If you own a website, I’m going to guess that one of your greatest struggles is continuously writing blog content.

I should know … This week, MyMoneyDesign.com officially turns 6 years old.  Can you believe it?

And while I don’t have any ultra-impressive five or six-figure monthly income reports to share with you, I do celebrate the fact that we have a ton of blog content to offer you – over 500 posts (and counting)!

But that’s not to say I haven’t had my fair-share of success either.  Blogging over the years has been an incredible source of modest passive income; generating sometimes as much as four-figures of revenue each month.

Earlier this year I even sold a few of my side-project niche sites for five-figures.  That’s a lot of money for simply “playing around” on my computer at night.

I’ve watched several of my articles climb to Page 1 in the Google search results for their intended keyword, and appreciated every new visitor to my site it’s brought.  The feedback I’ve received from the readers and the questions they’ve generated have really forced me to become a better expert in so many areas of personal finance; some I didn’t even know existed!

But none of that would be possible without the focus first on this blog’s content.  Though I don’t consider myself to be any sort of great writer, I do have a few tricks and strategies that I follow to produce what I think makes for a worth-while and quality read.

So with that said, whether you’re a new blogger or have been already at it for a while, here are some words of encouragement for writing better blog content.

Write About the Things You Want to Know More About

If there’s one thing that has kept me blogging for as long as I have, it’s been this:

I write about the things I want to know more about.

I’ve made mistakes in the past of:

• Forcing myself to write review posts.
• Write about topics that didn’t interest me but I thought they would be good for the site.
• Create content simply to rank for keywords that I thought would be low competition .

All of these were bad ideas.  It was putting the cart before the horse.

Unfortunately this has also been the demise of many blogs I used to read over the years.  I could see them also fall into these traps and simply get burned out.

To really write a post (and I mean REALLY write a well-researched, +2,000 words of content with graphs, pictures, etc), you need to actually care about the subject.  And the only way to do that is to pick topics that you genuinely have an interest or passion for.

• Maybe it’s a question you have.
• Maybe it’s something that could help a loved one.
• Maybe it’s a question you already know the answer to, but you’d like to better explain it to a friend.

In all of these cases, the spark should start with some sort of curiosity or meaning within you.

Don’t try to guess at what your audience wants you to write about.

As long as the topics you’ve got in mind are within your blog’s niche, then there’s a very strong chance that your readers will have the same types of questions too.  After-all, aren’t common interests what attracted them to your blog in the first place?

Once you’ve got solid and interesting topics at your core, it’s okay to then go back and add in any keywords or affiliate promotions.  As long as it doesn’t disrupt the natural flow of the content, then there’s no harm.

What happens when you get writers block and run out of things to write about?

My trick is to the hit the Internet and see what’s going on in the personal finance community.

• Check out your favorite blogs and see what’s sparking conversation in the comments sections.
• Go to forums and look at what kinds of questions are being asked (and if you could do a better job answering them).
• Hit up social media like Twitter and Pinterest and take notice of the headlines are the getting the most buzz.

Do this enough and you’ll be sure to find something that sparks your creativity again.

Write Content That Provides Value

I once read: For every piece of content you write, ask yourself : Would someone pay me $100 for it?

If the answer is no, then you shouldn’t hit publish.

Think about how or why someone would come across your content in the first place.  Every day, people use search engines to effectively find the answers to questions they have.  So in order for your content to matter and live on, it has to accomplish this one fundamental task:

It has to provide value.

I’ve seen this mistake time and time again on other sites when the content goes from being a main course to little more than an appetizer.  Your readers are smart!  They want there to be “meat on the bones”.

And if they scan through the text but can’t find anything but fluff or tips that simply scratch the surface, then forget it.  Move on.  Your Google bounce rate goes sky-high.  Not good.

So what do people want to read?

My latest process has been to approach each post like it’s a mini-ebook.

• Is there a central theme?
• Is there a definite structure or outline (similar to chapters in a book)?
• Are there supporting facts or research (with proper links to authority sites)?
• Did I give personal examples? If not from me, can I find other “real world” examples to better illustrate my point?
• Is the content scan-able and easy on the eye?
• Are there images, graphs, and photos?
• And most importantly … Did I provide a good answer to the question?

Longer is not always better

There has been a lot of buzz that in order for your blog posts to rank better, they need to be longer.  Neil Patel from Quick Sprout has written a number of posts about how the Google Top 10 articles are usually 2,000 words or better.

But don’t misinterpret the message.  The implication is that longer posts are better explained, cover more sub-topics, and are generally better researched with supporting facts.

If you write a 5,000 word rant, than this isn’t doing anyone any good.

I think it helps to think of your content like a conversation or interview.  For each topic that comes up, what would be the main point?  What would be the supporting facts or examples?

Your content should read like casual and helpful conversation between two friends.  Approach it in this way and it will help to keep your tone exactly where you want it to be.

Don’t Forget to Market Your Content

Another sage piece of advice I once read: You should spend just as much time marketing your content as you do writing.

This is key!  It’s a point I always find myself circling back to every time my viewership starts to stagger.

One of the great tragedies of blogging is when someone writes an incredibly awesome post, but no one ever reads it.  (So then, does it really exist?  – Sorry, bad philosophy pun.)

The biggest mistake we make as bloggers is thinking or – worse – expecting that people will find our stuff.  This is a little like opening a store in the middle of the dessert, and then wondering why you don’t have any sales.

To be successful, you need people to come to you.  And in order to do that, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to find you.  You need to somehow stand out among the noise and put yourself in a position to become noticed.

Here’s the simple strategy that I follow to accomplish this:

1- SEO

One of best ways for the content you’ve written to be found is to get as much organic traffic as possible from the millions of people who use search engines every day.  In other words, when people go to Google and type in their search terms, you want your posts to be on page 1 – preferably towards the top of the page!

To do this, you need to make sure your articles are optimized for the search engines – SEO friendly.  Though that may sound technical, it doesn’t have to be as cumbersome as you may think.

The first step: Pick a good long-tail keyword that fits nicely with your topic.  Again – Don’t try to force your content to conform to a keyword.  Let it happen naturally.

There are lots of ways to find good keywords.  You can find them for free using Google Keyword Planner. Or you can use a paid tool like LongTail Pro which will give you more insights into their competitiveness.  Even something as simple as starting to type a phrase into the search box and seeing what auto-complete suggestions pop-up can be effective.

Once you have a good keyword, sprinkle it into all aspects of your content.  Use it in the headline, headers, and content.  Don’t forget to also include it in the meta description, URL, and image alt-tags.

Feel free to also use lots of variations of this keyword too.  These days Google is smart enough to recognize synonyms.

There’s a really simple (and free) tool you can use to help make sure you’re doing everything you’re supposed to: The Yoast SEO plugin.  It will evaluate every post you write according to all of these points (and more) and let you know what other steps you can take to better optimize your chances.

You can also check out this great resource from Backlinko for helping you make sure your on page SEO is spot on.

2- Guest Posts

Would you believe that I’ve already had 21 guest posts published this year on other sites?

Guest posting is one of the tried-and-true marketing strategies that still works really, really well – as long as it’s done tastefully.

Why should you guest post?  For starters, there is the immediate benefit of standing up in front of another blog’s audience, telling them who you are, and then convincing them that they need to check out your site.  If your guest post is great, then this new potential audience will have no problem seeing what else you’ve got to offer.

But then there’s also the long-term SEO benefits.  Links on other sites are like positive votes in the eyes of Google.  They increase your authority, and that it turns helps your content to rank better in the search engines.  This helps improve your SEO – getting your posts closer and closer to page 1.

My top advice for anyone looking to guest post:

• Write something as good (or better) than you’d publish on your own site.
• Be cooperative with the site owner and do whatever you have to in order to meet their quality standards. If they ask you to re-write it, don’t take it personally – do it.
• Don’t beg to guest post or follow-up 100 times. Have some class.  If you get no response or rejected, simply move on.
• Don’t overstuff your guest post with links. Include a modest amount.  But be sure to also include a good combination of authority links and internal links on the site hosting your post.

Here are some more good guest posting tips.

3- Leverage Social Media

People spend more time than ever now on social media.  And those bloggers who have figured out how to leverage these sites seem to be really cleaning up.

When using social media, my suggestion is to go with whichever one you feel comfortable with.  Some people really love Facebook or Twitter, and they report a lot of success with them.

Speaking from personal experience, recently I’ve discovered that Pinterest is the sh*t when it comes to promoting your content!  Pinterest now makes up approximately 20% of all views on My Money Design, and I feel we’re just getting started.

The more I’ve been using it, the more I get it.  Pinterest makes it incredibly easy to find posts on literally any topic.  If you’ve got a great headline and a catchy cover image, then that will be enough to get people to click on to your site.  From that point on its up to your content quality to do the rest.

To promote my content, I use a service called TailWind.  It’s a program that lets you automatically pin new content into the feeds of your followers.  This greatly increases your chances of being noticed, getting more re-pins, and ultimately more traffic.

4- Commenting on Other Blogs

Blog commenting on other blogs is one of the oldest ways to get people to notice you.  Much like guest posting, readers will see your comments will notice your name / link, and then click on over to check you out.

Nevermind that pretty much all links on blog comments are nofollow.  It’s not so much an SEO gain as it is to just simply get the word out out to others in your niche that you exist and are active.  Do this enough every week and people will become curious.

5- Linking Back to Your Older Content

Have you ever been on Wikipedia and found yourself hoping from one page to the next and the next?

That’s the power of internal linking.  Every time you’re writing a new post and you’ve got something else that’s awesome and is worth sharing, you should find a way to incorporate it into your content.  Again – make your other work easier to find!

Keep in mind that this works both ways.  If you write a new post that would make a great resource on something you wrote previously, then go back and add it into the post.  I do this regularly now with every new blog post.  From a user perspective, it helps to keep the link flow circular.

Learn How to Start Your Own Blog

If blogging sounds like fun or the prospect of making money on the side interests you, then I encourage you to check out our complete guide for starting your own blog.  There you’ll find a TON of information from registering your domain to installing the right themes / plug-ins, writing, marketing, and ways to generate revenue.

Enjoy!

Thank You to the Readers

Again: I’ll take this opportunity to thank my readers.  Without you, this content would not exist.  It’s your continued attention and interaction that helps keep me motivated and writing week after week.  I’m eternally thankful for everyone who comes to this site, and it’s my wish that it provides some sort of value to everyone who reads it.

Thank you!

Featured images courtesy of Pexels and Pixabay

The post My Practical Advice for Writing Blog Content That Matters appeared first on My Money Design.

The site is called 1,000 Ways To Save, and by the time it matures, this site will literally be a collection of over one thousand different ways you can spend less and save more!

The idea behind this 1000 Ways To Save is to challenge the excuse that I often hear people hiding behind when it comes to money:  “Oh, I’d love to save more money towards [whatever goal], but you know … we’ve just got so many bills.  I couldn’t possibly save another dollar”.

Nonsense!  There are thousands of (if not more) ways that each of us could do a better job saving our money.  All it takes is a little ambition to find the right opportunities.

Saving our money better is something that clearly most people are struggling with right now.  To illustrate this point, Bankrate reports that 6 out of 10 Americans could not afford to cover a $500 to $1,000 emergency if one came up.  That’s very unfortunate when you consider that most emergencies (job loss, home repair, etc.) could set you back four or five figures easily.

From my personal experience, I can say that paying attention to your spending habits pays off big over time.  I’ve personally used many of the tips and suggestions that I’ll be throwing out there, and I credit them with helping us to be able to max out our 401(k), 403(b), and IRA’s every year.

Remember: By maxing out your 401(k) alone at $18,000 per year, that’s like keeping $4,500 for yourself as opposed to saving it in a taxable savings / investment account (assuming 25% taxes).

If someone told you that you could pocket an extra $4,500 per year, wouldn’t you want to try it?  I know I would.

What You’ll Find On 1000 Ways To Save

Every article on 1,000 Ways to Save will cover a new aspect of life and provide a list of creative ways where you could be saving more.

We’re going to talk about nearly everything that affects your daily life:

• Food
• Buying household items
• Driving
• Travel / Vacations
• Utilities
• Entertainment
• Clothes
• Mortgages
• Credit cards
• Your health
• Deals across multiple websites such as Amazon, Groupon Coupons, Ebay, etc.
• And so much more!

The goal of each new post will be to leave you with practical, actionable tips that you can really use.  In many respects, most of these tips will be geared towards enjoying the same sorts of things you already like – just finding a way to do them for less!

This idea gets back to one of the core themes I’ve come to understand about spending less …

Being Frugal Is About Getting the Most Amount of Value

One of the areas of personal finance where I feel blogging has helped me mature over the years is this idea of what it actually means to be “frugal”.

Being frugal does not have to mean being cheap.  That’s what I used to associate it with, and who wants to be known as cheap?

Being frugal also does not necessarily mean spending 50 hours a week cutting coupons or eating ramen noodles for every meal.

What I’ve come to better understand is that being frugal is actually about getting the most amount of value that you possibly can out of your purchases.  It’s not about always buying the cheapest option or even denying yourself the things you want.

In my own experience, I’ve made many purchases that I believe to be frugal whereas to others they may seem like luxuries.  Yet, when you take a closer look “under the hood”, you’d see what a good deal we got.

• We bought our new house at far below market / asking price.
• Our vacations to Florida and Mexico for the year were bought almost entirely using travel hacking thanks to credit card rewards points.
• The latest vehicle we bought was purchased only after aligning an opportunity where we were able to 1) talk down the sticker price (more than the dealership manager was comfortable), 2) getting the highest amount of trade-in value on our old vehicle, and 3) securing a loan with the best interest rate.

You see: Each of us has a different tolerance for what’s expensive or inexpensive.  Only I know what’s acceptable in my house.  And only you know what’s acceptable in yours.  Yet, somehow “frugal” has become twisted into thinking that you can only spend some pre-determined amount like $2,000 per month (or whatever).  And every time someone declares a lower, more extreme amount, we think that’s the new socially adequate norm.

I would argue that a person who lives on $10,000 per month may still be being frugal if they are 1) living within their means and 2) getting the best amount of value they can get for every purchase.

“Living within your means” is to say that you are meeting all of your financial goals.  For example, if you’d like to retire early and have determined that you need to save 25% of your income, then after you reach that 25% savings rate, I see no reason why you shouldn’t be able to enjoy the rest!

“Getting the most amount of value” is all about getting the same quality for less.  For example: If you wanted to buy new furniture for your house, then go ahead!  But before you do, be sure to do your research first.  Don’t just buy the first set you see.  Go to 3 stores and compare the quality versus price.  Do any of these stores run sales?  (Imagine that – a furniture store that runs a weekend sale?)  Can you negotiate with the salesman to get an additional discount applied?  Could they throw in free shipping?

In other words – be hungry to get yourself the best deal possible!

Behind the Scenes of 1000WaysToSave.com

The idea for 1000WaysToSave first came about while I writing my ebooks in 2016.  In one of them, I wanted to include a chapter with 101 ways to save more money.  But as I got writing it, I noticed that this list could be far more extensive than that if I really put in some effort.  And so I made a goal: Let’s try to get that list all the way up and over one thousand different ideas!

From there, a list was created.  Many of my work lunch-hours were spent adding idea after idea to this massive Excel list of every opportunity I could think of.  Sometimes I’d think of one at some strange time of the day and text or email myself.  It was kind of a fun challenge to see it at 200 or 300 ideas and say to myself: You’ve got to keep going!

With so much effort going into this list, I was originally going to groom it into its own stand-alone ebook.  However, I noticed there were already several ebooks on this topic (with one of them that seems to be permanently free).   And so I took things in a different direction …

Instead of an ebook, I decided developing the content into a website might be a better option.  There would be a higher chance that readers will find the articles organically.  Plus with any luck, we could grow a whole community of like-minded individuals sharing their ideas and tips in the comments.

In terms of structuring and marketing the website, some of the major points for me will be:

• Putting content first. My plan for each post is to write something that you’ll first and foremost actually enjoy reading.  I’m trying to include as many stories and examples as possible for each tip to keep you interested.  I’ll also link out to any other resource or article that I think could be of further use.
• Observe on-page SEO. Each post will use proper SEO structure such as the use of main keyword, latent semantic keywords, header tags, meta descriptions, etc.
• External linking strategy. I plan to promote this site by working with a number of other bloggers on guest post opportunities.  To date, I’ve already guest posted on 10+ websites this year and mentioned this website in some shape or form.  By the way: If you’d open to the possibility of me writing a guest post for you, then I’d love to hear about it.
• Internal linking.  Each post will contain a few relevant internal links to other posts within the site.  You can never under-estimate the power of good internal linking structure!
• Pinterest quality images. Part of the social media engagement for this site will be to use Pinterest.  To do so, I’ll be producing likeable featured images that will hopeful garner a few repins and shares from others.

So please: If you haven’t already, head on over to 1000WaysToSave.com and check it out!  Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions to make it better.  I’m always interested to hear what you have to say.

Featured image courtesy of 1000WaysToSave.com

The post Introducing My New Site: 1,000 Ways to Save appeared first on My Money Design.

But first … let’s go back to the beginning.

Originally I had created these niche sites as a way to dive into the world of Internet Entrepreneurship.  My goal was to use these websites to create multiple streams of passive income.  And for a while, it worked!  I was making a nice sum of money from the sites, and every month my progress seemed to be heading upward in the right direction.

That was until 2015 when I discovered I had cancer.  From that point on, everything changed.  My health became the top of my priority list, and blogging quickly feel by the wayside.

Fortunately I was able to beat cancer and make a lot of other positive changes in my life such as getting a new job, moving into a new house, continuing to take better care of myself, etc.  But again – blogging was low on the food-chain.  Hence my niche sites started to show signs of neglect.

This is when I first started that it might be time to sell my websites.  I figured the best way to do this was to reach out to the Empire Flippers and see what they could do, starting with niche site #1 (NS1).  But that unfortunately turned out to be a huge disaster.

Spooked by this negative experience, I decided to again set my niche sites aside until I could figure out a new plan of action.  And so they continued to sit and collect dust.

For most of 2016, I decided it was time to try something new.  I focused my energy into writing several personal finance ebooks.

While doing so, nothing new happened with my niche sites.  No new content was added, no new links were built, no guest posts on other blogs, etc.  The only actions I took were to perform just the general WordPress maintenance stuff like updating my plugins and reposting old articles to keep the site current.

All the while, I received a few random inquires about selling the websites.  Unfortunately, all of them turned out to be nothing.

Then … finally a real opportunity came along …

Selling My NS1 and NS2 Websites

This February, I was privately contacted by someone I had done some advertising with previously.  He was very interested in buying my websites, NS1 and NS2.

At first, I valued the sites at the typical 24-30x earnings.  However, that quickly proved to be well out of range for this potential buyer.  He made a counter-offer that was lower than I was comfortable with, and so I had a decision to make:

Do I hold out and get top dollar for these sites?   Am I ever really going to invest the time I need to make them great again?

I had to be real with myself and stop comparing this offer to the value they brought in during their heyday; as opposed to how they were presently performing.

After a few negotiations back and forth about the price, we finally agreed on a price that I was much more comfortable with: Selling them both for $11,500 USD total.  That was roughly 17 times their revenue in 2016.  All-in-all, not too bad!

Awesome!  I had went from never selling a website before to selling two of them at once!

Now the only question was: How exactly does one actually execute the sale of a website?  How do you safely collect payment and perform the transfer?

Securely Transferring the Payment

First, the question of the financial transaction …

I had read many negative things about using Paypal for website sales.  Unfortunately having been developed to suit a site like eBay, Paypal is great for Buyers.  But when it came to situations where the Seller needed protection, I had heard they were lacking in this department.  So I passed on them.

Next, I decided to take a look at a service called Escrow.com.  Many of the same forums that voicing concern about using Paypal for website sales were saying all kinds of great things about Escrow.  They said that they do a better job of mutually serving both the Buyer and Seller.  And they apparently had pretty decently low fees too.

There was just one problem … Google “Escrow.com reviews” and you’ll notice there are a ton of negative reviews.  Just have a look for yourself.

Despite this concern, I decided to go ahead with using them.

As it turns out, it was the right choice!

Everything about using their service was very professional, concise, and smooth.  The funds transferred in, and the money only moved out once both parties had agreed everything was satisfactory.  All it took was having some patience while the wire transfer completed.

As far as the fees, we were able to split the fees between Buyer and Seller.  This made only a small dent in my profits: $89.70.  That was less than 1% of my total revenue!

Transferring the Websites to the New Owner

For transferring the actual website files, I worked out a very accommodating deal with my hosting service Big Scoots to partition the two sites into their own account.  This new account was then handed over to the Buyer, and he would then have the option to buy hosting with Big Scoots (as low as $3.55 /month) or move the sites elsewhere.

The domain transfer was perhaps the easiest and yet most excruciating part of the process.  It turns out to transfer a domain, all you have to do is unlock it and give the unique code to the Buyer.  With this code, they can then initiate a transfer to their chosen domain service provider.  Simple!  Yet you have to have a lot of patience because it can take 5-10 days for the transfer to go through.  So there’s unfortunately a lot of twiddling your thumbs while waiting for things to finalize.

Final Thoughts and NS1-NS2 Revealed!

Overall, everything about this transfer was super-smooth!  A great experience!

So now that the two sites were sold, what were they?

NS1 was called IRA vs 401k Central.  It was a niche site devoted entirely to the two most prominent retirement plans in the U.S.: IRA’s and 401(k)’s.  At the time of its creation, it was a natural spin-off of MyMoneyDesign where we could do a more thorough, deep-dive into the technical aspects of these two savings tools.

NS2 was called Great Passive Income Ideas.  This niche site was a spin-off of the Passive Income Ideas page on My Money Design.  At one point, I had decided to re-write this page and make it more “epic”.  But when I was done with the re-write, I said to myself: Why not turn it into a whole new stand-alone website?  Thus Great Passive Income Ideas was born.

I am very proud to have created these two sites and was even more pleased to have seen them rise to popularity within the Google search ranks.  Both were on Page 1 of Google for their respective target keywords for quite some time!

However, priorities changed and I just couldn’t give these two sites the love and attention they continued to need.  So I am happy to see them sold to a great Buyer at a very reasonable price.

I’m On a Roll!  So How About Selling NS4 Also?

I must admit – selling NS1 and NS2 was a very exciting experience!  I got a little caught up in the moment and said to myself:

Why not go full-circle and try to sell NS4 (my Amazon-based site) while I’m at it?

Giving Flippa a Try

Without a Buyer in mind, I decided I would try my hand at the website auction site Flippa.

Despite all of the terrible and nasty things I had heard about Flippa over the years, something about using this site just seemed “logical”.  How can it be so awful when literally every non-private website sale I’ve ever read about happened through Flippa?

Again, as it turns out, selling my website through Flippa was an extremely positive experience!   Basically if you’ve ever sold anything on eBay, then you already know more-or-less how to use Flippa.  Everything about their service was simple and easy to use.  Flippa also had a free escrow service that gave you a discount on your commission if you elected to use it.

I wrote up a very honest and straight-to-the-point listing about NS4, and right away it seemed to get some attention.  I had a number of private messages from people trying to negotiate a “Buy It Now” price.

By default, Flippa makes you list the last 12 months of income, which averaged out to $39/month.  At a standard rate of 24X, this would have put my site at a value of $936.  But I knew it had a lot more potential than that, and I really wanted to sell it for $2,000.

One potential buyer in particular and I really got some good dialogue going, and ultimately I ended up selling it to him for a negotiated $1,750 USD.  You can read all about his experience at his write-up here.

If we only consider the last 12 month’s revenue, that’s an almost 45X valuation.  After Flippa’s commission of $210, this left me with a profit of $1,540.

Final Thoughts and NS4 Revealed

Again, I can’t say enough nice things about my experience all around.  The Buyer was great, Flippa was a breeze to use, and the escrow service went off without a hitch.

So what was NS4?  It was my first non-personal finance website called My First Axe.  (Why “axe”?  For those of you who don’t know, “axe” was a popular slang term for a guitar back in the 70’s British rock band days.)

As many of you know, one of my big hobbies since I was a teenager was to play the guitar (you can read a fun guest post I wrote about this over at Budgets Are Sexy).

My First Axe was going to be an Amazon-based review site for entry level guitars (based off of the Niche Pursuits Niche Site projects).  The main page was a comparison of all the best guitars under $500.  Each supporting article targeted a different keyword and was a review of different guitars and gear.  The site was monetized entirely from commissions from Amazon Associates.

For a while, MyFirstAxe was ranking very well on Page 1 of Google for the main keyword and made almost $500 in just one month around Christmas.  But I quickly got discouraged with the project when I discovered it’s a lot harder to do SEO for a non-personal finance niche website.

Again, I’m happy the site is now in the hands of someone who will do more with it than I was going to.

What About NS3?

In case you’re wondering what ever happened to NS3, quite simply: … It died …

The site was called No Exam Life Insurance Guide.

I’ll be the first to tell you – it wasn’t my best work …

At the time of its creation, I had discovered a whole cluster of keywords within the “no exam life insurance” niche and said to myself: I should create a niche site about it!

Live and learn …

As it turns out, that ended up not being a very good idea.  For one thing, the competition among insurance-based websites is fierce!  More importantly, my heart just simply wasn’t into the project.  “Life Insurance” is just not something as near and dear to my heart as retirement planning, passive income, and playing the guitar.

Needless to say, I quickly became bored of the subject matter and lacked the ambition to create any new content let alone promote the site.

Eventually I ended up taking down all the content and setting the domain renewal to “manual” so that it can lapse when the time comes.

Why not sell it?

I had thought about this for a second but then said “nah”.  The content, rankings, and link profile were all so poor that it would have likely fetched almost nothing for the hassle.

All in all, I consider my experience with NS3 a great reminder of what “not to do”.  If you’re going to start a project, no matter how financially lucrative it might be, make sure it’s something you’re actually into and can enjoy.

Closing Thoughts

So after all of this, what it all worth it?

Absolutely!  Creating these niche sites was a great, fun experience.  I not only learned a lot about blogging and SEO in general, but I also in trying to grow and nurture a business from the ground up.  Plus I think it’s really cool that I was able to create something from nothing and turn it into something tangible with actual value.

So will there ever be another niche site?

Of course there will be!

To be honest, I’ve actually created a number of other websites over the years.  (I’ve just never really talked about them publicly.)

Just this last November, I started another new website that I’m very excited about.  I’ll have another post about this project soon.

For now, I’m happy to take my earnings and replenish our emergency fund.  This will allow me to focus on my other ambitions; most importantly building up MyMoneyDesign as reputable brand.

If any of this inspires you to want to know more about building money-making websites, then please check out our complete “how-to” guide for getting started.

Readers – How many of you have sold a website?  Who did you use for the money and website transfers?  What were your experiences like?

Featured image courtesy of Flickr

The post Niche Website Update 38 – How I Sold My Websites appeared first on My Money Design.

Don’t get me wrong … the extra money is great!  But if you’re accustomed to the simple process of doing your taxes on your own, things are about to change!

Not only will you have some fun, new IRS forms and worksheets to fill out, you’ll also have some new taxes you owe or – worse – penalties to pay!  But on the bright side there will also be some new, pretty good opportunities for you to dodge some of those taxes and save even more for retirement than you were before.

I know it’s not just me that has had some questions about how exactly you’re suppose to handle your online income when it comes to your taxes.  The reason I know this is because I’ve received a wonderful suggestion for my friend ARB over at Angry Retail Banker to write a blog post about how I’ve been dealing with this new reality for the past few years.

Well, I’m no tax expert (and certainly not a tax professional).  But for my own personal situation, I do work with a professional tax advisor and can share a few tips or two for someone looking to figure out what steps to take next.

To LLC or Not?

One of the first questions ARB wanted to know was whether or not I had ever took action to form an LLC for my online business.

The short answer is “no”, I haven’t.

I’ve thought long and hard about that same question.  I’ve done quite a bit of research and got advice from a number of pros in the business.  And, to sum it up, quite frankly they all tell me the same thing: From a financial perspective, there really isn’t a whole lot of benefit.

Now, that’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with an LLC.  But you have to remember – an LLC is designed protect you in legal matters.  If you believe you will ever be sued or accused of something, then an LLC will really help.  In my case, the sad reality is that I am a semi-anonymous blogger with a pretty low audience.  I don’t really produce anything or sell any products, and I don’t provide any tangible services.

Also, when I write articles, they are they don’t really contain anything any specific investment advice. Usually they are mostly generalizations about good (or sometimes bad) experiences that I have had, and I’m always very careful to mention that what worked for me may not work for everyone.  And if that’s not enough, there’s also a giant disclaimer at the bottom of every single one of my websites that appears on every page. So all-in-all, my risks are pretty low.

I’m sure at some point if I ever end up actually doing financial coaching, speaking events, and working one-on-one with people on a regular basis, then perhaps that would be the right time to form an LLC.  But for now, I feel I’m good.

I don’t exactly have anything against forming an LLC, it’s just at the moment every professional that I’ve talked to has said I’m not really in a spot where I need one exactly.

Separate Accounts?

Okay, so no LLC.  But what about the money itself?  Should you open a separate bank account? Should you keep your online earnings separate from your other personal finances?

Again, it doesn’t really matter.  It’s all in how you report your money.

To be honest, I have never really done much in the way of separating my business income from my regular finances.  I simply let all of our income filter into my PayPal account (since that’s where most of it comes to anyways), and then from there, I transfer it into my regular accounts.

One thing I could do a better job of is to filter the money into my investment accounts.  I unfortunately find myself sometimes needing that money for everyday things like splurges or big-ticket purchases around the house. Hey, I’m only human, right?

Watch Out for Tax Penalties!  Make Early Payments

One thing you do have to be very mindful of is that now if you have online income coming in, that money has NOT yet been taxed. That’s a lot different than when you work at your job and the taxes are just taken out automatically.

Here’s the kicker: If you make too much money on the side (that doesn’t get taxed throughout the year like your employment income), then the IRS will penalize you because you paid too little into your taxes for the year.

I know … I found out the hard way!

The solution: You have to make “early payments” into the IRS throughout the year so that you don’t risk paying too little into the system.

Although that sounds like a pain, again, you’re already basically doing this with your employment check anyways.  The difference is that the responsibility is on you to figure out how much and what to do.

Fortunately, there is an easy way to handle this. And again, it’s working with a real tax professional (versus trying to do it yourself and screwing it all up).

Every year, my tax professional and I calculate how much I estimate to make throughout the year, and then he sets up how much extra I need to pay into my taxes for the year so that I don’t risk any penalties.

If I end up paying too much in, no big deal!  I just simply get a refund for the year.  If I make more money than I anticipated, then we can adjust one of my quarterly payments to cover it.  Either way, I’m covered!

The Incredible SEP IRA

One of the best things of course with working with the tax professional is that you get to find out all the little tricks there are when it comes to filing your online income as a business.

By far and large, my favorite trick to use (that is also perfectly legal) is taking a portion of my online income and paying myself a SEP IRA for retirement.

For anyone who wants to know a lot more about what us up areas, you can read about it on my post here.  Basically, a SEP IRA is money you got to pay to yourself as an employer (since online income is technically self employment income) for the purpose of retirement, just like how your employer would to a 401(k) or other plan.

From a practical standpoint, what that means is that you can effectively lower the amount of taxes you have to pay for the year and save more for retirement! That’s a huge win-win for you!

By doing this over the last three years, I’ve been able to save anywhere I’ve been able to save an extra $3,000 to $4000 each year.  And that’s on top of what I’m already saving in my 401(k), 403(b), and other IRA’s.

Keep in mind that’s $3,000 to $4,000 that I did NOT have to pay taxes on. And at my effective tax rate, that means I save myself paying the IRS almost $1,000 each time. So, I get to save money and not have to pay taxes? Sign me up!

You’re a Business – Track Your Finances Like One!

In order for you and your tax professional to have the absolute best chance of success, I strongly, strongly encourage you to keep accurate records of every transaction that happens with your online income throughout the year.  You don’t need anything fancy.  Just a simple ledger in MS Excel will do fine.

Every time you receive affiliate income or someone pays you in Paypal for a post, write it down.  Every time you hire a freelancer or renew your domain, write it down. What your accountant will be looking for at the end of the year as a summary of all the expenses and all the sources of income that you had throughout the year. As a professional, they have a legal responsibility to make sure that what you’re claiming and what the representing is true and honest. So the easier you make that on them by doing your work throughout the year and keeping an extremely accurate book of records, the better the two of you will be.

Conclusions

As I mentioned, I’m sure that at some point in the future I will rethink and probably act on forming an LLC. There is absolutely nothing wrong with setting one up, and have a legal standpoint, it probably is a smarter way to go. However at this level of my on my blog and business development, it’s not a make it or break it type thing.

As long as you can keep good accurate records of your business transactions, and are willing to shell out the money for a good tax professional advice, then you should have absolutely no worries about how to handle your online income.

I highly, highly encourage anyone that has the ability to take advantage of the SEP IRA. I can’t stress this enough, you get to pay yourself instead of the IRS. Save more money, and pay less taxes. I’m not sure how much better it gets than this!

Readers, how do you handle your own my business and come when it comes time for taxes? What advice would you give to newer bloggers who are starting to make a little bit of money, and need help figuring out how to best handle it?

Featured image courtesy of Flickr | Neubie

The post Online Income and Taxes – How to Be Prepared appeared first on My Money Design.

I want to break from my traditional format for this post to discuss my future intentions with niche site development.  After this post, I’ll be relaxing how often I publish these updates, and for good reason.

I must confess that since last year, there has been a small leak in my ambition for this project.  I have not really had the same ferocity that I previously set forth with my niche site collection.

I enjoy thinking them up.  I enjoy writing and creating them.  I enjoy building them.  I really enjoy the revenue.  But then, it seems, I hit a wall.  I very big brick wall.

Throughout 2015 for these niche sites, I noticed month after month that income was down, rankings were slipping, and each of them just wasn’t going in the direction I had hoped.  And all of this despite my best efforts to revive them with new strategies, fresh content, new links, new themes, a new “feel”, etc.

In business, all products have a life-cycle.  The record player gets replaced with tapes, which then gets replaced with CD’s, then mp3’s, then steaming, etc.  Perhaps these websites have simply outlived their utility.  Perhaps all the visitors that ever came to them digested the content and then moved on in search of the next best thing.  What’s significant on the Internet today is much, much shorter than we realize, and to stay in that position it’s a constant struggle.

To be it bluntly, I’ve been feeling like when it comes to where to go next with these sites, I’m simply spinning my wheels; like I’m running faster and harder on a treadmill, ultimately going nowhere.  That’s not really fair or of any value to my readers.  Readers deserve to find the answers to questions they are looking for.  And for that reason, I’ll be happy to write another one of these updates as soon as I have something useful to you to digest.

At the present, my interests now lie with new projects.  As I mentioned in this post here, there are some topics that I feel very passionate about and would like to explore further; whether that be as a new website, ebooks, or some combination of both!  The spark to create isn’t dead, it’s just taking a new form.

My Misadventures with Empire Flippers

I do have one major event with my niche sites that I have to address before these updates go on hiatus.  In my last update, I gave the big news that I was in the process of working with the Empire Flippers to sell niche website #1 (NS1).

How can I sum up the experience?

…  disappointing!

I know, right?  This was completely unexpected after years of following the Empire Flippers blog and having so much respect for them.

So why this conclusion?  To sum it up: After 4 weeks of messing around with their agents, I was abruptly dropped as a client and left right back at square 1 where I started.

Here’s the whole story:

From my very first email with the Empire Flippers, I had one very important concern in mind:

If I sold NS1, how would this affect my current and future personal finance productions?

Often in website sales, the buyer will ask for a non-compete agreement with the seller so that the seller doesn’t go creating a copy-cat website that will contend with the site they just sold.

NS1 is a website in the retirement planning niche.  As you already know from reading this website (or my ebooks), writing about personal finance and early retirement is kinda my thing.   I certainly did NOT want to put myself in a position where I would no longer be able to write and publish content in this field.  Therefore, I had no intentions of signing a non-compete clause.

Empire Flippers assured me this would not be a problem.

And so I proceeded to have my website listed.

Things seemed to be going smoothly from there.  The listing agent and I agreed on a price, and I asked (several times) to please be allowed to see the final listing text before it went live to the potential buyers.  My goal was to, again, make sure that there was some language in there about my other websites, my future writing intentions, and the fact that I would not be willing to sign a non-compete clause.

There appeared to be delay after delay with Empire Flippers showing me the listing.  I would ask, and then be told that we’ll “get to it next week”.   I had to start writing some very assertive emails to them expressing my position, and that caused the listing agent to contact me directly by phone.

When the two of us spoke, I again expressed my concern about my other websites, my future plans for more personal finance writing, and the fact that I would not want to sign a non-compete.  I was assured everything was understood, told I would see the listing before it went live, and that everything would be okay.

… It wasn’t …

Afterwards, the listing went live without my approval.  NS1 sold within a few days, and guess what I promptly received?

An email from Empire Flippers asking me to sign a non-compete!

Now my blood was boiling.  Here I had been nothing but forthcoming and honest about them about my other websites and intentions, and somehow they managed to make a huge mess of it.   I wrote a pretty strong email them referencing my past communications and re-affirming my refusal to not sign the non-compete.

Again I was contacted by phone by the listing agent.  He acknowledged that this mistake and all the miscommunication was to the fault of Empire Flippers, and together we worked out some solutions where we could potentially move forward with the sale and not sign a non-compete.

At the end of the phone call, I felt good.  I felt like maybe there was still some sliver of a chance that we could end this story with a positive outcome.

… Boy, was I wrong …

The next day I abruptly received this email.

… “can’t make exceptions to this rule”?  What rule?  Since when is this a rule?  Again, this whole time, I had been very clear about my intentions, other websites, and plans to create more websites / eBooks in the future within this niche.  If there was ever a “rule”, why in the world then was the listing ever allowed to take place?

Needless to say, I was very disappointed.  I had now messed around with Empire Flippers for several weeks only to find myself right back at where I started, empty-handed.

The only silver lining: They did refund my initial $297 deposit.  This would have been a very different post if they hadn’t.

So where does all of this leave us?

I tend to look at things from a “maybe this is for the better” perspective.  Perhaps now is the wrong time to sell NS1, and maybe it’s for the best that I hold on to it for a little while longer.  I, of course, will appreciate the extra income and link power that the website generates, and maybe in a few months I can again try to sell the site through another platform.

I would also like to conclude by saying I still have a great amount of respect for the Empire Flippers business.  Over the years they have created something that I’m sure a lot of us would love to have.  I truly believe that the misfortunes I experienced were probably due to the isolated actions of a few individuals rather than a reflection of the business as a whole.

Featured image courtesy of Flickr – Next TwentyEight

The post Niche Website Update 37 appeared first on My Money Design.

Every month, I detail what actions I’m taking to develop this portfolio of websites and what kinds of revenue and expenses come with it.  The goal of these websites is to supplement my regular employment income with multiple streams of passive income; money that I can earn while I’m at work or asleep without me having to interact.

This month I’ve been taking some serious steps to close the chapter on one of my biggest niche websites.  Not only will the immediate income be great, but I’m also very interested to learn more about how buying/selling websites actually works, and what steps you should be taking as you develop the website to best position it for a future sale.

And so with that, here is what happened in November.

Niche Website Income Report – November 2015

Here is my income and expense report for the month:

Income Breakdown:

Here’s a closer look at my income sources for the month:

• Amazon = $155
• Clickbank = $274
• Google Adsense = $238
• Web Hosting = $0
• Personal Capital = $0
• Private Advertising = $0

Expenses:

None to report this month!

Putting NS1 up for Sale!

Just like I was teasing above and mentioned at the end of last month’s update, the big news for this month is that I’ve been taking steps to put NS1 up for sale.  Though it’s not officially listed yet, I’m pretty far into the process and it won’t be long now.

Why sell this website?

Why am I selling a website that I’ve been developing for the past 3 years?

For a lot of reasons:

Like the California gold rush of the pioneer days, I still believe that when it comes to websites, there is still “a lot of gold in the hills” to be found.  Translation: Websites are still relatively new, and you can still make a lot of fast and easy money simply by building, owning, and selling them.

BUT … I’ve always been skeptical about how long this will last.  I remember back in 2011 when I first started blogging, there were a lot of “glory stories” about bloggers like JD Roth from Get Rich Slowly who had sold their websites for SUBSTAINTAL amounts of money (some of them in the seven figure range!  Just check out this list and it will make your jaw drop!

However, lately, you just don’t really hear about that as much anymore.  Perhaps investors have turned to other forms of marketing or maybe those valuations were bloated.  At either rate, the value and opportunity for a lucrative sale at the level of website I’m capable of building seems to be dwindling down each year.

So then, I have to ask myself (realistically):  How long is this gravy train going to last?

Would I be a lot smarter to “cash in my chips” right now while the getting is good, as opposed to waiting it out and potentially seeing my website dwindle down to next to nothing in value?

What about the draw and significance of the website itself?

Every day Google changes who ranks first and who ranks last.  So even though NS1 has been on the first page of Google for a long time, how long it’s not?  (How long before ANY of the websites I’ve built are no longer on the first page of Google anymore?)  What happens when the traffic drops to less than 1,000 visitors per month?  When the revenue drops below $100 per month?

Again, if I truly feel I’m at the peak (or even the tail end of the peak) for my journey with this website, then wouldn’t it be better to capture 18-30 months worth of income right now in one big up-front payment rather than to gamble and possibly have $0 in revenue in 12 months?

