So it’s been a week now with Mediavine. My question was ‘How much will I earn in week one on Mediavine’.
I have to say they are wonderfully organised and while the onboarding process took time, it was simple to work through.
The reason it took time is really because they do some magic to assess the site.
The need access to your analytics and then there are a few things you need to do like adding a section to your Privacy Policy and added a couple of code snippets
As my main site is using WordPress, there is a WordPress plugin you can use to get the code wrapper in to place.
So, I expected to have really low RPM for the first week but it seems to have peaked on Day 3.
That’s OK, I think I’ll end up at around $20 RPM which is good earnings considering I wasn’t earning that from Ads before.
I am a little concerned my affiliate click-through and earnings might have been impacted but I haven’t done the maths and analysis on that yet.
After holding out for a long time, I’ve decided to commit to mass advertising on my primary content site.
It’s a big deal.
I removed all the ads from my site about 6 months ago as I wasn’t making a lot of money from them and I hated that they clogged up the site.
I also wondered if I was getting less clicks on my affiliate links as you couldn’t really pick them up in all the chaos of ads.
I was making about $100 US a month.
It wasn’t a lot.
I was in the Fat Stacks forum and explained all this. They couldn’t understand how a site with over 50,000 sessions a month was only earning $100 a month.
They said I could be earning $1000-$1500 a month extra.
That’s nothing to sneeze at.
A big part of this was the lean placement I had. I only had 3 ads per page.
With Mediavine I’ll probably have about 10+ per page. I write long posts so there is a lot of room for ads.
So, let’s see how we go.
So far the ads have been tastefully placed in the pages and are not too intrusive.
The last site I saw with Ezoic was a bit of a mess, but I’m sure you can achieve similar.
It’s easy to build feature-rich sites that look good and, with theme enhancers like Gutenberg and bricks builder coming out, it goes from strength to strength.
The challenge I have always had is hosting. I have no design to manage my own servers (and I have on wirenine and amazon ec2). It’s a faff.
I also want support if I need it. I don’t want to be a server guru, I want to build fast, attractive and high converting sites.
I’ve been through a bunch of WordPress hosting companies looking for the fastest WordPress host.
Bluehost for many years but they kept falling over on me. Wirenine (VPS) as mentioned and also Amazon ec2 hosting. Hostinger and more.
I’ve even toyed with my own servers – stupid idea that one.
With my costs at hostinger going up recently I decided there must be a fast way to host WordPress so I started the hunt.
The importance of Google core web vitals rising in the buzz of SEO I knew it was time to pony up a little more money for a little better results.
My first port of call was Cloudways. Nice migration, nice choice of server stacks and some good customer service. Still didn’t quite do it for me.
Then the cloud parted, the sun came out and I trialed rocket.net.
As a member of the WP Speed Matters Facebook group I also made inquiries and they came up with suggestions – I believe the company owner at Rocket is a member of the group also.
Here are some of the things I needed. As a time-poor individual with high expectations I needed the hosting to be:
Easy to manage
Offer a staging environment and backups would be nice, not essential
Good customer support
Fast WordPress Hosting
My first contact with rocket.net and I was completely blown away.
Not only did the customer support guy know what he was talking about, but he also solved the issue while I was on the chat with him.
In 95% of my interactions with rocket.net the person on the live chat has been fast to reply and solved my issues before I left the live chat.
Even complex issues. Amazing.
rocket.net dashboard view
Easy wins
There were some easy wins as soon as I signed up
Easy setup, deletion or publishing of staging environments
Responsive live chat staff who fixed things there and then
Out of the gate, the speed and responsiveness of the live chat support was staggering.
Once the site was migrated the first time it took me time to move over. I needed to ask for one more migration to have the latest version of my site from hostinger.
‘No problem’, they said. ‘Awesome’, I said.
It was honestly so easy to do that there isn’t much to add. They move the site, I disabled lightspeed cache and a couple of other modules that were not needed anymore and turned it on.
One of the best services they offer is a pre-live flight check. They go through the site and make sure everything is set up correctly and ready to go.
This is a real help for nervous site owners.
After I went live there were still some Core Web Vital issues. Pages going from green to orange. This stresses me out as I believe speed is key.
I got on live chat and again the issue was fixed there and then.
