#HACKED: Social is Dead and Long Live SEO with Wealthy Single Mommy's Emma Johnson

Our guest for today is Emma Johnson, Founder of Wealthy Single Mommy.

Emma is a best selling author, freelance author, and owns the world's largest platform for single moms. She helps single moms build an amazing families, careers and love lives.

There are 10 million U.S. unmarried moms heading families, and 57 percent of births to millennial moms were outside of marriage. For the first time in history it is very possible for unmarried women to raise amazing, healthy children while also building wildly successful businesses and careers – and enjoy dating and the pursuit of romantic love. On the tough days it is stressful, exhausting and lonely but life as a single mom can be fulfilling.

This blog isn’t the end of it though. To know more about Emma Johnson and Wealthy Single Mommy, listen to the podcast found above and let me know what you think! 

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0:06
Hey there listeners. Morse Code here, coming to you from inside bunker trash can. It is in fact disgusting, but I needed a place to hide. Josh. There is no reason for there to be this much Thai food in here. Why am I in a trash can, you ask? Poor time management is probably the simplest answer. But instead of dwelling on the fact the bandages over my ant bites are soiled, let's focus on Josh and his guest, Emma Johnson of Wealthy Single Mommy.

0:41
All right, Emma, listen, first off, I gotta apologize for the, you know, flying in under cover of darkness. The security I know it's a little much, but I know how valuable this information is. And if it got in the wrong hands. Well, there would be peril I, I know you don't want to be I don't want to be responsible for peril. So, so hence, you know, making sure that you know it's under

1:09
it's worth it Josh, this is worth it because yes, we're gonna get together and we're going to change the world through through this conversation this is gonna be

1:17
good. So you're and I'm going to be taking some furious notes here for my Napoleon hills secret project. And so, so, Emma, if we if we kind of start at the beginning of your journey, I mean, were you running businesses, like out of it in college? I mean, would you do

1:40
know, what did I do? You know, I was always a hard worker, like I had a job since I was 12 years old. My first one was detasseling corn.

1:50
And in the Midwest, Midwestern kids get that one everybody else does not understand what detasseling corn is, but it is agricultural work and Yeah, it was at a necessity. My family didn't have money, but it was like it was great. You know, I mean, I really believe in work and hard work and that being a great experience and earning your own money and learning how to budget your money and, and being self sufficient. I think those were all really early, early good lessons. And other good lessons were having jobs that I was, Ill suited for. My early my early career, my first career was as a newspaper journalist.

2:31
Wow. And where and

2:33
I'm, well, I started my career. Well, when I got out of college, I did an internship at CNN in Atlanta, which was the headquarters at the time,

2:40
what would you do there?

2:41
It was so, so I went to I thought I always wanted to be a newspaper reporter. And then I kind of got hooked up with this glamorous broadcast job. So I was like, you know, I've got a my Achilles heel is like, you know, high profile, glamorous names or whatever. So of course, I took this job at CNN and It was like really boring. And I learned really quickly that if I wanted to do any interesting work at a giant news organization like that, I would have to pay a lot of boring years of dues.

3:10
Yeah. So what were you What did they have you doing?

3:13
Like ripping video feeds and walking them from this office to that office? Yeah. And it was really stupid and not interesting or challenging or intellectually stimulating in any way. And I was like, Oh, God, if I had if I want to do anything me, like, I'm like, it was just a corporate structure. And immediately I'm like, peace out. I'm out of here. And I got a job at the Valdosta Daily Times in Georgia and South Georgia. Sure. And I'm like this total Yankee and I was a fish out of water is my first job and I was like, really aggressive and I was like, an exercise democracy. You know.

3:47
So obviously, with CNN Atlanta is a little bit more cosmopolitan. you're originally from Are you originally from the city like New York?

3:54
No, I'm from a small town in Illinois Sycamore, Illinois.

3:57
Oh, okay. I you've since made Could you the New York in NYC area your home? Yes. Yeah. Where we from 16 years. Yeah, we're in Illinois.

4:08
It's a small town in northern Illinois called Sycamore in DeKalb. County. Okay. Yeah, it's a small town. Yeah, it's a small my family was played there. My parents were not but my grandparents were farmers. And it was, yeah, my family's from that area

4:21
when you're in rural Georgia Valdosta. And so again, I I kind of transplanted from Michigan below the south and into Florida. So, you know, it's like a little hodgepodge down here. But if you go north, you get into the South. And it's, it's, it's a different vibe, and especially in a more rural area, like Valdosta Did you find yours? I mean, and there's a lot of people like they're really into, you know, kind of rebel culture and, you know, Confederate culture and I'm like,

4:57
I'm like a total left wing feminist.

