Blogging Your Way Out Of Your 9-5 with Chris Myles

Mar 21, 2023 | Gathering Fans, Learning from the Best, PodCast, Practice Makes Progress, Season 3

The Back-Story

Chris Myles is a full-time digital marketer, father/husband, and public speaker that left the 9-5 to inspire others.

Show Notes

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Website 💻 https://workathomerockstar.com

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In This Episode:
[0:00] Intro
[0:39] The good note: Chris’ story of business success
[3:29] What’s his bad note?
[11:14] How did he learn what he knows?
[14:31] On finding a coach
[17:27] How he got his work noticed
[25:12] How does he get good at what he does?
[33:58] Guest solo: What’s exciting in his business right now?
[35:45] Where to find Chris
[36:42] Outro

Transcript

Read Transcript

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast.

Excited for today’s guest. He is a blogger, a YouTuber podcast host of the blogger evolution, and what he does is he helps people create a secondary income with content niche sites. Very excited to be rocking out today with Chris Miles. Hey Chris, are you

Chris Myles: ready to rock? Ready to rock. How you doing, Tim?

Thanks for having. , I’m doing great,

Tim Melanson: and thanks for, thanks for being here. So we always start off here on a good note. So tell me a story of success in your business that we can be excited by.

Chris Myles: Yeah. All right, man, I had to think about this one. So, uh, you know, when, when I, when I first got started, um, it was just me and my wife and, uh, we had okay jobs.

They weren’t the greatest jobs in the world, Tim, but it was more like, We were making just enough to get by, you know, and we, uh, we found out that we were gonna be pregnant. Well, we were pregnant with our first son, Benji. And, um, when we found that out, my wife sat me down and she said, Hey, I want to stay at home with him.

Um, and I was like, Ugh, we can’t afford that , like, at all. And um, I remember telling her, you [00:01:00] gotta have a part-time job or something. I mean, we can’t just lose, you know, 40 or so a thousand dollars into the house like that. But she kind of looked me into the eye and she said, you know what, Chris? You need to figure this out.

Ugh. I had to put on my big boy pants, like really quick. And, um, so I went online. I did what most people do, just googled how to make money online. Came across like a cesspool of stuff, but I did eventually stumble across, um, blogging and affiliate marketing. Um, I started with it. Can’t say that it was easy, , but eventually I was able to figure it out from not giving up.

Cuz my back was against the wall, right? So, um, I didn’t give up. I kept pushing forward with it. Um, I had a couple of failures, but I had a, I had some decent, bigger wins. And once that, Happened, um, within about 18 months, I was able to have my wife quit a job. About a year, about, um, maybe six months after that, I was able to quit my job.

And that was four years ago, you know, and we’re, we’re still going pretty strong right now, so it’s good to say that a nice little rinky-dink website is one of the big reasons why I’m able to stay home. . [00:02:00] That’s

Tim Melanson: amazing. It is so cool to hear from you too, because I, I mean, I, I experienced similar things. I left my job 15 years ago and.

Looking around. I mean, blogging was right. There is one of those things. Blogging, affiliate websites is one of those things that you could make money at, but it looked real shady. ,

Chris Myles: for the most part. Oh, it did. It was shady. Especially back then. It’s gotten a whole lot better since then. I’ll give you that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. But so, so yeah. It’s really cool that you’ve made, managed to figure it out, which it means that you probably are pretty good at inspiring other people to figure it out too.

Chris Myles: Yeah, so let’s, I mean, I, I like to think so , you know, because it’s literally changed the entire direction of my life, right? It made everything, you know, so much better.

Uh, I’m gonna be honest. And because where I was before, I didn’t even realize. What I was missing, you know, I have, I’m the kind of person that had a job since I was 15 years old. Right. I’ve always was doing something, always had a job, always making a little something on the side. [00:03:00] A little bit of a serial entrepreneur too.

So I had some, you know, failures and successes there as well. But nothing really hit like blogging did. And, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m glad to say that that’s what I’m able to do for a. . Right on. So,

Tim Melanson: okay. With every good note, there’s some bad notes along the way too. . Oh yeah. And so I’m wondering like, is there something you could share with us that didn’t go as planned, that you know, and how you’ve

Chris Myles: recovered from it?

Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, I remember one time I think I was probably like 18, 19 years old, and, um, I kind of had the, the bug to invest, right? And I was just thinking, I need to, you know, I wanna be able to make some money without having to super actively work on it. So, uh, I was just, um, Going through the emotions and I came across this deal where, um, iPhones were just becoming like really, really huge.

