Google is for Old People and Search is Changing. Here’s Why

Welcome back, everyone, to the latest episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. 

This week Spencer and Jared take on the latest news and break it all down into bite-size pieces. They also share and compare their side hustles, and talk about some weird niche sites they found, hopefully to inspire listeners.

They kick things off by discussing an article in the Wall Street Journal that maintains that Googling is for old people, which covers not only changing demographics, but the idea that the model of search is changing.

They share some shocking statistics from Google, the thought process of different brands, and the other tools people are using as search engines.

Do you agree with their assessment of what is actually Google’s biggest problem?

Moving on, they continue to talk about Google but the conversation shifts to the latest Core Update, which is officially complete.

This 24-day update is now finished. What are small creators seeing? Overall, do you agree with Spencer’s description of the update?

Jared talks about gains in general, and our ability to take a look at what those sites did in general so as to apply those strategies to our own sites.

How did your site fare? Share your experience in the comments!

The next item up for discussion is breaking news: OpenAI is rolling out ChatGPT Pro. They talk about the new pricing and how the tool has evolved over the last two years. 

Do you agree with their business predictions?  

Lastly on the news agenda are some stats from Black Friday and Cyber Monday. They talk about sales figures, brands’ performance, and peak order volume, and how brands generally started their Black Friday promotions earlier than ever.

They share some interesting insights from the article. Did you buy anything for Black Friday, and would you agree?

Next comes the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, when both Spencer and Jared share their progress with the Amazon Influencer Program. 

Spencer goes first and talks about his total video count, how many new videos he’s created, and how his older videos are performing. He also shares his total income for November. How did he do compared with 2023 numbers?

Then Jared shares his numbers from the program and they compare them and they draw some interesting conclusions, about the side hustle and passive income in general. Jared also offers some helpful tips for anyone already in the program.

Moving on to their Weird Niche Sites, Spencer goes first with a simple crypto site: Sat Parity. He explains satoshis, the value of Bitcoin, and how the site works.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares Go Geese Go, which he—perhaps surprisingly—has a personal interest in.

He talks about the keywords they’re ranking for and shares a surprising discovery about the niche. Spencer also shares an entertaining anecdote about a run-in he had with a goose.

Can you find any inspiration for your own business in their projects?

That concludes another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. We hope you feel like you’re up to speed on the latest news and inspired by their side hustles, passive income conversation, and weird niche sites.

Transcript

Spencer: Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of this week in niche pursuits news. And well, it turns out that Googling is now for old people. And, uh, Jared, you know, what is actually for really, really old people is, uh, the wall street journal. Well, we've got both today. And, uh, the wall street journal is reporting that Googling is now for old people.

And we're going to dive into, uh, what that, that means exactly. And it hits on a lot of points that we talk about AI and changing demographics and where Google's going and all the trouble it's been in. So we're going to dive deep on this, but we got some other things, some other news topics, stick around for those.

And then we've got updates on our side hustles. Uh, we've both been doing the Amazon influencer program now for, um, a while, a couple of years, me at least. And, uh, we're both going to share some updated numbers for November. So that's going to be, uh, interesting, quite a contrast between our results there, and then we're going to bring it home with a couple of weird, weird niche sites, but, uh, Jared.

Welcome back. Uh, I think you missed the first news episode that you've missed in a really long time. It was, uh, me and Brooks held down the fort while you were out vacationing.

Jared: You guys did a great job. I listened to the first 20 minutes or so. Um, It's kind of weird listening to it, but I don't listen to podcasts that I record because that'd be weird.

I think it's, but, so it was the first time I've listened to the niche pursuits podcast in a very long time. You guys did a great job. Yeah. I don't know when the last time I missed one was. I was talking with Thomas off air a little bit this week. Um, and he was like, I was so weird not hearing in the podcast.

I was like, I don't even know the last time I did. I was there for the news. So.

Spencer: Yeah, you're you're a permanent fixture, but glad you got some vacation time much needed I'm sure and also glad to have you back so well

Jared: much enjoyed but I felt like I was um So far removed from what was going on and it's gonna be great to get back into it.

So

Spencer: Yep, so let's do it. So as we said googling Is now for old people. Um, you know, I'm reading the wall street journal and hat tip to, uh, some old guy out there that, that sent this article along, uh, that, you know, quite well. Uh, you know, somebody that reads the wall street journal. Um. And, uh, actually quite, quite a good article.

And, uh, you know, unfortunately the wall street journal is behind a paywall. So if you go there, you might not be able to see it, but we got, we got access to it, but, uh, this article basically talks about, okay, first it hits on, okay, it's not just shifting demographics that younger people maybe are shifting, um, to, to other places, but that kind of the model of search is changing, right?

Um, And so one thought that I had on this, uh, Jared is I've actually had this discussion with my 19 year old son. In the past of where do you search? What do you use when you have a question? Are you going to google and his answer is always no essentially that google is for old people. Um, and He basically says that he goes straight to youtube.

That's that's his search engine. Yep Goes to youtube google is hardly ever every once in a while. Um And so I know that a lot of the younger demographic are indeed switching to youtube This article specifically talks about tiktok. I was gonna

Jared: say tiktok's the other one. I talked to my 19 year old neighbor Uh, and she talks about tiktok, uh as a place she goes to search She kind of laughs a bit when she hears that I do seo work on google She's like, oh that must not be going well.

And i'm like, what do you mean? It's going great And she's like who who goes to google? Yeah surprising for her. Um, but to your point,

Spencer: but They are starting to take over a little bit of traditional search, right? They got the younger demographic and they probably, you know, there are a lot of cases. Hey, I want to learn how to do something quick, watch a one minute video and boom.

