How This 43-Year-Old Makes $8k/Month Teaching People About WordPress and Affiliate Marketing

Alex Cooper knows very well what a bumpy road the entrepreneurial life offers.

After a few large bumps, he found success with an affiliate marketing site that he created in public and eventually sold for $70k.

He also has a popular YouTube channel WP Eagle, where he shares the secrets to affiliate marketing, WordPress, and content creation, and much more. In fact, all the videos of him creating the site he sold, and the story behind his adventure, can be found on his YouTube channel.

Alex is particularly creative and likes to think outside the box when it comes to generating content and getting email subscribers. He’s constantly testing, experimenting, and sharing his findings on his channel.

Keep reading to find out about:

• Which of his projects failed
• How he got into YouTube
• His thoughts on AI
• Where his income comes from
• His marketing strategies
• The other projects he’s working on
• How he builds links
• His content creation process
• His clever strategy for growing his email list
• His favorite resources and tools
• The biggest challenge he’s faced
• His most important accomplishment
• His main mistake
• His advice for other entrepreneurs

Meet Alex Cooper

My name is Alex and I’m from England but currently living in Spain. I started working for myself around 20 years ago. 

My first company was a Wifi installation company that I eventually sold for not very much money. My second company was a successful internet marketing agency. It grew to a good size. We were a leading Google partner and I got to visit events at Google in Mountain View. 

Eventually, I sold my share in the company and that money gave me the time and freedom to start my next project: producing content for websites and YouTube on my channel, WP Eagle.

Why He Created WP Eagle

I’ve always wanted to do YouTube. I used to watch YouTubers a lot and was always in awe of their lifestyle. I was using WordPress a lot at the time and I love it, so it made sense to me to create content about it. 

I started doing simple tutorials on how to create sites with WordPress and it grew from there. I now have 63,000 subscribers. 

My content has evolved a bit as I now create content on other WordPress-related things like niche websites, creating content, and using AI.

I try and publish a video every week and do a live stream every week. My channel currently has 971 videos.

How Much Money Alex is Making

I earn around $7,000 to $8,000 a month. My income comes from many different streams, including AdSense for YouTube and affiliate commissions from software and services I’ve made content on in the past. 

I also sell my own WordPress Theme, Popcorn Theme, designed for niche websites and affiliate marketers. (And there’s a new review of the Popcorn theme that you don’t want to miss!)

December 2022 looked like this:

Adsense: $512 

Popcorn Sales: $6,031 (I share this 3 ways so it’s $2,010)

Jasper affiliate: $3,244.50

Ezoic affiliate:  $1,117.29

Amazon Affiliate: $390.34

Plus there are a load of other smaller affiliate programs I’m in, another few hundred in total.

I used to work about 20 hours a week on my business, but recently some stuff has changed in my life and I’m doing at least double that.

His Top Marketing Strategies

I don’t really market myself! Terrible right? I just try to make good content and share it on social media and via my email list. For my content sites, SEO is my main kind of promotion.

I think the secret to good content is making sure it delivers the information the reader is looking for quickly and concisely. This means cutting out any “fluff” or “filler” from the articles, using good formatting like bullet points, and writing in an easy-to-understand way.

I currently have 2 main public sites, Can You Wash It and Best Corn Popper. The first one is an AI project. 

All of the content on this site has been created with the assistance of AI and it’s actually doing really well:

Best Corn Pepper was a site I created for a tutorial and it’s doing well too, but has been drifting sideways recently without growing:

Keyword Research and Link Building

For keyword research, I use tools like Lowfruits and SEMRush. I also use Google to get ideas from the keyword suggestions and questions sections.

As for link building, it’s definitely important. I outsource the process to a friend of mine who takes the time to find highly relevant sites for my niches. He then reaches out and often is able to get a link to my niche at a fairly reasonable price, between $100 – $300 per link.

His Content Creation Process

My process has been to use a team of writers. I give them some prompts on article structure and, of course, the keywords they need to write about and they do the rest.

I found the writers using ProBlogger. I made a video on the process. I don’t really do any writing myself, only the odd 1 or 2 articles. The 3-4 articles are published a week by my VA.

Recently, I’ve been using tools like Jasper, ChatGPT, and Koala that use AI to produce content. This has been working well. 

Honestly, I like them all. Koala is my favorite at the moment as it has features that allow you to create content really quickly, like being able to publish from it straight to WordPress.

My new project, Can You Wash It, has been put together with short-form AI-only content, and it’s doing really well! 

Here’s the Google search console for that site:

His Email List

I’ve been growing my email list by giving stuff away, like complete websites! In fact, I just ran a giveaway in March. 

This works really well for me in terms of getting new subscribers. The form for these kinds of giveaways always has a high conversion rate.

Alex’s Favorite Resources

I love the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. It really teaches you about making money. I also love Niche site lady on Twitter, Matt Giovanisci on YouTube, and Miles Beckler.

His Top 3 Tools

Well, of course, my essentials are my MacbookPro, my iPhone, and a decent internet connection! 

In terms of software tools, right now the three most useful tools for me are:

• Canva, because it’s so good for graphics, etc.
• ChatGPT, which is great for so many things, and
• Descript, which is such a fast video editor!

His Biggest Challenge

My biggest challenge would be Inspiration and motivation. This can be particularly difficult if other parts of your life are causing issues, such as family. It’s very easy to get stuck procrastinating or working on small parts of your business that don’t actually make a difference.

His Most Important Accomplishment

Building a website in public and selling it was a great accomplishment for me as it proved to the world that I could do it and that it can be done. It also increased my credibility as an educator on YouTube.

What He Wishes He Knew When He Started

I wish I knew that everything takes longer than you think and that patience is the key to most things in business. Keep going, keep working, and every day you’re taking steps toward your dreams.

His Biggest Mistake

That would have to have been taking investment into my company. When I had an agency in London we took investments and it destroyed the company. 

They changed everything about us that made us successful. I ended up selling my shares and leaving. After 6 months, the successful company I had founded was bankrupt.

Although it seemed bad at the time, and it was, it led me to do what I do now, so actually maybe it was the best thing I’ve ever done…

His Advice for Other Entrepreneurs

Be consistent. Show up every day. Be patient. 

The ones that fail usually just quit when it gets a bit hard, and it will get hard sometimes.