[Journey] Work harder, to work less.

[Mxty]

Intro
I've been hesitant to make a journey thread, I like putting all of my hours into working on my websites without reporting them here, but the reason I'm doing it is I don't want to lose sight of my goal and it gives me something to check back on.

So, backstory time. I've been in the SEO industry for around 8 years now, and aside from small little projects that I do on the side and freelance, I've mostly worked for someone else - in house and agency side over the years. I now work as a marketing manager, and I do pretty well for myself, but the main issue I have with it is I work 40-45 hours of my week, which I know is pretty typical but I don't want it to be - I want to work less and have more time to enjoy life.

I'd been bobbling along pretty happily, earning from work and having a consistent freelance client - Covid came, the freelance client couldn't afford it anymore so I lost a chunk of income, so I decided with the time that I spent on Freelance I'd work on my own site, one I'd set up a year prior and just basically forgot about.

In April 2020, I set to work, with the goal of making back my freelance income, which I did pretty quickly (£400 a month).

Goals
As mentioned the initial goal was simply to get back that freelance income, but I saw potential and became more ambitious. Here's my target:

• Earn £10k a month, consistently - I have the long term goal of not only doing this through my websites but turning the profit from them into buying property as it's far more stable.
• Quit my day job, work completely for myself and outsource almost everything
• Spend more time with my family

Ambitious, right? I'm under no illusions that this is going to be a quick process.

Progress So Far
I have one main site that is creating all of the income, but I'm putting all of that back (bar taxes) into improving it and expanding my website portfolio.

Website #1:
My day zero. I actually started this website in April 2019, but just put some content on it with no monetization and let it rot. I then picked it back up in April 2020 and decided to monetize it through Ads & Amazon. Pictures speak louder than words, so here's where we are.

Stats: I'm not sure on word count, 500K+? DR 29, 30-40k organic traffic a month, 2 years old, Amazon UK + Ezoic earnings.

Last year:


This year (so far):


I also earn from Ezoic, but that doesn't feel worth while sharing - it's about $200 a month.

This latest month, I think I'm on for roughly £1,100-£1,200.

I also have a few sites that I've been working on that are yet to generate any notable revenue.

• Website #2 - 130k words of content, 25DR, 1k visits a month, 6 months old, Amazon US aff monetization
• Website #3 - 15k words of content, 2.6DR, 60 visits a month, 3 months old, Amazon UK aff + Awin
• Website #4 - 60k words of content, 5DR, 30 visits a month, 2 months old, Amazon UK aff
• Website #5 - 20k words of content, 10DR, 0 visits, 1 month old, Amazon UK aff

Strategy Moving Forward
Set & forget worked pretty damn well for me, and this post is getting long so I'll keep this bit short.

Maintain site #1 with regular content and links to try and grow the income continually - I outsource all of this at the moment.

I want to grow my portfolio of sites, I'm going to get each site to 100k words, with a sprinkled bit of link building here and there - and keep growing the winners.

I will throw everything I earn from these sites back into growing them - at the moment I don't need the income. I also do a bit of the work myself, I can write around 3-6k words a week, and do all the keyword research.

 

[693840]

Killing it man, scale this motherfucker up!

Set and forget indeed works wonders.

Many of my projects I worked on for a few months, then got de-motivated because of no traffic.
Checking GA a few months later, somehow the sites were getting 200-500 visitors a day.

Time is an important role, and patience is key

 

[kweiss]

Looks good! Try to work SMARTER, to work less

Good luck!

 

[Mxty]

I forgot to add, not entirely sure how often I'm going to be updating this - but probably every month or so I'll update word counts, DR, earnings etc.

In the meantime, feel free to ask me anything

 

[rajiced]

Looks cool you are getting nice traffic bro
Is this fully white hat?

 

[Mxty]

Depends on what you mean by whitehat. I have paid for and built links, including using PBNs, but it's not spammy or anything. It's mostly been content, doesn't have an amazing link profile or anything. Greyhat.

 

[Ranking Expert]

You are going good, keep going on!
good luck for journey.

 

[Zera Api]

This latest month, I think I'm on for roughly £1,100-£1,200

Is that figure from 1 website or from all your sites ?

 

[Mxty]

Is that figure from 1 website or from all your sites ?

One website - none of the others are earning, yet. Website #2 has sold a handful of items on Amazon, and website #3 has sold 1, but next to nothing yet.

 

[braindancer]

You seem to be doing great and have a solid plan and determination.

What do you do for freelance, I mean what kind of work services do you provide (provided)?

Also how do you keep tracking on words count for your websites, do you do this in excel spreadsheets or something else?
I suppose it all came from your experience of working in agencies as seo/marketing manger?

 

[Mxty]

You seem to be doing great and have a solid plan and determination.

What do you do for freelance, I mean what kind of work services do you provide (provided)?

Also how do you keep tracking on words count for your websites, do you do this in excel spreadsheets or something else?
I suppose it all came from your experience of working in agencies as seo/marketing manger?

For Freelance my consistent work was just SEO for a company, I get offered or my name gets put forward for quite a bit of Freelance - but I tend to reject it now, because I'm more concerned with trying to buy time, if that makes sense. I also get quite a few website builds here and there, but again I'm trying not to take any of them on. All of the work I get offered is from word of mouth.

