#116 – What’s Coming for AH + Community Q&A

What you will learn

  • The future and new focus of the company down the line
  • Details about the upcoming AuthorityHacker and Authority Site System updates
  • Why finding investors isn’t always a good growth strategy
  • Our thoughts on The Hoth, Yoast, Trump, specialized vs all-in-one tools, and more

Summer is over and we’re getting “back to school,” though it’s not like we haven’t been extremely busy up until now. AuthorityHacker and The Authority Site System are getting an update and there’s a bunch of other exciting stuff on the horizon!

In this episode, we decided to sit down and recap what we’ve been up to and what we’re planning for the remainder of the year further down the line.

We’re also going through some of the questions that we can’t dedicate a whole episode to, but keep popping up in the community.

Let’s jump right into it!

What We’ve Been up To

Our company has grown a lot in the past 18 months, and while we still manage multiple sites, we shifted our focus towards AuthorityHacker:

  • Going even deeper with our blog, podcast, courses and other channels
  • This doesn’t mean we’re giving up on our other sites. In fact we have another site brewing that we’ll share with you at some point in the future.
  • We talked about “knowing your niche” in the august update podcast and we do what we preach. We still maintain our sites and make money so we keep our finger on the pulse.

Our new focus allows us to use sites like HealthAmbition as case studies and staging areas for new tactics and tools, so we can then provide quality content (both free and paid).

We’re Redesigning AuthorityHacker.com

The old design is 4 years old. It served us well, but it’s time to take things up a notch (both in design and in tech).

We now have a working test site, a lot of migrated content, and we should be rolling out the new site in the next couple of months.

The New Authority Site System is Almost Done

100+ videos recorded, everything is redone, nothing from the old TASS remains. The update will come with a new member area as well.

It’s a free upgrade for all current TASS customers. We may raise the price though, so if you buy now you’ll get upgraded for free. You’ll also get a chance to test it out with us 😀

Upcoming Events We’re Attending

  • DMSS – Bali 6-8th October
  • DCBKK Bangkok – 19-21st October

We’re also attending the Chiang Mai SEO Conference on 1-2nd November.

We will organize a meetup of some kind before or after the Chiang Mai Conference. If you are attending, drop us a message in the comments.

Community Q&A

Question:

Financing and loans for authority sites, is it worth it?

Answer:

Old banks will rarely even understand the business model, hesitate to loan. Individual investors might definitely be interested. We know of people who have done well with individual investors. It’s better to go for content quality rather than content quantity though.

Question:

iWriter acquired by The Hoth, what do you think?

Answer:

Mark doesn’t like The Hoth, Gael thinks iWriter can be super low-end, you get what you pay for. The combination of the two could be beneficial for certain types of businesses in some cases.

Question:

Yoast plugin – to switch or not to switch?

Answer:

We switched to SEOPress for now. Gael doesn’t like the paywall spreading to previously free features, but other than that Yoast isn’t that bad.

Question:

Rumors of Amazon Associates bringing back volume based commissions

Answer:

We heard the rumors haven’t received anything about it. That being said, it would be a significant revenue boost depending on how they do it (also would make the associates program much more enticing and great news for many TASS members).

Question:

Trump on Google being Rigged

Answer:

The issue raises legitimate questions on search engines being the arbiters of truth, and their responsibility in managing a balance. Doubtful that the president would actually try to fiddle with the algorithm….but if he could, it would have an effect on everyone.

Question:

Trump on Google being Rigged

Answer:

The issue raises legitimate questions on search engines being the arbiters of truth, and their responsibility in managing a balance. Doubtful that the president would actually try to fiddle with the algorithm….but if he could, it would have an effect on everyone.

Question:

Do affiliate links affect rankings?

Answer:

Gael thought “Naaah” for a while…but then there might be something to it…we’ll need to run some tests.

Question:

All in one tools vs specialised tools?

Answer:

Most all-in-ones are jack of all trades, masters of none. We have very high demands of our tools so we go with specialized quality tools. That being said, if you’re small, some all-in-one tools can help. Just be vary of getting entrenched in their ecosystems.

Question:

Gmail banned for link building?

Answer:

It wasn’t that bad. Nevertheless, you should take some time to “warm up” your outreach. Go with a few emails a week and slowly double your amount each time until you reach your desired peak.

Question:

FindThatLead on Appsumo: yay or nay?

Answer:

Great tool. Great deal. Can save you some money. Hunter seems to get slightly better results, but it’s still a great purchase. Yay.

Resources/Links