Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve heard someone talking about
“making money while they sleep”
And perhaps it’s felt like an elusive rabbit that you just cannot catch.
I know I’ve been there. Whether it be scrolling through my Instagram feed and seeing the latest person talking about how they were just like me 2 years ago and this revolutionary new secret they uncovered helped them make money hand-over-fist. This new secret helped them join the “New Rich” (thank you Tim Ferriss for coining this term.
Whether it be e-commerce or becoming a social media influencer, we see promises all of the time telling us we’re just one more click away from becoming a millionaire.
I say, hogwash…
Why?
Because nothing in this life worth doing is that simple — let alone “easy.”
If you want to make money online, however, it’s possible.
I would know — for I’ve done it.
- And no I wasn’t born into a family that helped me with connections or notoriety.
- No I didn’t go to school and get a writing degree.
- No I didn’t buy all of my traffic and turn it into a viable business.
I rolled up my sleeves, showed up everyday to learn about this business and sacrificed my time, social life and comfort for a life where I now make money building a community and doing what I love.
Below you will see a screenshot taken from my PayPal account that proves some of the payments I made during the second half of 2018.
I’ve taken it upon myself to learn and understand on an intimate level “how the sausage is made.”
I’ve made it a mission of mine to educate to the world that this can be done. The world needs what I like to call, “entre-blogging.” We are going to see millions of jobs vanish from the face of economy.
So the ability to make money through your creativity and to help an audience is a clearly present.
All while asleep (well some times)…
If you’ve made it this far through the article, let’s dive into (from a view at 30,000 ft) how I did that with writing online content & blogging…
Step 1: Get up off your ass
Sorry to be crude but in order to get step one out of the way I need to include this. I remember before I got to this point — the point of not being able to go back to the “9–5 life” I was working at a job that I hated, overweight, and smoking and drinking too much.
Through a life-altering event, I was faced with a dilemma:
- Keep living the same miserable life I was accustomed to or…
- Try something new. Anything that could divert me from this path.
Needless to say I chose the latter and began to write.
I purchased a domain and began to share my thoughts.
I told myself every day that I would write — even if I didn’t want to.
What did this do for me? It helped develop some discipline.
It helped me say “no” to things that didn’t matter.
It helped me find and be a part of something that was bigger than me.
So I kept writing and things began to change.
People started reaching out and taking notice of my words.
I realized I might have something here.
So I kept writing.
Step 2: Write content with strategy
“What’s in it for me?”
Once you begin writing and blogging for the world to see, you won’t be able to turn your writing into a business unless you answer this question for your audience: “what’s in it for me?”
Why?
Because, quite frankly, your words alone aren’t that special and neither are you.
I don’t write that to hurt your feelings.
But it’s the truth.
But you know what is important?
Helping your reader solve a problem.
That’s why you see so many “How To…” articles. People are looking for advice on how to solve their problems.
If you’re an individual who lost a bunch of weight and knows a sustainable way to help people also do the same — do it!
Write content that helps people get there.
Without strategy you will go no where.
And continue to write
Step 3: Build traffic
So at this point you might be asking yourself,
“Okay…so I’m helping my audience solve their problems, however, I can’t get the eyes on that content! What do I do?”
Just because you build it — it doesn’t mean they’ll come…
You need to have strategy involved with delivering your content.
How do you do that?
Go where all of the eyes are!
Sites like Quora and Medium are the two top marketing engines I use to get my content directly to the people who are looking for it.
I used to do the casual Instagram post trying to promote my content.
What did I get?
Just a few likes from family and friends. They did that out of either pity, because they have a “two-click” twitch with their thumb or just to be nice.
But it wasn’t really making an impact…
Why?
Because they weren’t the people looking to solve the problems I was helping solve!
Quora and Medium are “hotbeds” where people are looking for the specific content you are writing about.
Use these places as resources!
Step 4: Turn that traffic into “Owned Traffic”
At this point you are getting your audience to finally get their eyes on your content. But this isn’t the end goal. Research indicates that on average, a reader spends only 37 seconds reading a blog post. Furthermore, 43% of readers skim the posts.
That means that the eyes are barely staying on your content.
It’s the quantum mechanics of blogging: once they look at the article..POOF! It’s gone
You are going to need a way of keeping those eyes to keep coming back to you and your content.
You do this by converting the traffic that comes to your blog freely to traffic that you own.
And you do this by capturing the email addresses of your reader. You capture the email address through an opt-in offer. Now I’m not going to go into the in-depth steps of building an optimal opt-in, however you can take a look at this other article I created that does just that here.
Once you capture a reader’s email address you can send them content when you create it.
Of course not everyone will read it (the average email open rate for all industries is 20.81%). If you are hovering close to the average rate — you’re going to be just fine.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: If a reader has gifted you their email in exchange for an opt-in offer, treat that email as such — A GIFT! Many readers will unsubscribe quicker than you can say, “Please open this email” if you abuse this gift and send them spam and invaluable content.
Now this is where it starts to get good…
Step 5: Market & Sell your products and services through your list
There’s a myth in the online content and blogging world that you need to have an email list of 20,000 strong in order to make money through your blogging.
Again… hogwash!
If you’ve been delivering valuable content to one person so effectively, they will open up their wallet in order to purchase a product or service that can help solve their problem.
- Do you have an educational course that can help people manage their time better?
- Do you have a jewelry line that helps young men and women feel beautiful?
- Do you have a fitness program that can help people lose 30 pounds in 30 days? (hopefully not because that’s probably extremely unhealthy, but you get my point)
This is now your chance to get these transformational products into the hands of the people that are looking for them!
Again, like I alluded to earlier, however. Don’t spam!
I have found that continuously offering free valuable content and then peppering in the occasional product will help build trust with your audience as opposed to just jamming something down their throat.
The economy is changing. McKinsey projections put the U.S. economy losing around 73 million jobs by 2030. This doesn’t even consider what types of global implications are to come.
It’s foolish to believe the changes in the economy — especially the changes due to automation won’t affect you and your family.
A huge void of creativity and education is going to be present in this new economy. With the tool of online content writing and blogging, you will find yourself at the vanguard of helping keep your own prosperity as well as the prosperity of the community around you in good standing.
The world needs your voice.
We need it now, more than ever.
It won’t be easy — far from it.
But it shouldn’t be easy.
Easy won’t make the change we’re looking for.
Only you and the hard work you put in will.
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