A Glimmer of Hope

The first thing I had to do was determine my topic.

And one of the things I learned from my failed niche blog was….

I NEEDED TO BE PASSIONATE ABOUT THE TOPIC.

Truth is, my niche blog started getting more traffic as time went on…

But I hated the topic, so I didn’t care.

I used a very specific process to determine what my topic was going to be.

This entire process of choosing a topic is too much to explain here, so it’s available in my free mini course, which you’ll hear about later.

Long story short, I landed on the idea of a blog to help people find a job.

And now you’re probably wondering…..what? Why?

Well, my dad remarried and his new wife had an adult son who had a VERY difficult time getting a job because of a certain handicap he had.

Truth is, he was a VERY nice guy, but COULD NOT get a job for the life of him because of his handicap.

My thought was….

Okay, I’ll just make this blog because people need it.

And therein is a lesson.

I made a blog for PEOPLE who needed help.

Not profits.

Not traffic.

Not bragging rights.

But the totally unselfish reason of wanting to help people in need.

Online Business Truth #8

When you're focused on really helping people, you'll be more passionate about the project which gets you through the hard times when you don't feel like working.

Next, came my research about the industry.

Long story short, there were five other websites doing this already.

I looked at their content…

I looked at their web design…

And I hated it.

None of them looked really good and the content was “meh”.

So, I decided I could do it better than they could.

Online Business Truth #9

Competition isn't a bad thing. I'd even argue that it's a good thing. When you have competition before you create a blog, it means that the model works.

Finally came my monetization strategy for the blog.

In other words, how would it make money?

I thought to myself…

Well, these people don’t have money and I don’t want to try to sell them stuff.

At that point, I decided I’d just try to create a blog that got a lot of traffic and use Google Adsense.

(For those of you that don’t know, Google Adsense allows you to put a code on your blog and then Google serves ads automatically. When those ads are clicked, you make money.)

My secondary income stream would be Indeed.com.

(This is a job board and if you refer people to the website to apply for jobs and they click on ads, you’ll make money)

This was a great model for me because I HATED selling stuff to people.

My goal was to eventually make $500/month.

But worst case, I created a resource that was helpful for people.

Then, I decided I was going to do something in tandem while I created this blog.

I would document every step of the process on my own blog.

In reflection, this was a blessing.

I basically documented EVERYTHING I DID, AS I DID IT.

I created content like crazy for this blog.

Not only that, but I hired a writer to help me create more content.

Any question that someone with this handicap had, I wanted to be the resource that had an answer.

And after a month of hard work, I started to see some promising things.

2,317 pageviews?!?!? 687 visitors?!?!?

Okay, that’s great…..but what about earnings.

I opened up my Google Adsense account and….

Bummer.

Whatever, it didn’t matter.

These earnings were better than my other blog, but it still wasn’t enough to live on.

However…..

I knew my blog traffic was growing and I was on an uphill trajectory…

So I decided to QUIT MY JOB.

I nearly puked because of how nervous I was when I did it.

But, I had saved 6 months worth of expenses.

I was still teaching and doing some consulting for side income.

All in all, I was probably making around $20k a year from these side-gigs.

I called this a “calculated risk”.

Online Business Truth #10

Taking calculated risks is what helped me stay sane during this process. Some people say you should just "jump" and leave your job. I think that's insane. Plan and prepare and you'll be successful.

I figured I could just cut my expenses and make some sacrifices to give it a shot.

Moved out of my condo in the city and relocated to the burbs.

Got rid of cable.

Eliminated ALL unnecessary expenses…..

And then I began to experience FREEDOM.

Sure, I had less money.

But I had my TIME back.

And best of all……..