Case Study👉 How YOU Can Gain $150K in One Year With a Travel Blog

The Scott Max Newsletter

In Partnership with The 1 Min Daily Question

Hi 👋, this is the Scott Max newsletter. The soon-to-be-daily newsletter bringing you one step closer to your own thriving online business.

We analyze a wonderful, small, online business each week with a full breakdown of how it makes money, why it makes money, and its opportunities to grow. Below that, we give you the action steps to build a business like this to create freedom for yourself.

This is the best way to learn the tactics, skillset, and nuance of making money online.

Let’s get to the good stuff you'll see in this email:

• A niche website generating $150K/Year

• The techniques and strategies that doubled this site’s earnings in 1 year

• A relevant roadmap for you to achieve similar results.

But first, let me introduce our partner for this email,

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The What 🚀

A Travel Website That Provides Information and Tips for Tourists Visiting San Francisco

The website we’re analysing today serves as an ultimate guide to experiencing the city of San Francisco and discovering its true magic.

First-time visitors and seasoned travellers alike can find detailed information on the city's culture, popular attractions, tours, accommodations, and recommendations for things to do in San Francisco

Interestingly, this website faced major challenges due to the pandemic, causing it to lose about 90% of traffic as well as earnings!

However, it managed to navigate through the tough times, eventually doubling its earnings and even gaining a backlink from the New York Times!

We explore what made this possible further in this newsletter.

Let’s dive right in!

The How 💻

Useful content helps this website to build authority in its niche and gain backlinks.

Several useful articles found here include top attractions, tour recommendations, and transportation guides.

There are two major ways through which this site earns which are affiliate networks and display ads.

By including affiliate links within relevant content, this travel site earns whenever a reader clicks on and makes a purchase or uses a service through the recommended link.

Some of the top affiliates for this website include; GetYourGuide, Viator, Ticketmaster, and Stubhub.

The decent monthly traffic and trust/authority this site has built through high-quality content, increase the chances of potential clicks and affiliate earnings for the site.

Income is also made through display ads which this site has optimized by allowing Mediavine to manage all its ads.

Mediavine provides ad technology that helps websites maximise earnings through proper ad placement, ad format, ad targeting and ad optimization.

Next, we’ll reveal the challenges this business faced during the pandemic, how it scaled through, and why this business continues to flourish.

The Why 🔥

During the COVID-19-induced lockdown, there was little to no travel activity, which reduced traffic and income for the site we’re analysing today.

However, the following strategies helped the site to pick back up and perform better than it did even before the pandemic. They are;

• Content Optimization and SEO Tactics

During the pandemic, the website owner checked for low-ranking pages throughout the site and updated them with relevant keywords and information.

Major revisions were made to pages that didn’t rank in the top 5 to 10 results of search engine result pages (SERPs).

These updates and revisions to major content were crucial to the website’s recovery.

In recent times, the site attracts over 200K visitors per month and ranks on page 1 of Google search engine by targeting long-form keywords such as, “San Francisco live music, SF events, and is San Francisco safe” among others.

• Community Building

Another technique that helped this website to recover during the pandemic is the establishment of a dedicated Facebook group.

This helped the website owner to communicate directly with the audience, thereby gaining insights into their needs, preferences, and interests.

Engaging with the group members on a regular basis helps to establish trust and loyalty, which can lead to increased engagement and income over time.

Overall, this technique enables the creation of tailored content and offerings to better serve the audience and drive growth.

• A User-Centered Design

The website features a simple and easy-to-use interface, with different categories and groups such as “Events, Restaurants, Nightlife and frequently asked questions”.

Grouping content under specific categories on this website makes navigation easy for visitors and also shows that content is organized based on users’ needs.

• A Content Marketing Strategy

By focusing on promoting user-centred content, this website is able to attract and retain a clearly defined audience.

This is achieved with the help of channels like the dedicated Facebook group and Email marketing which are great for promoting website content, driving more visits to the website and sending personalized content to the audience.

Also, there are clear, well-placed CTA (Call to Action) displays that prompt visitors to sign up for an email list or join the Facebook community — ultimately, driving profitable customer action.

