The first step to making money blogging is to stop searching for “how to make money with blogging.” Not because blogging for a living is impossible — it is a reality for many. The problem is the stuff you find will mostly ‘lose’ you money. Kind of like asking a casino owner how to make money in Vegas.
Blogging for money is not a hobby. Every guy and his grandma have created a casual blog. The audience for most of these sites extends to family and friends. And maybe a handful of straggling strangers, stumbling from an obscure Google search, if they’re unlucky.
This illusion of making easy money blogging is emboldened by the relatively few examples of bloggers that make six-figures and beyond.
… Or is it an illusion?
Most realists will tell you that blogging cannot make you money. These same people are aware that blogging can make someone very wealthy. After all, they have probably read a six-figure blog or two in the past twelve months. They just don’t think you can do it.
They want you to be realistic like them.
My goal with this guide is to convince a realist to see the sheer potential of blogging for a living. Not only is it possible, but if you take the right action as outlined here, making money from blogging is inevitable.
Don’t let small minds convince you that your dreams are too big.
Grow your mind, instead.
Section 1 — Getting Started with Blogging
Before cashing any checks, you need a virtual stomping ground.
A website you can call your own.
One of the biggest mistakes newbies make is they choose a free platform.
That’s okay if you want a hobby blog.
And I actually show you how to do the hobby blog set up, right here.
If you’re serious about blogging, though, you need a self-hosted solution.
Consider this…
I’ve been online marketing for eight years now, and I can’t think of a single example of a successful blogger with a free website.
It just doesn’t happen. Not only does it look unprofessional, but you lose control over how you can use it. You’re limited with the design, monetization and whether you can even keep it alive or not.
Horror stories happen on a regular basis, when someone loses their free website.
How dare they? Is the common response to a free website suspension.
Or, “I didn’t know that was against the ‘Terms of Service.”
… You get what you pay for.
Set up your site the right way, with this complimentary guide to help you.
Section 2 — Pick a Passion with a Commercial Audience
Sounds like we’re slipping into the hobby category here, but having a passionate interest in your blog is paramount to your success.
If you don’t like your topic, you won’t last for the long term.
You can fake an interest for a post or two. Maybe even a dozen. To create a lucrative blog, you need years of posting the goods. With something that disinterests you, the content will burn out. Either altogether, or the apathy towards the subject will show in your writing.
Pick something that you like writing about.
Myself, for example, could ramble about “blogging” or “making money online” for days. I wouldn’t stop, even I became a billionaire tomorrow. It’s what I enjoy doing.
Don’t think of it as something you “could do,” instead think of what you “have to do.”
What about the Commercial Audience Part?
It would be nice if we could just stop at passion, right?
You’d be free to write about your favourite bag of Doritos, or the tasty Vietnamese restaurant down the road.
Blogging for money doesn’t work that way. Where there’s a passion, money often follows. But that’s not always the case.
Some topics don’t make bloggers enough sales to be worthwhile.
There’s only really two things we need to worry about here:
- Is the Audience Big Enough?
- Does the Audience spend money?
Many will argue with me here, and say you also need to check the competition.
Logic being that if a topic like “make money online” is too competitive, you won’t be able to muster enough attention to your blog.
I disagree. If a market has lots of competition, it’s usually because there’s money to be made.
You can get traffic in a competitive market. It will be harder, but worth it in the end.
For this, I like to lean on the wisdom of the former Richest Man in the World.
“In Business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable moats.”
– Warren Buffet
If you’re in a competitive marketplace, you just need to build a castle.
When you do that, you’ll have a business that’s sustainable and profitable.
Is your Passion Big Enough?
My advice would be, if you have to question it — probably not.
The bloggers that make the big bucks are mostly in these industries:
- Make money online
- Health
- Fitness
- Finance
- Stock Market
- Fashion
- Celebrities
- Food
- Gaming(?)
That’s a start.
You can probably find a half dozen more that are big enough to justify blogging for money.
What about smaller niches?
Here’s the thing…
You absolutely could dominate a small niche. It would take some elbow grease, some time and some dedication to your niche audience. Even then, it would not be a guaranteed earner for you.
