in this video we talked to Christi about
her $75,000 website she started the site
in October of 2018 so it's a little over
a year old she just hit twenty five
hundred dollars per month and we talked
about her journey so far we talked about
her content approach keyword approach
link building and so on Kristi's been on
the show a few times because she was a
student of the five figure niche site
course so if you were watching this
video during the week of like January
13th through the 17th twenty twenty
enrollment is open so I encourage you to
check out the link in the description if
you want to work from the same blueprint
and framework that Christi worked from
alright let's get to the interview now
what's going on it's doug cutting tenir
for the Doug show and I'm here with
Kristi how are you doing today hey Doug
I'm good and you are a student of five
figure a niche site this is something
like your third appearance so thanks a
lot for taking the time and for the
people that have not heard the other
episodes with you can you just give a
little intro about yourself and like
your full-time job
how you got into niche sites and that
sort of thing sure I got into niche
sites about a year and a half ago I
would say my full-time job
is in marketing so I actually run my own
business and I started getting into the
niche site thing just because I actually
heard you on a podcast and was
interested in it and just kept educating
myself ever since so that's my
background
hmm very cool and the reason why you're
on here is you hit a great milestone
recently so can you share like the
earnings the most recent earnings from
the last month and we're publishing this
very close to the time we're recording
it which I don't always do but yeah so
what are your results right now or these
it's gone through all 2019 through 2019
it earned over $13,000 and then in just
the last month of December which course
overall
this could be a little wonky but that
was just like spitting distance to 2,500
cool very good congratulations I know
that's a big milestone and you're you're
pretty like I would say goal-oriented
would you say type-a as well I think we
would both say that okay this is herself
self-admitted yeah it's about wareness
super ride so you said some like pretty
specific goals and like what you wanted
to hit and and what that would allow you
to do so can you just talk about like
some of those goals and milestones and
then like right now what is this like
2,500 bucks a month doing for you sure
so right at the beginning and I think it
was based on one of your emails that you
sent out right at the start was you know
coming up with your wide basically and
why you want to have a niche site and
hopefully you know it's a reason that's
a little deeper than I want to make a
million dollars overnight this probably
isn't the way to do that but you had
encouraged us to basically come up with
our why and what our goals would be so I
came up with about 10 financial
milestones that I wanted to hit just
mostly based on like what I currently
make for my job because that's the only
reference point I have and then for each
of those categories I would say
basically what could that pay for so you
know this month it might cover my pet
expenses at this level it would cover my
mortgage at this level it would cover
you know mortgage plus a vacation or
something like that so as I go along I
do kind of keep track of where I am on
that milestone list and yeah I'm
trucking along I'm like number three
very good that's good congratulations I
know I mean it's a lot of money for most
people that's gonna pay for a mortgage
and a little bit more depending on like
how big of a house or whatever their
domicile is so that's awesome I think
it's interesting to note that you've
been able to hit an ROI positive point
pretty quickly because you've done a lot
of work yourself and I think that's
impressive
like can you share a little bit about
like the expenses and that sort of thing
you don't have to go too deep in detail
but just sort of high level yep when I
look back on all of 2019 like I said the
site made a little over $13,000 for the
year and then of that I had about 80
almost nine thousand dollars that I put
into it now not all of that though was
actually going into the site so there
was a good chunk of that that was
educational expenses that were wanted me
right like buying a course you know
because I had no idea what I was doing
and you know those are investments that
like I said that's not going to be a
year rear sight investment to keep it
going but I was willing to invest in the
educational piece right up front and
then another probably five thousand of
that was for content um my approach was
that it you know I wanted to fail faster
essentially and you know because I had
some discipline some income and that I
could put into it I wanted to really
grow the content over the first year and
see if the model held right and if it
was worth putting more time and energy
into so for me that was worth it you
definitely don't have to invest that
much right away um but you know again
when you think about it if I put in
let's just say nine thousand dollars for
the first year well last month I made
twenty five hundred so you know like if
I can put in a fair amount upfront and
then get a higher-functioning site with
better monthly income like that makes it
back quite a bit
ah what a bit quicker so that for me is
still that's still worth it
gotcha yep
some people may be thinking I can't
believe like $5,000 that's a crazy
amount of money but it wasn't all the
once number one and then you saw that
what you were doing was working so maybe
you started small and then you increased
the expenses as you felt comfortable
with it right correct I spent probably
mmm
five hundred dollars on my first set of
ten articles that were the first ones I
ever outsourced so cool started small
and made sure that I even liked doing
that as an option right right right
okay and just at a broad level one of
the questions that I want to ask is like
what's the reason for the site success
it's you could take in whatever
direction because there's a lot of
moving pieces and the way you approached
yeah well the first thing I would say is
I'm in there almost every day so part of
that is because I chose a niche that I'm
personally interested in I think it
would be different if I was writing
about something I didn't care about
vacuum cleaners or something which I did
buy vacuum cleaner after visiting a
niche site I do want to say that but so
they were useful but for me personally
it's not my passion so for me you know
it's a lifestyle blog and I'm on it
every day because I enjoy doing it um so
I think that's a big piece of it is that
it wasn't something that I just started
worked on for two months got bored of
and expected it to keep making a lot of
money so for me just being able to
continually be in there and like doing
it like working on it is a huge thing
um the other thing I would say for me
personally is that having a marketing
background the site looks professional
content is professional I've been a
writer for years so I spend a ton of
time on editing which I know a lot of
people don't like spending time on and
it is a huge time-suck won't lie about
that but I also feel a lot better about
the content that I put out so for me
it's worth it
it also keeps me really tuned in to what
content I have when I've been
outsourcing things so it's really easy
to get so much content that you forget
what's even out
what you've covered what you haven't
well it you can link to so spending more
time in their editing actually helps me
out at least in the short term so having
a professional looking site nice content
that's edited and then just you know
being an everyday kind of working on it
I think those are all distinguishing
factors for me cool and I have seen I've
interviewed a lot of people a lot of
students and I know that people get
obsessed so you're describing that
you're obsessed with it
forget that I'm like that
in various areas ron Stefanski gets into
it John Dykstra he's into the process
and all that stuff Marty McCloud Evan
Porter like either they're doing the
writing they're obsessed with it they're
into it
common definitely a common thread where
people enjoy either the topic we're the
process right I'm kind of
process-oriented so I don't always get
obsessed with like vacuum cleaners or
whatever and I don't know who would be
but the people in your process of
reviewing it so right one other thing I
want to point out so we're like taking a
snapshot right now we're like $2,500 a
month that's great and I want to
emphasize but people should listen to
the other episodes because you had other
milestones I think a hundred and then a
thousand dollars per month but when you
shared the graph which people could
check out on on the video and I'll share
the screen and all that stuff but
basically this is like slow gradual
growth there was never a like huge
massive jump there were a couple like
three like one month's month was like
three acts and then there was another
job but in general it wasn't like all of
a sudden you're making like huge amounts
of money is just like slow plodding
progress so how do you keep motivated
when
it's so slow and you didn't know if it
was gonna work uh well I think the first
thing was to just set my expectations
correctly you were a piece of that
definitely I think you were really
upfront in the course and just in your
other materials of saying this isn't an
overnight thing right and I think once
you start learning more about how Google
works how SEO works then it really
clicks of yeah it's gonna take some time
but the nice thing about you know doing
the kgr at least in the beginning is
that you do see some progress and you
can see some results right away which is
the key to staying motivated right so if
I hadn't seen a single dollar in six
months I probably wouldn't continue and
that's really realistic if you don't go
after like some kgr keywords right so if
I had only gone after giant keyword
traffic phrases I probably would have
burned out also no matter how passionate
I was about the topic so I think it's
really important right up front to tell
yourself that if you need a quick fix if
you need like a way to pay your mortgage
next month this is not that but for me I
wanted something supplemental to kind of
diversify my life income right for my
other business and I wanted something
that I would enjoy working on in my own
time and eventually could be more of a
lifestyle for me than running a services
based business which I do now another
thing I want to point out and emphasize
so we talked about some of the expenses
and you like broke even before you're
making profit now you could reinvest
like comfortably and there's continuing
to make a profit each month the value of
your site is probably in the like
seventy to ninety thousand dollar yeah
so like if someone if someone is
thinking hey that's a lot of money that
you spent it's actually worth quite a
bit if you look at evaluation if you
shopped it around I know because it
you're obsessed with it
and
you spent some time here you're not
gonna sell it but it's kind it's it's
comforting to know building an asset and
should an emergency arise you built
something about you which I do think yep
so yep you put in a lot of money even
more time but you have like an asset
that's very clear that there's value
there so very good mistakes so we all
end up making some mistakes even with
expert guidance and when you try to do a
good job so can you talk about a few
mistakes that you made yeah I think
there were quite a few things that I did
partly well which I classify as partly
mistakes so one of the things that I do
well was create like an Excel
spreadsheet right up and stop every
article like my checklist of what needs
to be done every article so I have a
really clear sense of like every post
that's out there when it was posted like
how long I expected to take to ring all
that good stuff that's nice I did not do
that for things like images right which
I now kind of wish I'd gone back and
done that I'd kept track of which
restock sites I got things from just to
cover my bases
ah you know once you're 200 posts in
that seems pretty giant to go back
had to do it again I would probably add
that to my nice little spreadsheet just
as like a comfort factor so that would
be one I would also be a little bit more
strategic about the social media stuff
what I did well was focusing on
Pinterest primarily I wrote another
article about Pinterest and how it drove
I think was like 13 to 15 percent of my
early traffic and I think it's still
right around there I think was like 15
or 18 percent last time I checked for
the year which is really good when
you're still trying to get organic
traffic and you're you want it from
anywhere so for me Pinterest was a great
place to go because it is a search
engine so you can apply a lot of what
you're already doing on the site to
Pinterest so that was good I wish that I
had not started an Instagram kind of a
time suck and I don't work on it and I
don't like doing it so that's probably
not a huge advantage to be spending any
time on or just the time spent feeling
guilty about not spending time on it I
don't need to be doing that yeah um so I
would have been a little bit more
strategic about that I think the other
thing I would have spent more time on is
the link building which you and I have
been talking talking about lately and
just doing a little bit more of that
along the way so for me I needed to
focus on content right that was where I
put all my time my energy and I got to
like 200 articles I felt really good
about that and then now we're to the
point where I need to catch up on the
link building so that's kind of the next
thing for me if I were to do it over I
would have been doing that kind of the
whole way which is in the course so I'll
just uh yes but I mean I think part of
its my fault I talk about this sometimes
on YouTube where I'm like hey if I put
out case studies like sometimes people
like focus and just really focus on that
one piece and I know because I've gotten
probably over a hundred emails where
someone's like I'm gonna publish 200
articles in five months which is exactly
what I did
but I can't blame you right you had a
Content background you're a writer you
like the topic you're like working with
freelancers and hiring people like it
fit perfectly in obviously I mean it's
working for you but I think yeah we can
take it to the next level by you know
because patching up the area where
you've kind of neglected and there's a
lot of approaches to it now you have
done some very interesting link building
and outreach I'm doing a hit like a
couple of the ideas that you've talked
about before mmm
one of the early things I did that I
didn't know if it would really pay off
at all was that there was a vlogger in
my niche that I noticed was fundraising
you know project and she needed to
basically cover some expenses be able to
do it so that was the point where I
thought you know I'm just gonna reach
out to her I have barely a site at all
but I'm gonna just see if she would
write for me if I donated towards this
cause that she wants to support and she
said yes immediately like I felt like I
had just been contacted by like I don't
know like some kind of rock stars like I
was like so butterfly about it that this
flower that I'm watching anyway she's
like yes just make my site just believe
it you and so I actually I brought her
on for 10 articles like right up front
because it was good for her it was good
for me
and it gave me a real boost because
people that followed her would go to her
articles and it really showed Google you
know in those first like 2 months that
there were people actively searching for
the name of my site for her content
that was huge and I can now use her as
basically an example of someone that
I've worked with so hands down love that
would do that again so that was the very
first thing that I did I also created
along the same lines basically a media
guide for bloggers in my niche so I
spent way too much time on YouTube not
all of it watching Affiliate content
although obviously I do that too so I
pulled out probably 10 or 12 of the
people that I watched the most and I
created a media guide as a resource
saying here are the people you should be
watching every person got their own
dedicated page my top five videos for
them like all the key players so it was
a decent amount of work to do that but
it also brought in I think like 6,000
page views in the first year which per
new site is good and I will take that
and again it's just people that now that
I'm going to focus on outreach those are
the people that I can easily go back to
and it's a bit of a warm a warm intro
right to say hey I've been following you
here's the proof of that right that I
talked about what you're doing and I
love what you're doing so let's partner
on XYZ so those are two ways that um you
know we're not things that I'd
necessarily heard about people doing but
in my specific niche vlogging is big and
so I wanted to take advantage of that if
you highlighted like a perfect example
where you you landed that first vlogger
and now you could say hey I've worked
with this person they can see that very
clearly they could go check it out and
then they realize okay like you're doing
interesting things and by the way I was
impressed when you did this but like in
the very beginning but it's like you
didn't have much content on your site
there was no track record it was like a
couple months old max right and I think
ten articles on it yes
when I launch I know it's a different
space but I launched niche site project
and I did the same thing I had maybe
four articles and internet marketing is
pretty competitive because there's much
marketers doing it but I was able to
network in a similar way like talking
with people that maybe shouldn't like
care who I am or anything like that and
they were like okay like we'll see how
it goes and if you get one or two of
those than other people with a social
proof or more likely to work with you so
you put yourself out there it worked out
now a year later you're able to like
land other bigger bigger fish or
whatever so right okay it was something
where I could feel good about it too
because I wasn't just asking for
something right I was reaching out
because this person had a need and
something that they wanted to be doing
and I could also help with that so that
it felt like a really good initial
transaction so
similarly and I just remembered I landed
an interview with a much actually a few
at this point a much bigger vlogger
because I knew that they were releasing
a book they were launching a book and I
was like oh they'll talk to anyone who
asks and not that many it was the wrong
space like people didn't care but I made
a contact and ended up I actually met my
one of the VA is that I worked with for
a long time this is going way tangent
here so I met a VA who ended up working
with me for years who actually helped my
wife get a job and that's why we moved
so like through that I forgot that
that's how it was all tied together but
it was like a friend of a friend and
then her mom and that blah blah blah so
then we moved I mean I think you have to
make it personal
right cuz you're everyone's running an
internet business anyone that you're
going to talk to here pretty much and it
gets really I think it's lonely for
people right that are even putting out a
lot of content like bloggers podcasters
like is anyone listening is anyone
watching like are they just in it for
the free content for me and so to have
someone reach out and be like I see this
is what you're doing in your life right
I would like to help support you in that
that's a nice email to receive right and
it's a nice one to be able to send so
the more that you kind of watch people
in your space that you do want to
connect with and genuinely reach out
when they have things going on I you
know that's nice for everybody awesome
for the content I know you emphasized
editing make sure that it's high quality
do you have any other tips especially
for people who aren't writers or they
don't see it as one of their strengths I
think you can definitely have a
successful met niche sites and outsource
a lot of the content right so if you do
have send disposable income to do that I
worked with
work writers for the very first time
just based on your recommendation to do
it that made me very nervous
I am like you said a control freak about
that stuff and I wasn't really sure that
I wanted anyone else writing content and
I still see a ton of people in facebook
groups that are like I won't let anyone
write on my site no guest posts no
nothing I write everything to keep the
integrity which I guess is fine but
there are tons of people who know stuff
that I don't write I'm not I'm not the
be end all of my niche right so to me
it's like yeah I don't want a site where
I have written anything but nor do I
want to say where I'm the only one
contributing like that leaves a ton of
topics that people want to know about
that I just can't write about that's not
my background I don't have any
experience in it um you know stuff so
for me it's like I can go out and find
people on up work who are lovely to work
with it turns out I wasn't sure that
would be the case either they're lovely
and I can find people who have different
skills at different backgrounds than I
do and yes their writing may not be
exactly how we do it so fine I spend
time editing it and I make it more like
what I like and that's okay but for me
it was like if I want to cover more
topics I need to go find people who are
experts on those topics that I came
right at all so I've written a couple
other articles for you about how I did
that upper process like start to finish
and it was super successful like I had a
really good experience and I know some
people don't but I think it's all about
how you approach it and especially about
how you interact with your writers like
I think that's a really big deal and as
a writer I know that I appreciate that
so you know for me it's about treating
them like people appreciating their
expertise
keeping track of who does a good job in
two-dozen you know and then offering
them topics that they are going to find
interesting instead of me just assigning
things right so I
want another background and I want to
give them things they're excited too
right now but that's worked out great
yes people should definitely check out
the basically it's like a full guide on
how to hire people the exact templates
and in fact I know one of my friends who
was doing really well with her site
already followed the guide she had
something like 90 articles written in a
