When Laura Peters canceled her plans to go to grad college, she had no thought what was in retailer. All she knew was that she wished to go to Thailand and work as a instructor.
She found the idea of making a living from a journey weblog there, and her curiosity was piqued. That was in 2014. Though she labored on it for years, she nonetheless wasn’t profitable. Nonetheless, after altering her tactic, all the things modified.
As we speak, Mike & Laura Journey is incomes round $12k per thirty days. However that is not even her greatest incomes asset. Laura diversified her revenue streams with a training program and a summit and is now bringing in $50k per thirty days.
Preserve studying to search out out about:
- The way it all started for Laura and Mike
- Why the weblog did not take off initially
- What she did to vary that
- Why and the way she diversified
- How she tweaked their course
- The place their revenue comes from
- Her prime advertising methods
- How she approaches hyperlink constructing
- How she grows her e-mail checklist
- The content material creation course of that works for them
- Her key phrase analysis secrets and techniques
- Her favourite sources and instruments
- The primary problem she has confronted
- Her best accomplishment
- The largest mistake she’s made
- Her recommendation for different entrepreneurs
Meet Laura Peters
My identify is Laura, and I’m the proprietor and creator of Mike & Laura Journey. I’m additionally the CEO of Scale Your Journey Weblog, which is a training program for bloggers seeking to begin, develop, and/or monetize their web sites by way of website positioning, online marketing, and e-mail advertising.
My husband, Mike Abalos, and I work on our enterprise collectively and after we aren’t working, we’re touring. We spend about 6 months of the 12 months overseas in numerous areas, and our foremost purpose is to search out one of the best mountain climbing trails worldwide.
Once we aren’t overseas, we’re residence in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
How It All Started
I began my journey weblog again in 2014. On the time, I had simply backed out of going to grad college and determined that my path was main me to Thailand.
I moved to Bangkok to be an English instructor in an elementary college, and as I used to be researching locations to go on weekend journeys, I stumbled upon a cool journey weblog. This blogger was detailing her journey by way of Thailand, however what intrigued me essentially the most was that she claimed to earn a living from her journey weblog.
Previous to studying her submit, I didn’t even understand it was doable to earn a living with a journey weblog. This new info captivated me, and I used to be hooked. I wished to be a journey blogger and earn a living by telling individuals about my adventures.
Sadly, it didn’t go the way in which I deliberate.
I began my weblog and I labored actually, actually, actually onerous at it for years. I attempted all the things. I wrote weblog posts that I believed individuals would love. I realized and mastered Pinterest. I poured a whole bunch of hours into my Instagram every month, and but… nothing labored.
It was a very onerous time. Placing that a lot effort into one thing for it to fail was onerous to abdomen.
A Turning Level for Laura’s Weblog
And that continued till 2019, after I began to listen to an acronym get thrown round lots. The acronym was “website positioning”. Though it appeared scary, I began to dive into website positioning and see what all of the fuss was about.
For me, website positioning was thrilling. It appeared extra mathematical, scientific, and steady than social media and Pinterest.
So I began to be taught all the things I might about website positioning. I spent hours and hours and hours each day pouring over website positioning and what it meant for our weblog.
And that’s when issues modified. We instantly noticed a rise in visitors, and inside 4 months of implementing website positioning, we had been capable of apply for Mediavine.
Seeing this success, I knew we wanted to diversify our revenue streams. Though the cash from Mediavine was nice, we wanted one thing much more profitable if we had been going to totally maintain ourselves with our weblog.
So, I dove into online marketing and realized all the things I probably might about the right way to make extra by recommending our favourite merchandise, providers, and platforms.
And whereas our online marketing efforts had been working properly, I knew we wanted to diversify additional.
What if a Google algorithm swept by way of and fully drained our web site visitors?
That’s after I realized we couldn’t depend upon any platform to maintain our weblog. So I realized e-mail advertising and the ability of making your individual viewers.
