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2k/month before I finish school

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Gerrald

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Hi all,

I'm reading here for a few days now, I've read very good threads, I did not read them all yet;)

For more information about my background, please read my introduction first (Introduction - 20 year old from The Netherlands).

Short story:
I'm a 20-year-old from The Netherlands, currently at college studying education called "Small Business and Retailmanagement". I learn things about all components from a company, so buying, selling, marketing, business models etc.

In highschool, I 'discovered' affiliate marketing and started some affiliate niche websites, after some trial and error I have some websites that make me some money. I want to discuss them and give some more information per website:

Website A:
- Topic: special vacuum cleaner
- Started in March 2015
- Last 5 months, €152/month on average
- Low search volume, low scalability
- Ranks #5 for main keyword

Website B:
- Topic: special vacuum cleaner
- Started in March 2015
- Last 5 months, €47/month on average
- Low search volume, low scalability
- Ranks #1 for main keyword

Website C:
- Topic: motor-assisted bicycle
- Started in June 2014
- First website that I didn't quit because it didn't make money
- Makes about €50-100/month with insurances
- High hobby content, low potential

Website D:
- Topic: Numatic vacuum cleaners
- Started in March 2016
- Last 5 months, €21,19 on average
- Note, starting website, does not rank very well yet
- Average search volume
- Can become a vacuum cleaner authority

Website E:
- Topic: DIY-tools (electric saws)
- Started in August 2015
- Last 5 months, €220 on average
- Last month €503 revenue
- Ranks top 5 for (5) main keywords
- Good search volume, some potential

Website F:
- Topic: Coffee
- Started in May 2016
- Last 5 months, €24 on average
- Last month €77 revenue
- Major search volume
- High potential, big search volume, lots of products and stuff to write about, can be a coffee authority

So that are the websites I currently own.
You can see I went from a hobby website, to two websites about 1 type of product, to several products, to a wide subject with high potential.

My vision is that much webshops have a sales pitch for each product.
On my website I write objective reviews with benefits ánd disadvantages.
I help my visitors to find a product that fits their needs. (need)

I hope to graduate in June 2018.
By that time I would like to make 2k/month with my websites.
Why 2k? Because my starting salary after college is about 2k/month.
I can reinvest that money and later travel the world, look my future children growing up instead of daddy is always working etc.
I don't want to work for a boss for 40 years straight.

I found out that each article/text on my website makes about €5-10/month (let's say €7) on average.
It is on average because some articles don't make money, but they do attract visitors who buy products from other articles etc.
That amount is after six months with some good promotion.

At the moment I have about 150 articles on my websites, but much of them are on my coffeewebsite that isn't promoted good yet.

So to make 2k/month by June 2018 I need to have 2k/7 = about 285 articles online at the 31 december 2017.

In the beginning I wrote the articles myself, since July 2016 I outsource the writing because I don't enjoy it very much.
Every euro I earn, I invest back into new articles.

At this moment I publish around 4 articles per week at website F and one per week at website E.
285 articles (first goal) - 150 (already online) = 135 articles to go.
135 articles / 5 articles = 27 weeks.

If I keep publishing at this speed I will reach the 285 articles in 27 weeks. Then I can publish the same amount of content and focus more on promoting the content instead of creating new.

I have some other goals after 2k/month:
- €100/day (3k/month)
- 5k/month
- 10k/month

My weak points are:
- Talk, read and image about a future with 10k/month too much instead of working for it.
- Compare too much to others. (in my journey I let my website just run and tried PPV for a few months because I saw people were making 1k/day with it (event?) while I made about 200/month, I have stopped with that because it requires much maintain work and I didn't think I helped the people with the offers I promoted)
- Let my actions depend on the money I earned that day. (If I make €50-100 on a day I'm very motivated and work much, but If I make €0 I'm sometimes demotivated and don't do any work at all.
That makes no sense because the amount of money I make today does not depend on the work I do today, but on the work I did a year ago.)
- Focus too much on making money for myself instead of focussing on helping other people.

Why am I starting a progress thread?
- Other progress threads inspired me, so I hope to inspire some other people
- I keep in touch with people with the right mindset
- I've noticed I do more work when I post it somewhere.

It was a very long post and I don't know if anybody is going to read this but however.

I'll look how often I'm going to update this thread.

I want to do some income reports monthly and maybe an update once a week or once in two weeks.

*I'm aware of what I'm currently doing isn't completely Fastlane, because I don't have full control, but at this moment due to college I have limited time and this is the most Fastlane thing I do now.
I'm building a sellable asset (a website with lots of information about coffee) and this is at least more fastlane than trade time for money at a part-time job. I also learn things about online marketing etc, there are multiple shops to promote in The Netherlands and at long-term I can send the traffic to my own webshop to have control.*

Any questions/comments?
 
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Last edited:

RoadTrip

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You already started and are even earning money which puts you way ahead of a lot of people.

Now I see you have your attention spanned across multiple website and your major source of traffic is seo? That's probably costing you a lot of time to keep ranking all those articles. I don't know what your selling exactly but why not put money in paid advertising? You can read the @andyblack google adwords threads for example.

Also I think you need to focus. It's obvious there's one winner in terms of monthly revenue. Can you focus on this and expand? Go broader and sell multiple DIY tools? This way you can reach a broader market and sell more to those who are your customer already.

Good luck!


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Cosepreziose

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Hi there,
Don't beat yourself up so much, you are doing great for your age, I wish I was like you at your age!