I'm good. Right. Um, what else jumped out at you in this particular article?

Jared: Well, this article does a very good job of tying together a lot of the different stories we've been addressing in silo here on the podcast, right? We've talked about Google's antitrust problem. They talk about that, but they bring it.

Into a larger conversation. We've talked about Google's, uh, problems with their search, especially as AI has entered it and how the quality is not as high, they talk about that here, but they tie it together. And I mean, kind of like what you said, we talk about how Facebook is a social media platform for old people.

And we talked about how, you know, then we had Instagram and then we had, you know, there's YouTube and. Then, then we have Tik TOK and there was Snapchat, right? So we talk about as younger generations use different platforms and we always look to Facebook as kind of this older demographic, we also talk about browsers that way.

So MSN and internet Explorer are for old, you know, being, these are for older people. Um, sorry. Uh, and then, you know, you've got duck, duck, go, but really. This article to me stuck out. It basically makes a great case study that like Google is dying a death by 1000 cuts. Uh, and much of that. And they end the article by saying that is AI, the antitrust, all this stuff might be a moot point just because people aren't using it anymore.

Not necessarily as a result of any of the specific things we're talking about.

Spencer: Yeah, exactly. Um, and, and what's even scarier for Google, I mean, it's the reason that it's alive and doing so well is it's advertising platform, right? Um, that that's where it's money is. That's where. You know, that's why, uh, it's, it's such a valuable company.

Yes. It's search engine is great, but it makes all its money off its ad platform. And, uh, it says here in this article, I was going to say, I have

Jared: the quote coming to read it. This is the one I have up.

Spencer: Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead and read it.

Jared: Yeah, this process you talk about has already begun while Google, you know, and I'm quoting from the article, while Google reported strong revenue growth last quarter, the rate at which people clicked on ads that appear in search results was down 8 percent compared to the year ago, according to data from advertising platforms, uh, Sky, uh, they say it's not clear why this is happening, but one logical conclusion is that it's the result of Google's own AI based summaries, which eliminate the need to click on sponsored links or scroll down to where the ads are.

Yeah.

Spencer: Yeah. So that's a

Jared: huge drop.

Spencer: That's a huge drop. I mean, 8 percent for a corporation. I mean, that's devastating, right? They're always looking for growth. Um, and so a decline in number of clicks. I mean, that's, that's terrible. Um, and then one other stat, uh, according to eMarketer, um, Google's share of the U S search advertising market will fall below 50 percent for the first time since the company began tracking it.

Jared: That was a great graph they had there. That was stunning to see. I mean, Amazon, they talk about is really eating up a lot of dollars because brands are like, why would I spend on Google when it's still a broad search, when instead I could go and be at the place people are making their purchase, Amazon is the one that comes to mind.

And so Amazon is taking up so much larger of a share of those ad dollars. And you can see that Google is really suffering as a result of it.

Spencer: And so I think you hit the nail on the head, right? It's kind of coming from all angles here. We've got AI, we've got perplexity, we've got chat GPT, you know, um, all, all these AI tools that people are now starting to use in some ways for a search engine.

Uh, and then we've got, Sort of new ish platforms, you know, the tick tock, the Instagram, the, um, all these other platforms that people are searching and using more often. And then exactly right. If you're an advertiser and you're selling on Amazon, maybe it's worth moving some of your ad dollars over there.

So they're, they're getting it from advertising, from search, from competitors, all these different angles. Is causing, you know, troubles in the business. And so it will be interesting, fascinating to see what the justice department does with their antitrust lawsuit, how that all plays out. I mean, is it going to just damage Google even further if they have to get rid of their Chrome, uh, side of their business?

Uh, but, uh, the one interesting thing about the article is it doesn't. Maybe it does, and maybe I missed it, but it doesn't actually jump into too much, the demographics, right? It says Googling is for old people, but it. Doesn't actually really break that out of like, okay, kids, you know, 18 or 25 and younger use this.

And it's a nice headline, but they don't actually say what old people are using.

Jared: It's a totally a nice headline. I think it's an, it's analogous more so than it is data driven. It's like Google is yesterday's news. You used to Google things. And I think what they're trying to say with that title is only old people.

Spencer: Yeah, yeah, pretty much. And that's why I brought up my son is because he essentially has said just that only old people use Google. So I don't know, maybe, maybe we're old people, but, uh, like I said, the wall street journal is really for old people. Uh, if you're reading a physical copy of, of wall street journal, you're old school.

Jared: It's funny how, um, it's funny how this type of article gets put in the wall street journal, right? This was not a YouTube video. This was not a TikTok video. This was accurately placed. I suppose in the right area. Yeah. Many would say maybe it wasn't, but many would say maybe it was. Yeah.

Spencer: Do you ever get stuck in your business and wish you had someone you could turn to for solutions?

Well, I think you should consider joining the Niche Pursuits community. You'll get weekly calls with experts on growing a successful online business, and you'll also get assigned a small mastermind group where you can solve your business problems As well as share your wins for a limited time. I'll let you try out the niche pursuits community for just 1.

Go ahead and use coupon code podcast at checkout in order to get your first month for just 1. Again, that's coupon code podcast, go to community. nichepursuits. com today and see what it's all about. And maybe I'll see you on our call next week. Thanks a lot. So, um, it's, it's a fascinating article, a fascinating trend to continue to watch.

I mean, we talk about it, uh, essentially this, but yeah, this article was well written and, uh, worth review here. So,

Jared: yeah, I thought it ended really well. We can end on this perhaps, but, um, and again, going all the way back to what I was saying, like almost death by a thousand cuts, right. It, it closes the article out by saying it's going to take years for the justice to be served.

