Ranking Revolution

Welcome to the ranking revolution
podcast, your go-to source for strategies

and ideas for SEO, organic growth,
content creation and online business.

My name's Doug Cunnington
and I'm your host.

Today, we're going to
chat with Stuart vigorous.

Also known as SEO, Jesus, like
many of the interviews, this

is divided up into two parts.

And the first part, we're going
to talk about his start in SEO.

We'll talk a little bit about
LinkedIn and Reddit marketing.

And in the second part, we'll get
into personal branding, YouTube.

There's always a little bit of a blend.

So if you dig the first part,
definitely check out the second part.

One thing to note is Stuart and I recorded
this at the end of February of 2024.

So it was before the March core
update before the spam update.

some of the things that we talk about
around helpful content update and the fact

that we don't reference the March update
it's because it had not happened yet.

So it's one of those things with me trying
to record and bank a bunch of episodes.

I couldn't get this
stuff out quick enough.

And then I caught a cold and it's a
whole other story, but the point is.

If there's some topics that seem like we
should have some more, Timely information.

We didn't have the information at the
time that we recorded it in February.

So apologies for that.

But you could just imagine that.

Uh, you hopped in a time machine
and you heard what we thought before

the update rolled out in March.

So that's it for now.

Be sure to check out Stewart stuff
and let's get to the interview now.

Doug: Today, I'm pumped to
talk to a new friend of mine.

He showed up on my radar a few months
ago and our, our paths cross because

we're both Otis mentors and really
excited to get into some things

that I don't know anything about.

So this is going to be a little bit of a
learning, uh, episode for myself as well.

We're talking to Stuart Vickers known as
SEO Jesus, which is it's awesome branding.

Awesome branding.

He is an international SEO speaker,
a consultant and agency owner.

He has over five years of experience
in SEO, and he transitioned from art

history and doing graduate jobs related
to insurance marketing to building

world renowned SEO and link building
agencies, or one agency that is.

Stuart has been featured on Otis
talks alongside industry titans like

Charles Float and Julian Goldie.

He's a best selling art author.

Try that again.

Stuart has been featured on Otis
talks alongside industry Titans like

Charles float and Julian Goldie.

He's also the best selling
author of the power lever method

featured in Bloomberg and Yahoo
finance, which is pretty amazing.

So Stuart, welcome.

How's it going today?

Very good.

Thank you.

And it sounds like you, you took a sort
of a roundabout path to get into SEO,

which I find a lot of us kind of did that
to no, no one went to school for that.

So art history, can you just give
a quick summary of how you ended up

transitioning from an art history
degree to where you are now?

Stewart: Yeah.

I mean, fundamentally, I'd
always wanted to be a writer.

I was always creative.

Didn't really think that was a sustainable
career choice and they do say people

take history of art It's always that
compromise of they didn't really know

what they wanted to do I wanted to be kind
of creative but still kind of academic

and the upshot of that was I got into
UCL Which is world renowned university,

but the contact hours were really small.

So I was loving London life and therefore
I was broke So I was basically looking

for any job I could get, nearly got
scouted on the street to do, uh,

selling double glazing for a commission.

Thankfully, saw better of that, and
ended up working for a, basically a men's

accessories brand, who just wanted a
menswear blogger, and I've got an interest

in menswear, vintage, and they basically
said, you know, they liked my writing

style, but they basically said, if whilst
you're writing this nice blog post, you

could use these keywords a few times, then
that will enable us to rank on Google.

You know, currently we're
on page five, et cetera.

And that blew my mind because it suddenly
showed me how my passion for writing,

in this case, also my passion for
menswear could actually be a foundation

within digital marketing, which is,
of course, a hugely valuable career.

Then sidestepped a little bit when
I joined an online magazine startup.

That was much more about trying to go
viral on Facebook, very buzzfeed y.

And then, with that, they got into
affiliate marketing, so I tried

to do that on my own website.

Again, my interest in vintage and
sort of dressing up communities,

thinking, this brand, they were trying
to sell top ten leather jackets,

where I thought, why don't I try
and do top ten steampunk corsets and

things like that, top ten goth boots.

Still trying to go viral on Facebook.

And you get good traffic for around
24 hours, no one really buys anything,

but six months down the line, I noticed
certain pages were starting to get

consistent traffic and drive sales.

And that's when it really clicked what
SEO actually was, not just slamming

any old keyword into the Yoast box
at the bottom of WordPress, thinking

I've written about goth boots.

We'll just put in goth boots.

It's much more about finding out
what are people already searching

for and just fulfill that.

So I applied that to then
Daydrop, an insurance company.

