Your first year should be 100% creating organic content. This includes writing reviews, info posts, best of posts, vs. articles, and Youtube.

Do that consistently for a year and you'll be making money and generating traffic.

The next step is looking at ad networks to add to your site and hiring a writer. Don't bother with either of these two until you're getting traffic and making around $1000 a month.

A very popular ad network is Mediavine which a lot of members here are part of. Kyle did recommend that I think twice about joining because you have to sign a contract and they have control over certain aspects of your website.

This is a personal choice you're going to have to consider.

You need 25,000 sessions to be approved, however, and your traffic has to be tier one (America, Canada, UK).

I had 100,000 sessions but had a post form South Africa making up half my traffic so I was actually denied from Mediavine. I may try again later once I get American traffic up.

But in the mean time I'm running Adsense ads on my site and I'm making between $300 to $500 with Adsense. Not bad.

As far as hiring a writer just read Jerry's training on it:

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/hiring-writer-like-a-pro-even-if-youve-never-hired-before

That's one of the best trainings I have ever come across and teaches you how to hire a filipino writer.

Filipinos write English well and because of their standard of living will work full time for $500 a month.

I hired a writer a year ago and she's great. She's a hard worker, writes well and couldn't be happier with her performance.

Once you hire a writer you can start another business (following this guide), doubling efforts to create more content, focus on Youtube more, start paid traffic, etc.

Hiring a writer is a must at some point to grow.