Search Engine Optimization (SEO) often has a reputation for being a cheap marketing strategy, but high-value work can require substantial investment. Dave Colgate of agency Vertical Leap looks at how to invest properly.
Unsure how much you need to spend on search engine optimization (SEO)? Let’s look at how to set the right budget, considering how much other companies are spending; the factors you need to budget for; and the minimum recommended spend for small businesses just starting out with SEO.
How much do companies spend on SEO?
Marketing budgets suffered from Covid-19, but industry reports show companies are on their way to returning to pre-pandemic levels. According to Oracle’s top marketing trends report, 64% of companies planned to increase their budgets in 2022.
The same study shows companies are spending 8.5% of their marketing budgets on SEO, topping the list of “unpaid channels”.
Gartner’s insights are largely backed up by The Marketing Budgets Report 2022 from StrategiQ, which finds companies spending 10% of total revenue on marketing in 2022. It also finds companies are spending 10.5% of their marketing budgets on SEO, up from Gartner’s 8.5%.
StrategiQ’s report found that small companies dedicate a greater percentage of revenue to marketing.
StrategiciQ includes fewer channels in its report than Gartner. This is an important point because the fewer channels you spread your marketing across, the greater percentage you’ll spend on SEO. So, if you’re not spending any marketing budget on live events, digital audio advertising, or other channels, you could spend far more than 10.5% of your marketing spend on SEO.
What does your SEO budget get spent on?
When you’re setting an SEO budget, it’s important to understand how your spend will be spread across key activities:
Analytics: The insights that inform every part of your SEO strategy and reveal your biggest opportunities.
Content production: Every piece of content you create and optimize to rank in search engines.
On-page SEO: Optimizing your web pages and content to maximize search visibility.
Off-page SEO: Optimizing off-page signals with link building, content placements (eg: guest blogging), reviews and other factors outside of your website.
Technical SEO: Optimizing and maintaining the technical performance of your website (loading times, link profiles, URLs, etc).
SEO tech stack: The tools you use at every stage of your SEO strategy: analytics, competitive research, content planning, content production, etc.
Agency/consultancy fees: SEO services you require from agencies or consultants.
Outsourcing: Tasks you outsource to freelancers or external talent, such as content creation, copywriting, web design, etc.
That Oracle report found something else: 82% of companies were planning to change their marketing tech stack in 2022.
In today’s data-driven marketing environment, this is one of the most important aspects of your SEO budget. With the right tech stack, you can drastically increase the ROI of your SEO spend by improving the quality of insights, automating tasks and seizing opportunities before your competitors.
If you don’t have the budget or resources to build a competitive SEO tech stack, it’s worth looking at agencies that have already developed their own. By partnering with the right agency, you can tap into class-leading SEO technology at a fraction of the price.
As a rule, we advise smaller companies that it’s difficult to gain meaningful SEO traction for anything less than £800/month (about $1000). This doesn’t stretch too far when you consider all of the expenses we looked at in the previous section (analytics, content production, SEO tools, etc.).
Obviously, larger companies should expect to spend significantly more but it’s not simply a question of spending more for better results.
Spending wisely is just as important as setting the right budget. Every business can maximize ROI with a high-impact SEO strategy using data science to identify and prioritize opportunities.
If you want to increase your visibility online, we can run a free analysis of your current SEO status and provide a quote. Click here for more information.
Lock the doors and call the non-denominational pastor because it’s time for an intervention!
You know how it is when you see a friend or a love one “experimenting” with things that may be a danger to themselves or others? Things like heroin, Ezra Miller fandom, or JavaScript? It’s a shame. It’s heartbreaking. And you just wanna shake some sense into them!
But thanks to the government you can’t shake sense into anyone anymore without being prosecuted for “assault.” Whatever that is. Pff. So stupid.
So, who needs the intervention this time? It’s worth asking because of how the one with Darren went. The Macalope gets it. We’re not locking ourselves in an Extended Stay America again with Darren. He didn’t say the line but the line “I’m not locked in here with you, you’re locked in here with me” would have been 100 percent appropriate.
Fortunately, this time it’s not Darren. Unfortunately it’s Apple.