They're spending 10 grand
a month on paid ads.

Barely making any sales.

And actually it was a keyword
golden ratio moment at that point.

And, and that just took off.

Phone started ringing within two weeks.

That company is now
doing 50 grand a month.

Wow.

Doug: Yeah.

A lot of, a lot of cool stories,
how people ease into SEO and

it's fun to hear a key keyword
golden ratio story in the wild.

So it actually worked.

Stewart: Totally.

So I know there's always, it's always
hotly contested in the Facebook group.

I'm not seeing a fight about it for
quite a while now, but it used to be.

Hotly contested and yeah, I think what
really worked for me was the fact the

copywriters call it your mechanism
If you can come up with a nice catchy

name for something It's far easier
for other people to understand.

So, in my case, as this basically
little graduate, the intern, trying

to pitch these big CEOs and the
chairman about how we can write blog

posts and sell insurance policies,
they didn't really understand it.

But when I said there's this keyword
golden ratio, that's then, ooh,

that's interesting, let's try that.

Um, and it just so happened there
were some high value insurance

keywords that fulfilled that.

Now, you could also argue You could
go into Ahrefs and see there were

DR0s on page one and all those
metrics, but from a very basic

perspective, it fulfilled the formula.

Doug: Perfect.

Great example too, because
it makes it really easy.

The KGR makes it easy to explain
something to a lay person and

then it has a cool name too.

And they'll remember it like
they will remember that branding.

So let's get into some of the details
of like your link building strategy.

And it sounds like, you know, with
roughly five years and SEO, can you.

I guess lay the years down so we
know how long you have been doing it.

So when, when was it when you were at the
insurance agency and doing that stuff?

And then when did you go out on your own?

Stewart: Yeah, it's case of, um,
I think the, the best thing I ever

did for my career was basically
playing the side hustle at the same

time as a day job and basically
leveraging one against the other.

So I had that, my own website, the
sort of vintage cosplay goth website.

Never really made any money
when I was finishing university.

That was the sense of this was
my startup is going to take off.

And then six months down the line, I've
run out of money, have to get a day job.

Um, but this day job loves the
fact I've done my own thing.

I've built it from scratch, done all
these different skills, which as you

said, you just can't learn anywhere else.

Um, not every company is like that,
but they really appreciated the

fact that I had done independently.

And that was exactly what they
needed as a small company.

Um, But yeah, I didn't really get
to do any SEO there until probably

about two years down the line.

By which point I'd been listening
to Authority Hacker on my commute,

Your Podcast, various others.

And I finally understood it's not
about write some random article

and spam it across Facebook.

It's do your keyword list, write
best X for Y and X review 10 times.

Um, and I actually did that
with a men's grooming website.

Uh, originally I actually wanted
to make it more of an e com site.

Uh, so either drop shipping,
FBA, something like that.

But I thought let's get the traffic first
and then we'll just do an affiliate and

then we can provide our own product And I
never did because it turned into a proper

website and I thought The the effort
of actually sourcing a unique product

from china would just be more than it
was worth um, so I basically said to the

team when we were spending this money on
paid ads and getting nowhere You know,

my little hobby blog that's just been
in my spare time is doing really well.

We're talking two grand a month
plus sometimes, um, and that's when

eventually said, okay, let's try it.

And then two weeks later,
phone started ringing.

This works.

Okay.

Your job.

I'm thinking great.

We can scale up.

We can get some writers.

They're saying, no, this is your job.

Now get writing.

Oh man.

Um, so yeah, that company did really well.

Got headhunted to another
big insurance company.

And in terms of link building, that
was the pivoting point because Although

I felt like I could do my own thing,
I still felt quite small at the

time in a small insurance company.

Going to the big insurance company, they
didn't have one SEO agency, they had two.

One of them didn't even do link building.

And it was fascinating to just watch
both these agencies on the calls

in terms of What I knew thinking,
obviously imposter podcasts.

These guys are the pros and you see
what you're getting and you're thinking

we're paying two grand a month and
you've given us three backlinks, which

totally failed across every quality
metric that certainly I've ever heard of.

Um, so yeah, it was pretty clear.

Pointing me in that direction
of, uh, you SEO agency.

They, they really tried to accommodate
me in that company, tried to

give me little pet projects, but
there's a big corporate machine.

I had to man my post, which was
basically just managing the WordPress

website, even though these sites
weren't really getting any traffic.

So there was a bit of constructive
feedback with my manager and they

said, you don't seem very happy.

I said, yep, you know what?

I think it's time I just
left and started agency.

So double down on mainly in the
link building, cause I could see

that's where the agency was failing.

