Back in 2010, I started a biology blog. I started it because I’m passionate about biology. I wanted to take the principles I’d learned about building a business with a blog, and apply them to a niche that didn’t involve teaching people how to make money.

It was an interesting journey; one that resulted in rapid growth. However, I was lacking in one area – monetization.

Eventually, I decided to use ads in my videos and blog; this opened up a new world for me.

I started making between $800 and $2,500 per month without doing any extra work.

Needless to say, I was VERY happy about this.

My Difficult Decision

After working on my biology blog and Become A Blogger for a few years, I arrived at the 0629_Revamp-Old-Blog_Pinterestconclusion that I was doing too much. Building a blog takes A LOT of hard work. Building two was just insane (for me).

I made the difficult decision to let my Biology blog go and focus on one blog (the one you’re reading right now).

This freed me up for so much more. Eventually, I was able to post weekly podcast episodes, write weekly articles, and run my  Become A Blogger University.

Where I Messed Up

One of the things I didn’t do a good job at is setting my biology blog up to generate passive income. In the last month, I’ve had 86,188 visits to that blog, 75,530 of which have been from people visiting for the first time.

In the last month, I’ve had 86,188 visits to that blog, 75,530 of which have been from people visiting for the first time.

However, if you look at the numbers that REALLY matter, they don’t sound as great.

In the last month, I’ve:

  • added ONE person to my email list,
  • made FIVE sales off of my $27 eBook, resulting in a total of $135.

Stressed1_DPCThere IS one number that doesn’t look as bad, and that’s my ad revenue. During that same time period, I’ve made $825.54 in ads; this isn’t bad for a blog that hasn’t been worked on in four years.

That makes a grand total of $960.54 (minus a few processing fees).

Now you might be thinking that this sounds great for a blog that I haven’t really touched in four years.

However, if you’re me, this is what you’re thinking:

“I can’t believe I’m only making $960.54, and I don’t even have my email list setup for opt-ins. What’s wrong with me? I teach this stuff, and I’m not even doing it right. All because I’ve been too lazy to take action on what I know. That’s stupid and downright irresponsible.”

My First Goal

increase-incomeIt’s time to do something about this. I believe that I can work on this blog for one week and have processes in place to double my income within two months.

I know that sounds crazy. It’s quite possible that I’m being unrealistic; but I want to push myself.

It just doesn’t make sense to sit on a  blog that can make much more money and not take full advantage of that potential.

Goals for the Future

At some point, I plan on creating a second product to generate more revenue on the blog. It would be awesome to create a full out course and charge $67 – $97 for that course.

However, with all that I’m doing right now, I know that I wouldn’t have the time to make that a reality yet. Even though I have to table the idea for now, I’m confident that adding a course in the future will help me generate a $4K to $5K passive revenue stream.

My Action Plan

So you’re probably wondering how I plan on maximizing my biology blog’s potential now. Well, here’s the plan…

First, I’ll fix my email opt in problem. When I changed the design of the biology blog to match the design of this blog, I didn’t fully complete the process for adding opt in forms.

ACtion planIt was at a very hectic time in my life so I decided to quit while I was only halfway through the setup process.

This was dumb on my part and is the first step to get addressed in my action plan. There will be multiple ways to opt in to my email list. My hope is to be up to 50 opt ins per day within the first month of making the change.

The second thing I plan on doing is create a targeted autoresponder sequence that focuses on providing value to my subscribers and which encourages them to purchase my $27 study guide.

I believe that with 50 opt ins/day, I can easily bring in one or 2 sales/day. If I take an average of 1.5 sales per day over 30 days, that gives me 45 sales for a total of $1,215/month.

The third thing I plan on doing is getting a banner designed to promote my study guide. I don’t expect this to drive a lot of sales, but it makes sense to have that as one of the main ads on my site.

Last, I’ve had a few Youtube networks approach me about joining them. I’ve looked into them in the past and it seems like they can help increase  video ad revenue. I’m going to conduct some research and possibly test one of them out to see if it can work for me.

So to recap, here are my action steps:

  1. Add prominent opt-in forms to my blog to get people onto my email list (hopefully, 50/day)
  2. Create an autoresponder sequence that provides value and sells the eBook
  3. Add a banner to the blog that promotes the Study Guide
  4. Possibly join a Youtube network for increased ad revenue

What do you think?

Am I being unrealistic? Do you think I can increase my revenue by a factor of two in as little as two months? Am I going about it the right way? Do you have other suggestions?

Let me know in the comments below.

Infographic

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How to Revamp a Dormant Blog to Make More Money in One Week

 

About the Author Leslie Samuel


Leslie Samuel a business coach for high-performing entrepreneurs. As the host of the Leslie Samuel Show, he teaches how to build an online business. "Changing the world one post at a time” is the mission he strives towards. As a former university professor, he has a passion for education. He's the founder of Interactive Biology, a blog and YouTube channel dedicated to making biology fun for students and teachers. As the head of training for the Social Media Marketing Society, he helps social media marketers get the training they need to stay on the leading edge of social media.

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