What made you choose those niches you chose? Are you passionate about it or you just thought they might be profitable? Or it was random?
 

V8Bill

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I don't know if anybody is going to read this
I did. It was a great read. I know people who have tried for years and years to do what you've already done so take it from me, you're doing well. You may not define it as fastlane but it's definitely a faster lane than not doing it. Plus, it's fun making even one drachma from a website. Give yourself a smile.
 
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KSR

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Seriously, good work on building a foundation for yourself. I dabbled in Internet Marketing too for a bit, I personally found it was a dangerous area (especially BH). So which areas would you like to get in? Maybe you could even use those funds to fund a new venture -- if your current living expenses aren't too high that is.
 

Gerrald

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First thanks for the nice comments!

You already started and are even earning money which puts you way ahead of a lot of people.

Now I see you have your attention spanned across multiple website and your major source of traffic is seo? That's probably costing you a lot of time to keep ranking all those articles. I don't know what your selling exactly but why not put money in paid advertising? You can read the @andyblack google adwords threads for example.

Also I think you need to focus. It's obvious there's one winner in terms of monthly revenue. Can you focus on this and expand? Go broader and sell multiple DIY tools? This way you can reach a broader market and sell more to those who are your customer already.

Good luck!

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It actually does not cost me very much time to keep ranking all those articles. I publish very helpfully and long articles, to my other websites I made a few PBN-links and now they have quite consistent rankings.
The reason I didn't start with Google Adwords yet is that it'll require more work to manage with holding an eye on the campaigns, remove the unprofitable keywords etc.
Another reason is that one visitor gives me 7 cents on average and I think my CPC will be higher.
With my coffeewebsite, I write about the best coffee machines, milk frothers, coffeegrinders, how to clean your milk frother, how to make the best froth etc.

I will read his threads for sure!

The saw-website did it very good in March, but this 10-11 days in April the revenue is not very high, the income is fluctuating very much. The domainname has the word 'saws' in it, so I'll have to change the domainname if I want to take it broader.
(I don't think it's a good idea to review drills on a website about saws.)

To keep have some activity on the site about saws I'm posting one article per week and further I focus on the coffeewebsite.


Hi there,
Don't beat yourself up so much, you are doing great for your age, I wish I was like you at your age!

What made you choose those niches you chose? Are you passionate about it or you just thought they might be profitable? Or it was random?

I did research with LongTailPro and found I can rank quite easily for some terms and there was enough search volume, that's why I chose these niches.

Seriously, good work on building a foundation for yourself. I dabbled in Internet Marketing too for a bit, I personally found it was a dangerous area (especially BH). So which areas would you like to get in? Maybe you could even use those funds to fund a new venture -- if your current living expenses aren't too high that is.

What part did you found dangerous and why?

Affiliate marketing is also not my end-goal, but it is a very good first step for me.
I get income today from work I did in the past, I'll get income over a year for the work I did today.
When I get income from the work I did today over a year, I have funds and time to find a need I can fill.
I can start a e-commerce business or create a tool for (for example) affiliate marketers. Its just a good foundation for me.

Thanks again for the nice comments, will keep you updated!
 

Practician

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Hi Gerrald, great post! I am in a similar boat trying to scale up and build some affiliate sites.

I don't really have any tips because I am no pro either. My long-term goal is to try to create an authority site, like you mention, and then use that as a free launchpad for selling my own products, not just affiliate stuff.

I figure it is better if I can directly use my past work to give me an advantage. So maybe my slowlane site helps kickstart a fastlane business.

I wish I started at your age! Looking forward to your success stories.
 
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Gerrald

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Hi all,

Update week 15:
Here my first weekly update.

Positive things:
- Finished The Millionaire Fastlane
- Started reading Ca$hvertising
- Published 5 articles (goal)
- Started article planning May
- Started Facebookpage coffeewebsite (did not link them yet)

Less positive things:
- Didn't finish article planning/schedule May (goal)
- Spend too much time on entertainment (Youtube, 9Gag, TV etc.)

As I told in the first post, my goal is to post 5 articles per week to reach my bigger goal of 2k/month when I finish college.
There are a few steps to get articles/content online, these include:
- Do marketresearch (which content)
- Make a briefing
- Find appropriate writer
- Receive text, give feedback, sometimes ask to review
- Formatting/editing text, make features bold, add images, h1;h2;h3, affiliatelinks etc.
- Publish or schedule

I try to do the marketresearch to know which content to produce for one month.
My goal was to make a schedule for May last week, I did start, but did not finish it yet.

My goals for week 16 are:
- Publish 5 articles
- Finish schedule for content/articles May
- Add new briefings for new content
- Read new chapters from Ca$hvertising
- Link Facebook and website?
- Spend less time on entertainment (work more efficiently)
- Start to do/research backlinking

I did reach my goal to post 5 articles, but with all the time I had, I could have done a lot more.

I think I'll do this weekly updates (next week I'll view my goals for that week, did I reach them, why not etc) and each month an update with income reports.

Questions/suggestions?

Will keep you updated!
 

Gerrald

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Ditch all of them except Website E. You'll thank me in 6 months.

Hi,
Actually, in January I bought a course because I did get visitors, but they did not convert very well. (this month €137 in revenue so far) See this chart:
Schermafbeelding 2017-04-18 om 09.00.58.png

I think the revenue is dependent on seasons and the weather.
Also the website is about electric saws and the domainname also, so it would be strange if I write about drills etc.