5:00
I heard

5:03
it forget about politics, just the personality like I had. I was like so raring to go. I was right out of journalism school, and I'm like, gonna save the world. And I, this is really I really genuinely believed that every single thing that I wrote had to be like an investigative piece of why I didn't understand that sometimes you could just go to the city council meeting and just report the facts, and maybe do a big story later. Like, I really believed I needed to change the world with every single thing that I wrote. And it was like, and I made a lot of enemies really fast in that town. But so it was so much learning and it was also just the grind of work. So it was a small paper, they gave me this little early digital camera, which we would laugh at today. And I had to write 12 stories. I had to write and photograph 12 stories a week. Right? So you had to do two a day plus you had to ramp up for the weekend, right to fill the weekend. Pay And it was a grind but it was so great. And it was just it was like that's how I learned to write like you. It was just rote. Yeah, like volume on deadline. And the other value that is so hard to replicate in the digital age is there was a finite amount of words, right? It was an inches. And writing a word on a page was actually it cost actual money because it was print on paper. And you had, you know, these little software programs and you had to write it was like thinking about Twitter, Twitter's really the only thing that forces us to be economical about our words. And that is the best way to learn how to write is to say exactly, you have to be so thoughtful about every single word in every single piece of punctuation. And it makes you such a strong writer. And I really don't know how we're going to shut that down young writers throats and put them through that kind of training. Because the digital news holes infinite. It doesn't cost anything right right? So those were very good early lessons. But in terms of business, it did teach me like I was early lessons. I still hadn't learning these lessons, but about working with different types of people that are different from you finessing situations to get what you want finding Win Win situations, understanding power hierarchies, whether it's within a newsroom or within like, local politics, or, you know, or whatever, just the social part of, of business and life, you know, I think I've got young kids and I think, you know, I can teach them all this stuff, right? Like, I can teach them about banking, or I can teach, but if they can come out of school, whatever, if I can teach them social skills, or give them opportunities to develop their social skills. I feel like that's the most valuable thing I can

7:46
I completely agree. I'm going to get back to that for sure. Because I want to talk about you know, like, you know, if you've, I know you've hired people and there's certain things you look for, and those those things Soft Skills versus the hard skills are you know, it's like if you have someone that's got that energy and that passion, that I mean, that's the kind of stuff that's, that's really hard to instill later in life. Either they've got it or they don't. And I feel like hard skills, hard skills, you can teach hard skills you can learn. And that's actually let me go back to hard skills, because you were writing now 12 pieces of content every single week. And so from when you started that, how long did you do that?

8:38
I don't think I lasted a year and then I moved to Bulgaria, but that's a whole nother Wow,

8:42
we'll talk about that. Okay, so you're doing 12 pieces a week on average, every single week, cranking it out? Where did you know what did Who did you become in that process of just doing all of that work? I would imagine You'd like as a writer, you I mean, obviously, you kind of getting burnt out on that sort of thing. But I think there's a lot to be said for the confidence to start anything, right. And so in terms of like the skills that you have today, how did that year of just really just putting yourself into the, you know, into the fire over and over and over and over and over again, that really kind of gets you to flex your muscles quite a bit.

9:30
Well flex your muscles and then it's just like that's the beautiful thing about I think early newsroom work is that you screw up all the time. Like you're gonna make mistakes and there's gonna have to be a correction that's visible to every all your readers The next day, right? It's nothing you just go and fix the WordPress site and hope nobody notice

9:47
and corrections cost money to.

9:49
They cost money and the stakes are high sometimes, right? I mean, maybe there's high in terms of public policy. Maybe they're high because somebody local got their name in the paper and it was wrong? Yeah, that's a big deal for somebody local that's not in public life to have their name in the newspaper. And maybe that was there one time and you spell their name Ron. Right. So it's like the human stakes are high. So it's a very, it's very humbling. But there's also that you had mentors and editors that would sit me down and walk me through how to put the story together, or sit me down and you know, stand up for me when somebody was calling and screaming about a story right? I mean, of course, those those those favors have a finite right, you can't screw them infinitely. But there was it was like a nice it really was a grooming. It was a place to screw up. But as I became more successful, and I had other news jobs since then, but it it just showed you that you will screw up and you will survive and then you can go on and it frees you it frees you to take risks so you can make more mistakes.

10:54
Yeah. So, Mo when you when you were in journalism school did you have a policy where I when I was so so I was I went to journalism school for the US Navy and was kind of an all or all armed forces. So they, they kind of condensed it down to a year to one year. But I had a policy that if you misspelled a name, it was instantly you lost 20 points off that assignment. And that that's pretty painful. So I think that's one thing like this was so many years ago, and it's still one thing I'm like, Do not mess someone's name.

11:31
Right? It's Be respectful if someone's going to share their story with you to honor that, like you and I, Josh, we're in the media all the time, whatever, we let it hang out. I don't even read or listen to a lot of my interviews, like whatever is happening to but that's not how it is for most people. Right? It's being very respectful of that. But even other things that I learned that I mean, it really learned it's about story. I mean, writing writing is one thing I mean, you can write a menu at a restaurant that's writing and that's that's that's an art and of itself. But in terms of storytelling, and understand honing your instincts about what is a good story and how to create an arc of a story. So now I'm in this digital media world. And I, one of my favorite things to do over the years is like I run this Facebook group and these women, these single moms, they come in there and they just share a story. And I really challenge anyone that like, wants to come and tell me like, well, I went, I have my MFA. So therefore I'm a writer, bullshit, like these people that are doing any number of other vocations or professions will write even if it's just a few paragraphs of their human experience, good, bad, ugly, whatever, and they are often beautiful and flawless. They come from their heart, and they really are beautiful little pieces of writing. Yeah, and and you in this again, the beauty of digital media is because you can see that and my wife might connect with it, but I can see immediately that it connects with thousands of other people because they're liking and sharing and communicating through that post. Whatever it is a video written content Then if I can capture that and amplify it and share it to a larger audience, it's that is really what we're doing here. I was there and lecture all day long, and there's value in that. But if I can bring in other women, other people and share their stories, and then always hone that instinct about what makes a good story was honed in those early days of newspaper reporting.