Department case to be resolved. And the ultimate remedy is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. As with its attempt to break up Microsoft, the government's case against Google may be outpaced by competitive forces, far more powerful and antitrust enforcement. And, you know, it's just kind of talking about how like, Hey, perhaps right now, just a change in the way people do things online is Google's actual biggest problem.

Spencer: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Trends and user behavior are always shifting and that definitely is probably a bigger problem.

Jared: Yeah.

Spencer: So

Jared: who would have seen that coming? Ah,

Spencer: well, speaking of Google, you know, we still are always following Google and what they're up to because, uh, maybe it's for old people, but it is not dead just yet.

Uh, and the Google November 2024 core update finished today. Uh, we finally timed this right. Uh, we can often record news and then something happens right after we finished recording. But today, just a few hours ago, they officially did. Wrap up and complete the Google November core update. Uh, we actually dove into this a lot.

Brooks and I did last week because we thought at the time we're like, Hey, I, it should be wrapping up like today or tomorrow. It probably will. Uh, and so we did kind of a deep dive into it. Um, and so maybe we won't dive as deep into it today, but this took 24 days to roll out. And, uh, which is much longer.

They are expecting about two weeks, about 14 days. Uh, this took 24 days.

Jared: Yeah. I mean, it's nothing like the March one we had. That was over a month. I mean, that one I think was 40 days or something, but it's still starting to feel like that. You know, you get to the two week mark. And I have a couple clients who've really gotten a lot of volatility out of this one So we've been emailing every couple days about it and you know, it's up.

It's down. It's up. It's down They're like, I think you said it's gonna be two weeks and i'm like sending them the story This is where I got that from. It's not jared's made up thinking still not done yet So I finally got to send them the rap story right before we recorded and um, And they finished up in the update, which is also great news But yeah, this one had a lot of volatility from what I saw from the different.

Um, You know, kind of search console graphs. I have, I know a lot of people reported some ups. You guys talked a lot about different websites, different content sites that went up and I saw a lot of the same things. That's positive news across the board.

Spencer: Yep, exactly. And that's what I've seen. I've continued to see people posting in Facebook groups or on Twitter that, Hey, like I'm seeing a big turnaround in my traffic traffic's up.

Uh, and so whatever it was that they tweaked in this core update, it does seem to be resonating fairly well. Among smaller publishers, smaller blog bloggers, seeing, um, some turnarounds, things moving in the right direction. And so overall I would call this a very positive update. Um, for, for smaller bloggers in general, of course, uh, different websites will be impacted differently.

And so some sites certainly were hit. You know, with this update and, um, others were not in some, uh, I've seen these increases like, like you sort of alluded to. I know that you said you had several clients. Um, I don't know if we'll share all of these graphs that you have, but maybe you can just kind of give us an idea of some of the results that.

Some of your clients were seeing.

Jared: Yeah. Yeah. Just some screenshots that I grabbed. Um, and you know, there was some ups and some downs, right? So some clients had those up, some clients had those downs. Many of them are content. I tried to only go for content websites, um, and, uh, and kind of isolate those. But basically, uh, I think from a very high level, because we don't.

I really want to dive super deep into it, but for a very high level, like the, the websites I know that are kind of being worked on by people, there's still something that people are investing in and really, you know, trying to, to, to, to continue to publish good content on, on a whole, as an average saw, saw a bunch of ups and the ones that saw downs are people who perhaps had kind of parked their site for a while, right.

Or kind of moved on or maybe focused more on a social media angle or something like that. And so, um, again, that's not, um, that's not correct. Causal, it's not, not, not one to one, but it is something that's interesting for people who kind of working and investing in their site. There are definitely some improvements across the board and pretty dramatic improvements, you know, like tripling, quadrupling, you know, like getting back to where they were, uh, in many cases, pre HCU in some cases, getting closer to where they were.

Spencer: Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. A couple of these graphs that you shared. I mean, the, the increase is pretty significant. I mean, doubling in traffic. Um, since the core update has started rolling out. So, um, hopefully, you know, hoping for people that are listening out there, that they're seeing a lot of positive increases in their own website traffic.

So feel free to share in the comments, uh, let us know how it's looking for you now that the, uh, update has officially finished.

Jared: And again, just one final thing on that. Even if your site didn't go up in this update, the positive side of having. A collection of websites that has gone up is that we can start to talk about, okay, what did these sites do?

What are they doing? What are they actively doing now? What have they done since say the HCU? And we can start to get some ideas for what we can all be doing. If, and even if, you know, one of our sites didn't recover, we can at least start to get some, some clarity on some of the things we can do that might help our site in future updates.

Spencer: Well, we have more breaking news that was just released. It looks like about three hours ago. Thank goodness. We didn't record this yesterday, Spencer. Exactly. So we did it just right here. So, uh, I also have pulled up here, uh, a TechCrunch, uh, article. That kind of just outlines, you know, some of what I just said, uh, essentially, but, uh, that, uh, I mean, that's big that they've got this new model that supposedly is bigger, smarter, faster.

And I think they say specifically for, uh, coding and math. Um, and do you understand the, uh, chat G GPT pro model? I mean, it's 200 per month. Um, I know there's still the plus model or tier. I think it's 20 a month. I'm not a hundred percent clear what the difference is in is maybe just usage.

Jared: Well, that's all they said and commented on, which by the way, I would love my team, uh, at my agency runs into usage problems all the time, even being on the 20 a month one.

