Miniature Dollhouse Website Pays Full-Size Profits

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

When you were a kid, did you have a playtime passion? Some activity that you just couldn't seem to get enough of? Well, today's story is about a digital marketing manager who couldn't get enough of playing with her very own dollhouse and miniature set when she was a little girl. Years later, as an adult, she turned her favorite childhood pastime into a profitable side hustle. She now earns extra money each month through a drop shipping website without paying for advertising and by working only about one hour a week.

That sounds fun. Would you like to do that? Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. I have the privilege and honor of bringing you these stories each day, telling you how somebody gets their idea, how they make it happen, what challenges they encounter along the way and what the result or outcome was.

The whole point of the show, our mission, seven days a week, is to show you that you can do this kind of stuff without quitting your job, without going into debt and by using the skills you already have. Now this episode also includes some tips focused around SEO, a couple of really simple things you can do, as well as a free website you can use or refer to to look up potential keywords. So if you're interested in doing something like this, you wanna pay attention. And of course, I'll have some comments for you at the end. Here's a quick thank you to our sponsor.

They allow all of this to be completely free to you. Then I'll tell you all about this miniature dollhouse website that pays full-size profits. [Music]

When Amanda Austin was a child, her late grandmother presented her with her very own dollhouse. This crafty grandmother had assembled, painted, and wallpaper the miniature house personally. She even crocheted miniature rugs for each room in the house.

Amanda became preoccupied with the dollhouse, spending every free moment playing with it and the miniature family that lived there. And whenever she got allowance or birthday money, she would spend it at the local miniature store. Years later, as an adult working full-time as a digital marketing manager, those memories have come full circle. Amanda now sells wooden dollhouse kits and dollhouse miniatures on her own branded e-commerce site. She runs this site as a drop shipping business, which means she doesn't have to buy and store any of her items.

When someone places an order on her site, she notifies a wholesaler and they fulfill the order. Meanwhile, Amanda handles marketing, customer service, and website maintenance. There are now 3,000 items for sale on her little shop of miniatures. When Amanda was thinking about starting a side hustle, she decided to dig deeper into the online world of miniature dollhouse sales. And what she found didn't impress her.

In her words, they were all terrible. They were poorly designed, poorly organized, and not mobile optimized. I knew I could do better. So how did she do better? Well, first, being a digital marketing manager, she knew using keywords was critical.

Let's talk about keywords. They are words and phrases in web content that allow visitors to find a site using a search engine. Sometimes a business can have a great website, but if keywords aren't included in the site's content, it won't be found when a potential customer conducts a search on Google. In fact, just coming up on a Google search isn't good enough because according to one study, the first page of a Google search gets 95% of the web traffic. Best of all are long tail keywords, which are, as the name implies, keywords longer than regular ones.

They're also more specific. This means you may have less competition with other sites when using long tail keywords on your site. A regular keyword could be a dollhouse. A long tail keyword could be nightstand for a bedroom and miniature dollhouse. Often someone who's searching online is looking for a specific item or subject just like that, so they'll likely use more descriptive terms in their search.

If your website is sprinkled with long tail keywords that match those searches, the shopper is more likely to find your site, and they are also more likely to stay engaged on that site or make a purchase. Amanda's goal was to rank on the first page of a Google search for all kinds of dollhouse-related items, and she used metrics to conduct keyword research. She started out looking for keywords that had 3,000 to 5,000 hits a month that also weren't overly competitive. How did she do that? Well, she used a site called longtailpro.com, where she found three keywords that had good search volume and low competition from other sites.

So just to emphasize this, it's really critical. She's looking for searches that a lot of people are doing, but there aren't a lot of other good results out there. Popular search is low competition. Her discovery that dollhouses and miniatures were in demand but weren't that competitive of a niche was the deciding factor to enter this market. Now, unlike some of the other stories we've featured recently that have used Facebook ads or other paid strategies, Amanda has had much success in growing her business organically.

However, this was no miniature feat. She had to do a lot of that research. She spent months getting her site to come up on that first page of a Google search. She also made sure that her website was mobile-optimized because people are using their phones and tablets far more than desktops these days for web searches, and Google ranks a webpage higher if the page loads quickly on a mobile device. Third, using images on a website also boosts the Google ranking.

Adding an alt tag to photos improves a website's accessibility. This means when you have a photo, there's also a phrase there. If somebody isn't able to load that image, they can still see a phrase that describes what the picture is. Fourth, Amanda also made sure to optimize her title tags. A title tag is the headline that shows up in the search engine results page when you conduct a search.