Let’s say that you’re interested in bowling. You could become one of the “bowling guys” in blogging. And yes, you would make a nice “side income.”
However, it would actually be more difficult to make full-time income with bowling than it would in the fitness industry. Even though it’s easier to become a bigger player in the bowling industry.
That make sense?
In the big industries, you can feast more on a much smaller sliver of the pie. If you pick a small blogging niche, you could eat the whole damn pie, and still be left hungry for more.
So find the middle ground that works for you.
I picked “make money online” when I started because it was the best financial choice. It also, fortunately for me, turned into a major passion of mine.
Section 3 — Your Blogging Purpose to the Reader
Your goal is probably a financial one.
When I started, my goal was to make my first $1 online.
Then my next goal was to reach $100/month. And the numbers continued to rise, until at the point of writing this, I make around $10,000 every month.
But FORGET ALL THAT!
Nobody cares about your goal.
The reader wants to know what’s in it for them.
You need a Blogging Purpose
This is a little tricky, because you don’t want to just look like everyone else.
That’s boring, and it’s not going to build you a readership.
Instead, you want to stand out from the pack. You do this by having a USP (unique selling point).
A Unique Selling Point is the reason why a reader picks you.
For example, Pizza Hut is famous for selling a stuffed crust pizza. Cheese addicts will often select Pizza Hut because their stuffed crust has captured their main interest.
In this case, we’re talking about the Pizza Restaurant industry. Pizza Hut is the business, and a stuffed crust is their unique selling point.
Does that make sense?
The Three USP’s on My Blog
I’ll use my blog as an example.
On BrendanMace.com, there’s three things I use to distinguish my brand from the pack.
- There’s a mugshot of my face on the home page.
- I talk about travelling — a lot.
- I’m transparent about pretty much everything.
For a little context, my blog is about “making money online”
That should help a little. It’s not about finding something that’s original to everything on the internet. You’d expect a travel blog to talk about travelling, for instance.
A USP has to do with your particular industry. A good USP differentiates your blog from your competitors, and builds you readership.
A typical “make money online” blog is horrendous (in my opinion).
They usually have banner ads on the side, in the header of the blog, and even scattered throughout the post-copy.
Jamming ads is attractive because you can make some quick cash from an occasional sale.
You can make 10-20X more, however, by using the same “ad space” to sell yourself instead.
The mugshot of my face is different. It intentionally makes readers feel like they are reading from a real person. Of course, most blogs have a human writer involved. But it’s easy to forget that, when half the page is packed with offers.
This is what I do, here:
Very simple, but stands out.
What could you do to make your blog more personal?
Simple little touches that add your personality go a long way. Your business is about developing connections with your readers. Do that — and making cash will be easy.
The Travelling Rambles — Why?
Another USP on BrendanMace.com is the constant ‘travel talk.’
Why?
My blog is about “making money online.” It may seem like a giant waste of words to focus on something that doesn’t make money online, but it gives me a unique selling point.
There are loads of bloggers that brag about their numbers. Showing statistics about the amount of visitors they get per month, and how much net profit they make while sleeping in their mansions. And heck, I do some of this too (minus the mansion). But not many “make money online” bloggers talk about travelling.
To me, travelling is more down to earth. It’s something many every-day guy or gal wants to do, but usually has a reason not to.
You may be thinking at this point, “I don’t want to travel. I could care less about anything outside my basement.”
And to that, I would say, “are you out of your fucking mind?”
Just kidding. Sort of…
The point I actually want to make is that you shouldn’t try and please everyone. It’s impossible, and you’re more likely to be left with nobody.
The much better option is to build a tribe. To stand out, and grow a group of readers that are obsessed with your USP(s).
Full Transparency USP — Industry specific
The last of my three USP’s is transparency.
This would not be unique in other industries, like fitness or gaming.
When it comes to “make money online,” however, most bloggers don’t freely talk about their income sources, which is weird.
Keeping your hand hidden is the norm for internet marketing.
For the clever bloggers out there, this unusual behaviour is a welcome opportunity.
Any industry with lopsided norms is ripe for a pattern interrupt.
A “pattern interrupt” is an attention tsunami. Not everyone is going to like your interruption, but almost everyone will notice it.