A New Alternative Arises
At that time, issues had been going very well with our weblog. We had been averaging about $8,500 per thirty days from adverts and online marketing mixed. Our e-mail checklist was round 2,500 individuals, and we began often emailing our subscribers about running a blog.
Due to this, we bought many questions on the right way to monetize a journey weblog. By way of my journey, I realized that this info isn’t simply sitting on a silver platter. It took me hundreds of hours of analysis to know and implement all the things that was working for our weblog.
And that was irritating. Why wasn’t there an final useful resource for this? Why did journey bloggers need to muscle their method by way of their journey to monetization?
That’s after I determined to inform everybody I knew about how we had been capable of rapidly develop our weblog.
I took Amy Porterfield’s Digital Course Academy in September 2020 and launched our course, Scale Your Journey Weblog, in January of 2021.
It began out as a course that led you thru website positioning, online marketing, and e-mail advertising. And whereas individuals liked it, we noticed some college students fall by way of the cracks. This bothered me as a result of I knew that with our methods, they might 100% see success with their blogs.
So, I requested them why they determined to stop. They advised us that whereas the data was actually good, nevertheless it was too onerous to bridge the hole between the data I gave them and truly doing it themselves.
And that’s when it clicked.
Laura Tweaks Her Course
There are such a lot of programs out there nowadays, however the greatest factor they’re lacking helps their college students bridge the hole between info and talent.
So about 6 months after launching our course, we determined to incorporate all the things we thought individuals wanted to take this info and put it into motion. We added done-for-you duties like key phrase analysis, weblog submit outlines, weblog submit evaluations, and a web site audit, amongst different issues.
And that was the key sauce. I checked out it as if we had been patching the holes the place college students had been falling by way of.
Earlier than this variation, most of our college students noticed good outcomes, however with the added assist, all of our college students who put within the work see jaw-dropping outcomes. Just lately, our prime pupil had her highest month, bringing in over $30,000 from adverts and online marketing.
There have been a number of iterations of Scale Your Journey Weblog as we work tirelessly to create one of the best sources and techniques that assist our college students transfer ahead.
As somebody who struggled to monetize their weblog for years and years, my final purpose was to indicate others how it may be executed within the quickest method doable. And I’ve confidence that we’ve executed that with Scale Your Journey Weblog.
Her Present Revenue Streams
We’ve a number of sources of revenue, together with Scale Your Journey Weblog, Journey Running a blog Summit (our dwell running a blog occasion), and our journey weblog, Mike & Laura Journey. We additionally spend money on area of interest web sites to promote them sooner or later.
Every of those sources of revenue varies primarily based on the time of 12 months and our present focus. Here’s a breakdown of our revenue:
- Mike & Laura Journey: $9k-14k per thirty days. We additionally use our journey weblog as a billboard to advertise Scale Your Journey Weblog. It has been one of many greatest contributing elements to the expansion of our program. We appeal to vacationers by way of Google totally free and convert them to webinar sign-ups/Scale Your Journey Weblog college students.
- Journey Running a blog Summit Reside Occasion: Our income from our first 12 months was $51k. For our most up-to-date occasion, it was web $21,000. Our purpose subsequent 12 months is to revenue $100k+. Our subsequent occasion is in Nashville, Tennessee.
- Scale Your Journey Weblog: $40k-50k+ per thirty days
Nearly all of our journey weblog revenue comes from online marketing. I was an internet ESL instructor, and the businesses I labored for wished extra academics.
They rewarded present academics for recruiting new academics with $100 per profitable instructor that teaches a sure variety of college students. This was a good portion of our revenue for the primary 12 months of running a blog.
In the course of the pandemic, this was particularly useful as a result of though we wrote about journey, we additionally lined digital nomad jobs like educating English on-line. Being various with our content material helped us fight the pandemic’s adverse impact on journey.
Laura’s High Advertising and marketing Technique
Our primary advertising technique is website positioning. website positioning is the explanation we had been capable of develop our enterprise to start with.
As I discussed, I examined numerous methods of selling, together with social media and Pinterest earlier than I found website positioning. Sadly, all the things else changed into a hamster wheel of infinite work and little payout. The return on time invested was horrible.
