This is a Income School Project 24 Review!
I’m Michael Culp, a business Master’s student who researched the best affiliate marketing courses to help you find the best course for you.
I found that Project 24 is a good course for those who want to start a blog and make money via paid advertising and affiliate marketing. Ricky and Jim, the founders, are very experienced marketers who found success with many different websites. However, the course is missing crucial aspects that can prevent you from becoming successful.
If you want to learn more about Income School Project 24, this comprehensive review will analyze all the course content and if Income School’s students are getting results following their methods.
Keep reading to get a detailed view of the Project 24 Course.
Let’s get started!
Key Takeaways
- Course Name: Project 24
- Instructor: Ricky Kesler and Jim Harmer
- Website: https://incomeschool.com
- Overall rating: 3.5
Pros:
- Great community. Jim and Ricky are very active in helping all of the students.
- Weekly live sessions on FB.
- High-quality content.
- No need to spend money on additional tools.
- Great for beginners
Cons:
- Takes a very long time to focus on monetization.
- No backlinks training.
- No keyword research training.
- Not the best course for competitive niches
- Requires patience
Contents
- Key Takeaways
- What is Income School’s Project 24
- Jim Harmer and Ricky Kesler
- What you’ll learn in the Project 24 course
- Module 1 – The 60-Step Checklist
- Steps 1-2 – The very first actions
- Steps 3-6 – WordPress
- Steps 7-9 – SEO Methods
- Steps 10-19 – Response Posts
- Steps 21-22 – Pictures and Legal Misc.
- Steps 23-26 – Resource Pages
- Step 27 – How to use Acabado
- Steps 28-37 – Staple Posts
- Steps 38-43 – Promoting via YouTube 1
- Steps 44-54 – Pillar Posts
- Steps 55-59 – Promoting via YouTube 2
- Step 60 – Set up Amazon Associates
- Module 2 – Search Analysis
- Module 3 – Choosing Profitable Niches
- Module 4 – No-nonsense SEO
- Module 5 – Web Traffic Snowball
- Module 6 – Email Marketing 101
- Module 7 – KGR
- Module 8 – How to Find and Trains Writers
- Module 9 – Professional Photography
- Module 10 – Website Reviews
- Module 11 – How to Improve Your Writing Skills and Speed
- Module 12 – Monetizing Your Website With Advertisements
- Module 13 – The Success Mindset
- Module 14 – How to Use Pinterest to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
- Project 24 Weekly Podcast
- Project 24 Forum
- Module 1 – The 60-Step Checklist
- Is Income School’s Project 24 a scam?
- Is Project 24 legit?
- Does Project 24 Include Acabado?
- Are Students Actually Getting results?
- Is the Income School Project 24 Worth it?
- What I Don’t Like About Project 24
- Project 24 Pros
- Project 24 Cons
- Who is Project 24 For?
- How Much Does Project 24 Cost?
- Income School Refund Policy
- The verdict: Should You Buy This Course?
- Income School Project 24 Alternatives
What is Income School’s Project 24
Income School Project 24 is an online platform where you can learn how to start an online business through blogging and YouTube. The name Project 24 refers to their goal of helping people substitute their current income with passive income from the internet in just 24 months. Income School describes itself as:
“Income School is an internet marketing company that teaches people how to create an internet business through blogging and creating Youtube channels. Income School is best known for its popular internet marketing and SEO channel on Youtube”.
Project 24 will teach students how to start a successful online business in 60 steps. These 60 steps comprise activities related to finding a profitable niche, building your site, writing blog posts, attracting visitors by ranking on Google, posting Youtube videos, and making money via affiliate marketing, advertising, and info products.
Income School was created by Jim Harmer and Rick Kesler.
Jim Harmer and Ricky Kesler
Jim Harmer and Ricky Kesler are both from Idah and friends from High School. They started building niche websites in 2010 and launched Income School in 2015. You have probably seen their very popular Youtube channel which teaches SEO and online marketing.
Jim was flat broke with his wife and 2-week-old son when he started listening to a podcast on how to make money online. He started ImprovePhotography.com which turned out to become a massive successful website.
Once the site started getting traffic, he began selling 50-page eBooks on the very basics of photography from his site and Amazon Kindle. In the first year, those books earned $36,000, and in the second year nearly $80,000.
He became a millionaire by age 32 and was listed as one of the top 40 photographers in the world.
