5 Income School (P24) Alternatives: Best Niche Site Courses

In 2022, Income School is no longer the best place to learn the niche website business.

I say this as a former student who owes them a lot. The course helped get me from zero to my first $10,000 month of blog value.

Unfortunately, things have changed. Jim is gone. Ricky is outsourcing the teaching to less experienced employees. Their trademark “keyword alphabet soup” research method is no longer competative.¹

But don’t despair. There are dozens of alternatives offering more detail, more community, and more up-to-date material.

As a course junky, I’ve tried all of them. These are the ones I recommend to friends:

Authority Hacker Pro

• Why it’s better than Income School: Larger advanced tactics library, better vetting in community, less push towards low-value “hobby sites.”
• Who it’s for: Bloggers who intend to build a real, scalable content business; not just a side-hustle.

Of all “niche site” courses on the market, Authority Hacker Pro is the closest to Income School in terms of materials and community. You can think of it as Income School for a younger demographic.

They offer two products: the “Authority Site System” mini-course for beginners, and the Pro course for established site owners.

The split is good for students, because it keeps beginners out of the pro group. Don’t think that’s neccessary? Check out all the “expert advice” being floated in the Income School student community 🙄.

Authority Hacker operates a Podcast similar to the Income School YouTube channel. As a free resource, the AH podcast is much more fun to listen to since it’s more tactical and strategic. However, the Income School YouTube channel definetly does a better job of outlining the first steps for beginners.

Siege Learn (Siege Media)

• Why it’s better than Income School: Specific, modern guidance on building linkable assets.
• Who it’s for: Career SEOs applying skills both at work and in their side business.

Siege Media is a content and linkbuilding agency that’s well-known in the corporate SEO world, but virtually unknown to small-time site operators.

It’s too bad, because they publish some of the best free and paid resources on SEO available in 2022. Start with their podcast to understand what they do, then upgrade to the course when you’re ready to get serious about linkbuilding.

Income School famously ignores linkbuilding, but makes vague suggestions about building “great content” that’s “linkable.” Siege shows you how to actually build that “linkable content” with specific examples and strategies to ideate, build, and promote linkable pages.

The Siege Media course is expensive and comes with no support or community. Therefore, it’s only worth considering for those with established sites ready to scale up.

Affiliate Lab (Diggity Marketing)

• Why it’s better than Income School: More detail on building affiliate sites and parternships, focus on multi-site portfolios where the owner isn’t the “face” of the brand.
• Who it’s for: Site owners building portfolios.

Matt Diggity is a well-known character in the affiliate SEO world, known for his humorous YouTube channel sharing current tips and tricks.

Here’s a free piece of content that will both make you laugh and teach some timeless truths about the state of SEO:

His Affiliate Lab course is similar to Income School in that it has a beginner-friendly approach, but differs in that it ignores YouTube and courses to focus on one revenue channel: affiliate marketing.

This focus is good, because the lessons are much more detailed on how to find, vet, and manage affiliate partnerships; a topic that Income School oddly ignores beyond sharing the link to Amazon Affiliates.

SEO Blueprint (Glen Allsopp)

• Why it’s better than Income School: Extremely credible teacher, emphasis on early-stage linkbuilding (critical in 2022).
• Who it’s for: Career SEOs and site owners operating in competative niches.

The creator of this course is well-known in the corporate SEO industry for producing a popular piece of content that called out big-brand ownership of multiple sites.

He also ran a forum called ViperChill back in the day, which is where a lot of us in the affiliate game learned prior to all the course offerings on the market now.

The SEO Blueprint product is well-organized and has a focus on positioning early-stage site projects for success. His concept of the “first 100 links” is pretty antithetical to the Income School content-first philosophy.

…I can tell you from experience that, in competative niches, the SEO Blueprint approach is the only way to get ahead. Income School’s method really only works for new or low-value niches in 2022. (Yard sports, dirt biking, etc.) The SEO Blueprint approach is a better fit for niches with big money like health, dating, VPNs, etc.

The Website Flip Course

• Why it’s better than Income School: Focus on tactics for building and flipping sites quickly.
• Who it’s for: Small-time portfolio owners looking to flip for cashflow rather than build for the long haul.

I hesitated to include the Website Flip course because it’s not really a replacement for Income School, Authority Hacker, or another “step by step” beginners course.

However, it’s the only product on the market from a credible operator that teaches how to buy and flip websites without getting burned.

The owner is very active on Twitter, where he stirs up controversy by “outing” course creators without actual experience. He also goes after Ezoic, which I appreciate since it’s maddening to see courses like Income School suggesting it to new site owners. (Why do they suggest it? Hint hint… private affiliate program.)

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Project 24 a good course?

Project 24 is a good course on building a blog-based business for absolute beginners with no experience creating content or running an online business. However, since 2021 the course has been moving teaching responsibilities from the experienced founders to employees with less credible experience in the subject. Therefore, this course is recommended primarily for the community aspect; most of the content can be gleaned from the brand's public YouTube channel for free.