Welcome to The Average Genius, if you’re new here, thanks for dropping by. I’m , the blogger and editor-in-chief. You can read my story if you’d like, it tells the raw, hit-rock-bottom-too-many-times story of how and why I started to make money online.

If you want to read about what my blog is about, start here. In a nutshell, I started this blog as a means to document my trip to making a full-time income online.

I’ve surpassed the goal and make more than enough online in passive income (but don’t get me wrong, I still work at home and build my business).

Thriving on SEO Drove me To Write This Book

Because I have a heart for helping people, I wrote Duct Tape SEO.

Getting free traffic to quality websites sustains my entire family (I say “my entire family” because we have 7 children to feed, and my wife and I like to eat, too). ;)

Read my book if you want to learn how to drive free traffic to your sites without expensive tools needed – and I’m sure you’ll be happy to cash an extra check or two on the side from all that traffic.

Success in Affiliate Marketing Drove Me To Write This Book

It’s CJ Tactics, which is focused on marketing using Commission Junction as the main platform (where I make a lion’s share of my passive income).

I am in the process of updating portions of the book to reflect changes in Google – all updates will be emailed to my customers for free.

Get your hands on the guide here.

My Tool Reviews

I’ve reviewed a few of the tools I use or have used, which aren’t “for everyone,” since I learned how to link build from my time at Elance. The methods I’ve used in times past have established my living online, if you want to learn about those tools then read the My Tools page.

I also do full reviews of products I enjoy in that section, so if you hover over the “Recommended Tools,” you’ll see the drop-down of those tools and services I currently recommend.

Edit: I’ve removed a lot of links to former tools I used to use due to recent Google updates. So rather than link to a suspect tool, I’m testing what works all over again.

I’ll keep reviewing tools I use and keep those that work, I’ll be the first to say if something’s not working, even if it means I’ll make less money on this blog: so be it. I’d rather be honest than take your money while you damage your rankings or traffic.

My Methods of Link Building and Affiliate Marketing Strategies

If you’d like to learn about affiliate marketing and building links using various tools and strategies, I talk about that frankly in my newsletter. You can sign up below and I’ll email you the details, bit by bit.

People I Recommend Highly

I don’t have all the answers, I’ve had to learn everything from reading and then experimenting.

I also find inspirational posts and peers in the Blogroll, be sure to check it out.

My Favorite Posts

As you see in the sidebar, I have a widget for the most recent posts, but here are some of my personal favorites that I don’t want you to miss. Enjoy!

My subscribers also get an inside look at what’s new, what I’m experimenting with, and industry news. Sometimes I don’t want what I have to say to be public: if so, it’s emailed to my members.

Want in? Please sign up above.

Up until April of 2012, I’ve had the majority of my traffic come in from SEO. It got so easy to me that I wrote “Duct Tape SEO” but then something happened…it’s called Penguin.

Some haven’t been affected by it. It was the first major shift in my rankings since I’ve started online making money that actually took a major stab at my traffic.

Please see these posts to learn a bit more about Penguin and how it’s affected my business, especially the last link to the interview I did with Tim Carter of AskTheBuilder.com (one of the most famous examples of a “white hat SEO” that Google fell in love with and leveraged to sign up more AdSense publishers).

Here is the first Penguin post when I first got hit.

This post describes early analysis on why I think I got hit.

Finally, this post is the interview I conducted with Tim Carter.

I don’t plan on stopping SEO but I do plan on doing it more intelligently. I also don’t plan on relying on Google as the center of my traffic, which was silly to do in the first place.

More details on my plan to get more traffic as things develop, right now, I just wanted to thank you for stopping by, and hope to see you around more often!

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See you around!