Case Study👉 How YOU Can Get a Five-Figure Income from a Lifestyle Blog

The Scott Max Newsletter

In Partnership with Trends.vc

Hi 👋, this is the Scott Max newsletter. The soon-to-be-daily newsletter brings 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 thriving online business making a steady income.

• Unique techniques enable this business to stand out in its niche and achieve success.

• A roadmap to setting up your own business.

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

Trends.vc

Empowering Entrepreneurs and Investors

Join an elite community of over 50,000 founders and investors who are spearheading innovation through market exploration.

Discover new realms of opportunity and ideas with Trends.vc. Their free 5-minute reports on AI, Crypto, and more are reshaping the way you approach market research, saving you a whopping 2,000+ hours.

What does this online business do? 🚀

Our focus in this newsletter is to provide you with a close look into a blog about Intentional Living, and a breakdown of how it drives traffic to make a monthly income.
 
A simple blog with a noble purpose is featured in our newsletter today to show how a basic online business can still be functional and valuable.

The blog was created to empower women who are burdened financially and are interested in pursuing a way out.

If you are looking to learn from this blog read through each section and make note of the takeaways.

With this, we will also weigh out what we can learn from this blog and address how it can be improved. 

How does this online business make money? 💻

This online business banks revenue through Affiliate commissions from well-known lucrative product and service providers like GoDaddy, Amazon Associates, MOYM, etc.

Which accounts for 95% of their total monthly earnings.

More prominently is their affiliation with GoDaddy, which features multiple times across their blog. Especially in their post on How to start a blog. 

This blog has capitalized on and earned income through Advertising services.

It also enjoys income from reputable advertising networks like Google AdSense and IZEA.

The blog makes an average of $100 in advertising revenue per month, which is an area in need of much improvement.

It makes an income from Course programs on Teachable.

As seen below, the blog hosts three courses that are aimed at educating its audience on ways to “conquer overwhelm and live intentionally”.

The income from these course programs is very low, mainly because some of the courses are free and some cheap.

According to the last recorded income report, it usually publishes Sponsored Posts, which in other income reports bring in $1,175 - $3,290 / month.

This means other brands and businesses pay a certain fee for a particular post that either markets the brand or promotes the services it provides.

What has this business done well?🔥🔥 

In this section, we will discuss the positives that make the blog a success.

This niche blog has established an effective Email marketing strategy.

With the help of the email marketing tool ConvertKit, blog managers have control over the email list and operations.

A blogging goals worksheet email campaign is hosted by the blog in the form of email newsletters.

This is very interactive and functional, as the blog increases its email list and regularly dialogues with its audience through this service.

Beginner-friendly content on how to become a professional blogger.

Blogging is a very competitive niche, especially since many systems and businesses are going digital.

This simple blog has provided fundamental information on how to pursue such a lucrative business model.

It provides content about how to start a blog, helpful tools for blogging, and saving money articles.

In addition, the blog has also published income reports to inspire upcoming bloggers.

What this business could improve?🔥🔥🔥

Blog post Images :

Having a website that is appealing to the eye is an unspoken rule that every online business should observe.

This blog has a well-structured blog layout, however, its blog post images have in most cases ruined the overall look of the blog.

The images are actually from the blog’s Pinterest account.

Making the images disproportionate in size and odd looking as it takes much of the post.

Readers are more prone to remember a post and enjoy reading it with good-looking images that are relevant and of good quality.

The image above is an extract from a blog post on 10 ways to use images in blog posts.

In summary, images in blog posts should be relevant and add value.

Low Traffic volume and keywords:

Our handy Ahrefs tool has provided us with factual data on the traffic that the blog witnesses on a monthly basis, to help us better understand the progress and flaws.

Instantly we noticed a very low number of monthly visitors.

This is quite shocking given the services and content that come with the blog's reputation.

Various factors contributed to this negative result, and if not dealt with appropriately traffic may drop more and affect the blog negatively.

Good solutions to combat this may include revisiting outdated pages and optimizing them.

Tweaking content to meet good SEO practices, making the content relevant to trending topics that are current and promoting the updated pages.

As seen in the Ahrefs data snippet, the number of keywords is also very below the standard.

In comparison to other lucrative blogs, this number of 2.3k keywords is another reason why the blog has low traffic.

Google pays close attention to the number of keywords and their relevance to the page and blog as a whole.

In order to rank high the blog needs to draft a sound SEO strategy that will serve its brand awareness and web readers

The Reveal, check this online business out for yourself 👀

Please help me welcome our online business focus, Embrace Simple Blog.

This simple blog offers beginner-friendly posts on how to start a blogging career, content about self-development, and course programs about decluttering.

It has a lot of potential to inspire its readers and earn more from the services and products it provides.

The face behind this online business is a blogger named Christina Tiplea

A wife and mother of two young children, living in Chicago, USA. Who is very passionate about helping women of all backgrounds and walks of life.

To guide them through the “process of simplifying and taking back their homes so they have more time to spend on the things that bring them joy…”

She is a very strong advocate of decluttering living areas that have been robbing women of their time and freedom.

Her blog has been very pivotal in helping women (mainly in the United States of America) to get rid of such life-sucking habits that leave beautiful homes looking like dumping areas.

The Takeaway, What We Learned 🎓

• Have helpful tools in your arsenal to better manage your email marketing, Pinterest pinning, and social media presence.

• Add eye-catching high-quality images to your website to improve the general appearance.

• Specialize in the fundamentals first then grow to more complex topics.

• Simplicity is key, especially when readers want easy-to-understand and direct content.

Action Steps if you’d like to start a business like this… 👩‍💻

If you’re already up and running with an online business, keep with it and try to implement some of the lessons you might have found in this email.

If not, I very highly recommend our free course in digital marketing & business at Max Business School.

You’ll learn all the fundamental skills to build an online income like the one we did a case study on in this email.

Here’s what to expect:

Week 1 - Fundamentals

This week, you will establish a solid digital marketing foundation. The focus will be on personal branding, but the concepts apply to other business models as well. You will explore:

• WordPress Website Development: Learn to create a professional and user-friendly website using WordPress, a powerful and widely-used platform for various online businesses.

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Understand the basics of SEO to increase online visibility and attract organic traffic to their websites.

• Web Analytics: Discover how to analyze website data using tools like Google Analytics to gain valuable insights into user behaviour and make data-driven decisions.

Week 2 - How to start a business

In this week you will delve into expanding the online presence and driving traffic to your website. You will get to learn about:

• Email Marketing: Understand the importance of building an email list and learn effective email marketing strategies to nurture leads and convert them into customers.

• Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Dive into the world of paid advertising and explore techniques to run successful ad campaigns on search engines like Google.

Week 3 - How to grow a business

The final week will focus on harnessing the power of social media platforms for business growth. You will discover:

• Social Media Marketing: Discover how to develop and implement social media strategies to engage with the target audience and build brand loyalty.

• Facebook and Instagram Ads: Explore advanced advertising techniques on these popular platforms to reach a wider audience and generate leads.

Get started now 

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