Only few things are more fulfilling than seeing people succeed in leaps and bounds after implementing what they learned from you.
And I’m writing this post with a big feeling of fulfillment and excitement.
I know you’re curious. And I’ll explain.
You remember Ife Oluwatuyi? I mean, the guy I once featured on a post on this blog, who started making money through affiliate marketing by implementing smart SEO tactics on his natural health blog? Well, if you don’t know him, you can read that post here.
Ife Oluwatuyi
Now, let me tell you about other (bigger) successes Ife had recorded after I featured him in that post.
A few months after he started making money from affiliate marketing, Ife discovered what I agree with him to be the best alternative to Google Adsense. It’s called MonetizeMore.
When he told me about MonetizeMore, I scoured the web for more information about it, and I found it to be a credible program.
For your information, MonetizeMore is a Google Adsense accredited partner that serves Google Adsense ads on your blog. The program is much more lenient with their approval conditions, and they pay through the Payoneer Mastercard card.
Most importantly, MonetizeMore pays attractively per click and serves the same ads as Google Adsense. So, if you’ve practically gone through hell trying to get approved for Adsense, consider this alternative, and you won’t regret it. (Warning: only few people know about it, so don’t “loud” it. LOL!)
Within weeks after discovering and registering for MonetizeMore, Ife discovered and told me about another program called PopCash. This program serves ad banners as pop-ups or pop-unders on your site, and pays you for each click they attract. Sadly, it pays only via PayPal, but Ife was able to make money from the program because he has access to a friend’s PayPal account.
By running ads for both programs (MonetizeMore and Popcash) on his blog alongside displaying his affiliate banners, Ife started making around $200 monthly. For someone living outside Lagos, that’s enough to cover most or all of the bills.
Fast forward to July 14, 2015, I “pinged” Ife on BBM. I’ve not heard from him for weeks (we do communicate very frequently), so I decided to “holla at him”. Then Ife told me what hit me as a huge surprise.
Here’s the conversation we had (sic):
Me: Long time, bro.
Ife: Egbon, been a while.
Me: Abi now. How your side?
Ife: Mehn… fine ooo. How is the family?
Me: Everyone is fine. And how’s biz?
Ife: Biz don take anoda shape
Me: Really? How na?
Ife: Ve sold Natural Health Bag
Me: Why? For how much?
Ife: Making money nooni. 3300 dols.
Me: When did you sell it? You don become big boy be dat o.
Ife: About two weeks. Lols.
Me: That’s interesting. On Flippa?
Ife: Yeah. Wanna start another now
Me: OK. I wish you all the best.
In case you didn’t figure it out from the conversation, Ife told me he had sold his blog on Flippa for a whopping $3,300 dollars! That’s about N660,000! So incredible for a blog with just 13 published posts at the time of its sale. But it’s true. Click here to see the blog’s auction page on Flippa.
Now, before you start thinking of selling your blog, you need to understand why Ife was able to sell his blog for that price:
- The blog was attracting impressive traffic (about 3,000 visits per day).
- The blog targets a global audience.
- The blog was loaded with high quality content (long, detailed posts well optimized for search engines).
- The blog is in the natural health niche — a money-spinning, recession-proof, evergreen niche.
- The blog has unlimited growth potential, since natural health is an inexhaustible topic.
- The blog was already making a steady monthly income (at least $200)
If your blog doesn’t meet all these conditions, then it won’t sell for a good price — if it sells at all.
Back to Ife’s story.
After closing the sale, Ife had his money sent directly to his local bank account. But that wasn’t the end of blogging for him. He immediately set up another blog, which he is presently working on with the aim of replicating the success he recorded with his first blog.
3 big lessons for you
If you’ve been following this blog for a long time, you’d have known that I don’t just tell stories like this. I tell them to prove that making money online is real and to teach important lessons.
Here are the lessons you should learn from Ife’s big success:
1. Never stop learning
The more you learn, the more you’ll discover new things. If Ife had stuck with only affiliate marketing, he wouldn’t have been able to increase his monthly income through his blog. But he kept searching the web for new monetization strategies — and he found programs that worked for him.
A serious netpreneur doesn’t waste time on Facebook and celebrity gist blogs reading information that offers little or no value. I spend at least 1 hour of my day reading new and old stuff about making money online. If you emulate that, you’ll not only gather more knowledge, but you’ll also open new doors to your success.
2. Never downplay the power of SEO
As I stated earlier, the blog Ife sold had only 13 posts at the time. Yet, it was attracting 3,000 daily visits. How is that possible? That’s SEO (search engine optimization) in action. The same SEO that helped me build NGFR to its present level (now attracts about 12,000 visits per day).
If you’ve not started taking SEO seriously, you’re only keeping yourself out of the traffic game. As easy as it is to learn, understand, and implement, basic SEO can help grow your blog or website significantly. I can’t emphasise that well enough. And the good thing about SEO is, it works for all niches — especially if you’re targeting a global audience.
3. Never relent
After selling the blog, Ife had the option to retire from blogging and spend his time and money on other ventures. But he decided to start afresh with another blog.
Business experts recommend that you build a business until it becomes successful, then divest into other businesses with the aim of replicating that success. That’s exactly what Ife plans to do by creating another blog within the same niche.
Achieving that monumental success the first time is enough proof that Ife can achieve the same again, and again.
Your turn
Now that you’ve read the story and learned lessons from it, let me know if you have any contributions or questions. Just share your thoughts by leaving a comment.
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