302: Blogging, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Content Marketing, and Working from Home with Joseph Hogue

Robert Plank 0:00 Robert Plank Show, episode 302, blogging, search engine optimization, content marketing and working from home with Joseph Hogue. Hey everybody, and welcome back to the show. Our guest today is Joseph Hogue. And Joseph discovered that financial independence meant owning his own websites and making it more than a side hustle. And Joe launched two sites on personal finance and crowdfunding, before launching three more on investing debt and making money. We're gonna talk about lots of cool stuff. So Mr. Joe, how are things today? I'm doing great. Robert, how are you super fantastic? Just got a haircut about an hour ago. So that means life is good, right?

Joseph Hogue 0:37 Excellent. Well, I shaved, so I don't have to worry about that, I guess. So life is always fantastic,

Robert Plank 0:43 awesome. Every single day of the week, perfect. So, so what is it that you do, and what makes you stand out? And what kind of has you excited these days? Well,

Joseph Hogue 0:51 you know, just, just being an online entrepreneur, entrepreneur, and I know that's that's probably cliche by now, we had all the, all the big success stories in in the in the 90s, but there's still a huge opportunity online. If you think about, you know, owning your own online assets, you own websites, it's, it's really the Wild West, it's real estate development in a digital format. So I'm just, you know, rock rocking. The websites out learning every day, and and, and just making a living.

Robert Plank 1:24 Awesome. So the the good old days are still here. It's not too late to make some of these websites and things. So, I mean, what kind of stuff do you have built up right now? Well,

Joseph Hogue 1:33 like I said, I've got, I've got the five websites I actually sold one last month, and, we can get into, you know, a really important lesson, lesson I learned from that. But the five websites are, you know, personal finance, crowdfunding, investing, making money, just everything I like to talk about. And I found that, you know, a lot of bloggers, they like, they like to have one website where they talk about everything myself. You know, I started learning about Google and how it ranks websites, how it ranks pages, and I didn't want to dilute one single website with everything that I like to talk about. So I started, started the five different websites I get to, get to address a very niche, very targeted market within each people know what each each each each website stands for. Google knows what it stands for and and I think it's just a great, a great reader experience on each

Robert Plank 2:27 awesome makes a lot of sense, and you're right. I'm really curious to figure out a few things like how you sold this site, and how you kind of managed all your time when it was spread those different ways. So so those first couple sites that you made, so you made a personal finance and a crowdfunding site. And so, like, how did that happen? Did you have all five ideas ahead of time, and you just made these two were like, What were those first couple of sites? Like, no,

Joseph Hogue 2:51 well, you know, I I knew back in 2011 that I just didn't enjoy the right race, right? I had never, I was my early 30s. I had never really enjoyed a job I had, you know, after that six month honeymoon period where you love your work and then you figure out that this isn't what you wanted to be doing for the next 30 years. So I knew I wanted to, I wanted my own assets, my own financial independence, and I wanted to be doing what I wanted to do. So I, you know, I went online, learned everything I could about websites, and found out that they don't make money, not at first, anyway, not for a long time. I refer back to a pro blogger survey of blogger incomes, pretty often, and only, you know, only about 15% of bloggers out there make more than, you know, a few 1000 a month. So I knew the key was starting my own freelance projects, you know, gradually building into that, into those websites. So I started freelancing online, mostly writing, doing investment analysis, and they really gave me the time to develop my own websites and get them to where they were making money. So the first two a personal finance site called Pure finance, 101 and in a crowdfunding site called Crowd 101 I started in 2014 and you know, the the personal finance site was, was everything, you know, it was investing, it was making money. It was personal finance and debt, everything that I wanted to talk about the crowdfunding one. I had watched crowdfunding for a while, and was really interested in both, you know, the Kickstarter approach, as well as crowdfunding investing, which was just starting to starting to get popular. So I had a really good success with those really good through 2015 you know, doubled my traffic, doubled my monthly income every every six months or so. But I found, I did. I found that, you know, I was putting everything onto that personal finance side. I was putting investing, a retirement plan and everything. People were coming to the site for a specific need in. And not being able to find other stuff. You know, somebody comes from Google for a retirement planning article that they found, but then they have to wade through debt management and personal finance and all kinds of other stuff to find something else they like. So I really looked at it and said, You know what? There's, there's something to be said for having multiple sites that are that are more niche, that are more targeted, besides just that user experience, and obviously the Google factor there is websites make money differently. You know, if you own more than one website, you'll find out that some do really well with affiliate sales, which is basically, you know, promoting another company's product, and then you get a commission off of any sales. Some websites do really well with self publishing. Some, you know, there's, there's about four or five income streams that that really vary across websites. So the idea is to really diversify your income streams every month. You know, if one falls falls back a little bit, then you've got three or four to rely on. And it's just a much more, much more sound business model, I think, is what I've found anyway,

