Every blog has the potential to make money, but how is it that certain blogs make thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars every single month? While some people may think that the blog owners got lucky, that’s simply not true.
There are a lot of things that experienced bloggers know that those who just started building a blog do not. In this post, I want to explain one concept that is absolutely crucial to building an extremely profitable blog.
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Three Different Websites That Share Income Reports
To begin, I’m going to show you a few different websites as examples. Then, I want you to look at these and ask yourself, “What is it that all of these have in common?”
MatthewWoodward.co.uk
The first website that I’m going to look at is MatthewWoodward (dot) co.uk. This is a guy who is a big name in online business and he’s been around for some time.
Matthew Woodward doesn’t share his income reports anymore, but he did at one time. As you can see below, he has income reports back to 2012.
Let’s go to November 2017, which is the last report he shared. First, he talks about some things he’s doing, and then he gets into his earnings, as you can see below. This the interesting thing.
This is all the affiliate income he’s made, and where he made it. You can see that it’s pretty well diversified and likely mostly from reviewing products. There are many different revenue streams here. I know he also does some consulting, or he did some consulting at the time.
He also has a section called “Other Income,” where he says he has another project that he’s working on. He made $21,737 from affiliate income. On this particular report, he had zero consultation income, which is pretty vague, but he has $12,000 in other income.
His expenses were $5,600 and the grand total was $28,000, which sounds crazy, but I can vouch for the fact that that’s actually legitimate; this is a guy who’s been around for a long time.
OneHourProfessor.com
The second example is, of course, me. I’ve been doing this for a long time with income reports. If this is your first time coming here, my name is Ron, and I am the owner of this website.
I help people create and grow online businesses. If you’re interested, visit my homepage to learn the truth about online business. Once you’re there, just fill out your information and click “Learn the Truth.” Or, you can also get a free course. But anyway, that’s the end of my little infomercial.
Back to my income reports–as you can see below, I’ve been doing this since 2014. It’s not like we’re bragging about how much we’re making; we tend to be making a lot of money now, but it didn’t start that way. In my first year, I was at -$1500.
I’ve been very honest and forthcoming about everything, so let’s go to this May as an ugly example (below). May is an ugly example because of everything that just happened with the virus. Too bad Avast cleanup can’t help us in the real world.
Something really interesting here is that you can see I’ve listed items of all of my different income sources, and I’ve gotten pretty specific with it. Then, I go into all the different websites and how they’re making money. The point here is, I’m making all this different revenue from all these different places.
SmartPassiveIncome.com
Then the last example I want to give is SmartPassiveIncome (dot) com. He’s the one that really popularized it.
He doesn’t really do these anymore, , so we’ll just look at his October 2017 income report.
Again, Pat Flynn, who is a big proponent of these income reports, has been around a long time. As you can see below, he’s making $145,000 a month, which is insanity, and his affiliate earning is $65,000. He then talks about all the different places where he’s been making those affiliate earnings.
He also shows his book sales, course sales, niche sites, podcast sponsorships, software, and apps. He’s even more detailed than most on the different things that he’s doing. But again, it shows that his income is truly diversified.
What Do All of These Websites Have In Common?
Income stacking
The thing that we three have in common is that we’re all focused on income stacking. You can see that we’re diversified, but what you don’t understand is that with all three of the websites, we’re making income from one source and then another source.
In other words, we’re making income in different ways. We’re not just making income from AdSense, Amazon, or selling leads and courses. Finance bloggers are notorious for this. We’re diversifying what we’re doing. That way, if one gets hit, you’re not going to get crushed. When you’re stacking your income, that’s how your websites make a lot of money.
Understanding income stacking
All too often, someone creates an affiliate website–an Amazon affiliate website, for example–and then they just turn out articles, one after another, which is fine for a while.
But, if you really want to get to that next level, then instead of just blogging, turn it into a website where maybe you’re offering a service, or you’re selling leads, or you’re selling an info product.
Start to stack income sources on that website because you will see so much more growth by doing that as opposed to starting a whole separate website and regurgitating what you just did. Once you’ve mastered affiliate marketing, or display ads, or whatever, that’s step one.
