Welcome to BeerMoneyForum.com - BIGGEST MAKE MONEY FORUM ONLINE

OVERVIEW
My last journey was a flop, but I learned a great deal from that.

With the experience I got by running that first site in 2017, I've created 2 new sites in 2018.

• Hobby site (3rd of March, 2018).
• Affiliate site (5th of April, 2018).

The hobby site will be monetized by adsense and the like; tech field.

The affiliate site will be monetized with Amazon mainly; outdoors sports. For June, the pageviews are around 1000 already.


PLANS
They are rapidly growing, which is motivating, but the problem is, I can't work on them in the coming 9 months starting from July (military service).

With that said, what I've done is I've layed a sort of groundwork only. I have not monetized them yet because I'm not sure how things will end up with me not being around to babysit and/or collect the money... I'm just going to let them sit like this and grow (including June's work) for those 9 months, pretty much. Maybe I'll get to do some maintenance on them from time to time, but that's about it.


TECHNICAL
The domains are bought via GoDaddy for 2 years. They are on a VPS (virtual private server, Vultr, $3.60/m) managed by ServerPilot hosting service (free). I've implemented https for both of them and they're using relatively optimized simple free themes (Best Simple and Wisteria).


SEO
I feel good about the SEO on those new sites. The hobby site has no SEO-level competition basically. The affiliate site has relatively low competition overall - there's some room to snap untouched keywords basically.

The on-page SEO for the affiliate site in particular has:

• 1500-4000+ word articles with pictures, short paragraphs, useful content, etc;
• interlinking to useful and relevant sources within the site itself with ultimate pillar content for each category;
• low competition keywords for the most part already bringing in users with buyer intent.
• (user friendly - useful yet simple and pleasant overall feel of the site(s))

The off-page SEO is not something I'm overly concerned about. I feel like there's no need for it in all actuality. I'm pretty sure that simply having better content will do the trick over time. I'm in no rush.


MONI
All is paid in advance for 2 years. The affiliate site is sure to make at least some money, that's a given. Just needs more content and time...

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to monetize the hobby site though. The audience is not looking to buy anything in particular, but there are some potential ways to monetize it (adsense; contacting digital product sellers and suggest to give their solutions more visibility on my site by demanding a small monthly fee - right now the free solutions are at the front and most nobody needs to scroll past the free solutions on the lists of ways to do what they want to do; etc).

Expenses:

• 2 domains: $65
• VPS: $70

Revenue:

• not monetized yet

 

[Rainer]

Considering your sites are doing pretty well, how are you dealing with taxes? Do you pay them one-off as an individual or have you registered yourself as a sole trader/company?

 

[ThulfWaatu]

Considering your sites are doing pretty well, how are you dealing with taxes? Do you pay them one-off as an individual or have you registered yourself as a sole trader/company?

I'm glad you asked!

Given how little information is out there, I'll try to improve things (I hope I'm not spewing stupid views on this matter).


Taxes are a touchy subject...
I've often wondered why people don't talk about taxes openly, even if anonymously. I'm now left to presume that people are knowingly, but not deliberately, not paying some of their taxes and are afraid of consequences if found out. And the reasons for that? I'd like to think that that's because people (including myself) simply don't know how to pay them in an optimal way given how complicated they are, and not because they just refuse to pay them deliberately. Some countries' tax system is more transparent than others, some tax less than others. I don't think any government expects you to report on every little penny you find on the street no some random smaller insignificant money exchanges either...

How's it in my case then?
I must admit to not knowing how to go about it at the end of the day. Still learning...

Right now I have 2 options:
1) register the income NOT
2) or register it as individual as income from abroad

NB! income tax-free minimum is supposedly € 6000/year - I earned less than € 6000 in taxable income in 2019 (most of my time was spent being a conscript, non-taxable compensation, and I didn't seek out traditional work). By that logic I would have to pay nothing in taxes. Me likey!


There's a but...
One could argue that this kind of income is not "random" and is kind of obviously a business income. Well, https://www.beermoneyforum.com/ me dead.

A few new options have turned up:
1) create a business account
(20% taxed automatically on all money that arrives on that account ever, no responsibilities, but also no tax deductions which means I have to pay tax on the money I invest into building new sites and maintaining & expanding old ones)
2) register myself as self-employment worker
(non-legal person & responsibilities, pay more in taxes, slightly more complicated, https://www.beermoneyforum.com/ myself for no reason)
3) start a company
(legal person & responsibilities, pay the least in taxes when correctly optimized, most complicated, need to learn first)


CONCLUSION: my current running plan
For now I'm playing the "random income from abroad as individual" card. Once I feel like I can live off of this income, I'd like to go an actual company route and actually start living (which means buying a livable decent € 4000 flat in Kohtla-Järve, [why not? Have the local authorities even support me moving in somehow - they'd really appreciate new inhabitants, I'm sure], build an awesome PC, spend a few years no-lifing in virtual magical places till I get bored, essentially skip those few years till business grows and I can pick up more fulfilling but also more expensive hobbies and overall living conditions...).