Now, you’re probably saying to yourself, “But, Macalope, what could Apple be doing that warrants an intervention? Other than the System Setting app in Ventura. It’s just natural to be experimenting with Catalyst. Surely the company couldn’t be experimenting with anything dangerous.”
Wrong!
It is amazing how often these made up assumptions from pretend readers are wrong. Will you ever get anything right, made-up reader?
IDG
After years of telling us how much the company cares about our privacy and how it’s in the business of selling great user experiences, the dangerous thing Apple is experimenting with is… advertising.
Apple has made great hay (and the Macalope knows great hay) by insisting that the user experience and privacy are more important than selling ads. Critics–critics who mostly tend to be neck-deep in the advertising business, which the Macalope imagines is like being neck-deep in a swimming pool full of ticks–contend that after Apple has destroyed Google and Facebook’s bread and butter, it will set itself up as the one place to go where you can still get targeted ads.
Of course ad people think all anyone else wants to do is sell ads too. Is that really what Apple wants to do with its life? Haha! Of course…. not?
Buuut, we should probably lock the company in a suite in a Hampton Inn outside Newark for a week and just make sure it isn’t!
Apple, here’s the thing: the Macalope has taken great personal glee at the way you’ve been sticking it to Facebook because, well, it’s Facebook. He’s also made the argument many, many times that product reviews should include privacy as a factor when recommending smartphones. He’s also heavily implied that there’s something inherently skeevy about ads, advertising, Facebook executives, Facebook employees and the relatives of said employees, including several infants.
So, if you’re going to just turn around and set yourself up as the world’s biggest advertising company after all the above it’s going to get super awkward and…
This is not LinkedIn influencer drivel. Holding out for the perfect candidate is a terrible idea.
You are not a perfect boss, and you don’t run a perfect company.
It may be your baby, and you would like to think it’s perfect (just as all parents believe their babies are the most beautiful baby ever), but the reality is, your company is just average. There are good things and bad things. Maybe it’s slightly above average, maybe slightly below. But the chances of your company being in the top 10 percent of companies to work for are pretty slim.
And yet, when you hire, do you look for the perfect person? The person who checks all the boxes? After all, you want only the most qualified people working for you. And, as such, are you struggling to fill your positions? (If you’re not, then feel free to disregard the rest.)
What if you chilled out a little and started looking at people who don’t check all the boxes?
Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of colour are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Tegus we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.
What would happen if you followed Tegus’s example? Think about these things:
Lots of skills are similar. If you can program in one language, it’s easier to learn a second programming language. Look for similarities, not a perfect match.
You still have to train. Managers want to hire people who can “hit the ground running,” but those people don’t generally exist. You have to train everyone. So, don’t worry about the stress of having to train someone on a task. You’d have to train them in your systems, policies, and practices anyway.
There are more critical things than hard skills. You can teach hard skills. There are training classes for just about everything. But does the person have the drive? Are they interested in your industry? Do they have the soft skills that they need for this job? (Not every job requires the same soft skills.)
You get more candidates. Considering people without 100 percent of the skills broadens your talent pool. If you’re really set on finding the right person, getting more applicants can only help with that.
When you reject people who aren’t perfect, you have such a small talent pool of perfect people that they wouldn’t want to work for your imperfect company anyway. Go ahead and branch out, and it will benefit your business.
A developer and privacy advocate has created a demo app that beeps every time your computer sends any data to Google. Spoiler alert — it’s a very noisy app.
On the internet today, larger tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon can sometimes feel like inescapable presences. Google, in particular, tracks the way you use its search engine and other apps in order to offer a better experience throughout its ecosystem.
But the things Google keeps track of can actually extend far further than you might expect, given the prevalence of Google Analytics and Google’s ad networks. In an effort to better understand what kinds of data is sent to Google, where it happens, and when it occurs, developer Bert Hubert — best known as the original creator of PowerDNS — created a new app called “Googerteller.”
Googerteller works using the list of IP addresses — freely provided by Google — that are associated with the many Google services, but not those related to Google Cloud. Any time your computer connects to one of those IP addresses, whether while using a program or when browsing the web, you’ll hear a beep sound.