Uh, maybe not just really huge, but they were becoming pretty big. It was like iPhone maybe. Three or two, you know, it was like one of the first ones that came out. And um, I got to the point to where I was like, okay, so, [00:04:00] uh, uh, I found this overseas retailer who said, Hey, I can get you iPhones for like 200 bucks each.

And I was like, oh, that’s, that’s excellent. Cuz normally an iPhone goes for around $800. So even back then, you know, so I was like, okay, so let’s, let’s do this. So I went ahead and I bought, um, , probably 15 or 20 phones from him with the idea that I was gonna get ’em and put ’em on eBay, but I didn’t have the money for it to him.

So what I ended up doing was, uh, talking my dad into letting me invest in it. He gave me some money to go buy the phones and, um, I don’t know, in the back of my mind, I kind of think that he, he knew that this probably wasn’t gonna work out , but, uh, I, he went ahead and gave me the shot with it anyways, so I get the phones and I realize that they.

iPhones, they were M phones and I was like, what is a m phone , you know? But when they were marketing to me, they were showing pictures of actual iPhones, so it was totally a scam. So, uh, when I finally got it, I turned it on and it was just like, they were just these cheap knockoffs and they were worth [00:05:00] probably, You know, maybe half of what I ended up paying for him.

Uh, so I ended up having to just kind of cut my losses and, and, and just do what I could, right? So I ended up paying half the money back to my dad. Eventually, over the years I gave him the money back. But what I learned from that whole process was, I didn’t give up, right? Because let’s just say I tried that and it didn’t work.

But what if I never tried investing in anything ever again, and at that point I would’ve, you know, kind of still been in the same spot where I am now. Once I kind of made the shift later in life realizing that I could invest not just in things, but in myself, in increasing my knowledge and, and so I could help more people, then that return on in.

Was huge for me. So I didn’t let that one thing stop me. I let it just kind of shape me if you really think about it. And from that I was able to, you know, learn how to invest here, invest there into things, product services, people, and [00:06:00] uh, being able to buy my time back and stuff like that.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s a really, really great story.

So what was the main thing that you learned out of it? Like what, what, uh, would you do differently if you were to do it again right now? Same, same, same scenario.

Chris Myles: Yeah. I mean, I wish I could say that every other investment I’ve done since then has been successful, but it hasn’t, you know, so sometimes, uh, I’ve learned how to.

Vet things, right? So, you know, I can look at it with a little bit more of a, a critical eye and then try to figure out whether or not it, it has the shot of actually working, but not to the point to where. , I’m paralyzed and don’t do it right. Um, one thing I like to, I used to think is that my dad is a pretty conservative guy when it comes to money.

And you know, now that he’s later on in life, he’s set, you know, , he knew what he was doing. Um, my mom’s a little bit more of a risk taker. She don’t, she don’t mind throwing a few bucks at something just to see what happens. So I like to think I’m kind of the middle of both of those. I don’t mind throwing a couple bucks at something [00:07:00] just to see what happens.

Because usually the upside might be a lot bigger than what would happen if I just didn’t invest the money at all. But I still try to be, uh, uh, intentional, pragmatic, asking the right types of questions to make sure that, um, I have the best chance at getting the money back. So, um, I guess the biggest, um, thing that I got from that experience and others, it’s just learning the right questions to ask before jumping in full force.

Love it. Yeah, that’s

Tim Melanson: exactly it. Yeah, because, uh, the, the thing is that there is a little amount of faith in any investment otherwise it’s corrects

Chris Myles: probably not called an investment . Right. It’s enabling at that point, right, . Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, exactly. And, and so yeah, I mean the more you can sort of vet and sort of like just use your gut a little bit, maybe you might be able to figure something out.

But in your case, I mean, with that first investment, it was the right move because what you learned out of. actually paid dividends over time. Right. If you hadn’t have made that move and that first thing, then what, how

Chris Myles: would your life be [00:08:00] different? Right. Be very different. Yeah. Right. And I mean, what if, like, you said, what if I hadn’t done it?

It’s, it’s kind of weird cuz I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know where I would be right now because I don’t know what other types of decisions would’ve spiraled from that. You know, maybe I still would be working a nine to five right now and just, just going through the motions, you know? So, uh, yeah. It, it is a, it is, it is a big deal.

