How To Analyse Information Online
Do you ever read an article online and think, “I wonder if this expert really does what they say?” Maybe you think that a guy claiming to make six-figures off a sub-par blog is a bit of an out-there claim.
Maybe you wonder if the advice you read on various forums is actually legitimate or whether it’s just a bunch of blackhat marketers pulling a long con and duping you into buying into their pyramid scheme.
If so, you’re certainly not alone. Sometimes, I’ll read a blog post and think, “There’s no way anyone should do that” or, “that clearly doesn’t work.” Occasionally, I’ll browse various freelance writing websites to get some ideas for articles. I’ll end up leaving irritated because all these sites are is a bunch of internet marketing types spamming their own links and getting people to sign up for their email which leads to their e-book and whatever.
It’s very frustrating.
However, this blog is in my own name and I’ve given myself a blanket ban on negative articles, as well as promised myself that every article I write will have some useful information.
This article is going to go through the process I use to determine whether information is accurate or not, and how I go about testing it.
Step Zero: Go Outside!
The internet is a great place to make money. It’s also a place where you can easily get duped into spending hundreds of hours reading absolute rubbish that’s designed to keep you in the e-guru loop.
Before you think about anything else I write in this article, I want you to take stock of where you’re spending your online time. Are you actually being productive or are you spending your time “researching” on your favourite forums and blogs, not getting anywhere?
This step isn’t me grilling you like a matronly teacher about not having done your homework. This is something I repeatedly catch myself doing, and I know other guys do the same. Don’t start beating yourself up about procrastinating, just be aware of it.
If you’re stuck in a loop of reading-research-reading-research, go outside and break the chain. Go for a walk.
Did you know that most great writers took daily walks? I didn’t, but when someone suggested it to me, I tried it out. I walk for a couple of miles every day before I start writing. It’s great for working ideas through your head without distraction.
Step One: Read Everything With A View to Using It
If you’re a smarter guy (or girl) then chances are you’ve read a lot of stuff which is philosophical or intellectual. Maybe you’re feeling that life is a bit dull, in which case you read motivational material.
That’s fair enough, but you should try doing something different. Every time you read a forum thread or a blog post, I want you to write down at least a couple of things you learn from it in a notepad.
These things should not be anything other than action-based. Here are a few things that don’t count:
- Motivational stuff. “I need to pump myself up and break free from the 9-5!”
- Consumer Stuff: “If I buy this camera, then I’ll be able to make $1million as a photographer!”
- Stuff that you’re clearly not going to do: “If I work out 6 hours a day, I’ll look like The Rock!”
- Stuff that requires someone else to do something. “I’m going to go on ten dates to get over my crush!”
- Stuff that breaks the laws of physics: “I’m going to use the law of attraction to win the lottery!”
You might think that some of those things are absurd. I’ve read articles – and have written articles for some of my clients – that do exactly the above.
There are books on Amazon for sale about how to use the Law of Attraction to win the lottery. People buy them.
There are bloggers out there who’ll write articles that say next-to-nothing yet have thousands of followers.
There are “workout programs” that can’t physically be completed unless you turn into a monk.
Back to this article though… I want you to concentrate on reading blog posts with actionable content. Why? Because your life will be better.
You might sit there with your notepad, read your favourite blogger’s next article, and not have anything to write down. Good. I hope that’s the case! It certainly was for me. I used to read motivational material – and read hundreds of articles – then I realised that I might feel great after reading them, but I was half-an-hour down and no closer to my goal.
Second Step: Does Your Favourite Blogger Leave Out The Details?
There’s a real big gulf between a useful blog post and a feel-good blog post. When it comes to making money online, a key indicator is this; does the writer break stuff down into actual steps?
Tons of Tim Ferriss clones have their own blog articles that look like this:
“You want to make a million bucks without doing any work? It’s EASY!
What you need to do… is find an idea. Then, you need to find someone else who has done it. Then, you need to copy them but make it better. Then, you need to find someone who will actually do all the work for less than you’re going to make. Then you can just sit on a beach, and you’ll make one hundred thousand a year easily.
Then, you just need to repeat the process ten times and you’ll make a million dollars.”
The problem with this is that whilst it looks like information, it’s really just truisms packaged as something more. There aren’t any actual steps in most of these types of articles. It doesn’t tell you how to have a great idea. It doesn’t tell you how to research a niche. It doesn’t tell you how to do pricing. It doesn’t tell you how to test a market. It doesn’t tell you how to hire a freelancer. The list goes on.
Not all articles are strict “How-to” articles. The ones that are though have a built in test for you to try: Can you actually do what they’re teaching you after you’ve read it?
If you read an article online that’s titled, “How to shave your dog,” you’d expect to be able to shave your dog having read it – or at least have all the information necessary and a list of the equipment you need.
You should hold “How to make money online” articles to the same standard. It’s the same with any niche, be it health, wealth, relationship, money, education, whatever.
Step Three: Do The Math
When it comes to avoiding spammers and scammers, you’ll want to do the math.
There are some guys who’ll sell you a dream; write 5000 word “e-books”, sell them for 99p, make six-figures a year.
The math is simple for this hypothetical situation. A 99p ebook gets a 35p commission on Amazon. You need to sell three books to make a dollar. To make six figures, you’ll need to sell three-hundred thousand copies of your books per year.
Even if you wrote one 5,000 ebook a day, you’d still have to sell a thousand of each book to make that money.
It doesn’t take elite math skills to work that one out.
On the other hand, sometimes these things are more subtle. There might be a guy on a forum claiming he’s gained twenty-five pounds of lean muscle having taken a new supplement. Is he lying? Look at the math.
What about the guy who claims to make a lot of money off his travel blog? For that sort of thing, have a brief browse at the site’s traffic figures, the products it sells, and so on.
After these three steps, you should be able to get a pretty good idea of whether or not something is accurate or not.
If in doubt though, follow your gut: When you read an article, if you’re getting useful information, then chances are the person knows what they’re talking about. If they are literally spelling things out for you, then chances are they know what they’re talking about.
Step Four: Test EVERYTHING Out
You will not learn anything through reading to as deep a level as you’ll learn by doing.
If you read one of my niche article websites, then don’t take my word for it. See if I’m talking rubbish.
If you read a “how to publish your book on Amazon” guide, actually do it.
There’s no better way to test someone’s credibility than by following their advice. Absolutely do this. In fact, do it now. Don’t even finish the article.
This is the most important step, so whilst I could think of more to add, I don’t want to.
Final Thoughts
There’s a lot of inaccurate information out there. There are a few ways to test the usefulness of the information you come across. I’ve broken it down into four steps:
- Detach yourself mentally from the material to avoid compulsively giving it attention
- Summarise the material in your own words in terms of actionable information
- Use common-sense and mathematics to determine whether the info is accurate
- Test everything you read out in your own life.
There’ll always be more to add, but you’re probably going to be surprised by how much of the content you’re consuming doesn’t even manage to pass these four criteria.
Hopefully, just noticing this will save you time, make you more productive and increase the level of content you’re consuming.