Niall Doherty's Blog, page 187

Coda-Slider

Coda-Slider was a jQuery plugin I created back in 2007, allowing you to easily add a nice-looking slider to your website.

After a few years the code became outdated and I had little interest in updating it, so I took the project offline.

Kevin Batdorf has a modernized version available on GitHubOr choose from these 90+ top-rated jQuery sliders

eBiz Weekly #26

Once per week, we email 3,400+ legendary subscribers with some good stuff related to online business. We also post the content of each email here on the website.

Sign up to get the next edition of eBiz Weekly delivered to your inboxView the archive

This week:

Latest Momentos + Finance Report
Get paid $20/hour to test software
Tai Lopez Net Worth (new video)
Inbox When Ready
Use market data to motivate your audience
60 websites that are raking in serious $$$
How much can you earn as a virtual assistant?
How long did it take the world’s super-rich to earn their first million?
10 businesses to start now to be rich in a decade
Hands-on introduction to machine learning
P.S. A rare ask

Latest Momentos + Finance Report

For some reason, you fine folks click through to read my Momentos more than anything else in these emails, so here’s the latest edition right up top.

And here’s my latest finance report, where I detail everything I earned and spent last month.

June wasn’t great, as I ended up spending about $2000 more than I earned

Momentos

These are my Momentos, vignettes I write daily and publish twice a month. They’re incredibly self-indulgent and I’m surprised anyone reads them. There’s one for every day since February 27, 2013.

Patrons get to read each new batch before anyone else.

Full archive here




16

Another thing you see all the time in Bali are the canang sari. Intricate little things about the size of beer mats, small trays made from betel leaves, decorated with flowers and often containing rice or a small biscuit. These are daily offerings to the Hindu gods, left on shrines, steps, and in every doorway.

17

Ubud is a terrible place for recording audio. I’m in the bedroom with a bedsheet over my head and pillows all around the laptop, speaking into the mic but having to stop and regularly redo because of dogs barking, pigeons cooing, roosters crowing, engines revving, traffic honking, children yelling.

18

Been going through the Waking Up course, listening to Sam Harris talk about having no head. Everything happens in the same space, he says: thoughts, sensations, moods, sounds. That space is consciousness. And it’s not a space in your head; your head is just another thought and sensation in that space.

19

Exploring another part of Ubud, following a little path north of the town through the rice fields. We find two kids about nine years old taking fish out of a stream with their bare hands. The bigger kid asks if we want some, right as he pulls down his pants and takes a whiz into the water.

20

Was meditating today and heard my phone buzz, immediately got a strong sense it was news that someone had died back home. Checked my phone. It was nothing. How often we’re wrong about things like that and shrug it off, but get it right one time and we attribute it to some magical psychic connection and tell all our friends.

21

Listening to an entrepreneur on a podcast saying how he red-lined pretty much every other part of his life to get his business to the next level. His health went to shit and he was pounding caffeine and study drugs to keep grinding. And it worked. He got there. Not sure what to make of that.

22

Buddy of mine recently ran six marathons in six days in the Sahara Desert. Reading his account of it today and for a split second was thinking, “Shit, I should be doing epic stuff like that.” But I don’t really want to do it. I want to have done it and be able to write about it. And that’s not a good reason to do something.

23

I know I’ve been working too much lately because my sleep ain’t great, waking up well before I’ve had enough rest, mind racing. Made a deal with my Mastermind buddy that I’d get three videos published this month, $1000 penalty for each one missed. That’s what’s been keeping my brain busy.

24

Reading a great book about human evolution, one of my favorite subjects. Learning that we most likely became bipedal on account of spears. An ape that could stand and walk on two legs wielding a spear for long periods of time had a big advantage. He could hunt more effectively and predators didn’t dare fuck with him.

25

Back of a taxi, new city, new country. But I’m tired and cranky, been acting the prick, not nice to be around. I used to love arriving in a new place, but travel has lost its appeal. Thinking it’s because back then I was searching, figuring out what and who I wanted. Now I know. All travel does is take me away from them.

