Random Thoughts About Online Marketing
Schizopost mode activated
Today I decided to post some rapid-fire thoughts I have about the current online marketing/wifi money landscape.
In no particular order:
Reddit and YouTube are the new blogs - Written content isn’t dead, but it’s impossible for a beginner with no experience to break in. You CAN still get traction on YT and Reddit w/o experience (although it’s becoming harder since everyone is shifting their focus to these platforms).
Traffic > Domain Authority when it comes to linkbuilding - The Authority metric is too easily gamed. If a site has a high DR score but no traffic, a link from them isn’t helping your SEO much if at all.
Gurus who are part of the mainstream podcast circuit are whack - People like Alex Hormozi are like Gary V for the broccoli head generation. If they’re racking up hundreds of thousands or millions of views on their videos, what they’re saying can’t possibly be that interesting. Mostly motivational fluff content, you’re not getting any alpha from these people. Which leads to my next thought…
People HATE learning technical info - This holds people back more than anything. Everyone says they want to learn, but their revealed preferences show that they prefer dopamine hits from watching business infotainment content. The infotainment rabbit hole has a gravitational pull that most people never get out of.
Most people can’t handle setbacks - Almost everyone quit the SEO game when the Helpful Content Update dropped. Everyone talks tough, but when something bad happens they give up and try to find the new shiny object. Maybe 0.01% of people are built for this life.
Being legit is easier and more lucrative than chasing hacks - Everyone loves blackhat content, BUT you should be spending maybe 1% of your time on that stuff. Being legit makes you a LOT more money (you don’t go viral on X talking about it though).
Everything seems hard until you know what you’re doing - Any time you learn a new skill: Copywriting, video editing, advertising, whatever, it’s always a massive pain in the ass. You think ‘is this really worth my time when I’m so terrible at it?’ But once you push through the pain period it becomes intuitive and easy. Fun even. Keep at it. More knowledge is always a good thing.
Use platforms to grow your presence on other platforms - View your audience like water that you can direct to other platforms where you don’t have a large presence yet. E.g. use Reddit to get YouTube subs, use your website to grow your email list, etc. No need to do things the hard way. Having a preexisting audience on one platform is like a cheat code for all the others. You’d be stupid to not use it.
Double down on what works - It’s normal for a small portion of your efforts to drive a large amount of your results. A few of your articles will drive the majority of your organic traffic, a few videos will get the most views, one or two of your products will drive the most revenue, you’ll get most of your commissions from one or two affiliate programs, if you run an affiliate program then one or two affiliates will refer the most conversions, etc. When you have a run with something you should find ways to exploit it and keep it going for as long as possible instead of freaking out about concentration risk.
AI is mostly a solution looking for a problem - I haven’t found much of a use for “AI” for anything to be honest. If there’s some random task that you find it useful for, go ahead and use it. I’m a ruthless capitalist, I don’t care. But the idea that you can fully automate a business and kick back while “AI agents” do all the work for you is BS. A lot of the automation gurus who claim this is possible are even being sued by the FTC as we speak. Lots of scammers and grifters in the AI space, be careful.
Tuning out the noise is more important than ever - Everyone is creating content aka screaming for attention online. Most of what they’re saying is BS that you can and should ignore. People on X app like to think that it’s the high-IQ social media platform, but it really isn’t. Scrolling through the ragebait and the BS revenue screenshots has a cognitive cost that’s preventing you from thinking clearly and making effective decisions.
Business books are a waste of time - You’re just entering someone’s funnel. No one is giving real advice in a book, and if they are, it’ll be out of date within a year. If you’re just looking for entertainment, read a novel. It’ll actually be well-written and will expand your view of the world in a way that nonfiction books can’t. Business advice books in particular are midwit bait. Avoid at all costs.
The fundamentals don’t change often - Links are still the most important part of Google’s algo, just like they were when Google was invented in the 90’s. Copywriting principles that worked 100 years ago still work now. Gurus obsess over change because it gives them something new to create content about. You can’t tweet the same thing every day. The algorithmic beast demands new content. It doesn’t matter whether it’s important or not, as long as it’s new. Repeating the boring fundamentals day in and day out is what leads to success.
Huge help reading these tonight! Currently in the learning-new-skills stage and pushing to learn 20 different things all at once. We’ll get there
I really resonate with this post.
Firstly the whole AI agent stuff is complete BS. I use AI for idea generation, image generation, copywriting, certain corrections, blog posts and thats about it. There are probably more applications but none that I use.
Custom GPTs I find are only useful when you're trying to have your output in a very certain format, besides that they are super overrated.
I have found absolutely zero genuine benefit from multi AI Agent workflows. They will create things in bulk and any AI output generated in bulk is typically extremely low quality anyways.
I am in a mastermind group with a "guru" (and 800 other entrepreneurs) who actually is well respected and I do find I derive a great deal of value. However I feel like they try to teach us too many different things that aren't very meaningful which can distract you from going in one direction (as you said, you need to cut out the noise).
Anyways keep up the great posts.