Matthew Woodward — A blogging Interrupter
Matthew Woodward has one of the coolest blogs in marketing.
His site clears 6-figures per year, and packs a blogging punch of awesomeness.
Matthew’s most famous for his SEO (search engine optimization) ability. Which in layman’s terms, means his aptitude for ranking websites in search engines like Google.
When he started his blog, the blogging purpose was a “no back link experiment.” Which means that he intended to demonstrate how to rank a website without building any backlinks.
The pattern for “website rankers” was to abuse backlinks. A typical blogger in that space would have experiments about how a certain ‘link’ affects a site’s rankings.
It was unusual, for Matthew, to create an SEO focussed blog that intentionally avoids backlinks.
That’s like a world class chef claiming he can make you a delicious meal without any food.
He did it, though. And his blog thrived because he chose to do something different.
How Do You Add a USP to Your Blog?
- Brainstorm the norms in your market
- Brainstorm what you could do differently
- Pick at least one USP, and brand the crap out of it
Just be careful. Don’t be different for the sake of difference.
Nobody is showing their genitals while blogging about mashed potatoes.
Sometimes nobody is doing something for a good reason.
Use your common sense to decide whether your difference, will give your blog the right purpose to move forward.
Section 4 — Your Site’s Design and Layout
First of all, you need a logo.
Without one, you will not build a brand. And you will not look different.
My favourite spot for logo designs is a site called Fiverr.com
This site hosts a marketplace of freelancers that are willing to do small tasks for $5.
You can get anything from written articles to a drunken impersonation of Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday. Lots of stuff. And everything is on the cheap.
If you’re not careful, you can drop over $100 on random Fiverr gigs, though.
Cheap over time can really add up.
Here’s my site’s logo:
Simple, classy and gets my USP across.
My blog is about building a laptop business from a beach.
This logo captures that message, and it’s not obnoxious about it.
Where did I get this awesome logo?
… You guessed it. On Fiverr.com for five buckaroos.
Here’s the seller I bought from:
Awesome deal!
There’s a bunch of logo designers on Fiverr.
Check it out, and save yourself the hassle of designing it yourself.
Using a WordPress Theme to Shortcut the Look and Feel
In the past, if you wanted a “cool” looking blog, you’d either need professional web-designer skills, or you’d need to dish out thousands of dollars to have the design done for you.
That sucks.
Now you can get a professional blog design for less than 100 bucks. And I still see blog owners bitch and complain about dropping a little cash on a quality Wordpress theme.
That’s a whole bowl of shortsightedness. These “Negative Nancy’s” plan on making $1k+/month from their blog, but they can’t drop $100 to get the right ‘look and feel’ for their website.
There are many bloggers that have split tested different designs and layouts. The income difference from one to the next is often massive. Trust me, getting a quality look is one of the best investments in the business.
The WordPress Themes I Recommend
You really cannot go wrong with StudioPress Themes.
This company has put together a smorgasbord of various WordPress themes, so that you can find the exact one that fits your blogging needs.
The theme used on BrendanMace.com is called MagazinePro
You can see it here:
It cost me $97, which may seem expensive to some. In the grand scheme of things, less than $100 on a serious business is a bargain.
Side Note: Blogging for money is a business — not a hobby. If you opened a business on main street, think of all the expenses you would pay.
You’d owe rent, utilities, cost of goods, worker salaries, etc.
Just because your expenses with an online business are typically lower, that does not mean you should avoid investing at all costs. When you have an opportunity to drop a little money to improve your business a lot — take that opportunity.
Section 5 — What to Write in Your Blog Posts
The “work” involved in blogging is the content creation.
Sure, once you have a steady online income stream, you’ll be able to afford outsourcing some of this content creation, if you want to.
Until then, you will need to write this stuff yourself.
Your blogging livelihood depends on the posts you write. Understandably, this is an important problem that you will have to solve.
My recommendation is to do some keyword research.
The key here is to find out what people are searching for on Google.
The easiest and cheapest way to get (some) keyword information, is to go direct to the source.
With the first easy keyword strategy, open up Google.com on your browser, and start typing in industry related words. What we’re looking for here is the “auto generated keyword suggestions.”