13:20
Does being a good writer matter today? Or is there just there's just so much content out there that it kind of really doesn't matter? You're just writing for Google. So why bother? Just

13:32
just, I struggle with that too, because sadly, I know how to do both. I think I have done fine writing in the last my career. And I also am very good at writing for Google, which is very lucrative. So which is a blessing or

13:48
a curse and a blessing? And they helped me out like, what's the difference?

13:53
Um, well, they're, they're both. Okay. That's a great question. So they both have A place, I believe in the Google algorithm, the Google algorithm I have found really does reward

14:07
products content that serves the reader, I really do feel like they are making that decision, unlike other social media platforms that are just, you know, they are not serving anyone except their bottom line, and maybe not even succeeding with that, right? Yeah. Um, but with the writing for Google, it serves its connection, right? If somebody is looking for a question, and I can answer it, I have served them. And that writing my like, I could take that in and that would, you know, my kids, fourth grade writing teacher might say, that's a perfectly fine piece of writing because I am writing to the fourth or fifth grade level. Now, if I want to be, you know, writing an essay about a very personal experience. That's another level of writing. That's not enough. It may just happen to jive with some algorithm that I can't plan for. But that's it. isn't a place where everything there's a place for academic writing there's a place for copywriting on a billboard all of those serve something and I would I bristle when somebody tries to say one's better than the other, because they all do really have their role and they can all be a high art form in many ways.

15:17
Am I after Valdosta? What professionally what, where did you go? Then?

15:22
I moved to Bulgaria. I followed a Bulgarian boyfriend there. And I lived in Sofia for half a year. And I wrote, I hooked up with this entrepreneur there and that was probably an early and formative experience about business. He wasn't this American guy who was legend Apparently, he had six different passports and all this gossip around him and he had multiple wives and CIA profile and all this stuff. And he was this was Bulgaria in the year 2000. And they were really just getting their like capitalist vibe going. Yeah, and the real estate had only become really, truly free. market so this guy had come in and started you know, building out residential real estate like he was with Colliers International, and also had the supper club and so he had this little value add service in which so as me and I'm a Bulgarian guy, and we went through all the daily newspapers every day and we created a News Digest translated it. So he was kind of my partner is kind of the translator and I was sort of the writer editor and we put up the ceiling News Digest about what was going on in Bulgarian news in English. And it was fascinating because again, that was another exercise of writing. But now all of a sudden, I knew everything about Bulgarian business and politics and connecting with this business world. My boyfriend was a broadcast journal, like a national journalist there. So my network was very deep in this little country. That was fascinating. But somehow, I decided I needed to come back and work in daily newspapers in New York and the relationship ended. So I worked in a daily newspaper, a great daily newspaper in Phoenix, Arizona, and it was healthcare journalists there and it was kind of more of the same or just a great report. Working with other really, really good journalists. It was a grind. I did really good work I was proud of when a bunch of awards and I was there for a few years before I moved to New York City and now was like 16 years ago or something like that. Yeah. So I've been made my way in New York for the last 16 years. And when did wealthy single mommy come about eight years ago? 2012.

17:23
And so what what led to that and what made you think that that would be a good use of your time to to build out that brand and so now and so initially, wealthy single mommy started out as what

