much what a journalist would do. So that’s, I mean, that’s just my 

Jared: opinion. Of course. Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. We have, we have a decent number. I feel like I haven’t kept track, but I feel like there’s successful bloggers who maybe previously were journalists.

I know we also see attorneys and like, so there’s gotta be some characteristics behind maybe what brings you to blogging. But certainly it sounds like you’re right, writing for magazine and writing for the internet is very different. , 

Shelley: well, I write fast, so I guess that skill probably. Well, that would be nice that that translated.

But again, like, you know, you might have, your partner might build websites, so you might have that advantage. I mean, I think everyone has the, some advantage similar to that. Like writing fast is a hundred percent an advantage, but it’s not, you know, a be all end all kind of thing that I had a background in, in journalism.

I honestly think I barely use it doing seo, writing for websites. 

Jared: Well, good point. We all have an advantage. I think that that’s maybe something that everyone should think about if you all have something you bring to the table. I recently realized that my background, for example, in photography as a professional photographer, can be a huge advantage if you use it.

But if you don’t use it, then it’s not an advantage, you know, if you don’t bother with it. But, well, let’s transition into where you’re at now. You, you kind of hinted at it. Tell us a bit more background on your sites as they are today, and then we’ll unwind how you got there. And it’s quick. I’ll tell you, I’m gonna, I’m not gonna try to jump too far ahead, but you have a very quick path to success.

So where, how many sites and where are they at today in terms of anything you’re comfortable, revenue page views you know, et cetera, et cetera. 

Shelley: I I talk about all of it because, It was seeing other people’s income reports that sort of made me realize it was possible for me. So I talk about money a lot.

Like if you’re like, I don’t, talking about money bothers you, like you, you’re gonna hate me by 

Jared: the end of the video. But listeners love to hear the revenue behind the website. So I think you’re in good. I mean, I think you’re in good hands. It’s 

Shelley: literally like I credit random strangers online with publishing their income reports.

That helped me see what was actually possible in this world. So I started my first site it’s called Travel Mexico solo, and I started in April, 2020 at the height of the pandemic when no one was traveling. I actually thought it would just be like, or this was a re this is a real story. I was like, it’s gonna be really funny.

One day when I tell people I started a travel blog during a pandemic and it’s now a seven figure business and I’m on my way to doing that, which is kind of crazy in a co almost. Coming up on three years now. So that one I flailed around for the entire first year. 2020 was, you know, just doing every single thing wrong and then cleaning up the messes and then fixing it.

And then, you know, one step forward, two steps back, one step forward, two, subtract. So I actually have no stats whatsoever really, for 2020. But towards the end of that year, I did invest in my very first blogging course, and it was a terrible one, so I won’t name it, but I did realize that I, you know, you don’t know what you don’t know, right?

And I didn’t know everything . That course did not help me learn everything, but it did help me know that I really knew nothing and that there was actually a method to blogging. It’s not just like hit publish and profit. If it was, everyone would be doing it. So I invested in another course, which was a good course, thankfully.

So in 2021, I started. Really keeping track of, of my money, because that’s what business people do. Right. You know, your numbers. So I was like, this is what I want. I want a business. I’m not going back to corporate America. I’m gonna do whatever other business people do. So I started tracking and I, at the end of my first full year blog, I made $8,490.

I’m looking off screen because I actually wrote down all the numbers and I want to give the actual real number to the dollar. Alright. 

Jared: Right. So 21, you’re, you’re, you’re still on your first site, you’re still on the, the Mexico solo site at that point? One site? One site. All of 2021. 

Shelley: I did start one.

That’s not true. I started one towards the end of 2021, but it wasn’t making any money. So that number has nothing to do with any of the other sites. Mm-hmm. Fast forward another year. 2022 was a big year for me. I did $272,569, an increase of 32 x or 3110{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} more money. I did a percentage calculator online.

So yeah, that’s where we’re at today. We’re halfway through January. I had my biggest month yet, oh $52,604. Pretty much all from affiliate marketing. Let me like go back like what happened right between 2021 and 2022. Well, I, in 2021, the Airbnb affiliate program still existed. This was the first thing I started seeing bloggers talk about in Facebook groups that they were actually still making money.

The only bloggers I saw that were not crying about losing all their money during the pandemic was this one affiliate program. And it was through Airbnb renting the houses, and I think they were getting a 15{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} cut at the time. It was a very lucrative program for a lot of people. Mm-hmm. . So I was like, all right, I’m in, like, what do I do?

So I started affiliate marketing and like three months later, I actually did get my first check from Airbnb was for 77. May well have been 77 million. I was on cloud nine, right? And then another, the next month the check came in and the next month the check came in and the next month they shut the program down.

And , I went into the bathroom, cried said some curse words, but then it, like, it hit me like, wait, well you’re actually making money doing this thing called affiliate marketing, you know? And I truly believe that if you can make $5, you can make 5,000 and then you can make 50,000, then you can make 500,000.

So I was like, just because this program’s done, you’ve proven that you can do this. So just, you know, like, Parlay it into the next thing. So I went really all in on affiliate marketing. I invested in courses on it. I hired a one-on-one blog mentor sort of coach. She no longer does private coaching sadly, but it was just such a game changer.

But, you know, that’s what I did. I started just doing things. Whatever was working, I did it 10 more times, right? Like just basic scaling 1 0 1. So affiliate marketing was the first thing that started making a little bit of money for me, and I was like, all right, I’m in. Let’s do it. So 

Jared: at the end of 2022, as you shared, Absolutely dramatic growth.

You know, I think that’s encouragement for anyone listening who just, like you said, we’re kind of recording this in January of the new year. If you closed out last year, spending a lot of time on your, on your website, , hey, this could be your year. I mean, look at what changes in 12 months. You don’t need to hear that as a fancy encouragement slogan, but just looking at your success now, before we get into, cause I have some questions on how you scaled out that affiliate marketing side of things.