pretty short time I can't remember it
was more than I thought she should try
but she did it and it worked out well
and I think she even liked you know yeah
yeah she like personally reached out to
you yeah so that worked out really well
so we're gonna start wrapping up here
and do you have any you gave us so many
tips already but from like maybe a
higher level or mindset approach do you
have tips for people who are either
looking to get started or they're just
getting started maybe they're just
making a few bucks
I think the mindset is key so knowing at
the outset that it's not going to be an
overnight thing
that's a baby right you have to set your
expectations correctly there are the
anomalies right and they're all over the
Internet
um someone that made you know ridiculous
amount of money in three months or
something that's great that's probably
not going to be you and that's okay
that's all right um but I think the big
thing for me is finding one or two like
educators that you're gonna follow
instead of trying to follow everyone
right so I chose you and maybe one or
two other people that I you know watch
their blogs and things everybody has a
different approach and if you try to
follow everyone your site is gonna be
just like soup right it's just not it's
not gonna work so find a couple people
that you really think are doing a good
job follow their advice um the other
thing this is a little thing but I wish
I'd done it sooner
I created basically of what I did win
lists so I only created that maybe four
months ago because I was having such a
struggle remembering when I did big
things so when I was then looking at the
data a couple of months later I could
see a spike and I couldn't relate it to
anything it's like great something
happened in the middle of August I don't
know I don't know if I contributed to
that or not so now I just have like
literally a text file where I do
something that's major like if I take
ads off a group of posts I put that in
the file right with the date that I did
it then if I see a blip I see something
different in the data I can go back to
my list of what I did when and align it
at least a little bit to see if I
contributed to whatever just happened so
I would have done that from the
beginning it doesn't have to be every
task that you do like just the big stuff
that you think might make a difference
later so do that um and then I probably
would have been you may disagree with
minutes I probably would have put in ads
a little sooner
but I like having the we have
diversified income for me that's just a
safer place to be so I put ads in at
least six months ago I use media vine I
love them and that was really cool to be
able to have a second source so now I'm
going through and deciding which posts
to take ads off of fire some tenth posts
for example like you suggested go back
and take maybe the top ten tigers post
by traffic ads off of those and see if
you make more on Amazon or other
affiliates ads said that's kind of the
you know the trial period I'm going
through now but having ads on my site I
don't regret that you can control a lot
about how many there are and that's
great but now I'm to the point where I
can go back and say okay where could I
be getting more from Amazon and other
affiliates where could I make up more
than I'm losing and ads so that's where
I am now those are a couple of things I
would have done and I'm glad you pointed
that out I forgot to highlight that so
you I think you're making like
two-thirds from Amazon and then about a
third from other sources mostly display
ads last last month I think was like
1500 from Amazon and then about 900 from
ads so yeah I really I did not lose as
much by taking ads off of this first 10
trial bus I made more than that granted
it was holiday season CC but puffles not
a big yeah and it's a whole other debate
maybe we could talk about just you know
like you said I'd I was like hey don't
put ads on and then other people are
like put ads on you can make more wish
you almost always will but there's
always a trade-off maybe not oh wait I
mean virtually the trade-off isn't as
big of a deal but anyway it's debatable
and I can see that cuz like when you
when you started showing me how much you
were making I was like well that's
significant right
excellent I agree but it's a balance for
sure and you kind of just have to trial
and error which ones are good for ads
and which ones aren't and you may be
leaving some money on the table either
place and that's just a really good yep
awesome well thanks a lot for joining us
and if people have questions for you
they can leave a comment on the video or
like comments on the podcast or whatever
you can also like leave a voicemail if
you want to and then maybe we'll do
another round where we answer questions
potentially so thanks a lot definitely
appreciate you taking the time today but
thanks for the guidance appreciate it -
Christy and thank you for watching the
video if you have any questions for
Christy leave them in the comments we'll
circle back around and get her to answer
those questions for you and if you're
interested in five-figure niche site you
should check it out if you happen to be
watching this in the future and
enrollment is not open you can still go
to five-figure niche site com click the
green button enter your name and email
I'll send you several emails I'll send
you all the templates that I use and
you'll be notified the next time the
course opens up but if you're watching
it this week January 13th through the
17th in the year 2020 you should be able
to enroll just go to five-figure and you
site.com
slash launch will catch on the next
video
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