It’s a big. I like to think about it too from

Tim Melanson: your dad’s perspective too, cuz this is probably some pretty good parenting is my guess, right? , I mean, he probably, you’re probably right, he probably knew this was a scam. , or, or had a pretty good, pretty good idea of it, but he gave you the money anyway,

Chris Myles: right.

Yeah. Yeah, it was, my dad’s a very principled guy, right? He doesn’t have a long list of rules that he wants you to follow, but he wants you to just understand, okay, this is the goal. Figure everything else out from there, you know? Um, I remember one time, the first time that. Him and my mom like, left me, you know, they went on like a cruise or something.

I don’t know where they went. And I, I mean, I was, I was, [00:09:00] I don’t know how old I was, early teens or so, or maybe mid-teens. And, you know, I was home by myself and I was just thinking, you know, um, before they left, my dad looked me in the eye and he was like, you know, I could give you this long list of stuff to do, son, but.

Just take care of your business. And he left and I was like, oh, okay. So like he understood that that covered everything, , you know? So, um, once I understood that whole process, it kind of helped me later in life to look at things from a more principled stand rather than, you know, what’s the latest thing right now?

And, and creating this long. You know, arduous list of stuff that isn’t gonna help anybody, and it’s gonna be outdated in five minutes. You know, if you say principled, then it’s going to, you know, help you from here 10 years from now, 20 years from now, and on to the future. .

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s really good leadership advice as well too, right?

Yeah. I meaning you give people their own responsibility rather than telling them exactly what to do. You know, PE people feel more like they

Chris Myles: own it, right? Yeah. And there’s a trust that needs to be there [00:10:00] because, uh, I’ll tell you this. When I first started, you know, with blocking and everything, one thing that you can do is you can outsource a lot of stuff, right?

So you can outsource the writing, you can outsource the editing of your articles and things like that. . But the thing is, at the end of the day, no one’s going to, you know, write your articles as well as you are as the website owner, right? So I had to learn to. except 80% as being good enough, you know? And one, once I got to that point, you know, then being able to outsource became a lot easier.

Because I think something when it comes to entrepreneurs is, you know, we’re control freaks. We don’t like to give up stuff, you don’t like to give up the power and the control of some things. But the second that I realized that I started buying back my time, I started buying, started making more money cause I could produce more faster.

Um, it’s just a, it’s, it’s a snowball effect. And once you realize, , you know, you can be the own bottleneck in your business. Then you’ll start to realize that you can branch off and start growing a lot faster. Love it.

Tim Melanson: Right on. So let’s talk a little bit about learning from the [00:11:00] best. So now your dad obviously was, was a teacher in your life, that’s for sure.

Yeah. Uh, but what about like, who did you turn to? Did you go to online courses? Did you hire coaches? Like who, how did you.

Chris Myles: Yeah, and I did it all, man. Um, when it comes to learning, you know, this industry, uh, one thing that I did do was, uh, I started with YouTube University , you know, and, um, YouTube University works great.

You know, just go, and when I say YouTube University, I mean just. Go, uh, going on YouTube and finding a video Yeah. That talks about it. Um, when I first started doing, doing this blogging stuff around 2015 or so, um, that’s all I did. I just was going on YouTube binge watching stuff from what people successes that they were having.

And then they were explaining how they got their successes. And I found this one guy who I really liked his, he, I think his name was, uh, the Lazy Stoner or something like that. It’s, it’s pretty funny because. . I didn’t realize it at the time that it was just good marketing on his part. That was his shtick.

It was, you know, Hey, I’m this the lazy [00:12:00] guy who smokes all the time, but I’m making all this money online. I was like, oh man, this is great. That’s, I mean, I don’t smoke and that’s what I want to do, so I know I can do it. If he could do it, I know I can do it. So I started following his videos and I started trying to model exactly what I was doing with what he was doing.

And what I didn’t realize at the time was that a lot of the things I was following was like three and four years old. And, uh, when I started doing it, I ended up, uh, not getting anything out of it. I created this whole website, took weeks to build, um, putting the content out there and everything. And I, I remember hitting publish and I sat back and I crossed my arms and I waited and I waited and I waited.

Nothing happened. And eventually the site ended up getting what’s called D index. It got taken out of Google because, um, I. Borrowing content without asking , you know? And I didn’t really realize that that was the wrong thing to do because that’s what the guy on YouTube was doing, right? So I was like, all right, so this isn’t working.