Robert Plank 6:09 awesome. And a lot of what you said there make it makes a lot of sense, and sort of what, what's clicking for me a lot in some of those stories. And you said that, you know, you maybe you had a lot of topics on the site, and you figured, okay, maybe I should kind of make a branches off on its own site, or that whole thing about how, you know, some sites made money different ways, like some on affiliate programs, on ad stuff like that. It just all sounds like what we all need to do is put a bunch of stuff out there and take some action and then look back at at what people liked or what made money, as opposed to trying to plan it all out ourselves. It makes more sense to kind of try some stuff and then sort of 8020, out what's, what makes money and what doesn't,

Joseph Hogue 6:47 what's working, sure, sure. And you know, even with one site, you'll, it's, it's, it's very hard to to to know the game before you, before you play it. You know, it's, you'll, you'll see some stuff just, just become a smash hit on your on your site without really even trying, and some stuff, you'll just work your butt off, and it'll get nowhere. So it's, it's a little bit of a shotgun approach sometimes, but, but it does work, you know, and it's, it's, I think it's a much more stable and robust way of doing things, rather than just, you know, doing one thing, hoping it does well. And basically, you know, whether they say the definition of insanity, just keep on doing that same thing and hope it, hope for different results,

Robert Plank 7:32 right? And that that sort of incorrect way of doing things sounds like a lot of waiting, a lot of putting your eggs in one basket, doesn't sound like a lot of fun. And so, you said that. So you had the ideas for a couple of these sites, pure finance, 101, and crowd 101, calm. And while you were sort of building those up, and those are picking up steam, you were doing, like, the freelance projects to make that immediate money. And so as far as, like, building the sites, I mean, how much were you putting into it? Was it like, you know, an hour or two a day. Or did you have like, goals for like, certain, a certain number of like, pieces of content, or like, what was sort of your strategy with building those sites

Joseph Hogue 8:09 up? Well, you know, websites are, it's a long term project. It's, it's something that I spent, I think, 20 or 30 hours a week, probably closer to 30 hours a week on the sites, and then I would do maybe another 20 hours a week freelancing with with the sites. You know, you don't have to be perfect. You write up your you write up your design some ideas, you write up some some initial articles to put on there. But, but the big thing is just get it out there. You know, I know a lot of lot of bloggers, lot of potential bloggers, anyway, that get that analysis paralysis, where they they spend so much time working on the idea and want it to be perfect, want it to be certain, want everything to be certain. Then they never get around to actually doing it and and it isn't long before they just get, you know, demotivated, because they're really not making progress on something that hasn't really even started yet. So you really have to, you have to get it out there. Don't be afraid to to tear everything down and build it back up after you get some some feedback. But just just get going. Awesome. And

Robert Plank 9:21 I can really relate to that, especially that, that whole perfectionism aspect of it, where, like, you know, I might overthink stuff, or over plan stuff, or, you know, spend a bunch of time, you know, proofreading a blog post, like, for the fifth time. And it's sort of a slippery slope, isn't it, because it's like, well, on one hand, I might spend, you know, hours and hours on one blog post, so then it better be good, and then it kind of, I end up playing this sort of trick in my head, of like, well, now I spent five hours on it, like, what's Five more hours? Or if I put it out there and there's any money, then that's like five hours wasted. And then there's the whole problem of, well, if I'm like, thinking too far ahead, then it's almost like the outcome sort of plays itself out in my head. And then why even finish the. Blog post, why even go to the site where I already imagined all these things happening? So I can totally relate to that perfectionism part. So I mean, what was sort of like your routine like, did you, did you do the build up the sites like, before you did your freelancing during the day? Or did you, like, try to, like, get a certain number of posts pumped out per week? Or what was that sort of routine like there. Well,