Sure. Tell us about how things break down in terms of your revenue across, now, I think you said four websites. Is that first website the vast majority of the income, or did you also kind of hit big with maybe some other newer projects? How does that, how does that, how it kind of break out? 

Shelley: Okay. So I have four travel sites and a travel blogging site.

The travel blogging site is, My little baby. It’s only like a month. So that’s really excluded from this. My fourth site is actually only three months old and it is doing close to a hundred dollars a month. Nice on that, but that was a strategic pick. So I would say 70{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} of the revenue comes from the first site.

I started the big site, that one, and I did my traffic numbers right before last 30 days. Traffic on that 1, 2, 280 2000. So it gets a lot of traffic. The next biggest one, and that one’s on Mediavine for ads. So I do make some money from ads about 10,000, eight to 10 a month on that one. I have another one.

The second one I started. It’s about a year and a half old. That one’s at about 60 k sessions a month. I’m doing about 2020 200 a Mediavine. That one brings in affiliate sales. But that was, I started that one sort of during a time in between realizing how big I could take the affiliates because I think a lot of people in travel don’t, don’t do this, this amount of volume and, and money from affiliates.

I think everyone thinks the B all ends all is the ads on your site. And it’s really, it’s really not. I mean I love Mediavine but I just think people think it’s sort of this holy grail and even, you know, when you’re coming in at 50 k, you’re really looking at 2000 a month. If you have like majority US traffic for travel bloggers, food bloggers, the sky’s the limit for you.

I’m always jealous when I see the food blogger income reports on Mediavine. I think the personal finance does really well too. But the third. I went super affiliate heavy that site’s six months old. It’s at nearing 40 k in traffic, and I’m doing two to $3,000 months on that one. I use an affiliate tracking software, so I know my, my breakdown.

In revenue per site, but the big one does the, I call it my big kid. My big kid brings in like 70{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} of, of, of the money. That’s the one with all the traffic that’s, you know, and it helped, that one has helped me build the smaller ones. I can link out to the smaller ones from, from that one, and that’s helped me grow.

That’s how I can have a six month old site doing, you know, 2,500 in getting 40,000 sessions. But it’s also my, that’s my third 

Jared: site, . You clearly have a track record of starting sites and they get traction. I would say relatively quickly, I’m broadly speaking, but I think, you know, most of the time, if you were to ask the average website owner how they would expect to be doing after, say six months, many would say just getting out of the proverbial sandbox.

Many would say, Seen lots of impressions, but not necessarily seen a lot of page views. But you’re doing really well with that. How did you Yeah, let’s, let’s go, let’s go to the, let’s, let’s start with the, the big, the big kid, , the the travel Mexico solo.com, the one that’s earning the lion share, at least at this point of your income.

And I just would love to hear from that, the high level, how you went from 2021 to 2022. Mm-hmm. , like generally speaking, what were the tactics you used? You talked about affiliate marketing and you talked about 10 Xing, the things that were working. What does that look like in, in brass 

Shelley: tax? So I would say, The biggest two things that happened that year was leaving a terrible host and getting onto a good host and getting rid of a theme that was tanking my site in terms of speed to a really fast theme.

Those things both happened like in July, August, 2021 and my traffic tripled in one month. Like it literally tripled in one month making no other changes. And then from there, like the sites got onto Media Vine, they started just, everything went to like number one in Google. You have to remember also my site is super niche.

Well, Mexico, I mean it’s Mexico niche. Mexico’s a big country. So. But it’s, I only write about Mexico, but yeah, that must have, I must have just got out of the sandbox at about a year and a half in, or a year and three months in. So that was my getting out of the sandbox. But Google started just loving my site.

So some of that I can’t really take credit for. That was just Google loving my site going take cuz it was very slow and I think people are like, oh, I’m not gonna deal with the site speed, I’m just gonna keep pumping out content. But like, you’re just never gonna get, you need to be in number one, number two or number three positions to be like taking all the traffic.

So it started really with there, and then I was able to start doing these just affiliate heavy. Because there’s two ways to get people to your site, right? Paying for ads through Facebook or through Google or through whatever, or SEO traffic. So that’s what I just, then I went even further in on seo, but I was able to kind of just be like, okay, well, Google loves my site now and I’m making a little money with affiliate sales.

I had one article that started doing a thousand dollars a month. I, I will name my site and all that stuff, but I won’t name the article. And that affiliate had oth, I started looking for other opportunities with that affiliate as well, using similar keywords and things like that. And then that’s what I did.

I literally wrote like 10 variants of that same article, and that’s it. Well, like one month my payout was 1200, and the next it was 44. So 

Jared: what does that look like? Like what does, what do you mean writing 10 different variants of an article? Because it makes sense to me. Mm-hmm. You find an affiliate program that works, talk about mm-hmm.

kind of, you know, varying that. So you continue to double down on what’s working. 

Shelley: Sure. So let’s say you have an article that’s doing a little bit of money about best hotels in la right? So a variant of that might be Best hotels in LA for families, best hotels in LA with free airports, transportation, best hotels in la Let’s see, like what’s a variant of that?

I, I actually do this kind of research on my own, like with a view is like a good variant keyword for like a long tail keyword for hotels specifically. But I don’t know if LA really has anywhere with view that that would, maybe the Hollywood sign, I’m not sure with a view is a good one for a hotel. Luxury hotels in LA would be a variant.

Even boutique hotels in LA might be a variant. Hotels with free breakfast, that one always comes up in, in my key search. Researchings. What else? So, I mean, you know, and then tours in la right? So what’s, so someone looking for tours in la like they don’t really know what they. . But someone looking for food tours in LA like that’s a variant, or walking tours or pub crawls tours of famous people’s houses, you know, like going long tail, I guess is, is one way to do variants.