I tested the site on lighthouse (via Chrome) and GT Metrix and got speeds I have never seen before.
rocket.net WordPress hosting – view of individual domain management
My WordPress site set up
For reference here is my site set up:
WordPress
Astra Pro theme
ACF Pro with quite a few custom blocks on pages
WP Rocket
Lots of other smaller plugins like Let’s Review, AdInserter
I was using Swift Performance and litespeed Cache with hostinger. When I moved to Rocket.net they said they happily supported WP Rocket.
WP Rocket were having a sale so I bought that and installed it. Then I got them to check it so everything was tuned correctly.
Bottom Line on why Rocket are the fastest host for WordPress in my world
The bottom line here is that:
Rocket.net migrated everything for me
Their live support is unmatched and all included even in small accounts
They helped to fine-tune the speed and troubleshoot issues – usually in real-time
Their staging / production options are effortless and easy. No fuss, just click a button
They helped me achieve 100% on speed tests on lighthouse and GT Metrix with little to no effort.
I now have ALL my mobile and desktop pages in the green in google search console which I have never achieved
I was waaaay over on storage but they didn’t charge me
It’s the perfect set and forget hosting set up with the fastest speeds I’ve ever had.
I should note, as a side comment, that I had AMP installed prior to the migration and I wanted to get off AMP and stick with responsive only.
This was a worry as when I tried to disable it on hostinger it slowed mobile response times significantly.
With rocket.net, both mobile and desktop are fast with no AMP plugin. AMP was too restrictive for me.
These are the reasons rocket is the fastest host for WordPress in the US for me.
Rocket hosting WordPress speed results
The proof is in the pudding, right? Here are the screenshots of the GT Metrix and lighthouse reports.
I want to note again that this site was not doing well before the change. This site has a lot of blocks, ACP blocks and other content that has the potential to really slow the Astra Pro theme down.
GT Metrix
GT Metrix Score
Lighthouse – Desktop and Mobile Speed Tests
Desktop
Lighthouse (Chrome) speed test on my rocket.net site on Desktop
Mobile
Lighthouse (Chrome) speed test on my rocket.net site on Mobile
Some comments, not criticisms
There are a couple of things that might be helpful for more inexperienced players. While rocket.net is the fastest host for WordPress (IMO), it doesn’t offer email hosting. There is no cPanel here, or similar.
Get your first month of rocket WordPress Hosting for only $1
They have tutorials on how to manage this including how to only move your A Records for the website in your DNS. As below if you have questions on that too – happy to help.
They support WP Rocket, but not others which is fair enough but if they mastered Swift or similar it might be nice for those who have invested in them.
Summary – because there is always a summary
After 2 decades of hosting challenges I am happy to say after a year with rocket.net that my blues are gone.
This company not only provides super fast wordpress hosting, they also provide super fast support to back it up.
They get a 5 out of 5 stars from me and I can’t recommend them enough.
Need content written to boost your SEO, product listings or affiliate marketing efforts? Here’s the ones we tried recently.
There are so many reasons for needing to hire content writing services for your website. The question is how do you go about choosing who to get to write for you and how do you get what you need?
Content Writing Services can help you scale fast.
It could be you have an eCommerce site and you need unique listings written for your product pages.
It could be you are a brand that wants to increase the traffic to your website. Your product listings might be covered but you need regular ongoing content.
If could be you run a content blog or affiliate website where you want to grow traffic and need some help getting content written on a regular basis.
Content writing websites in this list
Human Proof Designs
Content Refined
Textun
Content Development Pros
We’ve spend some time recently trying out a few of the regularly recommend content writing websites and trying out their services.
Here are the ones we’ve tried and how they performed on our first orders.
Fundamentally I am:
Time poor
Have some cash to spend, but can’t afford top shelf writing services (yet)
Want quality posts over 1000 words, but ideally 2000 words.
1: Human Proof Designs
Human Proof Designs were one of the first sites I came across that offered what I needed. The do an incredible amount of things that I didn’t even know I might need too. These include:
Buy a ready made affiliate website
Regular monthly content writing services that includes keyword research, writing and uploading content to your website. Ideally WordPress
Keyword research packs – let someone else do the research for you
Training services to learn how to build your own affiliate empire
Link building services
I signed up for a regular monthly 2000 word package that included them doing the keyword research and choose whether it might suit 2 x 1000 word articles or 1 x 2000 word article.