Joseph Hogue 10:22 starting out I was, I was still working a full time job until 2013 so, so really, until then, it was, you know, full time during the day and freelancing at night while I kind of, you know, developed some of the other ideas. I started the the blogs in early 2014 after I had, just after, I had switched to to full time work, working from home. And, you know, I think one of the biggest things, especially as a new as a new blogger, a new, you know, online entrepreneur, if you will, you have to keep that schedule. You have to, you know, get up at eight o'clock in the morning, work until five or six, you have to have a schedule that that kind of keeps you from being distracted. I know a lot of times it can be tough with something always on TV or, Hey, I'll get up and get something to eat, but you really do need to have a set schedule that you can work on just to just to get stuff done and feel good about your work day, you know? I mean, otherwise, you're gonna find yourself procrastinating about a lot of tasks. You're you're gonna get distracted, you're not gonna get them done, and then you just feel generally kind of shitty at night, right, like you didn't get anything done, and that you're not, you're not progressing. But if you keep on a schedule, you actually, you know, formally, write down what you're going to do that day and and check it off as you go. Then you'll feel it. You'll feel good. You'll feel good about what you got done and, and, and how you're moving forward.

Robert Plank 11:52 Awesome, really good advice to kind of avoid that, that cycle. And it sounds like it's really easy to get stuck in that sort of loop there where, like, if, if we didn't take it seriously one day, then we had that kind of shitty at the end of the day feeling, and the next day it's like, well, what's, what's the point? Didn't do much the day before, and then it seems like I can kind of catch up to us. But as far as like, your your actual like activities during the day, or during part of the day where you carved out time to work on these sites, like, did you have any like sort of set time to to write, and a set time for traffic and a set time for, like, the social media and comments, or like, any sort of method to the madness in that respect?

Joseph Hogue 12:30 Sure, yeah, absolutely. In fact, I Well, you know, I'm up in the morning to get my son off to school. Usually get set back down to my computer at 730 and from 730 until about 1030 so, so about three hours there I just write, you know, I it's otherwise you're gonna find yourself checking email, checking traffic real quick, maybe Facebook, just the first thing you do in the morning, just write, get some blog posts out there, or whatever you're working on, the big things, right? Your your products, whatever, for another hour, maybe 1030 for about half an hour. Then I'll real quick, head on online, check the stock market, how it's doing, check my websites traffic, make sure that you know, everything looks, looks like it's up and running. And maybe I'll, I'll reply to a few emails. Then I spend another half hour kind of blog, commenting, sharing, you know, really looking at, looking at what other people are doing. Because within, you know, especially blogging, but, but throughout kind of the online space, it's, it's a community you really need to have. Those have that community that's going to be, you know, supporting you, sharing your stuff, and, you know, helping you, helping motivate you. Because it can be a little solitary if you're, if you're just sitting at your desk alone all day, you know, and then the afternoons are another two or three hour block of just writing products, that kind of thing. And then top it off with maybe an hour or two of some, you know, some some reading on blogging kind of, kind of research kind of thing, as well as looking at, looking at different monetization strategies, you know, like I said, each each blog makes money differently. So you're going to be looking at, okay, what are some new affiliates out there that I can promote? What are some product ideas that I've had that I want to develop a little bit more stuff like that? Awesome.

Robert Plank 14:34 So, so three hours in the morning writing, and then that little break of half an hour of like, you know, checking emails on things, another half an hour of blog commenting and sharing, and then afternoon time is writing making products. And then, sort of like, later afternoon, an hour or two of reading and research and looking into monetization and stuff like that,

Joseph Hogue 14:54 sure, yep, yep. And I do that. I do that probably three days, three, maybe four days a week. And then another two or three days a week. I usually work about six days a week, but the the Saturday or Sunday work day is, you know, three or four hours. I'll kind of have a movie in the background, just so it feels not quite like I'm working, but I am actually working. But yeah, three, three or four days a week doing that, and then another two days just spent on SEO, you know, link building outreach, because it's, it's so important, I think a lot of people avoid it, and it's really one of the, one of the keys, I think, to being successful online that a lot of people don't

Robert Plank 15:32 realize. So link building and outreach. What does that mean? Exactly, okay,