That's where most SEOs really struggle.

And I tried it out on my sites, going from
this position of, uh, fear and scarcity,

that you get this hype that basically you
shouldn't build links, or you'll build

the wrong links, you'll get penalized.

Whereas actually I found as
soon as I started doing it,

the traffic just took off.

So that's when I realized it doesn't
matter how expert you think you are,

whether you're a beginner or not.

Often just going for it and doing it
outweighs the downside risk of just

not doing it in the first place.

So, that's when I thought,
we can scale this.

Perfect.

Doug: And I think, you know, a
lot of people that are listening

to this show, they're more on
the, you know, professional side.

But I know my other show and just
YouTube in general, there's a lot

of people just getting started.

And people are very frightened to,
like, take a chance and, like, even any

small amount of risk, they don't do it.

And they don't.

They don't learn anything, so they just,
I mean, I guess they kind of passively

wait around for some update to hit them
and then maybe they take a little action.

So you were listening to podcasts for a
few years and then, you know, learned on

the job and picked up a lot of skills.

Did you have like some mentors inside
the companies that were teaching

you certain things or was it mostly
like self study as far as SEO goes?

Stewart: It was other way around frankly.

I don't want to blow my own trumpet
or anything, but um Yeah, this agency

would be saying yeah, I'd say are
you paying for these links and then

say no no it's a content exchange
It's not because this website's got

prices on it how much the links are
And so no, very much self driven.

Very

Doug: cool.

All right.

Well, let's talk about some of
the, the link building strategies

that you have specifically.

So I think I'll just leave it open and you
could talk about sort of your approach.

Maybe you can talk about a website
where it's one of yours, an example

of like how you approach campaigns
or something, or if a client shows

up with a specific kind of website.

So however you want to take the question,
I'll just kind of lob it over to you and

Stewart: let you take it.

Yeah, I mean, at the beginning,
so it was all just outreach based,

basically following, it's widely
documented across the internet.

You basically scrape your competitors,
reach out en masse using Hunter.

I don't even bother with high tech tools
like Mailshake or anything like that.

And just simple Gmail accounts.

I was using the Gmass, uh, warm up
tool at the time, which is now broken.

It's been banned by Google,
um, but still works without it.

And yeah, just reach out en masse.

You get people coming back, basically
offering prices most of the time.

Sometimes you can get
away with a link swap.

Some sort of exchange, but even
then it's still an exchange.

I know people who build so called
white hat links, and they're

normally exchanging some social
media traffic or something like that.

That's still a transaction.

That's still not what
Google wants you to do.

So I've got nothing
against paying for links.

People get very emotional about it.

Um, but yeah, you can go to a proper
digital PR company and do a reactive media

campaign that gets you all this placement.

There's still an element
of payment transaction.

They're still technically
against Google's guidelines.

And as we know, Google's guidelines
very often don't weigh up with what's

actually working in the search results.

So reach out on mass.

And at the time I actually met Mark
Webster through a networking group from

Authority Hacker and by huge fortune,
we were actually seated together at

the dinner and he just gave me so
much advice in terms of basically

not only the quality metrics, but
basically how much to pay per link.

Because the fact is.

This webmaster comes back to you and
says, two, three hundred dollars.

Well, you can just go back to them and
say, this is a five minute job for you.

So if I give you 100, are
you really going to say no?

And sometimes they do, but it's basically
just scaling that and doing that for my

own websites, plus other clients just
meant we could then do volume deals

where, okay, we might get them down to
100 per link, but if we're buying five,

maybe we can get down lower than that.

But the main thing is then just
this quality screening, because.

There's no end of websites willing
to link to you, especially for a fee.

But how do you actually vet that
and make sure that's going to be a

good link rather than a bad link?

Now there is an element of
fearmongering and basically a

link building mafia going on.

Where it's always, my links are
best, yours are terrible, and

they're going to tank your website.

And to an extent that can be true,
but again it's an overplayed risk.

And it just means most people
don't even touch links and

miss out on all that upside.

So basically you're just going through
each website with a fine tooth comb.

Yeah.

Is the DR genuine or
has it been manipulated?

There's all sorts of tricks.

I basically discovered
firsthand doing this where you

look at the backlink profile.

There's a trick called, um, they call
it the exploit strategy, where basically

there's some websites that will, if
you basically ping them, you'll get

an automatic redirect to your site.

And Google's actually really good for it.

So some websites that are selling
links, you can look at their backlink

profile and they've got all these
redirects coming from every single.

Subdomain of Google.

So different locations, images,
maps, and it's basically a spam

manipulation trick, but Ahrefs will
totally blow up your DR if you do that.