Accepting that this website may have peaked (in terms of what I can do with it) has been one of the most frustrating things about this decision and the journey overall.  No one likes to admit a failure or that they don’t know what to do next.  Yet, when I look at the stats for the site and all the attempts I’ve made over the past 12 months to resuscitate the website, the opportunity for me simply isn’t there.

Like I mentioned in my “should I write an ebook or start a new website” post, at this point I’d like to instead invest my time and energy into a new project, and start with a clean slate (lots more to come on that project as I develop it).

Perhaps the site would be in much better hands of someone that was able to invigorate it with new content, new backlinks, and new opportunities.

Plus, let’s be real … getting a nice up-front chunk of change is always nice!

Selling a Website:

So how does one sell a website?

I’ve been looking around the Internet and considered a couple of different options.  Flippa is probably the biggest option; but there are a lot of challenges to using a platform like that.

Instead, I’ve been talking with the folks over at the Empire Flippers.

When the process is complete, I plan to write a review about my whole experience.  But for now, here’s a few details as to “why” and how it’s going:

In case you’ve never heard of them, the Empire Flippers is a group that used to build niche websites.  But eventually they found that they had a much more profitable business model selling them.  So they sold their niche website inventory and started brokering websites for other people too.

Unlike Flippa, they do a complete “vetting” of a website before it gets listed to make sure it’s legitimate (and not a scam).  This is a big problem with websites on Flippa.  By doing this , the shoppers on Empire Builders have more trust in their listings, and therefore they can command a much higher price for the site.

Now, here’s the part that stings: They charge a $297 listing fee AND take 15% of the sale price for commission.  But, when you consider that they might get you 6 to 12 times more in sale price for your site than if you tried to sell it on your own, it might be a cost well worth paying.

Plus they are full service.  Empire Flippers will put together all the documentation that buyers are looking for (revenue statements, screen shots, etc).  AND they will also handle the migration of the website.  That’s actually a big benefit for me, since I have no idea how to do this myself.

After the listing goes live and the website sells, I’m sure I’ll have a lot more details to share.  So until then, wish me luck!

Readers – When did you know it was time to close the chapter on one of your website projects?  Did you end up selling the site?  Why or why not?  How many of you have sold a website either through Flippa or Empire Flippers?

Featured image courtesy of Dylan Meconis | Flickr

The post Niche Website Income Report 36 – $667 for November 2015 appeared first on My Money Design.

Both opportunities present some benefits as well as challenges.  I’ve always wanted to be an author and well-respected figure associated with personal finance, and so having yet another ebook in my portfolio can help me with this.

But then creating websites is something that has, without a doubt, put money back into my pocket month after month.  I’ve been able to do this with some degree of success, and so to add yet another one to my collection would only increase my chances for success even more.

Believe me … if I had the time, I would probably take them both on.

But I probably don’t have to tell you – time is a pretty scarce asset.  And the last thing I want to do is invest a whole lot of time on something that doesn’t payout well in the end.

With that said, here are my arguments for and against both projects.

Writing a New Ebook

Earlier this year, I finally became an official author on the Amazon Kindle digital bookstore.

Writing ebooks was something that I’ve read a lot about throughout the years as being a very lucrative passive income opportunity, with the potential to make tens of thousands of dollars every month!    Just check out this one here.

All that for writing a few 50-100 page books?  Sign me up!

And so I did – not once, but twice this year with the release of Save Better and Save More, Earn More.

Motivation:

Writing ebooks for profit was not really my only motivation.  My true intentions actually go back a lot further.

I cannot tell you enough how much books have helped me on my journey to financial freedom.

Ever since my early 20’s, I’ve found a lot of great enthusiasm and motivation from reading the success stories of people who’ve “made it” and the wisdom they’ve shared through printed word (or digital now … I guess).

As a matter of fact, part of the motivation for starting My Money Design all those years ago was that I hoped it would lead to some sort of book deal eventually.  How great would it be to walk into a book store and see my name on the side of a book or two with my name on it up on the shelves for future savers to learn from?

The Problem:

But the times they are a changin’ (to quote Bob Dylan) …

With the advent of ebooks, now ANYONE can write an ebook.  This is both a good and bad thing.

It was a good thing because a person like myself who has quite a bit of knowledge about personal finance and retirement planning can bypass big-time publishers and put a quality book out there that I truly believe will help people, and I can do it with literally no obstacles in my way.

The bad thing – every hack from every part of the world can scrape together some words that they found off the internet and Frankenstein them into a meatless 20 page book with a fancy book cover and 100 fake positive Amazon reviews.

I speak from experience … I cannot tell you how many simply-awful ebooks I’ve downloaded from Amazon that weren’t even worth the keystroke it took to down load it.  One of them was so bad I had this review to write afterwards …

And that’s exactly the problem.

With all those garbage ebooks out there, my two books have unfortunately been lost in an over-crowded marketplace and are getting maybe one download per month if I’m lucky.  To date, I think I’ve made probably less than $100 total from my ebook sales.

So much for passive income!

Don’t Give Up!

NOW, in fairness, I attribute part of my failure thus far to the fact that I only have two books out there.  If you follow anything by Steve Scott or other ebook authors, they have often said that you don’t get rich writing one book, you get rich from offering a whole portfolio of ebooks.

Perhaps I’m giving up too early!  If I was up to 5 or even 10 ebooks, maybe I would start to see some of this mystical revenue actually roll in.

But before I launch into writing yet another one, I have to objectively ask myself: Is it worth it?  Writing is a fun process.  But it’s not very fulfilling if no one ever reads your work.  AND its especially a punch to the face if you made $0 in return for your efforts.

And that brings me to my next point …

Creating a New Website

Anyone who has read my monthly income reports knows that I’ve had some positive success with building websites.

Though I’m no Pat Flynn, I have been able to create some regular affiliate revenue, get on the first page of Google for my main target keyword, rank some more articles for a few select supporting keywords, and attract an audience.

I attribute a lot of this success to the fact that I used each of my niche websites as a training grounds and opportunity to experimentation.  I’ve been able to find out what content ranks well, which ones don’t, what SEO tactics to try, who to listen to, who’s full of it, and so on.

The Itch to Try Something New:

Like I mentioned in my last Niche Website update, I’m starting to reach a point where I’m not sure how to mature some of my websites any further beyond the point where they are already.  This is mostly due to some fundamental mistakes I made in the beginning as far as site structure, content, keyword selection, and so on.  If it wasn’t such an overhaul, I’d love to go back and re-write almost every post on a few of the sites using the knowledge I know today.

SO … why not then start a brand new site?  Something that encompasses all the lessons learned to date.

And what better way to do this then to use all the content and material I was going to write anyways IF I choose to write an ebook?

With a website, I have a lot more confidence that people will actually be able to find my material, read it, appreciate it, and learn something useful.

And on the business side of things, I’m very confident a new website could generate a few hundred extra dollars per month (just like most of my other websites have done for me thus far).

The Problem:

The only issue with starting a new website is that much like the whole ebook thing websites are becoming a crowded space as well.

It used to be a lot easier to rank for certain keywords, but not so much anyone.  For practically every phrase you can think, you pretty much have major competition from the likes of Forbes, CNN, and dozens of other high authority websites that are just dominating all the major high traffic words.