Um, so that would be wonderful. I don't know, you know, how much you get unlimited usage that would solve that problem for 200 a month. I also wonder. If it would, you know, like help on some of the things that maybe heavier users would, would benefit from in terms of its memory, in terms of, uh, tracking in terms of its capabilities to maybe organize chats into projects.

Like there's a lot that could be said for them making more of an enterprise solution. And I wonder if this is a step in that direction, like, Let's say you're working on a team and you want to log in. Like all you see when you log into chat, GPT is everyone's chats, just spilling down in front of you. And if you're a power user, if you're something like that, maybe they're going to, you know, kind of do more than just give you unlimited access, but give you more features inside of that.

Spencer: Yeah. Yep. It sounds like they are building some new features as well. So, so more to come on that. Um, you know, if you take a look at Twitter, there's already potential backlash on the price point, right? It's going from a. 20 a month to a 200 per month, you know, sort of tier. Like it feels like a lot according to some people.

Right. But, uh, if you're using it, it a lot, and this actually drives revenue or productivity for your business, like maybe that's just a drop in the bucket for a lot of companies.

Jared: Yeah. I think that, I think it probably is. I mean, when you look at. When you find a good solution for, for, for where like a chat GPD can fit into a business, then 200 is a drop in the bucket for a business.

And I think maybe open AI might be kind of realizing like 20 a month is probably the right price point. Maybe it's even a little too high for like the average everyday user, but for a business or a corporation or a person who's monetizing that you're exactly right, 200 is not much when you look at what you can do with the power of some of these features.

Spencer: Yeah, it, uh, it really is just fascinating to look. It's, it's been almost exactly two years since chat GPT launched. And you know, this, they're getting bigger and smarter, but, uh, it is now so acceptable, um, to be paying for an AI tool like this, you know, thinking two years ago, there were some AI tools that helped you write articles and do some other things, general businesses were not signing up.

For, you know, some sort of AI tool, um, I think it's going to become really common for businesses to have, whether it's open AI or some other tool that they're using, like artificial intelligence is just becoming this layer that is required to operate as a business. Almost.

Jared: Uh, yeah, I mean, and the productivity gains that people will get, I know there's been a lot made, especially of late of like AI as it isn't actually helping people as much as it.

You know, it's made out to be and all that, but again, you're still talking about being able to streamline different parts of your business. And again, when you take a step back for the cost of 200 a month, that's really a drop in the bucket for a lot of businesses.

Spencer: Exactly. Well, excited that we can announce this in a timely manner.

It's brand new here. You are, you heard it here on the niche pursuits podcast first. Um, all right. And then, uh, let's do one final news article. Nothing, um, you know, too intense, but since black Friday just happened, I mean, we're less than a week out from black Friday. Um, you know, uh, Clavio had some interesting numbers and sort of a look What their customers are doing on their platform, how many products they're selling, and they shared just a lot of interesting numbers and strategies related to, um, black Friday.

Um, some of the stats here, it says, uh, Clavio customers. Achieved record breaking results over 15, 000 brands experienced their best sales day ever Uh drove more than three billion dollars in total clavio attributed value Thanksgiving and cyber monday.

Jared: I love how they have an acronym for clavio attributed.

Yeah

Spencer: Hey Hey, when you're doing billions, you, it's probably worth having an accurate, exactly right. Fair and fair play, but, uh, 420 million messages were sent. Uh, the peak order volume happened between noon and 1 PM Eastern time that day. Uh, when Clavio customers saw 1. 3 million orders come through. So if you're going to plan a Black Friday, Cyber Monday deal, uh, maybe that's the best time to be sending out your messages, right?

Peak order volume between noon and 1 PM Eastern standard time. So that's, uh, that's good to know. Um, what other data did you find interesting or, or, you know, strategies did you find interesting that was shared in this article? Yeah.

Jared: I mean, I think I noticed it. Um, uh, In how I was being marketed to, but they talk about it in here.

Basically that, um, one of the big kind of comings to know or things they shared is, and I'm sure everybody listening will be like, Oh yeah, I felt that. Which is basically brands began their black Friday, summer Monday promotions a lot earlier, starting in early November. I think we're all sitting here going like, how far out are we going to go?

Like, are we going to start getting black Friday offers in September? It's like back to schools over black Friday, you know, but, But they're pushing it forward and it's working, you know, uh, they said, basically they attributed it to accelerating the buying cycle by 40%. And so like it or not like it, it looks like Clavio is basically saying like the successful brands did push their Black Friday sales up and kind of got the dollars from consumers earlier on before people maybe had spent them.

Spencer: Yeah. Yeah. I found that really interesting. And I have certainly noticed that myself, that things are just happening earlier and for a longer period of time. Um, I know some of the, you know, software tools or WordPress plugins that I've been associated with in terms of, you know, just in contact with people.

I mean, they, they were running it all November and they're running it, you know, until like mid December, like almost a month and a half. So it's, uh, extended. Um, and then they jump into some other, uh, details in terms of, uh, multiple touch points and, and, uh, multi channels, um, and how important that is. Right.

And, uh, so they sort of say, Hey, in 2025, try to, um, Oh, one other point where it talks about highlight craftsmanship and authenticity, um, they pointed out earlier in the article, essentially that customers didn't Or buy, uh, because of a larger discount, but because of brand, um, affinity and quality of craftsmanship.

So they're looking more for quality of product and, and a good deal, but it doesn't have to be an extreme deal to get them to buy,

Jared: you have it up there in front of you also the multi channel. Imperative as they call it, as I was also very interesting. They highlighted SMS. I think they said a 20 percent year over year revenue increase for brands who, um, who specifically used SMS.