So we're looking out for things like that.

Web 2.

0 spam, all these redirects, have they
coupled together 25 domains, one or

two, that'd be okay, but not all these
irrelevant ones smashed together.

And then, then there's the traffic.

We always say, you know, go for traffic.

It's a sign of a good website,
but you've got things like

these Microsoft error codes.

It might be a load of ones and zeros.

If you get that code on your
PS4, you tend to Google it.

So do millions of other people.

There's no commercial
value to that traffic.

So if you're building one of these
link pharma sites deliberately for

selling links with no value, then
you can very easily get a huge amount

of traffic just by targeting these.

Um, I always find it funny.

There's a search term SEO company
Promellis, and they're running

some sort of CTR manipulation, some
sort of fake traffic to inflate

the search volume of that keyword.

So if you look in ahs, depending,
uh, I think it's still going, this

keyword will show is this unfeasibly
high number of searches per month.

So according to ah, HS, the traffic's,
the ranking for this keyword are getting

loads of traffic . But you know, it's all
manipulated data on both sides basically.

I see.

So that's basic.

It's good quality websites,
genuine traffic, genuine backlinks,

and then find a good quality
contextual place to put the link.

So basically an aged post on the site.

Sometimes we'll do a fresh article because
then we can write it with Terfa, actually

get that article ranking, and then that's
a good quality link, simple as that.

Just to get to briefly the other part
of your question about how to start with

a client, links are great and they're
a transformation for me because I went

from the sort of write great content
and don't build links crowd to suddenly

building links and ah, this really works.

But of course links don't work if
your content isn't up to scratch.

So in the agency we actually
make a point that we'll basically

revamp your content for free.

And if you're missing big topical gaps
that are also holding you back, it's also

in our interest to fix those as well.

So, typically in month one, we'll
actually rewrite most of the site's

content with a tool like Surfer.

Make sure the content is as good
as it can be, as well as building

links, so that then three months down
the line, that trap, that site then

gets a massive explosion of traffic.

Doug: a lot to unpack there.

I'm going to hopefully kind of go
in order for how you answered here.

So, you look at a couple
kind of no brainer quality

type things for the websites.

You're talking, looking for, you
know, weird spam redirects, you're

looking for actual traffic, and you
could probably double check and see.

You know what pages are getting traffic
or at least reportedly getting traffic

from hrefs or some rush or whatever
And looking for any kind of exploits

is there anything else from a quality
standpoint and do you have like a

checklist where it's like Some we do

Stewart: and I actually gave it
away for free as a lead magnet It's

currently branded up for my old
agency when I used to specialize

in high ticket coaches And that was
the whole power lever method brand.

So I'm just waiting to get that
rebranded for the new SEO Jesus.

And then that'd be going in my
newsletter welcome sequence.

Um, but yeah, there's loads of good ones.

So obviously publicly available link
pricing, you can normally find that if

you see maybe three or four guest post
links, if they're desperate to sell you a

link, then always a bad sign when they've
got top menu guest post right for us, and

then bottom menu guest post right for us.

Outbound link.

That's a good one.

I've been exploring a lot lately.

So in the early days I was finding.

I was often building a lot of links, but
not actually getting much movement in DR.

Now, DR is just a metric.

I don't really care.

I'm all about ROI and traffic.

But even so, why is it that I built
10 links to this website and the DR

is increased only by two, and then
another site it'll increase by 10?

And that basically comes down to outbound
links, where, like I say, talking

to big corporate agencies, you'll
have an account manager telling you.

This is a, they tend to
use DA rather than DR.

They'll say, this is a DA
60 link from a news website.

You think, right, but you look at the
outbound links, how many websites does

that site actually linking out to?

Some of them are 50, outbound links.

So the actual power you're
getting from that so called DR 60

link is really heavily diluted.

Whereas you might find some little
mum blog that's only a DR of 30,

and that's our minimum DR of 30.

But if they're only linking out to 2,
000, 3, 000 websites, then you're going

to get a lot more power from that.

I did a study on my channel of arguably
a PBN, but basically when I rebranded,

uh, all my previous brands, I've been
around a few different side projects,

other brands, and they're around DR 20,
30, um, from things like working with ODIS

being on a few podcasts, so not massive
websites, but they had some standing.

And when I launched SEO Jesus,
I just linked to them from

three of those websites.

Instant DR 20, and that's just
my illustration of how DR works.

It can just be three links
if those websites aren't

linking out to anyone else.

Doug: And they're so relevant
to perfectly matched in the

industry and topics and all that.

Yeah.

All right.