Joseph Hogue 15:37 well, you know, if you're online, you have, you're getting seen through Google, right? Google search is going to be probably half or more of your of your website traffic, whether you are, you know, billion dollar JC Penney struggling with traditional retail, or just, you know, somebody with a small blog. Now, how you get that Google search traffic is you rank and you do that se that search engine optimization is what it's called SEO. Now there's two parts. There's one part, it's on page, which is basically just, you know how you write your articles, where you put the the keywords, how you how you structure your articles, so Google knows a little bit better, a little easier, what that article is about and where it belongs in their search traffic. And then the other part is off page SEO, and that's really getting those links, getting people to notice your content, your articles, and providing a link to it, and that just gives it kind of that search, that authority with Google. And that's really the part that I think a lot of people avoid. They I've seen a lot of bloggers just break their back on content, you know, writing every day, really pushing their their articles, trying to get one a day or or two or three a week, and they really slowly get nowhere. And then I know a lot of bloggers that post maybe once or twice a month and constantly see higher traffic because they have an SEO strategy where they they know how to go out there, get links on other blogs or on other websites, and really develop that side of the of the business.

Robert Plank 17:13 Awesome. And then so, so what sort of things should bloggers and business owners be doing to get that to get those links to get that traffic from author site. Because I've seen, I've seen some bloggers like, by banner ads and things I've seen like, you know, some sort of, like, text link networks and stuff. I've been like, span. I pretty much get spanned on my contact form a couple times a day with someone like offering to post some sort of generic, cookie cutter article. So like, what sort of things should people be doing to get this traffic and get these links back to their sites?

Joseph Hogue 17:43 Sure, well, it's, it's, it's a process, you know? And I mean, I can run through kind of the details and the outline. I've actually, actually wrote a, wrote a book on Google SEO, but, you know, it starts with that keyword, keyword research. So what do you want Google to see that article for? And that goes through a whole, whole mini process there that's about, you know, 10 or 15 minutes of finding those keywords that you know, that you can actually rank for. Because, okay, if I'm writing about real estate investing, I'm never going to get on Google for that. It's, it's going to be Huffington Post, you know, entrepreneur, bigger pockets, that kind of thing. And I'm going to be on the fourth or fifth page, and nobody's going to read it. So I want to do find a keyword that's related to that that I can write this article around and and actually get on that first page of of Google. So it starts with that. It starts with, like I said, that on page SEO, where how you write the article, and how you position it really and, and a lot of this is all available on my one my my make money online blog, which is my work from home, money.com if you go into the blogging category, you'll find all kinds of articles on these but, but after you've written your article, is really where The off page SEO starts, and it's really about, you know, getting that, getting that article in front of people in different ways. You know, one of those ways is just kind of creating, maybe creating a two minute summary video about it that you put on YouTube, or creating a short audio clip of it, or a PDF that summarizes it. All these things can be done in, you know, two or three minutes. And, you know, posted posted different places on the web. Okay, so, so people are going to see it, people are going to get interested, go back to your site, and then that's just increases the chance that they're going to link to it. But there's also other link building strategies. I guess posting is a real popular one, but takes forever. You know, basically you're just, you're offering to write content for other people, and then they give you a link back to your site. You know, it's effective, but it takes two or three hours each post. So you know, who wants to who wants to do that, what you want to do? You want to do the. Um, the scalable link building strategies, the ones where you can get, you know, five or six links for an hour's worth of work and, and there's, there's a lot of different ways to do that, you know, you go broken link building. And we can, you know, we can get into a lot of these strategies, if you like. But basically it's, it's just getting your getting your article in front of people, getting them to notice it and and provide that link

Robert Plank 20:25 Awesome. Well, we don't have time to really go through a lot of stuff, but this whole broken link building idea, that's something I've never heard of, and I'm really curious. So what is that broken link building Exactly, okay.

