Hi, I’m Hayden Miyamoto!

I’m a husband, father and serial entrepreneur.  You probably don’t care about the husband and father part, so I’ll give a brief timeline of the entrepreneur side :)

Dissatisfied with the state of public education, I dropped out of high school at the tender age of 17 and started my own local web design business.   6 months later, I partnered with a local Toronto client that had a small showroom selling high-end Japanese furniture.   My role was to create an online store that sold high quality and equally high priced furniture to the US, sight-unseen.  I spent 6 years doing this and brought the site to over 1MM /year in sales.  In this time I learned programming, graphic design, photography and 3d rendering, but my true strength was in online marketing and conversion rate optimization.

In 2008 I read the E-Myth Revisited, and decided I wanted to completely outsource my role.  So I spent a year creating processes and building a team of more than 20 outsourcers so I could leave the furniture industry behind.

2009 was devoted to a high-risk, high-reward startups I raised money for, and ultimately failed hard at.   In 2010 I returned to e-commerce and built a couple businesses in both English and Spanish, as well as an offline furniture business and a small factory in Mexico.  I lost a lot of money on the offline business and decided to head back online.

In 2011 I discovered niche sites and decided to scale it hard –  I built over 3000 sites in just under a year.  It was by far the least I have ever worked and  was the closest thing to printing money that I have ever done.

In the summer of 2012 I started the blog NoHatSEO.com.   The blog started out as an experiment which was formed with just a few hours of work, but it quickly became fairly popular in the niche site space.  It was created out of frustration with the salesy and secretive IM space that says one thing and does another, so I vowed to share advanced tactics for free.   I invented a technique to find expired domains and was the first person to publicly talk about building PBNs.

NoHatSEO was mainly a vehicle for me to meet and partner with talented people.  I ran internships that focused on teaching my particular approach to niche site and PBN creation, and it allowed many people to quit their full time jobs.  I partnered with the best interns and created several different businesses.

With all the Google updates the niche site game started becoming more and more difficult.    Niche sites were no longer as effective as they required more effort and more time to rank, and since I wasn’t morally comfortable selling them, I wasn’t really creating an asset that I could cash out on.  I pivoted to link sales as my main income source.  I had popularized PBNs to the point of becoming mainstream and I realized that this was no longer sustainable, so in May 2014, I held a retreat down in Valle De Bravo, Mexico.  The goal of the retreat was to help fellow SEO’s step away from niche sites and leverage my abilities to start long term profitable businesses.

The retreat was an amazing 7 days for everyone involved and it opened my eyes into how important community is, especially in the isolated world that is online entrepreneurship.   So in July 2014 I started putting a team together in order to build disruptive businesses – thus NoHatDigital was formed.

The No Hat Team

 

As we’ve gone through the process of putting the team together and fleshing out how the business will run, we’ve developed a mission statement to define our existence.

 

Mission Statement

I created NoHatDigital for a couple reasons.  I turned those reasons into missions, so I can always understand what it is I’m trying to do with this little blog.  The first mission is to create opportunities for people to earn a full-time remote online income, whether they are fresh out of school, or looking to escape the corporate world.  I do this in a unique way, by actually partnering on sites with readers.

My specialty has always been creating innovative systems that have a network scaling effect. I found that there are a lot of really smart, hard-working people out there looking to get started online, but they lack a few important fundamentals.

 

  • They lack the confidence to move forward with an idea.
  • They lack the discipline to focus on 1 thing and avoid “shiny object syndrome”
  • They lack the knowledge, specifically in product design and CRO, to get high enough visitor values to see a strong return on their traffic generation strategies.
I look to fill in those 3 weaknesses as my side of the partnerships.   If you’re interested in partnering, up, there is a 2 week gauntlet you’d have to go through.  Check it out here.

 

My second mission is to give people the opportunity to live and work with a community of peers.  Back in the summer of 2014, I invited people down to Valle de Bravo, Mexico.   At first I just invited employees down, but over time the word spread and it just become a bit of a digital nomad community.  

At any time there are 8-14 people living and working here right now.  This has been a life-changing experience for myself as well as nearly 50 people that have come through in the past year.   My goal is to expand this to other areas of the globe in the years to come.  Community is sorely lacking in the world, especially for those that work from home.

This mission is important to me, and I want to communicate it in everything we do. So here’s a more detailed explanation:

 

Why I want to share everything for free:

I have an abundance mindset and truly believe in transparency and the sharing of knowledge to benefit others.  When I first started NoHatSEO and released my initial expired domains and keyword research series, I tested this mindset.  I am still amazed at the opportunities it brought me. Hundreds of people reached out and shared their stories, and it gave me the idea to create internships.