Perfect.

And you mentioned rewriting content
when you maybe bring on a new client,

if it's not up to scratch, right?

And you mentioned surfer.

I heard some chatter after the helpful
content update that Google was.

Perhaps targeting over
optimized content, right?

So what, what's your opinion on that?

Stewart: Uh, I've heard good arguments
to both sides and my main projects at the

moment tend to be more around parasite
projects because like everyone else had

a lot of websites hit and the intriguing
thing about that is one thing is a lot of

fun and you tend to get instant results.

So what I tend to be doing at the moment
is just slamming a LinkedIn article or

a medium article or something like that.

And it basically goes right
to the top right away.

So I don't think entities are really
going away and let's not forget.

Surfer is not really
considered the market leader.

It's the most established.

It's the easiest to use, but people
tend to think the next level up

is page optimizer pro, and then
if you're really advanced, the

real techies go for Cora from TED.

token basis, um, which for those who don't
know basically gives you this massive

spreadsheet and my friend tried to walk
me through it and I'm very grateful but

I think I'm just gonna stick with Surfer.

Um, so yeah, I think over optimization
I don't really think is a big problem.

I think anytime you get
to that level of detail.

You could just be one week
away from a Google update that

completely changes that precedent.

So one week it might be over
optimization, next week it's

going to be under optimization.

Right.

And let's not forget, you know, the
surfer post that you wrote six months ago.

That search result is
probably now very different.

So it's probably not even
over optimized anymore.

Very true.

Doug: Yeah, I think the, especially
helpful content there were a

lot of fingers being pointed in
multiple directions with examples

to prove or disprove like any
given area, so no one Yeah,

Stewart: we're all really stuck.

Yeah, even some of the biggest people
in the industry were all looking at each

other thinking, have you fixed it yet?

So far it's, you know, very limited.

It's really hard.

I think the best explanation was when
I was in Bangkok, I was having drinks

with Gail Breton, the authority hacker,
and he basically said every now and

then Google blows up and gets it wrong.

He just said, it's cyclical.

It's like Bitcoin or even the
financial markets where every couple

of years, we just have a bit of
chaos and then it sorts itself out.

So there definitely is an argument that,
and it makes sense that a lot of these

sites should start to return in time.

Um, but for the time being it's
Reddit and LinkedIn at the top.

It's only the last few weeks
I've been able to crack that

and actually make money from it.

And at the moment I'm enjoying it.

So work out what's working right
now and figure it out, make it work.

Doug: All right.

Well, let's shift into that a little bit.

So we'll talk a little bit about
changes in the affiliate site world.

It sounds like you got some sites hit and
then we'll, we'll wrap up it towards the

end, just to let folks know about YouTube,
which I love and personal branding and.

I have really a passion for that.

I guess I didn't realize it, but
I really like helping people and I

guess spreading the word like, Hey,
if you have a personal brand, you're

somewhat immune to Google updates,
algorithm updates on maybe like short

form social media and all that stuff.

But we'll get to that in a second.

So you had some sites hit.

Can you share like a little bit
about your portfolio and impact

from like helpful content and maybe
some other updates from last year?

Stewart: Yeah, loads.

I mean, if we go right to the beginning,
that, uh, men's grooming site, I

basically, I sold that probably about
two years ago and that basically

bankrolled the start of my agency.

Now at the time it was doing
really well, constantly going up.

Didn't do any, that was just before
I started the link building agency.

And I basically went to Empire Flippers
and said, it's been two months.

I've done minimum time.

Could I actually take it off sale?

Because I'd love to just hit it with
all this link building I've been doing.

When 24 hours offer came through
market price, 43 X, uh, done deal.

So, uh, you know, pros and cons,
and I kept on monitoring it partly

because the buyer actually said he'd be
interested in my link building a service.

Uh, but I also just wanted to keep
an eye on it because that buyer

was clearly collecting assets, but
wasn't really actively working on it.

So they said they changed the
hosting, but I couldn't see

anything change on the front end.

Now this website was entirely
best X for Y content and reviews.

So it completely went against
the whole, you should have 30

percent info, all those ratios.

And.

At the time, that was basically my proof
that a lot of what had been told is wrong.

I've got this purely commercial site, pure
affiliate, and it's doing really well.

Not anymore.

And I've looked back since then,
and it is completely tanked.

And that could be for a variety of
reasons, but I think that's one of them.

And since then, I started
a spirituality website.

So, that was a 7, 000
expired domain from Odis.

It went all the way back to 1991, so
it was a major authority at the time.

And I actually had friends
who were tarot readers.

So I went to them and I said
You can basically be my writers.