26

Was aiming to be earning at least $1,000 a month by now from affiliate marketing. Just checked one account and I’ve earned $1,300 in the past 24 hours. That’s not normal by any means – and it’s not money in the bank just yet – but Jesus Christ did it give me a boost.

27

We’re on the helipad of a 36-story building as the sun goes down, painting the sky a pale red. They’ve turned this space into a bar, a popular spot in Kuala Lumpur. It’s fairly packed but the vibe’s good. I feel at ease. The last two days have been better. The last two days I’ve been better.

28

About midnight in a taxi on our way back to Ubud, listening to Joe Rogan interview Bob Lazar about some mad alien shit. Dude sounds believable, not one of those whacky conspiracy types. He claims to have worked for the government in the 80s, had his hands on advanced alien technology.

29

I’d like to do the Worldpackers thing sometime. Not right now – gotta stay focused on the business. But someday when that’s steady and I can leave the wheel for weeks at a stretch, it’d be nice to have more authentic travel experiences, not just jump from one Airbnb to another.

30

Barely made the cut, got that third video finished this afternoon. Audio isn’t great on it though. Considered re-recording but that would have added at least 3 hours to my workload today for maybe a 5% improvement. Can’t justify that. It’s not perfect, but it’s perfect enough.

eBiz Weekly #25

Once per week, we email 3,400+ legendary subscribers with some good stuff related to online business. We also post the content of each email here on the website.

Sign up to get the next edition of eBiz Weekly delivered to your inboxView the archive

This week:

Hone your skills around the world in exchange for room and board
$300k a year freelancing on Fiverr
Blank books update
This guy sold his online business for $1 million
How to sit at your computer
The $1.80 strategy for growing your social media following
The latest Google core update
The toughest foot race on Earth
This will save you reading time
Matrix-style cold calling

Hone your skills around the world in exchange for room and board

If you’re not yet earning enough from your online business to travel frequently, give Worldpackers a look.

On there you’ll find literally hundreds of places around the world that will give you meals and accommodation in exchange for working a few hours per week.

Many of the placements give you the opportunity to practice and sharpen your online skills.

For example:

15 hours per week creating content and doing marketing for an English school in Vietnam – in exchange for 3 meals a day, a bed in a shared dorm, free tours, free laundry, and free language lessons.
10 hours per week doing web design for a guest house in Lebanon – in exchange for 3 meals a day, a bed in a shared dorm, free laundry, and free hiking tours.
20 hours per week doing marketing for a water park in Ecuador – in exchange for 3 meals a day, a private bedroom, free laundry, drinks, and tours.

Looks like you can go pretty much anywhere in the world via Worldpackers.

There are three types of trips available: work exchange, social impact, and eco program. The hosts are all verified by Worldpackers and rated and reviewed by other members, so it’s easy to see which opportunities are the best.

There is a $49 annual membership fee to join the site, but use this link and you’ll get a 40% discount

eBiz Weekly #24

Once per week, we email 3,400+ legendary subscribers with some good stuff related to online business. We also post the content of each email here on the website.

Sign up to get the next edition of eBiz Weekly delivered to your inboxView the archive

This week:

Social Media Marketing Agency (new video review)
Learning to code?
40 Lessons From 4 Years of Remote Work
Making money from podcasting
Progress happens slowly; setbacks happen fast
How would you respond to this client?
How to write a blog post (more valuable than you think)
Royalty-free illustrations for your project
Wanna work remotely from an Irish island?
Airtasker (a new Upwork-like platform)

Social Media Marketing Agency (new video review)

Here’s a new video you might enjoy, literally published a few minutes ago: a review of Tai Lopez’s Social Media Marketing Agency program.

It complements my written review here.

I’ve been earning some decent affiliate commissions from that written review so I figured I might as well double-down on what’s working and create the video version.