I will focus on expanding the site a bit and have activity for better rankings.
Further I'll focus on website F, if that website starts ranking it will make more than website E.

Thanks for your suggestion!
 
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Eugen

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Hey man! Good luck with the sites.

I'm a niche site owner myself and make some decent money from the site.

Question: Do you do any link building?
 

Gerrald

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Hey man! Good luck with the sites.

I'm a niche site owner myself and make some decent money from the site.

Question: Do you do any link building?

Hi,
Thanks for the support!

How much content do you have at your website(s)? Is the €7/article right with your websites? (The articles at my website yield on average €7/article)

With my older, smaller sites I did PBN-linkbuilding.

I'm hestitating now if I should do that with my new big project.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update week 16:

Positive things:
- Published 5 articles.
- Finished contentplan May

Less positive:
- Did still spend some time on entertainment (especially Monday and Tuesday)
- Did not link Facebook and website
- Did not make any new backlinks

Goals week 17:
- Planning content for 2,5 weeks (From 6 May till 12 May I'm going to Lissabon with my school)
- Start some research at backlinking
- Read some chapters on Ca$hvertising

Questions/suggestions?

Will keep you updated!
 

Eugen

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On average, I pay 1$/100 words. So, an average article for my sites is around 3,000 words.
Yeah, around 30$ for the article.
I get my writers from UpWork.

HOWEVER, I see this as a very good investment. I don't even have to rank on the 1st page to get my money back. People could find the article through some long tails and just buy 1-2 products and that's it.

I have one backlinking tactic I'd like to recommend you: Guestographics. How to Get Backlinks With Guestographics
You have to put some serious work. My first campaign- I had my VA send around 100 emails and I only got one backlink, but hey, that's better than nothing.
 
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Gerrald

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On average, I pay 1$/100 words. So, an average article for my sites is around 3,000 words.
Yeah, around 30$ for the article.
I get my writers from UpWork.

HOWEVER, I see this as a very good investment. I don't even have to rank on the 1st page to get my money back. People could find the article through some long tails and just buy 1-2 products and that's it.

I have one backlinking tactic I'd like to recommend you: Guestographics. How to Get Backlinks With Guestographics
You have to put some serious work. My first campaign- I had my VA send around 100 emails and I only got one backlink, but hey, that's better than nothing.

That's very cheap! Which country/language?
Mine is dutch and with TextBroker I pay about 3 cent per word.

What I meant is the revenue per article. With my websites it's about €7/article.
For example, if I have a website with 50 articles, some reviews and top 10 pages, it will make about 50*7 = €350/month.

Awesome stuff man! Are you using wordpress to make these sites? If not, what is the process for making them?

Thanks, and yes, I'm using wordpress.
 

Gerrald

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After some time, its time for an update.

Due to reports I had to do for my college, a small trip to Lisboa with my school and personal circumstances I didn't post for a while. I didn't post, but I didn't stop the working.

In April I managed to publish 20 articles at my websites.

In May I did manage to publish 5 articles per week in the first two weeks, but I didn't in the last two weeks, so the total of the month May is 16 articles.

At the moment I'm done with the third year of my college. So the coming months I've got time to work on my websites (summer holiday)
I hesitated if I should have a holiday job and spend the money I earned to texts for my websites or write the texts myself, what are your thoughts about it?

April was a quite good month, I made about €562 with my websites.

Website A:
Made €98,41 (against €106,59 last month)
1816 sessions, 1583 users. Less visitors, more clicks to affiliate partner.

Website B:
Made €32,27 (against €51,87 last month)
958 sessions, 977 users. Less visitors than last month

Website C:
Made €82,50 (against €37,50 last month)
2615 sessions, 1942 users. More visitors than last month

Website D:
Made €16,10 (against €24,93 last month)
313 sessions, 274 users. Little fewer visitors than last month

Website E:
Made €284,08 (against €479,49 last month)
6653 sessions, 5778 users. Little fewer visitors than last month.
Added 4 articles in April.

Website F:
Made €49,16 (against €77,88 last month)
926 sessions, 740 users. More visitors than last month.
Added 16 articles in April.

As I told in my first post I'm focusing at growing websites E and F.

Incomereport May 2017
Website A:
Made €109,84 (against €98,41 last month)
1765 sessions, 1523 users. Less visitors, more clicks to affiliate partner.

Website B:
Made €73,02 (against 32,27 last month)
1022 sessions, 951 users. Little bump in visitors

Website C:
Made €90 (against €82,50 last month)
2739 sessions, 1982 users. More visitors than last month

Website D:
Made €28,66 (against €16,10 last month)
465 sessions, 419 users. More visitors than last month

Website E:
Made €474,73 (against €284,08 last month)
6349 sessions, 5526 users. Little fewer visitors than last month.
Added 4 articles in May.

Website F:
Made €45,96 (against €49,16 last month)
1542 sessions, 1282 users. Huge bump in visitors (last month 926 visits and 740 users)
Added 13 articles in May.

In total I made €822 in May.
I'm happy to see my income stays at the same level although it does vary some.
I'm also very happy to see the bump in visitors at website F because I invest a lot of my time and money in it.

As I told, the coming weeks/months I've got more time to work at my business.

Will keep you updated!
 
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Gerrald

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Been away for a while, away from the forum, but not from working on my affiliate websites.