What, what happened? So after I went through that whole process, I [00:13:00] realized that, okay, maybe I need to get somebody who knows what they’re doing. Right now. And that’s when I started investing in, uh, uh, more courses coaches. Um, I’ve had mentors before and, uh, just by doing that, you know, I can send them a quick text or maybe we’re in an email or something and ask them, what should I do with this particular situation?

And usually they’ll just send you back like something nice, nice and quick. Or if we’re on a, on a, a call or something like that, they can tell me exactly what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. That’s. So much time set savings, it’s ridiculous. Um, so because of that, I was able to cut the curve of learning a lot of this stuff from maybe a two to three year venture to more of a one, one and a half year venture to get everything that I was looking for when I first got started.

So, you know, definitely, you know, coaches, um, uh, uh, mentors. I’ve just recently started getting more into masterminds as well with other [00:14:00] bloggers. It’s a, it’s a really cool thing, but you have to. Invest in yourself with these things because most of these things aren’t cheap, you know? But doing it with the amount of time you’re gonna get back with it is worth everything.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, I can’t say enough about that too. And I, I think that the way you went about it though, with going to YouTube first, I, I think that’s a pretty solid way to handle things cuz uh, it, it helps you to figure out exactly what kind of coaching you need as well. Like you mm-hmm.

how do you know who to go hire from the, from the first part? I mean, go out there, see if you can learn some stuff, get some failures, and then go, okay, now I know what question to ask when I’m gonna go out there and find a, a coach. Right.

Chris Myles: Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. A question like when I first, you know, was getting into this, I didn’t really know what I didn’t know.

Right? So, , I would find people online who claim to know what they’re talking about and then try to decipher if it was right or not. So some things that I do nowadays is if I come across a podcast, a YouTuber or something like that, who’s talking about my [00:15:00] industry, I’ll leave ’em a message or send ’em an email if they actually respond, even if it’s a VA of theirs.

But still, if they, as long as if they respond to it, they have already. Gone light years further than the person who’s just trying to make a couple bucks, you know, because they’re actually trying to interact with their audience. And then I might binge a little bit more, binge a little bit more, and then, you know, compare it to what I already know or what I’ve seen from other people, what’s worked for me and what hasn’t worked for me.

And then I can make a decision as to whether or not I trust this person and invest in their course or in their mentorship or whatever they have to offer. So I just take a little bit longer, a little more pragmatic with what I’m going about with the process. But, uh, by doing, Cut down severely on, you know, choosing the wrong mentor, if that makes any sense.

Hey,

Tim Melanson: rockstar. I hope you’re enjoying this episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. If you didn’t know already. My business is Creative Crew agency. We build websites now, let’s talk about your website for a minute. Most people realize that at this day and age, we need a website, [00:16:00] but we don’t really know what the website’s supposed to do, and sometimes you’ll just go and build a website for the sake of building a website.

What I do is I make sure that your website actually accomplishes a goal. Now, there are three main. to most websites. Number one is to provide information and build credibility. Number two is to schedule some sort of appointment and get them on onto a sales call. Number three is to sell something like an e-commerce site.

Now, when you’re setting your website, you have to be very mindful that the visitor doesn’t know what to do. and so you have to provide them with a roadmap that leads them down a path to wherever you want them to go. On my website, I want them to be on a free consultation, so that’s why when you go to creative crew agency.com, you’ll see information about scheduling a free consultation.

Now for you though, I’m gonna provide you with an extra link so that you can get your free website. Go to creative crew agency.com/free website audit and schedule an audit with me and I’ll go through your website live [00:17:00] and determine what we can do to improve your conversions and make sure that you’re getting the business from your website.

Go to crave crew agency.com and we’ll see you at, that’s solid advice, Chris. So now what about, uh, I mean you, you, you mentioned that, you know, you hit publish, nothing happened, . Oh yeah. So I’m wondering, like, do you have any, you know, solid tips on how to generate fans? Like how did you go about, you know, starting to get eyeballs on your.

Chris Myles: Yeah, so the main thing is called, um, search engine optimization, or s e o. So, uh, we use, or when I say that, we don’t wanna say we don’t mean my business. We normally go toward what’s called Google, s e o. So we create content that’s carefully crafted so that when people online are searching for common questions in a space, they’re gonna find our stuff and we just find a particular niche to jump into that might be a little underserved on the internet.

