Case Study👉 How YOU Can Make $70K/Mo Through a Personal Finance Blog

The Scott Max Newsletter

In Partnership with Ariyh

Hi 👋, this is the Scott Max newsletter. The 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 thriving online business making a steady income.

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

• A step-by-step guide to setting up a business like this one for yourself!

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

Ariyh

Your Weekly Empowerment of Marketing Insights.

If you're looking for data-driven marketing recommendations that are backed by solid evidence, Ariyh is the answer. Every Tuesday, they deliver a 3-minute actionable insight based on scientific research papers, ensuring you stay ahead with the latest industry knowledge. Best of all, you can subscribe to Ariyh's insightful updates at absolutely no cost.

The What 🚀

Budgeting is a worldwide practice that can be very difficult without firm knowledge and proper research.

The focus of this newsletter is to have a look into a personal finance blog that is making budgeting easy to understand.

With online courses, helpful content, email newsletters and a Shopify store.

In this analysis newsletter, we will analyze the monthly income streams, lead generation through Pinterest and opportunities.

The How 💻

A whiting $840,000 annual milestone was recorded, which meant the blog earned $70,000 every month through various income streams.

This amount came from the following income streams:

According to the blog’s income report the sale of Products and Course programs has been its highest areas of income.

The blog sells products on its Shopify store, which is a great platform to make sales.

Externally selling products helps with reaching out to other audiences in other marketplaces, deeming it as a marketing tactic as well as selling a product to earn an income.

Its course programs are largely related to starting an online business, managing and becoming a Pinterest Virtual Assistant and Personal finance.

Affiliate marketing is a prominent way to earn monthly commissions, and this finance blog has indeed used it to its advantage.

Some of its affiliate commissions come from its ‘Start a Blog’ page.

It prompts web viewers to start a blog by first sharing a personal story of how the founder began her journey on blogging and closer to the end encouraging them to purchase a website through BlueHost.

Other pages have affiliate links within blog posts about budgeting, side hustle options and tools to grow an online business.

In addition, the blog also makes an income from ad revenue, membership community, coaching and sponsorship.

These put together make up the overall income the blog enjoys annually.

Many of these are time-tested and proven ways to earn, and this blog is an example of a flourishing business that utilizes these well.

The Why 🔥🔥 

Let’s dive into what makes this blog a success and the systems it has put in place to ensure gradual growth.

A good team of focused individuals can indeed inspire productivity and functionality.

This is an underestimated prerequisite, as it can be a key factor in an online business's gradual growth.

The blog has a team of devoted people who handle the important facets of the blog, namely working with affiliates, managing multiple inboxes, program managing, membership, social media marketing and many more.

It has very helpful blog posts on finance and budgeting hacks.

Good content can be the one positive factor that gives new visitors a reason to make a purchase, interact with your website and return the next time.

It is prudent to be relevant and relatable throughout posts.

On the same point, the blog has also used long-tail keywords as blog post titles.

This will help it rank high, as long-tail keywords are relatively easy to rank high because it is less competitive.

Lead generation through Pinterest has made this finance blog stand out in its niche market.

The blog has published a detailed blog post on a Pinterest Case study, expressing the improvements it witnessed since using Pinterest as a marketing tool.

Above is a diagram showing the peak in traffic coming from Pinterest as a result of intentionally investing time and money (for ads).

The blog went from averaging 5k page views at the beginning of the year to reaching 40k page views.

Now the blog has devoted blog posts, and course programs to educate views on how to utilize Pinterest or become a Pinterest Virtual Assistant.

The Opportunities 🔥🔥🔥

Here are some areas the blog can improve on:

Improve on its competitive edge:

We can most certainly agree that this blog has delivered in terms of customer service and valuable content with a very intriguing topical focus.

However, the blog can achieve more by improving its unique features to stand out from the pack.

Upon examining other blogs in the same niche market we notice the slight difference between the blogs.

Data from Ahrefs can give us a better understanding through its Ahrefs Ranking (AR) metric.

This data represents a unique ranking system, which shows the strength of the targeted website compared to other domains in its database.

One can also compare this blog to its competitors to analyze the difference, with the help of Ahrefs.

