I do, and frankly, I don’t even do a great job in my opinion ;)
Here is what I can tell you. I never intended to make money from my blog, so if I were to do it purposefully I would do it differently now. Here are some learnings.
It’s getting a little long and it’s Friday night, so I’ll just press send for now.


How do some bloggers manage to earn more than $400 per day from blogging?




Niche

It starts with providing content that people actually care about and will pay for (indirectly).
You can pick a seemingly small niche that has no information on the net and you can do well in it. The fact is there is nothing else there so people come to you.
There are big niches like health, but they are super competitive. It will be too hard to breakthrough.
I started blogging as an investor as I wanted to help the founders I said no to. I never made a dime for years as that was never the point (like me writing on Quora!). Over time I’ve pretty much focused on fundraising for startups.

Care about your niche

You need to actually like your niche and you need to be an expert.
It will take time to build something that will make real money. Think in terms of years. You need to be committed.
Your readers will know if you are an expert. They need to form some kind of bond with you to pay you money.
I actually care about helping people. When I write I aim to make the best article on the net on the topic. Most of my blogs are 5k words. It takes me time to write them. I don’t churn out BS listicles (though I probably should…).

Have a personality

I write the way I talk. I swear when it makes sense. I make effort to be casually funny. I write nerdy stuff so I make it fun.
If I read content accidentally that I wrote years before, I know I wrote it.
You need to have your own voice that resonates with people.
I’m sure there are people that hate me, but I don’t care. I’m speaking to my tribe.

You need to be noticed. People need to want to read you

There is just so much content these days, what you write needs to be the best. You want to have resources that are the ones people share more than anything else.
I get people emailing me every day to say thanks.
Here is a message a former client messaged me today on FB (I post a lot on Facebook):
Hey Alex, what are you up to these days ? Just checking in, also I wanted to let you know I really like how thought-provoking your posts are compared to the utter garbage I usually get on my news feed. Obviously many people agree. Keep it up mate !!
I aim to deliver stuff that is not normal and boring.
My goal is to help people think better. And yes, that’s a pain in the ass.

You need a lot of content to build a virtual relationship

Linking back to ‘caring’ you need to make a lot of content to get noticed and to build a relationship with your audience.
I get people messaging me things like:
It’s like you are in my head. You email me just when I need to learn that thing.
I’ve never met you but it is like you are on this lonely journey with me.
I’ve so much content that I can keep providing them content.

You have to have an email game

Now you have the content, you need to send it to them.
You need an email automation tool.
You need a lot of sequences to send them material. Ideally, you want to segment them to send them content they want to read. I have 5 segments.
This helps decrease unsubscribes. Ironically every time you email, you increase the chance of them unsubscribing.

Get their email with free stuff

You need an email list. Start immediately and don’t wait.
To get their email you need to create lead magnets. I have like 40 or something (Yes, lots of work).
They need to be high quality. What I give away for free is what people charge for. That’s probably dumb.
Yes, people are entitled shites and you need to learn to get over that.
When you give people free stuff, the goal is to get their email so you can build a relationship to sell to them, but it’s to illustrate you are an expert in your business. Don’t ship crap.

Email sequences sell

I’m terrible at this, but email is about building credibility so they will buy whatever you sell.
Automate everything.

Have things to sell

You don’t make money from Adsense. Forget ads.
You make money selling things.
  • ebook
  • Course (the best as can be high ticket)
  • Digital goods (e.g. excel models)
  • Consulting (What many do before they reach star status)
  • Affiliate (Can be the best, but needs to be close to what you do. I tried selling hosting and crap that big name bloggers and it just was not what my audience was looking for)
The more things you have to sell, the more money you can make.
My biggest issue why I’m not doing 7 figures on my blog is I don’t have enough stuff to sell.
I make 6 figures with my blog as a hobby.

Learn how people make money

Some bloggers tell how you they make money. Some people claim they are inflated, but they’re still very insightful.
For example:
You can google for more easily. Search for “income reports”.

You need traffic to make money

You can only make as much money as the number of people reading your blog, but the quality of your readers matter.
I have tens of thousands a month which will probably never buy something. But I have a lot that would.
The more traffic you have the more potential to make money you have.
With traffic comes great opportunity.
I’m shite at marketing. I find it boring. Also these days it’s quite technical.
If I were to tell you my greatest failing it is not doing marketing.
My CMO friends hate me. They’re like you’re meant to do 90% marketing and 10% content. You do 100% content- you’re an idiot.
Some of the best ways to get traffic, which I don’t do are:
  • Guest posting on high traffic sites
  • Getting on podcasts / interviews
  • Gaming social media
It’s all earned media, not paid media. The idea is to capture traffic from others.
If making money is your goal, focus on quality traffic acquisition (unlike me).

How do I make money?

I sell financial models.
My models are the best in the world. They took a long time to build.
I’m not at all salesy, but from my content people hire me to act as part-time CFO, teach them about their business model, how to fundraise, do financial modeling etc.
My clients get massive value, but I hate consulting as it takes up my time.
My favorite thing in the world is getting emails from samcart telling me I made money in my sleep.
One of my digital goods is EUR1500 and it’s still ‘cheap’ in my opinion.
But getting an email to say you made 1500 in your sleep when that’s what some people earn in a month is better than sex.
Then, because people read me and know I’m an expert, they are willing to buy other things from me.
If you’re an expert at something to startups let me know so I can sell you ;)

How will I make money?

I don’t mind sharing anything. I haven’t figured it all out.
I’m writing a course/book at the moment.
It’s on pitch decks and it will be the best guide in the world. I’m about 90k words in.
The course is to make money. Who knows, but I think it is reasonable that I could make a million a year just from this one course.
The book… well you don’t do that for money. You do it for credibility. That helps you charge more for everything else.
Once I get this course done, I’ll do others. I actually already have one course on ESOP structuring. It’s the only course on the internet, but turns out founders don’t really care about it. So learning is to make content people want, not what you think that they want.
I have a lot of knowledge, so I have a lot of content to ship… if only I would stop writing on Blogger.
Affiliate services is a big area I don’t do at all. There are great companies to recommend that pay.
Selling other people’s services is an easy one too.
I will be making a lot more digital downloads. Some will be from other people who can leverage my platform.