These suggestions tell us what people are commonly looking for.
An example here shows the a simple search of “blogging f”
Right away, we can see that “blogging for beginners” and for ‘money’ are two very popular options.
If we were blogging on the topic “make money blogging” these would be great keywords to target.
The problem here is that blogging relies on many blog posts over time. If we just wanted a keyword or two, this autocomplete strategy would work.
However, we need more, so we need a more expansive tool.
My favourite tool for getting keywords quick and easy is LongTailPro.
You can find my full review of it here.
Side Note: The last couple sections both recommend spending a little money to shortcut your blogging. I promise you there is not much left to buy. However, these little investments are worth your while.
Section 6 — How to Get Traffic to Your Blog
As proved by Matthew’s blog, you’re better off ignoring backlinks.
You may have never heard about the benefits of backlinks before. If that’s the case, consider yourself lucky. The strategy of abusing backlinks for rankings is not realistic anymore.
The better option is to use high quality content, “in the right way” to get traffic.
That ‘right way’ part will be discussed in a second.
But first, consider this analogy…
One of my favourite movies from the 80’s was Field of Dreams.
Just a couple weeks ago, I watched it with my girlfriend, and despite her dislike of baseball, she still thought it was a great flick.
It’s often misquoted with “Build it and They Will Come”
When in actuality, it was “Build it and He Will Come”
While it was a feel good moment in the movie, if you treat your blog this way, you are going to get hosed.
In other words, you’ll never see good traffic or Google rankings.
This is something most people don’t realize. They expect people to come.
The only way people are going to see your blog, is if you show it to them.
What is the Right Way to Promote Your Blog?
We know that backlinks aren’t going to work, and playing the waiting game is futile.
The best option is to get our content in front of an audience.
There are a few ways to do that, but in this guide, I’m going to feature my favourite three.
Check out these three posts to learn about getting blog traffic:
Some light reading that will uncover exactly how to start building a blogging audience.
Section 7 — Other Way to Get Extra Traffic
The Skyscraper Method and Guest Posting are both great ways to get traffic.
They do require a lot of work, though.
An easier way to get traffic is what I like to call the “Infiltrator Method”
The idea is simple
- Find out where your audience hangs out
- Add value to the conversation(s)
- Siphon back to your blog
The best way to find your audience is to use a tagging based system.
There’s a free tool called Google Alerts, where you’ll be sent a “keyword based” notification anytime Google discovers new content that is created in your subject area.
This is a 100% free way to get more traffic.
All you need to do is monitor the notifications, and then siphon traffic back from the source Google finds.
There’s a bit of a trick here, though.
It’s not enough to go to these publications, and shamelessly drop your link back to your blog.
Any site with reasonable quality control will delete your link. Meaning that only the lower quality sites will even let you post that kind of garbage.
The better way to do this is to provide value first. Then when you drop your link, the site owner will recognize that your contribution is not entirely selfish. It’s a win-win to keep you there.
It’s even okay to have a “copy + paste” message written up on a topic area. And in fact, that’s probably the most effective way to do it.
For example, if I use a Google Alerts for “keyword research,” I have a template message already created on how to get the best results with keywords. At the end of this template message, I let people know that if they want more information, they can visit my blog for more details.
Instead of re-writing this message every time, I can use it any time that Google has a notification for “keyword research.” I may have to edit it a tiny bit to personalize it to the particular post. But overall, this copy and paste system will save my a lot of time.
Finding a Forum to Add Value
Another great opportunity is to Google search for forums in your area.
When I google search “make money online” forums, right away I see two results:
BlackHatWorld and WarriorForum are both goldmines of potential blog readers.
Not only can you get a lot visitors back to your blog. The traffic is generally very response.
After all, think about it. The reason why people clicked over to your site is because they like what you had to say.
This is going to be like random Google traffic that stumbles on your site.
It’s going to be laser targeted visitors that already position you as an expert.
Your user metrics for “time on site” will go through the roof. Which will indirectly help your Google rankings as well.
Talk about a powerful traffic strategy.
All you need for “Forum Marketing” is to have a good signature.
