The last 2 years have been one helluva ride. I’ve learnt a ton, produced a lot of sites, built some foundations, made ok money, and created some freedom. Below I share some insights, lessons, pros, and cons of some of the businesses I’ve pursued. I hope this in some way helps you.
After getting removed from the startup which I helped grow from 10k to more than 1 million sessions in 2018 — and losing my biggest SEO consulting client in the process — I didn’t know what to do.
I was lost, quite broke, and angry. I had invested almost all my savings into the startup above… and they were happily devaluing my shares that I didn’t want to sell to them.
My gran was getting old and needed to be moved to be closer to my mom and sisters. Her house and 3 cats needed looking after. So I moved in and started maxing out every credit I owned (and liquidating all money I had) to build digital investments.
I was slipping into a depression… and quite a lot of debt.
Work has always given me a sense of purpose and I really loved Pieter Level’s 12 startups in 12 months and Nic Haralambous creating a business for less than 500 USD.
These ideas encouraged people to build businesses in a short amount of time with minimal investment.
I wanted to launch 12 websites/business ideas in a year, spending less than 500usd on each one…
It’s been 2~ years since then and about 30 different websites and almost a half a million USD spent. SEO is a slow game, but there are quite insightful things below, there could be WAAY more coming. Hopefully.
Starting as an almost-30-year-old living in his grandparents’ spare room with 3 cats, up to my eyeballs in debt. Super eligible bachelor right there.
Going on to become a nomadic entrepreneur from South Africa with a great team and a growing tourism marketing agency with 150+ clients and internal travel affiliate sites in the midst of Covid19.
To pivoting and creating physical products and joining any affiliate program — kinda kidding, but not.
Why am I writing this? Accountability. Reflection. And transparency. I like to do what I say and this post would very much help me do that. You gain an incredible amount from reflection and writing, and it is transparent for my team and clients to see what we have worked on, our successes and our failures.
The goal was to start a website/business every month, for 12 months, and spend less than 500usd on each. It didn’t all go to plan, and a lot of interesting, oversight-filled lessons were made. I hope to share some of them with you below.
2018 – 2019: Launching Websites & Making Money
The first business I wanted to start was a travel marketing agency. I know how to market travel websites, I had done this for 10 years, so it made the most sense.
While starting the agency in 2018 I was advised by my lawyers to take a payout from my previous tourism/events startup mentioned above – they would pay my investment back and give me 1000usd every month for the next 2 years.
I took the deal… So now I have a little money to play with and live on.
Website 1 – Travel SEO agency
Travel Tractions was born and picked up SEO clients and this was going to assist me in learning more about markets and allow me to work with people in my favourite industry. I also needed cash flow. Agencies are good for that, SEO is not.
I helped a friend who has/had a tiny WordPress agency (but now quite big) with their SEO and he helped me build a kickass attractive website. Money spent = 0. Time: 2 weeks. Thanks Felix.
Today Travel Tractions employs 30+ people and we’ve worked with over 250 clients/websites. I love the agency, the team, the knowledge it gave me, and the amount it made me grow.
The last year was tough, as a tourism marketing agency, Covid decimated our revenue and our clients, but thankfully not too much of the team. We had clients start other businesses and continue to use us sporadically. It has been amazing to see what some of our clients have achieved during this time
Not exact figures (as many of bulk orders go direct and not on site) but good indication of how business is going
An agency is a commitment, you are committed to supplying jobs to the employees. You are committed to supplying the best service you can to clients, to not let them down, and for them to grow. This business was my biggest stressor but also my biggest motivator.
If you are a successful marketer and have the knowledge to pass on, build an agency, and invest in people, they’ll invest in you. Best thing I did. Thank you Travel Tractions team for believing in me, in us. I can’t wait to see where we go.
Pros of SEO agency:
Pro: Good for cash flow
Pro: Learn how other people make money
Pro: Scale quicker
Pro: Grow a team
Pro: Work with other people
Pro: Meet like-minded individuals
Cons of SEO agency:
Con: Income dependent on third parties ability to implement
Con: Committed to people
Con: Payroll and overheads do get high
Con: Clients have cancelled at any moment
Con: Meetings at weird times
More pros than cons for me, but it’s like a marriage and does need quite a lot of time.