(Funnily enough, it looks like the price of SMMA has been increased to $997 right as I’m releasing the video. D’oh! But I’m sure it will be back down to a more reasonable price soon enough.)

Likes, comments and feedback on the video would be VERY much appreciated!

Learning to code?

Here are 7 “absolute truths” a ten-year software engineering veteran had to unlearn as a junior developer.

Some of my favorite snippets from that:

Not all experience is created equal.
Mentors are so important.
Being overly opinionated on topics you lack real-world experience with is pretty arrogant.
Good enough is good enough.
Focus on automation over documentation where appropriate.

40 Lessons From 4 Years of Remote Work

Read this first if you’re thinking of getting a remote job.

Excerpts:

6. Most people already know whether remote work would work for them. If you think to yourself, “I can’t do that; I would just watch TV all day,” you’re probably right. Don’t try it.

14. Combatting guilt is the biggest remote work secret no one tells you. I think it’s because you don’t get any “cues” like you would in an office, like when you look around and you’re the only one working because there’s a cake in the kitchen.

28. The work soundtrack is so crucial! My tip is to scan Soundcloud for long (one- to two-hour) DJ mixes so I can get in a block of focus work. A great place to start is Soullection radio shows.

36. If you drive a vehicle, you will eventually work from home so long that you forget rush hour exists. When you remember why you’re stuck in traffic, you’ll kick yourself at first, and then marvel with gratitude that you don’t go through it every day like so many others.

(Related, here’s a quick list of remote job boards: Jobspresso, Remote.co, Remote OK, Remote Work Hub, Remotive.io, We Work Remotely, Working Nomads.)

Making money from podcasting

Some fascinating insights in this 2019 podcast report from Andreessen Horowitz.

They note that it’s notoriously difficult to make money from podcasts.

The average podcast apparently monetizes at only $0.01 per active user per hour. That’s 10x less than radio, 23x less than the rest of the web, and 71x less than newspapers.

That said, there are a few big winners out there:

The New York Times’ The Daily podcast was projected to earn at least $10 million in revenue from ads last year (that’s $2 minimum per monthly listener).
The top podcaster on Patreon, Chapo Trap House, earns more than $131,000/month from almost 30k patrons. (You can get a taste of their content here.)
Back in 2016, podcaster Tim Ferriss wrote: “If I wanted to fully monetize the show at my current rates, I could make between $2-4M per year, depending on how many episodes and spots I offer.”

Quoting the Andreessen Horowitz report:

Some back-of-the-envelope calculations around how much podcasters are making: Assuming CPMs of $25-50, if a podcast is in the top 1% in terms of downloads episode, or has 35,000 downloads per episode, each episode could generate about $4,000 per episode with two ad slots.

(Related: Why No One Should Ever Start A Podcast)

Progress happens slowly; setbacks happen fast

Here’s a great article discussing five lessons from history.

At least three of them are applicable to business, especially #4:

Progress happens too slowly for people to notice; setbacks happen too fast for people to ignore.

For example, did you know that nobody really took notice of the Wright brothers and their flying machines until more than 4 years AFTER their first successful flight?

This is why grit and resilience are such important traits when you work for yourself. You often have to wait a long time to reap what you sow.

How would you respond to this client?

How would you respond to a prospective client who says:

“Your quote is too high. You told me X hours to get the job done. Other freelancers have told me they could do the job in Y hours max.”

A member of our private Freedom Business Builder group responded along these lines:

“Yes, I imagine my quote is higher than other freelancers. That’s because I take the time to get the job done right and make sure everything is double-checked and polished before I consider it finished. I’ve also factored in time to allow for revisions. My priority is to get the job done right the first time, and to achieve that I’m never going to be the cheapest option.”

The result?

He ended up selling the client on a $2,000 web design project!

That price was a little lower than originally quoted, but still his biggest freelancing gig yet.

I’d call that a win.

