grizzlyMontana
Newbie
- Dec 19, 2023
- 3
- 4
I’ve tried to build niche websites in the past and had some modest success, hitting the $1,000 a month mark. However, after falling foul of a Google update I gave up to focus on my day job.
All the time I was working a 9-5 I had that itch of wanting to work for myself, to be the captain of my own ship and to be in control of my destiny.
During the pandemic I was laid off and so finally had an excuse to work for myself as a freelance consultant.
While the money was excellent and I was making between $5,000 and $8,000 a month I was working up to 80 hours a week and constantly worrying about spinning plates.
As the work and stress affected my personal life and with my marriage rapidly going downhill, I decided that enough was enough and after 18 months I made the decision to go back to the 9-5 world working for the NHS here in the UK.
And that’s what I’ve been doing for the last two years until I recently got that itch to have one last crack at building an online business but this time without the desire to leave the corporate world but rather use it to supplement my income.
Goals
While I could push for promotions and change companies to earn more money, I’m pretty much at the top of my job without taking on additional responsibilities such as managing a team and that’s not something I want to do so I figure an online side business might be a better route.
I’ll get a couple of pay bumps but in three years I’ll be at the top of my band with nowhere else to go really.
I currently make just over $55,000 a year at my day job and my five year goal is to build a business that brings my annual total income inline with that of those at the top of my organisation which is around $127,000 (£100,000 a year).
I’ve set five revenue milestones for the next five years based on the pay bands within the NHS that will take me to my goal.
How I’m Going To Make Money
Unlike last time where I focused on just Amazon, this time I’m going to diversify and use display, affiliate and own products to make money.
If I go down the best xyz route focusing on Amazon, I can realistically expect to make a few dollars, however, non-Amazon affiliate payouts are around $40-$50 per sale with commissions on the top end products hitting $100 - making this a very attractive vertical to work in.
There’s also lots of opportunity to make money with my own products and while some of these are lower value there is the potential for repeat sales to make up for the lower retail cost (average $12).
For display ads I couldn’t find any reliable RPM data but I’ve tried to compare the CPC costs on Google with a known industry RPM and I’d estimate the RPM to be between $30 - $50 depending on the time of year.
While these RPMs would be great, I’m sceptical about the numbers but hope to be proven wrong.
In addition I'll be really pushing to build an email list as there could be real value in the list.
Traffic
I’ve fallen foul of Google before so while it will be my main focus I’m also going to be present on Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook running both organic and paid campaigns eventually.
Progress So Far
So I didn’t want to start this at square one as nobody wants to read about me setting up my domain, hosting and website so these are all done along with registering my social profiles.
One thing I read that I thought was pretty interesting was that you should launch your site with a post in each category of your website so I’ve done this bringing my total number of posts at launch to 10.
To give myself a head start I’ve scheduled one post a day from 1st January to the 15th which will give me time to write posts for the final two weeks of the month and to always be ahead of myself until I can outsource.
I’ve got around 100 keywords picked out so far with a total volume of just over 1.5 million so if over the next five years I can capture just 1% of this traffic and convert 1% of those visitors then I should exceed my goal.
Plans For January 2024
The main focus for January will be to write, publish and promote blog posts across social channels and to try and get some content scheduled for February too.
I also want to buy a few of my competitors' products to see what they’re like and to see if I can identify a way to make mine better.
Anyhoo, I’ve got lots of writing to do so I’ll end by wishing you all a very prosperous 2024!
All the time I was working a 9-5 I had that itch of wanting to work for myself, to be the captain of my own ship and to be in control of my destiny.
During the pandemic I was laid off and so finally had an excuse to work for myself as a freelance consultant.
While the money was excellent and I was making between $5,000 and $8,000 a month I was working up to 80 hours a week and constantly worrying about spinning plates.
As the work and stress affected my personal life and with my marriage rapidly going downhill, I decided that enough was enough and after 18 months I made the decision to go back to the 9-5 world working for the NHS here in the UK.
And that’s what I’ve been doing for the last two years until I recently got that itch to have one last crack at building an online business but this time without the desire to leave the corporate world but rather use it to supplement my income.
Goals
While I could push for promotions and change companies to earn more money, I’m pretty much at the top of my job without taking on additional responsibilities such as managing a team and that’s not something I want to do so I figure an online side business might be a better route.
I’ll get a couple of pay bumps but in three years I’ll be at the top of my band with nowhere else to go really.
I currently make just over $55,000 a year at my day job and my five year goal is to build a business that brings my annual total income inline with that of those at the top of my organisation which is around $127,000 (£100,000 a year).
I’ve set five revenue milestones for the next five years based on the pay bands within the NHS that will take me to my goal.
| Annual Goal | Monthly Goal | Daily Goal | |
| Year One | $9,187.92 | $765.66 | $2.10 |
| Year Two | $19,408.05 | $1,617.34 | $4.43 |
| Year Three | $33,992.75 | $2,832.73 | $7.76 |
| Year Four | $50,755.29 | $4,229.61 | $11.59 |
| Year Five | $71,552.36 | $5,962.70 | $16.34 |
How I’m Going To Make Money
Unlike last time where I focused on just Amazon, this time I’m going to diversify and use display, affiliate and own products to make money.
If I go down the best xyz route focusing on Amazon, I can realistically expect to make a few dollars, however, non-Amazon affiliate payouts are around $40-$50 per sale with commissions on the top end products hitting $100 - making this a very attractive vertical to work in.
There’s also lots of opportunity to make money with my own products and while some of these are lower value there is the potential for repeat sales to make up for the lower retail cost (average $12).
For display ads I couldn’t find any reliable RPM data but I’ve tried to compare the CPC costs on Google with a known industry RPM and I’d estimate the RPM to be between $30 - $50 depending on the time of year.
While these RPMs would be great, I’m sceptical about the numbers but hope to be proven wrong.
In addition I'll be really pushing to build an email list as there could be real value in the list.
Traffic
I’ve fallen foul of Google before so while it will be my main focus I’m also going to be present on Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook running both organic and paid campaigns eventually.
Progress So Far
So I didn’t want to start this at square one as nobody wants to read about me setting up my domain, hosting and website so these are all done along with registering my social profiles.
One thing I read that I thought was pretty interesting was that you should launch your site with a post in each category of your website so I’ve done this bringing my total number of posts at launch to 10.
To give myself a head start I’ve scheduled one post a day from 1st January to the 15th which will give me time to write posts for the final two weeks of the month and to always be ahead of myself until I can outsource.
I’ve got around 100 keywords picked out so far with a total volume of just over 1.5 million so if over the next five years I can capture just 1% of this traffic and convert 1% of those visitors then I should exceed my goal.
Plans For January 2024
The main focus for January will be to write, publish and promote blog posts across social channels and to try and get some content scheduled for February too.
I also want to buy a few of my competitors' products to see what they’re like and to see if I can identify a way to make mine better.
Anyhoo, I’ve got lots of writing to do so I’ll end by wishing you all a very prosperous 2024!
