Ep 226: Growth & Acquisition Strategies For Content Websites To Make Money Online with Aisha Preece

Jaryd Krause:

What if you made more money from your blog than ads and affiliate products in a totally new way? Hi, I'm Jaryd Krause, and I am the host of the Buying Online Businesses Podcast. And I'm speaking with Aisha Preece, who is the founder and owner of the side hustle Out and Beyond as well as five other blogs. Aisha has a great passion for SEO and teaching others how to drive thousands of visitors to their blogs and websites, but she also believes in monetizing using alternative monetization strategies such as workshops and a variety of different digital products. She has a tiny but mighty Instagram community, @aishapreece, I'll be linking to that in the show notes, where she shares a lot about SEO and blogging tips and all that sort of fun stuff.

So in this podcast episode, Aisha and I talk about why she started blogging and trying to make money online and her journey through that, which is probably similar to mine and yours, and I think it's important to draw some inspiration from it as well. We also talk about her process of making more money through blogs than just ads and affiliate products, how she grows her email list, and how she sells those awesome products that people actually want. And we talk about how she hires writers, her awesome process, and how you can do the same for hiring the best writers for any niche. We also talk about why it's better to hire a certain type of writer than somebody who just knows how to write, or SEO in itself.

We also talk about how often she publishes content, what that actually looks like, and then we talk about how to create topical authority for a content site, which is very important, either for a new site or a site that you actually buy. And then we move on to talking about her experience buying two of her own websites, which is fascinating. I didn't know this was going to come up in conversation. And then we talk about what she's learned through that.

We also talk about the size of businesses and why the size of the business that you purchase matters, why she mentioned this, and how I give a few examples of risk comparing one size business to another size business and what you should know about that in terms of risk and what you expect from that asset if you're going to be the new owner of it as well.

We also talk about what she learned throughout Due Diligence and that's one thing that I want to mention right here, right now, is that if you are looking to buy a business, make sure you cut out the guesswork and go away and get our Due Diligence Framework at buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources. It’s what I use. It’s what my clients use. It's helped us save millions of dollars and make millions of dollars by buying online businesses. So it takes the guesswork out, so you don't buy lemons. So make sure you go away and get that. Now let's dive into the episode, which I'm sure you're going to absolutely enjoy.

Do you have a website you might want to sell either now or in the future? We have a hungry list of cashed up and trained up buyers that want to buy your content website. If you have a site making $300 per month and want to sell it, head to buyingonlinebusinesses.co/sellyourbusiness or email us at [email protected] because we will likely have a buyer. Details are in the description.

Aisha, hello, and welcome to the podcast.

Aisha Preece:

Thanks so much for having me, Jaryd.

Jaryd Krause:

Did I pronounce it correctly this time?

Aisha Preece:

It's Aisha.

Jaryd Krause:

Aisha, Aisha, yeah. Apologies, apologies.

Aisha Preece:

The A is silent. It's confusing.

Jaryd Krause:

Okay, Aisha, Aisha. You're into blogging, and that's why I wanted to get you straight on and have a chat. Tell me, a lot of people want to make money online on MySpace, right? In buying a business, most of them are looking to buy a blog, and they have their own reasons why. I got into trying to make money online for my own personal reasons, but I'd love to know from you, why did you get into blogging?

Aisha Preece:

Well, I mean, great question. I think for me, the key value and the reason is freedom, right? People throw around this word like it's a sexy word, but what does it mean in reality? And I did a lot of different types of, you know, my background is corporate banking and law, and I did a lot of side hustles apart from blogging, freelance writing, and proofreading. But blogging is the one, and an online business is the one that is able to give you true freedom in terms of location, time, and blogging specifically. You don't have to work with people you don't want to work with. You know what I mean? You have autonomy, and that is so liberating for me. So everybody that is in my life, I've chosen to interact with them, and those relationships are more authentic. So ultimately, for me, it's been freedom.

Jaryd Krause:

That's awesome. Yeah, freedom. Same reason I got into trying to make money online. I started trying to start businesses. My first ever business, which I started online, was a blog. It was a travel blog. It was ausglobetrotter.com. No longer a domain anymore. But I've saved a lot of my travel stories, and I realized it was just pretty tough. I tried to make money really fast. I wasn't patient. I didn't realize it was going to take years and years and years, and I didn't realize that everybody with an iPhone was going to become my competition, really.

So it was a difficult one. And the goal for me—the reason I started blogging and started online businesses is so I could have the same thing as you, freedom. I wanted to get out of my nine to five. I hated it, absolutely. But the freedom of choosing who you want to work with and who you have in your life—that's a really good one. Was that something you consciously decided before blogging, or did you consciously realize that pre being a blogger, post being a blogger?

Aisha Preece:

No, I mean, I didn't have any experience. I was pretty clueless. I failed a lot. So if anybody's listening and thinking, “Oh, gosh, Jaryd got it all figured out; maybe I just got it all figured out.” absolutely not. At the beginning, you're grappling, you're just trying to go for anything. And for me, it was after a conscious decision of which revenue sources were more passive and which were more active, and time and energy are so precious to me. We underestimate. We look at the money and are like, “Yeah, that's amazing.” But what about the time and energy? And over time, I've looked at those as real assets because they're limited. You're not going to get your time back.