How to write a blog post (more valuable than you think)

Two use cases for this in-depth guide on how to write a blog post from Backlinko:

You want to create better content for your own site and get more traffic.
You’re a freelance writer who wants to create epic content for your clients and get paid serious $$$.

Either way, if you go through that post and implement the recommendations there, you’ll be doing better work than 99% of your competition.

Royalty-free illustrations for your project

Lots of slick illustrations available for free here, even for commercial use.

I particularly like that you can adjust the color of the illustrations to fit your brand before downloading.

Wanna work remotely from an Irish island?

Arranmore has 468 residents, secluded beaches, a pub, and a new coworking space.

Just be sure to pack your wellies.

Airtasker (a new Upwork-like platform)

I received an email from someone at Airtasker during the week and checked out their platform. It’s a bit like Upwork, but also includes offline jobs.

Filtering for remote gigs, here are a few juicy ones I found just now:

WordPress website touch ups – $200
I need video editing – $400
Summarise 20 Business Articles – $300
Digital & Social Media Marketing Expert – $500
Set up a WordPress Membership Site – $800

Note however that, similar to Upwork, Airtasker does have quite high fees. They’ll take a 20% cut of your earnings when you’re starting out (full info here).

…

That’ll do it for this week.

Rock on with your legendary self.

—

Niall Doherty – Ubud, Bali

eBiz Facts

P.S. My latest Momentos are here.

By the way...

Freedom Business Builder
FBB is a private community of online business builders. Our 300+ members range from people just starting their first online businesses, to experienced online entrepreneurs earning thousands of dollars each month. More info here.

Travel Hacker’s Toolkit
Check out the top resources I recommend for the traveling online business builder. Cheap flights, a jet lag app, free VPN software, and more.

Great Value Courses
My go-to websites when looking to learn or enhance a skill are Coursera, Skillshare and Udemy. They have thousands of courses on many different topics, rated and reviewed so you can easily tell what’s best. Udemy and Coursera are pay-per-course, whereas Skillshare is a subscription model (my preference).

Start Earning Online
Check out our free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos and accompanying articles.

Facebook and Twitter
If you enjoyed the above, come follow eBiz Facts on the socials. We share this kind of content daily on Facebook and Twitter.

Momentos

These are my Momentos, vignettes I write daily and publish twice a month. They’re incredibly self-indulgent and I’m surprised anyone reads them. There’s one for every day since February 27, 2013.

Patrons get to read each new batch before anyone else.

Full archive here




1

I’ve had 5 different needles in my body today. Rash on my arms and legs. Sweated through my bedsheets. Took four pills. Ate an egg sandwich. Watched a scary movie. Took a shower with my hand in a bag. Drank lots of water. Made countless trips to the bathroom. And I’m not allowed to brush my teeth.

2

I’ve now been in a hospital bed for four days. Don’t think I’ve been this confined since getting my appendix out 25 years ago. And to think this all happened because of a mosquito I can’t remember. How can something so small and insignificant cause so much trouble?

3

Finally checked out. Taxi back to Ubud, kites in the sky. Final bill was about $4000. Insurance will cover the vast majority of it. I could have afforded it out of pocket, but that would have sucked. Buy insurance, folks. SafetyWing costs me little more than $1 a day. Well worth it.

4

Gonna be another few days before I’m back to normal. Did just an hour of emails and such today and was wrecked after it. Dengue will still be in my system for almost a week. Really appreciating how much of a privilege it is to work. Not everybody can.

5

At this point, I have to say I prefer Chiang Mai to Ubud. Things are a bit cleaner and more convenient in CM, can walk everywhere and there are loads of coworking spaces. The digital nomad community isn’t great in either, but the super spiritual types are really starting to grate on me here in Bali.

6

My book is five years old now, started re-reading it in the hospital. Grateful to have that record of my travels, lots in there I would have forgotten otherwise. Same could be said of these Momentos. How easy it is for memories to fade. I hope you’ve found some way to capture your own.