In Hubert’s initial demo video, you’ll notice that there’s a beep after every keystroke into Chrome’s address bar, as the browser sends requests for autocomplete suggestions. While browsing the Dutch government’s careers website, nearly every click on the page, including expanding and collapsing menus, connects to Google, resulting in a beep. It’s likely these beeps are caused by what the site’s owners have decided to track via Google Analytics.
While there’s an argument to be made that some of these connections to Google could be caused by Chrome’s tight integration with Google services, Hubert showed nearly identical results while using Firefox.
Unfortunately, Googerteller is currently only designed to work on Linux-based operating systems (Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora, etc), but those who aren’t afraid to play around can install it for free. Some have even shared clever ways of running it on a Mac or developed cross-platform versions.
All in all, this app is simply meant to raise awareness (noisy, beeping awareness) of how often Google receives data related to your everyday browsing routines. What you choose to do with that information is up to you.
Regardless of the business model, forecasting is extremely important for businesses as it creates some insurance for future business outcomes.
In today’s world, businesses have a wealth of data at their fingertips. However, data will be of no use to a business if it is not utilized to gain insights and make informed decisions to enhance business operations. Business intelligence, or BI, helps businesses achieve this goal. BI is a technology-driven way of analysing information and delivering actionable insights that can help managers, executives and end users gain detailed insights that aid them in making decisions. It helps people to assist in making decisions on what they can do for getting insights.
While traditional BI tools primarily monitor historical data and current data, predictive analytics utilizes data, statistical algorithms, data mining methodologies, analytical techniques and machine learning algorithms to determine the likely outcomes based on historical data to provide insights into the future. In addition to being able to determine what has happened in the past and why it happened, predictive analytics also helps you understand what could happen in the future. By identifying opportunities, they allow businesses to be proactive and agile.
For businesses, predictive analysis is crucial. Digital transformations and increased competition have made companies more competitive than ever before. Using predictive analysis is like having a strategic vision of the future, mapping out the opportunities and threats. Therefore, companies should look for predictive models that:
identify potential opportunities
plan and optimize marketing strategies
map consumer behaviour
enhance efficiency and improve operations
identify and reduce risks
Any industry can use predictive analytics to forecast sales, detect risks, and improve sales operations. Predictive analytics can also be used to detect fraud, evaluate credit risk or find new investment opportunities in a financial institution. Using predictive analytics, manufacturers can identify factors that result in quality reduction, production failures, and distribution risks.
With predictive analytics, sales forecasting can create real value for businesses. Many other business decisions are influenced by accurate sales forecasts. However, sales forecasting is still a time-consuming activity for sales professionals who often rely on Excel spreadsheets and other tools that do not provide sufficient analytics and insights to make accurate sales forecasts. As a result of advanced predictive analytics, sales professionals can automate rolling forecasts and have more transparency and smarter decision support.
Predictive Analytics: How Does It Work?
Using an ensemble of machine learning algorithms, AI-based forecasting optimizes forecasts. Depending on which business metric you’re forecasting, the system selects a model that’s uniquely suitable. The process consists of a series of steps:
Determine the purpose of the forecast.
Identify the items for the forecast.
Choose a forecast model type.
Obtain and analyse the data needed for the model.
Make the forecast.
Analyse, verify, and implement the results.
Regardless of the business model, forecasting is extremely important for businesses as it creates some insurance for future business outcomes. In addition to detecting and mitigating potential issues in advance, it helps organizations make informed decisions and set budgets and business goals. AI helps businesses oversee all these aspects with increased accuracy in the forecasting process.
Chris Pavlovski reacts to Twitter whistleblower claiming social media giant ignored cybersecurity issues that put users, shareholders at risk
As more red flags are raised about Twitter’s security and content censorship policies, the CEO of video-sharing platform Rumble is sounding the alarm on the “massive implications” Twitter has created in the social media space.
“When you see the hack that happened last year with Twitter, and accounts getting taken over and what you see with the algorithm and how it amplifies content and de-amplifies content and how they ban users,” Rumble founder and CEO Chris Pavlovski said on “Mornings with Maria” Wednesday, “they have massive implications, massive responsibility.”