And so, after a few kinds of negative experiences, I said, "Why am I doing this? I'm not setting this business up to work harder. And so now I'm very conscious of what I say yes to. And so just shout out to Jaryd. I really like your podcast, and people get advice all the time, but I've listened to your stuff, and our values are the same. You believe in spending more time with your loved ones. And for me, it's important who you give your time to because time is limited.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, spot on. And yeah, thanks for being an advocate for the podcast, but it does come back to, "Hey, you can always earn more money, but you can't earn more time. And I work less than most billionaires and less than people who earn 10 to 20 million a year. And I am okay with that because I get to do exactly what I want. I rushed back home this morning out of the surf and jumped straight onto a phone call, and I loved it. I get to rush from the ocean straight back home and come back and chat business. I get to have a really good balance with that. So now what—sorry, you were going to say something?

Aisha Preece:

I was just going to say that this is something people might experience because no one warned me about this conscious decision that it's okay not to earn more. I got quite burned out at the start of the year, and I actually nearly gave up blogging, believe it or not. Not many people know this. Well, they'll know now. It’s because I felt like I wasn't doing enough. And I was feeling very inferior, actually.

Despite myself growing compared to myself last year, I feel like we have this pressure, especially when you're doing well, to keep on growing the next, and then I had to sit back and say, “Actually, I don't want that.” I mean, if I want to earn 20 million, 30 million, or more, become a billionaire, I can, but at what cost? I mean, I'm actually going to go cycling in Tanzania and Tuscany in June. But that means my business, obviously, I'll outsource, but if you're not working on your business and somebody else is, they are going to be further ahead, and that's okay. And it's having that conscious decision and being okay with it.

Jaryd Krause:

So good. And knowing that your business is enough with where it's at right now, and also, deeper, knowing that you are enough. The people listening, you are enough with where you're at right now as well. I'm a big proponent of less stress. I understand that some stress is good because under pressure, stones form gems and stuff like that. But too much of it, and things are just going to break. So yeah, I'm so glad that you brought that up. You don't need to be doing 100-hour work weeks. It sounds like you did a similar thing to me. I got sick, I got glandular fever, and I worked too many hours. I had to change my whole business model, nearly losing it all because I was overworking. And I think a lot of people don't realize that.

I had a really good friend of mine who was going to jump in and work with me on my business. He sold his business on Flippa for a decent amount, and he got brought back into the business, and now he's stressed, and he was just literally messaging me just now, saying, “Yeah, I've just had a stressful week.” And it's only Wednesday. And that's because he's putting so much pressure on himself.

Aisha Preece:

I think for me, and I don't know if anyone here listening can relate, I didn't come from much money. And so I felt like I didn't deserve to give up in some way. What if your money runs out? And that's a mindset thing. So I felt a lot of pressure, like you're lucky enough to have a successful business. How dare you not want more? How many people would be grateful to be in such a situation? But then, at what cost? We do this for more freedom and happiness. So at what cost is now the question I ask myself?

Before I say yes to something, I ask, "At what cost? Time, time with loved ones, my energy, my mental health. So I think it's having that balance. I'm not afraid to work hard. When it's time to work, I will work, and I like making money. There's no shame in that. It's okay to say that. But I'm also now moving towards a model where, how can we make this sustainable for the long run?

Jaryd Krause:

Cool. Let's talk about that, then let's talk about how you make it sustainable in the long run. So how many blogs do you have now? Have you got a primary blog? What does your portfolio of online businesses look like?

Aisha Preece:

Okay, so I have six. I'm growing six blogs. And yeah, I mean, I grew very quickly. It happened very quickly. So my first blog, after failing for about two, three years, suddenly, it happened really quickly. And it happens, guys. The clouds open up, and, oh, you know, it happens. And it's like, "Oh my god.

Jaryd Krause:

Was this the same thing you had been working on for two years? It wasn't really doing anything, and then you kept going. Then, after two years, you saw results. Okay. I'm so glad you mentioned that.

Aisha Preece:

I finally learned SEO. That's what I did, really. I learned SEO properly. Then suddenly, it started growing. Everything happened at once, and I was like, "Wow, this is working. Why don't I just replicate this? And I think that's a mistake I made, and that's what I'm learning now. It's a learning journey for me. So I was able to grow my second blog very quickly, and I got that into Mediavine.

I have a third, a fourth, and a fifth, and now I'm looking back. So I'm growing six, I have a team. But now that I'm thinking about sustainability, what do I want? And so now I'm going to grow them to a certain point, and I think I'll offload some assets because I prefer to have less now and have more control. And that's just a journey that I've gone through.

Jaryd Krause:

Awesome. Yeah. Well, when you're ready to offload those assets, let us know. We will buy them. And if you know somebody in the community, we'll buy them. Or just in our audience. So yeah, let us know.

But that's awesome. It's really good to set that expectation for people to realize, "You need to do this. This is a long term game. This is not how to make money quickly online. Even when somebody buys a business that's already making money, they put this expectation on themselves that they're going to double the business within just a year. That's 100% growth in one year, which is absolutely exceptional. Especially if it's your first ever online business. Why put that pressure and stress on yourself?