My biggest problem in all this is HEALTH INSURANCE
Life would be complete if I somehow managed to get my hands on that (government issued health insurance) without slaving for an overlord* or paying for a lackluster private health insurance coverage as a trade-off. (I'll need to dig in more as to what the private one covers and what it doesn't so as to assess the risks more - maybe that'll do after all and I don't need for healthcare system to take care of me if something happened)

Just in case any1 is wondering where this "Estonia" wants to... ahem... is located.. ^^​

 

[Rainer]

Nice to see how thoroughly you've thought about that! Even though I'm underage it doesn't mean I'm tax-exempt, thus I've also been thinking about what to do if the "shit" hits the fan and I manage to earn more than I could imagine. I was already a bit stressed out about that 250€ I made online last year but completely forgot about the tax-free minimum.

CONCLUSION: my current running plan
For now I'm playing the "random income from abroad as individual" card. Once I feel like I can live off of this income, I'd like to go an actual company route and actually start living (which means buying a livable decent € 4000 flat in Kohtla-Järve, [why not? Have the local authorities even support me moving in somehow - they'd really appreciate new inhabitants, I'm sure], build an awesome PC, spend a few years no-lifing in virtual magical places till I get bored, essentially skip those few years till business grows and I can pick up more fulfilling but also more expensive hobbies and overall living conditions...).

Oh damn, this plan sounds fantastic. Since there is a high caliber data center in Jõhvi I suppose there's a fiber cable in Kohtla-Järve too, meaning some fast internet. :)

 

[ThulfWaatu]

Nice to see how thoroughly you've thought about that! Even though I'm underage it doesn't mean I'm tax-exempt, thus I've also been thinking about what to do if the "shit" hits the fan and I manage to earn more than I could imagine. I was already a bit stressed out about that 250€ I made online last year but completely forgot about the tax-free minimum.


Oh damn, this plan sounds fantastic. Since there is a high caliber data center in Jõhvi I suppose there's a fiber cable in Kohtla-Järve too, meaning some fast internet. :)

I've gotten the impression that Kohtla Järve was kind of a dump - crime rate higher than in most other places, basically mostly Russian inhabitants, those who can afford leave the place... Flats are given away almost for free. Empty ones are inhabited by criminals setting things on fire, which is kind of alarming... Buying a flat with just a couple of people in it and most rooms empty would be very, very bad.

At least that's what I'm getting from reading the news. But hey - clean water and everything, a roof, lock the door and go there with a cheap car... like, whatever, I guess, if a few screws are missing after a while.


But yeah... that was just a random thought to begin with. The point was that there are options to fall back on with the way I'm going at it right now.


I noticed, yea, that you were pretty young. I wish I learned about making money online opportunities when I was younger... Not that I'd be rich if that was the case, but I'd probably be deeper in the game by now with a solid portfolio to my name. Right now I'm past the beginnings, but I certainly haven't gotten far enough yet. I'd like to think that by summer next year I should be pretty good already, judging by the overall progress.

 

[Balint098]

Before writing product reviews are you buying all the products yourself and then test it out?

 

[ThulfWaatu]

Before writing product reviews are you buying all the products yourself and then test it out?

Nah, I don't buy the products. I simply rely on research and due diligence.

The amusing thing is is that I usually have never even used the products the sites are about myself. One site is about a product we have at home, but having one doesn't add much to what I can gather from research I've found out. Here's the general gist this "my research" process...


Mapping out the overall market situation
I try to gather ALL the niche products on Amazon together into one list (how many there are). I then try and categorize them all by some niche-specific attributes to determine their overall potential standing on the market (which products to prioritize). These attributes are first impressions of the company behind the product (sometimes there is no proper company to begin with), from the Amazon customer reviews, price tag of the product, documentation thoroughness of the product, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

Research for the review template (makes up the core of the site)
Once these bigger first impressions and done with, I pick the most promising one and use it as a benchmark for all the others. The first such review is the absolute hardest and while researching into it I simply just can't skip having to write down the info posts as I go about it. Immediately I have to start researching into how these products are constructed and what materials they are made of in order to determine what makes one product better than the other. And I'm not talking about just the visual appeal and practicality, I'm more about digging deeper all the way up to the actual factories they are made in and how the production of the product actually looks like in the production line, where it is located, what materials are used to patch one together, etc. Sometimes there are multiple production lines in different places for various parts of the product... But all that gives me a pretty good look into what I'm actually dealing with and what the potential problems there might be that I can create a section for in the review also. The location (if it's Chinese and the like, how's the communication between the overseas company doing the selling and the company doing the manufacturing, etc), the materials (are there any health risks, how's the durability... basically I want to know where are the corners cut and a lot more things).