17:37
I would say as a hobby. Let's call it a hobby. I at the time, I'd been making my living as a freelance journalist and writer for you know, five or six years something and doing well at that time. I felt like I was an entrepreneur, I was real. I was a freelancer. You know, I don't care if people want split hairs over whether I was a real entrepreneur or not. But I look The hustle I never fit into corporate culture at all. It was not a good fit for me, like the office politics where I would just kind of shut down, I would not do my best work. And I liked making money. You know, I liked hustling and I was good at it. And that money really is a big theme throughout my life. You know, I grew up without money. I feel like for me personally, it's very much a sense of power. And so it's just I like that I had I felt like very powerful and controlled my life. So I found myself I'd gone through a big breakup with a boyfriend after my divorce and, and I was like having these really interesting conversations with a lot of women and my friends, my girlfriends, I was like, you know, this moment of feminism, and we were all doing really cool things in our professional lives when we're dating, but that seemed kind of it was just a very interesting moment. And I was experiencing it through my own lens of being a single mom. And I'm a second generation single mom and my family, but it was so different. You know, like, my mom was always like, oh, We can't there's no good men, like there's no money. And she's an educated white person. And I was like, Well, I'm an educator. Like, I just felt like I could do anything. Like I was making money. I was, I was getting really cool guys. I was like, taking care of my kids. I was having a really good time. And I'm like, well, what's changed? I was just fascinated. It's like a very intellectually curious to me, you know? And so I just sort of started it and I wanted I just, you know, is like an exercise and curiosity and I felt like I had something to say and I also so in terms of right, you always want to talk about writing. For me, it was like, I was always writing for business. I was writing for somebody else's writing for the audience. And I went through this when I started my blog, I was just like, I'd gone through a very traumatic experience with my divorce. It was like really high profile. My ex husband had a brain injury into national headlines about it, whatever it but it was like a extremely traumatic year or two. And then here I was, I was a couple years after it by went through this breakup with a boyfriend. This is a couple years After my divorce, and something about that, just like unplugged all the grief that I never really dealt with, and it was just like, all of that like grief, I was just like coming out and it came out in my writing and I started it was public now because I started this blog and it just connected it whatever I was going through connect with readers. And it was very lucky it connected with a media so the media right away sort of like giving me nice backlinks and coverage. And that was back in the good old days when things actually went viral. We're old enough to remember that and it was just this sort of magical thing and it was opening up a writing and me that I did not know I was capable of and and it just sort of went so what for those first couple years I had that blog. Maybe first three years I didn't even try to monetize it at all. I don't know what was driving me because I wasn't making a nickel from it. And I just had to do it. It was the technical part of it was kind of interesting to me. I liked how myself a little bit about SEO and stuff. And but all of a sudden, like the freelance writing business change, and I was bored with it, and it wasn't making any money and more. And then I was doing this thing I felt very called to do, I felt like I was really serving this population that had not been served in a meaningful way ever. And the money just sort of coming in, I just started getting cold calls about sponsorship, sponsored posts and media opportunities. And it just was very organic and sort of magical. And I was like, well, I've got to listen to this, this one other thing isn't serving me. And this other thing is calling me so I'm just gonna go like very lazy like that. Just go with what was working. And now fast forward today. And all I do all day long is Write for Google. I don't do so much vine writing anymore, which is a source of frustration for me, you know, but the money is so exciting. And now the stakes are a lot higher. And you got to stay on top of your Google rankings. And that's very high touch and it's it's a completely different part of my brain. It's gotten to the point where I'm so good at it. That I really need to be consulting like exploring consulting opportunities. Because I find I'm just giving all that information away to different people that are not valuing it.

22:12
I want to talk I definitely want to talk about Google. The something you had mentioned you were talking about, you know, I just kept on writing and kind of, I guess you just kept on building this community. Then all of a sudden, you got a call for some sponsorship. Who was it and like, how did that come about? I mean, they just cold contacted you

22:32
Well, I wouldand tell you it was just like, just just different random people were calling in and I would you know, do a sponsored I didn't know I was not hooked up with our fin con community. I didn't really have any other blogger peers really. And I would just they would pay me whatever and I'm always really good at negotiating. You know, I like I'd go high and, and I've like, this was you know, it was just very exciting. I don't even I couldn't even tell you I was probably making hundreds of dollars per sponsored post or something at the time. I just Remember, sometime around there, maybe, you know, five, four or five years and I went to Affiliate Summit ease. And I was like, Oh, I had no idea what I was doing. Like I met like these personal loan, folks. And I'm like, oh, I'll just write a blog post about personal loans. And I'll be making all this personal loan affiliate. It's so easy. And I was like, I had no clue about what I was doing. And sadly, no, I know everything about it. So it was just a lot of trial and error. And I think I was just sort of like I was I just couldn't take no for an answer. You know, what it was is like, I knew this thing was successful, that people were there I would get I still had beautiful letters from women all the time saying this message changed their lives connects with them. You know, I'm in the media all the time. Like, there it is there. So it needs to be making money. So I'm like, okay, it's just, it's not a matter of when or how it's a matter of how and when, right. It's just like, I just have to keep trying every Single different thing until I can figure out how to make really big money on this because I feel like it's a really big project. Yeah, I have right like I wrote out the sponsored post stuff and I feel like that the market for that is changing I'm now I'm like almost exclusively focused on affiliate SEO affiliate. But in the interim, I had a podcast, I had a radio show, I've done video series, I went down trying to courses, you know, and some of these I had some success with some a lot of success, some not they ran their face. Some of them were disasters, I try to start a forum on my blog, because I was greedy. And so I moved the whole operation over to Google Groups. And, you know, just kept trying and trying and trying and gave myself permission to spend money and invest time and fail and learn and humble myself and just kept going. And you can't stop that even when you have some success and there's money in the bank. You got to stay on your game all the time. So let's map out a kind of a kind of a what to expect journey so let's see someone's blogging right now or they're producing their own content, they're using social obviously to drive traffic to it. But maybe they're only getting like, you know, four or 500 unique visitors a week or even a month. It's it's probably still a little early to cash in on sponsored posts, there's probably just not enough fire there yet or enough community to attract the interest of of a brand that that would love to partner together. But kind of lay out that that career path for someone that wants to make money producing original content and working with brands. Well, I would say that Facebook and Instagram are dead unless you have a budget to spend on paid. It's a completely paid pay to play platform. It wasn't when I started, but that's my game and just that's, that's the game, take it or leave it. People are so then that leaves you really with Google. We is, you know, and YouTube. I'm not a video person maybe should be, but not. But those two are the same company and that same algorithm is driving both of them. So I think with YouTube, so it's, it's really about search, how are people finding you? Right? And so people build out these YouTube channels, but how are people finding them anymore? It's because the keywords that they write in the description paired with maybe some content on a blog or elsewhere or not, right? These are all working together to help people find you initially. So if you want to do a cooking show, and you know, like vegan, local food, whatever, that's what people are searching for it, they're searching for that. Now maybe on top of that, you've got this like really wild, crazy personality or you cook with your kids and They're so adorable. No one can resist them. And there's that let that more intrinsic, less quantifiable thing that makes you a star. And that's going to have to come through but how are people going to find you in the first place? That is the challenge. And though there is still so much opportunity I, I struggle with that because people find me through search and then I can insert some like, you know, more interest. But I would say more interesting original creative content, whatever it is video audio written stuff. You have to be thinking, how are they going to find you? And really the only way is it's Google is the big boy in the room and you have to appease him.say that Facebook and Instagram are dead unless you have a budget to spend on paid.