So I built a specialist, you know, high
quality writing team, experts in the

field had all their, all their own EAT.

So I did absolutely everything right.

And that also got slammed, um, more
aggressive one that had a dental

site, basically selling invisible
braces that had a massive hit, uh,

even before helpful content update.

And clearly it looked like a penalty of
some sort, but we're not too sure what.

So it could have been some sort of
medic type update, something like that.

Yeah.

But other players in the industry
were still, still ranking.

Okay.

And that did seem to reverse
with the Google update.

It started to pick up again,
but nowhere near where it was.

It was a perfect growth curve before that.

Um, so yeah, overall, lots of sites really
down I've more recently been focusing

on smaller sites, but higher ticket.

And so they've steadily been
growing, but equally at the same

time for those high ticket keywords.

We're now seeing Reddit, LinkedIn
above them, and I've just been

playing around with those two
over the last couple of weeks.

And actually, I think I've made more
money from that in the last few weeks

than that website did in the last year.

So we're all panicking about Reddit,
LinkedIn, but actually, if you can

crack it and make it work for you.

It's actually a lot of
fun and very profitable.

So it's a big opportunity.

I'm

Doug: looking for someone who
does Reddit affiliate marketing.

So if you're out there or if you
know anyone, Stuart, let me know.

Cause I want to interview them and talk
about it a little bit more, but there's

not much content out there on it.

If you just try to search, like
how to do affiliate marketing on

Reddit, there's some generic bullshit
and nothing, nothing helpful.

Stewart: Yeah.

A little bit clueless.

I mean.

Should I say his name?

Yes, James Dooley actually messaged
me over the weekend saying, you know,

How's this working for you and this
and that so it's interesting when

you get up to a level and even the
pros start Talking to you basically

saying how's it working for you?

And now I think the biggest guy in the
niche is at the the affiliate school

And so he's done some good videos.

He's done a course.

Um, I did a couple of videos on it
just Playing around and I thought

I was doing reasonably well at it.

What I didn't realize was I'm
actually the mastermind with someone

who said he's got now 300 age
Reddit accounts that he's using.

So that's when I thought I was
kind of ahead of the game, but

apparently I'm not even trying.

Right.

That's funny,

Doug: man.

That that's a lot.

And the

Stewart: thing is, I actually,
he clicked on my affiliate link

to buy the age Reddit accounts.

So for about a week, I was
getting some decent page.

Doug: It's funny.

Uh, yeah.

And the thing is like, if you could
catch it early and no, like very

few people are doing it, even the
experienced pros are still like

trying to figure it out a little bit.

They know there's something there.

We can obviously use our skills from
SEO and keyword research and other

marketing, copywriting, whatever.

But the nuts and bolts matter and
you have to get some reps in and.

If I was one of the first people
doing it, I probably wouldn't

be talking about it either.

I would just be executing
and doing, you know, learning

more and earning money on it.

And then hoping it
doesn't get too saturated.

But yeah, I think it's kind of

Stewart: exploding.

So far, it's been really quite simple.

So, uh, that guy with 300 accounts, we're
on, I didn't show up to that one, but

there was a mastermind call where they're
basically saying no one knows about it.

And he said, I literally.

I'm using the 300 accounts and I thought,
yeah, I've done like five YouTube

videos on everything I do with it.

And I think it's that thing that people,
it's so simple that people don't trust it.

Um, 'cause yeah, you're literally,
it's still an SEO o skill.

You basically do a Google search for
your niche Reddit, use the a HS tool bar,

find the, the sub reddits, the posts,
they're getting significant traffic,

some of them are getting thousands.

And then just click onto that Reddit,
leave a comment that looks like

a genuine user experience review.

24 hours later, you put in your affiliate
link, by which time the moderator

has probably seen it and approved it.

And then you go to upvote shop
and buy a load of upvotes.

You want 10 to 20 percent more
than the top ranking comment.

Now, so far, as you say,
it's not being abused.

So you can normally buy 20, 30 upvotes.

Which I think is less
than 5 if I remember it.

Doug: Oh man.

Okay.

So a little homework assignment.

So if, if I wanted to, uh, you know,
check it out, like it sounds like I

can get started in like a week or so
for under a hundred bucks or something.

Totally.

Stewart: So I'm using.

I'm up to, I've now bought a
third Reddit account, but before

then I was just using two.

If you're only using two, you can
use the free version of AdsPower,

which basically enables you to open
separate windows for your proxies.

The proxies are three dollar
US residential proxies.

That's pretty much it.

Obviously you need a trust really to
get an idea of the, the traffic volumes.