I did not get many texts from brands. Um, I'm sure there's a lot of brands that have my phone number and I know I've gotten them in the past from brands, but looking back on it, I can't think of one that I got, so interesting there, certainly maybe that is a channel that hasn't been, I'll say overplayed yet.

Spencer: Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, who knows how long that is overplayed, right? These things move so quickly. Um, but, uh, yeah, interesting article. It's got some, you know, takeaways, what you can do in 2025, you know, integrated campaigns with SMS, email marketing, personalized, uh, you know, as possible refined with AI, uh, of course, a little hat tip to, uh, Clavio, they try to, you know, get you to use their AI, um, and then focus on localized messaging.

And so, yeah, there's quite a few other really interesting tidbits. I don't know any final things that you wanted to bring up, or is that a pretty well, good,

Jared: good to go. It's always fun to see what's working. And I like articles like this that, um, have wide datasets because, you know, they're not guessing when they roll these numbers up.

Spencer: Yeah, exactly. It is, it is really nice. I am always fascinated by, um, you know, Clavio and then like shop, Shopify always shares like how many sales are happening every minute or every hour, you know, during black Friday, it's just these astronomical numbers to make you realize, man, e commerce is just this massive, massive thing.

There are people spending lots and lots of money, not just during black Friday and cyber Monday, which they are, but, uh, just all the time. There, there's so much, um, commerce going on.

Jared: It's, it's, it's, it's crazy. And, and, and this is as we'll get into next, the time of year when people are consumer wise, just kind of apt to spend more, it's kind of like in the water.

It's kind of in the air, right? So brands taking advantage of it, finding the best way to get the dollar that people are going to spend one way or the other, are they going to spend it on your brand, on your product?

Spencer: Right.

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Head over to lakewhisper. com and use coupon code podcast to get 15 off. Okay. Well, the time has come Jared, where, uh, we're going to reveal some numbers from our own side projects. And, uh, these, I feel like the Amazon influencer program is one of the earliest sort of side hustles that we started sharing here on the podcast.

We've been given updates for. Pretty much as long as we've been doing it. Um, you know, it's been a couple of years essentially, uh, for me. And I think from the very beginning, like within like the first month or maybe the second month you were sharing numbers, uh, here on the podcast as well. And so we've had this journey, uh, together if you will.

And, um, so I'm going to give my updated, uh, sort of November numbers. Um, and just to recap people, um, I have posted about a thousand videos total in my Amazon influencer account, but I have not posted a single video for the entire year. Uh, these were all essentially posted, you know, by the end of 2023, maybe a couple of spilled into early, you know, 2024, but, uh, by and large, a thousand videos.

Have been there for the year and I have not touched the account. Uh, I basically just let it sit. It's been passive. It's been earning every month, but it's been interesting to see, okay, what happens when you post a thousand videos and do nothing, how long will they. Still earn commissions. How long will they still get clicks?

Will they still get views? And, uh, they are still getting clicks and views and, uh, earning some commissions. And so, uh, it's nothing earth shattering here. I'll preface it with that. But, uh, in November of 2024, I earned essentially 1, 200. Even, uh, 1, 200 and, uh, compared to last year, I earned about 4, 000 in, uh, 2023, right?

So a year ago. So it is down significantly, but I also put in no work. So. Um, which is, which is kind of nice. Um, but that's, that's pretty much my update. Um, you know, maybe we have a little discussion on it if, unless you, if you don't have specific questions. You can go into your update and then we can kind of compare those results.

Jared: I just think it's interesting to, cause you talked about the journey, the history. I did listen last week. You mentioned that you started in January, 2023. I started in May of 2023. So we're four months off there. And really our journey last year was we were tracking the same number of videos. Uh, we were on really similar trajectories in terms of earnings, you were doing an outsourced model, I was doing a fully insourced model.

So we had these variations and how we went about it in 2023 and almost we kind of had variations in 2024 as well. Now I did not put nearly the effort in, in 2024 that I did last year, but I did get about 400 videos uploaded throughout the year. Yep. And so I was, and it was fairly consistent. Like I think there were only one or two months where I didn't upload anything.

Um, and so really in 2024, we also went different directions and that you just parked it and let it sit. And then I kind of kept uploading, although I'll be it at a slower pace, about 40 percent of what I did. So happy to share my numbers and then we can get into some of the differences there. Um, I lost my tab here.

So my numbers for November were 5, 250 or so. So, um, I also earned about 4, 000 last year. And so that's about a 25 percent increase for me. So actually I increased by the exact amount you made. Wow. Now you're making me feel really

Spencer: good.

Jared: No, you didn't do anything. I've been uploading videos. That's true.

You've been working harder. You deserve it. I mean, you know, it was a little bit, but that's interesting, right? I've done about 400 videos. That averages at this point about 40 or so videos a month, 45. No less 3540. Um, uh, so not many, um, at the rate that I, I kind of filmed them, it's just a couple hours a month I've been putting in, um, but, um, but the earnings went up this year.

The earnings have gone up, um, and happy to talk about some of what's sold and what's kind of trending and that sort of thing. But yeah, those are my numbers. Pretty, pretty excited to be honest with you. Pretty happy with that.

Spencer: Yeah. Your results are a lot more attractive than my results. Um, you know, I guess it makes me wish that I would have kept recording videos.

Maybe, but

Jared: maybe you wouldn't have had time to focus on the Facebook bonus program. That is true. You know, like I've been so jealous hearing your Facebook results all year and kind of feeling like, man, why am I doing this influencer thing? I could have been spending that time on some new shiny object that would have been earning me a lot of money.