And when I say underserved, I. Uh, and you’ve probably seen this before, Tim. Have you ever [00:18:00] Googled something and then maybe you couldn’t find the answer or you’re, you’re left sifting through a whole bunch of message boards trying to figure out what Sally 1 23 has to say about the matter? Yeah, exactly. So when I see that kind of thing, that’s opportunity for me to understand that I can create.

Better content, more succinct content that’s more helpful to somebody and Google notices it and ranks me higher. And that’s basically, I use s e o to do that. And s e o is basically like, I guess you can like it to a, a library. It’s kind of like a library. So you know, when you go to a library and need to find a book on guitars or something right.

Then you know you can. What do they call it? The Dewey decimal system, or whatever. You can, you use that to try to figure out what section of the library it’s in, what, uh, a row is gonna be and all of that fun stuff, right? Google is kind of the similar way you create your content, like that book that you’re looking for, but you’re using s e o to help Google figure out where that content needs to go and what audience needs to be put in [00:19:00] front of.

All right? So hopefully I, that’s a, I hope that made sense, but you can hone that skill and really use it. Any topic online, Google has over 4 billion with a B active users every single month. There’s only 8 billion people on the planet, so that’s about, you know, half the planet uses the internet and Google in order to, uh, you know, to answer common questions.

So you only need a small fraction of people in order to make a decent income online. But if you position yourself as a, a helpful resource, you can then on the other side of that, find a way to monetize and make some money. Wow,

Tim Melanson: that’s probably one of the better explanations I’ve heard of SEO, by the way,

Uh, so that’s pretty good. But, but you’re, you’re totally right cuz I mean, it is computers, it, it is AI that’s going through these websites and figuring out Yeah. Exactly how that ranks. Right. So really, if you can make it nice and easy for your content to find, to be found and for answers to be, uh, yeah.

Like you say, if you’re going around [00:20:00] looking for something and you can’t find it, Well, there’s probably a better way , right? That you can do that. You can, uh, get around doing that. I love that. How you look at that. That’s an opportunity, and it is true. If you’re looking for something, then chances are someone else is looking for it.

If you can’t find it, chances are they can’t find

Chris Myles: it either, right? Oh, 100%. You know, and at the end of the day, Google is a computer, it’s an algorithm. It looks at this stuff and it makes its best guesses. But what I’ve found is that typically the algorithm will follow the person, right? So as long as you create content for people and not just trying to rank or not just trying to, you know, gain the system or whatever, then Google’s gonna eventually find it.

It’s gonna eventually figure it out, and being able to serve your content to the right people. So it’s all about just. putting your keywords, and when I say keywords, I mean, um, the phrase that you’re trying to rank for. So if someone googles that phrase, your website pops up, you know, you find the right keyword, you put it in a couple of strategic places within your article, and once that’s [00:21:00] done, at that point you’re just writing for people.

And once you’ve done that, then you just kind of let Google take the reins. And it’s, Google is like one of the most consistent traffic sources on the planet, and it has been for. Geez, 20 years now probably. Right. And it’s, it’s pretty crazy how, how well Google works. There’s multi-million dollar and probably billion dollar companies that are built solely on how Google performs, you know, which is kind of a cool and scary thing at the same time.

Yeah. But it is, it, it, it is the case, you know? So that’s what I’m doing right now and have been doing it for the last seven, eight years or so. . Yeah. And

Tim Melanson: I, I think that’s really solid advice. I know that back when, you know, 15 years ago when I was first looking at all this stuff, you really could gain the system quite easily.

Easily, right? Yeah. Uh, you know, you, you have these article spinners that would just basically take your keywords and just spit it out a bunch, bunch of times. And, but, but it wasn’t something that a person could really read and get anything out of. And, you know, eventually over time Google has just gotten better and better.

And that’s why, you know, I, I know that I give [00:22:00] people advice to. Write anything to gamey because eventually Google’s gonna figure that out. Google really is a, an expert at, at figuring out why the, whether this is a real person just trying to serve an audience, or if this is a, someone trying to gain the system and create something that’s gonna rank hide, but not provide the value that it really says it’s gonna provide.

Yeah. So as long as you just are just real and like you say, use a couple. Key hints, , right? Yeah. Make sure, make sure when you’re writing your article, and this does make sense, when, when you’re writing your article, sometimes you’ll say, you’ll, you’ll mention the thing, the, you know, the title of whatever it is that that wants, and then you’ll say it or the, or all that stuff for the rest of it.