Would it be so bad if you got 25% growth, learned some along the way, and then realized in four years’ time, maybe you had doubled or tripled the business in four years’ time. Can you wait that long? Can you be patient enough and deal with the ups and downs of business to sustain that and win over the long term? So I'm so glad that you mentioned that, because it really is. This whole game of financial independence, I guess, is a long game, right?

Aisha Preece:

Yeah, yes. And people underestimate. You might hear me say that my second blog got into Mediavine within 13–14 months. But that's because I have the experience of three, four, or failing, right? And so my sixth blog, within a month, is already getting Google traffic, but that comes from experience. And so people compare and beat themselves up. They're like, “Oh, Aisha’s getting Google traffic” or “Jaryd’s getting Google traffic within a month.”

That's because we don't have to learn all the things you need to do so you don't fail. And so if you're not getting Google traffic within a month, that's okay, but like you said, you can buy it. You can buy a site that has good foundations, which will kind of protect you in a way because a lot of new sites fail.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, 90%. So, all right. So you've got six blogs. Are they all in different niches?

Aisha Preece:

Yes.

Jaryd Krause:

Okay. Why?

Aisha Preece:

Diversification, interest. And so a lot of these are based on my interests. I personally think you’re going to have to write a lot about it. You're going to have to guide your team to write about it. So I prefer to pick sites, niches that I have a genuine interest in. And also, there are good keywords. So I do keyword research. And so I have three things. Do I have an interest? Are there low-competition keywords? Are there monetization opportunities? This is a big thing for me. Across the board, not just as an affiliate. It's got to be across the board, with different monetization for each niche. And then, when it's a yes, I'll go into it.

Jaryd Krause:

Cool. And so, talking of money, how do these make money? Is it just ads like Mediavine, or is it a portion of affiliates? And then, yeah, what is it looking like?

Aisha Preece:

So my first site, because it's bigger, is about side hustles and about location independence, Out and Beyond. So that has a big range. It has ads, affiliates, a lot of digital products, courses, eBooks, and workshops. And so I'm not afraid to have some active income, which I know is harder when you sell it. But for me, I use some of the active income to fund the site. That's okay. For content.

So for the smaller ones, ads and affiliates, yes. But I'm actually building out digital products for all of them because you're able to monetize traffic much easier because a lot of people are scared about AI. They're scared about what will happen if my traffic goes. And if you don't need that much traffic to make money, you're protecting yourself, and it becomes stickier. And so that's why I'm not selling the sites yet, because I don't believe in selling something I'm not comfortable buying.

And I want the next buyer to be able to have a good site. And so I want to have digital assets and digital products for them, even if they're one or two, so they can take the site and then grow it. And so I'm building digital products for all of them.

Jaryd Krause:

I love it. Absolutely love it. It's the same thing that I've mentioned to people as a growth strategy once they have bought a blog is that get the email list going. You don't need to have a massive authority on your site to sell affiliate products. And then, once you've got an affiliate product that you can test out and see if your audience or your email list actually likes it, you can create that as your own product and make a higher profit margin. You're sort of testing the waters first, and you don't need to sell it from your site. You can sell it through your email list. And as long as you've got the email list, that can make up the lion's share of the income.

Awesome, right? You own that. It's not going anywhere, and you're not susceptible to Google algorithm changes or competition because you have no competing competitors. You own the list, right? So with your digital products, are you selling them mostly off the site, or are you doing a bit of a combination with an email list as well?

Aisha Preece:

So definitely, for my first site, the email list has it, and I'll be building out the email list for all of them. So for now, the process is obviously to start with a product, right? So let's say for my sixth site, I think of a product, and I decide on the product based on the top 10 traffic and Google Analytics. I'm like, what are the most popular posts, right? What are they clicking on? And then I think I take a step back, and this is where AI might be able to help you.

You might go into ChatGPT and say, “What is a good digital product for?” And then you get some ideas, and then you sit down as a human and think, "What are my pain points? I close my eyes and say, “What are my pain points? And how can I solve them with the digital product?”

So I created the digital product. As soon as you create a digital product, you create a freebie that's relevant to that digital product. Because then you're funneling them in, right? So they go into your site, and there's a pop-up. Give me a niche, and I'll give you an example. What's a niche?

Jaryd Krause:

Pickleball.

Aisha Preece:

Pickleball—what is pickleball?

Jaryd Krause:

Let's go surfing, then.

Aisha Preece:

Surfing, okay. So let's just say you have a surfing site, right? And the product could be maybe a little mini course on how you manage to master technique in a shorter time or how you find great deals because surfing costs a lot of money for some people, right? There's a lot of things. Or diving, for example.

Or an ultimate guide to the best surfing spots in the world. And you could give your personal experience, right? Where to go, where to book, whatever. So here's the mini course. And then you can have a freebie: seven common surfing mistakes that will break your ankle, or that nearly broke my ankle.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah. So are we talking about creating a freebie, as in, they still have to give up their email to get that and opt in? And then, off the back of that, you have an email marketing campaign to sell them that digital product about how to become a better surfer or whatever it is.