7

Unpublished a couple hundred blog posts on my site today. Trying to cut back on the fluff and turn this thing into a lean, value-adding, money-making machine. In hindsight, I’ve written a lot of random crap over the years. Time to get focused and only put quality content out there.

8

Working on a video about survey sites, pulling together all the footage and graphics I’ll need. Going to try pump out a handful of videos this month. Most content creators just write an article and hope for the best. I’m going to go the extra mile with video, see how that shakes out.

9

There’s something about getting a little extra work done on the weekend. Only needs be a couple of hours, and you feel you’ve accomplished a lot. I guess the ideal is to treat every day like that, like you don’t need to rush and hustle, that whatever you get done is a bonus, and you’re thankful for it.

10

Been experimenting the past few weeks with not using an alarm. It’s nice in one way, just waking up whenever my body is good and ready. But can’t say I feel any more rested than I used to, back when I used an alarm clock. I am getting more sleep, but perhaps after a certain amount the returns diminish.

11

Haven’t made any new friends here in Bali. Been keeping to ourselves mostly. That’s the comfort zone. But I’ll be disappointed if we’re here until December and haven’t met and befriended some cool people. Gotta make an effort to attend some events, strike up conversations. 

12

One thing you get used to in Bali is living with insects. You can’t keep them out of any place. I see streams of ants at the gym, mingling by the bedroom wall, marching in and out of the kitchen bin. After a while you just shrug and let them be. This jungle island is their home, not ours.

13

Google update cut my traffic almost in half last week. Which means my affiliate income takes a hit. Doesn’t seem to be any good reason for it either. They knocked down some content that I know is far better than what’s now ranking ahead of it. Hopefully time will make it right.

14

Starting to get a little sense of home in Ubud now. Been going to the same cafe for lunch almost every day. They know my order, names have been exchanged. It’s those little familiarities and acknowledgments that I miss when moving about constantly. You never get to know anyone, and no one ever gets to know you.

15

Began this batch of Momentos laid up in the hospital. Closing them out feeling strong and healthy. Eight consecutive days in the gym, energy levels high, sleeping and eating well. Heard someone say today though that a sick man has only one desire, while a healthy man has many. True.

eBiz Weekly #23

Once per week, we email 3,400+ legendary subscribers with some good stuff related to online business. We also post the content of each email here on the website.

Sign up to get the next edition of eBiz Weekly delivered to your inboxView the archive

This week:

Best Survey Sites (new video)
Working Online From An RV
Before You Build It, Make A Rule
Around The World In 80 Days (for $4,987)
Udemy Sale
19 Examples of the Best Marketing Campaigns on the Internet
Ubersuggest
Just because you failed…
A wifi hotspot that generates income?
6-figures selling blank books on Amazon

Best Survey Sites (new video)

Here’s a brand new 3-minute video to accompany our article about the best survey sites for earning money online.

Likes on the video are very much appreciated. As are comments about my Eric Cartman impression

eBiz Weekly #22

Once per week, we email 3,400+ legendary subscribers with some good stuff related to online business. We also post the content of each email here on the website.

Sign up to get the next edition of eBiz Weekly delivered to your inboxView the archive

This week:

Momentos
May Finance Report
23 Ways This Guy Earns Passive Income
Get Paid To Travel And Date
Eliminate background noise during calls
Who Pays Writers?
Quora Sucks For Content Marketing
Google’s core update
Coursera
How to make your book a “best seller” on Amazon

Momentos

No email last week because I was in hospital with dengue fever.

You can read more about that misadventure in my latest Momentos.

May Finance Report

Last month I earned $2,931 and spent $2,735.

More significantly, my affiliate income increased from $326 to $1,540.

Full details here.

23 Ways This Guy Earns Passive Income

A fascinating and in-depth post by Nick Loper from Side Hustle Nation.