But yeah, I mean, if you’re doing really well with booking.com, let’s say, you know, something you’re doing, even if you can’t put your finger on it, is working, but sort of the copy paste you know, and everyone’s different. So you kind of have to get creative, but long tail keywords is, is a pretty easy way to go that 

route.

Jared: So basically, and I’m, I’m just thinking out loud here. You kind of had to stumble into this because the Airbnb program shut down. And so you were looking for other affiliate programs to push, found one that paid well mm-hmm. , and then just thought, Hey, how can I write a ton of content around that now?

Question I have. Sometimes I will see an article like let’s say I’m searching for tours in Los Angeles, and I’ll see in that article they’ll have, Hey, here’s the best food tour. Hey, here’s the best walking tour. Hey, here’s the best beach tour. I’m just making stuff up, whatever. And you went and kind of wrote each article independently and individually.

Did you, did you link all those back together? Was there a strategy behind that? How did you determine to write ’em all? Why not just include ’em all in one big article? I, you know, like, how do people think these things? 

Shelley: Well user intent. So I have been doing this a while teaching affiliate marketing for a while too.

And I think the number one thing that I identify as, like what people are doing wrong is that they’re like, well, I, I put some links in, so I’ve done affiliate marketing. And it’s like, oh no, you haven’t done affiliate. You’ve put links in, you haven’t done affiliate marketing. Right? So like user always come back to user intent.

Why does the person thinking when they’re putting something into search in Google? So it just started like kind of clicking, like someone putting best tours in la they’re not a hundred percent sure what they want, right? Like, do they want a walking tour? They want a food tour. Do they want a nighttime tour to the best bars?

Do they wanna see the celeb celebs Holmes? Do they wanna go out on a boat? Like, you know, they don’t totally know what they want. So you’re kind of bringing these people, you know, and those are like, that’s what I call the big keyword. Mm-hmm. So like, best hotels in LA would be another thing, but then people are coming to you, to your site, like you f.

Finally got through like the slo, the sl. Is this slaw or slog? Slog, 

Jared: slug, slog. I think it’s slog . 

Shelley: I never know that word. So you’ve finally like done everything to get to the top of Google, and now people are coming to your best tours in LA and they don’t even know the tour that they want. Now you have to kind of be like, well, here’s this one.

That’s great, and here’s this one. That’s great and here’s this one. But people who want best food tours in la, like they a hundred percent know what they want. You know, the intent is to find a food tour. And I just think I put content in front of the people that literally have a finger on the buy button.

So it’s sort of understanding the customer journey funnel. I don’t wanna get too much billing, buying psychology, but, you know, going after those bottom of the funnel people that I just say literally are ready to, to hit by, and you’re just like, oh, here’s the best one. I’ve done the research for you. I looked through all the Viator tours I, you know, did a comparison.

And this one’s the best one because it includes these three places you must eat at in LA and it’s rated 4.9 outta five stars and 3000 ratings. So no chance you’re not gonna love it too. So it’s, it’s sort of just like putting the right thing in front of the right people. And when you’re doing your keyword research and you see that best hotels in LA has like, you know, 25,000 monthly, right?

But then best pet friendly hotels in LA has 1200. Well, it’s a no, it’s a, it doesn’t matter if the best hotel in la you know, like you walk in and like angels sing to you and like they take you on a cloud to your room. Like if you have a pet, you can’t stay there if they don’t allow pets. It’s just a hard no, right?

So, like, the pet people are, are dying for the, with pets, la hotels with pets content. So, you know, don’t like always go after the big one. So I recommend people start with like the smaller ones, like pet friendly hotels in la with a pool. What whatever your keyword research tells you is the best long tail.

And then once you have like a few best hotels in LA and then everything links back to, to everything. And that’ll get you to the, I mean, best hotels in LA is pretty, pretty competitive. That’s not the best example to be using for this, cuz that’s gonna be hard to rank for. But, you know, a smaller city, obviously that makes more sense for it, but, , 

Jared: first off, it’s clear you still do your own keyword research cuz you are whipping these out , like you have a screen in front of you with with keywords

I think you bring up such a fascinating point about the buyer intent, and I think you went deeper than most people go when mm-hmm. thinking about it. And, and the reason I said that is because, you know, we’ve talked about buyer intent on the, on the podcast before and like, top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, bottom of the funnel, bottom of the funnel is where people are, are thinking about buying.

And I think it’s a slippery slope because it’s easy to just think that all affiliate keywords, all best of keywords are bottom of the funnel just by the very nature of putting best in. But I I love how you broke down that. No, no, no. Actually there are specific buyer intent keywords that are, they are very hyper ready to buy and then there’s, yes, I wanna make a purchase, but I’m still at the top of mm-hmm the funnel of making a purchase.

And that’s really interesting. Let me ask you a variant of that. Some people would say, well, how do you know whether to write the article on best pet friendly hotels in Los Angeles? Or just include it in a bigger buying guide like Best Hotels in Los Angeles. Some people would say, just go to Google, research it and see what Google says.

When you type in the best pet friendly hotels, do you ever do that or do you just say, I know in my heart that their intent is not to get a big list, but to get a specific article, so I’m gonna write it anyways? 

Shelley: Well, I never go off of what my heart is telling me. I go off of what data tells me. 

Jared: Okay, so you do, you go to Google and kind of say like, Hey, is this article actually something that Google wants me to write?

Shelley: Well, I mean, I do look at keyword research, you know, key search volume and, and I use a trusts too. But I do look at search volume, but I mean, at the end of the day, like pet travels like a billion dollar industry, like there’s 0{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} chance whatever key search is telling me. I know people are searching for hotels in LA that are pet friendly.

