The #1 Side Hustle Blog - Side Hustle Nation

What Happens When You Post “Epic” Content? My Traffic, Income, and Subscriber Results

May 15, 2023August 1, 2016

What’s the most common piece of advice when it comes to online business? Let’s see if this sounds familiar.

See what else is out there, and create something 10x better.

And while creating the best / most helpful / most shareable / most awesomely epic 10x content ever is supposedly the golden ticket, I thought I’d put this advice to the test and share some results from a recent attempt at “epic-ness” of mine.

Does it really work? Is it worth the effort?

Email Sponsorships: Earn $300+ per Month Selling Email Newsletter Sponsorships

April 26, 2024July 25, 2016

A few months ago, I looked for new ways to monetize my blog. I came across a post about selling sponsorship spots in my email newsletter.

I liked the idea so I thought that I would give it a shot.

The result? 3 days after reading the post, I landed a 3 month-contract with a couple of sponsors and made $300/month with only 30 min of work. Here’s how it works.

Quarterly Progress Report – Q2 2016

November 28, 2020July 18, 2016

Last quarter I wrote about feeling more stressed, anxious, and tired, and wondering if that was just the price of parenthood.

With our little hustler growing every day, things are definitely getting better. I think we’ve already blocked from memory how horrible the first 6 weeks were!

This quarter he started daycare 3-4 days a week, which has helped block off longer hours of hustle time and rebuild a bit of a routine.

How I Increased Google Traffic 65% in 6 Months With No Link Building: My Content Audit Process and Results

October 15, 2018June 27, 2016

Over the last few months, I’ve systematically deleted more than half of my site… and my traffic went up?!?

And I’ll be the first to admit, this sounded like completely nuts. Why would you delete perfectly good content? Each page is an extra chance — however remote — for someone to discover you, right?

Quarterly Progress Report – Q1 2016

September 9, 2019April 25, 2016

For the past year, I’ve been doing these quarterly progress reports.

Business-wise, the Side Hustle Nation audience has grown, but other projects have taken a back-seat.

I feel like I’ve been in “maintenance mode” for most of the year.

And while happiness is hard to measure, I have to admit it’s gone down since last year. To be sure, there are moments of elation but on average, I’m feeling more stressed, anxious, and tired. Is this the price of parenthood?

The Most Important Number You Won’t Find on Your Tax Return

January 31, 2025April 18, 2016

Your tax return will show you your total income, your adjusted gross income, and your taxable income, but those numbers don’t show the most important figure of all.

Your “taxable income” is meaningless.

So what’s the most important number the IRS doesn’t care about but you should?

Your net profit.

State of the Nation: 2016 Member Survey Results (Plus How to Run a Survey For Your Audience)

January 10, 2023April 4, 2016

One of the best ways to figure out how to better serve your customers or your audience is to, well, ask them.

So I set out to create my (annual?) member survey and see if I could get some insights into where readers and listeners are at in their side hustle journey, what types of businesses you’re working on, and what your biggest challenges are.

I also wanted to find out about how you were interacting with the Side Hustle Nation content; the blog, podcast, and email newsletter.

15 Things To Do When You’re Broke, Angry, and Feeling Trapped

March 31, 2025March 21, 2016

Last month I received an email from a reader I didn’t really know how to respond to. It was about growing up in poverty and what he could do to lift himself out of a bad situation.

I think an important thing to remember is that every expert was once a beginner, every champion was once a rookie, and that with a few exceptions, most successful/wealthy individuals weren’t born that way.

They all took incremental actions over time to build their knowledge, skills, network — and eventually their net worth.

But I was curious what advice the Side Hustle Nation community had for this reader, and wow, did they come through big time.

Quora for Bloggers: How to Accelerate Your Authority, Audience Growth, and Traffic

May 1, 2024March 14, 2016

On December 7th, 2015, I started posting answers on Quora.com every day.

By the beginning of March — less than 3 months later — my answers had been viewed more than 500,000 times. This has more than doubled traffic to my blog, 10x’d my email sign-ups, and resulted in an increase in book sales.

This post explores my tactics for using Quora to re-purpose old content, accelerate your authority, and rapidly build an audience.

The $7620 Blog Post (Plus, my First Real Facebook Ads Experiment)

December 27, 2021March 7, 2016

In January I published a post called The 134 Best Udemy Courses for Entrepreneurs, Freelancers, and Side Hustlers.

The post was a pretty blatant affiliate play, and I made a point to admit that at the very top. Still, it performed very well, earning $7620 in January.

After the first couple days, I realized I was on to something and it only made sense to try and drive more traffic to the page, even if it meant paying for it. So that gave birth to my first real experiment with Facebook ads.

Usually Hustling, Occasionally Social