How I Made $17,492 From My First Blog

You hear many stories of people making lots of money online, but few share how they make that money.

My very first blog made me $17,492.

And today I’m going to share screenshots and what it took to get there so you understand the process completely.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried to make money online before making a website, but they all seemed to fall flat on their face.

I had little success, but it wasn’t until I made a website and followed a proven strategy that made me the most money.

Since then I doubled down, then tripled down on what I learnt, and now I do it as a living.

So here goes.

How I Got Started

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I first started my blog on July 10, 2016.

I was told that it could take anywhere from 3 – 6 months to see traffic come in and income, and so I tried to warp speed that by posting every single day.

Some days I posted 2 articles a day because I was so desperate to make it work.

After 3 months I still wasn’t getting any traffic from Google, however, I had a mentor who told me to keep going because 3 months is still early days.

I still kept writing articles and in December 2016 I started getting traffic from Google, hitting 5 visitors a day.

I remember being so excited because people started trickling in! I made 2 sales that month, but that was just the beginning.

Throughout 2017 I kept grinding away, and in September I decided to create another website as a side hustle while I worked on my camping site.

However, production on that blog slowed down from me working on something else.

Amazon Affiliate Earnings (Screenshots From 2016 to 2019)

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In the screenshot above all earnings are from Amazon alone ($7442.52 total).

Income would fluctuate throughout the year because camping is a seasonal niche, meaning traffic and income would peak around June to August because of the US summer.

Apart from that, money was flowing nicely even though I slowed down on that website in 2018 and 2019.

I Sold it in 2019 for $10,050

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In 2019 I wanted to meet a girl in the US that I had been talking to for a couple of years.

By then my camping site was just another revenue stream that I did not really need, and so I decided to sell it for a large sum of money that would buy my flight tickets and spending money.

Also at that time I wasn’t even writing on it anymore, all earnings were completely passive.

Because I was a newbie at flipping websites I didn’t know that Amazon affiliate blogs were a gold mine for investors.

I could’ve earned a little more for it but I had no idea. I reckon at least another $3,000, but it is what it is.

It was only on Flippa for about 1 month before it got sold. That’s incredibly fast!

Just look at that conversion rate though. It sold after 268 views.

I sold that website on Flippa for $10,050 which brings the total to $17,492.

What Did I Learn From My First Blog?

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Even though it was my first blog I really did learn a lot.

It was the only blog that I speed everything up by posting every day and sometimes multiple times a day.

These days I’m pretty lazy and like to skip, but because I put in the work earlier on I can slow down a bit.

In saying that, you have to remember that every website is different.

Some take 1 month to rank, 3 months, 6 months, and even 12 months.

There are many variables that determine how fast you will rank in the search engines and get traffic.

The website you’re on now took literally 4 days to start receiving visitors.

That just goes to show that anything can happen. I didn’t think a website could rank that fast but it happened as a result of targeting low-competition keywords.

Of course not every site will rank that quickly, but targeting low-competition keywords can help a lot.

Mistakes I Made Along the Way

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Many people get into this business model and think it’s easy money.

It’s not, it takes work and dedication. But most of all it takes patience.

I don’t think I made that many mistakes with my first blog. I could have made a little more money when I sold it, but flipping sites was not my forte.

One mistake was selling it in the first place when I could’ve kept working on it and building it up even more.

It’s still live to this day and getting traffic and income for the new owner.

The biggest mistake I made was being impatient and wanting results NOW, which is the wrong mindset.

I used that sense of urgency to smash out articles though, so that worked in my favor.

But checking analytics everyday and seeing 0 visitors is a huge blow to your motivation.

Every newbie does it. Just try to avoid doing that at the start because you start questioning yourself.

Advice For Newbies

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My biggest advice to anyone that wants to start a blog and make money is to go hard.

Go balls to the wall.

Jon from Fatstacksblog mentions a concept called the shotgun approach.

Basically you choose a niche and write about many different topics.

Whatever topic starts getting traffic from Google, simply write more about that topic but target different keywords.

Google will start sending you more traffic related to the topic and view you as an expert in that field.

The second advice I have is to target easy-to-rank keywords.

I use Semrush but it’s too expensive for anyone starting out ($119.95/month), so the alternative is Jaaxy. Jaaxy is way more affordable and even has a free trial with 30 free searches.

Thirdly, you’ll need to follow a blueprint.

I used Wealthy Affiliate when I first started in 2016 (also has a free trial).

If you sign up under me I’ll be your personal mentor 🙂

How Many Websites Do I Own Now?

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Throughout the years I’ve created many different websites because I’m a man of ideas.

However not all have taken off, because I would start them, create a few articles, and then forget about it. These are what you call failures.

At the moment I have 3 websites that are live and making me money today.

You do not need 3 websites though, you only need to focus on one which is one of the biggest things that I’ve learned.

Focus on one, work as hard as possible, then sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Nowadays I make a consistent 4-figures per month from articles I wrote months and even years ago.

That’s the beauty of owning a blog.

Articles you write today might not rank until a couple of months later, but they stay at the top of Google for years to come.

Final Words

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That’s my final advice for anyone wanting to start out with this business.

Remember I’m here to help, so I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions in the comments below.

And if you want to follow the same training I did, you can get started here.

Thanks and have a wonderful day.

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