What I like about Human Proof Designs
They do the keyword research for me. I’m time poor.
The content uploading was excellent. I didn’t give them a template but they looked at other templates on my site and copied them very well. That included the use of the AAWP WordPress plugin without me asking. Awesome!
You get regular emails updating you on the status of your writing – Researching, writing, editing, uploading, done.
You get an email with the suggested keywords before they start writing
It just ticks along and they write the content
The project managers are great. A really nice bunch.
What I don’t like as much
The writing felt a little formal despite my trying to make it more casual. We’re probably up to our 8th article with them and it still feels a bit stiff.
The formatting is good but there isn’t a lot of out of the box writing to break up the flow. If it’s a list there is little foreplay before the list starts and very little text at the end of the list other than a short conclusion. Sometimes it’s nice to cuddle a little while at the end, you know?
The stock images they have chosen have been pretty uninspiring. This isn’t a prerequisite for success but I like things to look nice.
2: Content Refined
I was so impressed with the Content Refined marketing pitch that I signed up on the spot. Their process flow and project management sounded like heaven.
Not only would someone do the keyword research for me, they would put it through Marketing Muse and project manage the whole thing for me.
I figured I had nothing to lose so I signed up for a regular monthly 4 x 1000 package.
Immediately I noticed the cost was higher than what I was paying for Human Proof Designs but I was optimistic the writing would be a set up. It was.
The first keyword research I got back were well researched, interesting and the titles they had chosen for the articles was interesting. Much more…journalistic.
Thought had gone in to it from people who do this alot.
Content Refined also offer a lot of really interesting services. You can:
Sign up for regular content packages that include keyword research, title creation, writing service and uploading. The keyword part is optional so you can save some money there if you want to.
Content surge is a cool offering where they can write an enormous amount of content for you in a short time frame.
Content upgrade packages were they can take existing articles and give them a bit of a rewrite and lift
Keyword research packages
Blogify packages where they take a YouTube video or similar and convert it to a blog.
What I like about Content Refined
Maddie and the team are lovely
They create blog ideas and titles like editors – engagement and smart titles that entice the reader
The writing I’ve received so far was almost all fresh and creative. Not all posts were bright and fun to read but on the whole they were good.
They upload and format the posts for me.
Overall, I feel confident and in good hands with the team at Content Refined.
What I don’t like as much
One of the listicles I ordered chose products that didn’t make sense for the list. They were not products that people in that niche would buy
They, unfortunately have like a monthly timeline for writing and so far they’ve been really late on all orders. Let me clarify – if you order this as a set and forget then you can expect good content monthly. But if you want it in a hurry, like this week, then they might not be able to move that fast. I think on the whole they have grown so fast, take more care with their writing and so you need to be prepared to wait on your content.
Price is a little higher, which I understand for the quality of service but if you can do you’re own keyword research you might find cheaper places to get content or, you can use their services but do your own keyword research.
The Blogify service did what it said but there were errors in the writing and you could possible get it done cheaper from a VA.
CR didn’t format the posts as well as Human Proof Designs, I had to change quite a lot. This is really my fault for not providing a template to follow so I’ll own that one.
If you’re not in a hurry, don’t want to do your own keyword research and want good writing then Content Refined is a good choice and with trying out.
3: Textun
Textun offer a very cut and dried offering. They write content, you write the title and supply the keywords. That’s it. But it’s really quite brilliant.
At the time of writing there isn’t even an option to create an account on their website. You just select a service and enter the title, keywords, length of article and any notes you want them to consider.
It gives you the cost and delivery date (usually within 2 days) and you pay and that’s it.
The content we got back was probably as good as Human Proof Designs and much cheaper but we had to do the keyword research and create a title idea. They might also do the title if you leave it value.
Textun are not new to this content writing thing and I like their no-frills ordering service.
I could get quite addicted to ordering something daily as it’s so easy and fast.
What I like about Textun
The writing is good quality
It’s fast. Really fast
The ordering process is simple
What I don’t like as much
You have to do the research. But if you are using a tool like keysearch or Ahrefs (keysearch is cheaper) then it’s not that hard.