Here’s mine:
Everything is in BOLD TEXT and encourages people to click over.
The more value you add in the forum, the more likely people will visit your site.
If you’re seen as an expert on the forum — even better.
Visitors will be flocking to your site, ready to give you their well earned attention.
Section 8 — Building an Email List
If you don’t build a list, you’re leaving most of the money on the table.
Notice, I’m saying “most” here — that’s true.
Think about it, if you get one Google visitor, you probably have a chance to make only one sale on that day.
If you capture a subscriber, you can keep a loyal follower for life.
… That’s 365 emails per year (at a rate of one per day) and loads of extra blog visits and affiliate sales.
It’s pretty clear. Capturing the lead is your number one monetization strategy.
The Best Way to Convert Visitors into Subscribers
Put Email Form(s) directly on Your Site
There’s lots of vacant places on your blog for an email form.
I have a few places that I recommend the most:
- On your sidebar
- On your blog header
- Before your content
- In the content
- Pop Up for Visitor Departures
You can really get creative here. If you’re really a stickler for maximizing conversion rates, you could boost up your numbers by having specific forms for each specific post.
For example, a blog post about “list building” could have an email form that promises an “Email Marketing Cheat Sheet” bonus. In order to get that cheat sheet, visitors would need to subscribe to the specific web-form on that one specific blog post.
It would take a bit of extra work, but the extra opt-ins may be worth your while. I’ll be honest here and say I don’t do this. It takes a good amount of time, and I’d rather focus on other areas of my business.
For simplicity sake, my favourites for on-blog email forms are the sidebar, the pop up and before the content.
My blog doesn’t actually have a sidebar form. Not because it’s a bad idea, I simply went in another direction.
The Pop Up, however, results in the largest portion of my new subscribers.
I enthusiastically encourage you to add this to your blog.
Won’t a pop up bother my visitors?
Great question.
Some people will take this the wrong way — that’s an unavoidable reality for pretty much anything you create.
But really, why should anyone care?
The Pop Up that I use is easily close-able. Which is important to me, and makes the brief pop up interruption as short as a half taken breath.
In fact, it doesn’t in any way prevent visitors from leaving my site.
It activates when a visitor indicates they are about to leave, and encourages visitors to join my blog mailing list. If a visitor still decides they want to leave without subscribing, this offer in no way prevents them from doing so.
Any person that complains about a non-obstructing pop up needs to chill.
And besides, they’re leaving anyways.
This is your last chance at gaining a long term visitor to your blog. Any subscribers are a huge bonus, that will provide easy traffic for any future posts.
Here’s a look at my pop up:
Check out my blog, and you can see this pop up in real time.
The other place “on my blog” that collects leads on autopilot is the before content form.
This next form is a little more obstructing.
In this case, visitors see the form before they see any of your content.
To some people, this is really off-putting. Because before you even add any value, you’re already asking for a favour.
While this does get subscribers, I can understand why this would prompt some people to leave your site earlier.
For that reason, I only have this form on my home page.
That way, it doesn’t distract from my blog content in any significant way. And most people that really enjoy my blog content will visit the home page and see my form.
You can see my before content form here:
These two “on-site” forms roll in some free subscribers.
The crucial concept in this section is that blog followers via email is what separates full-time bloggers from struggling “wantrapreneurs.”
A good blogger finds a way to build a returning audience.
The easiest way to do that is with an email list.
What Emails Should You Send to New Subscribers?
Your best option is to create an email series.
The service I use is Aweber
You can get a 30 day free trial of Aweber right here.
In your free trial of Aweber, you need to click on the “Create a Message button”
You can see this green button on the right side of your account.
Here’s a look at mine:
You’ll then be taking to an editor.
This looks just like Microsoft Word, or whatever word processor that you’re used to.
Basically, you create your emails, and then save them when you’re done.
I recommend creating at least 20 emails to start, and then build over time.
Actually, my email series is over 240+ messages.
It didn’t get that way overnight, I gradually keep adding more emails over time.
Don’t worry, though. Emails are not like blog posts. They don’t have to be long.
Just a simple, to the point message to your subscribers.
The best email conversions happen when you create personal emails. Subscribers feel like you are talking directly to them, and not like you’re just blasting out to thousands of people at once.