I mean, and key search would tell me that, I mean, again, I don’t know that LA is like the greatest example for this. But yeah, I defer to data. But if you go to key search and you start looking all these, all the long tail keywords are gonna show, and you can pick the best one and you can, you can see, you know, in that URL column of key search.

Like if no one’s optimized a post for best, you know pet friendly hotels in la. Even if, you know, all the top 10 is like hotels.com, booking.com TripAdvisor, whatever it is, you know, you’re seeing these high das, but like nobody’s actually written that piece of content, so, you know, don’t let that scare you.

It’s never, I’ve never let that scare me. And it’s been working out, but yet I, I defer to data for sure. Let 

Jared: me ask you about the affiliate programs, because I think that a lot of people listening might still be stuck on bigger affiliate programs. We’ll just say Amazon, because that’s the ubiquitous one that a lot of people start off with.

How many travel affiliate programs did you try out? You know, to find one or several that worked really well. Did you have others that you would try out and it, they didn’t work as well, whether it’s from a conversion standpoint or from a option standpoint. Like, I’m just trying to think about the person out there who, like you said, maybe is ad heavy and reticent to trying affiliate marketing.

And, and trying to think about some of the questions they might have. 

Shelley: I’m actually not in that many programs. People ask me that all the time. I just believe in like, what’s working and how can I do more of that. Have I tried any That didn’t work. I mean, Amazon is it, I think I did like 800 a month that last month on Amazon.

900 a month, something like that. It does. Okay. I mean, don’t like write it off, but I don’t think for travel it’s the best one. Just cuz it’s so hard to rank for any of those, you know, Amazon takes. Or Amazon pays you out. Like what? 1{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} , something laughable per item. And it’s just for travel.

I’ve never really identified anything that ends up being like so lucrative that it makes so much sense for, or, and lucrative in that I can rank for, cuz like, right, like best backpack for, for travel. Like, I’m not gonna rank for that, things like that. So don’t discount it. But you know, don’t let that be the be all, end all.

I identify like the big five for travel, let’s say, which is like accommodations. Hotels for me, I don’t really do budget travel, but if you did a budget, travel site, hustles would be for you. Maybe car rentals travel insurance and tours. And Amazon is the fifth one, or physical products is the fifth one.

Like if you’re in hiking or outdoors, I you, I would encourage you to look at the R e I program or something like that where the payouts are. Not so laughable . But yeah, I mean, I just stick to what travelers want. I’m not trying to like reinvent the wheel, right? So like the things I just listed, car rental, hotel tour, travel insurance.

Not everyone gets that, but still physical products, like everyone does need luggage. So, you know, I just went with what was really logical to my niche. 

Jared: Before we jump into the podcast, I wanted to let you know that today’s episode is sponsored by Search Intelligence. Here’s a short clip of Ferry from Search Intelligence showing you how their agency built digital PR links to a client’s website.

Shelley: In this video, I will show you how we landed a placement on BBC and dozens of links in massive regional online publications such as Wears Online, daily Posts, and many more. This PR campaign was about the easiest place to pass your driving test for the first time 

Jared: in the uk.

Shelley: This is how we’ve done it. We simply went to D Value website, found the latest car driving test data by test center, and downloaded the data in a CSB format. Once we had the data, all we had to do is to look at the number of total tests per test center, then look at the number of. First time passes to calculate the percentage of people who passed their tests for the first time.

Once we had the percentage numbers, we created a press release with our findings. Then we went to Rox Hill and found journalists who talk about driving tests and also looked for journalists who write in regional publications in the uk. In total, we have found about 1,800 journalists and sent them our press list by email within less than a day.

Our story got picked up by PBC Cornwell, life Wells online, and dozens of other publications in the uk providing our client a tsunami of back links. Perfectly relevant to the audience of the client who is a specialist in learner driver car insurance. I hope this video is helpful and it shows you how you can also build links with freely available data from 

Jared: official sources.

If you want similar link building PR campaigns for your website. Head to search-intelligence.co.uk and get in touch with them. Now, you talked earlier, you just kind of teased it a bit. You mentioned that if you’re not in the top three, it doesn’t matter and it’s a good point. You know, data would suggest that only the top three posts that are ranking are really gonna get any traffic.

How do you go about determining if you can get the top three? A lot of software, a lot of keyword research tools will tell you. I’ll say probably more focused on top 10. Yeah. How do you do, do you have any tips for kind of figuring out top three and not worrying about the top 10? . 

Shelley: Well, the riches are in the niches.

That’s what they say. So my site is niche. I have a very authoritative site on one topic, and I can now just be like, oh, okay, I’ll rank for that. I mean, you know, sometimes it takes me a while, but I, I just kind of know. I mean, and then I, you monitor after that, right? So like like 282,000, sorry, look, I wanted to make sure I got the number right.

282,000 page views in the last 30 days to my site. 50{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} of that comes from three articles and pretty much the rest of it comes from 10, the, my top 10 traffic post. So I’m, I’m just monitor those to not, you know, lose traffic here and there. I am very aware of what’s ranking, let’s say four through 12 or 13 to see if I can push anything up on page one.

Into numbers 1, 2, 3 you know, especially if they’re like 4, 5, 6. But I’m also looking at what’s like 11, 12, 13, and how can I get that onto page one? And then, you know, a step by, you can build it step by step, but when you have an authority, when you have an established authority and you are doing pretty good in a, in a niche I don’t know if it’s niche or niche either.

Niche, niche, 

Jared: oh man. The ongoing debate , right? 

Shelley: You know, I just know, and my site is a da 31 d R 36, so I don’t have like a number that people are gonna like, you know, I don’t, I don’t have that number, but I, I just know that if I write Mexico’s stuff, it’s going to rank if I then start trying to write LA stuff, it’s, there’s no way, you know, I don’t have a chance.

