96% of sites ranking in top 10 have 1000+ links

0:00You want to talk about the thousand links? Yeah, so go for it. You started off because it's really tiny on my screen, so I can't even read it. Are you on your iPad? I'm on my iPad. I didn't end up bringing my computer with me when I was traveling. Oh, wow. Wow. Wow. Guys, let me know if this audio is good because I give him crap about his microphone. So he's on his new microphone. I want to know if it's good audio quality or not. So tweet at us, please. So this guy, Chris Long, so Go Fish Chris on X. So he says, new SEO study, 96 % of websites ranking in the top 10 results have 1 ,000 plus links.

0:36This directly challenges Google's recent links aren't as important claims, right? This is an interesting data study from Jim Boykin and Jim Boykin, Internet Marketing Ninjas. So he analyzed 200 different commercial intent queries and scraped the top 10 results for each one. Then he analyzed how many unique referring domains each one had. He found that, and I'll give the three points here, and then we can talk about it, four points actually. 96 % of websites had at least 1 ,000 unique backlinks. Okay. 62 % of sites in the top 10 had at least 10 ,000 backlinks. That's a lot. And the sites in the study had an average of 42 ,000 referring domains.

1:11This is Ahrefs data. And the weakest site in the top 10 only had 54 unique backlinks. That's kind of crazy to think about. But yeah, I've always been a big believer in links. they could say it's not an important ranking factor, and they say it's not a top three ranking factor, but they don't say it's not a top five ranking factor or top 10 ranking factor. And based on the leaked document, how many factors were there? Like 1 ,400 or 14 ,000? 1 ,400. 1 ,400. Oh, no, no, no, no. I think 14 ,000. Either way, it was a really big number. It was either 1 ,000 or 10 ,000 plus. and when you think about that if links are still in the top 10 that means it's a really important factor out of all 14 000 so if links are let's say in the top 10 that's still a really important factor out of 14 000 just think about that for a minute 14 000 factors that impact rankings you know they're not all going to have equal rate some of them like brand queries have a high, you know, they carry a lot of weight, something like links, something like click through rates.

2:17These are all factors that really have high, you know, weight when it comes to their algorithm. Still links, guys, still, still content, still, still click stream data. Okay. You just look at users. You look at user signals, right? You're looking at links is kind of a web signal as well. And then content. Now that's not to say Neil and I are geniuses here, but if you're going to write an algorithm, Those things kind of seem to make sense to me. Now, here's an interesting thing. So, Neil, we just talked about Eight Sleep, right? So they only have 3 ,500 referring domains. So this kind of goes against the case study.

2:53So there are outliers at the end of the day, right? No, no, no. Sure, they have 100. 35 referring domains. They're talking about 1 ,000 links. That is true. They're above the 1 ,000 threshold. But, but, but here, let's move back over here to the Chris Long one. So share this tab instead, right? So 96 % of websites, okay. In the top 10 results, 62 % of the top 10 had at least 10 ,000 backlinks. The average is 42 ,000 referring domains, right? And obviously the average can be skewed by the really big websites. Um, but I just think that, you know, when you look at an eight sleep, for example, like, okay, single grain, I don't know how many links you, you have, let me move over.

3:27So single grain has like 8 ,200 or 8 ,500 referring domains, right? And we've been doing SEO for a while. Neilpatel.com. Do you have a sense for how many referring domains you have? maybe 20 ,000, 30 ,000. You have 79 ,000. I'll take it. Anyway, so eight sleep, my point is they're not focusing so much on kind of traditional SEO, right? They're just like brand, brand, brand, brand, brand. And I think that's the right move because it's people still need to be educated on it's sleep education at the end of the day because it's a new, it's a, it's a different way to sleep. Yeah. But eight sleep also has a ton of brand queries and more than the competition.