Ricky, a father of 4, has an Engineering degree and an MBA in strategy, finance, and entrepreneurship. He worked as a project and category manager for a couple of years before going full-time with Income School.
Together Jim and Ricky have owned, own, and/or run websites such as:
- Income School
- Dirt Bike Planet
- DIY House Security
- 7-Year-Olds
- Pontoon Guide
- Purpose In Christ
- Camper Report
- Sound Proof Expert
- Knife Up
- Cabin Freedom
- Improve photography
- Embora Pets
What you’ll learn in the Project 24 course
Project 24 contains a bundle of courses that will help you become a successful online entrepreneur. In this section, I’ll break down each one of the courses and show you everything you get once you sign up for Project 24.
Module 1 – The 60-Step Checklist
The 60 steps to a successful site are the flagship course and through the 60 steps Checklist, you can’t go wrong. It’s very efficient for you to know where you are and what you should be doing in each part of the process.
Steps 1-2 – The very first actions
The course begins teaching you how to choose your niche and to help you make a decision they provide a list of 1011 potential niches you can choose from.
In this list, they will say what are the strong and weak points of each one of them. They will also talk about the main ideas you have to consider when choosing a niche.
One of these ideas is to choose something you’re passionate about, which I resonate with a lot. It makes the process much easier, particularly the process of content building.
Steps 3-6 – WordPress
These steps are more about the technicality of building your website, which will cover:
- Sign up for Hosting and Install WordPress.
- Get a logo to Brand Your site.
- Sort out Your Themes and Plugins
- Calibrate your WordPress settings.
Steps 7-9 – SEO Methods
For Jim and Ricky the two most important aspects when it comes to SEO are:
- Length of the post
- Quality of the research
They performed research and found that long-form content performs better than short-form content. Specifically, their results show that the average word count of a Google first page result is 1,890 words. Also, according to the duo, you don’t need link-building and Keyword tools, because of their inaccuracy.
Lastly, you’ll learn how to perform search analysis. Search analysis is their way to find keywords and it will show you how to find topics to write on. For Ricky and Jim, this is the most important part of the whole Project 24.
Steps 10-19 – Response Posts
In every specific niche, people type all kinds of questions into Google. A response post is a post that answers one of these questions. In these steps, you’ll learn how to write the perfect response post.
When you’re writing your first response post Jim and Ricky tell you to not think about the result, to just write and create content for your blog. I think it’s very important that they mention this. At the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey, I struggled a lot with this, trying to make everything perfect, which hindered my progress a lot.
I have this weird tendency to want to know the next 200 hundred steps before I can take action. I don’t know, I think it’s my engineer brain haha
I also liked their method of writing a 1350-word blog post in less than 90 minutes:
- Use your voice, don’t be academic.
- Use low research time, the bare necessities.
- Write a quick reply, then go in for a long answer.
- Use Google’s “People Also Ask” to add 3-5 subheadings.
- Edit as you go.
Steps 21-22 – Pictures and Legal Misc.
These are two simple steps about how to write your legal disclaimer and how to resize pictures.
Steps 23-26 – Resource Pages
To keep Google at bay, Jim and Ricky advise you to build a resource page where you keep all of your product recommendations. This way, you don’t overcrowd your articles with affiliate links. They will also give you some advice about your affiliate promotions and the best way to build this page, such as:
- To make the most money you must keep your items around the $200 range, the commission is good and the buyer will not think much about whether they should buy or not.
- You can reach out to private companies that don’t have an affiliate program and ask if you can promote their products as an affiliate.
- Don’t sell a product only because of a high affiliate margin.
- Update your page regularly.
Step 27 – How to use Acabado
Acabado is a theme created by Jim and Ricky for their students. Acabado wasn’t designed to be the most customizable theme, but it’s incredibly fast and simple. There is nothing worth mentioning here, it’s just a tutorial on how to use their theme.
Steps 28-37 – Staple Posts
This is another type of post that you’ll learn how to write. Staple posts are posts with a topic that has a wide appeal in the niche and with around 2500 words. The competition for this post is medium to low and they are usually rich with subheadings.
Steps 38-43 – Promoting via YouTube 1
These steps are about promotion which is an extremely important part. Instead of using Facebook, Jim and Ricky suggest that you use Pinterest and Youtube as you just have to upload your pins and videos and wait for people to come.
They say that Youtube is superior and teaches you how to be a successful promoter on Youtube. The parts that I liked most are:
- Your videos should be around 10 minutes.
- Make videos answering questions.