I spent almost no time on a few smaller sites of mine and more time on the bigger website with potential.

The project/website I worked the most on finally starts ranking. My visitors are growing and so does my income.
upload_2017-11-7_22-44-0.png
Visitors website from February till now.

Not only the visitors grow, the income does also.
upload_2017-11-7_22-47-33.png

Due to this growth, my total income last month reached 4 figures for the first time.
upload_2017-11-7_22-52-17.png

I'm going to add more texts to the website and add some links so the rankings increase.

I'm thinking about ditching my smaller websites and focus at this website.
My smaller websites are restricted because of the words used in the domainname, I also consider to merge these websites into one new website with a broader/branded domainname because the market the products are in (tools) is not bad in my country.

So I'm 20 years old, made 4 figures for the first time last month and on my way to 5 figures per month.
 

Gerrald

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Okey, so this topic is still here.

I started this topic in April 2017. It's been 2,5 years since.
At that moment I was making about €500-800/month.

I'm still doing the affiliate marketing SEO thing with my websites in The Netherlands.

My goal with the start of this topic was to increase my income enough so I wouldn't have to look for a job and could work full-time to further increase the income on my affiliate websites.

I've had some difficulties graduating and finishing my Thesis. Also due to some personal circumstances. Instead of graduating in june 2018, I graduated in june 2019.

In the meantime I worked on my Websites and reinvested every penny I earned back into new content and backlinks. I lived from my savings at the time. This resulted in a nice growth over the past 2 years. Because of this growth and the potential I saw at my websites I decided to say goodbye to the company I did an internship and go work full-time at my own affiliate websites.

Together with an other entrepreneur my age (few years older) we decided to rent a small office so we had a place to go working. So from september 2019 I'm working full-time in my rented office to increase the earnings with my websites.

The last 3 weeks of September I've made a nice roadtrip with 3 friends through West-America. In the same time I had a new month record with my affiliate earnings. I made almost 4k in affiliate earnings. I also invested some money in new content and linkbuilding.

I was very happy and above that I knew the searches in Google would only increase in the last quarter of the year. I could grow my websites by investing some of the earnings in new content and links and also make profit to live on.

And then the Google updates came.. End of september was the first Google update. This caused a 40% drop in visitors. A month before I had made a deal with an important shop, the deal was the more sales I realized at their shop, the higher the commission per sale would be. Due the update my sales were not very high and I got a lower percentage of the sales.

A few months later now and the revenue is pretty okay. But I know the searches will become lower in January and February, so will the revenue be.

So here I'm sitting in a rented office with websites that perform a lot lower than I had expected. In the period of graduating I reinvested all the earnings and lived off my savings. So I burned all my savings at the time. I also need a new Cell phone, Laptop, want to save some money for bad times and my car needs new tires this summer.

I've got multiple sites, but the focus is at two websites. I want to make these authority's. One is about coffee and coffee makers and one is about renovating, rebuilding and powertools.

I had a goal, to go work full-time on my affiliates projects. Now I achieved this, it is currently a setback. I'm working my a$$ off, my things are due for replacement, my friends go on a winter vacation and I got no money to join them.

Besides that the prospect of the lower revenue in the first quarter of next year makes me depressed. I get less work done and have a low energy balance.

I know I have to grab myself together and work hard to keep doing this and times will get better. But it looks like my energy is just gone.

How do you deal with a setback in the business? And how to get my motivation/discipline back?
 

Genius01

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Okey, so this topic is still here.

I started this topic in April 2017. It's been 2,5 years since.
At that moment I was making about €500-800/month.

I'm still doing the affiliate marketing SEO thing with my websites in The Netherlands.

My goal with the start of this topic was to increase my income enough so I wouldn't have to look for a job and could work full-time to further increase the income on my affiliate websites.

I've had some difficulties graduating and finishing my Thesis. Also due to some personal circumstances. Instead of graduating in june 2018, I graduated in june 2019.

In the meantime I worked on my Websites and reinvested every penny I earned back into new content and backlinks. I lived from my savings at the time. This resulted in a nice growth over the past 2 years. Because of this growth and the potential I saw at my websites I decided to say goodbye to the company I did an internship and go work full-time at my own affiliate websites.

Together with an other entrepreneur my age (few years older) we decided to rent a small office so we had a place to go working. So from september 2019 I'm working full-time in my rented office to increase the earnings with my websites.

The last 3 weeks of September I've made a nice roadtrip with 3 friends through West-America. In the same time I had a new month record with my affiliate earnings. I made almost 4k in affiliate earnings. I also invested some money in new content and linkbuilding.

I was very happy and above that I knew the searches in Google would only increase in the last quarter of the year. I could grow my websites by investing some of the earnings in new content and links and also make profit to live on.

And then the Google updates came.. End of september was the first Google update. This caused a 40% drop in visitors. A month before I had made a deal with an important shop, the deal was the more sales I realized at their shop, the higher the commission per sale would be. Due the update my sales were not very high and I got a lower percentage of the sales.

A few months later now and the revenue is pretty okay. But I know the searches will become lower in January and February, so will the revenue be.

So here I'm sitting in a rented office with websites that perform a lot lower than I had expected. In the period of graduating I reinvested all the earnings and lived off my savings. So I burned all my savings at the time. I also need a new Cell phone, Laptop, want to save some money for bad times and my car needs new tires this summer.

I've got multiple sites, but the focus is at two websites. I want to make these authority's. One is about coffee and coffee makers and one is about renovating, rebuilding and powertools.