Why is that?  Because Google is starting to favor these ultra high corporate websites more and more with every algorithm update.  (… probably nothing to do with advertising relationships …)

So while I have had some success with ranking pages, I have to ask myself: How long will my tricks continue to work?  How long until home-made websites like the kind you and I make are things of the past and rubbed out by major corporate content generation machines?

What to Do?

So there you can see my dilemma.

I could possibly continue to perpetuate my fantasy of being a personal finance author and continue to expand my portfolio of ebooks.  By having more ebooks to offer, I might actually turn a new leaf and start seeing more sales.

Or they could continue to fall flat, generate absolutely no revenue at all, and never be read by anyone ever.

On the other hand, I could create yet another website.  I’ve had some success in this area that I’m sure I could recreate in this new project.  But with the way Google has been transforming and favoring major corporate websites, I might have more challenges ahead of me than I realize.

Readers – What project would you take on – Writing a new ebook or creating a new website?

Featured image courtesy of nerovlvo | Flickr

The post Should I Write a New Ebook or Start Another Website? appeared first on My Money Design.

Blogging has been one of my favorite ways to earn some money on side while I work at a full time job.  These niche site updates are my way of sharing with you what’s been going on, what’s been working, and what hasn’t.  Ultimately, my goal is to take in as much revenue as possible so that we can achieve financial freedom as quickly as possible.

This month I spent almost 100% of my time working with niche site #2 (NS2).  I published 7 new pieces of strategic content as well as working on some of things like internal backlinking and site speed which I believe will help rank my content better over the long term.

And, I may be making a very BIG decision about the future of NS1.  More on this below.

But first, let’s see how our income was for October.

Niche Website Income Report – October 2015

Here is my income and expense report for the month:

Income Breakdown:

Here’s a closer look at my income sources for the month:

• Amazon = $34
• Clickbank = $168
• Google Adsense = $235
• Web Hosting = $0
• Personal Capital = $0
• Private Advertising = $225

Expenses:

None to report this month!

More New Content for NS2:

In keeping with my latest initiative to really hype-up niche site 2 (NS2) and turn it into a bigger money-maker, I’ve been concentrating on creating new content that satisfies two main objectives:

1. The subject has to fit the main purpose of the site.

In other words, the new content has to be a page that will support something either from the main page or enhance another related post.  For example: If I write a post about why I like a certain affiliate program, then a supporting post might be about strategic ways to promote that affiliate program.

Although that may sound obvious, writing content in this way will help build links (which I’ll talk more about below).

2. It has to target a very low competition keyword.

This is a fairly stand-by SEO strategy that I was delightfully reminded on in a recent Niche Pursuits post.   Spencer was sharing six examples of sites he’s created with long tail keywords and their success, and #2 caught my attention.

In case #2, Spencer demonstrated how he was writing content around target keywords that were getting as little as 70 searches per month but had a Long Tail Pro keyword competitiveness score (KC) in the 20’s (meaning there was hardly any competition for that word).

This was in direct contrast to the RankXL approach of going after high volume keywords and somewhat ignoring the KC score.  If you remember a few months back, I was all geeked-up about RankXL’s approach after having a look at the massive monthly income he was pulling in from his Adsense site.  However, when I tried to replicate the same strategy on NS2, it simply wasn’t working.

Though it’s a little early to tell, I know from previous experience that this “lower volume, low competition” approach does work, and I’m willing to bet that it will give me a better edge over time.

All in all, I’ve added X new pieces of content to the site bringing it up to a respectable +70 pages of content.  From most of the niche site authors I read, 75 to 100 pages of content (or more) seems to be just the right size to start achieving income levels of +$1,000 per month.

Other Improvements: 

Adding new content wasn’t the only thing I began working on to try to make NS2 better.  Two other things I tried were:

1. To improve the site speed.
2. To boost internal linking.

Improving Site Speed: 

Improving site speed is something Chris from Rank XL and Matthew Allen from Dumb Passive Income have been really big on promoting … and for good reason!

As you can probably guess, the length of time it takes for a webpage to load is one of the many factors Google considers when they decide where your page should rank (for a comprehensive list, see Backlinko’s Google’s 200 Ranking factors post).

Makes sense, right?  No one is going to use Google if the top pages it recommends take forever to load!  All things the same, Google wants pages that load as quickly as possible.

So from a web builder perspective, making your website load faster = better rankings = potentially more traffic = more $.

Both Rank XL and Dumb Passive Income really turned me on to a plugin called CloudFlare that works to help load your page much faster.  I’m not even going to attempt to explain CloudFlare myself; do yourself a favor and read the Rank XL article here.

In addition to using this plugin, Matt from Dumb Passive Income also gave a whole bunch of really good suggestions for other plugins that can additionally help reduce your page load time.

Better Internal Linking:

Internal linking is something that lots of webmasters like Neil Patel from Quick Sprout really promote often.

The benefit of internal backlinking is that you use the authority of your older pages to give a boost to your newer pages.  Since you control all the links, it’s extremely easy and gives you the ability to choose what kind of anchor text you wish.

Since Google values links and anchor text, you’re giving yourself a better chance at ranking higher = potentially more traffic = more $!

In addition to that, internal linking also creates a better user experience for your readers because it makes it extremely easy and enticing for them to visit other pages on the site.  And as we know, the more pages and time a reader spends on your site, the better your site will rank in Google.

Rank XL just had an awesome post on how Wikipedia is the prime example of internal backlinking, and why it dominates the top ranking search position for just about every subject imaginable.  Do yourself a favor and read the whole post here.  There’s definitely a lot to learn from such a simple strategy!

Selling One of My Niche Sites?

On a different note, one of the things I’ve been giving some very serious thought to is selling one of my niche sites; particularly NS1.

Ever since the very beginning of my blogging career, I think I’ve always secretly had this fantasy that someone was going to come along and offer me a million dollars for one of my websites.  Though that may sound completely insane, at the time it was a reality for websites like Get Rich Slowly and The Simple Dollar (see a whole list of others here).

While I’ve since come back down to Earth and have much more realistic expectations now, I do still feel this is another avenue for earning an income that I should take advantage of.

Not only do I like the sound of an up-front guaranteed payment, I have a feeling that seeing what potential buyers do / don’t like about a website you’ve created will help me shape the way I create them in the future.  For example, from just the brief little bit of research I’ve done already, I can already tell you that one major misstep on my part was NOT having a name collector and building an email list for the site.  Buyers like it when they can acquire a site with a ready-to-go list of people who are strong candidates for a new product they may wish to promote.

I will be totally honest and tell you that another part of my wanting to sell a site has to do with a run-off of ambition to keep it going any further.  With NS1, I’ve done just about all that I know how to do, and I’m not completely sure where I can take it next OR even if I’m the right person to take it to the next level.  Right now my mind is convinced that if I were to start a similar project but incorporate all of the lessons learned to date, then I might have a much better chance of getting my material to rank.

Readers – How many of you have had an opportunity to sell a website?  How did you go about it and what was your experience like?

Featured image courtesy of Robin Hamman | Flickr

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