“We all hear about users getting banned on these platforms,” Pavlovski continued. “But the more egregious thing that’s happening is the amplification of things that they want you to hear, and the things that they don’t want you to hear.”
Rumble’s CEO further called out the social media giant for claiming to be the public square while “tipping the scales” and putting users’ safety at risk, after Twitter’s former security chief accused executives Tuesday of misleading shareholders and federal regulators about deficiencies in its cybersecurity defence.
“They need to be fair. They can’t be a publisher where they weigh the scales like that,” Pavlovski said. “That’s the whole point of [Section] 230, is that we’re expecting these platforms to treat everybody fairly, whether it’s chronological or whether it’s an algorithm, it’s going to have to be fair. You can’t tilt the scale.”
Rumble founder and CEO Chris Pavlovski says Twitter’s alleged cybersecurity discrepancies causes “massive implications” on the social space and free speech on “Mornings with Maria” Wednesday, August 24, 2022. (Getty Images)
Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, online platforms are provided immunity from civil liability based on objectionable third-party content. But according to Pavlovski, Twitter is acting more like traditional media “publishers,” which are not protected by the legislation.
“I don’t understand why 230, that immunity, is there for them,” Rumble’s CEO said. “Why would that protection be there for a company that acts like a publisher and starts to say, ‘Hey, this needs to be watched more than this? This is what you should see?'”
In an attempt to rise as a competitor against Big Tech’s strength, money and power, Pavlovski also detailed a $400 million initiative called Rumble Advertising. According to the CEO, who’s worked in the digital space for more than 20 years, the company’s looking to take on Google Ads.
“I’ve watched Google kind of own that space,” Pavlovski explained, “and you don’t really have an option. You’re stuck, like, having them broker all the ads. And it’s really exciting to be able to offer a choice now to companies and also to publishers.”
After Truth Social announced Tuesday it’ll be using Rumble’s advertising services, Pavolvski remained optimistic that a free speech ecosystem is emerging in the social media industry.
“It’s the fundamental aspect of a democracy, is being able to hear both sides of the story, make up your own opinion,” Rumble’s CEO said. “We’re all adults. We should be able to hear all sides of the story, whether we agree with it or whether we disagree with it.”
If you are the founder, owner or CEO of the business you run, you need to think of yourself as the brand. Your marketing thought process needs to include you—not just what you communicate through your business, but all avenues of your personal communication as well.
When you think of Mark Zuckerberg, you probably think of Facebook. Everything Mark does will be a reflection on his company. Elon Musk has been in the headlines with his on-and-off-again saga of purchasing Twitter. With each move in the press, you can watch the value of Tesla fluctuate.
But it’s not just the founders. Just read the headlines of how the CEO of Disney, Bob Chapek, handled a law that was proposed and later passed in Florida. At first he didn’t weigh in, then wrote a memo explaining why he didn’t speak up, followed by an apology. After a public exchange with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida voted to repeal the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which could have some implications for Disney, the largest land owner in the district. This would mean that Disney would have to seek approval from the local government for any park expansion, including budget approval.
What does this have to do with branding? Everything. Consumers today care about what company founders and CEOs think, and though your thoughts might be personal, they will affect your business. With this in mind, here are some tips I’d like to share on representing yourself as the brand:
Don’t weigh in on political or hot topic issues.
I realize this is not a popular opinion in today’s environment. As I mentioned, customers want to know what you think. But what is the real benefit to adding your thoughts on a hot topic issue? Nothing. The 24/7 news cycle moves on quickly to the next story, but if you insert yourself into that cycle, you might find that it lasts longer and could damage your company’s brand.
There are some issues you might feel compelled to speak up about, and if you feel enough conviction about it, you should have that freedom. Just know you run the risk of alienating 50% of your customer base.
Your personal social media is an extension of your company’s brand.
You may have all your personal social media accounts marked as private, but nothing is private online. All it takes is one follower or friend to take a screenshot and share it on the public interwebs to cause damage.
You cannot think of your personal social media as something separate from your public accounts or your company’s accounts. Employees might get away with messages like, “my opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employers,” or “retweets do not equal an endorsement.” But you are the leader of the company. You set the tone.
As a side note, employees have gotten fired for personal social media posts, so even if you are not the owner or CEO of the company, you might want to think long and hard before you tweet out a controversial statement.
This doesn’t mean you can never post personal content online. In fact, your customers like to know you have a personal side. Some of the biggest engagements I read on LinkedIn are from personal stories, when leaders share a photo of their family with a caption that reads something like, “this is why I work hard.”
Embrace your role and be the face of your company.
Don’t be afraid to be out front promoting your company. People do business with people; show them you are an expert in your field.
This all gets down to content marketing. Hire a good public relations company to get you on TV and radio shows, podcasts, and interviews in trade publications. The interviews can be shared online, giving you third-party validation. You are not bragging about your accomplishments or your company; you are simply answering questions. Create content of value on your social media pages. This includes videos, blogs and resharing other leaders’ content that fits your brand.
Pay attention to the details. Take the time to update your social media profiles to make sure they reflect who you are today and the branding of your company. When was the last time you updated your Twitter profile or the information on your LinkedIn work history? All that information is searchable and helpful for your branding.
Often as leaders, we want to separate our personal life from our work life. And there are ways you can unplug with family and friends. Just know that place is not online. Everything you post online will be held against your company in the court of public opinion.
CEO of Centerpost Media and host of “Create. Build. Manage.” Centerpost is a content marketing agency that owns BizTV and BizTalkRadio. Read Scott Miller’s full executive profile here
The mind palace is an ancient Greco-Roman technique that can help you improve your memory. Here’s how to use it.
Imagine you’re at the airport and you bump into a client you’ve done business with in the past. He offers a warm smile and greets you by name, but you freeze like a deer in the headlights.
Is it Brian? Ryan? He’s from Seattle, right? No, but it’s somewhere on the west coast….
Has this ever happened to you? Does it seem like others are blessed with amazing memory skills while you’re always scrambling to recall basic facts?
The truth is that superior memory skills aren’t necessarily associated with superior cognitive ability or brain anatomy. Just like lifting weights helps you build muscle, mnemonic strategies help to train your brain and improve your memory.
Best of all, anyone can use them. Once you understand these techniques, you can easily memorize names, numbers, lectures, or any other facts you need to recall.
The most popular technique to improve memory is the method of loci, also known as the mind palace (or memory palace). This ancient Greco-Roman technique can help you improve your memory in ways you never thought possible.
How the mind palace works
Greek and Roman orators memorized lengthy speeches by building structures (such as a palace) inside their imagination. They would then strategically place each word or idea they needed to remember in a specific location inside their mind palace. They could then later mentally retrace their steps and recall the details when they needed them.
This is more than good TV; researchers have shown how effective the mind palace can really be.
A 2017 study had participants (with no mnemonic training) attempt to memorize 72 random words. They were then assigned to six weeks of training using the method of loci and retested after four months. Amazingly, the average participant could recall 62 of the 72 words, even months later.
Using MRI scans, researchers could see that mnemonic training elicited changes within the brain’s network. They also saw discernible differences in connectivity patterns that weren’t present in participants without training.
Harness the power of the mind palace
So, how can you train your brain and improve your memory using this ancient technique? The key lies in visualizing each point (and each piece of information you need to remember) along a specific route.
Let’s go back to our opening example and that client you bumped into at the airport. During your first business meeting, you learned his name is Ryan Smith. His office is in Portland, Oregon, but he’s originally from Dallas. Oh, yeah — he’s an avid golf enthusiast, too.
How can you remember all these details so you’re better prepared the next time you meet him?
Start by visualizing a structure or another specific location you’re familiar with. This could be your childhood home, your office at work, or even the streets in your neighborhood. Whatever setting you choose, don’t forget the most important part — you need to be able to visualize smaller components of the structure. This might include drawers in the kitchen, chairs in the office, or cul-de-sacs off the main street.
Now, close your eyes and mentally step inside your mind palace. For this example, we’ll use your office.
The first thing you need to remember is your client’s name. You might picture your favorite actor, Ryan Reynolds, sitting in the waiting room of your office beside another actor you like, Will Smith. (“Ryan” and “Smith” — get it?)
Ryan’s cracking jokes about his favorite TV show, Portlandia, reminding you that your client’s business is in Oregon. Meanwhile, Will Smith is wearing a tan cowboy hat, making it easy to recall that he’s from Dallas.
Now, take a few steps further into your mind palace. In the corner next to the water cooler, you see that there’s a set of golf clubs leaning against the wall. You might even picture the two actors playing a round of mini golf down the hallway leading to your office.
The point is this: The more crazy, silly, or bizarre the mental image, the harder it will be to forget. All you need to make this technique work for you is a recognizable location and a vivid image that sparks your imagination.
As science journalist Joshua Foer explains, the more deeply engaged you are with a piece of information, the more likely you are to remember it. The vibrant imagery that comes with the mind palace technique gives context to those pesky names, numbers, and other details that are easy to forget. And, as many scientific studies have found, it really works.
In fact, maybe that’s why Ryan Smith was able to remember your name. Maybe he’s already practiced this technique and is using it to his advantage.
But don’t worry, with a little bit of practice, you too can use the ancient method of loci to train your brain and drastically improve your memory. And while you may not be solving complex cases like Sherlock, you will be able to remember those important details that give you and your business a special edge.
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner never thought her family would be living on a boat. She just wanted to pay off her $40,000 in student loan debt.
“I was living paycheck to paycheck,” says Schroeder-Gardner, whose first salary out of college was $40,000/year, despite having an MBA in finance. “I was searching for ways to pay my student loan debt and make more money.”
The financial analyst stumbled across an online magazine that featured personal finance blogs, including stories about the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement, in which people aspire to become financially independent earlier in life. FIRE culture celebrates cutting expenses and seeking out additional sources of income to design the lifestyle you want, which may include flexible or uncommon living arrangements in order to see the world.
“I read the stories of regular people creating financial independence and thought, ‘If other people could do it, why couldn’t I?’” she says. Over the next eight years, Schroeder-Gardner cut living expenses and increased her income through side hustles. One of those strategies was to start a finance blog called Making Sense of Cents, which she established in 2012.
The bootstrapped website helped her pay off her student loans and go on to achieve financial independence at 30 while she and her husband travelled the world in an RV, and, later, a 42-foot sailboat. Her blog now generates $760,000 annually in passive income, and the couple live on the water nine months out of the year.
The finance blogger has advice for anyone who wants to reel in expenses, make money online, and pursue financial independence.
Get Inspired, Then Take Action
Although Schroeder-Gardner liked her analyst job, the salary was barely enough to cover the mortgage on a home she had purchased in 2009 (with her then-boyfriend), their car, her student loans, and everyday living expenses. Schroeder-Gardner spent evenings searching online for ways to pay off her debt and increase her income.
“I started diving into the personal finance community,” says Schroeder-Gardner. “I decided to start my blog so that I could talk about how I wanted to stop living paycheck to paycheck and pay off my student loans.” The struggling analyst liked what she saw with blogging, so she decided to start one of her own to chronicle her financial journey. She started a blog called Making Sense of Cents to document her journey toward financial independence.
Schroeder-Gardner spent six months commenting on other personal finance blogs to bring attention to her knowledge of finance. She wrote guest articles for blogs with a larger audience, with a link to her blog in her bio. She also became active on Pinterest to make more people aware of her blog, and used strategies like display ads and affiliate links to create passive income.
“At this point, I wasn’t planning on turning Making Sense of Cents into a full-time income or anything like that, but I thought it could be a pretty good extra income or side hustle,” she says.
Schroeder-Gardner’s efforts helped her establish a reputation online. Her blog grew to 50,000 monthly readers in less than a year, and created several opportunities to generate additional income.
Test Lots of Side Hustle Ideas
Schroeder-Gardner knew she was onto something when she landed an opportunity to make $100 by reviewing a financial company in a sponsored post on her blog.
“Back then, $100 was a mind-blowing amount of money,” she says. “I had no idea blogs could even make money like this, and I loved my blog, so $100 was super amazing.”