Promote top pages:

A proven practice is to invest in and promote the most lucrative blog posts, to capitalize on their popularity.

Below is data from the blog’s top page that witnesses a lot of traction compared to other blog posts.

This blog post is titled How to sell eBooks on Amazon and makeup to $2,000 a month.

it is a well-constructed post with affiliate links, fundamental information and snippets.

This post ranks 3rd for its top keyword and 4th on the Search engine results page

Such posts should feature in its email newsletter, and social media posts and even have its own course, to milk all its worth.

Sadly the blog has not capitalized on this post. Promoting this blog post can almost instantly increase traffic, conversion rate and email signups.

A missed opportunity indeed.

The Big Reveal 👀

Please allow me to introduce Believe In A Budget, a personal finance blog that specializes in providing helpful hacks on how to manage a budget better.

It has made a great effort to equip its audience with the knowledge to tackle finances and better deal with debt.

Not only that but a number of blog posts and course programs have been dedicated to other niche markets like managing a blog and becoming a Pinterest Virtual Assistant.

Kristin Larsen, the blog creator and manager, began her blogging quest in 2015 by blogging about the various side hustle tasks that helped her clear off her debt.

Much of the blog’s reputation owes it to her and her team, working hard to make the blog better and serve more people, all in the name of believing in a budget.

The Takeaway, What We Learned 🎓

• Experiment different ways to drive traffic to your online business. One proven way is through the use of a good marketing strategy on Pinterest.
  

• Make sure the mission and vision remain the core focus of your blog, by reflecting it in blog posts and social media feeds. Web visitors subconsciously look for clarity and consistency, the slightest bit of confusion could give them a reason to exit.
  

• Have a team of like-minded individuals who value the mission of the blog and build them to perform specific roles to aid the overall functionality of the blog.
  

• Thoughtfully integrate your social media presence with your blog, by displaying social media icons in strategic spots across your website.

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't 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

• Determine your niche: Consider your interests, unique skills and experience to identify the area where you can offer the most value to customers. Research your target audience to understand their needs, pain points, and competitors' services.

• Develop a business plan: Creating a comprehensive business plan is essential to ensure long-term success. This plan should include key components such as the purpose and vision of your business, a clear definition of the services you will offer, the target audience you wish to reach, your revenue streams, and a marketing strategy that will effectively promote your business.

• Register your domain name and choose a hosting provider: Choose a reliable hosting provider such as DreamHost and register your domain name, then start designing your website. No need to worry if you're a beginner at website design. Our course has got your back with Module 1, so let's get started on creating your dream website!

• Set up your social media accounts: Create social media accounts on platforms where your target audience is most active. This will help you to build your online presence and connect with potential customers.

Day 2

• Conduct market research: Use tools like Ahrefs to identify what your target audience is searching for online. This will help you to create content that is relevant and valuable to your customers.

• Develop a content strategy: Based on your market research, create a content strategy that includes blog posts, videos, social media posts, and other types of content that will engage your target audience.

• Create impactful content: Use your content strategy to create high-quality, valuable content that addresses the pain points of your target audience. Promote your content through various channels, including your website, social media, email marketing, and other platforms. Make sure that your content is optimized for SEO so that it can be easily found by potential customers. Our course can provide you with the necessary skills, tools and knowledge to produce valuable and relevant content.

Day 3 to ∞

• Track the effectiveness of your content: Track and analyze the traffic and engagement on your website and social media accounts. Use this data to make informed decisions about what content is resonating with your target audience and what needs to be improved.

• Join affiliate programs or/and Ad network: After your website's traffic reaches a certain level, seek out relevant affiliate programs in your niche and consider incorporating display ads in your posts. At this point, these steps will serve as the primary source of income and help you establish valuable connections with other businesses in your industry.

• Build a reputation as an expert: Engage in online communities that are relevant to your niche to establish yourself as an authority figure. Doing so can help you gain credibility and the trust of potential customers. Additionally, it can be beneficial if you plan on creating a course in the future, as it can lay the foundation for it.

• Keep up with industry trends: Stay up-to-date with the latest trends and techniques in your industry. Attend online and offline events, read relevant publications and blogs, and network with other professionals to stay informed and on top of new developments.

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