 

Why I want to create opportunities for people looking to escape the corporate world:

A passion that I share with everyone on the team –  and I’m guessing just about everyone who reads this post – is a distaste for Corporate America and the “American Dream”.   There is a massive awakening happening, a freedom revolution in which people are taking ownership of their jobs, their time, and their lives.  I want to do everything that I can to enable people to quit their jobs and have the freedom to live THEIR life, not the idea of a dream life designed to benefit a specific class of people.

The first and most direct way I can create opportunities is through the NoHat internships.  Since 2012, internships have been my way to meet peers and potential partners.  They are also the solution to the #1 problem that most people in this industry have – a lack of structured focus on techniques with a proven track record.   The internships provide a structured program with access to a mentor and group of peers – both of whom will kick your ass to meet some difficult deadlines (which creates a great barrier to entry for selecting future partners)  Click here to learn more about the upcoming internship.

 

Why I want to create social opportunities for entrepreneurs:

For many, myself included, the ideal life involves living and working directly with peers.  Anyone who’s been full-time online can attest to the fact that it can get lonely.  You work from home all day, and rarely have the opportunity to shoot the shit with someone who understands the trials and tribulations of an internet marketer.  We’ve all tried to explain what we do for a living to our friends and family… (and no I am not a web designer and can’t design your website).

In the short-term we are setting up a little entrepreneurial community here in Valle de Bravo.  Long-term I’d like to see these communities all over the world, as travel and new experiences are also passions I share with almost all of the NoHat readers I’ve had the opportunity to meet.

Contact

 
  1. Hi Hayden you mentioned that you might do a case study on a physical product that got via alibaba and are now using a fulfillment service.

    This is my interest. These products/ items are fulfilled and/or by mostly USA factories or suppliers. So I decided to use your keyword/competition metrics in finding product niche’s within this industry.

    There is one in particular that I found. It’s a 1900/ month exact match. Average sale is $97.50
    with a 40% margin. So that’s potentially $39/sale. It’s a product that has muliple colors and custom options. Also there’s also potential to add other similar products but I want to keep it simple right now.

    If you want I’d be willing to share this so far with the group. Where I am in this is the keyword/ competition research in which I posted the APA’s in another thread/topic. I don’t know how I’m going to create something. I’m thinking of word press but it has to have an e-commerce type plug in for customer to place order.

    This might help the group as we can put input in how to set up site from step one etc.

    Let me know if you think this is a good idea or not.

    Marc

  2. hey hayden. i am one of those newbies that has been led in circles. last feb 2011 i joined a membership, $69/mth. unlimited hosting, use of a keyword tool and of course training. since then i have acquired @150 domains. a few produce and most crawl. well the keyword tool is based on cpc search and the search volume is based on global. i have just done a review of all of my sites and the only ones producing have local traffic and reasonable contextual $. i have asked several times why such a difference. no answers.

    so thank you hayden. can’t fix a problem without the right information. thank you.

    i am 62 and creating an income to retire with. i love this business and i am very grateful you having solved the great mystery.

    • Hi Cindy

      can i recommend you get the adsenseflippers.com free guide and run your domain names through their process it will help you see the way forward.

      Or and use haydens kewyord research and see if you existing domains pass his test as well.

  3. Really glad I found this site. I remember bluehatseo and he was way ahead of his time. Kind of like Mr. Green in the paid affiliate space.

    I have worked with a group of domianers for a number of years and I am unsure if they do your process. For a while I was buying all kinds of domains on namejet and snap names and just won an auction on Godaddy yesterday, but this method is different.

    I’m excited to try it out and you for sure have a new fan here.

  4. I really commend you for your thoughtfulness regarding morality and IM. The gold rush frenzy and desperation really brings out the worst in a lot of people. Markets tend to reward amoral psychopaths in direct proportion to ease of entry and percieved reward potential and IM has these in spades. Your empathy is refreshing to see. Conversely I see no ethical problem at all with gaming Google. People forget that on either side of a contract there is often a huge disparity in relative power. Google for practical purposes is the only game in town, they can put whatever they want in their guidelines and practically speaking people have no choice but to take it. Gaming them is the only way available to attempt to level the playing field a little.

  5. Hayden, you officially have another fan.

    I totally agree with you on both your fronts – that there is a real and significant dearth of information on advance seo techniques and that the IM ‘gurus’ are totally immoral and have no ethical or moral compass. How they continue to get away with their practices is totally beyond me and more importantly, how they justify their practices in their head. I fell victim to one such ‘guru’ who shall remain nameless and although I did lose a couple of hundred dollars, it certainly could have been a LOT worse and consider myself lucky.

    I look forward to reading future posts, trying some of your tactics and of course sharing some of my own.

    This industry needs more people like you…… respect.