Joseph Hogue 20:35 Well, you know, Webb's been around for what 25 years seems like a lot, lot longer than that, but, you know, websites go go down every day. You know, there's, there's about a billion, there's been about a billion websites for the last few years that that number stays pretty, pretty, pretty, even, just because so many go down and so many get, you know, get deleted. Well, if anybody is linking to one of those broken websites, or even an article on a live website that's that's now broken, then that that link is going to be go nowhere, right? And most people you've seen this, you click on a link online, and you go to a page and it says, I'm sorry this page is missing, or 404? Not Found, right? Well, broken link building is about finding those pages that are broken and then, you know, matching them up with stuff on your site that can be used as a replacement. So say I find a page about, you know, understanding your credit score, and it's, you know, it's broken. It used to be there. Bunch of people are linking to it, but it goes nowhere. So I've got a page about understanding your credit score that I want to promote, that I want to get ranked in Google search. So I reach out to these people. I say, hey, you know, I just noticed you've got a link on your site that that goes nowhere. You know, somebody's clicking on it and getting frustrated because they're, they're not finding anything. I've got this other great posts, you know, it's got to be a quality post because, because, you know, they're not going to link to it if it's trash. But you just suggest, you know, I've got this other great post that that you might be able to, you know, just switch the link to and it's a really effective way. There's a lot of other link building strategies that that are less effective because it's basically just, hey, you know, check out my post. I think it's really great. But this one, you know, people have to change their their dead links, their 404, links, because Google hates, you know, when you've got a broken link on your pay on your website, readers hate it because, you know, it does them no good. So you're really helping the other blogger out. You're helping yourself out by maybe getting your link replaced with with the old one on there. So it's really effective, yeah,

Robert Plank 22:50 and that's super awesome. And I hadn't even thought about doing any of that before. And so is there an easy way to find those broken links? Is there a software tool of some kind?

Joseph Hogue 23:00 Easy Not, not really. It's, it's one of the more effective and one of the best link building strategies. But it does take some work. There are, there's some tools that I use. One is Screaming Frog, and that's a that's kind of a software you can download. They've got a free they've got a free trial, or a free software that you can use, or it's, it's like 170 a year, which actually isn't bad, comes to consider what it does. You know, you can do a lot of content auditing of your own sites just to make sure everything's working, make sure everything is looking how you want it to work. But you can also, basically, it's, it scans the internet for stuff. So you download a bunch of a bunch of websites, you know the website, URL to it, and it'll scan those websites and tell you if links are broke, and tell you a lot of things about them. I also use our refs, which is a, H, R, E, F, S, it's a really All In One SEO website that will will tell you a lot of information about your website as well as other ones. And they've got a couple tabs on there where they'll show you all the broken links on a specific website, Buzz stream. Buzz stream is another website, Z stream, and it's really an outreach tool. You know, it's, it makes, makes emailing other bloggers or other sites really easy. So that's kind of the three tools I use for general link building, as well as a broken link building

Robert Plank 24:31 awesome. So screaming, frog R refs and by stream, and so we're, like I said, we're starting to sort of run out of time. But I'm really curious, like, out of all these these past years that you spent, you know, building your site and selling that one site in particular, have you seen like a number one mistake, or was there a mistake that you made that's just, you just wish you could go back in time and avoid that whole thing?

Joseph Hogue 24:55 Number one mistake? No, there's, there's lots of them, and everybody has mistakes. Six. One is, is really the reason why I bought, I sold this, this site last month. You know, I bought it a year ago. It was, it seemed like a really great site. It was in, you know, dating and relationships, right? And they always say, what do they say? The way to make money online is health, wealth and romance, right? Those three, those three categories. So it was a great site, lots of traffic. I thought I could, you know, do a little bit better making money on it than the previous owner. So I snatched up. It's only 500 bucks. And what I found is that, yeah, I could increase traffic, I could make a little bit more money out of it, but I was miserable, you know, I didn't want to write about dating and relationships. I've been married for almost eight years, you know, what do I care about dating? So, you know, every time I sat down to do something to, you know, develop a product or just to write for the site, I was just, you know, I did procrastin. I put it off. And that's one thing that you have. You have to do in the online space, you have to have a passion. You have to start with a passion for the subject, because the money isn't going to be there immediately, and it's going to grow slowly over time. But you know, you're going to be writing, you're going to be talking about this topic for a long time, and you really have to enjoy writing about it. You have to enjoy being, you know, an influencer in that space. So it has to start with whatever you choose. It has to start with a passion. You know, otherwise, just stick with a traditional nine to five job that maybe you don't enjoy, but it's, it's a stable paycheck. Another, you know, another mistake I see a lot of people do is, is just thinking that blogging or being online is just about content. You know, writing, writing, writing, you know, an online business is just that it's a business. And you have all those other little parts of that that you have to learn what those are. You know, how what kind of products are, make money online. How do you make money? So, so that that sales kind of side, you know, we've already talked about the SEO importance and and that side of the business you've also got, you know, the outreach business part in social media and kind of that communications department that you have to have in your business. So, so it's, you know, if you you start your own websites. You work for yourself. It's not like you're not still working for a business, you know, and you have to, you have to do every part of that business, don't. You can't avoid any, any particular part. I see a lot of lot of bloggers just actively avoiding doing any kind of SEO. And you know where, where would any traditional business be if you know one department, one whole department just went away, and nobody ever did anything with it. So you really have to have that full business model with your with your online, online stuff, awesome. That's

