RIP to the fringe traffic scientist

One of my oldest friends in this business has joined the choir invisible: Jim Yaghi. I first met Jim while writing sales copy for the old Magnetic Sponsoring company run by Mike Dillard, Tim Erway, and Justin Christiansen. This was way back around 2008. And they were selling a program for using Google AdWords Jim had created. Jim and I hit it off immediately. And he quickly became one of my closest friends up in this business. It was not unusual for us to have skype calls that would last 4, 5, 6 hours. Sometimes even longer than that. In fact, about 10 or 11 years ago, we briefly partnered in a venture with a guy who had a weight loss business. The main offer sold the idea of fasting with protein waters. And to sell the concept I was drinking the dayem things all day so I could experience it, and better sell it. I had a timer so I’d drink one every 1.5 to 3 hours or so. And it’d go off at least 3 or 4 times during a given talk. He would hear it go off and say, “time for your drink.” A couple years later in 2014 we finally hung out in person. In this case, we were both speaking an event in Las Vegas called “No Excuses.” It was held in a big casino/hotel and we were inseparable the entire time. Being a couple shut-in introverts who live reclusive lives, we deliberately found a table to sit at in one of the hotel bar/restaurants inside the casino for the specific purpose of getting away from all the attendees wanting to talk to us and ask questions. But despite our best efforts to avoid everyone that table ended up being the “hub” for a bunch of other speakers and attendees the entire time. I remember sneaking away several times just to keep some of my sanity due to all the people swarming around us at any given time. My pal Shane Hunter dubbed it: “The Legend’s Table” I suspect the fellows running the event were even starting to get annoyed at us, because so many of the attendees who should have been sitting in on the sessions (and getting sold on coaching, etc), were over there hovering around our table. My next adventure with Jim Yaghi came a couple years later. Specifically, when I ramped up my old elBenbo’s Lair Facebook group. That was so profitable and zany an adventure I wrote an entire book (Social Lair) about it — as I worked out an entire social media methodology that was so engaging, and so hair-raising, I had to shut it down even though it was super profitable for me, just so I could have some peace. But Jim was in there night and day engaging with everyone. And he had his own very strong following inside. Including Stefania, who he’d often give life advice to that — in a roundabout kind of way — helped guide her to wanting to pursue me. Plus, no matter what wacky or crazy ideas I ran with — and even if he didn’t fully understand what I was trying to do (I did a lot of stuff off-the-cuff during the elBenbo’s Lair social experiment) — he had my back and would just go with it. Like, for example, when I decided to have a cleavage contest in there. The shrieking feminists in some other Facebook groups were horrified. (I have the screenshots from my spy network, they are quite amusing to read.) Maybe not the most professional thing I’ve ever done. But I did it, and several women in there participated in it, and I decided to put Jim in charge of who won or not. He picked Nicole English. And, you can ask her yourself, but that started a chain reaction of events that quite literally changed her life (she’s the COO of Learnistic, if that tells you something). Jim changed a lot of peoples’ lives. And he always had a unique perspective on everything. His “Fringe SEO” methods were especially useful to me many years ago. As was his approach to writing Google ads which was based on his knowledge as a computer scientist, and knowing how to give Google what it wanted, including getting businesses un-blacklisted by Google from using AdWords, creating squeeze pages that Google loves to send traffic to, and approaching online marketing from a wholistic perspective instead of as just an endless series of ever-changing tactics like 99% of online marketers do. Jim did a lot of things nobody else would think to do at the time. Like for example: That’s why his squeeze pages would have things like “buy product” at the top, even though you wanted the opt-in and not the sale — because that is how Google likes things. It’s why when I was using SEO on my blog (I don’t really do it anymore) he told me to forget looking up all the Google keywords, and instead look at the analytics and see how people are already organically finding your site. Then, build articles around each of those, even if they weren’t suggested keywords by Google. He would say “give people who are already finding you more of what they are looking for” instead of relying on the suggested keywords everyone else is using. The point was never the “what” with him, it started with the “why.” Something I apply to email, sales copy, and everything else these days. It’s one reason I’m practically useless at masterminds anymore. I simply don’t think like other online marketers do and their endless guru name-dropping fascination with tactics this, and techniques that, and pivot here, and look what So-and-So is doing, and what’s working now, etc. All of that is well and good. But early on a handful of guys like Jim inspired me to take a totally different approach that works a helluva lot better in my experience, and is a whole helluva lot more profitable. I learned a lot from Jim Yaghi over the years. Some of it directly, some of it via observation, or via casual conversation. And in many ways he was the AdWords answer to my Email Players methods. He used to recommend me to all his clients, and I always recommend him to my customers looking at using AdWords which he loved doing. Frankly, it was a chore to get him to accept money for his AdWords help. I once hired him to drive Google traffic to my site, where he’d get paid per opt-in. I remember having to practically shove the money in his hand. I don’t think he cared to get paid. I think he just wanted to help a friend out doing stuff he loved to do. Anyway, Jim was a great guy and an even better friend. I lost touch with him for a few years after the elBenbo’s Lair fiasco, though. And it wasn’t until he told me he was fighting bladder cancer when we re-connected. I was texting with Shane Hunter just yesterday about this after I shared the news with him about Jim’s death, and how I legitimately thought Jim was beating his cancer, since he never once complained about it to me. Not one single time. If anything, he’d joke about it with me. And I was telling Shane how Jim pulled a Chadwick Boseman on some of us, who also died of cancer and hardly anyone knew, because he was just working and living life and not burdening anyone with it. Jim certainly left a great legacy. And if you can find any of his trainings or teachings I recommend spending some serious time with them, and learning all you can from them. He was truly an original. And I consider myself lucky to have been his friend. On that note: I mentioned Jim’s “fringe” SEO methodology. And while I have not used it in many years, and am not even sure how it relates to things nowadays (he taught it way back in 2013), I do have a 16 page interview I did with him about it. You can read the pdf (can't find the mp3) free in my Learnistic app via the URL below. NOTE: You’ll need a mobile phone to access it. And it’ll have to be newer than when Steve Jobs walked the earth. Here’s the link: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com/app/fringe]( Ben Settle This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2022 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. Click here to [unsubscribe]( Settle, LLC PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA