August is behind us, and overall it was a decent month for my online business.

As I was anticipating last month, there was a dip in revenue.  That said, it was actually a little bit of a bigger dip than I had expected, which was somewhat surprising considering the way that the month was trending.

All in all, a pretty decent month where I wasn’t losing any sleep.

As with every month, there have been some interesting developments in the business.  For instance, with the OHP website and website 6, I’m increasing content output significantly. 

While I’m still waiting to see the results of these efforts, there are incremental traffic increases which is a good sign.

Of course, this is cutting into my profit margin, but I don’t care.  We have a lot of money in savings, and I’m doubling down and increasing my content output until the end of the year in an effort to grow both these sites much larger.

In addition to that, I finally decide to pull the trigger and sell website 5.  If you’re interested, you can see the listing here on Flippa.  I personally think that this is a great site for the right buyer as it has some significant authority and just needs some love as I’ve ignored it for years.

In this report, I’ll discuss why I’m selling it and give other updates about my business. 

This month my total income after expenses was $10,826 which comes out to $349 in profit per day.

If I should mention before we begin, if you’re looking to start your blog, make sure you check out my free IGNITION course today.

On a personal level, August was uneventful.

I mentioned last month that I had some health issues, and I’ve drastically cleaned up my diet as well as exercising more consistently and haven’t had any issues since.

Our beautiful baby girl Saara continues to grow and is smiling and reacting to us each day, which is definitely the best part of every single day.  She’s been having some frustrating issues related to formula and acid reflux, but I think this just comes with the territory of being a parent.

That’s all for the personal update.

OHP traffic was consistent with last month.  Surprisingly, the earnings fell this month, and that was a little bit of a shock but overall things are doing alright.  It definitely didn’t seem like the site was going to fall in total earnings based on how things are trending, but it did.  I can’t chalk it up to any single affiliate or anything like that, I think collectively, the numbers just fell a little bit.

• Pageviews decreased MoM by 1% to 57k
• This month I earned: $9,118. Earnings decreased MoM by 21%. 
• EPM decreased MoM to $158.94

PLAN:  I’m still going full speed ahead in creating content for this website and focusing on making my current content better.

I think the biggest improvement I saw this month was that I was able to fully onboard my new virtual assistant, who is helping me respond to all the emails I get for the site every single day.  While this isn’t an issue with any other site, the OHP site gets around 20 to 30 emails daily, and responding to them becomes very cumbersome.

Thankfully, now I’ve got that to the point where I probably need to respond to 5-7 emails every other day myself.  This is a huge timesaver and will allow me to better manage the growth of the site and continue to get quality content produced.

I still have very high hopes for the site and am working on some big optimizations to rank higher with my content, but it’s going to take some time for the search engines to show me some love.

I have done nothing on this site for at least 12 months except add Ezoic, and it continues to print money for me.  The seasonal traffic spike that I get for the site every year is now over, and while the traffic trend looks troubling, this is very common every year.

• Pageviews decreased MoM by 23% to 133k. This is not surprising as there is usually a seasonal spike this time of year, and I’m now on the downward trend of that.
• This month I earned: $3,611. Earnings decreased MoM by 39%. 
• EPM decreased MoM to $27.16

PLAN:  I’m going to keep publishing one blog post per week for the site and let this one run passively with my team.   

I have done nothing on this site for at least 12 months except add Ezoic, and it continues to print money for me.  I have no intention of working on it and will let it sit as I work on my other projects.

• Pageviews increased MoM by 5% to 53k.
• This month I earned: $950. Earnings decreased MoM by 18%. 
• EPM decreased MoM to $17.83

PLAN:  After much deliberation, I decided to finally sell the site.  This has been one that I’ve been considering selling for some time as it’s tied strongly to Amazon Associates, and that’s not something that I want my business to rely on.  No offense to anybody that does this, but I don’t trust Amazon anymore with their commissions because I have a genuine fear that eventually, they’ll remove the affiliate program altogether.

I’m trying to get around $50k for the site with its sale; we’ll see how things end up as it all depends on the bidders right now.  If it doesn’t sell, I’m just going to let the site sit as it’s been passively making around $1000 a month for a long time with no intervention/updates needed.

This site has been quite a roller coaster and has been the most dramatic site I think I’ve ever owned.  Things were going incredibly well at one point, and then it was hit very hard by the June algorithm update, but now it’s bounced back, and August was the highest-paid views month it’s ever had.

As of now, I’ve drastically increased my investment in the site as I really believe in this project and think it can become a brand of its own.  If we’re able to achieve what I think we can, we will not only have the site but will also have e-commerce products we can attach to the company and hopefully become a big business in the process.

Another thing I did this month is I hired a Google tag manager expert to help me understand what links are getting clicked on what pages of the site with more transparency.  While this may seem like a trivial change, it’s actually quite significant. 

This site has a lot of list posts, and frankly, I’ve never really known what items on the list posts were being clicked or interacted with.  Sure, I could dive into various analytic programs to try to marry all the information together. Still, there wasn’t a simple and easy overview to understand what readers liked on the page.

This is now changed.

Using a freelancer to properly install Google tag manager, I’m now able to see every link that was clicked on every single page within analytics.  The reason why this is so beneficial is that now I can work with my team to go back each month and revise the most visited pages so that all affiliate items are in stock and the most popular items of each post are near the top.

While I’m not sure exactly how much this will increase the site revenue, these optimizations are guaranteed to increase the reader time on page as well as commissions from affiliate products.  We’ll see how it ends up impacting the business, but I’m very excited to be able to see this data and intelligently respond to it in an effort to actively increase reader interaction with this site.

• This month I earned: $808. Earnings increased MoM by 46%
• EPM increased MoM to $16.04
• How Much Have I Invested in This Website: $13,236 ($3,400 Content budget each month)
• How Much Money Has This Website Made? $10,087
• Total ROI: -$3,149 (If I were to sell the website today, I imagine I could get $29,000 for it which would bring my net gain to roughly $26,000.)
• How Much Content is on the Website? 291 informational blog posts

PLAN:  Last month I made a declaration that I was going to go “all in” on this site, and I think you can tell with the new content budget that I wasn’t kidding around.  I’ve increased the content investment by 5x and will continue with this budget until the end of the year.  At that time, we’ll see how the site is doing and if we should pull back or invest even more.

Last month I detailed my master plan for the site and had a number of things I wanted to accomplish.  I’m happy to report that every item on my list is now done and the site is almost fully outsourced and running on autopilot.

• Use Trello to develop a content publishing cadence that automates much of the assigning/communication (DONE)
• 10,000 words published each week (DONE)
• 3 writers on staff to help achieve this (DONE)
• A quality editor to review all of this content efficiently (DONE)
• A virtual assistant to help my current VA post the content quicker (DONE)
• Editor to handle internal linking using LinkWhisper to assist (DONE)

While I’m excited about the nominal increase in traffic this month, I anticipate a lot more of this in the very near future.  The biggest challenge with this site right now has been posting content quickly.  But, I’ve hired the new VA now to help, and things are rolling along nicely. 

Aside from streamlining the content creation process and getting the right team in place, the other thing I’m doing is slowly building links to the site.  I’m focused very strictly on quality and relevance with these links, and while I haven’t seen a huge jump in traffic yet, things continue to trend the right way, which shows me that I must be doing something right.

Of all the projects I’m working on, this is the one that I’m most excited about at the moment as I see a ton of potential.  That said, I always have to remind myself that this online business stuff never happens overnight, and it’s crucial to have patience.

It was really nice to see website 7 rebound a little bit this month and finally start to trend in a positive way again.  While I don’t know if I’ll ever understand why the site lost a ton of traffic in the last few months, I’m hopeful that the current trend will continue on for the rest of the year.

• Pageviews increased MoM at 119k
• This month I earned: $5,524. Earnings increased MoM by 25%. 
• EPM increased MoM to $46.32
• How Much Have I Invested in This Website: $52,160 ($1800 Content budget each month)
• How Much Money Has This Website Made? $105,476
• Total ROI: $53,316 (If I were to sell the website today, I can assume I’d sell for an estimated $193,000. Which means a net gain of about $246,000)
• How Much Content is on the Website: Keep in mind that this is an informational type of website, not affiliate related at all.
  • 1935 informational pages on the website
  • 178 Informational Blog Posts

PLAN: At this point, this site is fully outsourced, and I see no reason to intervene with something that’s working.  As with the last few months, I’m going to continue on with the current process and hope that the site will continue to grow organically.

This site still continues to be a small earner from a business, but it’s consistently getting around 10,000 page views per month and making somewhere in the range of $100-$200.  Personally, I think the site has some really big possibilities, but it just isn’t a focus of mine right now.

• Pageviews increased MoM by 2% to 9.6k.
• This month I earned: $165. Earnings decreased MoM by 15%. 
• EPM decreased MoM to $17.13
• How Much Have I Invested in This Website: $10,164 (No content production at the moment)
• How Much Money Has This Website Made? $2,822
• Total ROI: -$7,342 (If I were to sell the website today, I can assume I’d sell for an estimated $5k. Which means a net loss of about $2,300)
• How Much Content is on the Website? Keep in mind this website is mostly focused on affiliate content with some informational content. 
  • 319 Informational Blog Posts

PLAN:  Unexpectedly, my mom said that she has some interest in creating content for the site, and while I was going to just let it sit, I told her I’d take her up on that.

However, I’ve already hired and fired my own mother once with my online business.

I know that sounds harsh, but the first time around, she just wasn’t completing content on time, and I’m not sure if this time is going to be any different.  We’ll give this a try, and if it doesn’t work, then we’ll mutually agree that it is a good fit, and both move on.

At the end of the day, I’d love for her to create content as it provides her with something to do, and should be able to make her a little bit of money, but if it’s not a fit and I’m not going to pressure her into anything.

• Pageviews increased MoM by 34% to 652.
• This month I earned: $4. Earnings remained flat. 
• EPM decreased MoM to $6.13
• How Much Content is on the Website?
  • 25 Informational Blog Posts

PLAN:  This site is currently 100% passive and I do not work on it. 

I’m struggling with this site because I just don’t know what to do with it.  One part of me wants to hire a new writer to start working on content, and then another part of me tells me that the investment would be better suited for website 6.

I’m torn, but if I’m able to outsource website 6 as well as I think I can, I’m sure I’ll begin to have content created for this website as well soon enough.

There was a huge jump in traffic for the month, which is a positive sign, and hopefully, this will continue for the next few months. If that happens, it would be really difficult for me not to invest more heavily in the content here.

• Pageviews increased MoM by 71% to 2.1k.
• This month I earned: $0. This site is not yet monetized. 
• EPM remained at $0.
• How Much Content is on the Website?
  • 33 Informational Blog Posts

PLAN:  As with last month, I’m still hesitant to invest in this website, but I know I’ll be doing so eventually as there’s a very clear path to monetization with some high-paying affiliate programs.

The OneHourProfessor YouTube channel remains and is still bringing in revenue without my intervention.

• Views decreased MoM by 12% to 13.4k
• This month I earned: $293. Earnings decreased MoM by 16%. 
• Subscriber growth decreased MoM by 3%
• How Much Have I Invested in This YouTube Channel: $3,927
• How Much Money Has This YouTube Channel Made? $16,038
• Total ROI: $12,111 (If I were to sell the channel today, I can assume I’d sell for an estimated $10k. Which means a net gain of about $22k)

PLAN: At this point, I must stay away from publishing new content on my channel.  My sites take a ton of my mental capacity, and history has shown I’m more skilled in this area.

This channel continues to perform poorly, and we’re just letting it sit at this point.  There is no reason to focus on it, the earnings and views aren’t close to making this a sustainable or profitable channel.  If you’re interested in building an outsourced YouTube channel like this (I’d advise that you be careful about the niche selection), I recommend that you check out this webinar.

• Views decreased MoM by 18% to 6.8k.
• This month I earned: $12. Earnings increased MoM by 20%. 
• Subscriber growth increased MoM by 8%
• How Much Have We Invested in This YouTube Channel: $4,100 (We’ve stopped investing here)
• How Much Money Has This YouTube Channel Made? $115
• Total ROI: -$3,985 (If I were to sell the channel today, I can assume I’d sell for an estimated $400. Which means a net loss of about $3,600)

PLAN:  For now, this channel is simply going to sit.  I’d love to continue to work on it, but the channel itself appears to be flawed.  Even if we’re able to get a significant number of views on the channel, the earnings per thousand views is in the range of $2 to $3, which just isn’t enough.

Lessons Learned

Every month, I will reflect back and tell you a few lessons I’ve learned. My hope is that the lessons each month will be a cautionary tale for you that makes it so that you don’t make the dumb mistakes that I do along the way.

• Buy Your Time Back: One of the things that has been frustrating for me in 2022 is I’ve spent a lot of the year working in my business and not on my business.  The reason for this is that I was focused on my personal brand and this leads to a lot of busy work where people want your time directly.  I’m not used to this, as I’ve typically focused on passive income sites, so this was a big change.  But in the last few months, I’ve really focused on optimizing processes and hiring new staff for everything including my email responses which is really helping me get a lot of time back.  While you can only do this if your business will support the costs, and if there is a need for it, doing things like this when you go to a certain point is crucial to continue to grow.
• Focus on Processes: I started to get a little bit sloppy with my processes, and outsourcing everything for website 6 was a good reminder of just how important it is to have tight processes that are followed very closely.  Now that I’ve been able to finalize the content production process here, I’ll be able to roll out a similar process on other sites that I want to invest more heavily into.  
• It’s Okay to Invest Heavily: I’ve never been great at investing very heavily into one or two projects at a time.  Traditionally, I’ve invested heavily in one project and then minimally in a handful of others to slowly (and cautiously) grow my portfolio sites.  However, now that I’ve seen the trends on some of my focus sites, I realize that when you have a winner, it’s better to go all in and push very hard to grow that segment of the business.  That’s exactly what I’ve decided to do with website 6 and only time will tell how this will work out, but I have high hopes.  By the end of the year, I should know if this was a big mistake or not, but I don’t think it will be.