If you are thinking about starting an agency, I encourage you to read The E-myth.
When Covid hit we lost 90% of our clients (travel) so I had to pivot a little and we started another business, The Marketing Mill, a duplicate of my travel marketing agency but now with clients in almost every vertical.
We did OK on the agency front. It’s not a massively profitable avenue as I have a lot of senior travel SEO members that I’ve kept on for Covid and not much high-level SEO work coming in, so they write and help me manage the businesses and websites below.
I have zero regrets about starting an agency business, although it takes up most of my time. We fielded purchase offers as Covid hit us and we are still here today and I think it would be a while until I move away from this.
Websites 2, 3 and 9 – Amazon Affiliate
While living in South East Asia from 2014 – 2016 I met a few people making thousands of dollars a month passive like this and flipping websites for small fortunes…
In 2016, I helped a few affiliate sites make an excess of 20 000 USD a month in profit. I knew there was money to be made.
In 2018, I used an old website that a good friend (Thanks Jo) had given me and launched some affiliate content onto it. I even ended up launching a second website in 2019 and bought into another website later. So 3 Amazon affiliate sites in total.
My first cheque arrived after only a few months — almost 1000usd for only a couple of hours of work and less than 500usd investment in content on the first site. 500usd was more than most get paid in South Africa a month. I was hooked! Amazon affiliate marketing here I come – Early 2019
Website 2 – Outdoor Sports
I have an extreme sports website in this space that makes an average of about 1000usd a month and we barely work on it. For me, this is true passive. It’s hits hit 3000 usd and consecutively beats its own YoY on growth — sometimes by 100%
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Website 3 – Guys Travel Gear
Shortly after in 2019, I launched another website focusing on guys’ travel gear, it didn’t bring the income the other projects were (more on them later) so it was shelved but still makes 50usd+ a month and has broken 500usd investment a couple of times.
Website 9 – Animation, Art, Design
My team wrote a piece of Amazon-affiliated content for friends with a digital animation website and it made 2000usd profit within a few months from that article. We have since invested and partnered on that site for a 33% split and it makes about 2000usd consequently a month now. We are now trying to turn it into a digital marketplace.
This is a tech and digital animation site, it’s not as passive as you would expect because tech gets updates so often, but I do like this niche as I find it interesting..
All in all, as much as people hate Amazon, it does have really good SEO returns. It also makes money from Mediavine and has been one of the best investments.
Websites 4 and 5 – Honeymoon Affiliate
I had spent the last 10 years marketing niche travel websites. So, naturally, a niche hotel website made sense, the first website I ever did SEO on was a Honeymoon website for South Africans, it is now the biggest honeymoon site in Africa.
I knew there were gaps in these sub-niches.
I made 2 honeymoon websites, but they failed dismally. I invested the full 500 usd and they are both yet to make me anything. Don’t get me wrong, there is money in this but it’s not that easy. I didn’t see conversion for honeymoons and hotels, it didn’t get the traction that my other projects did.
There is a massive gap in the market here for a honeymoon-specific hotel/packages comparison website. (If you can pull this off smartly, I would love to work with you, send me a mail)
Total earnings = Maybe 100usd
Websites 7 and 8 – Flight Affiliate
This was an opportunity I missed previously in South Africa, marketers made some serious money with this back in the day and it was always something I wanted to tackle.
I also had a client who we had helped dominate this niche with a few sites in South Africa, making a small fortune.
I didn’t want to compete with a client, so I decided to launch 2 sites in Nigeria, Africa’s other big market.
With this site, we tested software to automatically build out mass pages with content. Google is not a massive fan of this, but the sites didn’t do too bad and they have more than paid for themselves — making about 50usd a month during Covid.
