I never thought this would happen to me.
In 2 years I went from making $20k to $80k, and am now consistently hitting about $150k/year (see my income reports).
I did this by dropping all my SEO clients and tried making money with affiliate marketing. Now I write tutorials on website speed optimization and make money by referring people to hosting. 90% of my income is from Cloudways – the host most people recommend in Facebook Groups.
So what do I do?
I basically write tutorials on website speed while saying “hosting is the #1 speed factor and Cloudways DigitalOcean was #1 in multiple speed tests and Facebook polls taken in the WordPress Hosting Facebook Group. Most people recommend them (even WordPress) and they do free migrations. People who move to Cloudways usually see much faster load times. I use Cloudways and you can view my GTmetrix report: the proof is in the pudding my friends.”
This pitch made my sales skyrocket. And no, I don’t promote Bluehost or EIG – they’re cheap, but trash.
Find Your Niche
My career journey went like this: online marketing > web design > WordPress web design > WordPress SEO > WordPress speed optimization. Now I’m focusing on WordPress hosting.
While I was doing WordPress speed optimization I noticed lots of people needed it, but very few people supplied it (there were a lack of services and tutorials when I researched Google). I also knew hosting was the #1 factor of website speed and hosting companies paid up to $200/sale. Hosting is a competitive space but the commissions and lack of supply enticed me.
I expanded my SEO blog and started writing about hosting, cache plugins, and other relevant topics… while recommending Cloudways in each tutorial. I added social proof like the Facebook polls where they were rated #1. Each tutorial was super detailed (like this one) and tons of people found them helpful – many get 100+ visitors/day since great content = higher rankings.
Start A Blog Or YouTube Channel
A blog and YouTube channel are completely different, not just because one is writing and one is shooting videos. But each of them are different in terms of SEO, conversions, time, and the cost.
Blogging vs. YouTube Videos
Ownership – you own your blog, you don’t own YouTube.
SEO Traffic – it takes longer to get SEO traffic to a blog than YouTube.
SEO Difficulty – the SEO competition in YouTube is often much less than Google.
Cost – YouTube is free, blogs require domain, hosting, development costs, etc.
Content Updates – it is much easier to update a blog post than to redo a video.
Coupon Codes – YouTube is great if your affiliates let you create coupon codes.
Time – it takes longer to set up a blog, (though Astra Sites have made this easier).
Starting A WordPress Blog
- Domain – GoDaddy or Namecheap.
- Hosting – Bluehost for cheap/slow, Cloudways for good/fast.
- WordPress – what I recommend building your website/blog on.
- Astra Starter Sites – WordPress themes most people are using. They look amazing, are mobile responsive, and are 1-click import. Just install WordPress in your hosting account, login to your WordPress dashboard, and download the Astra Starter Sites plugin. Pick a theme and import it in 1-click, then you’re ready to start customizing your blog! Very easy.
Sign Up For Affiliate Programs
Hosting and Amazon are by far the most popular affiliate programs.
To make $300 in a day, I would need to refer about 2 people to hosting, 10 people to themes, or 30 people to plugins. Before deciding on a program, ask yourself a few questions. I personally have roughly 3,000 readers/day and make about 2-3 sales per day at $150 per sale.