My Review of The Keyword Academy and Why I Quit
[NOTE: I have begun a review series on the NEW, IMPROVED KEYWORD ACADEMY! Click here for Part 1]
I have a long, sordid history trying to make money online. I’ve tried all sorts of schemes, I’ve spent countless thousands of dollars, and so far I have precious little to show for it…except tax write-offs. I guess the only good news is that I have discovered that I really do have an entrepreneurial mindset. I also have a touch of A.D.D. Those two things don’t work well together, in case you were wondering. LOL
If my memory hasn’t completely failed me, my first attempt at escaping the rat race by making money online was a scheme cooked up by the kings of the Informercial, Guthy-Renker. (I just discovered that they got their start after being inspired by a man in Arizona selling real estate seminars via cassette tape…..I’ll explain later how that is an extra dagger to the heart!) Any way, they came up with a big plan. In 1995 they started up an online internet mall and sold web pages to store owners. So you paid them a lot of money (over $1000/page if I recall correctly) for the right to sell stuff on their web site. They claimed that they would handle all of the site promotion, both on the internet and on TV. It was a great pitch on TV, and a great pitch in person at their seminar. We spent a lot of money, then later got cold feet and bailed out. We managed to recoup most of our investment on that one by reselling our sites to other participants.
Strangely enough, that web site property is still online. Go check it out – ChoiceMall.com – amazing site, no? *Sigh* Half the links no longer work. I think this site by itself has more pages indexed in Google than their crap site! No wonder it spawned a class-action lawsuit…
I also tried the blogger route too. Yes, I know, THIS site is a blog! But I’m not trying to do the whole blogger thing where me and my pal bloggers all flog ebooks to each other’s readers. I tried writing several sites based on passion. Storm-chasing, wine-making, I forgot what else. Had no real plan for traffic, so things just sort of died off. Besides, I was making money at work, my real job.
This time is different. I actually want to make this a business. Gain traffic, monetize it. Plus we’re about to quit our jobs, so there’s a bit more motivation. Which brings me to The Keyword Academy!
Initial Attraction
Again, the memory is a bit fuzzy, but I think my first exposure to the whole keyword/backlinking idea was Griz. He was going on about making loads of money off of teenagers searching for naked American Idols. This really appealed to me! It seemed like he had a system and was working it. I like systems.
Any way, so I followed a few links and somehow ended up on TheKeywordAcademy.com. They have a system too, and tools. I was very new to this end of Internet marketing so I signed up. It only cost ONE DOLLAR so how could this be bad, right?
So I started watching web seminar screencasts and reading the forums and began working on my ideas. I already had two web sites with many years of age that I wasn’t truly utilizing so I grabbed those, moved them over to WordPress and my own hosting account and started working their system. Their system gave me structure, helped me track my progress, and automated several steps. At the time they had a spreadsheet for managing this project, but have since created an in-house database. You can run your keywords through their NicheRefinery.com tool. You can also utlize their network of blogs using PostRunner.com. Many of their members have achieved monthly incomes of $1000 or more, so it definitely works, and on that basis it’s hard to complain about the monthly membership fee of $33.
All of this worked for me, but they also allow members to pay a little extra for the privilege of pitching business ideas to other members. Eventually I purchased a keyword research tool and participated in a beta test of another tracking app. And then I found Market Samurai. That one application, even in trial mode, replaced several things I had been doing elsewhere. It replaced manual searches using Google’s Keyword Tool, and it did it better than the Keyword Tool Dominator I had purchased. It also replaced the Keyword Academy’s Niche Refinery product, delivering much more information in a VASTLY superior timeframe. Think minutes instead of hours.
The final straw was discovering a system of getting backlinks that involved an article spinner and the Unique Article Wizard product. My time requirements were cut down and I no longer felt the need to give in to the idea of outsourcing. After that, I no longer needed the academy.
Since then, I consider it less and less likely that I will return. Initially I missed the camaraderie that the forums provided. But the fact is I have been able to get a lot more done without that distraction. In addition, many in the Internet Marketing community, including Griz, have been making noise about getting back to quality content and moving away from all of these techniques designed to trick Google into sending you a lot of traffic. Even TKA has shifted their focus (again) from small niche sites to large sites, from thin sites to quality content.