The blogger also found ways to increase her income through other side hustles. She took on work as a freelance writer for various websites, and managed the social media accounts of five other bloggers. Outside of blogging, she found items at garage sales and items from around her house that she could sell on eBay. Her eBay side hustle brought in an extra $5,000 in 2012. She took on work as a contract mystery shopper, making $200 a month. She and her boyfriend even rented out the spare rooms in their home; they charged $400/month per room, and had four roommates from 2009 to 2013.
Schroeder-Gardner says she spent 40 to 50 hours per week growing her side hustles while working 40+ hours at her valuation job. She would often work 100-hour weeks.
Pay Off Debt and Invest Spare Income
Between the blog, the side hustles, having roommates, and her day job, Schroeder-Gardner’s brought in $12,000—$13,000 a month in income throughout the second half of 2012 and the first half of 2013. She used this extra income to pay off her $40,000 in student loan debt fully, and decided to quit her job in October of 2013.
“I quit when I was making more money in my business and side hustles than I was making at my job,” she says. “I felt pretty secure because I knew I was making a good monthly income, but I also had just paid off my student loans, so I didn’t have that huge monthly debt hanging over my head anymore, which helped me feel more comfortable.” Schroeder-Gardner and her then-boyfriend Wes (now her husband) celebrated with dinner, but the more significant celebration was that he was also quitting his job to help build Making Sense of Cents.
Most of the revenue from the blog at that time came from affiliate marketing and display advertising. Schroeder-Gardner was paid when links on the blog and social media posts sent visitors and/or sales to partner brands. With over 50,000 readers visiting the blog every month, the clicks added up. She also continued freelance writing and social media management. Altogether, the top-line business revenue in 2013 was $116,519.
With extra income in the picture, Schroeder-Gardner was able to invest. The blogger says she chose to prioritize investing in low-cost, low-risk index funds such as Vanguard’s Total Stock Market Index (VTSAX), Vanguard’s Total International Stock Fund (VTIAX), and Vanguard’s Total Bond Index Fund (VBTLX).
Pro Tip
Look for ways to cut back on your budget or make more money to widen the gap of excess income. That might include lowering your housing costs, house hacking, cutting back on monthly food costs, and/or finding ways to make passive income.
Embrace Location Independence
Michelle and Wes had often talked about how much they wanted to travel. Since their income sources were now entirely online, the couple decided to put their house on the market and explore digital nomadism, a work lifestyle that allows you to see the world while still generating an income.
“We wanted to fully immerse ourselves in the full-time travel lifestyle,” she says. “We didn’t feel super tied to our house, we [had] owned it for about five years, and selling it was another way to save money.”
Wes was interested in RV life after they sold the home, but Michelle wanted comfort. They compromised, bought a Class B-plus RV for $70,000 using savings, and used a loan to cover the rest. Building an online business means you need good WiFi, so Schroeder-Gardner ensured they stayed at campgrounds, camped on public land, and had a Verizon hotspot when necessary to run the business remotely. The business continued to grow, and the revenue in 2014 was $163,929 from Making Sense of Cents and freelancing.
Michelle and Wes Schroeder-Gardner on a hiking trip. Once the couple’s income became 100% location independent, they decided to sell their house and purchase a camper van, which they lived in for three years while traveling around the country.
The couple eventually found their rhythm, and 2015 was a good year, with business revenue being $320,888. Schroeder-Gardner turned in a notice to all her freelancing clients and stopped offering client services altogether. She went all-in on the blog as the way the couple made money.
Diversify Your Income Streams
Schroeder-Gardner knew it would be wise to diversify the business’ revenue, so she got into selling information products. She created her first online course in 2016. Online courses are notorious for being high profit with low effort, but they require proven expertise to fly.
With her firsthand knowledge of blogging, advertising, and affiliate marketing, she launched a course called Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. She charged $197 for the course. The course launch was a huge success, and business revenue more than tripled to $979,321 in 2016.
Schroeder-Gardner cemented her monetization strategy, and used 2017 to focus on building her audience. She did 100 podcast interviews, grew her Facebook page to 80,000 followers, built her email list to 70,000 subscribers, and grew blog traffic to an average of 500,000 visitors a month. Business revenue in 2017 was $1,536,732 — Schroeder-Gardner’s first million-dollar year.