Robert Plank 27:57 really maybe, maybe hard to hear advice for some people, what, I think, really important advice, just as far as those two things, have a passion, because it's one thing to be in a job that you hate, because, well, you can kind of suck it up for a few hours in the day and get paid. It's one thing to be a freelancer for someone else, because, again, you get paid right away. And you can always, you know, quit that, quit that freelancing gig. But when it's sort of, you're in business for yourself, and you don't have that passion, sort of a scary place to be, because, as you said, especially with blogging, the money doesn't pick up right away. And just as far as, like, you know, treating your business like a business, I mean, such an important lesson, because I'm sure you've seen other other internet marketers, entrepreneurs, bloggers, whoever just like this, who like they think, like you said, like they like, oh, I can just write and, you know, it'll just spread by word of mouth. People will find me, I won't do any SEO, and it's like, Well, okay, well, how fun, you know, making things way, way, a lot more harder than they have to be. So a lot of good stuff there street your business, like a business, and I have a passion for that thing. Don't just think you're gonna stick it out and, you know, talk and blog about dating when you've been married for eight years. Talk about something. We have an actual vest. It's interesting. So good stuff. And we've talked about a lot of stuff in this in this call, we mentioned a few URLs. So after someone listens to our talk today, I mean it are, out of all the websites we talked about is, are there like, one or two that they should go to? Or do you feel like listing them all, or one in particular? Or like, what are your thoughts as far as, after someone listens to us today, what sort of website should they go to? Well, I think

Joseph Hogue 29:24 that, I think the first one that people should visit, if they have, you know, if they have that drive, if they have that passion for creating their own business online, for doing something online that's going to be theirs, and it's going to, it's going to keep on, you know, producing that a monthly income. Then go to the go to the making money online website. It's my work from home, money.com and you know, most of it's mostly covering blogging, writing, writing for a website and how to make money on a website. But I also cover Amazon, FBA, self publishing, and a lot of other income streams. So. So it's really going to get you started on developing your idea. You know, what part of online do you want to do you want to make money in? It's going to help you get started and and really go with, go with that, that niche, awesome,

Robert Plank 30:14 great stuff. So everyone should go right now to my work from home money.com and while you're there, join the community there and fill out your name and email address so that you can hop on Joseph's list and then, like Joseph said, click around on that site and look at the FBA stuff or the affiliate stuff, or the Kindle stuff or whatever excites you. That way you can sort of drill down into your area of expertise and read some cool articles and see what it is that you can start doing to kind of amplify that little, one tiny area where maybe you've been a jack of all trades, and it's time to become a specialist. So go to my work, from home, money.com, join that list, read a couple articles, and then I'm sure once you get it narrowed down to something like Amazon, FBA, you'll be able to buy something from Joe or Joe will at least link you to some sort of resource to expand more in whatever that sub topic is. So lots of fun today, lots of cool stuff. People should listen to today's episode two or three times. I got all those insights on on page and off page SEO and Joseph's daily routine and just everything about that entrepreneurial mindset. So make sure to re listen to this episode and go to my work from home money.com and thanks so much Joe for stopping by and sharing what you had to share

Joseph Hogue 31:27 with us today. Awesome. I appreciate it anytime. We

Robert Plank 31:30 really appreciate you listening to today's episode of the Robert Plank show. Subscribe to us on iTunes and rate and review us at Robert plank.com/itunes plank.com/itunes, you.