I had a goal, to go work full-time on my affiliates projects. Now I achieved this, it is currently a setback. I'm working my a$$ off, my things are due for replacement, my friends go on a winter vacation and I got no money to join them.

Besides that the prospect of the lower revenue in the first quarter of next year makes me depressed. I get less work done and have a low energy balance.

I know I have to grab myself together and work hard to keep doing this and times will get better. But it looks like my energy is just gone.

How do you deal with a setback in the business? And how to get my motivation/discipline back?

Wow. Kudos for taking massive action, and you should give yourself a lot more credit for achieving the things you have already. You've done more than 80-90% of people already in regards to building a business, and even if this business fails, you've learnt a lot that you can take into your next venture. Most successful businessmen have more than one failed venture under their belt, so you're still doing well even though it may look like you're not.

That said,
The biggest problem I see with your business model (depending on SEO for affiliate sales) is the lack of Control. That has already manifested itself to you. You NEED to find a way to diversify your sources of traffic. Like creating YouTube videos/channel, IG, email lists, etc....to cushion the effects of Google's algorithm updates.
I don't know which one would best suit your niche (I don't know if email lists could work in tools niche), but you need to brainstorm and find one that can work and develop it.
In the meantime, keep working on your site, your revenue will most likely gradually climb up again.
Don't be discouraged by the fact that your friends can go on winter vacations which you can't afford at this time.....it's the price you pay for entrepreneurship. If your hustle pays eventually, they'll be the ones envying your relative freedom and ability to afford the life you want to live.
That's a recurring theme has happened in the lives of several people with successful businesses here.
Read their threads, it may also encourage you.

All in all, keep on plugging at it, find ways to diversify your sources of traffic. And later on when the 2 sites become established, find ways to diversify your sources of income by creating other businesses that do not depend on Google algorithms in whatever form (Google or YouTube).

Wish you all the best.
 
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A couple weeks ago it was 3 years since I started this topic.

I thought it would be nice to write an update.

In my first post, I had just read The Millionaire Fastlane and just turned 20 years old. I expected to graduate in June 2018 and then have the choice of going to work for an employer or focus full time at my own business.

In the post I explained what I did and how many websites and that kind of stuff. The was one winner in revenue and people here gave me the advice to focus at that project from then on. Because of the brandname this was not really possible, but I started a new project in December that year in the same niche.

I should start working at my Thesis in February 2018, due to personal circumstances (car accident with friends) I started a few months later in April. I struggled with my Thesis and had to stop it in July 2018.

The same month I started working part-time for an employer and part-time for my own business. In November 2018 I quit the work for the employer and started working on my Thesis again. After much struggle, I finally graduated in July 2019.

That month I made 3k with my affiliate projects, so I decided to take a few months free time after graduating to charge my energy level and work at my business. We had a road trip planned, so I decided to make a final decision whether I would focus full time at my own business or I would work for an employer.

Just before the road trip, I decided to focus full time at my own business for at least a year to see what would happen. Together with a friend and a buddy (he is a friend of my brother) we decided to rent an office as of 1 September.

The last three weeks of September we made a road trip with a camper from LA to Las Vegas, to San Francisco and then back to LA, we saw lots of National Parks and it was an amazing road trip.

In the same month, we made the road trip, I had a new record in affiliate income, I made almost 4k that month.

Because of an update of the Google algorithm, my visitors were a lot lower than expected I doubted my decision to work full time at my own business.

I managed to get through it and the income in November and December was higher than I expected. As you can see in my update in December, my energy balance and motivation were quite low.

However, I went to the office every day. Some days I lay in bed until 11:00 AM. And there were enough days I barely did any work.

This was till end of 2019, when I was approached by a client to work for him one day each week. We had a quite good conversation and made a deal. From January I started working for the client and I can bill my hours.

This client gave me security of income and it was a good move for my motivation. Each week I work one day for the client and on the other days I get more stuff done at my own projects.

From the extra income, I was able to replace my (broken) iPhone and decided to join my friends at the winter vacation.

And then the Corona crisis came. In February, one of the most important webshops decided to temper sales by no longer using paid traffic, including affiliate sales. So in February, my affiliate income was again lower then expected.

Although I was disappointed, I handled it quite well because the income I get from working for my client is enough to pay for my expenses each month. Besides that I was able to send the traffic to another big webshop and my income returned for 90%.

Due to the Corona crisis, people buy more stuff online and in March I made about 3k. In April it grew to 5,4k and last month (May) I had a new record in affiliate income with 6,5k in income for me!

I know I made extra money because of the corona crisis, but it shows my business is scaleable. I'll use the (extra) money to fill my emergency fund with about 10k so I have some money in case of unexpected expenses and invest the rest of the money into my business.

So currently I'm working on my business by helping visitors of my websites better so I make more money per visitor and get more visitors.

My focus is on two main projects, of the 6,5k from last month, one project made 3k, the other 2k, and 4 other sites made the rest.

@Genius01, Sorry I never replied to your reaction, thanks for the kind words, appreciate the effort!

Like you said, I kept working on the websites and the revenue did go up again.

At the moment I indeed don't have very much control. I should definitely look into other ways to get traffic and I think email list could work in my niche. I just never got the time to figure it out and I have the feeling I'm just getting started with SEO and affiliate sales.