I particularly loved the example of one article that has generated more than $30,000 in affiliate revenue from Udemy.

As mentioned in my latest Momentos, I got a nice taste of the power of passive income last week, when I generated about $400 in commissions in three days while sick with dengue and not doing any work.

Get Paid To Travel And Date

Thrillist reports:

The gig, which is paid, will involve a 12-month stint spent traveling to various parts of the world to “go on dates, make friends, and create professional connections” with other Bumble users. All the while, you’ll be documenting your experience for Bumble’s various social media channels, conducting “research,” and occasionally creating editorial content for the company. Essentially, you’d become Bumble’s global emissary.

Eliminate background noise during calls

I haven’t tried the free Krisp app myself yet, but it’s getting very good reviews. (Mac only for now.)

Who Pays Writers?

Who Pays Writers? Is an anonymous, crowd-sourced list of which publications pay freelance writers—and how much.

For example, National Geographic News reportedly pay up to $1 per word, while The Oprah Magazine pays $2.

Quora Sucks For Content Marketing

Over the past 3 months or so I spent a few hours answering questions on the Quora platform in an attempt to drive traffic to my website.

The results were terrible.

Google’s core update

If you’ve noticed some significant changes in organic traffic to your website this week, Google’s latest update is likely to be the cause.

Search Engine Land reports on some of the big winners and losers.

Coursera

We’ve added Coursera to our list of recommended sites for online courses, alongside Udemy and Skillshare.

The difference with Coursera is that their courses come from the world’s top universities and companies. You can read and view all courses for free, but must pay for certification.

A few courses you might be interested in:

Learning How To Learn
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialization
Deep Learning Specialization
Digital Marketing Specialization

How to make your book a “best seller” on Amazon

Did you know I wrote a book a few years back? And that I spent $26 to make it a “best seller” on Amazon?

Here’s the story.

Until next week, rock on with your legendary self.

—

Niall Doherty – Ubud, Bali

eBiz Facts

By the way...

Freedom Business Builder
FBB is a private community of online business builders. Our 300+ members range from people just starting their first online businesses, to experienced online entrepreneurs earning thousands of dollars each month. More info here.

Travel Hacker’s Toolkit
Check out the top resources I recommend for the traveling online business builder. Cheap flights, a jet lag app, free VPN software, and more.

Great Value Courses
My go-to websites when looking to learn or enhance a skill are Coursera, Skillshare and Udemy. They have thousands of courses on many different topics, rated and reviewed so you can easily tell what’s best. Udemy and Coursera are pay-per-course, whereas Skillshare is a subscription model (my preference).

Start Earning Online
Check out our free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos and accompanying articles.

Facebook and Twitter
If you enjoyed the above, come follow eBiz Facts on the socials. We share this kind of content daily on Facebook and Twitter.

Momentos

These are my Momentos, vignettes I write daily and publish twice a month. They’re incredibly self-indulgent and I’m surprised anyone reads them. There’s one for every day since February 27, 2013.

Patrons get to read each new batch before anyone else.

Full archive here




16

Pushed through and gave birth to another chunk of content today, my second big swing as an affiliate. It’s a series about survey sites, which have to be one of the worst ways to earn money online. But hey, lots of people are into it, and the existing content out there for them is lacking. I’m aiming to serve them better.

17

Can’t beat the rooster, so I join him, up at the crack of dawn. Wait a little while and you can see the volcano from our balcony as light fills the horizon. I’ll head to a nearby cafe later, whiffing incense, over broken sidewalks, around a truck filled with banana leaves, past smiling old ladies balancing big bundles on their heads.

18

That thing when you’re a tourist in a place and you get pissed off because there are loads of other tourists there, too… been thinking about that, where it comes from. At root it’s probably a desire to feel special, to have a unique experience. We hate knowing there are busloads of other people just like us, lining up to do the same shit.