Cuz it, you know, that’s how you like to write. Well, it might be useful to use it a couple times in a bunch of different places because in Google’s perspective as a computer, it wants to see that you actually are talking about the thing you say you’re talking

Chris Myles: about. . Yeah, 100%. Um, I don’t know if you [00:23:00] remember, uh, , e z articles, you know, you used to Google stuff and like these terrible PDF docs will pop up and you’re just like, what is this?

You know, you notice you don’t really see those anymore. Right? And that’s because over time Google has just gotten better at filtering out garbage content and actually letting the CRE cream rise to the top, you know? But, uh, nowadays, you know, um, Google uses, uh, what’s, that’s a thing that, hey, they have called Ring Brain.

And Ring Brain is just looking at an article and trying to figure. What the article is about, and it uses something that are called like semantic keywords and just, that’s a technical term. But basically what it is, is Google is using other terms that you use in an article to surmise what the article is about.

So for example, if I wrote an article that talks about Springfield, right? Like every state has a Springfield in the United States, right? . So, uh, you know, you think about, I’m writing an article about Springfield. How does Google know what Springfield I’m talking about? Well, if in the rest of that article you might.

Bart or Simpson, [00:24:00] or Homer or Marge or something like that, Google can then take all of that and realize that, oh, they’re talking about the fictitious town, Springfield from the Simpsons, you know, versus Springfield in Illinois, or something like that. So, Being able to use, uh, contextual words that also frame what it is you’re talking about, helps give Google more information as to what your article is about.

And once Google knows what you’re all about, then they know exactly where to put your content and hopefully you’ve, you know, uh, uh, working in a way to where your content can be found by your ideal audience. You know, blogging works for pretty much anybody as, um, long as. audience uses Google. If your audience uses Google, then blogging can work for you.

You know? So, uh, it’s one of those, it’s, you know, one, again, one of the greatest, you know, things that I think it’s, it just changed the world. It really has, you know, and, and because of that, I’m able to try to take advantage of that by creating good, helpful content for those audiences. Love it. So now

Tim Melanson: leads right into the next topic, which is [00:25:00] Practice makes perfect

How do you get good at doing something like that? Wait,

Chris Myles: how do you keep it? Yeah, there’s a bit of, uh, immersiveness that you need to have, uh, because the game of SEO is always changing and you do need to kind of have a little bit of a competitive spirit, right? If, uh, like I’ve noticed that a lot of successful bloggers sometimes we’re professionals in their prior careers.

Um, maybe a lawyer or maybe even doctors. You know, they, that’s just what they’ve done in the past because they’ve learned how to. organize a lot of information and convey it in a way to where, you know, it can be understood. Um, and I’m not saying that you need to be that, cuz I’m by far nowhere close to being a lawyer or a doctor.

But, uh, you just need to. Be able to see what other people are doing and then adjust accordingly. Um, Google has these, uh, updates that come out every now and then, and sometimes that can hurt your traffic on your website. And I like to look at those situations as, oh, that’s just Google testing you to see if you really want to be around.

Right? [00:26:00] So usually what you can do is, you know, if you might get hit by an algorithm update, everyone will probably, at some point, even if you do everything a hundred percent above board, you still might get hit with. , but I’ve seen so many instances where as long as you just keep tracking, keep going with it, then your traffic can sometimes double or triple what it used to be because Google now has a better understanding at what it’s doing.

So once you look at these updates as a, as a positive thing that’s trying to make the internet better than, um, usually you can do much better with it. So I stayed on top of things, listen to podcasts, you know, uh, uh, YouTubers. Coaches and mentors who are also blogging. Um, I could mention before in a few masterminds, I’m able to see what other people are doing that’s working and then tailoring it to my sites.

Um, that’s really probably the best ways to do it. But if you’re just getting started, I would say the best thing is just pick a couple of podcasts to listen to. Um, there’s some really great ones out there and, uh, just final one day that you like that’s still continuing to create content even today, so that you can get the latest and greatest and [00:27:00] then go from.

Love it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, there’s a couple really good ones I heard about. I think there’s one Work at Home Rockstar and there’s also a Blogger Revolution podcast

Chris Myles: that are pretty good, right? Yeah. I mean, these are, these are top of the line type podcasts that you need to listen to. Like right now, ohoh, you are listening to one right now, , so as soon as you’re done here, blogger Revolution podcast, that’s, that’s where I am.