I used to be uninterested in placing effort into issues that *may* deliver us success. website positioning proved to be the technique that labored each single time.
website positioning is just not solely our primary advertising technique however our total enterprise. We train journey bloggers, journey brokers, and travel-based firms the significance of website positioning of their enterprise.
website positioning is what bought us to the place we’re and retains us the place we’re.
Since there are a number of transferring elements in relation to website positioning, summarizing our general technique could be tough.
Nonetheless, to interrupt it down, we spend about 40% of our time writing new content material utilizing up-to-date website positioning methods, 40% of our time accumulating backlinks, and 20% of our time studying and testing new website positioning methods. This contains listening to podcasts, rising new blogs exterior of the journey area of interest, assembly with specialists, and so forth.
Hyperlink Constructing
Hyperlink constructing has at all times been essential for rising an internet site, however following Google’s algorithm replace in the summertime of 2022, I’m seeing the significance of hyperlink constructing enhance.
Now greater than ever, Google desires you to have authority. They need you to be the professional in no matter it’s you’re speaking about. And hyperlink constructing is likely one of the methods to show your experience.
We’ve at all times used link-building methods like HARO submissions and collaboration posts. However just a few new methods which have been working very well for us are podcast options and picture exchanges.
As for picture exchanges, we’re merely providing our pictures to be used in change for backlinks to our web site. As vacationers, we now have an abundance of travel-related pictures. And with Google’s new algorithm shift, distinctive photographs are rewarded greater than inventory photographs. So, this change is a win-win for each events.
These might be firms we’ve taken pictures of, landmarks, locations, and so forth.
Many inventory photograph libraries permit this. Moreover, there are many Fb teams for picture collaborations. We’ve our personal in Scale Your Journey Weblog, however there are others which might be free for anybody.
We’re always testing completely different link-building approaches, so this modifications continuously. However, we’ve additionally discovered that though hyperlink constructing is essential, it’s much more essential to make use of the fitting key phrase analysis technique.
Different Efficient Advertising and marketing Methods
The advertising methods we use fluctuate relying on which space of our enterprise you’re referring to.
With running a blog, we use and train a particular key phrase analysis technique involving boards and different user-generated content material. This helps us rank on the prime of Google each time we write a brand new weblog submit, and it’s what helps our college students acquire visitors to their web sites actually rapidly, even when they’re new to the running a blog world.
Once we hear that different web site house owners are struggling to get into Google search outcomes and develop their visitors, we are able to assume that they possible don’t find out about our key phrase analysis technique.
Laura’s Electronic mail Checklist
We’ve an e-mail checklist of about 17,500 individuals. Electronic mail lists are one of the simplest ways to set your weblog and enterprise up for fulfillment sooner or later. Relying solely on different individuals’s platforms (Fb, Instagram, Google, Pinterest, and so forth) to drive visitors to your enterprise might be detrimental if one thing goes awry.
We develop our e-mail checklist by way of numerous measures, and it’s at all times one among our foremost focuses.
First, we now have freebie opt-ins on each weblog submit we write. It will give our readers a fast win in change for his or her e-mail addresses.
Second, we use our weblog as a billboard for our consulting/teaching enterprise. We’re at all times sending our journey weblog visitors over to our webinar by way of banner adverts, widget adverts, and extra.
We additionally use quizzes constructed into our weblog to assemble e-mail addresses. These are inclined to work properly for checklist constructing.
Moreover, we do e-mail checklist collaborations with different bloggers or individuals in our area of interest. If they’ve an engaged e-mail checklist like we do, we provide to advertise their freebie opt-in to our viewers in the event that they share ours with their viewers. This has labored very well for us.
And eventually, we’re repeatedly operating Fb and Instagram adverts to our webinar, which ends up in our journey running a blog teaching program. We do that as a result of we all know that almost all of journey influencers are fighting their social media accounts.
They wish to earn a living touring, however they aren’t positive how besides by way of social media. Our purpose is to show them the ability of website positioning in order that they don’t have to race across the social media hamster wheel anymore.