My current plan is to grow the two bigger projects until I've got 10k revenue from affiliate sales. From there on, I think I can take bigger steps. I could negotiate for more commission, set up a mailing list, I've got ideas for my own (information) products and that kind of stuff.

I think I can grow more easily from 10k to 20k per month than from 1k to 10k per month. And more importantly, I could take more control and be less dependent on Google for example.

So in short, I had quite some setbacks the last year and last month I had a new success.

I know to grow my business I should just do more of the work I already did in the past.

However, I still have problems with keeping myself motivated/disciplined. Some evenings I watch series till 1 AM and don't get out of bed before 10 AM.

I doubt myself and my actions, like: "Yeah, I made 6,5k, but I'm not actually making it, it's because of the corona crisis, when this is over, I'll make a lot less". Or, yeah, I can make 6,5k and 10k, but MJ is talking about 100-200k per month, will I ever reach it..

Or if I should I take on more clients, if I should quit the affiliate and sell the products myself. If I should focus on creating more income streams, more ways to attract traffic to my sites, create my own (affiliate) product or get into a niche with higher commissions (software for example).

So altogether I'm very happy with the record I had last month, but I've got a lot work to do and some personal challenges to face.
 

Kid

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I made 6,5k (...) problems with keeping myself motivated/disciplined
No wonder! ;)

Anyway congrats on success.
From what i've read turning from affiliate to being direct seller is a way to go.

Keep going - you'll reach that 200k!
 

Genius01

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A couple weeks ago it was 3 years since I started this topic.

I thought it would be nice to write an update.

In my first post, I had just read The Millionaire Fastlane and just turned 20 years old. I expected to graduate in June 2018 and then have the choice of going to work for an employer or focus full time at my own business.

In the post I explained what I did and how many websites and that kind of stuff. The was one winner in revenue and people here gave me the advice to focus at that project from then on. Because of the brandname this was not really possible, but I started a new project in December that year in the same niche.

I should start working at my Thesis in February 2018, due to personal circumstances (car accident with friends) I started a few months later in April. I struggled with my Thesis and had to stop it in July 2018.

The same month I started working part-time for an employer and part-time for my own business. In November 2018 I quit the work for the employer and started working on my Thesis again. After much struggle, I finally graduated in July 2019.

That month I made 3k with my affiliate projects, so I decided to take a few months free time after graduating to charge my energy level and work at my business. We had a road trip planned, so I decided to make a final decision whether I would focus full time at my own business or I would work for an employer.

Just before the road trip, I decided to focus full time at my own business for at least a year to see what would happen. Together with a friend and a buddy (he is a friend of my brother) we decided to rent an office as of 1 September.

The last three weeks of September we made a road trip with a camper from LA to Las Vegas, to San Francisco and then back to LA, we saw lots of National Parks and it was an amazing road trip.

In the same month, we made the road trip, I had a new record in affiliate income, I made almost 4k that month.

Because of an update of the Google algorithm, my visitors were a lot lower than expected I doubted my decision to work full time at my own business.

I managed to get through it and the income in November and December was higher than I expected. As you can see in my update in December, my energy balance and motivation were quite low.

However, I went to the office every day. Some days I lay in bed until 11:00 AM. And there were enough days I barely did any work.

This was till end of 2019, when I was approached by a client to work for him one day each week. We had a quite good conversation and made a deal. From January I started working for the client and I can bill my hours.

This client gave me security of income and it was a good move for my motivation. Each week I work one day for the client and on the other days I get more stuff done at my own projects.

From the extra income, I was able to replace my (broken) iPhone and decided to join my friends at the winter vacation.

And then the Corona crisis came. In February, one of the most important webshops decided to temper sales by no longer using paid traffic, including affiliate sales. So in February, my affiliate income was again lower then expected.

Although I was disappointed, I handled it quite well because the income I get from working for my client is enough to pay for my expenses each month. Besides that I was able to send the traffic to another big webshop and my income returned for 90%.

Due to the Corona crisis, people buy more stuff online and in March I made about 3k. In April it grew to 5,4k and last month (May) I had a new record in affiliate income with 6,5k in income for me!

I know I made extra money because of the corona crisis, but it shows my business is scaleable. I'll use the (extra) money to fill my emergency fund with about 10k so I have some money in case of unexpected expenses and invest the rest of the money into my business.

So currently I'm working on my business by helping visitors of my websites better so I make more money per visitor and get more visitors.

My focus is on two main projects, of the 6,5k from last month, one project made 3k, the other 2k, and 4 other sites made the rest.

@Genius01, Sorry I never replied to your reaction, thanks for the kind words, appreciate the effort!

Like you said, I kept working on the websites and the revenue did go up again.

At the moment I indeed don't have very much control. I should definitely look into other ways to get traffic and I think email list could work in my niche. I just never got the time to figure it out and I have the feeling I'm just getting started with SEO and affiliate sales.

My current plan is to grow the two bigger projects until I've got 10k revenue from affiliate sales. From there on, I think I can take bigger steps. I could negotiate for more commission, set up a mailing list, I've got ideas for my own (information) products and that kind of stuff.

I think I can grow more easily from 10k to 20k per month than from 1k to 10k per month. And more importantly, I could take more control and be less dependent on Google for example.

So in short, I had quite some setbacks the last year and last month I had a new success.

I know to grow my business I should just do more of the work I already did in the past.

However, I still have problems with keeping myself motivated/disciplined. Some evenings I watch series till 1 AM and don't get out of bed before 10 AM.

I doubt myself and my actions, like: "Yeah, I made 6,5k, but I'm not actually making it, it's because of the corona crisis, when this is over, I'll make a lot less". Or, yeah, I can make 6,5k and 10k, but MJ is talking about 100-200k per month, will I ever reach it..

Or if I should I take on more clients, if I should quit the affiliate and sell the products myself. If I should focus on creating more income streams, more ways to attract traffic to my sites, create my own (affiliate) product or get into a niche with higher commissions (software for example).

So altogether I'm very happy with the record I had last month, but I've got a lot work to do and some personal challenges to face.
Good to hear things are looking up, even if you think it's because of corona, it's still all good.
Just keep at it.
For the email list thingy, if you think lists can work in your niche, then you can start building it right now, not waiting till you reach $10k/month.
It's never too early to build a list.
And might help safeguard you incase Google decides to throw another unpredictable update.
All in all, keep at it. You're doing great.
 
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Gerrald

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Thanks for your reactions, really appreciate it.

No wonder! ;)

Anyway, congrats on success.
From what I've read turning from affiliate to being direct seller is a way to go.

Keep going - you'll reach that 200k!

Is it normal to have motivation issues when things are going better than expected?

It's not only about the 200k, it's about the fact things are taking much time to grow. On the internet are lots of stories about "How I went from 0 to 15k/month in 14 months".

I started this affiliate thing back when I was 15 years old, now I'm 23 years old and I have about 4-5k in affiliate revenue.

In the time from 15-18, I wasn't very hardworking and I learned a lot of lessons, but it still takes a lot of time to grow.

I keep telling myself the success stories are from somebody who gained experience in the past and a collection of lessons applied in the project that was successful.

Also at the moment, I'm doing a lot of operational work myself to grow my projects, but when my revenue increases I'm able to outsource more and more, then I have a quite passive income.

With the money and (more importantly) the time I get with my passive income, I'll create products or services which that meet with CENTS and sell them to my visitors.

Things will grow exponentially from there on, I guess.

Good to hear things are looking up, even if you think it's because of corona, it's still all good.
Just keep at it.
For the email list thingy, if you think lists can work in your niche, then you can start building it right now, not waiting till you reach $10k/month.
It's never too early to build a list.
And might help safeguard you incase Google decides to throw another unpredictable update.
All in all, keep at it. You're doing great.

Thanks for your reaction, I'll keep at it for sure!

I'll think about ways to give some extra value and collect e-mail addresses and think about ways make money with email marketing.
 

Kid

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Is it normal to have motivation issues when things are going better than expected?
I think yes. Look at most people that achieved something in any niche.
They opt for one website that they made work and they never look for more.
I don't know what is the cause, though.

"How I went from 0 to 15k/month in 14 months".
and
I keep telling myself the success stories are from somebody who gained experience in the past and a collection of lessons applied in the project that was successful.
You're correct on this one. Ask any successful person and if they are honest , they'll tell you that this overnight success took probably 10 years.
 

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Quick update.

Last month I bought Unscripted and start reading it, I see there are some similarities with TMF , but also new parts, now reading at the WHY's.

After the new revenue record in May (€6,5k) the next months were:
- June: 5,1k
- July: 4,9k
- August: 3,8k

So the revenue is going down a bit, however, visitors are not decreasing. I'm still working for two clients and besides that on my affiliate marketing projects.

I always wanted to work on my own projects, without working for a boss. So, I didn't want to have obligations. However, I'm struggling now.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm aware that my current affiliate marketing projects violate some of the CENTS (especially Control). I guess that's one of the reasons I'm not working on it with full conviction. But I'm also not working to get more control, or working on something else that meets al the cents requirements.

I'm struggling with motivation issues. At this moment I only do the work I really NEED to do. So giving input to people I use for text writing and work for clients. Next to that the only thing that I do is working out three times a week.

The rest of the time I just don't put in the work. I sleep late, watch series and Youtube, check stats, and read forums. Then after it, I have a bad feeling about myself for doing these things. However, when I work a day for a client, I'm having a satisfying feeling.

It's quite ironic because I thought I would be happy when I had no obligations and could work on projects that would benefit me the most and not an employer.

I'm looking for a version of myself that is more energetic. Like jumping out of bed to work on my projects with joy and motivation. I get the fact that you can't be motivated and energic 100% of the time, but I feel like I'm not motivated at all.

I don't really know what I can do the best at the moment. I really like having not many obligations and being able to manage my own time, go to the gym when it is not busy, etc. But at the same time, I just don't put in the work and I'm feeling bad about it.

Maybe it's a combination of being comfortable with my current situation (still living with my parents) and find out 'having no obligations and work on my own projects' is not making me happy at the moment.

Or am I just making excuses, should I not be so difficult, give myself a kick in the butt, set new goals, and work on them with discipline?
 
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New update..

Since my last update I set my alarm at 07:30 and I manage to get up 99 out of 100 times, so that's a personal win for me.

An update on the revenue:
- September 3,4k
- October 5k
- November 7,4k
- December 8,5k

So September was quite low, from there on the revenue started increasing again, October was pretty decent, November was a new record, partly by Black Friday. Then December started quite good and thanks to the lockdown it became another new record.

Next to my affiliate revenue, I also have some income from my work for clients. The revenue combined makes November and December both 10k revenue months!

I'm really happy with how it works out now. 2020 was a year with ups and downs for me. For the first time in my life, I'm earning quite serious money.