So I think I just have really carved out a little piece. Of of, of the market, so to speak. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . But I think you can also do that through content pillars. I don’t think you need like a site site that’s super dedicated. But yeah, that’s, I’m, I monitor, that’s, I monitor stuff pretty heavily because most of my money and traffic is on, is coming from five posts, let’s say out of, I think the big site has 170, so that it doesn’t even have that many articles on it either.

For, for the numbers that I do. But I would say I’m pretty strategic and I wanted to make money from the 

Jared: beginning. Yeah. I was gonna ask you about how many articles the big site had so that that answers that. It isn’t too many. Let’s walk through that. You get an article to number 10. What do you do to get it to number three?

What do you do to get it to number two, what do you do to get it to number one and the things you do, or you, you know because you talk about how, how closely you monitor those, what do you do when you see, when it hits your radar? 

Shelley: You could go through key put, put the main keyword in key search, and it, then it gives you that whole 699 list of keywords.

I would then filter that by volume, make sure I have like those really big ones in there. My, well, it rotates, my top two posts rotate, so it’s either one or two today. I’m not sure. It has, it ranks for like 2,500 keywords which is insane . But all my posts have like a couple hundred keywords at least.

So I’d go through, make sure I, I have all those keywords. I would then put it through the content optimizer and key search as well. Make sure I’m getting like a lot of the lsi, I would go through the rest of the top 10 in Google. Like, do they have a chart? Do they have a map? You know, things like that.

Do they own an in infographic? Google seems to love infographics. Build a back link. There is a lot of power in a really, really strong back link. I encourage people even to, you know, everyone’s like, well, how do I find, how do I find back links? How do I find it? And I’m like, well, you can be kind of proactive and like, if there’s something you need a, a good back link to, you can write an actual guest post to it, put some photos in it.

Put everything in a Google Drive, optimize it for seo, edit it, make sure you didn’t put any, there’s no like embarrassing typos. Make it completely like print ready. And then go into like some travel blogging, networking groups on Facebook and shop it around. Be like, I have this 2,500 word SEO optimized, post 10 photos ready to go in a Google drive.

I’ll gladly give it to a DA 50 plus. So. Be, you know, proactive in link building interlink. I do use your plugin. Interlinking is super important. It’s just all, it’s all the best practices because I always tell people like, you never really know, like, you know, someone has their secret sauce, right?

But you don’t know the one ingredient that makes it so special. So, you know, just kind of throw everything at it. I’ll, I’ll go hard like a, like a rabid dog on on things like that if I really think it’s like it’s appropriate to do. 

Jared: Yeah. Well, and I think you speak, you speak back to it, but I was noticing in some of your posts, like, I mean, you’ll embed a Google map, you’ll have, you know, really eye-popping images.

So it’s not just about maybe some of the SEO op, you know, the optimization best practices, but you’re right, you have a, you have a lot of internal links, , you know, so it’s clear. You, you, you, you know, I guess you said you’re using Link Whisper for that, but, you know, internal linking, creating that topical relevance.

And, and we’ve talked a lot on the podcast about how to update articles, how to make them the best available. But you’re right, I mean, I think a lot of people maybe stop at using a little bit of maybe keyword optimization softwares or tools and then, then move on. But I, I, I just wanted to double down on the fact that you really are making it.

I don’t wanna be too dramatic, but we’ll call it the best post available for that topic, you know? Well, yeah. I say 

Shelley: that all the time. Like when you start reaching a certain level, people are like, well, what are you doing? You know, like, and then it’s like, It starts being like, well, you are just special. And I’m like, I’m not just special.

Like I’ve made it hard to not be picked. Number one, . Like, 

Jared: it’s a good 

Shelley: way to put it. You have to. Yeah. Like you, it’s not no one’s special. Like I’m, we’re all just people made of the same people stuff. Like, I’m definitely not special, but I make it so it’s like very hard to be like, no, this one’s not that great.

Really. Like, it’s like, no, I’ve done everything you’ve said. And of course there’s like a couple articles that like I’ve done that do not rank, like they’re in the wasteland of page two . And there’s like nothing I can do. I’ve been trying so hard and like, you know, I have more victories than failures, but it does happen.

But yeah, you just go hard, go hard at it, throw everything at it, and don’t stop until it gets to number one. I mean, that’s how you Right, that’s succeeding. Like never quitting, . 

Jared: Let’s talk a bit about how you write content and nowadays you have multiple sites to write for. Do you do, did you write most of the articles for your bigger site?

Do you write all the articles for your websites now? Did you transition into having writers? 

Shelley: I have, I have two, like full, full-time, I’ll call ’em full-time writers. I go in and out with a couple other writers. I am able to really turn content into more content, if that makes sense. Things like that.

So I get a little more creative than people do. I am like, what can I, how can I like combine things into another thing? But I don’t write too much anymore. I do have a team now. I have an editor and a blog manager and a layout person and, and things like that. And I’m hiring more writers, so, I don’t anymore, but I do train them in how I’ve done it all along.

Because again, like I don’t, I don’t know what the thing was that I did, right? All I can do is like keep, and I have to tell like my employees that sometimes, so they don’t think I’m like the most insanely annoying, detail oriented person. I’m like, no, this has to be like this and this has to be like this.

Because I don’t know if that was the thing that led to like my success, you know? So I’m, I go, I go keyword heavy. I guess if that would be the one tip that I would say about writing a post and skyscraper content, I guess is, is how they call it. Like, so if, if I’m seeing, if I’m looking at the top 10 in the.

It’s mostly like top 15 hotels in la, top 12 hotels in la you know, I know I have to do 15 and I’m making sure to include content that’s in every single one of those articles. And then a really big FAQ at the end. So I really do think the outline is the most important. And then go, go hard on keywords.

