When my son was a newborn, I started a passive income website. I had owned a personal concierge business for years and knew what it took to start and be successful as a personal concierge. So I turned that into a niche website! I provided a wealth of free information in my blog posts that would help anyone succeed for free. I included affiliate links and created a $389 “starter kit” for anyone wanting more.
It took about 6 months to create my starter kit and get traction on my blog. By then, my site showed up in the top 5 on searches for all my focus keyword phrases. And people started buying my kits!
I cannot tell you how awesome it was when my phone would ping me every time I made a $389 sale.
Once the site had some traction, I left it alone. I’d respond to comments and occasionally add another post, but it had all the momentum it needed.
I was selling 3-5 kits per month. Averaging over $1,200 per month. Without doing anything.
Yes. I could have promoted it more and probably sold more kits. But I still had my personal concierge business, my son was napping less, and I had less energy to give to the side hustle. For me, it was a huge success that I figured I’d build on in time.
For 2 years, the website made me over $1,200 a month. True passive income.
During those two years, my husband had started thriving in his career so we could survive on his income. We both wanted to focus on time with our kids while they were young. I closed my personal concierge business and became pregnant with our second child.
One December, I got that $389 sale ping and I felt a knot in my stomach. I knew that kit had become outdated over the 2 years I had let it sit and the site was in need of some major updates. I didn’t feel it was still worth that price tag. And I foolishly questioned my own worthiness to keep sharing information about an industry I was no longer a part of. And I worried I didn’t have the time to update the kit, fix the site, or reply to comments. This probably was all because I was 38 weeks pregnant and I was in major nesting mode.
So what did I do? Instead of simply turning off the ability to buy the kit, leting the site continue to help others and give me some affiliate income… I DELETED IT. Yes! I deleted the whole thing. I let go of the domain name (which had a HUGE amount of back-linking) and walked away.
Ok. Ok. So it didn’t feel like a mistake for many years… Those years were a blur of parenting young kids. Long hours, short months. Cuddling, tears, changing friendships, constant laundry, sleepless nights, obsessive parenting research, and lots of giggles. Yeah. I’m sure you know all about it.
But then I started having time and I realized what a foolish mistake it was. I had the back-ups but someone had snagged my domain and was holding it for $1,000s. Even rebuilding from back-ups couldn’t repair all the damage I had done. When I finally had time and wanted an outlet, I no longer had it. I could have upgraded the starter kit, updated the site, and worked on more affiliate marketing…if I hadn’t deleted it.
Now that the kids are both in elementary school (and the pandemic is “over”), I actually have time to bring it back. And I am. But it’s a tough road to build backlinks. And back then (2011-2012), there were a lot more ways to game the Google algorithm.
The Lesson Here...
So my lesson to you is do not delete your website. Instead, build it as cheaply as possible so it doesn’t hurt financially to keep it going for years. Treat it as the side hustle it is. As an outlet when you want to do something for yourself. And, when you’re ready, it’ll be there for you to expand upon. Passive income websites are “slow burn” passive income strategies. It takes time to see any income, but then they can just keep rolling on their own.
If you made it to the end of this post, then you KNOW it is your time to do this. Don’t hesitate. Jump in with both feet. My upcoming posts will walk you through how to start your passive income website without much tech knowledge and as cheaply (mostly free!) as possible. I’ll also be providing ways to level up faster if you have the time and energy to go big now.
Subscribe to my newsletter for bi-weekly updates or follow me on TikTok as I post quick videos on your 30 day challenge.