Keep that in mind while you write your email series.
Here’s a look at my first five messages in the series:
- Booyah! YOU are now subscribed to Brendan Mace
- Create Your Own $867.26/month Niche Site
- Crazy NEW Keyword Method – 100% Awesome
- 4 Easy Steps to Unlimited Traffic on Autopilot
- Create a Profitable Niche Site in 20 Minutes or Less
Not only will email get more visitors to your blog, it will also make you sales as well.
The emails that I write serve a number of different purposes.
1– My Coaching program
My emails often tell people about my coaching services.
In my coaching program I share absolutely everything I know about “making money online” and we set everything up together step-by-step.
This allows me to help many followers achieve their goals, and many actually quit their jobs.
My business only takes about 15 minutes per day to maintain, and I make enough to pay all my bills.
2– Blog/Video Tutorials
In these emails, I direct traffic to my online tutorials. This builds a relationship with my list, gets traffic to my blog, and also helps people learn new marketing skills.
This essentially leverages the valuable content you create on your blog, and serves it up to an active and engaged audience.
3– Affiliate Promotions
When I find a product worth recommending, I’ll send an email to my subscribers letting them know about it.
These emails are delicate. You do not want to promote garbage. That will ruin your reputation faster than obnoxiously farting on a first date.
I wait for products that I actually use myself before sharing with my subscribers.
This works the same for blog or email.
Two Simple Steps:
- Find good products
- Promote them
Easy cash, and useful to many.
4– Engagement Driven Emails
These are my personal favourite of the emails I send.
Their purpose is simple — to get engagement.
An example email subject line I use is “How Can I Help You?”
In this email, I’m asking subscribers to contact me with whatever they need help with.
Many subscribers do take me up on this, and I fortunately get to work with many of my followers.
Some refuse to do this. After all, it takes some “real work” to engage directly with your subscribers.
In my opinion, it’s an exceptional use of your time.
An average engagement response takes me 60 seconds or less. In most cases subscribers are asking a specific question that really only takes one or two paragraphs to answer.
In that 60 second or less timespan, I have usually create a loyal follower for life.
The subscribers I answer will see my email more often, buy more products from my recommendations, and definitely follow my blog more closely.
This is one relatively untapped area with a goldmine of value.
Do not underestimate the power of helping people directly.
Section 9 — Why Site Speed Matters
One of the biggest mistakes people make is ignoring site speed.
There’s two problems with having low speed.
- It Creates a bad user experience
- Google will hate you for it
In the mess of writing posts and promoting content, it sometimes gets forgotten to look at the overall experience.
Any user that visits a slow website is more likely to bounce, and a lot less likely to buy.
Google’s disdain for slow loading times is getting even more intense.
And it makes sense for this search behemoth to care so much. Having a bad user experience is unprofessional. It may seem unfair for Google to penalize so harshly, but they are usually just looking for accurate indicators about a site’s quality.
You’ll get less visitors to a slow site, and the people you get are less likely to stay as long.
The good news is that site speed is easy to improve.
The Main Problems that Ruin Your Site Speed — And what to do about it
A couple years ago, I had no idea how the internet worked.
While on vacation in Cuba, I noticed that my blog was running way slower.
My first reaction was that Cuba must have terrible internet speed.
The confusion, though, was that websites like Google and FaceBook maintained a high speed connection.
Why Would My Blog Get the Short End of the Stick?
And then I found out.
When visiting my blog, the information from my blog’s server location has to virtually travel to the location of my internet connection.
In simpler talk, if my blog is set up in Seattle, USA, and someone opens it elsewhere, the information has to travel all the way from Seattle to that visitor’s location.
That means that any person close to my hosting server will get the fastest site speeds, but most international visitors will have a much slower experience.
The easy fix for this is to use a CDN.
What is a Content Delivery Network?
A CDN is a network of servers, that distributes your content delivery around the globe.
Each visitor is sent your site’s information from the country on the CDN that’s the closest to their location.
This means that regardless of whether a visitor is in South East Asia, Europe, Cuba, etc, your site will consistently deliver a faster site speed.