27:30
Hmm.

27:31
So keep Okay, so if someone wants to Write for Google, like, Is there a course that you recommend? Is there like how does someone learn about producing great content? And I'll talk about like tools and that sort of thing. Yeah, tools of the trade and just a little bit, but like it?

27:46
Well, I would say I have not I've just learned piecemeal here and there. I mean, I follow Neil Patel religiously. Yes. Yeah. You're, if you're new, if you're brand new, I feel like he's gonna be way over your head. Honestly, the best thing that you can do it Just hit down actually with a friend who's got a wildly successful, like 15 year old media platform. And she's so sophisticated, great content creator, whatever. But she knows nothing about SEO. But what we did is we just sat down, Neil Patel has some free, really great bunch of really great free SEO tools. And you can go in there and literally just off the top of your head, like, let's say go back to like vegan, organic, right over. So you just type in local, vegan, organic and see what comes up. Because you, you know, it starts with it's just a human experience like it's a machine is an algorithm which might seem intimidating, but ultimately is created by humans for humans. So you put in the terms that you think people are interested in, then they will suggest to you there's long, long, long list of tool of words and terms that that tool will suggest you. You can do this yourself just in Google just in the search bar. And then you know, you scroll down to the 10 front pages and there's all those, those other terms at the bottom right does it related terms On the bottom of Google search, that's free that is telling you what if someone searches for vegan organic near me, the other terms that they're likely to search for, right? So all of a sudden you have like 10 different search terms just here in Google Home page that anybody can use for free and moments, all those terms that you know it like maybe you wrote this really beautiful essay about why you love how you became vegan and eating local and how you want to share that with the world. And then you go in there and you can just retro actively fit those keywords into your, into your content. So it signals to anybody that's interested in your stuff. It communicates with Google to push your stuff up on the on the algorithm. That sounds complicated. I mean, I don't know Josh, I'm here I'm talking to you. I don't even know what to tell people because it's so big.

29:50
Right? Well, and I think it's that that feeling of overwhelm like it is so big, or I think the other side of that is mo what you're talking about. Sounds like It's going to take time because it's going to take Google a couple months to discover your stuff and then decide, well, where do we where do we rank this? I mean, it's actually people lose patience. And then they kind of throw in the towel way too early. When does the magic happen?

30:16
Well, I know you want me to tell you, because what works for me is not going to work for anybody because I tried 2012 and it's almost 2000 might be 2020 when you publish this, and the reality

30:28
is, Are you kidding? I'm not gonna publish this. This is top secret stuff. Now, hackers, I listen. Oh. So you wouldn't wouldn't publish the notes of my secret work? Yes. Right. Right. Exactly.

30:43
Right. I mean, the reality is I get kind of shy sharing my story, because it's like, oh, I just wrote what I wanted. And then the New York Times wrote about me and then I was on, you know, on magic and then all these sponsors called me and it was all great. And there is definitely I was, it was I was very lucky and I Wherever, maybe just some things right along the way. But it was also a lot of hard work. And I kept learning and learning and failing and failing and failing and learning and learning and learning. But the reality is, is you have to like, you know, once upon a time, I'm trying to think of another example, like the market just changed the market change it. There's literally I think, what hundreds of millions of blogs out there. And if you want to get in that game, it's a very evolved industry. When I started, it was not evolved. It was a different time today, you have to invest and if you don't have a knack for learning all this stuff, I just rambled off about SEO, then you have to hire someone and it's extremely expensive, because it's extremely hard to do well, but it's done right. It can be extremely lucrative. Yeah. So if you're like me, I don't want to spend money if I don't know for sure. 100% I'm going to get it back and you're not an entrepreneur and you need to go get a job and that's okay, there are still jobs out there, go get a job. But you're like, I just want to write well, that's okay. But then you need somebody to figure out help you figure How to Get your content out there. And again, it's an investment. It's just reality of it. If that hurts your feelings, well, then you're not going to be an entrepreneur because you're going to get your feelings hurt a lot.