Her Content material Creation Course of
Our content material creation technique varies primarily based on the realm of the enterprise.
At this level in our running a blog journey, we’re hiring writers to assist us create weblog posts. We monitor the posts that we buy from writers to find out if they’ve a constructive return on funding. In the event that they don’t, we determine why and repair them in order that they begin seeing extra advert or affiliate income or we add extra relatable freebie opt-ins to get readers on our e-mail checklist.
We wish to batch our work for the teaching aspect of the enterprise. Subsequently, the Q+As and coaching classes I do in Fb teams get repurposed by Mike for our YouTube channel and e-mail newsletters.
We even have a workforce of seven high-level SEOs and copywriters that assist us implement completely different advertising methods and assist us handle our present shoppers.
The technique behind all the things we do comes from testing. Whereas some individuals name it “failing” we name it testing. We have to check to see what works one of the best, then we do extra of what’s working. We’re always testing new advertising methods.
Her Key phrase Analysis Technique
Our key phrase analysis course of is definitely one among our secret sauces. It’s one thing we train inside Scale Your Journey Weblog. Mainly, we assist individuals present up on Google rapidly by contemplating boards and different user-generated content material.
As a result of boards are user-generated content material, it means it’s “skinny” content material. We win each time we compete with that sort of search consequence.
It’s among the finest methods to rank on the prime of Google and keep on the prime of Google. Algorithm shift or no algorithm shift, you’ll at all times be okay when you use user-generated content material to your benefit.
Attaining Present Income Ranges
For journey running a blog, I began my web site in October 2014. It took me about 5 years to be taught that website positioning was the way in which to go. At that time, we had been nonetheless making no cash from our web site.
As soon as I switched to website positioning, it took us about 16 months from 2,000 month-to-month guests and $0 per thirty days to 55,000 guests and $8,500+ per thirty days.
With Scale Your Journey Weblog, we began in January 2021. Our supply was a lot completely different then, and we had been simply getting our toes moist. We’ve since added extra specialists to our workforce, which has allowed extra college students to hitch us.
Our highest month was August 2022, and we hit simply over $70k with Scale Your Journey Weblog. That’s roughly 20 months after beginning our consulting enterprise.
And whereas these numbers appear loopy superior, it hasn’t at all times been simple. Entrepreneurship is a bumpy highway, but when it was simple, everybody would do it.
Her Favourite Sources
Podcasts are my jam! I attribute a number of our success to the podcasts and programs we’ve taken over time.
My favourite podcasts embrace:
- Amy Porterfield: On-line Advertising and marketing Made Simple
- Rick Mulready: The Artwork of On-line Enterprise
- Pat Flynn: Good Passive Revenue
I even have a trick that I love to do when trying to find new concepts and content material. I merely go into my podcast participant and as a substitute of trying to find the identify of a podcast, I simply seek for the subject I wish to be taught extra about.
For instance, if I’m struggling to get backlinks to my web site, I’d go to my podcast participant and search “backlinks.” If I wished to be taught extra about Fb adverts, I’d search “Fb adverts.”
I’ve discovered a number of nice sources this fashion after which I don’t have my blinders on or solely deal with the podcasts I wish to take heed to. I’ll take heed to something at the least as soon as, and if I discover it useful, I’ll take heed to it repeatedly.
Laura’s High 3 Instruments
Mike and I do a enterprise audit for ourselves as soon as each six months to make sure we’re profiting on all ends of our enterprise, so we simply went by way of all of the instruments we use.
An important instruments we now have are ConvertKit, Ahrefs, and Notion.
ConvertKit is our e-mail advertising software program. We might be misplaced with out all of the superb instruments that Convertkit has for content material creators. This contains e-mail automation, product creation, and extra. We’ve tried different e-mail advertising instruments up to now, however the versatility of ConvertKit blows everybody else out of the water.