So it's hard to say, right. We know Amazon influencer pays very well during November and December. Very happy right now, but there were some times this summer when you were sharing those bonus numbers. And I'm like, God, why am I working on this?

Spencer: There's, there's always something to be a little bit jealous of, or there's, you know, there's always something out there you can look at and go, man, I, if I had just spent some time on that.

So, yeah. That's a good perspective to have. It's like, you can't do it all. No. You know, it just isn't possible.

Jared: Although you and I definitely try. In the name of keeping listeners entertained every week, we definitely give it our best shot. I mean, you just released a video on that recently. That's doing very well.

It's a

Spencer: blessing

Jared: and a

Spencer: curse. I take it for what it is. I try all sorts of business ideas, call it an addiction or a problem. But, uh, I've turned that all into a success. Yeah. Fine. I mean, what works and doubling down?

Jared: One thing I think it's interesting last year, I remember our conversations somewhat was my best, my stuff that was selling really well last year in Q4 was like, um, very much like home upgrades, right?

Last year. It was a home, it was a kitchen product that people were buying. That was like a nicer version of the basic appliance. Right. And so I, I talked a lot about how this is a time when people are making like upgrades, you know, and I talked about how, Oh yeah, last year I bought AirPods and replaced my like standard headphones with like the top of the line kind of wireless headphones.

And I'm seeing that exact same thing this year, which I think is interesting because last year your big sellers were like gift items, right? Yes. It were things that people bought. Not to use in their home, but to give to someone. And I'm not seeing much of that this year. I don't know if I just don't film those or if once again, that's just how it played out this year.

But once again, I'm just selling like kind of nicer home products that I think people are upgrading into.

Spencer: Yeah. And, uh, that's interesting. I didn't dive into my results, uh, but I had forgotten that we had that discussion. You have an excellent memory. Uh, Jared, the last year we talked about, yeah, the types of things that were selling well, and it was, it was a couple of gift items in particular.

Um, and I'm guessing that I'm not selling those this year. I, I haven't looked, but I'm guessing those kind of fell off the map and my videos just aren't performing well for those couple of products.

Jared: So one tip for you, Spencer. Yeah, I want to know because I did this last year. My best selling product, call it X.

In early November, I went to that video and I looked at the product that I was tagging and it was gone because that, that, that, that store that was selling that was not selling that anymore, but it was the same product was being sold by a different store with a different ASIN. I verified that it was the same ASIN.

I verified that it was the same product and I just switched that and all of a sudden I started selling that again.

Spencer: That is interesting. I bet there are several products that are,

Jared: you're not going to want to do that with all thousand of your videos, right? But maybe your best sellers from last year that you know, sell well.

And if it's still, if they've upgraded the product, right. And that product just is out of like, it doesn't, you know, they upgrade product lines. And so maybe they don't sell that version anymore. Well, then you're kind of, that's, that's a bummer, but if it's the same product, but just not being sold by that brand on that ASIN, You can maybe tag the proper ACE and where it is being sold.

And it's the same video for the same product.

Spencer: That's an excellent tip. You're, you're full of wise advice. Hopefully people are taking notes out there. Not just me, you know, um, that, that they should do that. They should look at that. I didn't even think of that.

Jared: There's still a couple of weeks of sales, you know, of what we know to be very good sales period.

So, you know, you, you know, try it with maybe five or 10 of the videos that performed well last year. Just make sure that they're, uh, you know, that if they're, that if they're not Properly tagged. Maybe you could fix that. Excellent.

Spencer: Very good. Well, do you have any other, uh, advice or Thoughts on why you've had such a good November

Jared: I mean, it's it's it's It's it's just the sales volume on amazon at this time of year is the best thing I can attribute it to Um, there's obviously just talking about our various variation and numbers We were the same sales last year.

You actually outsold me in December. If I have memory serves me correct. I think you outsold me by a pretty good amount. And then this year I'm four times up on you. So there's something to the consistency of publishing videos. There's something to that I can only imagine because that's the only thing you and I've done differently this year is I've continued to publish videos, but we started the year with the same number of videos, right around a thousand videos each.

So there's obviously something to consistency if you're thinking, maybe not right now, but if you're thinking about the longevity of your time on the Amazon influencer program, it seems there's something to consistency and being consistent with your publishing.

Spencer: Yeah, and um, just to know that there is a shelf life and, you know, that these videos will decay, if you will.

Um, but I'm still making about a third of what I made last year. So, you know, without doing anything for a year, um, that's, that's kind of cool. It is encouraging in a way just to know that, Hey, these videos will live on for at

Jared: least a year. Well, and to that point, I mean, and when we can, you know, can, can move on, of course, but like almost to that point, if put yourself, we'll, we'll, we'll say pre HCU to make it really easy for your head, but let's say you have a, a niche site that.

Last Black Friday, last November made 4, 000, right? From affiliate sales, maybe ad earnings, maybe you had a couple hundred articles up, you had the rankings, and then you didn't touch the site for a whole year. I mean, you wouldn't be surprised to earn 1, 200. You probably hope it was earning maybe 2000, but you would not be surprised for it to have dropped roughly this amount.

It's odd how much it kind of has some similarities to some of the other side hustles we've traditionally pursued.

Spencer: Yeah, I guess we're finding that there's not really a passive income model here. Um, it's semi passive like all things that we talk about But everything requires a little bit of upkeep and work if you want to keep making money from it Yeah, cool, man.

Good results Uh, and thank you for sharing that being being open. So Uh, great job.