You have to upload, format and arrange the posts yourself. I don’t love doing this but I don’t hate it and I’m always going to tweak it a bit.
Textun impressed me with their speed and the overall quality of the article. I gave very little instructions and they smashed out a good article.
I ordered a listicle post and while I was hoping for a little more uniqueness in the layout, I also could have given a better writing template for that.
I will certainly continue to use Textun moving forward.
Affordable, fast and good quality – so far.
4: Content Development Pros
The Content Development Pros website is as busy as a myspace page in the ’90s. It’s hectic and there are services popping out in every paragraph.
They offer writing services for everything offline and online you can imagine.
They also offer a fully managed service for blogs which includes content writing, keyword research, project management and the best thing of all? Analytics. It’s more expensive but seems quite robust.
Their fully serviced blog model includes monthly reporting on how the articles they have written have performed. This is amazing as it shows they are confident in their services and writing.
What I like about Content Development Pros
The live chat on their website helps to answer questions fast
It’s affordable content
The writing we’ve received is slight more creative/unique in the template
They seem to have a lot of experience
What I don’t like as much
The content we got back was good. It was a really nice, creative template and it included FAQ’s and other nice touches to it
The detail in the writing document returned to us was awesome. The included information in the template included metadata fields, titles, keywords and more. This shows their experience.
My suspicion is it wasn’t written by a native English writer. Some of the wording was too verbose and at times seemed…awkward, for lack of a better word.
I’ve signed up for a monthly article on Content Development Pros as it’s affordable and puts another quiver in my content writing services companies list.
I’ll keep this going for a few month months and see where it ends up.
That’s all she wrote…
With a clear brief and some practice, any of these services have the capability to serve you content that will boost your website.
While some offer a set and forget service, you really shouldn’t be that hands-off if you want to be as successful as possible.
If you have any questions on these content writing websites specifically do feel free to ask in the comments below.
I’ll add some more content in the future that will cover:
What to look for in a content writing service
How to prepare and provide a clear writing template
How to do your own keyword research
The best, and most affordable, stock image libraries to avoid copyright issues
Month #3: I make back more than I lost on my blog last month. It’s HUGE
Website Traffic:360 Unique Visitors
Affiliate Earnings:$12.00 USD
Blog Posts Added:1
Advertising Income:$0
Happiness is making money from your side hustle. Smoking will kill you.
This month was all about improving on what I did last month.
That is, I edited and revised a few of the blog posts that I recycled from an old site and added to my affiliate site this month.
The posts were not very good. I could already tell that my blogging skills had improved over the years.
I did a few things to them that I thought would make them more interesting for googlers. As I pulled these out of a database file (sql) I only had the text.
Unfortunately I didn’t have the original photos I had from when I first posted them on the original site so that was something I needed to address.
I also didn’t have any affiliate links in them as they were posted on my eCommerce website so I had internal links to products to purchase, not external to amazon or similar.
List of actions:
Add images back in to the blog posts. Ideally these would be unique and my own images, not reused images. Something people don’t appreciate is that google knows when an image has been reused a million times. If you are the first one to upload your own custom image then you (should) get all the image credit from google as it saw it on your blog first.
Add in affiliate links. I included some text hyperlinks and also included some of Amazons advertising blocks using their javascript code. If you use their javascript at least you know the image, code and other details will always be up to date.
Rewrites. I did add a lot more content to the posts if I felt I could. I also rewrote the titles to be more intelligent. The previous titles were “Product Name Review”. This round I would say something more like “Product Name Review – this is an awesome product”. Something like anyway.
Adding Amazon advertising blocks to page
I removed the Amazon code blocks a few months later as they were breaking the layout of some of the pages. Visitors were greeted with a white screen. Painful.
What did I learn from that? Always test your pages on desktop, mobile and tablet as often as you can. Especially after theme and module updates.
It doesn’t take a lot of time to do a quick check and it can be the difference between success and failure for making money. If someone came to your store and your front windows were broken you might find they keep walking.
Updating old content
It seems important to highlight how updating old content is key to continuing to rank for your keywords.
Google needs to see recency in your content so you want to go back through your posts and update them. Not major overhauls. Some people see major improvements just by going back and correcting spelling mistakes.