  6. Hi,

    We are a multi-award winning hosting company based in the UK (www.zyma.com), and were wondering if you would be interested in letting us run a free hosting giveaway on your website?

    Kind regards,

    Khuram
    Marketing Director
    Zyma Technologies

  7. Hey Hayden, appreciate you enlightening us all on your processes. I’ve listened to your podcasts on
    niche pursuits and everything you give is honest and useful. I am in the process of putting your methods in practice in Australia which has more restrictive domain registration processes but also as result is more open.

    I hope to contribute my findings.

    Thanks
    Stuart

  8. Just came acrossSpencer Haws podcast with you today. WHat an amazing amount of information. I defeinitely can learn from you. Once I finish working Spencer’s podcastds and blogs, I’ll be knocking on your door.

    I’ve long suspected that the gurus “teach” the known, but hold back the stuff that actually works so they can reel in us unsuspecting newbies..

  9. Hi Hayden,

    Jon Haver of authoritywebsiteincome.com referred me to you. I was looking to contact you about an interview opportunity but could not find your e-mail on this blog. How can I contact you? Figured I’d just leave a comment here.

  10. Hey Hayden

    Fiarly new to SEO and arrived here from nichepursuits site – love the stuff you have and they style you use. I’m an IT guy and am interested in automating as much as possible. You might advise – when I go to download the kwsearchmacros.xlsm, I’m getting a ‘Failed – No file’ error from Chrome. IS the file still available or does the link need to be updated?

    Thanks (and thanks for the site full of info)

    G-Man

  11. Hayden,
    Thank you for sharing so much of your knowledge (and for free!) and for your generous mission to teach what you have learned. I found you via NichePursuits (and I should thank Spencer too). You are among the rare but hopefully growing group of ethical online internet entrepreneurs.
    My goal is to follow in your footsteps: Successful, ethical, and willing to teach and share. You set a great example!

  12. Excellent bio Hayden. I feel like we are in the same boat but you are way ahead of the game. Where as I am starting of now(this year). There are many who we believe are leaders(especially the mlm industry) but tend to just take our money. I say mlm because that is were I began and fail. Decided to step out of that industry and finally follow the bloggers/people who give advice and steps we can follow to at least success in whatever they are doing. Thank you for revealing yourself on Spencer Haws site.

    There is more to say but do not want to board you. Just want to thank you.

  13. Hi Hayden,

    I am just starting on this venture in creating an online income.
    I live in Leon, Mexico and was wondering since you are in Mexico too, if you would be able to offer a face to face meeting to walk me through your system.

    I have watched the videos, but there are finer details which would be interesting for me.

    regards
    Adriaan

  14. Hello Hayden,

    I’m contacting you to help me out with a suggestion.
    I have a big network of blogs, over 700 by now, that’s getting bigger and bigger, and I’m looking for a script/software to manage my advertising campaigns in one place, without leaving a footprint. I know that there are adserver scripts like cpvlab, prosper, oiopublisher aso, but all of them leave a footprint, that connects the blog network.
    Can you recommend something that doesn’t leave any footprint?

  15. Hi,

    I was just following your techniques to find expired domain name.

    I found some domains with DA38+ PA 35+ but linking root domains are just 5 to 10.

    Will it be ok if I go ahead with these domains.

    Please reply

    Regards,

    Sarfraz M S

  16. Hayden, are you still looking for interns/partners ? Me and my partner are very interested. We actually had local SEO company few years ago but had since moved to another, at the time more profitable business for us. Now we are looking to get back into seo/ecommerce/outsourcing market.

    For this reason I am moving to Philippines(Davao) in May. We also have connections across eastern EU to outsource pretty much everything and are fluent in Serbo-Croatian/Italian and Slovenian – So we can target markets that are inaccessible to most.

    We are interested in working with you because we feel that way we will move towards our end goal a lot faster and we know from our other business how important it is to be in mastermind group such as yours.

    Let me know if you are interested.

  17. Robert Atkinson says:

    I won’t dive into the weeds on your subject matter.

    All I have to say is this: June 19th, 2012, on NichePursuits.com, you talked about the power of a private blog network. That was so before its time; I am speechless.

    I started reading about that method in the summer of 2013 and thought that the person I heard it from was cutting edge.

    Fast forward to March 2014, and this is the dominant back-linking strategy in today’s world. Your vision on the future amazing; it’s not about how to build these links, but about the next wave of SEO.

    With that being said, “What is the biggest change you see coming to the world of SEO?” I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts.

    Cheers,

    Rob

    • Thanks for your comment Rob. It depends on how long-term you look. How will I be doing SEO in 2016? Probably through nepotistic networks with other publishers, with real high traffic sites. The real traffic part will be important. Loophole based SEO is coming to an end and then we’ll be back to the basics of outreach – networking to foster relationships that focus on creating win-win partnerships.