A good option for this is called MaxCDN (no affiliation)
This small change will dramatically improve your blog’s speed for visitors around the world.
Another Important Blog Decision for Site Speed
You must know that you need a hosting service.
This will affect the site speed.
My best recommendation is to use HostGator for budget hosting.
There are very expensive hosting providers that deliver the fastest site speeds. The one I’m using for BrendanMace.com costs me $50/month. That’s something you’ll want to add as your blog grows past 10,000 visitors per month.
Until then, most hosting services are between $4-10/month.
HostGator is a very reasonable price. It costs about $5/month for the Baby Plan.
If you use the coupon code “get25offyourbill” you’ll get an additional 25% discount off your hosting order.
Section 10 — Benefits of Passive Income
Every month, I post my business results on my blog.
I call these income reports.
As of right now, I’m making around $10,000 per month.
The even better news is that my business really only takes about 15 minutes per day to maintain.
That means that on a low effort month, I would spend about 7.5 hours working.
During that month, I would still make $10,000.
Which means that my income rate is approximately $1,333.33/hour.
That’s the number after taking my income and dividing it by hours worked.
What to Do with All that Time?
Tim Ferris calls this the New Rich.
The idea being that time is an asset that’s at least as valuable as money.
Under this philosophy, even a millionaire could be “time-poor,” if a job prevents him from living his life.
It’s not just about making money.
It’s also about building an income stream that doesn’t enslave your precious time.
To become a member of the new rich, you must build passive income.
When you do that, you’ll win back your life.
What I do with My Time
In the last eight months I’ve traveled to:
- The Okanagan
- Vancouver
- Las Vegas
- Cuba
- Medellin
- San Andreas Island
- Panama City
- Thailand
- Cambodia
- Vietnam
Here’s a view shot of the beach at Koh Tao:
To me, travelling is what keeps me sane.
It’s not just about making the money that’s important. It’s what I do with my time that matters the most.
There’s a lot people that say “money doesn’t buy happiness”
Which is a debatable statement. You have both sides of the coin here. In my opinion, it’s shortsighted to think money can’t affect your life.
The truth is that money may not buy happiness, but poverty can buy a whole lot of misery.
The reason for making money blogging is to give you freedom.
We all have our reasons for wanting this.
For me, I want to be laying on a beach on my terms. And work only when I want to.
You know what the crazy thing is?
Travelling the world is not that expensive.
When you trade dollars for pesos, your money will go a lot further.
Nomadic Matt is a travel blogger.
He also wrote a book titled “How to Travel the World on $50 per Day”
That’s just $1,500 per month. And that’s an average of every country in the whole freaking world. You could live even cheaper if you slumber onto a beach area in South East Asia.
Do you need to travel?
Absolutely not.
But find something worth doing with your time.
For some of us, that means more time to spend with the family.
Others, that might just mean a little more down time for television and movies. Don’t feel guilty about that. Many of us have been working too hard for too many years.
It’s time to win your life back.
Section 11 — Not a Goodbye: Ask Me Anything
“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will”
– Steven King
I know you’re busy. I know that it’s more comfortable to give up.
Don’t let time slip by because you’re too afraid to make a change.
Building an online business was the best thing I ever did in my life. Where else can you start a business with such a low barrier to entry?
Your costs are minimal. Your obligations are non-existent.
Do this for yourself, and live your life on your terms.
The “Not a GoodBye”
Just because this guide is ending does not mean our connection is over.
If you enjoyed reading this, sign up to my email list.
I have coached over a hundred students. At least a dozen of which have now quit their jobs.
Almost all my students at least create a “side income”
Creating $1,000/month with blogging is very possible. It may seem unattainable now, but I promise you, once you get the ball rolling, you’ll start to dream of even higher income numbers.
Ask Me Anything
I have an open invitation to connect with me.
If you need help building a business. I can get you to the next level a lot faster. And you’ll be able to avoid a lot of the mistakes I made when starting out.
My last piece of advice is this: Don’t let small minds convince you that your dreams are TOO BIG. You can do this!
If you would like to learn more about passive, then I would love to chat with you. Check out my blog that shares in depth guide, like this one. Right here: www.BrendanMace.com
