TBBP 002: Tag Team Blogging Success Story With Jeff And Mandy Rose

by Court on March 6, 2013

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The Blog Builders Podcast has been approved and is now in iTunes.

In this episode of The Blog Builders Podcast™, I interviewed Jeff and Mandy Rose, an awesomely successful married couple who are building a blogging empire (seriously) together. Jeff runs Good Financial Cents (among other things), Mandy runs the House Of Rose Blog, and together they run Dollars and Roses, where they teach people how this whole blogging thing works.

I first found Jeff and Mandy by searching for bloggers who do income reports. Just to give you a heads up, they were able to produce $17,762.79 of revenue in January from their blogs. They have great momentum and are growing their business fast. I can’t wait to see how far they’re able to take it this year. CAN YOU SAY AWESOME?

I met Jeff and Mandy in person at the New Media Expo in January and honestly, they were the coolest people I met down there (no offense to anyone else haha). I was really impressed with how down to earth they were. I’m afraid they are stuck with being my friends for life!

Despite the fact that speaking really isn’t my thing, I think that you’ll enjoy the interview. Here are some of the highlights:

The story of how Jeff and Mandy got started, and what led them to what they’re doing online now.
How Mandy has been able to get ridiculous traffic from Pinterest
How Jeff started his blog to get clients as a financial planner, but how it evolved into much more, including the launch pad for his book and just a great online revenue stream in general.
How Jeff was able to get featured on tons of incredible sites like Fox Business, The Huffington Post, Yahoo News, and Forbes.
How Jeff was able to get his site to recover from Google’s Panda update.
Why Jeff once turned down $150,000 cash for his site.
How Jeff has used movements to get exposure for his brands (this is incredible stuff).

Connect With Jeff And Mandy

{ 24 comments… add one }

Dayna edit

I love hearing about how people got started. It sounds like these two are doing really great things. Thanks for sharing Court. Keep us updated on what they’re up to

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- Court edit
  
  Glad you liked it Dayna.
  
  Reply
Susan (Between Naps on the Porch) edit

Great interview, Court. The Roses are really inspiring. The changes Jeff made after the Panda update make me wonder if the slider I have at the top of my blog could be hurting me in the eyes of Google since it pushes my content down a bit. Not sure how it comes across to the Google crawlers. Enjoying all of your podcasts!

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- Court edit
  
  Hey Susan! I wouldn’t worry about your slider, I actually think that it adds to your site. It was a slider that displayed ads, I could see it being a problem. The way that it’s coded (as HTML and CSS) makes it so really, that whole area will be seen by Google as content, which is ideal!
  
  I’m glad you’re liking the podcasts so far! I need to get better at talking – it’s hard haha.
  
  Reply
  - Susan (Between Naps on the Porch) edit
    
    You did great! I would be stumbling all over myself. Thanks for that info about the slider. I will quit worrying about that. That’s really good to know because I do like having it there.
    
    Thanks again, Court…looking forward to the next Podcast!,
    
    Reply
Mandy Rose edit

Thanks so much for having us on Court! We learned a ton from you as well. Jeff and I are so glad that we got to meet you and connect! You and Brooke were our favs too!

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- Court edit
  
  My pleasure Mandy. You guys were awesome guests and have a really inspiring story. Did you count how many times I said ‘cool’ in the podcast? I think it was over 300.
  
  Reply
Andrew Moss edit

@Court, I enjoyed the podcast. If really inspired me to know that you can really make a living blogging about something, especially if it is something you know about.

If I was offered $150,000 to sell a site I would not have even taught about it overnight. Like Jeff said, if it was directly after Panda he would have sold the site. If Jeff was able to build a site with that magnitude in four years, he would have definitely, I think been able to build another. I guess it is a matter of choice though. Sentimental value really has meaning.

It is really amazing how this couple started their blog. Almost like a hobby. Jeff was only looking to increase his clientele for his financial business, and look what happened.

Andrew

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- Court edit
  
  Hey Andrew! I’m really glad that you enjoyed it. I have a lot more people who I’m going to interview over the next few months. I actually think that it’s getting a lot easier to make money with a blog. People are getting traction a lot more quickly than they did when I was starting out.
  
  Jeff made almost $10,000 with Good Financial Cents just in January. He could definitely get more than $250,000 for the site now. And, he’s growing the site more and more. Will be fun to see how far he can take it!
  