  18. Hello Hayden!

    Great information and thank you sharing all this! I am wanting to do the PTC very soon and requested more information (via link from NichePursuits) about the course but nothing back so far. Is there anyway you can forward me more information about the PTC and internship? That would be awesome, thank you!

    I am very excited to take the course and thank you again!

    Matt

    • Hi Matthew, I don’t have record of your name or email… We had some issues with the application form not working. Just go to this page > http://www.nohatseo.com/blog/2014-nohatseo-internships/, enter your name and email and hit “Send me more info!”. If your email is in the system already, a message will come up saying thatyou’re already subscribed and int hat case hit “sign up again” and you will be taken through to the page to read the complete PTC outline and to complete your application. Look forward to working with you!

  19. Hi Hayden,

    Is being an English native speaker a requirement for both PTC & Internships?

    If yes, how about if I am willing to invest money for content writing and other outsourcing to bring deliverables to your required standard?

    I really love the process.

    Regards,
    Ibrahim

    • Hi Ibrahim, the Internships require quite a bit of content and having to outsource creates quite a few challenges. The Internship runs to a set weekly schedule and a consistent issue we have had with individuals that outsoucre content is that if the content comes back sub-standard, or if the writer does not deliver, the Intern falls behind and it’s nearly impossible to catch back up. If you have a high-quality writer with a track record of delivering on time and to a high standard, then you can certainly apply.

  20. Hi Hayden,I wanted to know if you’ve received my application for the private training course. I am very interested in starting this July 21 and await your response eagerly. Thanks.

  21. Hello Hayden,

    I’m new to your site, as well as a beginner to IM. I found you through Niche Pursuits – I’m an avid reader of Niche Pursuits! I’ve been spending the last 3 months studying what IM is all about from keyword research to link building. I have never put up a website before, although I’m currently geared to get one up and running very soon – as I now have some confidence in doing so. I have read your ptc and intern page about how to get started, but I’m concerned I wouldn’t have enough skill at this point in time to keep up with the PTC/Intern Course/s. My question to you would be to ask whether or not you felt the same, or are these course well enough to handle for a very beginner?

    Thank you kindly,

    Michelle

    • Hi Michelle, you will have wanted to have launched a couple sites before starting the Internship or PTC, but we’d welcome you on board as soon as you’ve got a couple sites under your belt! The reason for this is that we cram as much training as possible into the 4-5 weeks duration and any time spent on the “basics” inhibits your ability to complete the weekly tasks on time.

      As a minimum, you should be aware of how to do the basics of wordpress > setup hosting, install a custom theme, install plugins etc. From an SEO perspective, it’s ideal that you have attempted some SEO at least (both on-page and off-page), so things like knowing how to create Titles and Descriptions etc that target your KWs and then basic link building and understanding some of the concepts behind that also. Ideally you will have made some money with a site, but that’s not necessarily a pre-requisite. Keep reading popular blogs, but more importantly, time for action! Get those first couple sites built. Good luck!

  22. Hi Greg, thanks for the quick response. I am having trouble paying for the course through the link you sent me. Is there another way to pay for the course? I am sooo excited for the course I can hardly wait. Lets get to work.

    • You and others mate, join the queue! Bit painful. I’ve got you noted though. Give it a couple days while we sort out the payment gateway issues.

  23. Hi guys! I am excited about the internship/PTC. I think it really suits what I need :)

    I wanted to know if there is space for the intership that starts next JUL21.

    Thanks guys!
    Dan.

  24. Hi guys,

    I looked for a search function on the website and couldn’t find one, perhaps missing it somewhere?

    I need to be taken through {“link injection” step-by-step as I would like to start using some of my non-relevant expired domains using this method. I know Hayden has talked about this on a few videos and even webinars before, so could you please direct me to your best resource on this subject?

    Thanks in advance!

    Cheers,

    Ruan
    VirtualPropertyIncome.com

  25. Hi!

    I’m very interested in the internship in September. I filled in the form a couple of weeks ago and also sent an e-mail but haven’t heard from you.

    Can someone please confirm that my application was received? That would be great. Thanks!

    • Scott Davis says:

      Hi Peter, we have your application. We’ll be going though the August applications first and then September after that so you can expect to hear back from us in a few weeks regarding the September internship.

  26. Hayden,
    I would like to know if doing local Business SEO is something you guys have worked on in the past. I am not an SEO guy but because you have different internships I thought I might ask. I like the idea of helping local businesses with SEO and making money helping them? This may be something you have already done or if you know this does not work effectively I would like to hear your thoughts.
    Thank You,
    Scott Cline

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