I mean, don’t keyword stuff. I do see sites that are fully keyword stuffed, but I also think it’s a matter of time for them, like I’m following best practices. But I know that means longevity. I mean, Google could change best practices, but then I would change best practice, my best practices. So the outline’s very important.

Seeing what is ranking in the top 10 is very important. And then just doing better. 

Jared: Are you doing your own outlines or do the writers do the outline? You do the, you do your own outlines yourself, and then maybe hand that off to a writer. So I just hired a blog. I was an emphatic head shake. Yes. So I wanna let you just go on, on that for a while.

Shelley: Well, you know, it’s, I’m learning to give up control , but I just hired someone. I’m calling a blog manager. I don’t know if I made that up or not. So I’m training her to do the outlines. But it’s something I’ve always done. And even though I’ve had writers for about six months, I’ve always done the outlines because it’s, if you don’t have like that firm foundation putting a bunch of keywords into, it’s not gonna, not gonna make sense.

You know, the headings for Google is, is a big thing. You know, the larger text, whatever you have in larger text obviously gets notice more even for user experience. You know, most people are scrolling your posts, not reading every word. So yes, I think that lines are, are super important and I have always done my own, but hopefully next time we record, I will not be doing that anymore.

Jared: We’ll see, it’s not like they do take up a decent amount of time, but at the same time, they’ve allowed you to scale so that you’re not right anymore. So yeah, I mean, yeah. You know, progress happens in baby steps sometimes. Not in yes it does. Not in full, full sweep. Hey, so let’s touch on it because you did grow your site dramatically.

Did, you did talk a bit about the back links. Would you say that, you know, you’ve done a lot of building of links for these sites or just here and there, how much of a contributor were, was link building to the growth of these websites? 

Shelley: I. And I don’t know if it’s because so many people are like, I’m just not doing it.

I’m, I’m like, backing, smacking, smacking, sparkling, sparkling, sparkling. I did so many collab posts collaborations with other bloggers. I did so many guest posts my first year blogging. And I truly believe in the power of backlinks. I still do it for all my sites. I, I’m, I have a high authority site or higher authority site, I guess.

So I can link to the other ones through that one, but I know that’s also part of the reason that they’ve grown quickly too. But I’ve still done the same things I do like, or I assign, like collaboration, you know, other my writers to do collaborations and things like that, to, to build links because I think it’s important.

And I also think it’s the thing nobody’s doing or one of the things nobody’s doing, let’s say. 

Jared: When it comes to a newer site, you know, are you starting out outta the get go kind of building links? Even the site is new and doesn’t have a lot of content on it, or you, you know, does have to hit, hit a certain threshold.

I’m curious cuz your new sites, they, they get traction pretty quickly. 

Shelley: Everything starts from day one. I go affiliate heavy and low, let me see, lemme make sure I’m saying this right. Low competition, high, highest volume that I can possibly get with lowest competition keywords. I, I mean, I don’t know this, this, I don’t know, but like in my head, the faster I can get a few things ranking number one on Google, like the faster Google’s like, Hey, what’s this site all about?

So everything’s from day one. I don’t, I don’t think you know, I think we make up kind of those own gl, our own like kind of glass ceilings or whatever in our head and these benchmarks that we have to hit. And they’re, they’re mostly based on hearsay and like someone else’s experience. So I love to be like, no, just start from day one.

Like, I saw that in a Facebook group a couple months ago, and they were like, when should I get started with affiliate marketing? And I said yesterday like, I believe in that even my, my, well, it’s not my baby anymore now, my fourth it’s only a couple months old and I’m making about a hundred dollars a month in it off of affiliate sales.

And I think it just broke a thousand month in the last 30 days of traffic. So you do not need a lot of traffic. You do need a strategy. So you’re not like throwing spaghetti at the wall like that is a strategy from time to time. But with the new sites Go after keywords, you can get to number one for right away.

And that’s also gonna keep propelling you forward. Those little victories are gonna be what’s possible. I’ve heard it’s harder to make, you know, a hundred dollars than it is to make a hundred thousand. 

Jared: Right? Yeah. You know, it’s interesting you caught roof was on the podcast a couple months, probably a couple months ago now.

Sure. Talking about, and one of the things he said that really stuck out to me was sites that rank for keywords do better in Google’s eyes. Not only now, I think so, but Yeah. But in future future updates with future content. And so it’s about, you know, ranking keywords. So it’s interesting to hear you say that the quicker you can get your site mm-hmm.

I guess your take on that would be the quicker you can get your site to ranking for keywords, the quicker you can grow that site across a whole number of keywords. 

Shelley: Mm-hmm. , even if it’s like a low, lower volume. You know, that means less people are competing for it. And even hidden keywords is a whole other strategy as well, that my friend Nina was on the podcast a while ago.

I know she talks a lot about hidden keywords. That’s a whole other strategy. Those are gonna show up as zero volume in key search, but you could be getting thousands of pages for that, and no one’s going to even see it, to think to go after it. So, 

Jared: yeah, there’s funny, there’s, you listened to the Kyle podcast.

He talked about zero, you know, volume, keywords, , 

Shelley: I mean, it’s a, yeah, it’s a whole other, it’s a whole other strategy. But yeah, that was sort of my, my thought when I started the fourth one. I’m like, well, what, because my third one and second one we’re pretty lower competition in terms of like, other sites existing for those same niches.

But my fourth site has other competition with similar niche sites. So I was just like, how can I. You know, get out of the sandbox, I guess, as fast as possible. So I just started going after keywords that were lower volume and pretty much that no one else had written about. And I’m, I’ve started there and I don’t know, you know, a lot of this is testing, right,

So like, I always tell people, like, they’re like, what, what can, what can I do just like you? And I’m like, you can test you can pick one thing and test it for six months, and if in six months, like that is not working at all, you can do another, you do a different thing. But, you know, pick one thing, stick to it for a while, ride it out.