I'm aware I'm making significantly more money now due to the lockdown and my income is too dependent on third parties, but I'm not planning on spending the money on cars or watches.

In 2021 I'm planning to expand my current websites by adding more content, optimize current content and promote the content. Further I'm hoping to diversify my sources of visitors and/or revenue streams. Right now I don't exactly know how to do it.

I could buy or develop products and sell them on my current sites. However, I also got a nice idea for a product that is not related to my current sites. For that, I already bought some samples in China, got started on developing the website, and signed up for the Dutch version of Amazon so that I can sell my products there. So maybe this year I'll start an eCommerce adventure.

At the moment I don't know exactly where my focus will be, but I'm definitely planning to grow my online income this year. Next to this, I'll start investing some money into the stock market and maybe in some real estate.

Hope you'll all stay healthy and have a good 2021!
 

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@Gerrald
Respect! I love your story!
Thats exactly what I wanted to do, but couldn’t.
Your way is straight up and up.
I think, if you don’t make a big mistake of “getting rich“ and spending too much money, in 10 years you will be at the point of retirement!

Wish you success!

Depends of what you want to import from China. Maybe Slowakia is a land of source, too. Not as cheap, but near and no Import stress.
 

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New update..

Since my last update I set my alarm at 07:30 and I manage to get up 99 out of 100 times, so that's a personal win for me.

An update on the revenue:
- September 3,4k
- October 5k
- November 7,4k
- December 8,5k

So September was quite low, from there on the revenue started increasing again, October was pretty decent, November was a new record, partly by Black Friday. Then December started quite good and thanks to the lockdown it became another new record.

Next to my affiliate revenue, I also have some income from my work for clients. The revenue combined makes November and December both 10k revenue months!

I'm really happy with how it works out now. 2020 was a year with ups and downs for me. For the first time in my life, I'm earning quite serious money.

I'm aware I'm making significantly more money now due to the lockdown and my income is too dependent on third parties, but I'm not planning on spending the money on cars or watches.

In 2021 I'm planning to expand my current websites by adding more content, optimize current content and promote the content. Further I'm hoping to diversify my sources of visitors and/or revenue streams. Right now I don't exactly know how to do it.

I could buy or develop products and sell them on my current sites. However, I also got a nice idea for a product that is not related to my current sites. For that, I already bought some samples in China, got started on developing the website, and signed up for the Dutch version of Amazon so that I can sell my products there. So maybe this year I'll start an eCommerce adventure.

At the moment I don't know exactly where my focus will be, but I'm definitely planning to grow my online income this year. Next to this, I'll start investing some money into the stock market and maybe in some real estate.

Hope you'll all stay healthy and have a good 2021!
Great!
Persistence pays.
I absolutely agree that you should work on diversifying your sources of income, especially your sources of traffic if you can.
 
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New update on my progress.

I still manage to get out of bed at 7:30 most times.

In the first quarter, I’ve set myself the goal to work on improving the content on my websites. By improving I mean adding tables to the content etc. because I noticed the earnings per visitor are higher when the content has a table.

It looks like the earnings per visitor have increased by that.

Further, I noticed my motivation is a lot better when I have a clear goal for the week/month, so I’ll have to keep that in mind when my work ethic is less.

Update on the affiliate revenue:
January: 8,5k
February: 6,5k

March: 8k

For January I actually expected a lower month than December, but it was very good. February was less, and March was quite good again.

The revenue from clients was also considerably higher in Q1 than in Q4 in 2020.

I’m still happy with my current revenue and in Q1 my sites have been improved by me, so I’m satisfied with that too.

Although, last weeks my motivation and work ethic is lower. I was quite busy with my clients and worked less on my affiliate sites. Now the work for clients is less, but I still haven’t picked up the work for my websites.

Also, I don’t have an update on the diversifying of my revenue streams and sources of traffic, because I simply did not work on that part yet.

Although I did see an eCommerce store for sale in the same niche as I bought the samples and developed the site so that one really caught my attention.

It’s a quite new product that solves a real problem and I’m excited about it because I think it’s a business that meets the cents requirements.

Soon I have a call appointment with the seller, so then I’ll have more information.

Should I know specific information when buying a(n) (Ecommerce) business?

Will keep you posted!
 

Gerrald

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It's been a while since I've posted here.

In the last year I've worked to keep the revenue from my affiliate sites about the same. It gives me 'passive' income and time.

I'm also still working for the two clients. It gives me good money and I've got a lot of freedom in the work I do. In addition it's work for a webshop, so I learn a lot.

In summer 2021, together with a friend, we took over a ecommerce business I talked about in my last post. We renewed the site but were not so excited about the products. The current products have a high sales price and are not unique or better than our competitors.
Next to that, we did not have a good feeling about the brand.

After learning about the business for half a year, in December 2021 we decided to rebrand the business and focus on creating a new product line with better products than our competitors.

We choose a new name and this week we'll get to see logo and corporate identity. Next month we hope to get the product samples from our supplier.

In the coming months, we'll purchase new stock and change the corporate identity. In July-August we hope to have the new products and we want to really scale the business.

From there we'll add more products to serve the same customer group.

With the takeover, I've got my business that meets the CENTS requirements. It's not that big at the moment (revenue about 2-6k/month), but it's scalable.

For now I'll keep working for the clients and keep my affiliate websites. The rest of the time I'll focus on the ecommerce business.
 

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