Six Months of Invested Wallet: Wins, Misses, and What’s Next

By Todd Kunsman

Make Money

Published on

Updated on

Man, time is flying by! I remember back in early spring when I was thinking about launching a personal finance and investing blog and putting a plan together.

Now it’s already six months later and it feels like I’ve been running this blog for years…

I wasn’t going to write this post yet, as I have so many ideas and great content to share with you all yet. But I knew if I did not get this out now, I’d probably never do it.

While this topic is more blog and business related, I thought it would be interesting to share. I know many of you are bloggers, considering starting one as a side hustle, or maybe you’re just curious about my site.

Either way, below is how I’ve approached this blog, current wins from my strategy, and future plans.

How I’ve approached this blog

Since day 1, I’ve been approaching Invested Wallet as business opportunity and potential financial asset. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing about personal finance, investing, and helping others. That has been a main driver of launching no doubt.

But I also know the opportunities that a blog can bring financially and that it could be my full-time gig in the distant future. It’s really a win-win when you find your passion and can also potentially get paid for that passion.

That being said, I’m also very protective of what is and will be on the site. Any affiliate marketing, advertising, sponsored posts, or brand partnerships are and will be carefully chosen.

I’ve rejected quite a bit already, because while making money is great, I want to ensure only the best for readers and work with companies I believe in.

Additionally, I look at this blog as an opportunity to test my marketing skills and creativity to see how I can make it grow. If you have read my start here page, you’ll know a bit about my background.

But this is really putting me to the test to start something from scratch and see what I can make it into a year, two years, and beyond.

Some Current Wins & Misses

I launched Invested Wallet quietly in mid-June, went on a cross-country trip for most of July, then really began focusing on it since August. So if you want to get technical, I’ve really only been at it for four months, but I’m sticking with six.

I ran a music blog back in the day on Blogger, which got pretty popular for awhile (mostly by accident). This is really the first time I running a WordPress website outside of my full-time gigs.

If you are thinking about launching a blog and looking at a business, highly recommend launching through WordPress.

And let me tell you.

Blogging is hard. Blogging takes time. Results can be minimal for awhile, especially for how much work goes into it. I’ve learned this over the years, and trust me, I still get frustrated with Invested Wallet even after knowing that.

Some Blog Wins

I want to start with some wins for Invested Wallet and share a bit about my strategy.

What works for me, may not work for your blog (if you have one), but can get you thinking. Sometimes I want to be guarded with certain aspects, but I want everyone to be successful!

Featured on some major publications:
Since August, I’ve been featured or quoted in Time, HuffPost, Business Insider, GoBankingRates, Yahoo Finance, MSN, Rockstar Finance, BBC, and Best Life Online. I have a few more currently in the works of being published.

Crazy when I look back at this list.

This was a top priority to my strategy. Why?

  • I wanted to showcase my knowledge and credibility. Helps build a trust among readers.
  • Build traction and brand awareness of the name. With no real social presence, connections, email list, or organic traffic, referral traffic can be a great start.
  • Increase my domain authority quickly, because new sites take time to get indexed and higher authority helps rankings.
  • Make connections with reporters for future articles to contact me directly.

There is a service called HARO, it’s free to sign up. Basically, they send you emails three times a day of reporters looking for quotes and comments on various topics.

Now, it’s not easy because you need to be quick in response, have a unique or detailed answer because these reporters get a ton of submissions, and it’s time-consuming and you may not get a link back (thanks BBC, still got the love for ya though). Some days there are no good requests for me.

I’ve found my rhythm with answers and my response formula, which seems to work well. Here is a recent screenshot, still have work to do.

Domain Authority

Rocking Quora Answers for Brand Visibility:
Quora is something I’ve been using heavily in the last year for my full-time gig and Invested Wallet. My profile is closing in on 100k answer views, which is cool.

This will not guarantee much traffic, but it can bring you some hits if an answer goes somewhat viral. I had one of my answers sent to 10,000+ people in an email and the answer got over 19,000 views.

It also brought in like 600 additional page views that week. Which can be big for a new and growing blog.

Quora

Now, don’t think this will work for you every time. Most of my answers get 200-800 views, and bring in maybe 5-10 pageviews a day. It helps, but not that much.

Again, I have a formula for how I answer questions, which you can see on my various answers. Additionally, you can submit links to Quora which will get added in their feeds. This also takes time, but I’m starting to be visible.

Starting to Make Some Money:
Again, I’m very passionate about what I write about and running this blog. But, I’m also very business oriented for this with making money as a goal.

Most new bloggers can take a year or more to start making any money. And I’ve not been worried about making any right now, but the cool thing is, it’s starting to happen without any ad networks!

By no means am I rich, I’ll have pulled about $500 by the end of December. I’m also having a few conversations with brands for some other work. A combo of leveraging my marketing skills, writing, and the website.

Not sure if they will work out, but pretty excited to be starting these conversations now and so early. #Blessed

Some Blog Misses:

As with anything, I also had some misses and goals I did not accomplish. Let’s explore them below.

Crack 10,000 Pageviews in One Month:
This was a goal of mine, which was going to be really hard. It takes time and with little organic traffic (Now starting to kick in) and a busy full-time schedule, it was a long shot.

Certainly is possible and I have not doubt had I put some more effort in, I could have.

I’m also very close to passing 10,000 pageviews. But, I typically only post 1x a week, been starting to aim for 2x.

I think within the next 2-3 months, I should be able to do so. Additionally, I loathe content promotion, yet it’s one of the most important aspects to blogging. Ugh.

The cool thing though, most of my current blog posts range from 300-1,000+ pageviews.

Guest Post 1x Per Month:
Many bloggers and businesses have grown simply my guest blogging on many websites. I literally did 0 for any websites.

Facepalm heavy here.

I’ve been so focused on my own content, marketing, and trying not to burn out that this was left out. I’m planning on doing some in 2019, so if you need a guest post or blog interview hit me up!

Future Blog Plans

I have a few site updates I’ll be making at the end of the month, including a “work with me” page. Really want to define that and include adding marketing consulting. I believe there is a lot of opportunity there, besides any brand partnerships, sponsored posts, or advertising.

Guest blogging and podcast interviews: I’ll be looking to do guest posts for blogs (don’t be surprised if you are a personal finance blogger if I reach out) and also be interviewed on podcasts. I have one scheduled for early January with an awesome website, but would love to do more.

Free guide: I want to do a free downloadable guide of some sorts. I’m still working on ideas and direction.

Post 2x a week: This will be my big challenge because I’m mentally drained by the end of the week. Besides my full-time marketing gig (where I also do a lot of writing), I’m also working on my personal finances and trying to grow this blog. I also prefer in-depth articles, which is why it’s been hard to hard more than 1x. But I have some ideas to get 2x out, so we’ll see how this goes.

Marketing, outreach, networking, etc: I have a ton of content promotion and other marketing ideas in mind for the new year to help continue to grow this. I’m not going to share it all here, but I may do a follow up on what worked and what did not.

Have you started a blog or currently have one? How are you growing it? Do you have any questions for me? Let me know in the comments below.

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