My First Website Sold For $38,479
Important: Please note that l have agreed with the new owner of the website NOT to publish its name. l will not be disclosing the name through Private Mail either. Even if you know the name of the website, it is important not to mention it in the commenting area.
l didn't want to share this testimonial because l know there are many people making more money than me inside WA. My purpose is to encourage others who are still wondering if the training works.
l don't forget the day when l received the message;
'Congratulations on your sale with us' Empire Flippers.
l recalled when l moved to Sweden from Africa and could not land a job l studied for due to language challenges. l decided to search for 'make money online opportunities' , got burnt a couple of times and spend almost an entire year working as a freelancer.
l finally stumbled upon Wealthy Affiliate and became a member in April, 2014. Had lots of doubt about how people would receive my content given that English is not my first language. Some of the comments about my command of the Queen's language on my first articles where so blunt and hurting. But l kept on working towards my goal and ignored the noise.
Believe me, WA is one of the greatest online communities full of helpful affiliates brought together by Kyle and Carson. The training, hosting and support are a steal.
True, when you are getting started $47/month can be heavy on your pocket: it was for me too. However, there comes a time when you will feel guilty paying such a small amount while you are generating hundreds of dollars each month.
l know some programs where your 'sponsor' and 'owners' of the program get a chunk off every cent that you make. Here at Wealthy Affiliate you only pay your subscription and if you make a million dollars, it is ALL yours.
Here is the short story;
Created first website on the 23rd of June, 2014.
Monetized through Amazon Associates program (50%), AdSense (25%), and various Affiliate products (25%). Percentages are estimates.
No of posts = 90 (3 articles per month). l wrote all the articles.
Average earnings up to the date of sale : $1 000 per month +
Listed the website on Empire Flippers (a marketplace for websites) on Dec 6, 2016.
Sold on Dec 15, 2016 for $38,479.
Money wired to my bank account early January, 2017.
Lessons learned :
- Stick to a single method on making money online when you are getting started. l settled for SEO after initially spreading myself too thin. l still share my posts on social networks though.
- It is good to know about FB, Google, Bing Ads etc, but choose a single platform and become an expert. It is probably the same people you are marketing to on these platforms.
- Stay focused on the official training, you can not read all those blogs published inside WA on random topics.
- Do not ask everything before you go through the training. Asking questions on the chat thread can be addictive. Asking is encouraged though.
- Most importantly keep digging, posting, learning...
Tell yourself :
'....if there are 10 people making money online using this training.... l will be the 11th'.
Current Plan: Reinvesting the money and building more websites in various niches. l am outsourcing most of the tasks to freelancers.
I hope this testimony inspires someone who is about to give up to keep digging.
If you like the testimonial, feel free to like, comment, share and ask any questions in the commentary box below.
Remember, l will not disclose the name of the website as agreed with the new owner.
Recent Comments
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Man! That's great thank you for sharing. It's important to know what others have done or doing through WA training. I really felt you on the language thing because english ain't my native language either so i was (still are to be sincere hehehe) scared in the idea of writing posts. I hope i can at least make it happen as good as you did. Thanks again!
Hey Jeff, you really write good English. Practice will lead to improvement. All the best. Just keep digging.
Hello Jeff! To be honest with you English is my native tongue ,and i would say that i am not bad at it at all: when i hear poor English i can spot it from a far, and as far as i can see you are doing very well in your English.You have nothing to be ashamed of,so now that you have clearance from me go ahead and write all you want,you have my approval.
Great for you my friend. After a little over three months at WA I have learned more than I ever imagined. I have had some connection troubles in the last month, which have relented my learning and progress but I will definitely stick to WA and get the best I can out of it plus share the best I can too.
Greetings from México and... ¡Muchas felicidades! ( congratulations!).
Eugenio.
Hello Melody my friend:
Thank you for the follow. I am now following you back. I wish you a great level of success here in WA.
Cheers from México!
Eugenio.
I'm glad I found this post. This is perfect:
"Stay focused on the official training, you can not read all those blogs published inside WA on random topics."
^ Probably the best, most accurate & honest advice I've heard at WA so far. They are monster distractions from the ultimate goal (but I'm glad I read this one). ;)
Since I chose to read one a day, at most, I have been way more productive & able to stick to my goal of 1 post per week - pretty much in line with your posting schedule.
-Jason
Good to know that you found some useful tips from this post. Stick to your publishing schedule even when it looks like your efforts are not being rewarded. All the best.
I see you're using EZ plugin. I know the plugin author. I took many lessons from him, and I love it. Chris knows the best and the worst way to make money with Amazon.
I'm going to create a review site soon. I will put everything together this time and promote products the right way.
Congratulations! Your success inspire me to keep moving forward.
This is so cool and very inspiring Melody! If you don't mind can I ask you something? What is the name of the website? Ha ha only joking. On a serious note: When did your site start earning $1000? I am at 8 months with mine. I have 124 posts and last month it earned $160 approx.
Thank you Craig for the words of encouragement. l forgot the name of the website after spending all the money from the sale ... lol.
Affiliate marketing is a bit tricky because l only started earning 1 000+ in the last 6 months before the sale. This was after experimenting with a new monetization method which l blogged about here Amazon Windfall - 0 to $134 in 2 months! .
You can PM your website URL and l can have a look. l may come up with one or two useful suggestions.
l also wrote an article on why your website may have low conversion rates which is worth reading Clicks No Conversions - Website Traffic . All the best.
Wow!! Congratulations!!! You're an inspiration and I'm following you!
I'm just starting but I hope to be as successful as you are, thank you so much for your advice, it's so easy to get sidetracked reading blogs, but as you say, it's more important to stick to the training first.
Mahalo!!!
Ana.
Hej Melody!
Grattis - Congratulations to your success!
I have only just started my journey online.
Thanks a lot for your wise advices - very much needed!
Very difficult to not get sidetracked with all these interesting blog posts and nice people around.
I will now visit your profile.
See you!
:-)
Thank you Pernilla. There is a lot of epic blogs inside WA but they are not organised as the training.
I love the content writing process, but have not mastered being a "volume" writer. So I'm giving some thought to outsourcing. I would provide topics and associated keyword research. I would plan to do the final editing before posting.
My concern is outsourced writing quality. Do you have a source quality writing? I will PM you if that is more appropriate for this discussion.
Hey Dennis, it is good that you learned how to write the content first before outsourcing. Since English is my second language, it takes me hours if not days to complete a single 1000-2000 word article. l will be happy to share with you a few sources that l found useful if you PM.
You could try a place like Fiverr and find some writers that are highly rated. Explain what type of writing you are looking for and ask those you connect with to submit samples of their work. That way you should be able to tell what's good and what's not.
Congrats on your website sale and this success is definitely well deserved Melody. You "get it" now and you understand the process of building a business online. Once you have the formula down once, you are going to be able to replicate this type of success over and over again.
Onwards and upwards, so happy to hear you story here!
Thank you Kyle for the kind words and being there for me during rainy days. True, it is time to rinse and repeat.
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Hi Melody,
You published this post a while back but I just happened to see it. Well Very Impressive and inspiring. Congratulations on all of your achievements, ie learning a new language, studying here at WA, creating sites etc..... You are a REAL WINNER.
I thank you for sharing your post and wish you the very best for the future.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Jules
Thank you Jules for the kind words. All the best. Enjoy the rest of the week.
You are most welcome Melody and wishing you the very best.
Have a great week also.
Jules