Aisha Preece:

Totally, yeah. Or you can have a tripwire, which is a temporary discount. So they sign up to the email list, and it's relevant. You give them a temporary 50% discount. Or if they join the email list, then you create a series of emails and say, “Hey, thank you so much for joining.” And then you give them tips every day for seven days, and there's no pressure.

For me, if you genuinely are providing something that solves their problem, you will not be afraid to offer it. So I don't ever create anything that I wouldn't buy. So people say, “Do you feel uncomfortable selling?” I don't. For me, if I genuinely close my eyes and say, “What is my pain point? How does this solve it?” I don't feel uncomfortable at all recommending it.

Jaryd Krause:

It's a really good reframe for people that have money hang-ups around selling stuff, that sometimes there's people out there that have a problem and they're desperate to solve it. And if you don't sell them your product, you are not going to help them. And you're doing them a disservice by not creating a product and helping them on their journey, so they're not feeling the pain.

For example, if I know somebody wants to become a better surfer and they're looking at my site and I know that I've got a course in me that is going to make them a better surfer in two years, rather than take them 20 years, I'm doing them a disservice by not creating that product and selling it to them.

Aisha Preece:

That is correct. True. And I just went off on a tangent there. Okay, I'll do that later. I think that people need quick solutions to problems, right? And sometimes we think, "Well, how am I qualified to even teach that? You are writing a blog about it. You're surfing, you're a surfer. It's a way for somebody across the world to get access to it.

A digital product can be priced much lower than an in-person product, right? And so in a way, not only are you solving the problem, but you're solving it at a price point that could actually be a lot more affordable than most places they would go.

Aisha Preece:

Correct, correct. The way I look at it, and this is something not coming from the wealthy, is that we had four kids in our family, and with me becoming a plumber and being very tight when I would travel and stuff like that, I had to recondition myself to be okay spending money. And there's a lot of people who don't have that, like me. And now I'm in a position where I'm happy spending my money if it's going to make my journey easier and less stressful, and I can achieve the result a lot faster.

And that's why people invest in mentors. That's why people invest in programs. That's why people do these things is because they're prepared to part with their money to make their journey better and become better at something a lot faster. And why wouldn't you? I'm all about that.

Aisha Preece:

I mean, if you think about it, if you want to improve your body, you go to the gym, right? And so why would we not invest in our minds? So your mind is the single biggest thing that's going to make you money. I have to say, I take a course, I implement it, and I make more money. So for me, once I realize that, okay, if I want to be fitter, I get a personal trainer or go to the gym, But the way I'm going to improve my mind is not by scrolling on Instagram, watching crappy trash TV, or whatever. Okay.

If you want to switch off, you can, but be strategic about it. I want to get here, here's where I am. Somebody here, something here, a course, or a person, can get me there. Pay them, then you're there, and then you're making that money.

Jaryd Krause:

Exactly, spot on. So you work out which may be the best products that people are interested in based on the data of what's already working really well on your site, and then you create those. It's really, really good. Tell me about SEO.

You said you had been blogging for two years, and then you found out what SEO is. What were some of the things that you implemented on your blogs or this primary blog when you realized SEO was a thing? What are some of the things that you started to put in place?

Aisha Preece:

Okay. So firstly, we need to have a good foundation. You could have the best keyword in the world, and the best content, but if your site is slow, am I allowed to swear on this? Can I say no? Okay. If your site's crappy, I was going to say the s-word. If you have an ugly site that's slow, and has a bad user experience, you could have the best content in the world, and it won't help.

So start with step one, get yourself a lightweight theme like Kadence, Astra, GeneratePress, or Genesis. Any one of those is fine. And then make sure you have a good host that will load your site in less than three to four seconds. That's step one. Imagine that you are basically a house. Your foundation needs to be strong, right?

And so then number two is, "It depends, right? If it's a new site, it's different. If it's an old site, you need to immediately fix the content. And that's what I did. So I went in, looked at the content, and found a keyword. You've got to find a good SEO keyword with low competition, and then I optimize it. So if you are buying an existing site, that's what I would do. Do a content audit, go through all the content, and you will get the biggest results doing that because Google already trusts you. It's an existing site. So you just need to make the content more useful and then get more traffic.

And for me, if it's a new site, again, I would find low-competition keywords. But I always write content in clusters. And this is a big mistake a lot of newbies make. They write about separate topics. Now, topical authority is so important for Google because if you want to go up against these big sites, how do you show you're an expert? By having topical authority and writing many topics about one particular area. And when you do that, like my sixth site, that's what I did. For example, if you have a surfing site, give me an area of surfing. You have experience, Jaryd. Give me some areas of surfing.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, technique. Let's talk about technique.

Aisha Preece:

Yeah. Certain techniques, right? Or surfboards. Can I wax my surfboard? Can my surfboard do this? Can my surfboard do that? It's all to do with surfboards, right? And so write a topical cluster, and you will see that you will get results much faster.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, yeah. I guess it's good to explain why you get results much faster. It’s when you create a cluster of content. And the way I think about it is that if there's somebody that's starting to learn to surf and they go, “Oh, I need a surfboard and I know nothing about surfboards,” and then they come to that cluster, or they come to one starting point, what's the best surfboard for a beginner? What's the best fin or leg rope? What wax should I use?