Word counts - I build in WordPress, so it's just a word count plugin

 

[TheBragi]

Yeeeaaa, love journeys like this. Time to scale, good luck @Mxty

 

[Aveqts]

Nice journey,
Keep scaling mate

 

[zodiaC-]

Good luck sir, what's your niche selection process look like?

 

[Mxty]

Good luck sir, what's your niche selection process look like?

I don't really have or believe in a niche selection process to a particular extent. I research if it's monetizable, through Amazon or Awin etc. I believe that almost every niche has low-hanging fruit, you just have to find it. I do an initial bit of research, usually 15-20 article ideas, and go from there.

I think people put too much time into trying to find the perfect niche, that being said there are of course things I would completely stay away from that I just don't have the budget for CBD, Casino etc.

 

[pocketttt]

good job, seems you already having sucess
following

 

[t2van]

My take home is someplace for what you want to aim for OP. Although I got good family life I prob work 60-80 hours a week (on a good week)

Don't be under the illusion that you just stop working when you work for your self.

 

[vinn12]

Intro
I've been hesitant to make a journey thread, I like putting all of my hours into working on my websites without reporting them here, but the reason I'm doing it is I don't want to lose sight of my goal and it gives me something to check back on.

So, backstory time. I've been in the SEO industry for around 8 years now, and aside from small little projects that I do on the side and freelance, I've mostly worked for someone else - in house and agency side over the years. I now work as a marketing manager, and I do pretty well for myself, but the main issue I have with it is I work 40-45 hours of my week, which I know is pretty typical but I don't want it to be - I want to work less and have more time to enjoy life.

I'd been bobbling along pretty happily, earning from work and having a consistent freelance client - Covid came, the freelance client couldn't afford it anymore so I lost a chunk of income, so I decided with the time that I spent on Freelance I'd work on my own site, one I'd set up a year prior and just basically forgot about.

In April 2020, I set to work, with the goal of making back my freelance income, which I did pretty quickly (£400 a month).

Goals
As mentioned the initial goal was simply to get back that freelance income, but I saw potential and became more ambitious. Here's my target:

• Earn £10k a month, consistently - I have the long term goal of not only doing this through my websites but turning the profit from them into buying property as it's far more stable.
• Quit my day job, work completely for myself and outsource almost everything
• Spend more time with my family

Ambitious, right? I'm under no illusions that this is going to be a quick process.

Progress So Far
I have one main site that is creating all of the income, but I'm putting all of that back (bar taxes) into improving it and expanding my website portfolio.

Website #1:
My day zero. I actually started this website in April 2019, but just put some content on it with no monetization and let it rot. I then picked it back up in April 2020 and decided to monetize it through Ads & Amazon. Pictures speak louder than words, so here's where we are.

Stats: I'm not sure on word count, 500K+? DR 29, 30-40k organic traffic a month, 2 years old, Amazon UK + Ezoic earnings.

Last year:
View attachment 167168

This year (so far):
View attachment 167169

I also earn from Ezoic, but that doesn't feel worth while sharing - it's about $200 a month.

This latest month, I think I'm on for roughly £1,100-£1,200.

I also have a few sites that I've been working on that are yet to generate any notable revenue.

• Website #2 - 130k words of content, 25DR, 1k visits a month, 6 months old, Amazon US aff monetization
• Website #3 - 15k words of content, 2.6DR, 60 visits a month, 3 months old, Amazon UK aff + Awin
• Website #4 - 60k words of content, 5DR, 30 visits a month, 2 months old, Amazon UK aff
• Website #5 - 20k words of content, 10DR, 0 visits, 1 month old, Amazon UK aff

Strategy Moving Forward
Set & forget worked pretty damn well for me, and this post is getting long so I'll keep this bit short.

Maintain site #1 with regular content and links to try and grow the income continually - I outsource all of this at the moment.

I want to grow my portfolio of sites, I'm going to get each site to 100k words, with a sprinkled bit of link building here and there - and keep growing the winners.

I will throw everything I earn from these sites back into growing them - at the moment I don't need the income. I also do a bit of the work myself, I can write around 3-6k words a week, and do all the keyword research.

I have such goals too , may be some day I'll also write my journey . Good! Luck mate , you'll make it for sure

 

[4gNET]

Your EPMV from Ezoic is really low. Any idea why?

 

[Mxty]

Your EPMV from Ezoic is really low. Any idea why?

I didn't realise it was considered low, I've had a few issues with Ezoic - mainly the fact their premiums seems like a blatant scam. I'd say I earn $8-10 a day at 1 - 1.3k visits typically. Maybe the fact it's UK traffic doesn't lend itself well? I'm not sure, when I hit that magic 50k I'll definitely be jumping to Mediavine.

My take home is someplace for what you want to aim for OP. Although I got good family life I prob work 60-80 hours a week (on a good week)

Don't be under the illusion that you just stop working when you work for your self.

I'm under no illusion that's its going to be hard work to get there. I work in my full time role 40-45 hours, but I'm putting in and extra 20 on these sites I would say - although childcare gets in the way.

Like I eluded too, I eventually want to turn this online income to the more trusty, and less time consuming brick and mortar, renting property out is the long long term goal.