Ricky Kesler and the rest of the Income School team teach internet marketing, content creation, small business strategies, SEO, and RU-vid. Our viewers are ordinary people who are tired of the rat race and want to create a reliable income to provide for their families. Let our years of experience help you to grow your small business.
Wow Ricky I love the fact you're sooo real. I can relate to people pleaser. 😂 But hey, we're awesome. Anyway thanks sooo much for your dedication, honesty and fantastic tips, love your channel it's my favourite on this topic because I know I can trust you. From NZ.
So did you upload the video and then share the links to friends and family or did you just upload the videos and let youtube push the videos to people?
Great video and I agree with so much of this. One thing I do wonder about with the “business with a blog” model is how does Google view having ads on a business website? Would this negate the business first approach and drop it into the niche blog category? And would affiliate links be treated the same as having ads? I’m pivoting one of my inactive businesses away from consulting and implementing projects to mostly free online training supported by ads and affiliate marketing. This is due to the competition in this niche (websites). I’m working on an app to sell as well but I’m expecting to rely on ads and affiliate links for most of the revenue.
That's not really helpful. Hosting costs can increase dramatically for larger blogs. You don't want to use the same hosting for a blog having 100 users per day or 20.000 users a day. Nowadays, security and backups are a big thing. I don't talk about a fine art blog. However, if your topics or views are controversial, you should have a VERY sophisticated backup process (and a good lawyer).
With the right keyword research tool, you can analyze your competitors' keywords, giving you insights into their strategies and helping you identify gaps in your own.
Awesome, yes a website is still a must-have. Coincidentally I just made this same video yesterday, too! And I also recommend cloudways & wordpress, but I am too small of a channel to be sponsored yet. 😊
Great video! I have websites and I also have an AirBnb property. I currently just have it listed on AirBnb. I own the domain, but have not created a separate website. While I could certainly pop up a Wordpress site, I'd like to see your advice on plugins you'd recommend in order to have a reservation site. PS: I'm an Income School member. You do great work. Thank you for all you do.
Hello. I have an issue with indexing pages in Google Search Console. Can you help me? I’m working on a recently launched online store, but most of the pages are not indexed. This has been going on for a while. I requested reindexing, but it says it’s pending. A month has passed, and it still says it’s pending. I tried to figure out what the problem is, but I haven’t been able to speed up the indexing process. In Google Search Console, it shows that the issue is under the section 'Discovered - not indexed.' Can you give me some advice? Thank you.
Do you know what’s in Project 24? Blogging on its own with only passive income streams is a long shot. That’s true. But that’s not what we’ve been teaching for at least 4 years. Honestly it’s not what we’ve been encouraging for more like 8. Active members in Project 24 are renewing their memberships because they know its value. Why would I stop selling something that actually helps people? Plus, we offer a money back guarantee so if someone joins and decides it’s not for them, they get 100% of their money back. So… why would I stop? Doing so would be a huge disservice to the members who benefit from the instruction, community, masterminds, podcasts, and other resources we’re actively providing and updating. Thanks for the question. I hope that clears it up.
This video is 3 years old and a lot of things have changed in the world... is this all still valid or do you have an updated video that might be more relevant?
Agreed on pretty much everything here, but we really need to stop saying "it's easy to build a website". Sure, it's easy to throw something up I suppose but if you actually want to have a website that does something, that ranks, and that converts, you need to invest in having it done professionally. Most people have absolutely no business even attempting to build a website because they have no idea how to write effective copy, they usually have no technical ability to add the functionality that they want, and they almost never have the eye for design that is required to make sure the UI/UX is truly done well to give your client/customer/site visitor a good experience. I suppose if the bar being set is to just have something that exists, then sure..I suppose anybody could do it. Most people don't need/want a website though just to have something that exists..
I’m afraid I disagree. Sure, there are many uses for websites that require a higher level of skill, but the tools available today make it remarkably easy to create a website that looks good and has the basic functionality that many people need. In those cases where more experience and skill is necessary, get professional help. Or, of it’s not worth your time to learn and do, pay someone else to do it. But the belief that it’s too complicated makes it easy for unscrupulous “web developers” to charge a ton for an easy job. That said, if anyone feels overwhelmed, send me an email at services@incomeschool.com and I’ll give you a very fair price on building your website for you.
Imo, there are 2 reasons for lower views. 1. His videos are more salesy these days. this whole video feels like one big sales pitch. He made it clear he can create the website for you or he is promoting this tool that can help you make your own website. 2. The quality of information is not the same as before. The value from his videos are not the same. There isn't a lot of new information here. Literally everyone knows having a website is super helpful. But these are just my views. He is a smart guy. Expect him to have a plan to sort out the issues and bounce back with more interesting content. PS:- More shorts would also help!
I appreciate the feedback and the manner in which you gave it. It’s always interesting to see how others perceive the situation. I will say that doing much with shorts probably wouldn’t be great for this channel. The shorts that would attract the right audience probably won’t spread. I’ve done a few that were successful, but shorts often attract viewers that aren’t a good fit for the long form content on the same channel.
@@IncomeSchool also, while the necessity to have a website nowadays might be obvious for people who're into tech and marketing... There are a lot of people who are still running their businesses the old way. I've been trying to convince my dad's friend to let me create a website for his food truck business (using wix cuz I'm familiar with them) he always refused, saying only fancy restaurants need websites. I sent him this video today, hopefully he'll change his mind.
@@IncomeSchool That is correct most of the times. But these days one does come across shorts that drive you to full length videos with clickbaity content. Especially in the AI and entertainment niches.
If those things are reasonably closely related, you could get by with 1. Otherwise I’d have even a simple website for each purpose. You could have one central site that links to them all. I haven’t yet but intent to do that.