4:05yes so i think my i think what we're both getting at here is if you're you can you can score it right like and if your brand is super skewed up that might cover some of the other channels where you might be weak or the other ranking scenarios by the way how much do they spend on the formula one sponsorship uh i don't it's a very small one with mercedes it's like a little logo it's not one of the big logos where it's like you know on the the halo where you can see it on the camera Well, how much money do they raise in total? I don't know. Let's see. Eight Sleep raises. So Eight Sleep raises how much?

4:4287 million Series C, and they've raised 173 million total. And I believe they're doing over nine figures. This is not quoted from them, but – and it says that in the AI overview, they're valued at 500. I mean, last round I came in, it was 250. So, but I think it's worth a lot more and they don't plan on raising right now. So, well, they just raised a lot of money. So I don't know if they need any more for a while and hopefully they can get to profitability. So there's no more dilution for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I would hope so. Let's see where that goes. But by the way, on a side note, all right.

5:18So this is just curiosity. I'm not questioning you. I'm not saying that you made a, when I say question, I'm not saying you made a good or a bad decision, but. I think I know where you're doing. Yeah. Why invest a sleep at a 250 million valuation? Because even if they get to a billion, you'll leave 4x your money. That was what I was thinking. And I was so glad that I met with the CEO a couple of weeks ago because what they're building could go into multi-billions, right? We're talking like 10, 20 billion or so. Because to me, the guy is laser focused and he's going to build for a long time. And to me, it's not just going to be a sleep product anymore.

5:55It's going to be, you're going to be able to like do MRIs on your body and scan for health issues. And then I'm like, whoa, if you can do that, then you can make recommendations to people, maybe like AI, like AI assisted with doctors. And then they make, you get a little affiliate commission on every little thing you recommend. So I think it'd become a lot bigger. So you're right. If it was only a billion dollar outcome, it wouldn't have only been a 4X plus dilution. Like what would I, maybe it's like a 1.5, 2X or so. But I think it'll be a lot bigger. All right, everyone. quick message from the Agency Owners Association.

6:24So this is the peer group for agency owners that Neil and I both put together. This is for people that are doing six figures, seven figures, eight figures, even nine figures as well. And we're all here to help you grow your agency faster. In this group, we share leads, we share learnings with each other. It's a community where people can ask questions, their most burning questions, personally, professionally. We'll share templates, reports, things like that. We're constantly adding more value to the group. I will tell you that the price is continuing to increase. The good news is that there's no long-term commitment.

6:49So you can just learn more by going to marketing school.io slash agency. Once again, that's marketing school.io slash agency to learn more. And we hope to see you inside. So they haven't released those new features I'm assuming yet, but they plan to, and I'm assuming what they're waiting for is like millions and millions of people to have the product and then, then just cross all other services too. Yeah. I mean, I told you about the new features, right? The one that can like, if you're storing, it moves you up, moves you down. And then there's all like, you could tap it to like increase the temperature or whatever.

7:17um once if you have a once if you have a significant other does it move both of you up when you're snoring or no no no it moves one of you up okay yeah and then and then let's say your wife likes to sleep hotter i'm assuming she likes to sleep hotter right um she can heat her side to 110 degrees and then your side can go all the way down to 55 degrees oh so you can adjust it so there and the point i'm telling you this again like they're shipping so quickly and he's so laser focused again that that you know at the end of the day all the angel investments you made these bets, you're really betting on the founder.

7:48You really are. And when I was, you know, I don't really do much angel investing these days, but when I used to do a lot more angel investing, I would just bet on good founders, assuming they're going after a big TAM. And I would just continually bet on them because I'm like, yeah, they may fail this one or the next one or the third one. But if I keep betting on them overall, I should be up. And it paid off for me. But the problem I have with angel investing these days, I'm an LPN venture funds. It's just too much work to manage all the direct investments for me. But what I found is the returns, and this is just my case, I'm not saying it's for others, but the returns just aren't as good as they used to be.