If you change too much you risk altering the content to the point Google loses confidence in what was there.
My situation was different as I was repurposing old blog posts but you get where I’m going with this.
They have been clear that a post written about Widgets in 2009 might not be relevant anymore – especially when compared to the Widgets post someone did only last week.
How long should your blog posts be?
Intuitively I am aiming for 2000 words minimum. I don’t know why but it feels right. I’m not sure I truly have an opinion on a list of products or a product on its own if I can’t write at least 2000 words on it.
The goal of creating quality content that draws traffic, traffic that is written about products and aims to attract people with buying intent, should really be of a good length.
My hunch is that the internet is flooded with 500-word posts on domains that have much stronger domain authority than me.
So to stand out I am going to have to write long posts. One of the posts I edited this month is now over 6000 words.
Side Million. Income report – Month #3
It was a huge jump back in to profitability this month. $12.00 USD. I’m rich!
Seriously though, this is the seed you need to know that you can do this.
It’s a numbers game, the more quality content you write, the more potential you have to earn.
Yes! I huge $12 in earnings this month. The world is my oyster.
Side Million. Traffic Report – Month #3
Traffic held on for a while and I did a few more little reddit posts to give it a kick.
A little over 10 users a day on average. It’s consistent at least.
Month #2: I lose all the money I made from my blog.
Website Traffic:221 Unique Visitors
Affiliate Earnings:-$10.80 USD
Blog Posts Added:1 New + 12 Recycled
Advertising Income:$0
It’s OK, I’ll get over it.
I was sitting on the couch one night and decided to have a look through my Google Analytics account on another site I own. For some reason, I decided to have a look at my affiliate site to see if the posts had any traction.
If fully expected to see nothing but, people had actually visited!
Immediately I am having flash backs to 10 years ago when I ran a successful discount voucher codes and deals website in the UK.
That site was very successful until the Google MayDay update which flattened it over night.
I didn’t have the will to raise it from the dead so I walked away. In hindsight that was probably a silly thing to do and had I persisted with trying to get back in google’s good books I might have been more successful earlier than now.
Moral of that story (which is also key to this project)?
Never give up! Write, publish, write, publish repeat.
Anyway, the traffic on the site reminded me that when you write good quality, unique content you can attract visitors.
So, I wrote another blog post.
New posts in month 2 = 1
Recycling old blog posts and reviews
I had an eCommerce site I had shut down a few years earlier. I was selling high ticket items and the fraud I was experiencing wore me out.
On that site, I had done a bunch of reviews on products so I went back to the old website database and got the reviews posts and reposted them to my new site.
I did a 301 redirect from the old domain name to the new one and got a little link juice.
When one idea dies don’t throw it away, you might be able to use the old parts to build a new rocketship.
Total new posts from old site to new site: 12
Losing all my money
In my post from Month 1 you may have noticed I made a whopping $10.80.
In month 2, I lost it all.
Lesson to learn? If you are part of an affiliate program, especially Amazons affiliate program you have to expect returns.
The Amazon return policy is so generous people will buy stuff just to see what it’s like and then return it.
This is why Amazon won’t pay you out for 2 months. They are budgeting on returns reducing your affiliate earnings.
Monetisation – AdSense?
I still have a strange belief that I don’t want a cluttered site with loads of ads ruining the experience of my high quality visitors.
So I’m not willing to do ads yet. Maybe later. Naive? Maybe.
The thing that makes Adsense really successful is truck loads of traffic. At the moment I would be lucky to earn a $1 for the month so there is little reason to put in ugly adverts when they will earn almost zero income.
I have put some thought in to where to put ads when I eventually commit to them, if I eventually commit to them. Might start with a side page column skyscraper and dabble with a top of content dynamic square advert.
Side Million. Income report – Month #2
Lost all my money. It won’t be the first set back on this journey of blogging to make money.
It’s months like this you need to really dig in and believe you can do it.
Side Million. Traffic Report – Month #2
The reddit effect wore off but I’m at a solid 10 a day at least.
So, on to Month #3 next and we’ll see how things have improved.