  Reply
Kevin Hunsperger edit

I know Jeff and Mandy and their story is nothing short of inspiring. I am learning the tricks of the trade from both of them and hope to one day have a fraction of the success they’re enjoying. Great people. Great parents. Can’t say enough nice things about them.

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- Court edit
  
  Hey Kevin! Jeff and Mandy will be great people to learn from, that’s for sure. I checked out your site – it looks like you have GREAT passion for your topic. So, do you have a radio show then? Is it about wrestling?
  
  Reply
  - Kevin Hunsperger edit
    
    Court, thanks. I do cohost a weekly radio show that focuses on wrestling. I’ve been seriously considering starting a podcast that focuses on wrestling and more though.
    
    Reply
    - Court edit
      
      I think that starting a podcast could be great Kevin. iTunes is actually a pretty wide open opportunity right now. And, it would be a lot easier for you to do a good one than it would be more most people. You already have that skill. I’m pretty surprised at how quickly my podcast, after two episodes, has been able to get traction in iTunes.
      
      Reply
Jann Newton edit

Another great interview! It is so inspirational to hear how they started blogging, and have done so well with it. Can’t wait for the next interview you do.

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- Court edit
  
  Thanks Jann! I’m glad you liked it. It was awesome to meet them in person. They have great energy and are obviously really into improving things on their sites. They are gonna go far for sure.
  
  Reply
Jacob edit

Awesome stuff Court. I’m getting a lot out of these Podcasts. I’ve already put Beckie’s advice from the last podcast into practice – and just received an email saying my site will be featured on http://www.knockoffdecor.com this weekend. It’s freaking amazing..

Mandy has some great Pinterest tips on the Dollars and Roses site..

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- Court edit
  
  Nice Jacob! The traffic for Knock Off Decor is ridiculous so that will be some incredible exposure for you. I just checked – looks like the post is live.
  
  I like that you had your computer set to the Knock Off Decor home page. That was really smart!
  
  Are you seeing some good traffic from that feature?
  
  Reply
  - Jacob edit
    
    Hey Court,
    
    Beckie is awesome – in more ways than one.
    Yup I’ve got a bit of a bump in traffic – and in Pinterest pins
    http://pinterest.com/source/hometreeatlas.com/
    
    I’ll do a little write up in TKA in the next week of how things are going – I have a few other feature projects in the works.
    
    Jacob
    
    Reply
Shannon - AKA Design/Blogger Homes edit

Hi Court,

Just had to pop in and tell you I love the interviews you’re doing. I know you’re not a ‘creative’ blogger – but you sure are helping us creative bloggers out!

I’ve listened to your podcast with Beckie twice and watched all the google hangouts. I also hired Beckie for consulting (love that girl!) AND just fixed 333 broken links on AKA Design because of what Jeff said about his site in this podcast.

So, THANK YOU! And keep all the info coming!

Shannon

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- Court edit
  
  Hey Shannon! I’m so glad you’re liking them. I’ve been learning a lot myself by doing these interviews. I think you’ll love some of the ones that are coming up!
  
  Reply
Patrick edit

Hey Court,
Thank you very much for helping me creating my blog. I did not know anything about t blogging or how to build my page and with your instructions, it was a peace of cake. The challenges I have now is just to add more plugins, widgets and have the set up that I want. The reason that I created the blog is to share my experience with The Body By Vi 90 day challenge with Visalus http://patricksauveblog.com/.
Thank you again,
Patrick

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- Court edit
  
  Man Patrick that’s AWESOME. WordPress can do almost anything that you can think up. Hit me up if you have any questions and keep me updated on your progress!
  
  Reply
Jose Cervantes edit

Hey There Court,

Nice interview! I enjoyed listening to the Dollars & Roses on your podcast.

Hey quick question about Link Parties: What is your SEO-minded opinion about link parties? Does it have any negative effect on your site to have a post/page with so many outbound links? What is the SEO effect of that?

Would really appreciate your thoughts on that.

Thank you and congratulations on starting your podcast! I myself am on episode 7 and it is so exciting to get something going. Best of luck and will definitely keep listening!

Jose Cervantes

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Sonja Foust edit

So many awesome, take-aways! Thanks! Looking forward to the next podcast…

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