Great Marketing Or Great Content: Which Is More Important For A Product’s Success?

by in Featured on Oct 2nd, 2023

Let’s say you’ve got a product. Maybe a new e-course, a personal finance book, or an e-book. Do you think great marketing or great content is more important to make your product sell?

For background on the great marketing or great content debate, I have been blogging on Financial Samurai since 2009. The site consistently gets over 1 million organic pageviews a month despite having never won an award. I also helped kickstart the modern-day FIRE movement in 2009, but seldom get any recognition for my efforts.

My e-book, How To Engineer Your Layoff, has generated more than $500,000 in operating profits. It is the only severance negotiation book of its kind. It continues to generate between $35,000 – $50,000 a year as it is in its 5th edition.

Meanwhile, my traditional book, Buy This, Not That, became an instant Wall Street Journal bestseller. Chances are high it will generate consistent royalties for the foreseeable future as it becomes a mainstay personal finance book.

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Featured

Buy This Not That Book Review

by in Featured on Jun 8th, 2022

Hi everyone, Sydney from Untemplater here. I was lucky to get my hands on an early release copy of Sam Dogen’s upcoming new book Buy This, Not That. And I’m thrilled to give you a sneak peak into what the book is all about. Let’s dive in shall we?!

Overview: Buy This, Not That Book Review

In this review, I’ll cover the following topics:

  • Who is Sam Dogen
  • Topics covered in Buy This, Not That
  • Why you should read it
  • What other people are saying about it
  • How to order your own copy

About The Author

Sam Dogen is the founder of FinancialSamurai.com and has been writing about personal finance topics since 2009. What I love about Sam is he writes everything from firsthand experience, which is rather rare these days.

Too many bloggers, websites, and authors in the personal finance arena are impersonal, out of touch, and dry. I work in online media so I know of countless examples of articles that are written by outsourced freelancers with no personal expertise in the topics they write about.

Most of them are just googling and copying what other people have already written. How misleading and lame is that?

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Featured

Are E-Courses A Scam? Be Careful Paying Lots Of Money For Online Courses

by in Lifestyle on Mar 10th, 2022

Given everything can now be learned online for free, are e-courses a scam? Depending on the price and the quality of the content, I say yes.

As content creators, one of the ways to make lots of money online is by offering an e-course. However, what if you are charging $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, $5,000 for an e-course? That amount of money seems usurious.

A lot of e-course creators have said they are creating these courses to help people make more money, save more money, and start their businesses. However, if they really wanted to help people, why not charge a more affordable price instead?

Here’s one perspective about e-courses and whether they are a scam by someone who paid $3,888 for one. He regrets purchasing the e-course.

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Does Expertise, Authority, And Trustworthiness (E-A-T) Really Matter For Google SEO?

by in Lifestyle on Jun 23rd, 2021

As I go through my pre-retirement checklist for life post-pandemic, the one thing I keep wondering is whether expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) really matters for Google SEO.

One of my goals after re-retiring is to stop writing 3X a week on Financial Samurai. Maybe’ll I’ll go down to publishing once a week instead.

I want to get out of the house more as economies open up. I might even be so bold as to fly somewhere with my young children! Nah, probably not.

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When Guest Posting, The One Big Media Pitfall Bloggers Need To Know

The Cons Of Guest Posting On Big Media Sites

by in Lifestyle on May 2nd, 2020

After more than 10 years of writing on Financial Samurai, I’ve been lucky to get a lot of opportunities to contribute to big media stories. My first opportunity came in 2010 with the LA Times and it has gradually continued from there.

Some stories will feature a FS quote while other stories will do a FS feature. Sometimes, I’ve been asked to write a guest post as well. If the media outlet is a reputable one, I usually oblige and so should you, even if you aren’t getting paid.

Despite the benefits of getting featured in big media, there is a pitfall as well. Let me share with you what they are when it comes to guest posting on big media sites.

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How Are Bloggers Doing During The Coronavirus Bear Market?

by in Lifestyle on Apr 4th, 2020

As stock investments sell-off during this coronavirus-bear market, many are left wondering what’s the next domino to fall.

Real estate, my favorite investment class to build wealth, is in a precarious state. Real estate brokerage firms are hurting because volume has dried up as most of the country is under lock down. Prices have held up so far, but the bear market isn’t over yet.

The only real champion in this bear market is Treasury bonds followed by cash.

But what about blogging? The great thing about blogging is that you can’t shut it down! Valuations for blogs could actually go up given its high operating margin plus its ability to always stay open.

Here’s what I’m seeing in the blogging world in the coronavirus era.

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The Original FIRE Bloggers And The Importance Of Branding

by in Lifestyle on Jun 6th, 2019

When I first helped ignite the modern day FIRE movement in 2009 with my motto, “achieving financial independence sooner rather than later,” I had somewhat of a dilemma as it relates to blogging.

Should I focus most of my writing on helping readers achieve FIRE? Or should I write about a variety of topics beyond FIRE that interests me and perhaps other people too.

In the end, I decided not to brand myself as a FIRE blogger because I really loved writing about real estate, stock and bond investing, alternative investing, career strategies, and now family finances.

I could tell people how I’m living my life, or I could just get on with things and live my life.

What I found after leaving my day job in 2012 and living off my passive income is that there’s really no fanfare once you achieve FIRE. You just get on with living your life how you wish.

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How Bloggers Can Effectively Compete With Giant Media Outlets

by in Lifestyle on Dec 15th, 2018

A friend sent me this fascinating article called, How To Earn More Links: Adding Context To Content Analysis.

The article goes ahead and analyzes how smaller sites like Financial Samurai can compete with larger sites like CNBC, CNN Money, and the New York Times in personal finance related topics.

The first thing they did was search for retirement topics. Then the listed the top sites with the most Referring Domains to URL. Read More

  • Untemplater: Congrats on getting so many consecutive features on Google News! That’s phenomenal! Writing on...
  • Untemplater: You nailed it. I also believe great marketing is very helpful in the beginning but it’s really...
  • Jamie: Awesome insights thanks! I’ve been a big fan of Sam’s for years. Really exciting that he’s...
  • Untemplater: There are so many overpriced ecourses online it’s crazy. They use very aggressive marketing tactics to...
  • Andy: Thousand-dollar e-courses are a total scam. You can learn everything online for free. Shame on people who sell...
  • Untemplater: There are a lot of bloggers out there who focus on small stuff like should you or should you not spend...
  • Derek: It’s fascinating how some bloggers continue to just mindlessly pump out affiliate content. It’s clear they are...
  • Untemplater: Lots of valid points! So true that bloggers are a minority of overall readership, so blogging to much...
  • Bingo: You are spot on. Most of our bloggers are white people living on the coasts, where half the population of...
  • Financial Samurai: Hi Jim – Nice to hear from you. It was too much work running Yakezie. Too many people wanted...

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