This is the transcript continuation for Episode 097. Mark shares his ambitious content goals for 2016 — 250 pieces including podcasts, blog posts, videos, and newsletters — discusses his email autoresponder strategy (AWeber vs. ConvertKit), and dives into the details of the Google manual site action that hit his Corn Sheller niche site.
Mark's 2016 Content Goals
Coming out of Michael Hyatt's Best Year Ever course, Mark set eight goals for 2016. Two are directly relevant to listeners:
- 250 pieces of content: 50 LNIM podcast episodes, 100 Internet Marketing Minute episodes, 50 written articles, and 50 videos. That breaks down to five pieces per week.
- 12 email courses: Mark recognized his email list was not delivering enough value. The plan was to create opt-in courses that deliver content every Tuesday, building a library of evergreen email sequences.
Mark also announced the Late Night Niche Site project — building a niche website live throughout the year, documenting every step as both a teaching tool and a precursor to a niche site course.
Email Autoresponder: AWeber vs. ConvertKit
Mark considered switching from AWeber to ConvertKit. ConvertKit impressed him with its capabilities, and Pat Flynn was an advisor. However, Mark stayed with AWeber for two reasons: grandfathered pricing and AWeber's universal integration with third-party tools (Amember, WishList Member, etc.). ConvertKit had not yet achieved the same level of platform integration.
The Corn Sheller Google Manual Action
Just before Christmas, Mark's Corn Sheller site received a thin content manual site action from Google. The site dropped from page one to page six for its keywords, and revenue fell proportionally.
The Corn Sheller site was built years earlier as a keyword research experiment — a thin site with repackaged eBay auction listings and minimal original content. Google's assessment was fair: the site did not provide value beyond what eBay already offered.
Mark's recovery plan:
- Perform a full on-site SEO audit
- Remove garbage pages from Google's index (disclaimers, DMCA, contact pages)
- Suppress WordPress-generated duplicate content (categories, tags, archives) using Yoast SEO
- Add as much unique content as possible — potentially 20 pages, which would double or triple the original content
- Optimize page titles and descriptions for every remaining page
- Check for PrettyLinks affiliate link URLs appearing in the index without no-index/no-follow tags
Mark's key takeaway: if all your traffic comes from Google, you are building on rented land. Google can turn off the faucet at any time, for good reasons or otherwise. Diversify your traffic sources.
What's Changed Since This Episode
ConvertKit won the market. The platform Mark was considering has grown enormously and now integrates with virtually everything. AWeber, while still operational, lost significant market share to ConvertKit, Mailchimp, and newer entrants. The integration gap Mark cited no longer exists.
Google's approach to thin content evolved from manual actions to algorithmic systems. The Helpful Content Update (2022-2023) now algorithmically identifies and suppresses thin, unhelpful content across entire sites. Manual actions still exist but are less common — Google's systems handle most thin content cases automatically.
The “building on rented land” lesson proved prophetic. Major Google algorithm updates in subsequent years wiped out thousands of thin affiliate sites. The entrepreneurs who survived were those who had diversified traffic sources and built genuine authority.
Listen and Subscribe
Listen to Late Night Internet Marketing on Apple Podcasts or subscribe at latenightim.com/internet-marketing-podcast/. Have a question for Mark? Call the digital recorder at 214-444-8655 or drop a comment below.
