Money Lab

It's our final episode of the year, the last one in our Greatest Hits series, and the perfect motivation for your business New Years Resolutions: how to stick with it for the long haul. (This episode originally aired in March 2019).It only took 15+ combined years for Matt and Andrew to "make it" as "entrepreneurs." And you can, too! Listen in on Matt and Andrew's beer-fueled trip down memory lane recapping the slumps, the wins and the eff-it-all moments on the loooooooong road to "success." Enjoy!P.S. This episode may or may not be brought to you by Little Caesars Pizza.

More goodness coming at ya from the Money Lab vault (this episode originally aired August 2019).Should you try turning a hobby you love into a money-making website? Sean Ogle, founder of BreakingEighty.com and LocationRebel.com, joins the show to talk about turning a hobby into an online business. Both Sean and Matt run websites based on hobbies they love: Sean runs a golf site and Matt runs a homebrewing website, BrewCabin.com. So how do they approach monetizing their hobbies? What does it take to create a paid community around something you love? And how do you make sure you keep the passion alive with your hobby when it's a business? If you've ever considered turning a hobby into an online business, this episode is for you. Enjoy!P.S. You can find more about Sean at LocationRebel.com and BreakingEighty.com.P.P.S. If you want to see a behind-the-scenes look at how Matt monetizes own hobby-based site, check out his course SEO for Bloggers: Moneylab.co/SEO

The greatest hits keep rolling with some ultra-practical SEO tips (this episode originally aired August 2019).Good news: SEO isn't as complicated as you think. Digital content editor and writer Michelle Lowery joins the show to share her best practices for SEO writing and editing. Matt and Michelle chat about how they approach creating content that ranks on Swim University, including clever ways to incorporate keywords and how to optimize text for both robots and humans. Michelle also shares some of her favorite strategies for researching keywords and how she weaves a human-centered approach into her work. This is a behind-the-scenes look at Swim University's entire SEO process and how Michelle creates articles that are more likely to rank. Enjoy!P.S. If you want to learn more about writing SEO friendly content, check out Matt's course SEO for Bloggers: Moneylab.co/SEOP.P.S. You can find Michelle on Twitter @MichelleDLowery

The Money Lab Greatest Hits countdown continues with an affiliate marketing heavy-hitter (this episode originally aired April 2019).It's a battle royale between affiliate sites as Matt and Andrew debate the pros and cons of their different affiliate business models. From only using the Amazon affiliate program to managing tons of affiliate partners, how do they structure their affiliate revenue streams? And what are the challenges of running a site that makes 100% of its money from affiliate marketing? Matt and Andrew dive into the revenue and risk of each of their money-making affiliate sites. Enjoy!P.S. Speaking of affiliate marketing... the newest Money Lab course is here! Check out Matt's in-depth affiliate course at www,MoneyLab.co/Affiliate.

We're sharing more Money Lab's greatest hits, all December long! (This episode originally aired May 2019).Spoiler: classic email marketing tactics don't work for every online business. Can complex marketing funnels, slow drip campaigns and content upgrades actually hurt sales? Matt and Andrew dive into the details of Matt's multi-month experiment trying to optimize his sales funnel at Swim University. They pick through Matt's sales stats, walk through his elaborate email set up for converting readers to customers and debate why a complicated funnel wasn't the right move for his website. Get ready to talk UTM codes, conversion rates and customer avatars. Enjoy!P.S. Check out Matt's full write up about his email marketing experiment here: Moneylab.co/email-funnels

We're celebrating the holiday season by sharing the best Money Lab episodes@ And we're kicking things off with this super popular episode, which originally aired June 2019.Matt needs money! He's already trimmed his costs down to the bone in his business and now he wants to focus on efficient ways to ratchet up his revenue. So how can he increase the flow of his existing income streams on his websites? Should he focus on micro changes, like optimizing click through rates? Or is it something bigger, like monetizing his video content on his YouTube channel? In this conversation, Matt and Andrew debate ways to increase their revenue without adding additional costs and by leveraging their super powers. Enjoy!P.S. Want to create some affiliate marketing income streams in your business? Check out Matt's affiliate marketing course at Moneylab.co/Affiliate

Have you ever procrastinated creating an online course? Yeah, neither have we... Never. Nope.Matt and Andrew talk about the magic that happens when you find the perfect software for hosting and selling an online course. Matt walks through his decision-making process for choosing a new course platform (spoiler: it's Podia!) and how making the switch is already paying off (spoiler: it's upselling!). Matt also outlines how he'll leverage this new online infrastructure to make even more course content in the future.Will Matt become a course creating machine? Will Andrew finally drink the online course Koolaid and create a course for Listen Money Matters? If you've ever wanted an easier way of putting an online course out into the world, this episode is for you. Enjoy!P.S. Wanna check out Matt's hot-looking product page? Check it out at products.moneylab.coP.P.S. You can get on the Podia train here (it's an affiliate link, yo!)

If you're a creative, the pressure to make perfect, consistent content is real. Thomas Frank, aka Thomas the Frank Engine, aka the College Info Geek, joins the show to talk about growing his YouTube channel to 1.5 million subscribers, his moment of burnout and how he's running his business differently since bouncing back.Matt and Thomas discuss how to remove yourself as a bottleneck from your business (even when you want 100% creative control) and the mental toll that happens when you're running in a self-made business hamster wheel (Thomas' crash-and-burn moment happens at the 28:40 mark).So how do you outsource pieces of your work without feeling the need to be part of the entire creative process? How do you create a system to avoid burnout in the first place? And how do you deal with comments and trolls when you're trying to stay sane as a creator? Oh, and they also spend a good chunk of time nerding out on their favorite YouTube tools, like teleprompters, SEO plugins and captioning services. Enjoy!P.S. You can check out Thomas’ YouTube channel at Youtube.com/thomasfrankP.P.S. You can read more about Matt’s own YouTube experiment at Moneylab.co/Youtube-Optimization

"Let's just launch a SaaS company and become super successful in 6 months!" they said. "This will be soooo easy!" they said. Well, not so much.Matt and Andrew talk about the launch of their SaaS product Lasso earlier this year, their audacious goal of reaching $15,000 MRR in just half a year and why they're only 10% of the way there. But they're still pretty optimistic. They discuss why they've faced such big hurdles along the way, like not truly understanding their ideal customer, and how they've finally started to embrace the fact that they ARE a "Make Money Online" plugin.So what now? How do they plan to find new customers and affiliate marketers that already want what they're selling? If you've been following along with the Lasso journey and wondering how the heck it's going, this episode is for you. Enjoy!P.S. Matt's tightened up the language and design on the Lasso sales page. What do ya think? www.GetLasso.co

Welcome to another listener question epsiode! Matt and Andrew respond to all the Qs from Twitter and email (keep them coming!). From negative SEO and Google penalties to what metrics to look for when you're picking a website niche. And how do you let go of total control in your business and hire out the tasks you shouldn't be doing? They cover it all, including Matt and Andrew's sordid past with blackhat SEO and how they've learned to trust themselves with their business choices.P.S. As always, check out the sweet suite of Money Lab menu of products at MoneyLab.co/ProductsP.P.S. Is it neesh or nitch? Pee-nalize or pen-alize? The world may never know...