19

I get tired a lot. I don’t mean recently, because of that asshole rooster, but all the time. I always seem to be pushing up against that edge of doing too much and getting burnt out. Had a decent sleep last night, still wrecked today. That year in Amsterdam might have been the last time I felt macro rested.

20

One thing that might help my energy levels is getting the diet sorted. I eat fairly healthy most of the time, but there are certainly things I eat that upset the bowels. Going to give the low FODMAPs thing a try for a few weeks and see how that goes. 

21

Many Balinese live with extended family in housing compounds, which apparently follow ancient architectural guidelines. The northeast of a compound is supposed to be sacred. That’s where you’ll find a shrine. The southwest is supposed to be impure. That’s where they put me.

22

Doing a weekly coffee and coworking meetup here in Ubud now, aiming for every Wednesday. Today was the first one. My girlfriend and a friend showed up, just the three of us, no new people. That’s okay. Going to be here until December now so it should build over time. No rush.

23

Listening to Tim Ferriss and Ramit Sethi, reminding me to practice asking for things, sometimes even unreasonable things. Because that asking muscle gets weak if you’re not using it. Proceeded to mozy on down to the scooter place and ask for a discount on next month’s rental. Done.

24

They love their kites in Bali. Look up in any town here with a blue sky and you’ll see at least one kite flying. Stepped outside this afternoon, looked up and saw six. Did a little research and apparently there’s some religious/spiritual significance to it all, as there seems to be with everything on this island. 

25

You see some mad stuff driving around Bali. Half the people don’t bother wearing helmets. Many of them turn onto a road without looking to see if anything’s coming. One-way streets aren’t taken seriously. Park wherever you like, even if you have to block the whole street. One thing you don’t see is the police.

26

Joined a gym here today. Works out to $190 for six months, so just over a dollar per day. Haven’t had a gym membership since 2016 in Amsterdam. Enjoyed going, but I do find gym social etiquette difficult. Some people are friendly, some just want to be left alone. Not always easy to tell the difference.

27

Came down with a fever of some kind. Super weak after lunch and my body aching all over. Can’t lie comfortably in bed, my back hurting. Sometimes too hot, sometimes too cold. And a constant headache. Will see how I feel tomorrow and maybe call a doctor.

28

Called the doctor. They came here and examined me, took a blood sample, called a couple of hours later with the news: I have dengue fever. Can take up to a week to recover from that. So I’m bedridden for the next few days. My back is feeling better at least. Time to catch up on some Netflix.

29

In a tiny bathroom wearing blue latex gloves and the toilet seat is wet. I used to live with a guy who would piss all over the toilet seat and never clean it. At least this wetness is only from the bum gun. Anyway, dengue comes with diarrhea and in a few minutes I’ll walk out of this bathroom and hand the doctor a warm cup.

30

I wake up in a hospital about an hour away. They brought me here in the middle of the night. It’s a good one, might be here for a week. $500 a night but insurance should cover it. I hope. First time I’ll be making a claim on this insurance. There’s always the worry they’ll be difficult.

31

One nice thing this week: while I’ve been weak and sweating and not doing any work, affiliate commissions have been rolling into my bank account. Earned about $400 the first three days of this illness alone. That’s not typical, but these kind of results keep telling me on the right track.

Quora Sucks For Content Marketing

Recently we published an 8-part series about Tai Lopez.

To drive more traffic to that content, someone suggested we try answering a few questions about Tai Lopez on Quora.

So we spent 3.4 hours doing just that.

The results sucked so much that we’ve vowed never to use Quora for content marketing again.

The Big IdeaThe ExecutionThe Results3 reasons Quora sucks for content marketingShare your experience






Quora Marketing – The Big Idea

Our interest in Quora was piqued by a 2015 article on the Wishpond blog, which explained how they had driven 9,872 quality visits to their website from Quora in a single month.

Above: Wishpond’s referral traffic for one month in 2015

Their basic approach on Quora was to find popular questions they could provide good answers to, then provide those answers and link to some relevant content on their site.