Month #1 – Feb – Choosing a domain. Website set up + First posts
Website Traffic: 221 Unique Visitors
Affiliate Earnings: $10.80 USD
Blog Posts Added: 2
Advertising Income: $0
Month one is always a lot of fun. The excitement around choosing a domain, imagining your first blog and powering up your first website. The reality of the work hasn’t set in and you already have dreams of sipping margaritas on a beach somewhere imagining life in the cash-rich slow lane. Hold on to that enthusiasm. You’ll need it a lot in the first 7 months.
This is the kind of picture I imagined blogging would look like…not the reality which is smashing the keyboard on the couch every night in front of the TV just trying to stay focused.
I’m told most bloggers quit around 6 months in. You should know now, this isn’t easy but if you make smart decisions it can really pay off.
Month 1 set up. Decisions to make.
At this stage, it can be a little overwhelming to know where to start. You hit a few challenges like:
What website platform do you choose? Drupal, Squarespace, Wix, WordPress or what?
What domain name do you choose? How important is the domain name anyway? Will it affect SEO?
What niche do you go for? Does it have to be a niche? Can you write about anything and just wing it?
What about just writing on Medium…maybe you can make more money there…
Do you want to target your site on affiliate marketing, advertising revenue or a course/subscription service?
How do you monetise it? What is adwords? What affililate program do you sign up to? cj.com? amazon affiliates?
What the rules you need to follow to ensure your blog is meeting the requirements of the affiliate and ad networks
Where will you host your site?
All these questions even before you write your first blog post. So if you think you’re going to start making money in the first month, don’t bank on it.
As soon as you have your set up decisions made you launch straight into the next ones
What plugins and modules for your website will make things easier?
Will google penalise you for using certain techniques and plugins?
Do you need an image optimisation plugin?
Will you use category slugs in your URLs?
What SEO plugin or module will you use?
Have you set up google analytics and configured it properly?
What about Google search console? What does that do?
Is your site fast enough?
What are rich snippets and how can you get featured on google with them?
Should you do paid ads to your site? Facebook ads? Google ads? Instagram Ads?
That covers a lot of the key things you need to consider but there are more, and most of them you will learn month after month after month as you blog and read other peoples blogs.
To make money writing content you have to really have a few basic things in place:
A good technical foundation – the right blog platform, good optimisation (SEO, Images, Speed) and structure to your site
A good structure to your writing (helps with rich snippets)
Long, unique posts (2000-4000 words seem good when your starting out)
Regular posts
A good keyword research tool. I use keysearch as it’s great to start with and affordable. There is also ahrefs and SEMRush if you have more money – they are expensive and might be more that you need to start.
What website platform do I choose?
I’ve used Drupal as my go to website platform for about 15 years but this time I went with WordPress. Why? It’s easier to set up, easier to make attractive and has easier to install plugins. Essentially it’s just easier.
I went with the Astra theme as it gives me incredible flexibility without needing to do any coding. The theme is very fast, which is very important to google and there are some great plugins you can get to superpower it.
Ideally, you’ll invest in Astra Pro but start with a free starter theme to get going.
Where do I get it hosted?
Historically I’ve hosted with Bluehost (shared hosting), WireNine (great for VPS Hosting and excellent customer service) but this time I went with Hostinger.
I’ve found them to be responsive and as a employee-owned company, they are very motivated to help when you need it. I just wish they would give free SSL certs.
What domain do I choose?
I have a backlog of domains. A lot of you do also I expect. You think of a business and then you register the domain and then you sit on it, possibly for years. I had a domain I had registered about 10 years ago which I have used.
Domain age is something google does look at. So if you have an older domain you can use, do so. If you have a brand new domain it’s fine, it just might take a little bit longer to be recognised and get some regular robot traffic – in my experience anyway.
Where to research and register a domain name?
I tend to use GoDaddy to register my domains as it’s easy to use and there is a good support team behind it. That means if you need help at any time there is usually someone around who can help.
What did I get in as the basics to start?
Standard set up with any site should always include this list, and if not at set up then as soon as possible.
Image optimiser – I chose, and recommend ShortPixel after a few trials of different plugins.
Redirect plugin – this one is great and is done by John who works at Automattic (WordPress commercial entity).
