Holy Sh*t!  Success!!!

February started just like any other month.

I was making somewhere between $2-$5 per day and was reluctantly applying to jobs regularly.

I hated to go back to a regular job, but it wasn’t looking good and money was running out.

My thought process was that I would get a job and continue to work on my online business.

After all, I was having SOME success.

I REALLY didn’t want to do this, but I was forced into it.

One day, I was scrolling through Facebook and it recommended that I join a Facebook group that was focused exactly on the audience of people I wanted to serve.  

I clicked in to look at the group…

My eyes lit up.

12,373 people! 

WOW! 

If I can post my blog to the group, maybe I’ll see a bump in traffic.

I sent a message to all three administrators of the group and waited.

A few hours later, one responded and said I could share my blog.

So, I did.

The next day I saw a nice increase in earnings.

Then on Feb 12th and February 13th I saw a nice bump to about $28 each day.

I was psyched!

I did the math in my head….

$28 per day….

31 days in the month…

$868.00 per month!!!!

That is, of course….if the traffic held up.

Then came Valentine’s day.

My girlfriend and I had a talk and determined I COULD NOT work on Valentines day.

So, I didn’t.

We hung out all day and I went to dinner with my wonderful (and amazingly supportive) girlfriend.  (2017 Update – She’s my wife now!)

Got done with dinner and came home around 9:00pm.

My girlfriend and I laid down to watch a movie.

I begged her to let me check how the blog was doing.

She grudgingly agreed.

I opened up my Google Analytics account….

This is an image of my real-time traffic stats on Valentine's day at 9:45pm.

WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW??!?!?!

That can’t be right….panic set in within my mind…

Wait, it has to be right, I didn’t change anything.

If I have this much traffic then…..what about my Google Adsense account?

I showed my girlfriend the earnings and my heart started to race again.

She saw my eyes light up and knew what was coming next……

“Can I please work a little bit on my blog?  I need to see what’s going on.”

She rolled her eyes at me, then nodded in agreement.

Online Business Truth #11

If you have a significant other, they must be supportive while you go through your online business journey. There will be a lot of really crappy days, they will help you feel better.  

After 20 minutes, I figured out what was going on.

The blog post I posted in that Facebook group….

It went viral.

In a panic, I called my hosting provider and changed hosting plans to handle the blog traffic.

Then, I did the most important thing I could have possibly done.

I redesigned the page that was currently going viral and focused on optimizing it for ad revenue.

Over the coming days, the traffic didn’t slow down.

In fact, it sped up.

And with it, so did my earnings.

So much so, that at the end of the month I had the following results:

I did it.

I finally did it.

I was successful.

I made a blog that could let me maintain my FREEDOM.

(And for those that think I may just have copied and pasted screenshots from someone else, watch the video below)

Granted, I wasn’t able to live off of this income alone, but it was enough to help me stay self-employed.

Then I realized something.

The blog had gone viral on Facebook, that’s great, but it won’t always be viral.

Knowing this, I did something incredibly important.

I REINVESTED a ton of the money my blog made to make it even better.

Online Business Truth #12

When your blog finally starts to make money, reinvest the earnings to propel your businesses growth.

I revised my email autoresponder.  (For those that don’t know, this is a system that lets you deliver emails automatically to people.)

I redesigned where my ads were on the pages.

I focused on getting other blogs and websites to link to me.

And then the income became more consistent.

After when the viral aspect wore off, I was making around $50 per day.

Which meant…

$50 x 31 days in a month equals…

$1,550

A great start….

But now it was time to maximize the income…

I kept tweaking things and even tried advertising my blog.

Things were going along smoothly.

And then April of 2016 happened….

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