The Interview

1. Where do you live?

Sunderland – United Kingdom

2. When did you start creating content?

I started creating content around 2012/2013 but it was all based on short term churn and burn methods. I started producing content for long term projects around 2017.

3. Are you a full-time Creator?

Yes, I have been a full time content creator for a couple of years now but even back when I was doing it as a hobby with churn and burn projects, I had some months where I made over $3000.

4. What was the “Click” that made you decide you can make full-time money online?

I used to work in the Royal Air Force and really enjoyed the traveling aspect of the job when out on deployments. One of my friends started to tell me about earning money online and after doing a little research, I started to put my free time into it just to see if I could make it work.

I can still remember the my first $60 payout from CPA offers and thinking that if I could make $60 then I could earn my full income online given enough time to build everything up.

5. How many niche sites or online businesses have you created?

Hundreds, back with the old school churn and burn methods you knew that your sites would get hit in the next Penguin algorithm update from Google, so you had to make huge numbers of very small sites that would only have 30 or so pages on them.

This method doesn’t really work now though, so I have moved over to a model where I try to build out one larger site per year with hundreds of pages on it.

6. How many are you still running now?

I have around five niche sites right now but I am only actively growing one that I am trying to scale to a $1,000,000 sale valuation as fast as possible, so I will need to get it to around $25,000 per month.

7. Have you sold any sites or online businesses? And what was the ROI like?

I have sold a number of my sites and the ROI was excellent but with it looking like we are going to be heading into a recession, I think that sales multiples will collapse.

The $1,000,000 project that I started in January 2022 was initially planned as a project to grow then sell, but if the multiples do start to decrease, I will just keep the project and continue to grow it to a higher valuation while starting some other content sites in the future to grow too.

8. How many sites or online businesses have failed or not gotten going?

Failed sites were very common back in the churn and burn era, but you knew this going in and it’s one of the main reasons you would start so many at the same time.

Since switching to my long term site system, I have only had one site not become profitable as it was destroyed in an algorithm update from Google towards the end of 2020 if I remember correctly. This is not normal though as I had years of experience of building sites from my churn and burn days that I was able to use to my advantage.

9. How much are you earning each month?

• $5,001 – $10,000

10. What are your current streams of revenue?

• Affiliate Sales
• Display Ads

11. What are your Top 3 on-page SEO strategies?

1. Low Search Volume, Low Competition Keywords.
2. Zero Search Volume Keywords.
3. High Search Volume Medium Competition With Backlinks.

The first two methods are great for beginners but I wouldn’t recommend method three until you have some experience and you can reinvest money that your sites are already making into backlinks.

12. What’s the biggest issue(s) that you’re facing today?

Google core algorithm updates and the increased number of widgets being added to the SERP taking up real estate that content sites used to occupy.

13. What tool(s) do you rely on the most?

• WordPress
• Grammarly
• Canva
• Keywords Everywhere
• Keyword Chef
• Low Fruits.

14. What has been the biggest mistake you made?

Focusing on churn and burn projects for years when I should have made the switch to long term projects much sooner.

15. What has been the best decision you’ve made?

To start publishing content. Just start, everything else can be worked out later. Too many people get analysis paralysis by trying to work out exactly what they need to do prior to starting and this holds them back.

16. What’s one thing that you felt accelerated your journey the most?

Documenting my journey on forums/YouTube to keep me accountable and help me build up the initial habits of staying consistent with content product.

Atomic Habits is an excellent book on habit manipulation that I really wish I read earlier. Other great books include Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Rework by Jason Fried, Zero To One by Peter Theil, and the Millionaire Fastlane by M J Demarco (forgive the name, it’s a great book that has solid advice in it).

17. What’s your 12 month goal?

To stay consistent with content production and never drop below an average of two articles per day.

People focus on earning X dollars or getting Y traffic within 12 months, but these are pointless. You have minimal control over that, but you can control your content production goals so focus on something that you can actually stick to.

18. How do you stay up to date on SEO, affiliate marketing, display ad, and other news?

It’s rare that I pay attention to outside sources these days and I usually just go by my own rank tracker and analytics for my sites.

19. What do you eat or drink for fuel to keep going?

• Nando’s for food
• A cup of homemade Earl Grey for drink.

20. Where can people follow you?

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/ShaunMarrs