- Upload and schedule your videos at regular intervals. Youtube loves that.
- The same as when writing content applies here, don’t be a perfectionist. Don’t worry too much, using a phone is better than not making videos at all.
- Mimic a popular video while at the same time giving more info than the original. This one is killer haha
Steps 44-54 – Pillar Posts
Pillar posts are one of the foundations of your website, they are your flagship content. You have to go deep in your research and provide your reader with something nobody else is giving.
This is the type of post that will require most of your time and focus. The organization, quality of writing, and pictures must be perfect.
You can do wonders by scouting your competitors to see their weak spots and how you can outsmart them with quality and quantity. The length of this type of post is usually around 4000 to 6000 words.
Steps 55-59 – Promoting via YouTube 2
In these steps, Jim and Ricky come back talking about Youtube. The point is that on Youtube you can see clearly what is working as you can see the views for every video and the subscribers to every channel.
I found some of the teachings of these steps pretty smart. They teach you to look for Youtube videos that have gone viral from channels that have a low subscribe count so that you can model those videos when you start and have little subs to your channel.
They will show you how to create staple, pillar, and resource videos for your channel. The cool thing is that you’ll have all your content from your blog posts already.
Step 60 – Set up Amazon Associates
There is nothing much to say here, it’s just a short conclusion reminding you to set up your Amazon Associates account on your site.
Module 2 – Search Analysis
In this course, you’ll learn how to find topics for your articles. Search analysis is a strategy that aims to generate a hit list for your website content. This course is broken down into the following major topics:
- Planning your brand
- Generating ideas
- How to select keywords
- How to create an effective hit list
Module 3 – Choosing Profitable Niches
Your niche is the foundation that all your success will grow. If you choose your niche wrong, it can cause you to fail.
In this course, you’ll get a 50-minute long video tutorial with powerful tips for choosing a good niche for your website depending on your individual goals and preferences. You’ll also get an Excel spreadsheet with around 350 niche ideas ranked from the most promising to the least promising.
Module 4 – No-nonsense SEO
SEO is the process of taking steps to help a website or piece of content to rank higher on Google searches. In this course, you’ll learn the Income School way to improve your rankings in search results and drive traffic to your website. The course contains a lot of great information in an easy-to-follow manner.
Ricky and Jim’s way of doing SEO are controversial for some, but you can rest assured that it is future-proof. Their tactics will be effective regardless of future changes in Google’s algorithm. All the strategies you’ll learn are white hat strategies, so no need to worry, you’ll not end up being penalized.
Module 5 – Web Traffic Snowball
When it comes to social media, you are at the risk of investing money, time, and energy without seeing good results. In this course, you’ll learn the best strategies to promote your website on social media and how to build traffic quickly and steadily.
Module 6 – Email Marketing 101
Here you’ll learn why and how you should build your email list. This course covers:
- Why you might or might not want to build an email list
- How to start with a free list and scale-up
- How to engage and convert visitors into buyers
Module 7 – KGR
In this course, you’ll learn about the Keyword Golden Ratio (KGR) and its importance to internet marketing.
KGR is a data-driven way to find keywords that are literally underserved on the internet. For example, if you find a Keyword Golden Ratio phrase and you publish a piece of content targeting the keyword, your article should rank in the top 50 within a few days – sometimes hours.
Module 8 – How to Find and Trains Writers
With the Income School Method, content is the most important aspect of your business. However, you may not always have time to write high-quality and well-researched blog posts or you may want to scale your business even faster. That’s why this course is important.
This course teaches you how to find the right writers and how to train them about various types of posts. The course is based on 10 steps:
- Create a hit list
- Choose a pay scale
- Publish your job listing
- Select finalists
- Train the writers
- Test writers with a trial article
- Sign the contract and provide a login
- Set a publishing schedule
- Review and add images to posts
- Pay writers
Ricky and Jim will share some of the resources they use for recruiting writers and working with them in a resourceful manner. You’ll learn everything you need, from how to draw contracts, to the valuable tools, plugins, and job boards.
Module 9 – Professional Photography
The goal of course 9 is to teach you how to take awesome photos for your website. There are 22 lessons in this course covering topics such as:
- Lighting Landscape
- ISO
- Shutter Speed
- Close-up photography
- Aperture
Module 10 – Website Reviews
In this course, the duo will break down other members’ sites and give feedback. You’ll see real-life examples of the factors that determined the success or failure of each website.