How big should it be? How small should it be? What sort of way am I going to be surfing? With all these different articles and pieces of content that you should create in that cluster, you’re covering every single area of that topic for a beginner who wants their first ever surfboard.

And then it's not only great for the user, the user can be like, “Oh, cool, I've got all the content right here on this site” in that cluster. But Google says, “Okay, cool. You have carved out a linear process and step by step of what it would take somebody to go from "I want to learn to surf” to having a beginner board that's exactly right for me in the right type of waves.” Google's going to see, “Cool. You've nailed it.

You've covered it in each detailed step-by-step process more than other people. We're going to grant you the authority on those particular pieces of content and rank you higher,” which gets you more traffic and, the end goal, more money.

Aisha Preece:

Yeah. Jaryd said, "Yep, exactly that.

Jaryd Krause:

I like the idea of content clustering. When you buy a site, when you say, for example, that you were going to go and buy a site, you can see that, right? They've got four main categories. How would you go about defining what content is not yet touched on or covered in each of those clusters that you could use to create more topical authority and then help the site?

Aisha Preece:

I don't know if I've misunderstood your question, and if I answer this wrong, tell me. So I bought two sites, actually. So my fifth site is a site I bought, and I'm flipping that at the moment. So the exact process that I'm going through to improve the traffic, and it's working because the traffic's increasing, is to basically go into Google Search Console, right? And in Google Search Console, you can see the topics that are already getting traffic. They will be a trend. So anybody, listen to this.

Go into the Search Console. You will see that there are certain things on which Google thinks you are an expert. There will be a few articles, and aha. Bible studies, for example, Bible verses for, that was a cluster. There are still many other topics on the site, but Bible verses were a cluster.

So what you need to do, and this is what I'm doing for my fifth site, is double down on that particular topic. I went into my keyword research tool, found low-competition keywords in that area and an interlink with the existing, the old, and the new. And then suddenly the traffic increased because you were giving Google things you already liked and things you were an authority on. Does that answer your question? Was that something you were asking?

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah. I was just thinking about if you buy a site, people are like, “What sort of content should I create to grow this site? And what's not already covered to create good topic authority in that particular category?” And you could take that category and get a lot of the keywords from AnswerThePublic and a lot of different, you know, you do your keyword research on, like Semrush, Ahrefs, and whatever it is, and then find what has been covered on the site, what hasn't been covered, and then target what hasn't been covered to fill in or merge some of the old content into the new ones. Yeah, so go on.

Aisha Preece:

Google Search Console also gives you queries that you haven't covered. So if you go into Google Search Console on that article, you can click on queries. There will also be topics where you have high impressions, but haven't written about them. So that's a really great way. Or you take your competition, put their keyword in a search, look at what they're ranking for, and write something better.

Jaryd Krause:

So good. Publishing. Let's talk about the frequency of publishing. How often are you publishing? Well, first, maybe we should talk about the team. Let's talk about the team before how frequently you publish because that might be a more linear process. When you build a site or are working on a site, at what stage do you start hiring a team and writers? And who's the first person to hire? Why?

Aisha Preece:

My hiring process happened in a way because, look, because of my background before, like I said, I tried many freelance jobs and was a freelance writer. And so for a lot of my workshops, I had to become an online teacher and a proofreader. I teach workshops on this because my site is on side hustles, I have courses on it. And so I wanted to give my students the opportunity to have a portfolio.

No one wants to hire a writer with no experience. And so I actually set up my second site. So it was a portfolio for them. So they would write for the site, and they could then show clients what they wrote. But I think now, let's say, if I didn't go through that process, when you're getting to a point where you're feeling tired, you know that you can grow further and you're getting in your own way, right?

And so my hiring process is a bit different. Some people go on Upwork, and just hire experienced people. I prefer to train my team myself. I do it this way. I am active on Instagram. I have a small, beautiful, and mighty Instagram community. And I say, “All right, guys, I have a writing workshop coming up. Here are the ticket prices.”

And they come to my writing workshop, and I say, “That writing workshop guarantees you an opportunity to pitch to me.” So then they would pitch to me. And then I have Loom videos sharing how to write. I train them up. And so they come into the workshop, they pay for the ticket, they pitch to me, they get trained up from scratch, with no experience, to become my writers, and the best writers then write for me. And so, for my writers, I only hire Pinterest VAs. I only hire people from my writing team because they know the foundation. And so I built my team of writers.

Jaryd Krause:

Okay. So writers are the first people that you hire?

Aisha Preece:

Yep, yep.

Jaryd Krause:

Cool.

Aisha Preece:

Content is your product, right? That's the most important thing.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, yeah. I love it. That is an amazing process. Everybody listening, is not going to be able to use that actual process unless your niche is writing. Do you think otherwise?

Aisha Preece:

So for example, let's just say you have an Instagram, right? There are so many people who want to earn extra money, right? So let's say you have a totally small following—less than a thousand followers on Twitter, whatever.

Jaryd Krause:

So let’s say we stay with surfing. So I've just bought a website, it's about surfing, and I've got a surfing Instagram account, and I need a writer.

Aisha Preece: Right. Guaranteed, there are people in the surfing community who want to earn extra money because they want to surf more.