8:24A, people raise way too much. Yeah, A, people raise way too much before they sell or go public. So you're getting just diluted so much more. B, people aren't giving like$500 million rounds unless typically there's liquidation preferences on that money. And the next thing that I found is when I got into angel investing, it wasn't as competitive. But now everyone's an angel investor, everyone's a VC. And it's drove valuations up, which have also reduced returns. And again, this could just be my experience and other people are crushing. That's probably the case. But I've just found that angel investment returns aren't as good as they used to be.

9:04And it's just easier to put your money in the stock market. Because if you hold Apple or Amazon on stock for a long time, they're clipping more than 20 % a year. And when you look at that, it's similar to the average venture returns, but you can get your money in and out whenever you want and you can borrow on it with ease. I think that the problem is, so what do you think your hit rate is on all the angel investments you've made in the past? I know you don't do any recently. Yeah. So let's assume just to keep the math simple, I put in a thousand dollars in total, I put in more than that, but let's say I put in$1 ,000 between all my deals, including the recent ones.

9:44I've recuperated more than$1 ,000 in cash, roughly$1 ,400, so 40 % more. On top of that, I have quite a few bets that are still out there. On paper, they're amazing, but paper doesn't mean crap because some of them have raised a lot of money and there's going to be liquidation preferences or if they go public, I don't know what's going to end up happening. Um, so maybe it all turns into$5 ,000 or something like that, which may seem great. It, you know, if I'm lucky, I guess the 5 ,000, I doubt it, but you have to keep in mind, I've been doing this for like 16 plus years. It's not a good return after 16 years.

10:26And the 5 ,000 that I'm, I'm saying hypothetically, if it goes to, I haven't actually seen that money. Who cares what it says on paper? I'm talking about, I'm hoping one day I get that kind of cash and I doubt it, but maybe I get 3000 or something, but I would be really disappointed if it went down to 3000. So it's just like, I was just better off investing my own business. All right. Look, if you're looking to hire additional marketers for your team, there's no better place to look than well, hiring near shore, hiring offshore. And we found that we've hired amazing creative people. We've hired amazing people that can help with execution in the marketing side, whatever it is that you're looking for exactly.

11:06We are helping with that. We have recruiters from our side. All you have to do is go to marketingschool.io slash hire. Once again, it's marketingschool.io slash hire. Fill out the information in terms of what you need. And then we'll have our recruiters reach out to you to help you with the placement. And it should be great for you at the end of the day, because you're going to save a lot of money and you're going to get the help that you need. So you're going to get help from a cost standpoint and also an execution standpoint as well. So again, at marketingschool.io slash hire, and we'll see you inside.

11:31I think what Neil and I really want to share here is, and so I don't do much angel investing anymore either, but the returns that you're going to get on your own effort and you know your business the best, usually it's your own business. And we've seen this. You map out every single thing that we've done, whether it's investing in other funds or investing in these companies or investing in real estate or whatever, it is your business that does the best at the end of the day. It's just most people, like even the same thing that Monish Pabrai says, right? And it's like, most people just don't have the patience to watch paint dry.

11:59And it's the same thing with your business. If you are down to be patient for 10, 20, 30 years, your return is going to be way better. You know, it's funny. I never knew that he was the author of Dundo Investor. You didn't know that? No. So you know Dundo Investor because you're an idiot. Yeah. I had that book for a long, long time. I read it when I was much younger. We talk about YPO, right? He's in the same YPO form as Syed. I know that. You mentioned that to me. Syed created his own form, him, Manish, and a few others. and guy spirit and then um like some other like publicly traded ceo so it's like it's a pretty nice forum no cool that's the type of forum you need to be in so i haven't joined a forum yet you know that right i know well because you need to be in a forum like that and and i would say don't join one until you can find a forum like that which you should be able to find but like and by the way we should we should define two things before we move on so one liquidation preferences and then two forums so you go on liquidation preferences and i'll go on forum and then we'll move on to the next topic.

