Aug 14 2020 43 mins 11
In this episode of the Website Investing podcast, Richard speaks with Mark Whitman from Content Ellect, Task It & Golden Web on how he is partnering up with Benjamin Strusnik (podcast episode coming out soon) to build a batch of sites on aged domains. In this part 1, free subscribers get the first ~40 minutes of the conversation; paying subscribers also get part 2 in their RSS feed. As is typical, part 2 elicits more insights as we get deeper into the conversation. EPISODE SPONSORS ? Smash Digital - an SEO growth agency with actual skin in the game, ranking their own portfolio of profitable businesses, and offering the exact same services to clients. Check. Them. Out. ? Niche Website Builders - a hands-off approach to outsourcing your content. Packages include keyword research & high-converting review templates. Get 10% off your first order. Part 1 Show Notes Mark’s Businesses Content Services Mark has been hard at work with growing his content services business Contentellect. Here, customers can buy content and manage their accounts. Currently, monthly blog articles are very popular, especially for their main target audience: SaaS companies. The most popular service, however, is their full outsourced blog management, where they build content calendars, do keyword research, and write and publish content for their customers. FBA Business He also has a neck-warmer/bandana product that he sells at around 200 units a day. Affiliate Content Site Portfolio Currently, Mark has 6 affiliate sites in his portfolio. Of these 6 sites, 2 were acquired, while the rest are being built up organically over time. However, he isn’t looking to increase this, considering the Amazon update, and a reduction of affiliate commissions with one of their partners. Joint Venture Mark also recently formed a joint venture with a business partner, Benjamin. Here, the partner would be building affiliate sites, while Mark would be funding the business. They are currently looking to build up 5 sites out of expired domains they purchased. Mark’s content services agency is also involved here, with a goal of initially having 75,000 words per site, to see which site responds and performs best. Buying More? Acquiring new affiliate sites or content related sites aren’t something that Mark is keen on doing in the future, considering the risks and amount of money involved. Though he does admit that there is proper risk and reward involved, he has increasingly become jaded by the risks. SEO Auditing and Implementation Mark’s joint venture, GoldenWeb, performs SEO auditing. A lot of services do SEO audits, but very few will actually implement the requirements for you. There is thus a big opportunity for a product site service that performs these, and Mark’s joint venture is one of them. Their target market right now are big e-commerce websites, and prices for these clients start at around $1,000 with an additional fee for implementation, depending on the problems. During the audit, they actually tell their clients how to make the changes if they want to do it themselves, but some can be quite technical, so leaving it to them could be a better and safer option. Seeing Potential The SEO auditing and implementation services started out when Mark’s partner performed these services on one of Mark’s sites. Seeing the potential, they decided to offer their services to the public. More Into Mark’s Joint Venture Buying, Growing, and Selling Mark is looking to build out the 5 sites his joint venture owns, and to sell them in the future ideally for 6 figures each, but not less than 4 figures. Currently, the 1st site has around 75,000 words of content and around 50 articles. He terms this site as his “MVP” site with a value of around $5,000. He is not looking to invest any more in this site, apart from creating links. Traffic Levels Traffic numbers determine whether Mark would invest more into a site, but this does not necessarily mean traffic volum [...]
