Money Lab

Cue Julie Andrews, because these are a few of our favorite things. Matt and Andrew walk through every single tool they use to run their online businesses. They cover all their must-haves: SEO research, hosting, caching, product sales, accounting, business organization, file management, email marketing, podcasting and YouTube video production. Phew! They also share brutally honest reviews of tools they're not-so-thrilled with (cough, ConvertKit, cough). Consider this episode the MTV Cribs walkthrough of online businesses. Except less luxury cars and more plugins. Enjoy! P.S. You can get the full list of Matt's favorite tools here: Moneylab.co/About

New Year, who dis? We're kicking off 2020 with our favorite kind of show: listener Q&A! Matt and Andrew answer a stack of listener questions, from dealing with a sudden drop in traffic (thanks, BERT update) to beating out a slimy competitor that's shot up the ranks in Google. And if you're worried about the next recession, Matt and Andrew discuss what they'd do to recession-proof their work. They cover it all, including how they'd turn an $1,300/month YouTube channel into a full-time business. Enjoy! P.S. If you're looking for a website refresh in the new year, might we suggest checking out Matt's super fast, super sleek theme, Carbonate? You can grab it at the Money Lab store: products.moneylab.co/ P.P.S. Here's the YouTube experiment Matt talks about in this episode: Moneylab.co/youtube-optimization/

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/SEO P.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.co P.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.

"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/Products P.P.S. Is it neesh or nitch? Pee-nalize or pen-alize? The world may never know...

Come on baby, light my business fire! (The Doors. Nailed it). Matt and Andrew are joined by Brandon from MadFientist.com to talk about staying motivated in their online businesses. Brandon shares his journey of growing his own successful site (including the mental breakdown that motivated him to launch it) and chats about his newest online business, including the challenge of mixing business with a hobby. The three of them debate what truly motivates them in their work (hint: it's not money, but it kind of is?) and how to keep that hunger alive when you start to feel like you're coasting in your business. How do you tap into that intrinsic motivation to keep the business fires burning bright? This is an honest, behind-the-scenes chat about what drives these guys to do what they do. Enjoy! P.S. You can read about Brandon's synthesizer business experiment here: Madfientist.com/Online-Business-Experiment P.P.S. Liked this episode? You'll probably enjoy the episode called Money-Making Hobby Sites with Sean Ogle t

It's all about who you know. And you should really know your audience. Mojca Zove, the founder of SuperSpicyMedia.com and TheScienceOfFacebookAds.com, joins the show to talk all about strategies for understanding your audience, especially when it comes to social media campaigns. She also dives into her transition from running a successful Facebook ads consultancy to running a product-based business. So how do you convert eyeballs into sales? How do you validate a new product with your audience and bounce back if you have a disappointing launch? Mojca shares the ups and downs of her own journey, including the strategies she's used with her clients to turn Facebook views into actual customers. If you're launching a new product to your audience or you're curious about the secret sauce behind a good Facebook ad campaign, this episode's for you. Enjoy! P.S. You can find Mojca at SuperSpicyMedia.com and TheScienceOfFacebookAds.com And you can follow along with Mojca's journey on the Changing Gears YouTube video ser

You can't say the wrong thing to the right person -- but saying the right thing sure helps with sales! Brennan Dunn, the founder of RightMessage.com, joins the show to chat about personalized messaging and how to create a highly tailored sales funnel for your audience. Matt and Brennan discuss the nitty gritty of how to segment website visitors and email subscribers. How do you figure out who's coming to your site and optimize your message for those people? And what kind of data should you be measuring to see if personalized messaging actually works? If you wanna get extra nerdy about your business's sales funnel, this episode is for you. Enjoy! P.S. You can find Brennan at RightMessage.com and DoubleYourFreelancing.com.

Matt's been running an experiment to increase his YouTube ad revenue and sell more of his digital products through his videos. And guess what? It totally worked! In this episode, Matt and Andrew dive into all the techniques Matt's using to increase YouTube views, watch time and subscribers and explore why this new YouTube content strategy is paying off (literally -- Matt's made over $12K because of this optimization experiment). If you want a deep-n-nerdy dive into YouTube SEO, thumbnail designs, playlists and end cards, this episode is for you. Enjoy!P.S. Want to see the behind-the-scenes of all this work (and the extra loud Hawaiian shirt Matt sports in all his videos)? Check out the entire experiment write up at Moneylab.co/Youtube-Optimization

Being weird pays off. Jason Zook, the King of Weird Business Models, joins the show today to talk about all of the crazy businesses he’s started over the years and to celebrate his new book, Own Your Weird. Jason has sold his last name (twice) for a total of $100,000, created a business where he wore other people’s t-shirts for money, and sold his entire “future” to his audience. Jason and Matt explore how being weird in their businesses pays off and debate how to keep the weird stunts going without burning out. If you don’t already know Jason’s story of weirdness, this one’s worth the listen. Enjoy!P.S. You can check out Jason and order his book at WanderingAimfully.comP.P.S. Yes, Matt has a rap album. Enjoy: Moneylab.co/Rap

The ultimate dream: spend a dollar in your business, earn ten dollars on the other side. But calculating business ROI isn't such simple math. Matt and Andrew discuss how they justify making big business purchases and figure out whether or not their large recurring expenses are worth it. How do they know if hired contract work will pay off? How do you put a price tag on things like mental health? And how do you make sure your business can handle a new monthly expense? It's simple, really: Phase 1: Spend Money. Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit. Enjoy!P.S. Like the show? Let us know what topics you'd like us to discuss on the show! Send us a note at matt@moneylab.co