You can look at the feedback and see which strategy applies to your situation. But you do need to keep in mind that some strategies will be useful and others not too much.
Module 11 – How to Improve Your Writing Skills and Speed
This course teaches you how to improve your writing speed. You’ll learn how to choose the right topic and create an article that fits. They’ll provide a template that you can use to write your own articles.
Here are the steps they share for you to a perfect one-hour blog post:
- Keep a “hit list” of articles to write.
- Research to find your information
- First sentence and answer paragraph
- Write 3-5 subheadings as a structure
- Fill in content explaining the subheadings
- Add a full-width image at the top
- Some of these lessons you learned in course one, but here in this course, they go into more detail.
Module 12 – Monetizing Your Website With Advertisements
Here they’ll show you how to monetize your website early with advertisements. The course is divided into 3 parts, where you’ll learn how to use ads tactfully to monetize your website pages without the need to push products.
You’ll learn how to get the most effective ads on your website and optimize them. The tactics are aimed to help you generate the most revenue without compromising your site’s user experience.
Module 13 – The Success Mindset
This is actually not a course, it’s just a presentation from Jim at the summit in Boise, Idaho in 2018. It’s just a quick reminder that success isn’t automatic, you have to work for it.
Module 14 – How to Use Pinterest to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
Here you’ll learn exactly how to boost traffic to your site with Pinterest. Additionally, you’ll also get 5 interviews with bloggers who have drawn much traffic from Pinterest.
Project 24 Weekly Podcast
The podcast is a really cool part of the course. They are released every week and the topics are relative to what’s happening AT THE MOMENT.
Whether it’s something going on with Google or GDPR, general information about the course, a new course release, or simple Jim and Ricky answering questions that members within the forum are requesting a little more information about.
Project 24 Forum
All the people who purchase the course are invited to join the Project 24 Community forum. There are a lot of different people in the forum, from beginners to more experienced marketers who are making BIG money online.
The community is very active and everyone wants to help. This is very important in your journey as an entrepreneur. If you don’t have people who are on this same journey to talk to and ask questions, it can feel very lonely sometimes.
Not only will you have access to the teachers and their staff but to hundreds of experienced members who are willing to help. Some of the skills that other members offers are:
- Traditional Business Experience
- Website building
- Code writing
- Marketing
- Design
- YouTube
Is Income School’s Project 24 a scam?
Income school and Project 24 is not a scam. The program is built based on the founder’s years of experience and own success online. You’ll learn a step-by-step system in project 24, to build a business blogging or via YouTube.
If you apply the information and put in the effort, chances are high that it will work. Completing the course is not easy, but if you do complete it, you’ll arrive at the promised land.
Is Project 24 legit?
Project 24 is legit, you get access to their videos, lessons, and podcasts. The training really does what it promises. It’s not easy work, but you’ll have an asset that will generate money for years to come.
After you start seeing results you can choose if you want to create more things that generate revenue or you can just lay down and enjoy the fruits of your hard work.
Ricky and Jim also help a lot of people through their YouTube channel which has over 178 thousand subscribers.
Does Project 24 Include Acabado?
Project 24 Includes Acabado. However, whenever your Project 24 subscription expires, you no longer have access to Acabado. If you want you can purchase a separate Acabado license.
Are Students Actually Getting results?
Yes, a significant number of students are getting good results by following the Project 24 training. Jim and Ricky have a track record of building successful niche sites and their same approach is working well for their students.
It’s not difficult to find great testimonials from students. All of these testimonials seem to be real and it didn’t make me raise any red flags. They also have this page that shows how well their students are doing.
In 2022, they have 31 students who arrived at the promised land of $4,000/month. Considering all students, the numbers aren’t very impressive though. Most of them are below the $500/month mark.
Is the Income School Project 24 Worth it?
The course is very good. By following each step, chances are high that you’ll build a website that generates passive income for you. How much and how fast depends on your niche and the amount of work you’re putting in.
With all the courses offered and a very active Facebook community, the course really gives you a great shot at success. The duo has an impressive track record, they’ve been doing this for over 20 years with a lot to show for it. If you put the information into the work, you have a pretty good chance to build a profitable site that generates passive income for you.
However, I’d say that the course is best for beginners and those who plan on focusing on a low-competition niche. There are some aspects of their philosophy that make me skeptical about its effectiveness for competitive niches.
What I Don’t Like About Project 24
In the next section, I’ll show you the reasons that don’t allow me to give a higher rate to Income School’s course.