The Opportunities 🔥🔥🔥

In addition to the techniques behind this website’s success, some improvements can be made which include;

Social Media Marketing: This travel website has an impressive presence on Facebook and Pinterest and a fair following of over 1,000 on Instagram.

However, it can utilize Twitter, TikTok and Youtube to drive more growth and generate more income.

By leveraging the use of Twitter polls, spaces, and threads, this business can engage in real-time with its target audience, and get accurate feedback and data while sharing tips to reach a wider audience.

Utilize Personal Branding and Visual Content: Since this website was established due to a passion for touring San Fransisco, the website owner can take advantage of this passion to build a personal brand and showcase personal experiences from touring the city.

Engaging video content, vlogs, travel guides, and destination reviews can be used to display the local culture and attractions.

Such content is well suited to Youtube, the second largest search engine after Google, and Tiktok, which has over 1 billion monthly active users, according to Backlinko. 

A study from Google shows that travellers spend more time than ever watching videos on YouTube and use YouTube as a primary source of travel inspiration.

This can be a great source of traffic for the website and additional income for the business.

Strategic Collaborations: This website can collaborate with other relevant websites to gain more quality backlinks through guest posting, collaborative content and featuring in relevant resource pages.

Unique offerings can also be created through partnerships with other travel brands and influencers in the travel niche.

These offerings could be in the form of exclusive travel experiences offered by travel brands such as airlines or hotels and led by popular influencers in the travel industry.

The Big Reveal 👀

Brace yourself for the big reveal as the business we’ve been analyzing is none other than SFTourismTips, a travel website founded and run by Jill Loeffler.

Jill has always loved San Francisco and has been exploring the city for over 20 years.

So when she needed to choose what online business to run as an escape from corporate life, it was only natural that she decided to start a travel blog about her favourite city.

She eventually left her corporate job to focus on her passion full-time which is travelling and helping travellers navigate San Francisco easily through her website.

Jill’s website continues to be one of the most relevant resources in the travel niche thanks to a solid understanding of the business model, valuable content and consistency.

The Takeaway, What We Learned 🎓

Below are the useful concepts that we can apply from today’s analysis;

• Niche Down and Have a Clear Offering to establish a specific target audience and provide tailored content that meets their needs. This differentiates a business from competitors and can help visitors quickly understand the unique value proposition.

• Content Optimization and SEO Tactics cannot be overlooked. Creating high-quality, informative content and optimizing them with relevant keywords and meta tags, helps a website rank higher in search results. Also, SEO tactics such as keyword research and link building can improve a website's authority and reputation.

• Employing a Content Marketing Strategy is important for promoting content through various channels such as email newsletters and social media — in SFTourism Tip’s case, a dedicated Facebook group is its most successful strategy.

• Build with Users in Mind: To enhance visitors' experience, make the website easy to navigate, and more accessible and engaging just like we saw in the SFTourism Tips website with categorised content.

• Leverage Social Media for Community Building: This can increase engagement with a community of like-minded individuals ultimately leading to higher traffic and a more impactful business.

• Explore Viable Income Sources: By partnering with multiple affiliate programs and displaying ads, SFTourism Tips increases its earning potential while offering readers a wider range of relevant products and services. Overall, this can lead to greater financial stability and long-term sustainability for the website,

• Utilize Strategic Collaborations: SFTourism Tips clearly benefits from cross-promotion and referral traffic as seen in its collection of backlinks, Additionally, collaborating with other brands and influencers can help to increase the website's reach, visibility and credibility.

Action Steps, From Day 0 To ∞ 👩‍💻

So, you will have your own website, hosting account, and a good grasp of digital marketing fundamentals if you are a student/graduate of Max Business School.

If not, get started here, it’s totally free and will teach you all the skills you need to build yourself a business (and the freedom it provides you) similar to the one we’ve analyzed today.

Day 0

You’ve read this email and love this particular business model and/or niche.

If not, we'll be sending more ideas in our next email or check our archive here.

If yes;

Consider if this is a business you can happily commit to for 3-5 years?

If yes;

Is it a customer/topic/day-to-day activity you can get passionate about?