Um, but otherwise, in addition to what
I'm already doing, it's been really cheap.

You can not build a
website for the same cost.

Okay.

That's the central thing is that sensor
does the conversion rate actually work?

And just for my initial case studies, I
was doing things like finding the place

for best SEO agency and things like that.

So I was being a bit dubious saying,
Oh, I really recommend SEO Jesus.

He's great.

I've got the best links in the world.

And.

You can really make, make it up.

I didn't really didn't push this,
but I got an inquiry through at the

weekend saying, do you reach out?

I'm interested in your services.

I've heard great things
about you on Reddit.

Okay.

Doug: Yeah.

Okay.

So people can do some stuff with that.

Um, any, any other tips on Reddit so far?

Stewart: Eh, I'm basically going to
chat GPT and basically trying to train

it based on the question and what
the other comments are saying, and

I'm trying to go for the long form
answers because not only is that.

Better for conversion rate to actually
encourage a sale and also what everyone

else does is they put the brand name
in Whereas just like with your website,

you don't put the brand name in because
then they go away and google it Just

put in I recommend this product and make
that the link and that way it sparks

that curiosity It's like well, I need
to know what the product is Then you've

got this long form answer which not only
sells the person But actually it pushes

everyone else further down as well.

Taking up that real estate.

Exactly.

The next thing I want to try is
basically getting a load more accounts

and you can basically get all your
accounts commenting on each other.

So they're saying, yeah,
I clicked on this link.

Highly recommend it.

It was really good.

Doug: Okay.

How long do you think
that'll work and last?

Stewart: Short term.

I do not see it as a feasible long term.

Business models.

So that's why I'm generally get
some people using it for Amazon.

I wouldn't bother with that
unless it's extremely high volume.

So generally I'm doing either
high ticket or recurring.

Doug: Okay.

Gotcha.

And that makes a lot of sense too.

Cause I was thinking on the
Amazon side, like you can't

really put your links in directly.

I'm pretty sure they don't want
you putting your links in Reddit.

Stewart: It's so easy to scrape
competitors on Reddit as well.

You can see when people are doing
this and reverse engineer them.

So they're using genius link, which
obviously has been around for ages.

So I'm not sure if that's got some
sort of cloaking that stops Amazon

from seeing this and read it.

And it was good.

I took it.

It's good.

So software works pretty well on that.

In which case, if I can refer
enough people get up to 500, 000

a month, something like that.

Then 11 six months some
good mailbox money,

Doug: right?

And actually, um, you know, you
mentioned genius link I'm friends with

uh, one of the the founders there.

I've interviewed him a bunch of times
jesse lakes um, and just thinking about

it like It could be considered like a kind
of social media like we could put genius

links uh in In our website, of course,
but we could put it on like YouTube.

You could put it in social media.

So there it could potentially be
considered like a social media play.

And although Amazon, they, they really,
they really don't love us overall.

So I don't know.

People do your own research,
talk to your own lawyer.

All right.

Awesome.

Anything else in the, the parasite area?

You mentioned LinkedIn a couple of times.

How's that working out?

Stewart: Really?

Well, so, um, that's interesting.

Interesting juncture here, because
I'm basically trying to work out

which is better, Reddit or LinkedIn.

Fact is, it doesn't really
matter, because they both only

take 10 minutes of work to do.

So, I was doing most of this
testing towards the end of January.

So I had a guy basically constantly
uploading content to my LinkedIn.

I found out you need to be careful
with that, because you will

blow up your LinkedIn account.

Now, I was using my personal
one, so I just verified the

passport, it's fine, I got it back.

If you're using an aged one, then
that's already been suspended

after just a couple of articles.

So I think you can get around
that with LinkedIn premium.

So I probably that's my next test,
basically buy an aged account.

They do exist.

And then I premium for that account then.

So yeah, a couple of weeks ago,
basically spamming LinkedIn with all

this content, taking off really nicely.

Did a load of case studies,
basically again, just manipulating

that Ahrefs graph, here's how I got
50, 000 traffic per month with a.

10 minute AI article.

And also I'm using autoblogging.

ai's God mode, which basically extracts
the entities from your competitors.

So it's like Surfer, except you don't
even need to do the right thing.

It just spits out an optimized
article and it ranks really well.

And basically for the last two
weeks, I've been away in the U S.

Uh, I had a heavy metal cruise from
Florida to the Dominican Republic.

And even for someone of our
standing going to Miami and

going on a cruise is not cheap.

And there's always the sense when
you're paying 20 for a cocktail and 30

for a pizza, it's a bit uncomfortable.