Absolutely. Right

Tim Melanson: on. That’s awesome. Yeah, no, I, I, I think. I think nowadays it’s, it’s just so much easier to find really good content and really good help out there. Right? And everybody’s, oh yeah. I mean, let’s just look at how Google works. Google, we just spend a whole time talking about how Google tries to figure out how to best serve somebody with content and with information.

So as long as you’re out there providing that good information, you’re gonna get, you’re gonna get people coming to you. And number two, if you’re looking for good content, you’re gonna be able to.

Chris Myles: Yeah, I’ve talked to a lot of the OGs of, you know, this s e o game and you know, back when they started back in like the [00:28:00] mid two thousands and stuff, right?

It took, you know, 2005, 2006 and how building websites and stuff used to be back then. Like you had to be, you know, close to a rocket scientist to understand some of those things you order to create, you know, the code and h html to get your sites up and running. Um, nowadays, Literally couple presses of a button and you can have a website up and running that’s live on the internet.

Yep. Um, it doesn’t take much. Uh, but even then there’s still, you know, I like to call it a prove it period that Google kind of puts you through because they wanna see if you really want to be there. That’s, that’s the way that I look at it. And, um, as long as you’re creating content and you just continue mowing through and, you know, the, the Google gods decide to finally send you some traffic, usually it becomes a snowball and, and your business blows.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, uh, so yeah, my background is in computer science. I have a degree in computer, in computer science. And I remember when websites were coming out back then. Yeah, I mean, I, I never even considered get starting a business building [00:29:00] websites until much, much later because I just assumed it was really difficult cuz I, I knew it was back then.

I’m like, I don’t want to get into that. I didn’t want, you know, I wanna do something cool cause I’m gonna do program. And uh, and then later on, you know, things have gotten so much simpler now, now, you know, all these drag and drop things. Yeah. I mean, I still build websites now, but I don’t even call it coding.

When people are like, oh, I need a programmer. . Yeah. I don’t really do programming anymore. . Yeah, there’s a little bit of it here and there, depending on how complicated the site is, but especially if you are building, uh, a blog, I mean, really that doesn’t need to look amazing and it doesn’t have to have crazy functionality really would.

People are looking online on Google. They just want the an, their question answered.

Chris Myles: Hundred percent. It’s matter what it looks like. Yeah, no, I, I, you know, um, I teach and, and, and coach a few people on this blogging stuff, and almost every time, you know, someone to come across and, Hey, Chris, check out my website.

I moved, you know, my logo from here to the middle. What do you [00:30:00] think it’s like, It doesn’t matter. You know what, I, it, it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, the content is what’s gonna draw people. You can have the ugliest website. I think. Um, now I, I don’t necessarily, I don’t promote them or anything, but I use ’em as an example.

But, um, the drudge report.com, I think’s the website, that’s one of the plaintiffs ugliest looking websites. On the internet, but I think they get like half a million people a month are looking at their stuff, if not more probably, you know? So at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what your website looks like, just get something up there and start creating the content.

You can create the greatest, best looking website in the world. But if it’s in the middle of the desert, no one knows it’s there, then what’s the difference? Uh, so it’s, it’s all about creating traffic to your website. And you do that by creating great content.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, you bet. Absolutely. And, and I, I suppose it depends, you know, just to make it a caveat here, it depends on what the goal of your website is.

If the goal of your website is good content, doesn’t matter what it looks like. If the goal of your website [00:31:00] is to create credibility for a, maybe you’re a lawyer, , I don’t know, as you mentioned earlier, well, okay, fine, have to look good, right? But, but if, if you’re just doing it for content, it doesn’t have to

Chris Myles: look.

Yeah, I mean, when I, when I start niche sites, and maybe I should clarify a little bit. I’m usually doing hobbies, you know, like I have a golf website, you know, I have a website that talks about, uh, uh, water filters, you know, um, I have a website that talks about oil filters, actually. Yeah, I just acquired that.

So, you know, we just talk about these random little things that. People are just, you know, they’re working on something, man, I wish, how do I fix this quick Google search, my website pops up. And that’s really what the whole idea of it is. And once I get that audience onto my site, as you mentioned, it doesn’t really matter what the site looks like as long as it answers the question, but if I was trying to.

Develop leads, capture email addresses, and you know, create campaigns and all of that fun stuff. Then yeah, it would need to be a little bit more professional looking because at that point I’m trying to sell a brand to somebody and hopefully they invest you, [00:32:00] whatever. So it really just, just depends, um, what the whole goal is.