32:10
Let's talk about hiring SEO. What are your options? I mean, obviously, you can start with, you know, someone that's, you know, charging like a 10 bucks an hour on Upwork or something, but what do you get for that? versus Do you need a consultant? I mean, that's a completely different kind of hire. And what does that cause? I mean, I, you know, I, I've seen

32:31
people. The thing is, there's not that many people out there because if you're really good at SEO, you probably have your own blog, and you're doing it yourself because he's so huge. Right? I think Neil Patel, he has a service. I don't know what you get for it, but I think it's like four or $5,000 a month to start. My he's a pretty big agency. I don't I really can't speak firsthand about that. But there's other people out there because obviously there's such a huge market for it, but most of the people that are investing in the agencies are big corporation that had big content set. Yeah.

33:02
Right. And and I think that their content is well monetized. So you can make sense to dump the money into that just simply because listen, if I can get my stuff I can get way more conversions on my affiliate offers, you know, I'm cranking out like two $300 a pop, when I close, let's say, like personal loan type thing, which could be more I don't know. But I know there's like, you know, even like working with, you know, some of the service providers that serve the Small Business entrepreneurial community, you know, you can get 100 hundred $50 per conversion. And so, you know, if you can get

33:38
Yeah, but here's the thing, like it's a numbers game, right? So but those are very hard to do. So for example, I tried to do a lot of stuff with the student loan refinancing world, right, a lot of traffic, it's intuitively struck me as a great fit. They pay a ton which has like, like dollar signs in my pupils, right. I was like, I'm gonna knock this one out of the park. It was seems so obvious. I don't think I Made a single conversion because those the good student loan refinancing companies that I feel comfortable working with, yeah, it's extremely high, you have to have a high income and high credit score. And so okay, what's $300? You know, you can do, you know, a handful of $300 deals, or you can do you know, thousands of $20 deals or hundreds of thousands of dollars of $2 deals, right. And it's just really going to depend on what your traffic is. And going back to the traffic, you're like, how many like people could make six figures on 400 traffic a month? If it was the right traffic, you can have a million viewers a month and make nothing because it's garbage traffic, right. It's like, early on, I still have this post that silver for a couple of years. I hit this blog post, I wrote this piece and the headline was, You are stupid if you do your own laundry. And this is sort of feminist manifesto about how women are like tied to doing like low pay domestic work, but it gobbles up all of our time, all of our headspace and if you just spent $20 $40 a week outsourcing that you can get that time back and build whatever life you want, right? Yeah. And that thing, it just struck a nerve. Again, this was back when Facebook was a viable distribution model. And it just struck a nerve. And I'm telling you what women are sanctimonious about their laundry, like people are so passionate about why you should do your own laundry. And it was very triggering. And it was great. So it went literally went viral. And then somehow it picked got picked up on some Google algorithm. And that was my number one performing blog posts for like two or three years. Wow, that was when I was just beginning to dabble in. Seo affiliate did not understand how it works. But I did find a partner on care.com or you can find Yeah, hitters but also housekeepers. Yeah, like that was like the best one and they pay 75 bucks, but it wasn't going to work. So here I had all this traffic, which was basically meaningless. For some reason it was getting all this organic traffic from Google and it got social media traffic. I could not monetize that it was garbage traffic. Essentially but was it or not I don't know people read it it maybe it changed some people's lives maybe they get on my email list you know like it you know it serves some purpose but it didn't make me any money I'll tell you that

36:13
you know our number one performing blog post on savings Angel again run it on like over four years is is it is a shaving artist Dollar Shave Club a good deal. If we've done such a poor job, I'll be honest, like we were you know, I think it's just because we got lazy because we're a membership based website and we did you know, earned a lot of revenue from that we've shut that down. Savings Angel kind of runs on autopilot right now I'm not it I'm in a tricky spot. Like I don't know what to do with it. Like I I love it because it still allows me to be the savings Angel. So I get to do the media, which is relevant for what I do without my influence. I can show people listen, I'm still in the game. I haven't you know, I haven't retired and you know, Out of the media world I want to keep you know, I want to keep my chops. I don't know what to do with it, like we get, you know, probably 700 plus unique visitors a day. So it's not gangsta big, but it's still big enough that we could probably be, you know, as

37:16
it is, I think Dollar Shave Club has. I

37:19
know they do. Yeah, it's like a need. I guess I just need to hire someone's like, okay, go find my monetization opportunities. And so if anybody were listening in on our secret conversation, and you have those ninja skills I know no one's listening to it but it to me right now but if you did, please contact me You gotta you gotta help me out. There's gold in them there hills. I think