But I was checking my inbox and I was
just getting this stream of commissions

in that were literally covering my
expenses as I was incurring them.

So, and that was all from LinkedIn.

Well, at first I thought
it was from LinkedIn.

If I now look back, it was actually
a combination of LinkedIn and Reddit.

So basically the main problem I found
with LinkedIn, uh, is longevity.

So I did the case study, LinkedIn
basically paid for my cruise holiday.

That was great.

And, but what you find is you get
this big spike for the recent traffic

and then it drops off very quickly.

And the problem with all parasite
SEO is anyone can come along and

basically cannibalize your keyword.

So whoever gets the most recent
article, thank God it's LinkedIn

and not a 500 Outlook India post.

because whoever's the most
recent tends to get the bonus.

So what I've seen some people do
is constantly re upload the same

content, basically lightly rewritten.

That's one method.

The experiment I'm trying at the moment
is can we beat them with sheer authority?

So I basically had a, so
one of my profitable pages

is on an AI based keyword.

Now I've got an AI based domain name I got
from Odis in 2021, so three years old, and

obviously it had a history before that.

The DR about 30.

And I never really used it.

I wanted to promote copywriting software
back when it was just emerging, like

Jasper, Jarvis, et cetera, and never
really got that project off the ground.

So I thought I'm going to take
this 2, 000 expired domain name and

redirect it at this one LinkedIn post.

And we're going to see if that
actually keeps that LinkedIn page

stuck at the top of Google and stops
competitors from getting in the way,

because the beauty of that is if I
then do need to re upload the content.

I can just update the redirects.

It's not like a link building campaign
where I'm building all these links,

spending thousands of dollars to
a page where I can't then change

the destination of those links.

Man,

Doug: that's really cool.

And it sounds like you're promoting
like the same affiliate promotions

on Reddit and LinkedIn because you've
identified those as like well converting

and good products or something.

Stewart: I am terrible.

I'm very lazy with tracking.

And then I get great results
because I've not measured this.

So I don't know what's where.

I thought for this offer, and that
was paying for my holiday, I thought

LinkedIn was doing really well and it
was, but actually, if I go into the

affiliate platform, it does allow me
some insight of the, the referrals and

obviously the top one is unknown because
you can't track everything perfectly.

And it was a split between
LinkedIn and Reddit.

And it's one of these, I think it
might be first promoter, one of those

where you don't really get a graph.

It just gives you the numbers.

So literally over the last couple
of days, I've been screenshotting

that to try and work out.

How quickly are each of these increasing?

Is Reddit outpacing LinkedIn on the
clicks, the signups and the sales?

Because ever since I did that
redirect, I was making maybe 30, 40

per day on that particular product.

That's now gone up to 100 per day.

So, this is job replacement
three grand a month money here.

So, serious stuff.

And at first I thought it was
LinkedIn and the redirect.

But it looks like it might be
because my Reddit comment is now

at the top and that Reddit page is
getting 20, 000 visitors per month.

So I'm keeping an eye on those
metrics because I think Reddit

might now be catching up and
actually be more responsible for

that doubling of the commission.

Okay,

Doug: interesting.

So will you do more tracking or is

Stewart: that your thing?

Yeah, it's time I did it.

And the great thing about
Reddit and LinkedIn is you

can just go in and edit it.

I think the problem with Parasite a year
or two ago where it was all expensive.

Outlook, Indio, JPost, all those is,
the article goes up and then it's gone.

If you want to edit it, they're
going to charge you for it.

Whereas, yeah, Reddit, LinkedIn,
just go in, update the tracking.

So that'd be the next step, I think.

Doug: So

That's the end of part one with Stewart.

So if you're interested in hearing
about YouTube and personal branding

and what Stewart's doing over there,
Be sure to check out part two.

And of course I'll link up for
all the things that you want

to check out from Stewart.

SEO.

Jesus' really cool branding.

All his stump nails have a very
particular style, you know?

They're really eye-catching.

Anyway, it's good branding.

And if you have a second.

If you want to help me out.

You can leave a review.

You can make sure you're subscribed
wherever you're consuming this content.

If you're over on YouTube, leave comments.

And another, you know, big help
would be if you download all of the

episodes to help boost the downloads.

And I hope we'll get
some information from.

The directories, right?

Hopefully that'll show us raking a little
higher, maybe on apple or on Spotify,

and it'll be suggested more and we'll,
I'll let you know what happens because

I don't know what will happen, but I'm
going to try to in air quotes, manipulate.

The downloads as much as possible.

Don't tell anybody at apple, please.

Uh, that's it for today, have a great day
and we'll catch you on the next episode.