Moreover, Ahrefs is our key phrase analysis software of selection. Once more, we’ve used different instruments like SEMRush and Keysearch, however we’ve discovered that Ahrefs is a lot extra sturdy. We love discovering gaps within the competitors that may in the end assist us or our college students make more cash from our blogs.
And eventually, we couldn’t dwell with out Notion or a enterprise organizing software. The whole lot we do in our enterprise is ready up by way of Notion. This contains delegating duties to our workforce, protecting our college students organized, and automating issues that may be automated.
After all, we use loads of different instruments, however these are those which might be very important to the success of our enterprise.
Her Important Problem
My mindset was the primary factor that held me again as an entrepreneur. I didn’t even know that mindset was essential to the success of a enterprise. Because it seems, it’s the primary factor that may maintain you again.
It took me a number of years to know cash in a different way, to work up the braveness to place myself on the market, and to go after all the things I wished with out hesitation.
I feel mindset is the most important factor holding most individuals again from beginning their very own companies, too.
To fight this, I like to recommend listening to the e-book You’re A Badass At Making Cash by Jen Sincero. This e-book helped me take into consideration cash in a wholly completely different method, specializing in logic, not emotion.
Moreover, I like to recommend investing in programs, memberships, or masterminds that will help you develop into the entrepreneur you wish to be.
Her Best Accomplishment
Whereas the success of our enterprise is superior, it’s the success of our college students that retains me going. Entrepreneurs in every single place would agree that the ups and downs of enterprise are NOT simple. If it wasn’t for the successes that our college students rejoice, I most likely would’ve stop a very long time in the past.
I keep in mind when our first pupil hit the 6-figure mark along with her weblog; it was the world’s best feeling. When one other one among our college students will get to hitch Mediavine, I cry with pleasure. It means all the things to me when a pupil doubles their affiliate revenue in simply 30 days.
Their wins are my wins. And with the ability to positively have an effect on individuals and permit them to work for themselves is all the things I have to really feel profitable.
What She Needs She Knew When She Began
If I might discuss to 2014 Laura, I’d inform her all the things will work out. Whereas some entrepreneurs aren’t eager to share the struggles they needed to overcome to get the place they’re, I wish to ensure everybody is aware of that it isn’t at all times frills and rainbows. Working a enterprise is tough.
If I had a greenback for each panic assault I’ve had over the previous 4 years, I’d double our month-to-month revenue. However it’s price it each step of the way in which. I can’t clarify how I’ve grown as a businesswoman and as an individual by way of my journey, however I wouldn’t commerce it for the world.
There are ups and downs, however all the things at all times pans out. And I want I’d’ve had that very same sense of confidence after I first toyed with this concept again in 2014. I feel I’d’ve made the leap lots sooner.
Her Best Mistake
Till 2019, I didn’t spend money on my running a blog training. I refused to take action for a number of causes.
a) I used to be dwelling and educating in Thailand, and I used to be incomes roughly $700 per thirty days. I didn’t have a lot cash to spend, so it was simpler to avoid wasting the little cash I made.
b) I didn’t know if it will truly work. I didn’t belief the advertising methods I had heard about as a result of it was so international to me.
As soon as I lastly did spend money on the fitting programs, our enterprise grew exponentially. My greatest remorse was not investing in my very own expertise sooner.
I cringe on the considered the place our enterprise could be if I had invested in myself again in 2014. However all of us make errors, and all of us comply with our personal path. I simply want I had a mentor to indicate me the fitting method from the start.
Her Recommendation for Different Entrepreneurs
My recommendation is two-fold. First, I extremely advocate focusing in your mindset. Limiting beliefs will hold you caught for a protracted, very long time. Work on what’s doable in your thoughts and also you’ll be capable to obtain it in on a regular basis life.
The subsequent factor your enterprise wants is website positioning. website positioning is long-term advertising whether or not you’re a giant company or a small enterprise. Don’t accept short-term advertising gimmicks like social media. Should you actually wish to achieve success, develop by way of website positioning and construct an e-mail checklist on prime of it. I’m assured that it is going to be what modifications your enterprise mannequin ceaselessly.