Jaryd Krause:

Love it.

Aisha Preece:

So you say, “Hey, guys. Does anybody here want to get trained up to earn extra money remotely? I will give you the full training, and you will get paid to write about things you love anyway.”

Jaryd Krause:

And they already know the space, yeah.

Aisha Preece:

Exactly. And you can also ask them to include their original photos. So in a way, you are rewarding your community. I have to say, start with your community, give back. They're there to support you, right? So why don't you spend money on them? So say to them, “If anybody wants to earn a bit of extra money, get paid to write what they love, I'm running a workshop.

I will train you. You have no experience writing, no problem.” And then you take it from there. That's A. Or B. If you're not comfortable doing that, fine, go on Upwork, or those other platforms. But then you would cut out that process of calling people for a workshop, but you would have the videos, right?

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, you still have the videos.

Aisha Preece:

I have new videos, you'd say. Exactly.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah. Whenever I hire someone, I don't train them. I've already got training set up. So basically, they go through a whole course, they understand the brand, they understand what it looks like; and all that sort of stuff. So, guys, if you're not going to tap into this, tap into it now. Reach out to your audience already. Not only are you going to get better writers because the writers are in space, they understand the lingo, the language, and they're going through the process themselves.

They're going to be able to write for people who want to read about your content. Also, they have authority, which you can use, which Google wants. Writers who are already in the space have some level of authority because they've already been through it or are going through it. And you can promote that on your site as well. So I really like you sharing that.

Aisha Preece:

Yeah. I mean, I think people get overwhelmed because they say, “Oh, well, it's going to take a lot of time to train them” or “Can people who have no experience be trained up?” And the answer is yes. Because the hard part is having that authority and knowledge. The easy part is teaching them the skill.

Jaryd Krause:

Correct.

Aisha Preece:

You don't need to be an experienced writer to write good content because blog content needs to be very easy to read. Basic. You can teach that, or you can just share it. Sharing the first few times will be painful. After that, it's easy. The very hard part is getting that experience and someone to care about the niche.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah. You're better off hiring somebody who loves the space and then teaching, guiding, and putting some guardrails up for them. And those guardrails are like, “Oh, this is what we need. Just a couple of things here for SEO and break it up this way and do it that way.” And you're away, right? Yeah, yeah. Cool.

So how regularly do you publish content? Are you going for as much as you can as quickly as you can? Do you have a lot of quality assurance put in place, and you just prefer to pay them a higher price per article and maybe just release a few of them per month? What does it look like to you?

Aisha Preece:

So, like I always say, I'm on a journey, so it's a learning curve for me. So I started by building up my sites quickly, and there was a lot of content. In terms of quality, I'm very lucky because I hire people from my community, and my editor is from the writers' community. So in terms of quality, it's there. Anybody that doesn't meet the quality requirement, unfortunately, we just don't work with them. So we train them up. And then, in terms of quality, I'm okay with 80%. That's number one. I'm okay with 80% done.

So I like publishing in bulk. So let's just say I order 180 articles across six sites, and then I won't publish for three months. But then I recently paused new content so I could do an optimization process for my first site because optimization is equally important. So I paused it, and now I'm finishing my optimization, and then I'll have another round of publishing new content.

But I am moving towards a model where I want fewer sites, but more quality. Because I believe that with the rise of AI, I could be completely wrong, and you might listen to this and say, “Uh-uh. Aisha doesn't know what you're talking about.” But I think that to run this business sustainably, you're going to need to build a brand, right? And so we're talking about social profiles, we're talking about original photos. And to operate at that level and have six sites, I don't have that capacity. And so I prefer to have less but do it well and build out assets such as Pinterest, social media, and an email list. And I think doing it that way means I don't need as much content. I can rely on other assets.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah. Well, I totally agree with that. And that's a really hard pill for people to swallow in the content space. A lot of people are like, “I want to buy a content site. I want to buy a blog, and I just want to be behind the laptop, and I don't want to be seen.” And they have this feeling that for it to be built into a brand, they need to become the brand. When the reality is no. The brand is built out of the philosophies, morals, and ethics that that business and company have.

And your writer can become the brand, and it can become a standalone brand in itself, rather than you having some personal dependency or personal brand dependency. And you can still hide behind the laptop, but you just manage a team and create an amazing brand that people absolutely love.

And I am so with you on having fewer assets, being more concentrated, and providing a better service to that particular vertical that you're going down. And yeah, you can have less content and more authority, and you will do better because you are everywhere. People will just feel like you are everywhere. And that trust comes from other pieces of content, other things that they've seen from you on different platforms—Pinterest, social media, all that sort of stuff. And they come and read the piece of content. They're going to get a lot more value and authority from it, just from the perception they have of you on other platforms.

Aisha Preece:

I think the fear that people have about showing their faces is valid, and I understand that. And the way that you could get around that is, as you said, to get your writers or show the activity you're doing, right? And so, for example, if you have a sewing site and you know you're an introvert, you don't want to show your face, no problem. Make sure you have lots of pictures of your hands showing sewing.