It should be enough to entice somebody to click through to your site. And last, related to the title tag is the meta description, which is a short summary below the title tag. The meta description should be short, just one or two sentences that add information to the title tag. Both of these should be developed to compel people to want to go to your website above all others. So a quick little summary before we go on.

Got five things here that are important. Number one, the right keywords, popular but with little competition. Number two, mobile-optimized, so that your site loads well on a phone or a tablet. Number three, alt tags with your images. Number four, title tags, the right title.

And number five, meta description. So the right description or one or two sentence summary. Amanda also did a few other things. She did social media, she befriended some influencers, she blogged and so on. But overall, the number one strategy was working on this SEO.

And these are all simple tips that anyone can do, especially in a niche like miniature doll houses, which is not that competitive. Again, it's not competitive, but it also has people who are willing to spend money, which is also critical. So let's talk about that money. Let's talk about both the startup costs and the profits. To start her business, Amanda invested a total of $3,500, $3,500.

Now this money went to buying a new computer and printer, a website fees and payment for an e-commerce class. She also paid to file for a state LLC and attended a trade show. Some of that stuff could be optional for you. If you already had a computer and printer, you would need to buy a new one. If you chose not to file for an LLC, just operate as a sole proprietor for a while, which is totally fine, it's what a lot of people do.

And if you don't need to attend a trade show, well, your startup costs could be almost minimal. But in Amanda's case, she chose to invest in those things, $3,500. Now she started her business in November, 2017, and is now making about $800 profit per month. Not enough to quit her day job, but it is enough to cover her soon to be born daughter's daycare costs, which is pretty cool. And Amanda also now works on this business only about one hour a week.

The most challenging part of the experience so far has been fixing problems with her website. She was also worried when there were long stretches of time with no sales when she was getting going. But now watching her revenue grow each month is worth it. Remember, she just started this less than a year ago. And her current goal is to continue to work on her site's SEO so she can rank even higher.

She would love to hit the $30,000 a year revenue mark, which she's hoping she might achieve with some upcoming holiday sales. So Amanda is well on track, no doubt about it. This savvy dollhouse lover has set herself up for big success in a miniature world of e-commerce. Awesome, what a fun story. Congrats again to Amanda.

And if you're interested in doing something like this or even really any kind of e-commerce business, whether it is drop shipping or you're actually making and shipping out that product yourself, those SEO tips are pretty simple and pretty helpful. So once again, it's about choosing the right keywords. It's about making sure your website, as simple as your website is, 'cause it doesn't need to be complicated or fancy at all, it does need to be optimized for mobile. I've experienced this many a time that I have built a website, not myself, but I've hired somebody to build a website, I should clarify, and we look at the comps, we look at the mock-up and it looks great on my computer. And then I go and look at it on my phone and I'm like, wait, it doesn't look so good on my phone.

So whenever you're building a website, you really need to think of mobile first because that is the world that we live in. Also, if you have any images on your site, make sure there are alt tags. Those are just little descriptions so that when the images don't load, there is text. That helps the search engines as well. And then the title tags and meta description.

Those things can make a big difference, like a simple thing that can make a big difference in people finding you, which of course is your goal. Now, last but not least, I had this great quote from Amanda in our notes for the research for this episode, thought this was so fun. She said, "People will say it's a risk "to start your own business, "but so is wasting opportunities and your potential. "Time is our most precious resource, "so don't let your whole life pass you by "without going for what you most want." Man, that is powerful. So you've got your little practical tips with the SEO stuff and you've got your motivation here.

People will say it's a risk to start your own business, but so is wasting opportunities and your potential. How about that? And this complete package of an episode is now drawing to a close. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. If you would like to see the show notes for today's episode, maybe take a look at that website I mentioned.

You can take a look at Amanda's site, see what she's done in this world of miniature dollhouse e-commerce. Those are at sidehustleschool.com/607. And last but not least, a reminder for those listening in real time, Happier Labor Day is coming up soon. Gonna have a special episode. Gresham, Ruben, and The Onward Project are gonna have a special episode.

We've got a hashtag, #happierlaboreday, one word. All that's coming up in just a few days, so stay tuned. And I hope you will join me for that and for all else. Thank you for joining me today. Once again, my name is Chris Guillebeau and this is Side Hustle School.