Lets Have A Look At FoodTruckr

Foodtruckr (https://foodtruckr.com) was (is?) a well known brand that was created by Pat Flynn. It seemed to be a proof of concept site. Like, here's what I am teaching on my main site, can it be done in real life.

The answered seems to be yes.

Foodtruckr jumped fast into having traffic by a few ways:

• Cool name- main keyword within the name as well for bonus points. It was also a long standing name that was bought- it was an active name since before 2010:
  

• Pat Flynn. If you have people looking on how you do something then advertising that something is a good idea. Foodtruckr was actively advertised on SmartPassiveIncome (Pats original site)- 100 links to the site. Therefore it had access to traffic and it had link backs from a traffic'd site already
• The Niche. Food Trucks was probably a niche that not many websites were doing at the time- because food trucks might not have been as popular back then. Also many people associate online with digital and seem to forget that offline products can be promoted.
• As of writing (2024) there seems to be over 800 articles. That is a lot for food trucks
• Links. We have already talked about links from Pats site but Pats name also gets associated with Foodtruckr and people associate the site with Pat. If you search online for Foodtruckr eventually you find social sites recommending the site because of Pat. 4k results for the exact search of Foodtruckr. Some good sites as well (some are referencing Pats site):
  

• The website itself. It is clean, tidy and looks professional. Some of the articles arent too long either
• Podcast. The Podcasts are simple and easy to do. It is with Pat interviewing someone in the know. All of the episodes are- so it is not technically Pat doing the talking. It is a professional who gives associated credibility. These Podcasts then go onto Podcast sites (Apples iTunes has them)...which...gives us more link backs. Also, if you wanted you could retype each one and now you have additional content.

So how did all this affect the bottom line of Foodtruckr?

Initially it was through Adsense and Pat made $200/ month from 2014. Which is not a large number but then it flags up other issues:

1. how many people were clicking on the ads- especially from a newly produced website
2. foodtruck information doesn't seem to be that heavy hitter in the Adsense world especially in 2014? As of 2024 Adwords range from $1-3. So give or take 50c to $1.50 for Adsense
3. did it increase with the amount of traffic and keyword pages? Pat doesn't really say.
   

When you look now I can't find too many Adsense ads on the site.

First product was an ebook on how to start an food truck business and within a year has generated $30k (2015 income report). Second product generated $1.8k.

Content is now being reduced.

However in 2016 Foodtruckr became its own company and a dedicated team attached- content production increases.

• Ads to increase Facebook page starts
• 60k users in a month
• $3.3k in ebook sales
  

In 2017 we have an income statement (https://www.smartpassiveincome.com/blog/my-august-2017-monthly-income-report/) which reports:

• $1.23k in ebook sales for a month (a previous month sales were $891

In this case Adsense has been removed. Is this because the ebooks are being promoted?

Thats all the updates we could find.

Selling Foodtruckr

On Feb 2020 Foodtruckr was sold- which was 6 years in the making. We don't know how much for but according to Pat revenues generated ranged from $1.5-$2.5k/ month.

This is cool. But Pat also mentions other things. The site wasn''t passive- nothing really is- including:

• the content needed to be kept updated. 
• had a team of writers to manage. 
• taxes to file, 
• servers to upgrade and 
• the occasional email or message from a visitor or customer.

There are some questions that get highlighted:

1. We are unsure if revenue and profit are the same here. Writers seem to be freelance (possibly not but you never know). 
2. Upgrading servers? So there is an initial server cost?
3. The amount of money that was being spent on Facebook ads
4. Why was a group removed then placed back onto the project? 
5. Was the increase in traffic due to increased social media interaction, increased article generation or link backs?
6. Was the email an email software or just own email?

What now for Foodtruckr?

When you have so many keyword rich articles, tons of backlinks and probably traffic coupled in with this then you would expect comments and social media interaction.

When you take a step back, there is very little- even with a 37k followers on Facebook. Last post at time of writing was March 2024, previous on the that? June 2021. When posted there is some interaction- some likes (14 and 5 respectively).

The website itself has a post in May 2024 with no comments (but not attached to Facebook either)

Blog? Doesn't seem to work:

Podcast? Last updated in 2015.

In Resources there seems to be a ton of links to (?affiliate) programs- which might or might not have Pat as benefactor. It would be really nice for these links to go to specific pages on how they actually helped you in the food truck business. It generates content. It warms up the client and then the affiliate sale is made. oddly enough we can't find the social links on this page.

Wasn't there an email sign up page?

Throw Adsense back in on pages that are not direct links to your ebooks. If the pages are not generating anything then Adsense is the way to go initially

Each page should have social buttons- to link to your social pages and to link for people to share the content that they see.

Email popup with a bonus for signing up?

You probably need some comments/ references for your book. The "how to start..." book seems to be the main one that sold.

• It is a lot of text and its a lot of money. Pat originally pre-promoted the book on his SmartPassive website and on Foodtruckr. 
• But for the price you need to get more pictures in about the product, 
• more people testimonials video about how it helped people (Pat mentioned on his site that he got comments from people how it actually did help them)
• ?the pricing structure. It doesn't scream what you are actually getting

The second product- the growth kit has issues as well:

• the text is difficult to see
• there is no testimonials to how it helped people
• very few pictures
• text that eplains what some of the bonuses do, but how can they help- increase your business upto 45% with this. How customer X created new recipes based on customers without spending a dime on advertising. Etc.
  

Youtube and Pinterest?

When you mention foodtrucks then Pinterest or Insta should be up there.

You have interviews so why not record them live and put them on Youtube. Make videos of:

• Interview folks who eat at food trucks
• food truck owners
• behind the scenes
• tour certain states and find the coolest food truck
  
• pitfalls of the industry
• find the most commonly viewed pages and then create videos from these
• most decorated or the best named truck

There is a limitless possibility that would generate traffic back to your site.

As always we wish Foodtruckr all the best

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