Jared: My pleasure. I, you know, I'll be sharing probably a lot about this in the coming weeks. Um, I will say just cause I was here last week, just a quick mention, but like had an amazing, um, uh, kind of black Friday or that week leading up to it with the site that I'm, uh, the HCU hit site that we've given life back to with Pinterest traffic.

So that did really well. The ad revenue, that site broke 2, 500. 2, 500. Wow. And it never broke in 2000 before. So just such a good time of year for a lot of projects that people are working on, you know, kind of capitalize on, on higher traffic, higher RPMs, all these kinds of things.

Spencer: Yeah, awesome, man. Good positive news.

Alright, well, we have two weird niche sites. Um, one from each of us that we're going to share. Yeah,

Jared: I'm pulling it up for the first time.

Spencer: Well, you're going to be blown away. Uh, it's a pretty simple niche site. Uh, and, uh, I'll go ahead and share my screen. Is this the one you got from today on

Jared: Twitter?

Spencer: It sure is.

Jared: saw

Spencer: this. I said, let's do it. I posted a tweet. Um, you know, I was just thinking, we're planner here, podcast. And, uh, you know, Bitcoin just crossed a hundred thousand dollars, although recording live, it's no longer above that mark. But it was, you know, this morning it was above a hundred thousand dollars a coin.

And I thought, Hey, does anybody know any weird niche sites related to crypto or Bitcoin? And I got one. Um, so this is, uh. The site is sat parody. com and, um, it's, uh, it's very, it's very simple. Let, let me explain a little bit for those that aren't deep into the crypto world here. So a, uh, Satoshi. You know, Satoshi Nakamoto was the mysterious founder of Bitcoin, and one Satoshi is like the smallest denomination of a Bitcoin.

And it's like 1000000th, uh, it's, it's like 0.000, oh, oh, oh, oh, one of a Bitcoin, whatever. I maybe said the wrong number of o's, I dunno. But, um, is one Bitcoin, right? So it's not, the lowest number isn't like 0.01 Bitcoin. You know, one millionth of a Bitcoin, and that's called a Satoshi is the basic denomination.

And so, uh, in order, uh, for there to be parity between one cent US dollar and one Satoshi, that would mean that Bitcoin has to be worth 1 million. So when the price of Bitcoin reaches one coin reaches 1 million, that means we have parody between one cent and one Satoshi. Okay. That's, I mean, that's all that this website does is gives you a calculation.

Right now we're at 10 sats, you know, 10 little ways to go. We got a little ways to go when I looked at it earlier this morning. It was at nine Okay, price has dropped slightly, you know, we're now below a hundred thousand dollars a coin but uh I mean, this is if you're not seeing the screen like this is really basic.

It literally says 0. 01 us dollars equals 10 sats and then up in small letters You know at the top it says one satoshi equals one cent parody, uh, and then down at the bottom This is a little bit more interesting Uh, there is words that say buy bitcoin And then built with you know by at sat parody you can follow him on twitter But the buy bitcoin if I click on that.

Oh, yeah, hopefully I didn't just you know get a virus but um It is an affiliate link. It's very clearly an affiliate link. It's got the referral code, right. And, uh, over at river. com, you can sign up for a, a Bitcoin wallet. Um,

Jared: I, I, I'm glad you did have a, uh, a, uh, uh, like a, a Bitcoin kind of owed here because, um, I mean, you know, obviously so many ups and downs.

And so for those people who have continued to invest in websites about Bitcoin, like they're getting rewarded now, and it's really cool to see, cause I know a lot of people. Are very, very fascinated by that whole space. And, um, it's just, it's really fascinating to see, but this is a very simple site and I think that, uh, you won't find a simpler.

Bitcoin site. I got a, I got a, uh, I got a hunch. They don't make much in terms of affiliate sales to your point. Just if you're going to visit something like this, like a very niche term, that's probably only relevant to people who know a lot about the Bitcoin market. I I'm guessing like they probably already have their places.

They buy their, their, their Bitcoin from, so. Maybe not. Maybe I'm wrong.

Spencer: So there you go. That's my, uh, weird niche site. Um, kind of just a fun one sat parody. com.

Jared: Well, um, mine is weird as well. Uh, uh, I have to admit, I put this in a couple of days ago and haven't looked at it since, but this was shared with me by a listener.

I'm trying to do a better job of saying this. I write it down. Juliet. Thank you. Um, she didn't know when she shared this with me that I have a personal connection to this whole world, we'll call it now. It's a weird niche, but I have person personal stories about it. So the, um, let's see, what is the website?

It is go geese, go. com. Um, yes, it's about geese and it is the solution to your geese problem. Now, Spencer, did you know that geese are a problem in Europe and, you know, an area that I feel like probably has a lot of geese, do you have goose, goose problems, geese problems?

Spencer: I was not aware that this was a problem.

It's a problem. We do see quite a few geese, you know. Particularly in parks. We have a river. The Columbia River goes through the middle of our city. So there's a lot of geese along the river. But I didn't know it was a big problem.

Jared: So we live kind of up in the foothills. We live really close to a couple lakes.

Like within, you know, almost like as a crow flies, two tenths of a mile kind of thing. Like so close. And we have a swimming pool. And I will tell you that geese every morning in the spring. Are in our pool and they don't want to leave. They don't want to go away and they don't care if every morning you go running out at them, screaming at them, whatever else.

And so here is this company that gets rid of geese. In a humane way and they have a whole website on it. Um, it's really, uh, pretty interesting. Now, um, they, they aren't just like a classic service business, you know, like they have content, they rank for almost 2000 keywords. So they got a bunch of, um. Um, like articles on different geese topics and how to get rid of them.

