Background

Before we get into the “why” of Lazy Link Building, I think it’s important to provide some context.

I got started in SEO ten years ago working for the brand Ammo.com. I started out handling its Instagram account (lost that gig) and transitioned into link building.

I spent the next nine or so years working there and became the head of marketing.

I built my first affiliate site in late 2019/early 2020, and things were looking good. Affiliate marketing was good—so good that I ended up leaving Ammo.com and partnering with another affiliate marketer who had a solid portfolio of sites. The idea was he’d go to grad school and I’d handle the growth of the sites.

Then came the first big whoops. 

Remember that first affiliate site I built? My business partner and I decided to buy a one-word badass domain for the brand and attempted a domain migration in January of 2023. 

The migration absolutely tanked it. We spent 18 months trying to fix it until finally Carl Hendy saved our bacon and brought it back to life. This was 18 months of little to no revenue and spending thousands on various agencies.

BEFORE MIGRATION: ~90,000 visitors per month

AFTER MIGRATION: ~10,000 visitors per month (and declining)

To make matters worse, during those 18 months of migration hell, the September 2023 HCU update hit. Those four to five affiliate sites I had just signed a partnership agreement with? They got demolished—we're talking 90% traffic drops across almost everything.

By the end of 2023, I had no idea what the hell was going on. And it didn’t get better overnight.

2024 was . . . hard. 

Since Reddit started ranking for everything under the sun, I started blasting it with affiliate links. Made about $60k in revenue in three months before that door slammed shut.

Lucky for me, I'd been posting on LinkedIn for over a year and had built up about 4,000 followers and 350 newsletter subscribers. Since I had a bit of a following, I connected with Tom and Anna Rogers, who helped me put together a hybrid premium offer for my audience. 

Even though affiliate marketing was dead in the water, I still knew link building and content creation inside out. I knew these were still valuable skills for others to learn, so I created Lazy Link Building.

I did a couple of launches (here and here), and I sold it as a $3k group-coaching program—and then I made another mistake in Q3 of 2024. 

I put Lazy Link Building on pause so I could focus on affiliate marketing again. I didn’t quite believe the business model was dead and thought we could revive a couple of our sites.

I spent most of Q3 and Q4 of 2024 focused on reviving our affiliate sites instead of trying to grow Lazy Link Building (bad decision, Alex).

Fun fact: You can recover sites if you use a shady redirect strategy. But I don’t necessarily recommend it. I think Google will catch up to this and tank the site in another three to six months.

Might be good for the short term but terrible for the long term.

BEFORE HCU: Affiliate site went from 60,000 traffic per month to 5,000.

AFTER REDIRECT: Have been able to recover the site to about 30,000 monthly visitors.

In December of 2024 I decided that was it. I am done spending time on affiliate marketing, and I no longer believe in the business model.

When Authority Hacker and Matt Diggity close their affiliate coaching courses, you know it's time to close the door.

During December 2024, I decided to turn my Lazy Link Building coaching program into an online course for a fraction of the cost ($350 vs. $3,000).

I pre-sold the course to my newsletter list of 350 people and sold five. With $1,500 in revenue, I decided to take two weeks to record it all.

January 2025

As you can see from above, I tested a lot of shit during 2024 to help get revenue back. There’s a lot I didn’t even mention because this email would be 5,000 words long if I did.

At the start of 2025, I picked up Essentialism by Greg McKeown, and it changed everything. I decided to go all in on Lazy Link Building with three clear offers:

• Online course ($350)

• Coaching program ($3,000) ← though this has changed, more to come

• Custom execution ($10,000)

This book made me realize I need to stop trying to do everything. Focus on building Lazy Link Building and nothing else.

My first essential task? Figure out what the hell my ideal customer avatar looks like. And to get this done, I need to talk to people. And to get people to talk to me, I need more email subscribers and leads.

Looking at my email list growth was rough. Only bringing in two or three email subscribers per week through LinkedIn is not exactly an ideal growth trajectory. 

I read this article from the Ship30for30 guys, which explained educational email courses (EECs), and thus I built lazylinkbuilding.com.

The launch post (here) went wonderfully well: 49k impressions and about 800 sign-ups. My newsletter went from 350 to 1,150 email subscribers practically overnight. 

It took me over a year to get to 350 email subscribers, so I was pumped when I shot up 800 in a 48-hour window.

From those 800 sign-ups, I booked ten calls (a conversion rate of 1.25%). This is . . . okay, but I know I can do better. What's more, unfortunately, seven of the ten calls were unqualified, i.e., the sites didn’t have enough authority to make the strategy work.

First big lesson: qualify, qualify, and qualify

Lucky for me, I ask a series of questions when someone books a call with me, and then based on their answers I can determine if I should get on the phone with them or not.

While I didn’t take any unqualified calls, I should make it explicitly clear who the program is for and who it isn’t for, so those who aren’t qualified don’t even get put into the funnel.

Second big lesson: always book a follow-up call

When I sell the coaching program, it's always a two-step sales process. The first call is solely to learn about the client’s business and present the offer. After 48 hours, we jump on a second call, and I either offer them service (if I think it’ll work) or don’t offer them service (if I don’t think it’ll work).

That said, if you don’t book that second call while on the first call, the second call WILL NOT HAPPEN. I ran into this problem during 2024 and found it to be true in January as well. It doesn’t matter what they say during that first call, you need to get a time on the calendar for the second call.

Third big lesson: more emails = more money

The Ship30for30 guys created a video outlining the email sequence that follows their five-day educational email course. During January, I spent a ton of time building out this 20-part email sequence.

Because of this sequence, I’ve been booking more calls in February. People who signed up for my EEC back in January are finally starting to reach out. It just took 15 emails to get them there (lol).

And I think . . . that’s it for now.

In January I signed my first “done for you” client, which is dope, and I’m slowly starting to pinpoint my ideal customer avatar.

Next month is all about establishing more firmly who Lazy link building is (and isn't) for. Through all the chaos of the last 18 months, I've learned that you can't be everything to everyone.

I'll be sharing these monthly updates as I build this thing.