I Accidentally Made $500
A few days ago, I woke up to a new commission notification in my email inbox.
The notification read: "Congratulations, you just earned $500".
And I think you'll agree, that's a pretty nice notification to wake up to.
But here's the craziest part...
It happened by complete accident.
You see, some months ago I launched a "test" website & on it, I published just a handful of posts. 5 posts to be precise... And one of them was a review.
In the review, I talked about a digital service & the service had an annual plan costing over $2,000. The service also happened to an affiliate program paying 25% commissions.
Naturally, I signed up for the program & added the affiliate links to my review...
But then I'll be completely honest... I got sidetracked & actually forgot about the website.
So for some months, the website has just been sitting completely dormant. I haven't updated it at all & I haven't even logged in to it for over 4 months. I gave it no attention whatsoever.
But even though I wasn't paying attention to it, it turns out the search engines were.
Now, don't get me wrong. It wasn't getting many visitors... But it was getting SOME.
And it turns out that one of them decided to bite the bullet & buy the $2,000 plan... Resulting in me earning a $500 commission all from a "forgotten about" website.
Not too shabby, right?
And that's one of the reasons why I'll never take a website offline. Even if you do not have much content on your site, you simply never know what is going to happen.
For example, I remember seeing a website in ~2014 with just ONE piece of content ranking at position 1 in Google for one of the most lucrative keywords in existence.
Yes, it was an awesome piece of content... But it was still just ONE piece of content.
And I have no doubt that the guy behind the site was earning thousands (potentially tens of thousands) per day from that single piece of content that he had created.
But did he expect it? I have to say, probably not.
So let this be a little lesson for you... If you have taken the time to build a website & add content to it then no matter what happens in your life, just be sure to keep it online.
You can always come back & continue with it at a later date when your situation or circumstance changes, but by keeping it online you'll have given yourself a great advantage.
And even in the time that you're away from your website, you could still stand to start earning these kinds of "surprise" commissions.
So don't ever put your efforts to waste (no matter how big or small).
Just. Keep. Your. Site. Online.
That's the absolute bare minimum that you have to do. I mean, of course, adding content regularly is certainly going to help speed up your results... But sometimes life does get in the way. So if that does ever happen & you can't work on your site, don't ever think that means you should take your site offline or that you should "give up". Your efforts can still pay... And you can always come back & begin working on your website when you're ready.
Recent Comments
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That is the best part about this business. You don't have to resupply. You put it out once, and if it's done right, you can forget it, and it still can pay yer bills. You know, as they generally say: Once it's on the internet, it will always stay on the Internet. Well, it is more true for nude pics, but still. Gotta love it.
You have just encouraged and inspired me and others with your accomplishment, Dale!Thank you for waking me up to go on and not just to give up easily.I have also testing sites where basically I just want to test how the Themes look like and you just helped me realize free siterubix websites can give good results how much more when we Host it at WA! Thank you!
That's awesome Dale!
I had one site that I regret letting go of in the luxury travel niche. Since I was new, I had thought I was in the wrong niche so I gave up a site that was already getting a small bit of traffic. Never again! With time I plan to add some more niche sites and utilize more of what WA offers with my subscription plan.
Cheers!
Great post Dale and a really nice commission by accident!
Something similar happened to me yesterday... I had published a blog post promoting one program in 2017. It has never generated any revenue before. Then yesterday it made a $110 commission by accident :D
I can agree with you. Just. Keep. Your. Site. Online.
Heck yeah - those are the most fun kind of commissions. Thanks for sharing your similar experience. I just wish more people kept their sites online. Always saddens me to see people cancel.
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Hi Dale so this post has hit home with me and I would like to thank you for publishing it. Congrats on this great "accident" :) thats awesome!
I do have 2 questions that hopefully you can help with.
I had a website with about 35 posts on it. I let it go but most of the articles are still preserved here on WA through the content writing platform.
"Bonus" I can reuse them on a similar website of mine right? They are my original content after all and are no longer indexed in Google and thus I assume that Google will not see them as "copies"
First question...
Any idea if I can reuse the articles once published on Google from my past website that is no longer there? Hope my question is understandable. It would be great to use them again.
Second question...
Can you explain how a website with one or 5 articles can be ranked so high? I always thought that I had to spend time flooding my sites with many many many posts just to get noticed in Google.
I mean, if someone can rank so well for a keyword/phrase, I assume someone ranking for that same phrase with 50 articles on that topic would rank much better than the website ranking for one or very few posts?
The many other competing websites in the same niche would beat them out too right? I'm confused how that works.
Thanks,
-Amelita