Add five more steps to that and you’re going to be able to have a website property that really makes a lot of money. You’re really successful when you’re using income stacking to make that happen.
When Should I Worry About Income Stacking?
I know a lot of you are watching like, “Okay, that’s great. I want to do income stacking.” If you’re a beginner, I have to say–hold on. The truth is, you shouldn’t worry about income stacking right away. So, when should you worry about income stacking?
Get 50,000 pageviews monthly
I always say you should have a minimum of 50,000 page views every single month before you even think about income stacking. Up until 50,000 page views, you probably don’t even have your primary monetization completely figured out.
Find one monetization strategy that works
You don’t have to be in a rush to do this. Focus on one monetization strategy that works really well for you and really master it. For me, it’s been display ads; I do really well with display ads.
After that, I started income stacking all these other things on top of it–some affiliate, some leads. That’s really where you make the big money, so just find one monetization strategy that works. Generally speaking, if you have a beginner blog or website, you’re working on it.
You may wonder, “Well, what can I do that’ll make some money?” You can use display ads, affiliate marketing, courses (which can be quite profitable if done right), or info products. Typically, those are the four that will make some money and kind of start you off with a good income foundation. Then, you just have to add more on top of that.
Focus 100% on your top 10 pages
Even before you make it to 50,000 page views a month, you’re going to see that you have your top 10 pages that are getting most of the traffic and doing really well. That’s where most of the people are visiting your website, so you need to focus on those pages.
Focus 100% of your effort on making those pages as perfect as you can. Then, monetize them as much as possible. That doesn’t mean that you throw 20 different ads on the page. That means that you should throw ads on if you want to, if that’s a thing that works for you.
Throw in an info product, a course, affiliate links–do whatever you can to make sure that those most visited pages are monetized as best as possible without destroying the user experience. That’s where you’re going to get the most bang for your buck.
By the way, the homepage is typically not going to be one of your most visited pages. Usually, it’s going to be blog posts, so focus 100% on those up until 50,000 page views a month. At that point, you’re generally going to see success.
Grow your income to $100/month
What you really want to do is get to the point where you’re making $100 a month with one source of income. Once you’re there, then stop and think, “How else can I make some money with this website?” I’ll tell you, with 50,000 page views a month, you should definitely be able to hit $100 a month.
So, 50,000 page views is a good amount. That’s when you have a website that’s really growing and you’re getting to the point where you can say, “Okay, this could become something bigger.” But you have to step back and think, “How can I use income stacking to my advantage here, and how can I grow this beyond just one revenue channel?”
Add another income source and repeat
Then, after you’re making $100 a month, you can say, “I’m going to do some income stacking. I want to throw in affiliate links now,” or, “I want to create some affiliate content.”
So then you’re using display ads, you’re making some money, and you’re doing affiliate content. That’s great–do it.
What you’re going to find is that the money you’re making from those new parts of the website and the new things you’re doing can pay for even more stuff. You start reinvesting that money and you then you basically rinse and repeat.
Try a new income source, get it to a pretty good size, and then reinvest that money into another income source. Keep testing them. If they’re firing on all cylinders, great–just reinvest your money back into your website and grow it on all fronts.
However, you’re probably going to find that some of them may fail and that’s okay; there’s no problem with that. You invest a little bit of money, you learn something, and then you can walk away from it.
The idea is, to keep stacking your income sources on your website in different areas. Eventually, you’re going to be able to draw from it and be okay because the website will be making enough money that it can support itself and sustain it for the long term.
Also, it can help you continually diversify into other platforms like Pinterest, YouTube, etc., to get more traffic to the site. It will just continue to grow as you continue to grow your monetization strategies and income stack.
That is my advice on how to create a really profitable blog, and I think that I am unique in that I have experience with this. I have a website where I make the majority of my money from display ads, but I also sell leads.
I do a lot of different things. I can’t say too much more, because if I do, I’ll give it away. There are many different strategies, but I did income stacking and it really grew that website far beyond anything else I’ve been able to build.
On certain months, my revenue per 1,000 visitors comes to about $60-$70 per 1,000 visitors, which is crazy. I’ve been able to do that because I continuously used income stacking to make more and more with that website. By doing that, it just kept growing.