And on your Instagram, you can have photos of your designs as long as you're showing that you are a real person working in the niche, right? So when surfing, you don't have to show your face. You could just have a video of you surfing but turning away, right? So you don't necessarily have to be constantly in front of the camera, but show the activity you're doing to show authority.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, yeah. I'm not a big advocate of people only buying businesses that they're passionate about. I think that's a double-edged sword. It can be good. But why not build something that they understand and like? You can hire writers that love the space and help build them up on a platform, and they can be in front of the camera if they want. Can still not be seen but heard, and even make a bigger impact. I want to touch on the assets—the businesses that you've bought. So where did you buy these two sites from?

Aisha Preece:

Where did I buy them? Well, do you want me to share that?

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, well, why not? You don't have to share the person if it was a private sale, but if you bought them from different marketplaces or whatever, share.

Aisha Preece:

I bought both of them from them; they're called Niche Investor now. I think you've interviewed Chelsea.

Jaryd Krause:

Yes, I have interviewed Chelsea. Yeah. So Chelsea Clarke used to own BlogsForSale.co, which has turned into nicheinvestor.com now.

Aisha Preece:

So yeah, I look back and I wanted to get that experience, and so I would do things differently now, I think, with more experience. Because the great thing about Niche Investor is that you get a lot of starter sites, and she also sells established sites. Now I think I would buy from more established sites.

Jaryd Krause:

More established. You’d buy more established sites?

Aisha Preece:

Exactly. I would.

Jaryd Krause:

Yes. Why?

Aisha Preece:

I think based on personal experience. But I don't regret buying starter sites because if I didn't, I wouldn't learn. But I feel like when you buy a starter site, there's still no guarantee, there's no track record of success, right? And so if you buy a starter site, maybe you'll shortcut because there's content, but then how good is the content? What if it's written by AI? So there are a lot of things for which it hasn't proven itself. I mean, the fifth site I'm working on is great. I bought that from Niche Investor, and I'm really happy with it because it had original photos. It's a great site.

But I feel like I'm saving up now, actually. I'm saving up, and I'd rather invest in a bigger site so I don't need to do so much work. Because on the fifth site, I had to go in and change the theme. I had to do a lot of groundwork when my expertise is better on a bigger site because then I can just grow it much faster. And that's personal experience, guys.

Jaryd goes on about this, right? He said to buy established sites. And now, with that experience, I say, “Okay, now that I've gone through that. I would rather save up and buy a more established site.”

Jaryd Krause:

Ah, absolute music to my ears. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And yeah, size matters. Size actually matters. I was just speaking to somebody about this before on a coaching call. I'm going to record my first solo podcast in a long time on size matters and hash out some linear pathways on what it looks like to buy a site under a certain price and then above a certain price. And what it looks like for you as the investor and the resources that you can use.

How much resources come from the business and how you can reinvest into the business, how you may not even need to be an expert in certain areas, and how you can hire experts without too much stress and pressure.

And there is a caveat, of course, right? I bought my first site for 15 grand; some people are there, and they need to buy sites around that price range, that 10 grand price range. But it is a fair bit of work, as you mentioned. So I'm just glad that you mentioned that. What did you learn through the due diligence process, just through the purchasing process alone?

Aisha Preece:

I think that due diligence is on you. I think that it's your money, so you have a responsibility. You can't blame anybody if you buy from a bad site, because that's on you. It's your money, it's your investment. And so it's in your best interest to find out and to dig deep. Number one, don't be pressured into a sale. Especially when it comes to money. If you're not sure about it, take a step back. Number two is to take the time to look at the content.

On the surface, content might be great, but if you dig deep, you run it through an AI checker or a duplicate content plagiarism checker. Because these might be things that come up that you may not check if you're under pressure, right?

And so for me, the responsibility is on me, and the broker can do as much as they can. And the fifth site I bought is wonderful. But the income that you need to check, the due diligence you need to dig deep. Don't be afraid to ask for proof of finances because it's your money. And so for me, it's kind of like, “Okay, so here are the facts. Now let's dig deeper. Financials, which affiliate program? Show me the proof of the affiliate program. Let me have a look into it.” Maybe you do a screen recording if you're saying this is the income, this is what they're getting.

And another one for me is content. But again, in terms of when you're saying a more established site, an established site has weathered a Google update, right? So you are actually protecting yourself from risk because, like Out and Beyond, at some point, we will get hit. If you haven't been hit, fair play to you. But if you are publishing the content in the bulk that I am, you will get hit at some point. So if you've been hit, don't be ashamed, or scared. It happens. It's okay. You can recover. I've recovered from multiple updates.

Out and Beyond has gone through updates. We've recovered. We've recovered. So if someone buys Out and Beyond one day, they know it's a strong site that can weather Google updates and recover. But if you get a new site, you don't know, that's a huge risk. Your money can go from however much you spend, like $5,000, to zero the next day. And so you're protecting yourself when you buy from a more established site.

Jaryd Krause:

Do you want to just become the host of the Buying Online Businesses Podcast? That’s perfect. You're doing my job too well. I love it.

Aisha Preece:

No, I think it's like learning from experience. Sometimes I'm like, “Oh, maybe I should have waited,” but I think this is important for me to share. It's easy for me to be like, “Yeah, everything's perfect, I'm great,” but I think if I share, this stuff happens, guys. But if you don't take action, if you don't learn, you don't fail, you don't learn, and you can't come on a podcast and say, “Don't do what I did. Listen to Jaryd.”