So for me, that was starting with these really low competition keywords on the, on the newest site. And yeah, it just, it’s only like, I wanna say it’s like two and a half, three, let’s say it’s three months old. But yeah, I just broke like a thousand page views in the last 30 days with the little one, 

Jared: the.

A constant question with affiliate marketers is, do I need to write, we’ll call it non monetized, non-affiliate style content. Right. So you had, you know, you used the analogy earlier about the best hotels in Los Angeles. These are all like very buyer intent affiliate marketing type posts. How much info content do you write for your site?

Do you have a, a percentage that you, you think you need to stay within? Do you think that’s all bogus and you don’t worry about it? You know, and, and do you follow that across each of your sites? 

Shelley: I would say, I don’t really think about it too much. Two out of two of my sites are monetized through Mediavine ads, so I do want content that just brings in traffic because I make money that way too.

But my content, my affiliate content is traffic content. Like I have satisfied search intent on that keyword so much that like, if I took the, the affiliate links out, I still rank number one for really good content. So I liked. I mean, there are for sure affiliate keywords and traffic keywords, but your affiliate posts should be a really, really good traffic post as well.

So I don’t know. I think the line is more blurred for me than I would say, do one and not do the other, or, I do this much of this and this much of it. Like they’re all kind of traffic posts. Just some have more affiliate links in them. Yeah. Yeah. 

Jared: Slowly starting to kind of maybe transition outta the weeds and into this kind of high level conversation that we started with, which is that you have this very successful site earning, I think you said about 70{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} of your total revenue, and then in 2022, so in the last 12 months or so, you slowly started to pivot and start some new sites, and it’s kind of the age old question, right?

Like I definitely ask this a lot with people who have multiple sites. I don’t wanna get their insights because you had a very successful site. When did you make the decision and why? Between putting more and all of your effort into that successful site versus starting off one, two, and, and three more website.

So 

Shelley: I actually started the second one because it was the city that I lived in for three years. I’ve since moved to a new city, but my intention was to do tours in that city. So I was actually starting the second website more as a selling tool or a traffic funnel to get people to book tours. But I quickly realized that like I can do okay on my own.

Like I don’t really have to loop the general public into my life anymore. And I work better that way. So I kind of gave up on the thing for tours, but then like I got that site into Media Vine in four months which is really quick. And I just realized I could grow sites pretty quick. So I’m comfortable starting new ones.

I always tell people not to start a new site unless you. Have some kind of, let’s say, goal in mind. Like, don’t start a new site for the sake of starting a new site, especially if you’re not doing, I don’t know, your number is your number, but let’s say like 10 K, like passively, like for four to six months in a row.

And then be like, okay, maybe it’s, I can go all in on a second one because you don’t wanna go all in on a second one and give it like 10{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} because you’re, you’re never gonna see what you saw with the first one. Mm-hmm. . So I’m a big fan of not doing another site. I do also have, like, you know, these to me are, are digital properties or assets that I can sell one day.

So I’m sort of forward thinking in that way too. But yeah, don’t start a second site to start a second site. That’s a bad idea. 

Jared: Shiny 

Shelley: syndrome, right? Don’t, don’t have it. Do whatever you have to do to not have shiny 

Jared: so hard to, 

Shelley: so hard to really, I feel like it’s not, I guess I don’t, I guess by nature, I don’t naturally have, I mean, you know, I’m a human.

Like sometimes I do have it, but like, I don’t think that was one of my hurdles to overcome. Just again, like by na by nature. I don’t think, for me that was, I’m more of a like, do one thing. Person, I guess. I don’t know. My f like, focus wasn’t hard for 

Jared: me. You’re, I think you’re well optimized then for succeeding in, in, in website, you know, on websites.

Because oftentimes, I mean, you said it yourself, like as soon as something’s successful, you just did it 10 times over again. And I think there’s some, for many, there’s monotony in that. And so the, for sure, you know, right. So that’s why I think we’re the shiny object center might come in like, but, but you already said this is part of the big reason for your success is, hey, you’ve seen this, this works.

I’m just gonna go do that over and over and over and over, and over. 

Shelley: Yeah, I like, so when I talk about like having a very niche site, like I have a country site, I have city sites, stuff like that, you know, people are like, well, it’s so limiting, it’s so limiting. And I’m like, you know, what’s not limiting? My income is not limiting.

That has opened a world to me. But I also think like people get into this sort of with very lofty ideas. You know, writing just in is one of those kind of things where it’s kind of like, I don’t know, people see like, what’s that movie almost famous? And I’m gonna go on tour with the Bandman and I’m gonna like, it’s all, it’s very like, Idealized kind of a field.

And I guess I saw the ugly side of journalism having more . It’s a journalist. It’s kinda like if you’re an actor in a movie, it’s glamorous on the outside, but on the inside it’s like, it’s work, right? Mm-hmm. . So I think people start this and they’re like, well, how can I just do whatever I want forever?

And I’m like, well, that’s not a job. I mean, that’s a hobby, you know, you can do that, but, you know, hobbies, bring hobby results. So I just, you know, I’m def I guess I’m not like a tough love kind of parent managing expectations. Like, you know, this is your it, you wanna make job money, you know, this has to be your job.

And many aspects of our jobs are not the, our favorite part of the day. And like, that’s okay. But, you know, I live where I want. I work when I want and I earn money while I sleep. So like, there’s no limit. , there’s nothing limiting about those statements, right? So, 

Jared: I meant to ask earlier, and I got sidetracked with another question.

Obviously you, and we spent the bulk of the interview talking about the SEO approach you bring. Are you, are you doing anything else for these websites beyond writing optimized content? Are you doing email marketing or social media accounts? Putting any effort into anywhere other than than seo, 

Shelley: I do know social media whatsoever.