That’s what I’d probably do, but if each of the sections were a truly separate thing, some of them might make sense to build out as separate sites. But I’d still have a summary on the personal site tying it together.
In the video I talk through several valuable uses for a website. Sharing information and gaining the SEO benefit of that content is great. Using that to drive affiliate sales is one monetization path. But "affiliate sites" aren't a good idea. Use affiliate marketing as just one of your monetization routes and don't focus on affiliate commissions as you create content. If you have other purposes for your website too then it's going to do a lot more for you.
You have been talking about Cloudways for some time now. I am happy they sponsored you finally! I changed my hosting one year ago, after watching your video. Too bad there was no promo code then! LOL But I am extremely happy with my decision to change! Influenced by you, my website runs much faster now and is very easy to migrate (I am a crochet lady, not a tech expert!)! So, thank you!
Yes, please please please!!! This is something I've been trying to figure out a good (much less great) way to do this and keep stumbling (and trying to *not* stab myself while going down).
@@FailWithMe I will say, I’ve been in email marketing for the last 18 years. Email marketing for profit (at scale/ b2c) is like day trading. The reason you’re not figuring out is because you have to go deep into the tech and understanding ISPs. It’s all black box. Very difficult. But doable. I’m contemplating creating the course myself, but it would be a very expensive product (probably in the thousands) and I’m not sure I would have the market.
There are a number of other ways the bad guys can affect your business. I had a client attacked with a Card Testing attack on their WooCommerce website. Card testing is where the criminals have a list of credit cards/CVV/exp date they acquire from the dark web. Then they program a bot to perform thousands of $1 transactions, most of which are declined. For the transactions that are successful, they'll take that credit card and use it for much larger transactions on eBay or Amazon to get merchandise they can sell. This happened with a Stripe payment system. The transactions that are successful must be refunded immediately to avoid chargebacks and ultimate cancellation of your merchant account. Also, Stripe may charge a refund fee... in our case it was 32 cents for every successful transaction. That could bankrupt a small business on a tight budget pretty quickly. I've been building websites since the mid-90's, and I was unaware of this phenomenon until it happened to me. Fortunately Stripe has advanced protection with their RADAR service, which adds a few pennies to the transaction and blocks transactions from known bad IP addresses and already declined cards on other sites. I also recommend using CloudFlare or a similar service to block the bad actors from even accessing your website. Since all of our clients are US based local service businesses, we just block any traffic from outside the US. CloudFlare is on millions of websites and tracks who the bad guys are by their IP addresses, so they never even see your website. Using these two strategies on all client sites reduced our security issues to near zero.
I make as much in a month selling biochar (a soil amendment) on Etsy as I do with ads. I also make about as much selling my magazine. And, I'm doing a poor job marketing my products.
Business is to always pivot towards the customer. Thank you for staying on point about us being business owners/future business owner’s who are profitable and will remain so.
Google and all other AIs are not business, are thieves. They STOLE all the content made by millions of people and now that they have this huge database of human knowledge, they are stealing your revenue. Thanks capitalism for all this freedom you create (for the billionaires)
I have two websites that are around 15 years old. Since the HCU update, I have found that the direct traffic to those websites have consistently grown to an average of 60%. Before the HCU, the direct traffic was on average about 18%. Have others noticed that their direct traffic has increased?
So percent can also mean that the organic traffic is down to zero. So even 100% direct traffic could mean a very negative downtrend. What are the absolute numbers?
How about the the local business websites that owners try to rank for the organic traffic besides the their GBP on the map pack? Do you have any insights on how to rank these websites for the local keywords + product/service keywords?
Tnx for this video. Do you think this wider businesse can work with wordpress? Or this platforms is not suitable for the blogging extentions ur talking about
Empowering vs. Disempowering comments, that's what it comes down to. Well said Ricky and professionally handled with regards to negative/tear-down comments. Which is basically "not helpful", while "helpful feedback" aka constructive feedback/criticism is something to work with, and it's made as a contribution. Cheers and successful growth to all
Thanks. Over the years I’ve learned how to learn from mean comments too. There’s often something of value buried in them somewhere. But it can be so draining and harmful to the rest of the community. So I’m setting a higher expectation for this channel! Thank you!
It’s probably because it was live. Also, I forgot to check before the live to make sure RU-vid was using my good mic as input, so it totally might have just been the webcam mic. 😬
Its really simple. Its the same since 2003 (im not kidding!) Have a product. If youre not an 'expert' - stop pretending to be one. You've no business helping anyone. This whole, 'niche website' or 'authority site' is zero different from microsote, niche domain sites back in the day. Lazy people, hiring cheap writers...all trying to, 'make money online'. Pfft. If you dont have value to offer, you have nothing
But even if you are an expert, it takes years to create proof online and thus even experts need years for their sites to beat older sites with "ancient" reputation, even if the content there is produced by interns... As a consequence, real experts will find easier ways to monetize their knowledge...
Hey Ricky! Love this advice and as usual I praise your honesty. Good luck to everyone!! Anyone can still make it, just don’t waste time and push hard like there’s no tomorrow :)
You are not alone. I went from getting about 120,000 monthly page views to 4000 today. Yet, on Bing, yahoo, and duckduckgo, my articles are still in the top 3. I am currently getting close to starting up a youtube channel, so I am hoping to get some traffic from that.
I’m assuming RU-vid inserted these. Creators can choose ad slots manually but it can be tedious so it’s often left to run automatically which, unfortunately, leads to more ads.
I set it to automatic but the lowest monetization level. I always minimize the ads in my videos. That must have been RU-vid. Edit: Yep. RU-vid added a TON of mid-roll ads and wouldn’t let me remove them individually. It was all or none, so now there should be none.