They rank pretty well for them. Um, they are a, yeah, number four for what do geese eat. Uh, number one for why do geese honk when they fly. So they've kind of created this whole like content site all around geese, if you will. Um, it's really fascinating there. Um, but they, if you're wondering like, what do they do?

Well, they will help you get rid of geese. They're just a local business to the central Ohio area. So it, now here's what's fascinating. My thought was, Oh, this is gonna be cool to share about the podcast because they're the only ones who've kind of figured out this whole geese thing they're doing in Ohio, but all of our listeners could then go do it in Washington or go do it in California.

Right? Right? No. Oh, my goodness. This is a thing. Spencer. Did you know that getting rid of geese is a total thing? They only ranked number 14 in Ohio. There's 13 geese companies higher than them just in Ohio. Wow. So they rank 14 for Ohio geese control. There's 13 ahead of them. So this is quite, I mean, blows me away.

This is quite the business model here. It's competitive, apparently. I mean, I would think a geese company must do very well up in, like, say, Washington, where, you know, there's lots of water and lots of geese going up to Canada and back. I'm being stereotypical in every way, but still, I feel like it could be a good thing up there.

Spencer: Yeah, no, like I said, we see quite a few, um, you know, not to go on a tangent, but, uh, I've, I've had a, I've had a goose chase me down when I was out, you know, training for a marathon, running along the river. Yeah. I don't know if it's nesting season. I got too close. I, I don't know, but boy, I, I ran really fast when that thing started running after me.

They're quick. They're quick little guys.

Jared: Get a little wind

Spencer: under their wings. Uh, you know, They

Jared: kind of run, they kind of run fly. It's like a combo thing.

Spencer: Yeah. So, um, so maybe the parks, you know, maybe the parks pay for some service to, you know, keep them out of common areas. I have no idea, but, uh, maybe that's my next side hustle.

Jared: Here you got the ge thegoosebuster. com, uh, ohiowildgeesecontrol. com, uh, geesechaserohio. com. I mean, this is a thing. This is a total thing.

Spencer: Does it list how much, um, or do you have any idea how much it Costs to like hire?

Jared: Oh, good question. Let's see services, removing geese. Um, you

Spencer: have to get a quote or something.

Jared: I think you have to get a quote. Let's see. What if my property is a pond? Very different. Um, how often do goose, how often do I need to scare the geese? Um, Our favorite properties to work with include class a office building shopping centers hospital medical facilities corporate campuses and corporate holdings So maybe it's not so much of a one on one service as it is Uh, yeah, you got to call them.

It looks like uh, but they have goose repellent Um looks like I don't know. I didn't really dive into that. I should have though. Yeah located in columbus, ohio

Spencer: I just curious so um I, you know, kudos to you because I don't believe I've ever known that this was a business model that, that, you know, how to get rid of geese or geese pest control, essentially, right.

It was, was a thing. I had no idea.

Jared: I mean, again, like we always go back to, it's fun to talk about bizarre niches of the world. We never even knew existed. But it's also fun to get your mind going, you know, you might be out there listening. And I mean, this, this, this classifies is what a lot of people on like Twitter like to talk about.

Other people like boring businesses, right? Like, um, this is a classic boring business, but I mean, you lock down some of those corporate contracts. I mean, they're not going to be wanting to search for new geese control people every year. You're probably good to go for a while, as long as you do a good job.

Spencer: That's right. Just, uh, Service the contract and yeah, you're, you're good to go.

Jared: I don't think the CEO gets up on a Monday morning. Cause you know what we really need to do? We need to cut costs when it comes to geese control. It's like

Spencer: the

Jared: same guy, 20 years in

Spencer: a row. There you go, man. I need to get my, uh, my oldest son to go out and knock some doors and say, Hey, you got a, got a geese problem.

I, I can handle it.

Jared: Well, to that point, I mean, it looks like there could be a gap in the market on the residential side of things. You know, you got all this corporate stuff, commercial stuff. I know that's a, you know, probably pays a little better longterm contracts, but I don't know. There could be an opportunity in the residential side of there.

You go. Get the wheels turning for people.

Spencer: So that's a good one. Um, go geese, go. com. Uh, and apparently lots of other examples, just in Ohio, just

Jared: in central Ohio.

Spencer: So check your local market, see what you can find. Um, awesome. Well, very good. Uh, yeah, I guess we covered it. We got, we got the news. We got the weird niche sites.

We got our side hustles. Um, the news carries on. There's always new announcements, new things happening in the digital marketing world. So thank you everybody so much for hanging out with us for a little while. And Jared, welcome back. It's great to have you on the show again.

Jared: Don't worry. You're stuck with me for a lot longer.

I don't think I have a vacation plan for a while, so it's good.

Spencer: That's what I like to hear. Here

Jared: you have it. Have a good weekend, everyone. Uh, enjoy a Q4. Thanks everyone.

Spencer: Hey there. Thanks so much for listening to the niche pursuits podcast. Did you know that Jared and I are members of a private group called the niche pursuits community.

And today I want to share with you how you can join for just 1. The niche pursuits community is a private members area for niche online publishers to mastermind and grow their businesses together. We hold weekly calls live with experts where you can ask questions. These experts share tips on Amazon influencer.

Google Discover, building email newsletters, getting traffic from Facebook, and other strategies to grow your online business. You'll also be assigned a mastermind group of four or five other people in a similar stage in business as you. Dive deep into your business issues and get your problem solved. If you use coupon code PODCAST at checkout, you'll get your first month for just 1.

Go ahead and give it a try. Come join me, Jared, and lots of other digital entrepreneurs inside my private group at community. nichepursuits. com and be sure to use coupon code podcast. I'll see you on the inside.

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