Researching that way is fulfilling
In researching things that way I've learned so much that I've sometimes thought about opening up my own more efficient factory for a product or at least gauge out a Chinese one and have them make a custom product for me to sell on the Western markets, etc. But that's just me theorizing... I'm good at that. In practice however I don't even know how to book a flight efficiently and lest not forget I'm kind of anti-social* to begin with ^^ - I'd probably get robbed and left to die in a bush by a road on top of all that. So I'll just stick to writing about these things from my safe space.

The grunt work after fun is had...
But once all this research is done things become pretty boring. Just filling out the information on the review template for each product by doing a sort of minimized-research into them by just trying to find out the corresponding information and validating it (sometimes the product is so crap the very company behind it doesn't even know what their own product is made of or other basic information like that). Usually at this point I start to try and outsource this writing for as cheap as possible. Since I've done my insane research and basically know the ins and outs of the entire niche by now, getting back a horrible, horrible outsourced writing kills me inside... The absolute shit (analogously having to put up with the stench) I have to deal with, I think to myself then. I even made the template and all they had to do was fill it with proper information, almost copy paste matter where they just have to relay the information in their own words pretty much... It's mentally hard to accept compromises...

 

[Balint098]

Heard Amazon has just slashed affiliate commission rate to meager amount now. What's your plan to adapt to this development? I suggest to change your affiliate network.

 

[ThulfWaatu]

Heard Amazon has just slashed affiliate commission rate to meager amount now. What's your plan to adapt to this development? I suggest to change your affiliate network.

Yeah. Amazon pulled a power move for sure by cutting their affiliate fee rates.

Though this change only applies to the US region of Amazon Affiliate program.

Mine went from 4.5/5% down to 3%, so it wasn't the end of the world for me.

​

At first things looked bad, but that was just an illusion because most of the products just didn't ship from which I would earn the commission fee. So for a while there was considerably more purchases than there were shipments, and so it just looked like I was hit hard while in reality I was not.

​

Knowing that, I figured I'd wait it out and see for myself before joining the naysayers predicting the end of the world... Because the numbers were there - there were considerably less shipments and thus the earnings just seemingly took a nose dive.

I can't say I can complain.​

It was just a matter of time till stuff started to ship out again like they used to. At the low points the sites were making way more sales than were shipped, so things were about to explode in that regard. I just didn't know by how... oh, wow

Needless to say, shipments went out and the numbers weren't all that bad.
Instead of $10 per low-cost niche product I started to get $7, basically.

Roughly € 2500 in the first 15 days of May, 2020!
This feels nice!

(the numbers on the pic haven't updated yet)


Now sure, this number would be much higher if the commission fee didn't change.
But, again, I can't really complain, can I...
^^​

 

[ThulfWaatu]

Niche Site Empire 01.05.2020 - 31.05.2020

​

This is crazy amount of money. I would have to work 8 hours per day from Monday to Friday on some simple job for an entire year to get this kind of money. Add to this probably even bigger numbers from June + July + August and maybe it would top a highly skilled worker's yearly salary even... This feels like Cheating!


And when it comes to taxes, I've figured it out now.

Instead of starting a company and paying myself, it turns out "affiliate" income classifies as "passive income" here. That means I'll just have to pay the 20% on it in my personal tax returns. And indeed it is passive because I was much like this Pikachu just watching the numbers grow each day doing almost nothing at all myself.


(healthcare comes from a private company instead)

 

[Balint098]

Man, I admire you. Big respect.

 

[ThulfWaatu]

These updates exclude the hobby site which is making roughly $100 per month with Ezoic totally passively with me not having touched that site for more than a year now... These updates are about the affiliate niche site.


UPDATE
June, 2020

UPDATE
July, 2020

I think that's it, huh? I made it. I actually made it.​

For the record, apart from updating the plugins, I haven't touched the site since late March. It's a considerable amount of "passive" income at this point. I can't stress enough how insane this actually is. I'm glad to have it.

(Summer niche site; 05.04.2018 - 31.07.2020)

Summer 2018 - info & review posts
Summer 2019 - pillar money posts
Summer 2020 - all done, 1st spots

The way I maintain this site now is I basically just update/refresh the content once or twice a year...​

 

[Player1]

I like the fact that you where able to learn from your previous experience. Most people today, once they try out something and it does not work out according to plan, they tend to give up on it without even trying to learn from it