In an earlier post called "Personal Online Business Case Study: Making $20-$30/Month (Nett) Selling Health Supplements", I showed how one of my online health supplements business makes me a humble amount of $20-$30 nett per month using a platform called Solo Build It, which I've been using since 2010.
And you know that I'm a big proponent of:
During my time, it was called Site Build It, but in 2017, it was rebranded to Solo Build It to more accurately describe what and who it serves: the solopreneurs.
I'm not very good with hype, so I'd leave that out. I only know that SBI has helped me build a $100k lead generation website for my private physiotherapy business and a $20-$30/month nett health supplement business.
Once you sign up for SBI (or those who prefer a self-hosted WordPress, I recommend Bluehost - more technicalities required compared to SBI), those who are on SBI will be introduced and versed with the famed Action Guide.
It is a 10-day video and text guide to teach and show you how to research your niche, determine keywords, determine profitability and demand, and they have an internal Brainstormer Keyword Research tool that will give you a list of keywords that you will then collate and organize into Tier 1 Keywords > Tier 2 Keywords > Tier 3 Keywords
Some term this as a "siloed structured website", and this has been Solo Build It's static website approach for years, and something that is easy for us to grasp. It's very much like a book, where upon going to the first page (home page), it's like coming across the content + introduction page, where readers can see at a glance what the website is about.
You can have a blog section too.
But generally, those who are on SBI, and if you follow the Action Guide and had chosen a good niche of reasonably good demand, you'd already have a set of keywords that will guide your article writing.
Those who are on WordPress, unfortunately, you will have to do your own keyword research using keyword research tools (there are free and paid ones, such as Long Tail Pro and Market Samurai).
Once you have the keywords planned out, the way to write an article generally falls into:
I try not to re-write my articles more than 2-3x at most, because I am not a perfectionist. I rather keep on writing more and more articles rather than perfecting just a handful. (My approach that will improve my writing skill and ability).
Even for myself, I only started having an editorial calendar only in Jan 2017, as advised in a blog post by Neil Patel of CrazyEgg and QuickSprout - I didn't even think about it until 2017!
Looking and thinking back, what an idiot I had been - can you imagine, I've been writing on adhoc and on whims, often unstructured - no surprise why sometimes I do not know where to start or where I had left off.
Today, with my editorial calendar, I already know the next 20 - 40 articles that I will write, the keywords used in the articles, and an idea of what affiliate products/services (where appropriate) to include.
I just use Google Sheet for my Editorial Calendar, and I also include my affiliate links in the same document for easier retrieval and access.
There is no magic here: success and profits comes to those who take action, get feedback/data, refine, and take more action. Intention isn't enough. Smartness/knowledge isn't enough. A pretty website isn't enough.
Success comes to those to take immense action, consistently and is patient enough to see it through.
You will have a list of articles to write, just schedule time and write. Nothing sexy or magical.
400 articles in a year = 8 articles a week, which you can schedule to 1 day of 8 articles, 2 days of 4 articles, etc.
Just do it.
I'm also one of those that ask this question, and still do.
A general answer: depending on how big your niche is - the smaller and tighter your niche, the faster eg "health" vs "organic health supplement for eye health". See how niche it is, the smaller and tighter your niche, the faster you'd make money.
On average, it takes 18-24 months to start making money online consistently.
(Yes, it's super long, so you need to keep building and growing it). Of course, the downside on small/tight niche is though you will make money faster, the amount you can make tends to be more limited compared to a larger niche BUT a larger, broader website tends to be much slower to make money online as the competition will be so much higher.
Frankly, I do not recommend anyone to follow my approach of large/broad-based online business such as XtendHealthAsia.com - the competition is very big and wide, so it'd take very long for me to make 3 to 4 figures on it, maybe 2 to 3 years, if not longer.
I'd recommend for you to first choose Solo Build It, go through the Action Guide which will guide you to the niche you're interested in and determine which of the niches/passions that you have are more profitable/passionate about, and then you go "laser-focused themed niche".
If you can see how XtendHealthAsia.com is a large, broad-based online business, a very laser-focused themed niche may be hair growth products for men who are older than 50 years old, where you can focus on:
Collectively, the theme of the website revolves around helping men who are 50+ years old achieve more self esteem by growing back a health crown of healthy luster hair from the inside and on their heads.
Sigh.
I have a problem: I tend to be a more "large perspective" person, so most of my online businesses tends to be "larger, broader" and hence success tends to take a longer time (an obvious example being XtendHealthAsia.com, where it's very large and general, and will need thousands of articles and lots of time to grow to the income that is more than 4 digits per month).
What I'm doing now is culling a lot of sites that I had started and bought on whim, and start to consolidate and focus on the few that I am more passionate about, which includes NigelChua.com (a site that focuses on saving money, investing for passive income and online business; XtendHealthAsia.com and a host of others).
I do have a few ideas for online business, but I am trying to take my time - I only have so much time and energy on my hands, either I spend more time on NigelChua.com and XtendHealthAsia.com, or I dilute the time across more projects (ugh - you know multi-tasking isn't particularly good).
For you, who hadn't started anything yet, what I would recommend is to visit Solo Build It, sign up for a package (costs USD 299 per annum), go through their Action Guide and stay to it for at least 2-3 years and put in the effort: you will learn so much and build a skill that no one can take away from you. Do it right, and you'd build yourself a passive income online business.
Trust me - it's worth it. It's less than USD 1 per day to learn and build a skill and potential business that will make you free. Who knows, you may be able to fire your boss and work from home.
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