Also, make sure you set up
WordPress HTTPS – ensure you’ve set up an SSL certificate with your hosting company. With Hostinger I’ve found it easy to set up and live chat talked me through some bits which ended up being my fault. You can do this at yourdomain.com/wp-admin/options-general.php and put in https://
WordPress URL’s – you can choose to have URLs structured like domain.com/category/postname etc but I generally just do domain.com/blogpost – there are a lof of different feelings around this but if you’re in a specific niche then the need for categories is diminished IMO.
How many posts did I write in the first month? How long (word count)?
I wrote 2 blog posts this month. I had done a huge amount of research when I was looking at buying a gift for my wife and had also done a lot of research around a home tech thing. I figured, “hey, I used to have a blog so why not start it up again and share this stuff, someone might find it useful”.
Blog Post 1: Word count was 690 words. Needless to say it hasn’t received a ton of traffic but it was a unique topic so it get’s a ping every now and again.
Blog Post 2: Word count when I started this month was at about 2000 words but ended up being about 6095 a couple of months later after I tweaked it and tweaked it. I added more products as I went and it helped with ranking.
Monetisation – Did I choose affiliate marketing or google adsense?
I chose affiliate marketing this month but plan to add google ads next month in some form or other. Probably from Adsense. I’ve exclusively linked to amazon affiliates for now but it’s probably a good idea to diversify and join shareasale (part of awin) and cj.com as an example.
Turns out I still have a CJ account, Awim account and many others from my coupons and deals site from 10 years ago so I”m going to try to kick those back into action.
So, did I make any money in month one?
Income report – Month #1
I made some money! Woot! Way to go Month 1.
A whole $10.80 which was enough income to inspire me to more.
Traffic Report – Month #1
A well-timed post on Reddit helped this month out. Not as good as organic but I’ll take it.
This is it – the most interesting experiment I think I have ever done on the internet.
Can you really earn money from blogging? From just full-time writing?
This is the first post documenting my journey into yet another personal side hustle. I have a full time job that’s pretty great. I like working with people and don’t like the idea of working alone so this journey is not about escaping the grind at all. I’m better working with the team I work with now.
I’ve just never not had a side hustle, so I don’t see any reason to change that now. I’m not good at just sitting on the couch at night watching TV or reading books. I do know with this side hustle I don’t want anything too high maintenance or distracting.
My confession is that I’m already a few months in so I will back date the posts to show what I did and when, and what I earned each month from Amazon Affiliates and Adsense so far.
I think this is what a side hustle lifestyle is meant to look like. Right? Holidays, working on beaches in exotic countries. It’s not realistic for everyone, including me.
The side hustle goal
Create a side hustle income through a niche website, or sites, that achieves $250K in revenue per year in less than 5 years. Either through affiliate marketing, advertising or training tools and subscription programs.
If you’re starting this journey with me it seems important to give you some background on why you might find it interesting to follow me on this journey. This isn’t my first ride down Side Hustle Avenue, so I’m hoping you get value from joining me as I make it happen – whether it succeeds or fails.
My history
1: I know digital business like Gin knows Tonic. I’ve been doing this digital marketing / eCommerce stuff for almost 20 years and know the deep internals of what it takes to be successful online. You won’t see me pretending to work in Thailand doing selfie videos about how you can be ‘successful’ online if you follow my amazing ‘free’ guide.
2: I’m not going to have to learn my way through this. I know what I need to do to be successful, the tools required and each step I need to take – I just need to do it. That’s my current confidence level anyway…we’ll see how long that lasts…
3: I have worked with and built digital and eCommerce businesses for some of the largest brands in the world. Connect with me on LinkedIn if you’d like.
4: I have been in digital everything this since about 2001. SEO, SEM, Affiliates, eCommerce, Website Development (Drupal/Wordpress/Shopify), email Marketing (mailchimp, mailerlite, campaign monitor, aweber, constant contact and more), Social Media Marketing, CRO and all the other things.
4: I’ve managed digital teams in over 10 including Hong Kong, Singapore, UK, USA, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan and more.
But, this isn’t a job interview or a ‘wahoo me’ so I won’t focus anymore on my ‘real job’ history through this.
Previous Side Hustles
I have had a few mostly-successful side hustles in the past. I call them successful as they provided more than $500 per month in revenue with one up to $5,000 a month.
