Following my own advice, it’s time to just do it. I’ve decided to try to return to updating this blog more now that I have lifted my head from a very busy couple of years. I keep thinking of posts (I hope) people would find useful about things I’m working on.
But I’ve been suffering from analysis paralysis trying to work out how to do it. The burden of needing to rework all the old content I’ve kept on here has been stopping me from restarting for MONTHS.
The solution? I’ll half ass it! So took a slash and burn approach and archived all the old posts from the dawn of affiliate time. I’ve left up a small number of posts from various faltering attempts over the last few years to restart regular writing just so there’s actually a blog here.
Affiliate Stuff – The Story So Far
OK, so given this blog was last updated right before a family holiday in 2019, I’d better bring y’all up to speed on where my affiliate business is at.
Let The PPC Roll!
Right up until lockdown I was pretty much a PPC affiliate. Business was rocking, I’d had the most lucrative 3 years of my entire affiliate career. Then the Pandemic hit.
Long story short, I had 5 major revenue streams and 4 of them (including the largest which was 70% of my income) disappeared. For good it transpired. It was an almost comic combination of businesses suffering from too much demand, or too little.
The end result was the same – cheerio affiliates. So yeah. Bollocks.
SEO Time
After some stop start PPC success, and several frustrations along the way I decided it was time to build some assets and move away from PPC.
So in May 2021, I bought an aged site from someone who had monetised it with Adsense back in the day.
I’ve worked on this site until my eyes have bled. The learning curve has been almost unbearably steep.
Here’s a Graph
So I bought a site with 35k monthly visits about a week before the June 2021 core update. Google didn’t much care for my site migration efforts either. The upshot was that by October 2021 and after months of work – I had a site getting just under 20k visits a month.
Form an orderly queue to buy my course.
As you can see, despite further core updates I’m happy to describe as “howlers” I’ve eventually managed to get things headed in the right direction. The September core update (which has just finished) was the first one where I didn’t get my backside kicked.
I can only say my timing to throw myself back into the world of SEO has been impeccable.
Skills to Pay the Bills
My skills to pay the bills has been very much dented by my change of direction. This site is now my biggest income stream and it’s not yet covering my living costs.
Fortunately I have other income from small investments outside affiliate marketing, and remember that bit from earlier about having the best 3 years of my career? I left most of that profit inside the business for a rainy day. Well, it poured. But a good affiliate always keeps a brolly about their person.
That means I’ve got a wedge of time and cash up my sleeve to build my all new content website business.
Fighting Self Doubt
Have I enjoyed this process? Yes. But there’s been a lot of worry. I lost a six figure revenue stream.
When that happens, it tends to dent your confidence. Even though I have had no real money worries, I’ve got a fantastic imagination and a skill for over thinking that I’d easily win medals for.
But. The site is turning a bit of a corner now. It’s first 4 figure month is drawing closer. I am starting to think this could work!
Affiliate Stuff?
Hilariously, and contrary to the name of the blog – most of the money I’m making right now is from display advertising. This has been a surprise to me, because I bought the site to monetise solely with affiliate marketing in mind.
A good affiliate has a brolly, and can pivot. The affiliate revenue will develop more in time. I’ve enjoyed being able to focus purely on quality content and SEO and still having the site make money.
What’s Next?
I’ve got a fledgling revenue stream. I’ve got money to invest. I’ve got confidence I now understand what I need to do to. But I still need to run tests on tools and services I need to use.
So it felt like the right time to restart the blog, and perhaps even make the odd quid or two (transparently!) along the way. I always loved sharing my journey. I miss the conversations I’ve had through the blog, and I miss sorting through my thoughts. Clarity about what best to do next often came from a good post on here.
Anyway. I hope a few of you will follow along for some observations and insights into the new monetisation strategies I’ve discovered, what tools I’ve used along the way, and some tests to see how I should progress.
Oh, and this is me now. A picture in which I’ve crammed in all my favourite things. Coffee, vintage tat, LED lights, and swag. And a few grey hairs from lockdown homeschooling *shudder*
Good to see an update!
Good luck with the new site.
Oh, a comment! Did not expect that – thanks for popping up to say hi 🙂
A great update and almost got me thinking I should blog again… but that would involve some effort right? I’ll give it a miss.
Ah ha ha ha – thank you!
Hi Kirsty,
Good to see you updating your blog again. I actually remember coming across you (either your blog or twitter) maybe 6-7 years ago, when I first starting getting into affiliate marketing (and was living in the UK at the time) – back in the affiliate window, James Little time frame. Good to see us both still floating around in this industry.
Best of luck with your new game plan.
Hey Marc, great to hear from you! Glad that we are both still trucking along too. I have no wish to depart the gravy train. So just gotta keep on keeping on 🙂