Okay. As a conscious choice, I. Dislike it on a personal level. But I also, you know, so like when I got started with this in 2020 early mid or April, 2020 it was right before kind of this big huge Pinterest algorithm change. People have probably talked about that before. Oh, I know 

Jared: the one you’re talking about.

Yep. 

Shelley: Okay. So basically overnight people lost everything. And the same thing when Facebook changed their algorithms and pretty much like shut people out of their groups. And, you know, made everything, you know, ads only Instagram as well. Now we’ve seen it on Pinterest, things like that, like, you know, it’s still rented.

you’re still on lease land or whatever. So from the beginning, all I ever heard anyone talking about, you know, so I’m coming in at that point, right where everyone, people are losing everything overnight on Pinterest and everyone was, you know, like the money’s in the list. The money’s in the list. So I did start an email list really early.

I still honestly struggle with how to monetize that list for my niche specifically. Other niches might be to monetize an email list, but people are kind of one and done with travel, which is where it’s a little tricky. At least for me, like if anyone listening has tips for me, please slide into the dms I don’t use on social media.

No. No. Like, I just haven’t figured out how to do it. But I do have an email list for my new arm of business, which is travel, like blogging, about blogging. And that’s a really active list, and I can sell to that list pretty naturally and easily, literally just by like recommending things that I love.

So I, Domo marketing, I’m still, I feel like kind of new to it, but email marketing for travel blocking has honestly been a struggle to me. Mm-hmm. . But I did take heed of the warnings I got very early on to not waste your time on social media because it’s just too much of 

Jared: a gamble. Hmm. You know, you mentioned it.

Let’s, as we wrap up, you are you talk a little bit about how you are. You have a website that’s that’s geared towards helping other content creators with affiliate marketing. Share if you can share that website and you know, where people can go to learn more about that. 

Shelley: Okay. If you would like to see my baby, my newest baby don’t know if it’s a he or she or they the website is travel blogging one oh one.com.

I do have a really good freebie on there. It’s a video kind of mini course on the five programs. I recommend my big five that I make a lot of money off of month after month. So you can go there. It’s the first thing you’ll see when you go to the homepage and grab that video, download and get started.

The first step to affiliate marketing is to affiliate market. Yeah, 

Jared: it’s interesting. I mean, like you said, it’s it’s to the point of what you’ve talked about so far in the interview. It’s not just about getting started on building a website, but also if you’re maybe ad heavy, your encouragement, it sounds like is to, to lean more into affiliate marketing to, to have another channel for, for where you make your income.

Shelley: Oh, well, yeah, for sure. I mean, again, like. I mean the people you know that talked a lot about not being affected so much during Covid just a few years back was like the people who were diversified. So I was always like, okay, well what else can I do? And then I do make a lot of money on Meine. But that’s also cuz I have a lot of traffic, right?

So I think when you’re coming in at 50 k, they require 50,000 sessions in a 30 day period for you to send the app to them. I mean, in, within travel, if you have majority majority US traffic, you’re still looking at like 2000 to 2,500 pre-taxed dollars. And I, I just don’t think it’s really the quit your job kind of money that most people are, are hoping it’s gonna be.

So. Affiliate marketing is another great way to do it. Sponsorships, which I don’t do, those are kind of hard if you don’t have a social media following. It’s also a lot of negotiation and lawyer stuff that I try to avoid if I can. So yeah, for me, like the easiest way, were the easiest ways were ads and affiliates, and now even with two sites on Mediavine, I’m still doing like 65{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} of my income from affiliate marketing.

All right. 

Jared: Well, we’ll include a link to your website to show notes so people can hop over there and grab your freebie. That’s a pretty good freebie. A mini course. still. That’s a good one. Hey, thanks so much, Shelly, for joining us. I didn’t say it. Congratulations on your success. You are sitting in a much different position here January, 2023 than you were just one year ago in January 20th, 2020 2022.

And man, congratulations. That’s really amazing. Thanks for sharing your story with with all of us here. 

Shelley: Sure. Thank you so much. And a lot can happen in a year. So wherever you’re sitting today, Next year, you could be in a whole different ballgame too. 

Jared: That’s what we should call this one. A lot can happen in a year.

That’s a a that’s a really, A lot can happen in a year. Well, you’re proof. We don’t need to , you know, it’s a motivational line, but it’s you, you back it up with truth. So thanks for sharing a very motivational story, but also very tactile story. You were, you were very good with all the details you shared about how people can, can can grow their website, their traffic, and their earnings this year.

So thanks so much for coming on the podcast until we until we talk again. 

Shelley: Thanks for having me. Bye. 

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Here’s a short clip of Ferry from Search Intelligence showing you how their agency built digital PR links to a client’s website. 

Shelley: In this video, I will show you how we landed a placement on BBC and dozens of links in massive regional online publications such as Wears Online, daily Posts, and many more.

This PR campaign was about the easiest place to pass your driving test for the first time in the uk.

Jared: This is how we’ve 

Shelley: done it. We simply went to D website, found the latest car driving test data by test center, and downloaded the data in a CSB format. Once we had the data, all we had to do is to look at the number of total tests per test center, then look at the number of first time passes to calculate the percentage of people who passed their tests for the first time.

Once we had the percentage numbers, we created a press release with our findings. Then we went to Rox. And found journalists who talk about driving tests and also look for journalists who write in regional publications in the uk. In total, we have found about 1,800 journalists and sent them our press list by email within less than a day.

Our story got picked up by PBC Corn Live Wells online, and dozens of other publications in the UK providing a client a tsunami of back links. Perfectly relevant to the audience of the client who is a specialist in learner driver car insurance. I hope this video is helpful and it shows you how you can also build links with freely available data from official sources.

Jared: If you want similar link building PR campaigns for your website, head to search intelligence.co.uk and get in touch with them.