37:42
there is it is and it's, you know, it's interesting because like, you can get into this whole affiliate thing and it seems like it's just, it takes like, it's an art and a science both because it's like, you know, it's not just like, okay, there's Dollar Shave Club traffic and then you get the affiliate. Boom. And sometimes it is that simple. It's often a lot more nuanced. And there's a lot of psychology that goes into things and being really playful with the content trying to figure out what partner goes with what content like, what are they thinking, like, I was so like, all the years that I was really writing and my best writing happens to be and I wrote a big book with penguin and my editor, it was like a is all about being a single mom from the money and the career and the CO parenting the dating. And she was like, you know, your best writing is really when you talk about dating and sex and that is true. And when I was starting, I was dating like, I did like crazy for a bunch of years. I've been in a serious relationship now for three years is like monogamous, old school boyfriend relationship, and I just like don't really write about dating because I'm not dating anymore. But you know, when I never wrote I was like, never felt like I could tell people how to find like, a serious relationship or have a relationship or find love. Because I that's not where I was, but guess what my audience wants that like, just really A little free poll in your Facebook group, like what do you want in there? Like, where to find a good man will ever find love again? Well, I stopped dating douchebags like, right? Like you just asked them. And so I just wrote this really long blog post for SEO. But it's broadening my audience. Like, it's so broadening my audience for that, because I was only speaking to women who are just dating a lot, because that's what I was writing to. But I'm also now speaking to women wanting to find love and relationships, which is frankly the majority of them.

39:29
Yeah. You know, um, I think you I mean, you you I know you really love your audience. And I think you have a great audience that you know, with with the brand wealthy single Mommy, I think you you hit on an audience that has the ability to pay, you know, if they're really interested in doing their money, well, they're going to make smart decisions and so they have a desire to pay. Because if you can recommend a solution that can improve Their life. I mean, that's kind of what you want likely audience selection is really important in trying to hone in on what, ultimately what partners are going to fit. But, you

40:13
know, stop you right there because my brand is Wealthy Single Mommy. And I mean, I wish I could tell you I did like some high level market research to come up with that URL. But really, like, I just decided I was gonna make a blog in the middle of the night and I went on GoDaddy and I wanted to buy something that had the words like single mom and money in it, and it was like the only URL that I could find for like, $5. And now it's like this big business. But you know, the essence of it was like wealth. You know, the wealth has many meanings. It's money, but it's also the richness of your life and all these other things, but it was me because I was very excited because I was making good money and I was bucking where I felt like I you know, I came into single motherhood, like oh my god and be living on the street. I bought into this poverty mindset, and then I flipped the script. And I'm like, I that's the thing. I want to help. Women flip the script I want society to flip the script but that is it so here's the thing I'm my money comes almost exclusively from Google somebody's like I want to learn about you know what's an example like life insurance after divorce they Google that I come up on page one that says it me but then there's also the community right like then I have my email list and then I have my facebook group and these are all interesting things. But they don't mama just wants to get like her life insurance and get out and I make you know, my 50 bucks from the lead generator. That's it like the money in the community are certainly overlap. They've inform each other, but they are discreet in many ways. So the idea of community is like it's fading. I feel like bead is the feed is so deep. Yeah. So rich. So the feed for those like Josh, you know, I say the feeling I'm on Facebook way too much. I need to get off because I I do think Facebook is dying, but I love my facebook group and I see my friends, kids on Halloween, whatever. But um, you know, I really believe search is the only future that we have in the social and digital media. So you have a community on Facebook, that is still very viable, but how are you going to get people in your community? Google's not giving you that stuff for free anymore. Like I started, that group is 15,000 people and it's extremely active. I know it very much serves that audience. I hire three moms to monitor it because it's very curated. You can't there's so many rules to keep the quality very high. I couldn't tell you how much money I make from that group. It's it but I just feel very compelled to run it because I know it really serves people and it serves me too. I mean, I do, but when I put a blog post in there, if you try to put an affiliate link on Facebook, they can smell that crap a mile away and you're going to get no organic juice, right.

42:57
You know what my

42:58
blog is? Facebook knows. It's my Facebook. group but they also know that my blog is they don't give me any organic juice in my facebook group for my own content and you can't boost stuff inside a Facebook group. So in terms of making money from Facebook unless you've got a budget and you hire somebody that's extremely sophisticated Facebook Ads Manager, you are not making any money from Facebook. So where's your community? Instagram lunk ps Facebook owns Instagram, Facebook, Instagram is cracking down and charging you for everything starting next year. That's over, right. Plus, there's a bazillion and 200 people on Instagram. So where's the community unless somebody is going to go back and consciously look at your Instagram every day. They're not going to do that unless you use to date them and there's your they're stalking you right like they are not they do not care about you. No one cares about you. So I don't know what the future of community is anymore. Wow.

43:50
That's Yeah, I've heard other people talk about you know, monetizing their social and they're like you just can't, you know, that's where you give them You build your relationship with people. But you know, you got to keep it a degree or two or separation in terms of like trying to make money. There you just it's not going to go over well, like Facebook's algorithm will be no down, down voted into oblivion, you know it's a no one will see it if it has anything to do like they know if it has anything to do with you making money. They're just going to be no organic reach to it whatsoever unless you're paying them some dollars. So what are your favorite tools for SEO?

