This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, what's up? Welcome back to Side Hustle School. I'm your host, Chris Guillebeau, and we are now getting started with a brand new week. So let me just tell you how excited I am to be doing this. This is week number two of the show, but I've been working behind the scenes to put this together for close to six months.
So it's really exciting to see it go out into the world. So as I said last week, the goal here is to help you create that new source of income in a limited amount of time and without quitting your job. And as we proceed through the year, I'll be heading out on the road. I'll be doing live versions of Side Hustle School in lots of different cities. There's also a private group I'll be starting at some point, but not to get ahead of things.
Mostly, I'm just so thrilled that you're along for the adventure. Be sure you subscribe on iTunes to get each episode sent to you automatically. And of course, let me know what you think. You can always write me directly at chris@sidehustleschool.com. I think you're really gonna like today's story.
It's about a couple who goes on a cruise and comes back with a $3,000 a month side hustle. [Music]
Tanner Kalei and his wife received a wedding present in the form of a gift certificate for a cruise vacation. Neither of them had been on a cruise before and they weren't particularly excited about it, but they went anyway and ended up having a great time. Part of their initial hesitation was that they couldn't find much information online about the actual cruising experience. There was a detailed cruise line website, of course, but that consisted mostly of promotional material.
What was it really like? There were also a bunch of forums where veteran cruisers swapped recommendations and experiences, but that presented another problem. With thousands of opinions, it was only natural that many of them contradict each other. Tanner didn't want to have to wade through a whole multitude of forum threads where people argued over which lobster dinner was best. He just needed some basic info to help him lower his costs and have a better experience.
The lack of impartial accessible information inspired him to do something to fill the gap. As a full-time copywriter for his day job, he already knew how to instill information in a helpful yet entertaining way. So upon his return from the high seas, he set out to build that website that he himself had wanted to consult before he'd set off. And the first thing he did was simply write. Tanner opened up a blank document on his laptop.
He began to jot down all sorts of ideas for articles. He wasn't concerned with all the details at first. He simply wanted to have a substantial number of article topics that he could use to fill out the site when he launched it. Then, after slapping together a quick website, he shifted his focus to SEO, or search engine optimization. His goal was to spend $0 on marketing and devote all promotional efforts toward getting ranked high in Google for terms and phrases that new cruisers searched for.
Since he himself had been a new cruiser with lots of questions, he knew he had the right qualifications for that job. So here's an example. Before he left for the cruise, Tanner wondered if he'd be able to watch Netflix while on board. There are tens of millions of people who subscribe to Netflix, and presumably many of them go on cruises, probably for the first time. But Tanner couldn't find anyone who'd answered this question comprehensively.
Therefore, one of his articles on the new site was called "Answered." Can I watch Netflix on a cruise? After posting the article, the page jumped to the top of Google search results, and he immediately began seeing more traffic on the site. He applied this strategy over and over, answering commonly asked, yet not commonly answered, questions from curious cruisers. This wasn't a charity project. It was an income-generating hustle.
So to make money, Tanner added advertising and affiliate programs to the new site. That way, he'd get paid when visitors click on the ads or join a program he links to. He was excited when his new site brought in $100 a month, but he didn't stop there. He kept adding pages, answering questions, and optimizing for Google. In less than a year, this side hustle wasn't so small, he was making more than $3,000 a month from it.
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So let's break this down. After coming up with the idea and deciding on a format, the creation process for this hustle required three kinds of tasks. Now the first task was writing. Since the cruise answers would be provided in written form, Tanner got to work making a list of topics and then answering them thoroughly. He chose a crisp writing style that stayed on topic and encouraged readers to keep clicking to other articles.
So for example, he had that question about Netflix. Can I watch Netflix on a cruise? Well, people who want to watch Netflix on a cruise might also want to watch HBO on a cruise or Showtime or something from iTunes or Hulu or any other platform. So naturally he created articles about each one of those things. Can I watch Netflix?
Can I watch HBO, et cetera? And the second task was optimization. Tanner knew that just as he'd need to write a lot of helpful answers, he'd also have to put effort into making sure those answers would be seen. He put his knowledge of websites and SEO to work, choosing the right keywords and monitoring search results to see which of his pages performed the best. Then he applied that method to all the other pages and continued to monitor performance each week.
And the third task was revenue generation. He had the idea, he knew how to write, and he knew how to get people to the website, but that wasn't all, he needed to make money. Well, fortunately in this case, there was an obvious revenue model. The visitors he received were targeted, which essentially just means they were there for a specific reason. Everyone who came to the site was clearly interested in cruising.
So it made perfect sense to install Google advertising, which can be done very easily. It's about a 10 minute process and then maybe an hour or two more to optimize. And Tanner's goal was simple, bring people in, serve them well, and then get rewarded when they click those ads. Aside from a few administrative tasks, everything that he needs to do for this side hustle fits into one of those three categories. He went from idea to hustle, he kept his focus and it's paid off handsomely.
Now his website is known as an authority site, meaning that search engines like Google give it priority because they figured out that visitors like it. So Tanner's providing good value to those visitors, he's serving them well, answering those questions, and he gets paid really well for it. It may not happen exactly like that for you, but if you listen to these stories and begin applying them to your own hustle, you will see results over time. Remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. I hope you do one thing today to bring you closer to the freedom you want.
If you go to sidehustleschool.com/8, you'll see the notes for this episode, and I'll see you tomorrow with another story. I'm Chris Guillebeau, and this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
