I Launched Four Websites This Year — This Is What I Learned

I’m working harder than ever and have never been happier

I started four websites this year — wipes sweat off my brow — and it’s been the hardest and most rewarding work of my life.

Not that it’s really all that hard. There’s a learning curve, for sure, but the process is quite simple (I outline it in detail later in this article).

Here’s the summary of what I’ve learned:

• Passive income is a beautiful myth
• Simple minimalism works best
• The two most important skills for making money with websites
• What I would do if I was starting over from scratch

I’ll share some cool details in this article so that you can apply these strategies to your own blogging portfolio.

“Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it.” — Katherine Whitehorn

Passive Income Is a Beautiful Myth

Passive income is money earned without actively working. It’s what you get when your investments make money while you sleep, or when you rent out a room in your house and collect the rent without lifting a finger.

You can achieve passive income with stocks, bonds, real estate rentals, royalties on intellectual property like patents or copyrights. You can also build niche websites.

Unfortunately, passive income is a beautiful myth.

It’s not possible to make 100% passive income because it does not exist. It’s a beautiful myth because it’s so attractive.

And that’s why many people peddle “passive” income products or programs that rarely (if ever) work out in the real world.

Here are three reasons why:

1. There are many ways that people promote themselves as having some kind of “passive” or “hands-off” approach when they really do require your participation and input in order to produce results.
2. In order to get these supposed passive benefits, most people will need investments, usually in the form of money or equipment. They often buy into sub-par schemes that predictably drain their resources slowly but surely.
3. Nothing is immune from change. Any system, whether it’s passive income or not, operates within changing conditions. The rules and landscape changes, topics come into and go out of style, Google algorithms tank traffic, etc.

If you want to make the most passive income possible, you probably want to learn investing, real estate, or affiliate marketing through niche websites.

For example, here’s the exact method I use for making money writing simple articles:

Simple Minimalism Seems To Work Best

A website is a marketing tool that must capture the attention of potential clients (users). It should not only look good but also be easy and fast for people to use.

Themes make up the design of your site.

A lot of themes come with various pre-installed features like sliders or widgets which can help you easily build out your site without having to learn how to code.

Thank God, because I know very little about code.

You can preview many different themes before you use them so you can see what suits your purposes best before deciding which one to choose.

If there’s a theme out there with all the features I need, it makes sense to not reinvent the wheel.

There is probably no one BEST theme, but the themes that work for me so far are simple, free, and fast (for users).

I’ve built all of my current websites on the free Astra theme from WordPress.

While I could dress my sites up in bells and whistles, I purposely keep all my websites (for example, my site on writing) very streamlined with few features.

That may change in the future, but for now, all I need users to do is visit my websites and consume quality content.

I don’t want anything to get in the way of helping users find answers.

The Two Most Important Skills

Two of the most important skills in building new websites are choosing your niche and choosing your keywords. Once you develop these two essential skills, you mostly create content and wait for Google to work its magic over the next 8 months.

Your niche choice matters because some niches make more money, get more traffic year-round, and possess less competition.

The less competition, the easier it is to find keywords to rank for in your niche. The more traffic, the better. A lucrative niche with less competition and high search volumes is called a “Gold Mine”.

Here are a few tips on how to find these profitable Gold Mines:

• The niche is year-round.
• The niche is not dominated by high-authority websites.
• The niche includes high-price items generally between $100-$500 that people would buy online.
• The niche includes subscription services that you can promote through affiliate marketing (and make monthly income).
• You easily find 20–30 untapped keywords (unanswered simple questions or terms in the niche)
• The niche is validated by other credible websites (who have already done the research for you). I made a Tiktok video recently about a website where you can find dozens of good niches.

Here are a few ways to find keywords:

• Find a glossary list of terms in your niche.
• Use the Google Search Bar (Alphabet Soup method).
• Use AnswerThePublic (free keyword search tool).
• Find a competitor’s website with low domain authority and “steal” their keywords (I use Ahrefs for this process via the tool’s Site Explorer and Chrome Extension).

What I Would Do if I Was Starting Over From Scratch

Starting four websites in one year allows you to constantly optimize. You get insight on how to launch better each time.

If I were to start a new site from scratch (which I plan on doing a few more times in 2022), here’s exactly what I would do:

1. Pick a profitable niche (hopefully a Gold Mine).
2. Find 30–50 untapped keywords (organize with a simple excel spreadsheet).
3. Get a broad domain name that allows me to grow into multiple subtopics within my niche.
4. Start with very cheap hosting (probably Bluehost or HostArmada).
5. Use WordPress as my content management system (it’s free).
6. Set up a simple free theme like Astra.
7. Make a simple logo with Canva (I can always change it later).
8. Use Jarvis AI (not an affiliate link) to help me write faster content (You still need to guide, edit, and personalize the content).
9. Write, edit, and publish 30–50 articles the first month (or as fast as possible).
10. Repeat until I get 500 articles on the site (might take 1–3 years). The faster the better, as long as the quality is good.
11. Along the way, I’d watch the analytics for which content gets the most traffic and which content makes me the most money. Then I would write more of that type of content.
12. Include affiliate links in almost every post (from Amazon Associates, Awin, Share a Sale, and other affiliate marketing programs).
13. Create silos of articles around similar content and interlink those articles.
14. Once I reached 1,000 page views per month, I’d add Ezoic ads to my site. I’d also upload video ads through Ezoic.

This is the basic framework I use right now to build profitable websites. Some of these websites I will flip (sell) in the next year or two. Others I will keep for my own portfolio.

The Bottomline

Starting a simple website in a good niche and publishing content on low-competition keywords is one of the best ways I’ve found to make “semi-passive” income online.

You make money through display ads and affiliate marketing.

There’s, of course, a lot more to it. That’s why I keep writing new articles as I refine my process.

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