August 2021 - Pawsitively Intrepid

We live in a society that promotes #sidehustles. Side hustles can be anything that earns you money outside of a traditional job. Back in 2017, as a newly graduated veterinarian with $150 K in student loan debt and making less than half of that as an annual salary, I was looking for any way to make a little extra on the side. But after a long day of working with furry patients and human clients, I still wanted to sit down on my couch at the end of the day and snuggle my own pets. I have always enjoyed writing, so I decided to give blogging a try. Why blogging? Well, start-up costs were pretty low. I already had a computer and was a proficient typer. And my cellphone took decent enough pictures for a fledgling website. I just needed to pick a domain name (which was actually a little difficult to find a unique name for my website), register that domain name, pick a hosting company for my site (my host - Host Gator - starts at only $2.75/month), learn WordPress, and start writing. There is a lot of information online about setting up a blog, but if you want my take on the basics, click on the image below to find out the basics of "How to Make Money Blogging about your Dog (or Cat)." https://pawsitivelyintrepid.com/how-to-make-money-blogging-about-your-dog-or-cat/ While there is great info about the basics of how to make money online, I have to admit that there is a learning curve to making money blogging. And investing in courses can help you earn your first dollar much faster. The best course I have found online to learn about turning blogging into a full-time income is Income School. About Income School I found Income School like many others while searching YouTube for information about making money from blogging. I watched several of their videos, including a video that was over an hour in length in which the founders of income school discussed many details of blogging and really promoted their course: Project 24. The one video below is a little shorter than the one that introduced me to Project 24 (only 48 minutes), but it is more updated than the original one that I watched. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13IYATo6WSI I really enjoy Income School's videos. (I don't tend to watch them, but instead, run them in the background and listen to them like a podcast.) And even if you don't decide to spend the money on joining the Project 24 community, I highly recommend subscribing to Income School's YouTube channel. The two founders of Income School, Ricky Kesler and Jim Harmer*, are easy to listen to, energetic, and earnest. And they offer concrete recommendations to help new (and not so new) bloggers. While many of the other YouTube Channels about blogging repeat the same information or give vague, generalized recommendations, Income School talks numbers and gives specific examples and concrete recommendations. You can get a lot of free advice on YouTube, but the Project 24 course and community are even more detailed and organized. This detail and organization make creating and monetizing a blog easier for those of us just starting out. *Jim Harmer is no longer running Income School, but Ricky and his team are still doing a great job. About Project 24 In case you didn't watch the entire webinar embedded above, here is a quick overview of what the Project 24 course is all about. The course/membership gets its name as it was designed as a step-by-step approach to help bloggers achieve a full-time income within 24 months of starting their blog/website. Full-time income is defined as $4,000/month for the purposes of this course. Originally broken up into 60 steps, the blogging course currently contains 53 different lessons to take you from niche selection to search engine optimization (SEO) and monetization. Each step comes with a video and action to complete before moving on to the next lesson. I had already set up my website before joining, so didn't need the first steps. But I have found great value in the details on formatting blog posts, how to pick good blog topics, snippet optimization, and monetizing with ads. And while I have been a part of Project 24, Income School has added a YouTube Course. I have dabbled with YouTube (you can find my channel here), but have yet to really delve into good video editing and reliably producing videos. But if you are interested in both blogging and starting a YouTube channel, then you will get twice the value with a Project 24 membership. Other benefits of membership in Project 24 include community chats, where you can ask for advice and feedback, and access to the Income School podcasts (one for blogging and one for YouTube). I love listening to podcasts while I clean the house and walk the dog, so these are perfect for me. Is joining Project 24 worth the money? A Project 24 membership costs $449 for the first year, and can then be renewed for $249/year after that. That might seem like a lot of money, but if it helps you earn an income from your blog sooner, the course will easily pay for itself. And if a course can pay for itself, I consider it worth it. There are many positive reviews from members, but I personally like looking at the statistics. To be fair, I don't know how many current members there are in Project 24, but here are some of the numbers of people who have found success. As of writing this blog in August 2021: 561 members have achieved an income of $100/month364 members have achieved an income of $500/month260 members have achieved an income of $1,000/month106 members have achieved a full-time income I have been a member of Project 24 for over 2 years and am in the $100/month category. But I will be the first to acknowledge that I have been slow to follow all of the recommendations. Specifically, I write at a slower pace than recommended. I post one blog post a week, where Project 24 recommends writing 30 blog posts in the first 2 months of a blog's life. But a nice way to see Project 24 helped me grow as a blogger is to compare the blog that I started before I joined Project 24 to the blog that I have started since joining Project 24. My Personal Sucess with Project 24 I currently run two blogs: the one that you are on right now, Pawsitively Intrepid, and a second smaller website called Veterinary Talk. I started Pawsitively Intrepid in 2017 as my first blog without the knowledge of the Project 24 course. I started Veterinary Talk in 2019. Pawsitively Intrepid is still my main focus and as I share a few stats with you, you will notice that Veterinary Talk does not have nearly as many blog posts. In fact, I haven't even completed the minimum 30 blog posts that Project 24 recommends you produce in the first 2 months of starting a new blog. But just check out these statistics that are current as of the publication date of this post. *Please note, there is only one post with affiliate links on Veterinary Talk currently. Also, Veterinary Talk uses the Acabado theme, which is included in a Project 24 membership. Pawsitively IntrepidVeterinary Talk# of Blog Posts17616# of Page Views (last 30 days)17,8242,315$ Affiliate Income (last 30 days)$11.73$0.00$ Ad Income (Adsense - last 30 days)$86.31$18.80 So you can see that my total income for the last 30 days was $116.84. It was so fun to break the $100/month benchmark this year. Okay, now let's take a look at page views, affiliate income, and ad income per blog post. Still for the last 30 days. Pawsitively IntrepidVeterinary Talk# of Page Views/post101144$ Affiliate Income/post$0.06$0.00$ Ad Income (Adsense)/post$0.49$1.17 Alright guys, I know these numbers are super low. Income School says to aim for an average of 1,000 page views per blog post. But, please know that the averages on Pawsitively Intrepid are significantly weighed down by some of my original blog posts that get almost no views. I need to go through the "Battleship Method" on Project 24 to help me choose if any of the old posts are worth saving or if I need to delete them. What I want you to see is that even with just 16 blog posts, Veterinary Talk is making significantly more money and bringing in more views per post compared to Pawsitively Intrepid. And this is all thanks to the fact that I started Veterinary Talk by following the Project 24 60-step course. I haven't put in the time and effort needed to turn Veterinary Talk into a lucrative site, but starting with a well-organized resource, like Project 24, can certainly bring about faster results than just piecing together the free information available across the internet. That is all the statistics I am going to show in this post, but if you are interested in more blogging statistics, check out an overview of Pawsitively Intrepid's growth in 2020. Have questions about the Project 24 course and membership? Please comment below and I will do my best to answer any questions that you have about this fantastic course that I would recommend to anyone within the first 3 years of starting a blog. Happy Blogging Everyone! Kate