1 – The Course Takes a Very Long To See Any Results
Since you’re doing organic SEO, it will take some time for your post to rank, this will make you have a lot of doubts and question your own ability and your mentor’s advice. You’ll need a lot of patience and determination.
Also, as Project 24 doesn’t give much consideration to monetization early on, you run the risk of spending a year or two building a website that will not get you the money you’re expecting.
2 – No Backlinks and Keyword Research Training
According to Jim and Ricky, you don’t need backlinks. This piece of advice goes against what every SEO expert says. Today, backlinks are by far the most important ranking factor, they are the foundation of Google’s algorithm and there are a lot of different data and case studies that prove this.
You might even be able to get away with no backlinks if you are in a niche with little competition but to do that, you’ll need to be very good at keyword research – which they have an unusual approach.
Your competition will be using backlinks for sure, so you’ll be at a tremendous disadvantage if you are not building them. It’s like going to a boxing match with one hand tied behind your back.
According to Jim and Ricky, great content is the most important ranking factor and it’s not worth spending your time building links you should focus only on creating great content.
I do agree that you need to spend your time building great content, but one thing doesn’t exclude the other. Today there are a lot of different scalable techniques to build links, which will not require a lot of your time.
Regarding Keyword research tools, they advise the students to not use them because their data isn’t accurate. Which is true. The data from the keyword tools are an estimate and not the actual traffic that the keyword has.
So, instead, they use Google search itself to do the research and end up relying on guesswork and intuition. In my opinion, this advice doesn’t make any sense. I think it’s better to use the data, even if not 100% accurate, instead of relying on guesswork.
Project 24 Pros
- Great community. Jim and Ricky are very active in helping all of the students.
- Weekly live sessions on FB.
- High-quality content.
- No need to spend money on additional tools.
- Great for beginners
Project 24 Cons
- Takes a very long time to focus on monetization.
- No backlinks training.
- No keyword research training.
- Not the best course for competitive niches
- Requires patience
Who is Project 24 For?
Project 24 is for beginners, people who have tried and failed, and advanced internet marketers. There is something in there for everyone.
You’ll learn how to make money with both websites and YouTube. So if you don’t want to show your face on camera you can focus only on your site, if you don’t like to write you can just focus on Youtube.
How Much Does Project 24 Cost?
The price is $449 for the first year and $249 per year thereafter. This is the best price you’ll get. You have the option to consume the content and learn everything you need and stop paying after the first year.
However, keeping your subscription can be extremely valuable. They are constantly updating the course and you have a lot of additional features like the podcast and the community.
Income School Refund Policy
Income School doesn’t have a money-back guarantee. At the time of this review, the only guarantee they have is if you forget to cancel your subscription before your renewal date. If that’s the case, you can ask for your money back within 30 days.
The verdict: Should You Buy This Course?
If you have spent any time in these “online business” courses, you’ll see that those people selling their courses claim that they have made a lot of money online. But they will not show you any proof, they will not show you the actual sites, YouTube channels, google analytics, their income from ads, etc.
Once you’re a member of project 24, Rick and Jim will give you access to everything in detail. You can take a look at their sites and see them explain why they have done as they have done.
This is huge and makes a lot of difference. The guys build sites and YouTube channels over and over and continue to find success.
Project 24 packs a lot of value within its course and if you follow all the steps, 24 months later, you’ll have a very good chance to have a niche blog making passive income. How much you’ll make it’s up to you, in terms of what niche you are in and your efforts.
Even though their approach to SEO is controversial, it’s hard to build a case against Jim and Ricky’s track record. But I do need to say that I think there’s a better alternative to building an affiliate marketing business through blogs. You can check out the alternatives in the section below.
Income School Project 24 Alternatives
If you want to invest in an affiliate marketing course here are other alternatives to consider:
Super Affiliate System – this course teaches you how to make money with affiliate marketing via paid advertising. Paid advertising is the fastest way to start seeing results. There are more than 50 hours of training teaching you everything you need to learn to succeed.
Freedom Breakthrough – it’s an affiliate marketing course that will teach you every traffic source available online. You’ll learn how to drive traffic with a website, funnels, a Youtube channel, and popular social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok.
Partner With Anthony – it’s an affiliate marketing course that will teach you how to sell affiliate products through funnels and email marketing. You’ll learn how to drive free and paid traffic. The best of all is that it just costs $7 dollars a month.
You can also take a look at my list of the best affiliate marketing courses.