But if you’re just building niche sites, you can go pretty plain Jane, and you can do really well, um, just by getting traffic and income to. . Yep.

Tim Melanson: And I would argue that the content websites are the ones that are gonna perform better for you than any other type of website you’re gonna build. In fact, actually, when I help, uh, someone to build a brand website, I’m always trying to convince them to add a component of it.

that has something to do with content. Content is key right now. That’s what people are looking for. I mean, yeah, a good looking website is not gonna rank high in Google if it has no content on it.

Chris Myles: Yeah, I mean, seven years, seven, eight years ago, you could write one article on one thing and have a good shot at ranking for it.

Um, nowadays there’s this thing called topical authority where Google wants to see that you’re covering almost a topic at almost every single angle, just so that they can see you as an authority in that space. Once that’s the case and. understood [00:33:00] that then they know who to put your content in front of.

So it makes a huge, huge difference, um, nowadays, and in my opinion, I think that’s better, right? Because now I don’t have to worry about, you know, the random guy who just creates an article just so he can make some affiliate commissions, you know? Um, I, it, I’m gonna lose out to a site, I’m gonna lose out to a site that’s just.

is doing better content than me that’s doing, doing it better at scale and everything, at which point I run somewhere else where someone else didn’t put as much time and effort into their content so I can beat them out. You know? So it just depends on what your, your goal is, what you’re trying to do, and what you’re trying to accomplish with your sites.

Love it. So

Tim Melanson: I’m inspired . I’m inspired to do some blogging right now. Okay. But tell me, it’s your guest solo. So tell me, tell me what’s exciting in your

Chris Myles: business. Yeah. So, um, right now we, uh, I’ve been blocking for a while and what we started doing probably two years ago is, um, started coaching people on how to do it as well.

Um, so it’s been nice to [00:34:00] have some people come through and. Uh, uh, have some real successes with their website. I have one girl in particular in, uh, in Ireland. Um, she used to teach kids English online. Um, she now is, uh, doing this pretty much full-time, I believe, uh, doing the blogging thing. And she was this close to giving up before me and her ran into each other, which is really cool that, you know, she went from there.

To, um, you know, where she is right now with the whole process. So, you know, being able to help others do it, you know, it’s kind of passed a money thing at this point. It’s more of an impact of knowing how this changed my life and being able to have it change other people’s lives as well because it’s a, it’s a great in, I love it.

It’s a great industry to be in. I eat, sleep and breathe and stuff, and I love doing it to be able to help other people as well. Right on. Well, yeah,

Tim Melanson: it, it feels good. You, you’ve got purpose, right? You’re actually

Chris Myles: helping. . Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And you know, being able to help people and see ’em make their first commissions online or their first, you know, couple bucks online.

[00:35:00] You know, I think the first, the first money I made online was probably maybe like a dollar 50 or something. Like it wasn’t anything to write home about. But you think about when you go to like a diner or something and someone has their dollar, just post it on the wall or whatever. That’s a monumental feat.

And when you have, you create a website, It wasn’t in existence before. Now it is. And it’s generating money. That’s a mind blowing thing to me, you know? And at that point you just gotta, all right, how do I make more of this? Yeah, love it.

Tim Melanson: Right on. So how do we find more out, more about you then?

Chris Myles: Yeah, so definitely check out the Blogger Evolution podcast.

Um, you know, just be sure to please subscribe, check it out. It’s a great podcast. I’m a little biased. But then also I have a, um, a free training that will show you how to pick your niche, you know, and, um, it’s very simple. Go to blogger evolution.com. Slash crash course. So, um, go there. You’ll be able to choose a niche.

That’s probably one of the hardest things that people need to go through when it comes to building up their websites, um, is [00:36:00] choosing a good niche that’s gonna make the money that they’re not gonna waste their time with. So going through that little mini course right there is gonna help you do that and hopefully, you know, move on to the next step of actually starting to build your site.

Tim Melanson: Love it. Right on Blog revolution. This is really cool. So I hope you guys go check it out. Thank you so much for rocking out with me today, Chris has been a lot of fun.

Chris Myles: Awesome. Thanks so much, Tim. I Appreci. And to the

Tim Melanson: listeners, make sure you subscribe, rate, comment, and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar podcast.

Chris Myles: Thanks for listening. To learn how you can become a work at home rockstar or become a better one, head on over to workathomerockstar.com today.

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