Those previous side hustles were:
1: eBay side business buying things like Sony cameras from a wholesaler (imagine someone like IngramMicro) but only purchased stock as I sold things on eBay.
2: 2012 Olympic Games Private Home Rentals – a site where you list your home for rent during the 2012 London Olympic Games. Imagine as an early version of Airbnb. The listing fee was about £29.00. It ended when the Olympics ended and the next Olympics was Sochi and Rio – in a foreign language so I gave that up.
3: A voucher/coupon code and deals affiliate website that ran for about 5 years and employed 3 part-time writers. The first Google May Day (May 1, 2010) update crushed that, while the content was unique it was a little thing and I didn’t have the energy to restart it up.
4: A premium headphones website in Canada that sold high-end headphones B to C. Part drop ship, part warehoused my own stock in a Toronto fulfilment centre. Didn’t get a handle on fraud so sold stock up after about 4 years and was moving country.
5: A kids balance bike/run bike company that drop shipped balance bikes in Canada (the little bikes with no-pedals). Was going fine but the market wasn’t huge so profits weren’t that great so I sold it to my accountant, who was a great accountant I should add – if you need a recommendation in Vancouver. The side benefit of this hustle was buying stock on my credit card, accruing RBC Credit Card points and buying holidays.
In the first year, the Bikes and Headphones sold over $250K. I tried to get a retro report to show you that but the Stripe and PayPal accounts went with the bike business I sold.
The only site I ‘exited’ on was the Balance Bikes site.
I have also hand-built what I would estimate is +40 websites in Drupal, WordPress and more.
What’s the goal of this Side Hustle and why am I not doing an eCommerce Business?
I’m not doing eCommerce because it’s hard work. If you’re starting an eCommerce side hustle then let me know if I can help with some free advice.
Here are some of the reasons I’m not doing an eCommerce business:
1: If you do Dropship? It’s quite a full industry. Lot’s of opportunity but I’m not sure where to start for products these days. A problem with drop ship is you can’t control the customer experience – you can’t always control shipping times and returns in the same way you can with owned stock.
2: If you don’t drop ship you need to have stock. This takes money to set up. I don’t like spending money on stock without any sales. I’ve never invested in stock before a sale. I think it’s because I’m never sure something will be successful. I need to prove it first before I invest.
3: eCommerce means customer service. Customers want to know where their order is, how something works, what discount you can give etc.
4: eCommerce has returns – you have to be prepared to manage returns and refund to keep customers happy.
5: Fraud – make sure you’re using a good payment gateway like Stripe that helps you create rules to manage fraud. Platforms like Shopify will also help you here with basic fraud assessments, but it’s not always 100%. I could do a separate blog post on this if it’s helpful for someone.
6: eCommerce is 24/7. You have customers that expect a response. If you’re shipping your own stock you are constantly at the post office shipping stuff.
7: Labour – if you’re shipping products you need to package it. Boxes, tape and labels.
8: If your shipping globally, or ordering stock in globally there are tax, duties and customs charges.
9: Even though my bikes and headphones site sold over 250K in its first year, there was a very small amount of profit left.
Be wary of ‘internet gurus’ that boast about epic sales without sharing their actual net profit after costs.
Does this mean eCommerce sucks?
Not at all. I flipping love it but my real job keeps me busy there so I can’t handle 2 eCommerce endeavours.
Every side hustle I’ve been successful at required 0 investment. I funded each with great deal of my personal time building sites etc plus some experience and I drop shipped the first 1-2 sales to find the next stock purchase.
I will be transparent through this journey
I’ll tell you what I spend and what I earn each month. I’ll tell you what I did and what I didn’t do that I probably should have – maybe even what I did do that I shouldn’t have. Confused? Me too!
So what is the Side Hustle going to be?
I’m going for content. Blogging. Publishing. It’s not exactly a tight niche site, and it’s in a very competitive space, but it’s content I know a lot about so I’ll see how it goes. If I need to pivot you’ll be with me when I do.
I’m going to use WordPress with a bunch of plugins I talk through as we go. I love Drupal but there is too much time needed in themeing these days and I’m tired of programming.
I’m open to questions at any stage. If I can help you, I will. If you have a tip for me, I’ll listen. You can never stop learning.
So here we go…Side Million – Blogging to make money.