Here’s the answer they posted on Quora that referred the most traffic to their website: 1

Very simple, as you can see.

We were excited to try similar.

Quora Marketing – The Execution

We ended up spending 3.4 hours on Quora over a 4-week period, answering 18 questions related to Tai Lopez.

4 of those answers were deleted by the Quora moderators.

Here are our 14 answers that survived:

Is Tai Lopez’ money just from selling courses or does he actually run businesses?Is there a free Tai Lopez 67 steps download link?Has anyone tried Tai Lopez’s social media marketing program? Is it worth $997?How old is Tai Lopez?How to get a refund from tai Lopez?Is Tai Lopez legit to any extent or just a scammer?What is your opinion on Tai Lopez?Can I find someone who has genuinely helped by Tai Lopez courses?Who is Tai Lopez and how did he become famous?Is Tai Lopez a liar?Why is every ad on YouTube, I get an ad of Tai Lopez?Is Tai Lopez a scam?Does Tai Lopez actually read a book a day?Do you still happen to have the Tai Lopez SMMA course?

As you can see from those, we tried to provide significant value right there on Quora, and link to any relevant / complementary material along the way.

Sometimes we included a lot of links (mostly to third-party sites, citing sources), sometimes we included only one (to this very website).Sometimes we put a link to our site within the content, sometimes at the very end.And sometimes we embedded a YouTube video we made about Tai Lopez summarizing our extensive research.

There seemed to by no rhyme or reason as to why some of our answers were deleted by the mods while others were left alone.

Here is one of our answers that was deleted within 24 hours of posting:

It was especially frustrating to see an answer like that get deleted, because we felt it was far better than any other answer that had been posted for that question. We kept it concise, cited exact sources, and linked to our complementary article on the topic.

(You can see all the approved answers to the same question here, including one that is clearly just a massive copied-and-pasted blog post – the majority of which has nothing to do with the question asked – with a link to said post right at the beginning.)

Why Quora Sucks – The Results

Despite the moderation issues, we quickly became the “most viewed writer” for the Tai Lopez topic on Quora, and our answers received almost 10,000 views over a 3 month period. 2

Unfortunately, all those views translated into very little traffic to our website.

In the same 3-month period, our Google Analytics showed only 69 “new users” visiting our website from Quora.com.

9,990 views.

69 unique visitors.

Those visitors spent 60% less time on our Tai Lopez content than average, and none of them ended up joining our mailing list or clicking on an affiliate link.

We also checked our YouTube stats to see if any Quora users had watched our Tai Lopez video. As of this writing, the video has more than 33,000 total views, but not a single one of them came via Quora.

To summarize:

We spent 3.4 hours answering 18 questions related to Tai Lopez on Quora (almost every answer had a link back to our website).4 of our answers were deleted for no apparent reason.Our answers received almost 10,000 views over a 3-month period.During those 3 months, our website received only 69 unique visits from Quora.None of those visitors subscribed to our email list or clicked on an affiliate link.No Quora user watched the video we embedded in 3 of our answers.

In other words, our content marketing efforts on Quora were a complete waste of time.

3 reasons Quora sucks for content marketing

We’re not doubting that Quora was a great place for content marketing back in 2015, but clearly it has gone downhill in that respect since.

Today, we can confidently say that Quora sucks for content marketing, for three reasons:

Fickle moderation
You can spend significant time providing the best answer to a question on Quora, only to see that answer deleted by the moderators with no explanation as to why. Meanwhile, you’ll see less valuable, more link-happy answers from other people getting posted for the same question.Lots of views do not equal lots of traffic
For every 145 people who viewed one of our answers on Quora, only one clicked through to our website, and none of them watched our video.That traffic doesn’t convert
At least it didn’t for us. (Though granted, it’s a very small sample size.)




Do you agree that Quora sucks for content marketing?

Or maybe you’ve found an approach that still works well?

Either way, let us know in the comments below.