12:52Yeah, so liquidation preference is like, let's say if someone is worth$10 billion and someone puts in$2 billion for 20 % and they're the latest investors. Usually when someone's putting in that kind of capital, they typically have a standard liquidation of, I at least get my money out before anyone else gets their money out. So for example, if the company botches and goes to 5 billion in valuation, they at least, and it sells for 5 billion. back. Yeah. They at least get their 2 billion back versus it being, well, oh, I only get 20 % and it's a billion dollars. Well, no, usually they have something in there where they at least get their money back.

13:30Yep. All right. And then, so the second thing is forum. And so we talk a lot about community. And so one is having your community of entrepreneurs. So a forum in like EO, YPO, or Hampton, this is your group of eight to 10 brothers and sisters. In some cases, you'll meet once a month. In some cases, you'll meet once every quarter. Some might be remote, Some might be in person. And then the idea is you also have a retreat once a year. And this is where you share the 5 % of things that you can't share with your spouse or your other friends. And you really go deep, right? And some people are like, you know, in the past, I've been in forums where it's like, oh, yeah, my wife cheated on me or I cheated on my wife, right?

14:04It's like, you never know what happens. And then in some cases, like my business partner embezzled from me or my employee stole from me. You hear all these kinds of problems, right? And then people are just sharing experiences, not necessarily giving advice. And so I found it to be very helpful. Neil will eventually join one I bet he will um he just needs to find the right one and then I think he'll be like Eric you're right well mark my words we'll come back to this podcast episode in a couple years and he'll be like you're right so I know in a forum you're not supposed to talk about what other people said and their names and their business and stuff like that but let's talk about you because you can talk about yourself if you had to pick like the five main key lessons that you've gotten from being in a form whether it's the YPO form or EO or anything like what are five really solid things that have helped shape your entrepreneurial journey?

14:53One, get a prenup. Two, if you're going to marry - Explain why on each one. Two go with each other. They go with each other. The reason why, number one, you should get a prenup, or in my opinion, not you should, why I'm going to get a prenup, is because two, Two, one of my friends ended up marrying someone and it went too quickly and it was very clear it wasn't the right fit. And it was very clear that I was going to blow up, right? So that's two things over there. The third one would be you have to be able to control your destiny. So there's some people in the group before that had – or groups I've been in in the past where they would have minority shares in the business.

15:36but they couldn't drive the outcomes that they wanted to drive because they really weren't seen as like a, as a major partner. So they might've owned like 10 % or something like that. Right. And they ended up getting screwed at the end of the day because they couldn't drive their vision forward. The fourth thing is I would say focus. The ones that did really well, they continue to stay locked in on one business. And one guy even almost bankrupted his, and he was like crying to the form. He's like, crap, I'm going to have to shut everything down. I don't know what I'm going going to say to my kids and blah, blah, blah.

16:04Now he's doing like 40,$50 million a year, right? Which is pretty good from bankrupt to almost bankrupt to 50 million a year. That's four, right? That's a big, that's a big swing. Yeah. And then the fifth, so in some cases you have to keep going to that, that would be another one. Um, but the fifth one is, you know, I, I want, so going back to number two, it's like, you got to make sure you marry the right person, but also you want to marry the right person. Um, because to me, everyone that has, have, that has had kids, it's been, it might've been hell for the first like one or two years. Right.

16:33Um, and because you have to go through a lot, but it seems like it's worth, it's worth it in spades. And, um, it, it, it takes them to like a different level of, of being a human being, I believe. So yeah, I would say those five or six things. Oh, that's good. All right, everyone. So that's it for today. Speaking of which the agency accelerator or sorry, agency owners association, I should say Neil and I will both be doing a session this week. And so we do these group coaching calls every now and then. So that's happening. You can learn more about this group, marketingschool.io slash agency. Please don't forget to rate, rate, rate, subscribe.

17:07It helps this podcast grow. And we will catch you later.