So, the final verdict? It depends. If you are new to all of this I believe there are many benefits to The Keyword Academy, and you can try it for a whole month for just one dollar! But once you get more experience, you may find their tools and forum insufficient. Here are the pros and cons as I see them.
Pros
- Learn the basics of IM – keyword research, backlinks, etc.
- Accountability
- Focus on writing
- Lots of help in forums
- Good tools
- – Postrunner
- – Niche Refinery
Cons
- Focus on Outsourcing – can get expensive when you are just starting out
- Too much backlinking to and from low-quality sites.
- Some snarky condescension in forums – “Wait a year” is thrown out a lot
- Courtney Tuttle, one of the founders, seems to have disappeared (supposedly to concentrate on a fitness site)
- If their methods are so good, why run a membership site? Evidently it is much more profitable than making sites that depend on search traffic?
My Current Recommendation
- It’s only a FREAKING DOLLAR!
- Newbies should join
- If you make over $200/month, maybe not so much
- If you have mastered the basics, try other tools
- – Market Samurai – simply incredible tool for keyword research, competition analysis and much more – 30 day fully functional trial!
- – The Best Spinner – spins articles without making them look spun or spammy
- – Unique Article Wizard – distribute spun backlink articles all over the place – great for backlink-stacking!
- – Nomad’s Guide to Make Money Online. – Janet has compiled and edited the blog posts of Grizzly Brears from a site that no longer exists. The words of the master in a readable format!
Hey Glenn,
What a refreshing review and comments, an onliner who tells the truth....rare! gee even a man who tells the truth!! : )
I think i'm in the same bracket, an entreprenuerial ADD'er.
So what's next, any answers?? : )
In appreciation,
Caroline
What is next is pretty much what I just added in my last post. Focusing on affiliate marketing at this time...
I have to admit that I really enjoy your post too and It really gives me information which somehow help me in the coming days. I am so happy that The Keyword Academy exist for beginners like myself. I appreciate your honest and detailed review.
You're welcome!
Monique - everyone's earning online with tka is different. what you should be asking yourself is "how much time will I be devoting to internet marketing per day?" - the more you work, the faster your success will be - its about product quality content on the web, and thats it.
you will see in the tka forum that one person (well, they are 2 people in business together), went from $0 to 15,000 in only 10 months. Others, it takes 4 or 5 years to get that high, if they ever do get that high. on average, i would say it takes 18 months to get to 1000 per month, but earnings can jump exponentially once your sites age and you learn more and more about seo
Shuck - One thing I noticed is that the vast majority of TKA members never made those numbers and eventually gave up. I see that the $1000 challenge, which is now 14 months old, barely managed to pass 140 in a year. Sure, that's a lot of people, but when you consider that the academy has had maybe 5000 people sign up at one point or another over the last three years, it isn't a particularly good number. Either it is very difficult, or it doesn't really work so well. Or maybe both. Besides, if it were so easy, why would Mark and Court be running a member site instead of just cranking out money-making web sites? And why would Court have moved on to a completely different type of member site (fitness supposedly)? Just a little food for thought there...
This is funny now. Hi Shuck! LOL
My latest conversation: What Kind Of Doll Is Best For Your Daughter
I really enjoy reading your post.. very informational as I am a newbie trying to do all of these things is overwhelming..and I am so happy that The Keyword Academy exist for beginners like myself. so if I may ask you are you making enough money to quit your day job? how long did it take you to start seeing a stable income coming in? do you have a time line of some such with your stats and income after you joined TKA ??? I will very much be waiting for your response. . Thanks
Monique, while I have indeed quit my day job, it had nothing to do with TKA or internet marketing. The fact is that my sites have been averaging $0-$5 per month until July, when this site unexpectedly paid out $22. From what I could tell, the vast majority of TKA members are making less than $100 per month, including a lot who have been at it for a year or more.
This is a really interesting review, and I appreciate the fact that your opinion of dropping away from TKA is much different than the opinion of many of the other reviews. Personally for me, the Niche Refinery and PostRunner tools are worth the monthly subscription as I've found more success with them than with UAW. I've heard UAW has really rebounded, have you found that to be the case? That is the one nice thing about working online, there's more than one road or method which works to get there. Thanks for the interesting blog post and I appreciate the honest and detailed review.
I gave the UAW a few test runs, but not enough to really give it a good comparison.
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