Here's one key point people need to understand. Much of what Tim wrote in 4HWW was applicable to the infancy stage in internet marketing where a lot of what he said could have been applied and would have probably worked because not many people were doing it at that time.
But by the time his book actually gained worldwide traction, most of those methodologies became outdated. I'll give you two examples of my own:
1. Back in 2012, I created a football (soccer) related blog/website that was very well SEO optimized (read manipulated) by using a very easy strategy of having keywords in the domain name and low competition long tail keywords that were not too tough to research using the Google keyword planner. Within a month, the site was ranking on first on Google for some of the biggest soccer related terms like "How to play soccer", "How to kick a soccer ball", etc etc. I was getting a TON of traffic in no time and the moment I put some soccer training products as an affiliate via Clickbank, I started making around $300-400 without even doing anything else. I repeated it for other niches (fitness related) and that got me another $500-600 a month in passive income. In fact I even started a SEO optimized website which literally had one 1000 word article on how to correctly do pull-ups and then at the end of it placed some affiliate links to some pull up bars. That one article was making $70-80 for me per month.
2. Now let's come to PPC advertising, something that Tim really advocates as much as outsourcing. Back in those times, I could create a Facebook page on ANY topic without the fear of being blocked/reported and get to around 50000 likes by spending a very meager amount provided the targeting was good. Since the organic reach of posts on the page at that time used be more than 20%, you could easily reach a huge amount of your followers for free. You could post affiliate links directly and Facebook would not decrease your reach.
Basically, hacks were easy and a person could run this show all by himself with very less investment and from anywhere.
But now, most of these things aren't possible. The search and advertising algorithms have become way more smarter.
For instance, Google places majority of the significance to off-site SEO, i.e, if OTHER people share your stuff, that's the fastest way to rank higher, not just by on-site manipulation.
Advertising on the other hand, especially Facebook advertising, has TOTALLY changed in the last 6-7 years. Try running an ad for a get-rich scheme, and you're bound to get flagged.
Reaching people involves money and a good knowledge of targeting and how the ads work .No other way around. The competition for a similar set of audience has gone up too.
Basically, the days hacking the system are over and each of these systems is moving towards rewarding one and only one thing - BUSINESSES THAT ARE GENUINE AND SINCERE. This means unless you are a brand and know how to build one, you really won't be going far. Max to max, you can be a great freelancer but forget about running a location independent business that requires four hours of work a week.
Tim is an incredibly smart guy who is reaping the benefits of thinking 4-5 years ahead of his time. A personal brand depends on only one thing - a huge base of subscribers. Tim got his with the help of 4HWW. Anything after that has been a cake walk for him. Not saying he hasn't worked hard but he isn't anywhere close to being a know-it-all marketing/business guru as his followers and his own podcasts make him out to be.
But by the time his book actually gained worldwide traction, most of those methodologies became outdated. I'll give you two examples of my own:
1. Back in 2012, I created a football (soccer) related blog/website that was very well SEO optimized (read manipulated) by using a very easy strategy of having keywords in the domain name and low competition long tail keywords that were not too tough to research using the Google keyword planner. Within a month, the site was ranking on first on Google for some of the biggest soccer related terms like "How to play soccer", "How to kick a soccer ball", etc etc. I was getting a TON of traffic in no time and the moment I put some soccer training products as an affiliate via Clickbank, I started making around $300-400 without even doing anything else. I repeated it for other niches (fitness related) and that got me another $500-600 a month in passive income. In fact I even started a SEO optimized website which literally had one 1000 word article on how to correctly do pull-ups and then at the end of it placed some affiliate links to some pull up bars. That one article was making $70-80 for me per month.
2. Now let's come to PPC advertising, something that Tim really advocates as much as outsourcing. Back in those times, I could create a Facebook page on ANY topic without the fear of being blocked/reported and get to around 50000 likes by spending a very meager amount provided the targeting was good. Since the organic reach of posts on the page at that time used be more than 20%, you could easily reach a huge amount of your followers for free. You could post affiliate links directly and Facebook would not decrease your reach.
Basically, hacks were easy and a person could run this show all by himself with very less investment and from anywhere.
But now, most of these things aren't possible. The search and advertising algorithms have become way more smarter.
For instance, Google places majority of the significance to off-site SEO, i.e, if OTHER people share your stuff, that's the fastest way to rank higher, not just by on-site manipulation.
Advertising on the other hand, especially Facebook advertising, has TOTALLY changed in the last 6-7 years. Try running an ad for a get-rich scheme, and you're bound to get flagged.
Reaching people involves money and a good knowledge of targeting and how the ads work .No other way around. The competition for a similar set of audience has gone up too.
Basically, the days hacking the system are over and each of these systems is moving towards rewarding one and only one thing - BUSINESSES THAT ARE GENUINE AND SINCERE. This means unless you are a brand and know how to build one, you really won't be going far. Max to max, you can be a great freelancer but forget about running a location independent business that requires four hours of work a week.
Tim is an incredibly smart guy who is reaping the benefits of thinking 4-5 years ahead of his time. A personal brand depends on only one thing - a huge base of subscribers. Tim got his with the help of 4HWW. Anything after that has been a cake walk for him. Not saying he hasn't worked hard but he isn't anywhere close to being a know-it-all marketing/business guru as his followers and his own podcasts make him out to be.