44:38
Oh, well, that's so funny. You asked that because Neil Patel needs to give me a sponsorship deal. I'll tell you he just had a post. I'm going to click off of the screen here. So I can tell you about different Chrome extensions that will help you with your SEO Oh, and I just I added a couple of them. So I will tell you what they are. I don't have them memorized. This was literally like two days ago. Alright, so This is what's on my Chrome. My Chrome extensions are my calendly. This is not all SEO. Just FYI. I'm opening up my underwear drawer is showing you. So I have calendly because I love that for scheduling meetings and I have I have really almost all my meetings are 15 minute meeting You don't? Nothing You can tell me less than 15 more than 15 minutes Bitly my last pass. Oh, I do have some self published books. So I had this book report thing. You don't need to load it. Okay, I'm showing my age. I have a like, Alexa widget on my Chrome are. Wow. Because I like to keep an eye on my I realized that it's dated and it's old fashioned. But it helps me as I'm poking around the internet and like it is.

45:49
It is a good metric to know.

45:52
I don't know that it is I really

45:54
like it. I think a lot of people would laugh at us if we said it was a good metric. Okay,

45:58
I don't know what I do.

46:01
Because right now last six months okay and then the other one is mas the free mas one which that's I think better and that just shows you right up on your Google Chrome what the page rank is of any page that your mind so you know like yours is strong like well I'm we're friends I know you're legit but someone's like oh you let me interview you for a blog post and I go and they have like a mas score 15 at this stage of the game it's just not worth it for me and I'm going to decline. Wow, it just helps me like keep an eye on what's going on out there. Yeah, there's a new one from our friend Neil Patel. It's called

46:41
Oh shoot, they don't have the name here.

46:45
It's a lead generator for SEO.

46:54
I'm sorry here. I'm going to get back to you quake SEO quake. That's what it is SEO SEO

46:59
quick Heard that Yeah,

47:00
yeah. And it's got a zillion metrics on there. I would say if you're brand new to SEO skip this because it's going to be a whole bunch of numbers that are just going to be completely overwhelming to you. Moz, m o z. That guy is like a longtime leader in the SEO world. Yeah, that's a great resource. He's got a blog that again, it's for professionals. It's not necessarily for newbies, but he is a very respected pioneer in the SEO world has some tools out there I think that's how they make their living. And I also finally just got on the Grammarly game. Oh gosh, yeah,

47:30
yeah, yeah. Yeah, I I honestly, I would make such a fool of myself. If it weren't for Grammarly. Send them a Christmas card. I really Yeah, no kidding. Thank you for saving my bacon so many times. Do you pay you don't pay do you pay for the grammerly Premium?

47:49
I haven't I'm I literally am brand new to it. The other SEO tools do go and play around in Neil Patel's. It's Uber suggests go to gas Yes, right? Totally free, I find it's amazingly robust for a free tool. Very, very easy to use very simple, self explanatory. And you can just go down the rabbit hole. I mean, you learn so much about your business about your competitors, you can put in any website any term. And it just it will. That's a very quick and dirty way to get started with SEO.

48:23
Wow. Um, this has been awesome. You know, I almost feel I'm tempted to put the, you know, if I were to put a title on if this were a podcast, which it's not, but if it were, I'd be tempted to put the title like social is dead or dying or, you know, and and Long live SEO. You know, it's kind of that the headline for this, I was

48:48
thinking about writing like a LinkedIn article about that.

48:52
What do I got to tell you like LinkedIn, I don't know about content and stuff, but forum, a network. tool like, especially if you pay to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator, I mean you have to, it has to fit the right business. You know, it's, it's, you know, for agencies, it's a no brainer. But that's where I mean, we get like 90% of our business just of how we really use LinkedIn Sales Navigator yeah to have it like a go giver kind of philosophy for doing that, you know, where it's just, you know, go out and find people you could do nice things for and see what happens. That's that's what we do. But that's, I mean, if you know, like, how we've grown our business, especially this you past four or five months, especially. It's ridiculous. I mean, it just it's so, so good right now, and I hope they don't screw it up.

49:47
Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, it's a very fascinating time in history that we're living in and that we can connect with literally anybody in the world.

49:57
Yeah, I know you talked about that about like, not sending your kids to Ivy League schools. Why would you do that? Like it doesn't make any sense to do you're like

50:04
for the network. I'm like, oh, here's a network on my LinkedIn app right here on my phone. That's your network.

50:10
Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. So you and you and I were in big agreement on that one. Awesome. All right. Well, I'm Emma, thank you. Thank you. We're gonna have to put the, the blindfold on again, as we helicopter ya outta here. I, if people knew where we were even having this interview, I mean, it's it could blow everyone's covered. So I hope you hope you don't mind.

50:34
Thank you so much. It's fun. I love talking to you.

50:38
That single mommy definitely knows what she's doing. I do not. As my life has come to crashing the trash can. If you enjoyed that, listeners, then subscribe to this podcast. If you want more ways to spy on Josh then visit upmyinfluence.com. I'm Morse Code, and I have to change my bandages. Over and out.