Pros
Pros: Good affiliate
Pro: Not bad affiliate commissions earnings
Pro: Minimal investment
Cons
Con: Very competitive niche
Con: Google flights encroach on it all the time
Con: Not very exciting topic
Total monthly earnings: 100USD, now in Covid 20usd
Websites 10, 13, and 19 – Activity affiliate
I always wanted to work in the touring side of travel, it was one of those things that were slower to transition to digital than hotels, flights and other transit – Therefore newer and better to tackle for SEO.
After 3 months of working on a site, it made just under 1000usd, well above the 500usd investment. I felt I had hit a gold mine and made another site on a 500usd investment in an expired domain (a website that the previous owner had let go). It worked out ok, but not as great as the first one. I still continue and have 3 sites in this area now.
We also started a Youtube channel for the one brand here. It hasn’t done too well, but we only have 5 videos and haven’t really pushed them yet. Covid happened and my video team member is no longer in the team. We would love to kick off videos again. If you travel alot and would like to get free tours plus some $$$ and have video experience. Ping me.
Worldly travel site that was on an old domain, earning about 500usd a month before Covid.
A Spain focussed site that was also on an expired domain, it made its first 100 usd last month. Total spent on this site was actually more 2000usd but has paid that back over the last year
Total earnings: 2000usd
Websites 11 and 14 – Financial Services Review websites
While working as an SEO, the highest value and most expensive term outside of “gambling” and “pharmaceutical” terms (ones I will not try to rank for for moral reasons) is “insurance”.
With myself being very interested in finding and comparing deals, we made a deal comparison site in South Africa and targeted easy affiliate terms and insurance offers.
The site did quite well, it was making 400usd a month after ranking for some really weird terms, like “dog food”, but hey, It was making money. The dog affiliate program closed down and our income more than halved.
When Covid hit the affiliate industry, it seemed to implode as some of our best partners stopped, also less people were looking at insurance options, this has kind of picked up again.
We’ve worked on swapping out the offers and getting better lead forms, it seems the site will start making 400usd a month again.
Websites 15 – 23 – Cannabis and CBD
Cannabis has always been a big curiosity of mine. I had smoked in University, while relaxing with friends and believed in its medical properties. When I saw what was happening in the USA and around the world, I wanted to get involved in the SA industry.
In late 2019, I launched 3 cannabis sites in 3 months. We broke even on the 6th month. I made another 3 sites as Covid showed its face.
Then we got hit with a Google algorithm change losing 80% of our traffic. So I launched 3 other sites. We also decided to launch our own CBD oil and did that in early 2021.
Launching a CBD product
We now have 9 websites in the CBD and cannabis space. We’ve launched 3 products to the market and have started selling on South Africa’s biggest market place.
The CBD and Cannabis businesses have been the most brutal, only CBD is legal so monetization is hard and Google is extremely strict and volatile in this niche. A very fickle industry but a new industry with a lot of growth in it and it’s one of my passions.
Websites 25 & 26 – Safari Affiliate
Living in Africa and knowing the tour industry, the final couple of sites that we launched were safari sites. These were launched just as Covid happened and we continually work on them but no money has been made. Hopefully, I’ll be able to report on some good news on this front in the near future.
We sold a few safari tours on the activity sites above, sometimes a commission for one booking was $200 – $300 USD, so I’m excited to see how constant the sites could get better.
Websites 17 and 28 – Travel Sites
The last 2 sites are general travel sites (terrible idea, don’t do it) that are built on previously-owned and expired domains that I bought. They were used as the testing grounds for our agency interns to write their first articles, so the content is not so great.
They both get about 5k – 10k page views a month, and they maybe generate 20 – 50usdusd average a month.
So what did I learn?
You may have noticed that there are not 12, but 28 websites above. I got carried away and probably spread a little thin. I know many reading this would have a similar affiliation with domains, businesses, or ideas. Shiny object syndrome.
For many years I chased crazy business models and startup ideas that failed, mainly because of lack of revenue. This time I chased revenue with a slightly different approach on a cap on spending.
3 of the domains and businesses above have failed already as their website is no longer live. Some aren’t even making money.
If I do or you are interested in having a chat, purchasing a site or working with my agency, ping me.
I hope this in some way or another makes you start something. When you break, get kicked out, slip, start something. Could be a new sport, a hobby, work, a website.