If yes;

Would starting this business cause you to lose focus on the business that you are currently building?

If yes, don’t do it.

Focus on building what you have and take lessons from my analysis above to implement them into your current business.

But if not, then move to day 1.

Day 1

Identify your target niche: Start by pointing out your interests and passions then research the market to determine the demand for your niche. Define your target audience and analyze your competition to identify gaps in their content or areas where you can differentiate yourself. We suggest you use Ahrefs to achieve this.

Develop a comprehensive business plan: A business plan helps to provide clarity and focus as well as a roadmap for informed decision-making. It should include an overview of the business, your why, services that will be provided and who will need them, content & monetization strategies, financial projections, and growth & marketing plan.

Select a suitable business name: Choose a name that is memorable, easy to spell, and relevant to your niche. It helps to conduct a trademark search to ensure that the name is available.

Register your domain name and choose a hosting provider: Purchase a domain name that matches your business name from a domain registrar like DreamHost which also provides hosting.

Design your website: Choose a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress and create a visually appealing and easy-to-navigate website. If you’re clueless about website design, Module 1 of our course is all you need to build yours from scratch!

Create accounts on social media platforms that are relevant to your niche, and have your target audience on them. This will help you to build a following and promote your website. Hootsuite is a great tool for managing social media accounts.

Day 2

Conduct keyword research: Use tools like Ahrefs to identify relevant keywords and topics that your target audience is searching for. This will help you to create content that is relevant and valuable to your customers.

Develop a content strategy: Use your keyword research to create a content plan that includes blog posts, videos, and other types of shareable content that address your audience's pain points and interests. Identify the topics you want to cover, the format of the content, and the frequency of publication.

Create high-quality content: Use storytelling techniques, visuals, and other engaging elements to create high-quality content that resonates with your audience. Opt for good AI writing tools like Copymatic and guides like our course which can provide you with the necessary skills for creating relevant content.

Optimize your website for search engines: Use technical SEO techniques like optimizing website speed, using meta tags, and improving site navigation to improve the user experience and search engine rankings. Use content SEO techniques like using relevant headings, internal linking, and optimizing images to increase the visibility of your content.

Day 3 to ∞

Monitor and analyze performance metrics: Use analytics tools like AWR Cloud to track SEO metrics, and Deep Crawl to track website traffic, bounce rates, and engagement metrics. Use this data to optimize your marketing campaigns, identify areas for improvement, and refine your content strategy.

Adopt content appraisal and optimise strategies: Continuously evaluate your content and refine your strategy based on feedback from your audience, industry trends, and evolving market dynamics. Identify areas for improvement, and adjust your strategy accordingly. Stay open to new ideas and opportunities and be willing to pivot your business strategy when needed.

Monetize your website: After your website's traffic reaches a certain level, sign up for display ad networks like Google AdSense or Mediavine and affiliate programs like Amazon Associates or Booking.com. These programs will allow you to earn revenue from your blog through display ads and affiliate commissions.

Build a community: Engage with your audience on social media platforms, respond to comments and messages promptly and authentically, and encourage user-generated content like reviews and travel stories. Use email marketing and social media campaigns to build relationships with your audience and foster a sense of community. This will help you to enhance trust and brand awareness and increase engagement on your website and social media platforms.

Stay updated with industry trends: Keep up with the latest travel trends, news, and events to provide timely and relevant content to your audience. Actively engage with communities relevant to your niche. This will help you to establish yourself as an authority in the travel industry.

Plan for future growth: Set long-term goals for your website and develop a plan to achieve them. This could include expanding your content strategy, launching new revenue streams, or collaborating with other travel bloggers and influencers.

Before You Go 👋

Thank you for reading.

In my next email, I’ll have another business breakdown for you.

Remember, if you know someone who might like this newsletter, sharing is caring.

If you are ready to get started with your own business, one of the first steps is always a website. Click here for our exclusive hosting deal and click here for an invite to our Max Business School community where you’ll hang out with thousands of fellow ambitious business builders.

Remember to check out the classroom tab (top left corner) for all of our free courses teaching you all you need to succeed online.

Bye for now,

Scott Max