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, the failing thing. Be okay with failing. Be happy about failing. If you fail, you can learn from it if you allow yourself to and are not bitter about it. And that's what you are here to do. That's all we ever do—just learn and learn and learn and learn. And the more you learn, the better results you can get. So how many sites did you look at before you decided to buy one?

Aisha Preece:

Not enough. So, like I said, I went in blind. And I figured because it was a smaller investment, it was less of a risk, but that's not true at all, right? Because it's not only a money investment, it's also a time investment that you have to make later.

Jaryd Krause:

It's more of a risk. Think about it this way. A $5,000 site stacks up to a $50,000 site. A $5,000 site is ten times less established, which typically means—and this is all general stuff—it's ten times more risky, ten times more work, ten times more effort, and makes ten times less than the $50,000 site as well. So it's something that's so damn important. And I'm not saying, people, stop saving at five grand and just buy something or wait until you get to 50 grand. Start with where you are comfortable, because it's the same goes for a 50K site versus a 500K site as well. At some stage, you need to get into the market, but it's very important to understand that.

Yeah, going for a smaller asset is far more risky. It's like in real estate, if you're going to buy a hut and it costs you $15,000 to buy a thatched roof hut in the jungle or by the beach, and then you go away and you buy a brick building, which one has more risk of the storm, right? Maybe you couldn't buy a brick building with the money that you have.

So when a storm comes along like Google, it's gone. Your thatched roof building is going to get smashed if it's a big storm. And that's a very general example, but yeah, it's something that's really important for people to understand when they're investing in these assets.

Aisha Preece:

What would you say is a safe number? I'm saving for a site, and you say, “Aisha, this amount.” No one's holding it against you. Generally, around this figure, it's less risky, but you still need to do the work. What is that figure?

Jaryd Krause:

I can't give you an answer because everybody's personal and financial situation is different. Some people might have $200,000; some people might have $20,000. And what's right for somebody with $20,000 will be life.

And so, yeah, I would love to give that an answer, but I do typically say don't buy anything under the $10,000 price range unless you want to really work super damn hard and be on this path, working on that site for many, many years before you start to see a decent return. There are people who teach people to buy sites under the $10,000 price range. I've helped people do that as long as they knew what they were getting into. So I'm not turning away those people. But you're on a different journey than buying assets above that.

Aisha Preece:

I mean, I think that's a pretty good guideline, right? I think over ten, and then that's up to you according to your own due diligence, your own personal circumstances. That's helpful.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah. My thing is that I want to work with people who really love the experience of working with me. And I know that the smaller the asset that they purchase, the harder it is, which can cause resentment. It's not my responsibility to take on, and I don't take it on, but I would like to set myself up for success in a way that they don't create resentment around me saying, “Go and buy something for $3,000 and you'll be rich.” I'm the opposite. I'm the opposite of what most people say in the make money online space you. "You can become a gazillionaire in 4.3 seconds if you just buy this $2,000 domain name and build a site on it, which is not true.

Aisha Preece:

Yeah, I think a lot of people underestimate the mental costs of how much time and energy it takes to get a site to become successful if they don't have experience. Because there's a lot to learn. And there's a lot of, like, how to protect it from going wrong. You need to actually learn the technical side of logging into your site and figuring out how to do things. So you're talking about a beginner, right?

Then it's just like, "Okay, SEO, Pinterest, email marketing, all these things, that's heavy. So my thoughts on that are actually one step at a time. You don't have to learn it all; take your time and build, build, build, and diversify it. I didn't learn all this at once. I learn one thing at a time, and you will get there.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah. Ah, I love it. What a beautiful way to wrap up the podcast episode. Aisha, thank you so much for coming on. Did I get the pronunciation correctly then?

Aisha Preece:

It's Aisha.

Jaryd Krause:

Aisha, Aisha. Guys, thank you so much for listening. I'm going to be putting some links to some things that you have, Aisha, on the 7-Step Strategy for Your First Affiliate Sale. And then there are also 7 Common Blogging Mistakes That Will Cost You Time and money. And then there's also going to be a link to your Instagram account because you have an awesome Instagram account. So, guys, check that out. Is there anywhere else that we should be sending people to or starting there?

Aisha Preece:

Start on Instagram. I say that unless you're a total weirdo who wants to send me feed pics, I always reply to DMs. So I want to connect with my audience. I'm here to help. I sent voice notes. So come to me and say hello on Instagram. And also, I send emails every week. Those two freebies will help you monetize your site quite quickly. And then every week I send emails. But those are the two ways. And come say hi on Instagram. I always reply.

Jaryd Krause:

Awesome. Thanks so much for coming on. Everybody who is listening, thank you for listening. I typically don't ask you guys to subscribe or anything like that, and I'm not going to force that down your throat either, but what I would suggest is sharing this podcast episode with somebody that either wants to buy an online business or has an online business and wants to grow. There's so much in this that we both talked about that is going to be so damn valuable. So give the gift of giving and share this with somebody.

Thanks for listening, guys.

Aisha Preece:

Thanks, everybody.