“2017 was a huge year for me and my business,” she says. “Not only that, but I also traveled full-time and went on many hikes and bike rides. It was a great year where I finally started to manage a good work-life balance.”
From Campervan To Catamaran
Michelle and Wes did RV life for about three years. In 2018, one of Wes’ friends, who had a sailboat delivery company, invited him along to sail from France to Croatia — about 3000 nautical miles. Wes was hooked after taking the trip, and the couple decided to trade an RV for sailboat life. They did a lot of research, bought a 42-foot sailing Catamaran, and vowed to continue building the business from the sea.
“We wanted to try something new,” says Schroeder-Gardner. “We had done RV life for about three and a half years, and we thought a life of sailing sounded fun.”
Even though the couple didn’t start their financial independence journey with a traditional FIRE number, they achieved their goal of financial independence in 2018. The pair had enough cash, investments, and passive income to where work was now optional, and could retire early.
Michelle and Wes have done sailboat life since 2018, sailing to Exumas, Eleuthera, Berry Islands, Puerta Plata, Dominican Republic, Palmas Del Mar, Puerto Rico, Key West, Florida, and Annapolis, Maryland. In 2021, they bought a cabin in Colorado to spend three months on land during Hurricane season, as they now travel with their seven-month old baby. They still live on their sailboat (with their baby) nine months out of the year.
Prioritize Your Boundaries
Up until 2019, Schroeder-Gardner had published income reports, sharing the financials behind her journey and the lessons learned along the way. One thing she did not expect was the extra attention and requests for money sharing her income would bring.
People saw how much money Making Sense of Cents was making and would ask for money frequently. Michelle and Wes also had a scary incident in which someone tracked them down at an RV park and confronted them, asking for money. After that, Schroeder-Gardner decided to stop sharing the specifics of what she was making. She also prioritized optimizing the business to where she could work less.
“I spend ten hours a week working,” she says. “I write posts, make Pinterest graphics, and evaluate affiliate and sponsorship offers. I publish one blog post a week, and my team consists of an editor and my sister as my virtual assistant.” Schroeder-Gardner says her part-time employees each work about ten hours a month, which is mostly spent editing articles, doing social media marketing, monitoring Facebook groups, and providing admin support.
When it comes to Making Sense Of Cents’ income streams, affiliate marketing commissions are 50% of the revenue, 20% comes from course sales, 5% comes from display advertising, and 25% comes from sponsorships. The Schroeder-Gardners’ online income streams have made millions, and they now own a paid-off sailboat valued at $750,000, a paid-off campervan valued at $150,000, and a cabin valued at one million dollars.
Once the couple found their stride online, they focused on generating the same amount of income in fewer hours or work per week to maximize boat life. The couple spend three months out of the year on land to avoid being on the water during hurricane season.
Schroeder-Gardner’s Advice to Achieve FIRE
The successful blogger says that, when it comes to FIRE and pursuing financial freedom, it’s important to get clear on your why.
“What’s your reasoning, and what do you envision yourself doing once you reach FIRE?” she says. “Then, figure out how much money you’ll need to get there. See how you can cut back on your budget or make more money. That might include lowering your housing costs, house hacking, cutting back on your monthly food costs, and finding ways to make passive income. You can do this with a plan, hard work, and being consistent.”
Design the lifestyle you want, even if it means continuing to work. You might end up loving it so much you don’t want to retire; that’s the plan for the Schroeder-Gardner family.
“I plan to continue what I’m doing.”
Feature Image Credit: Michelle Schroeder-Gardner and her husband on their 42-foot catamaran. The former financial analyst’s blog, which she started to help pay off her $40,000 in student loans, now generates over $60,000/month in passive income.
The explosive allegations made by former Twitter head of security-turned-whistleblower Peiter Zatko against the microblogging giant could not have come at a better time for Elon Musk, who is currently mired in a legal battle with the company after he agreed to buy out the social media platform and then backed out of the deal.
According to an 83-page confidential disclosure sent to the US Congress and federal agencies last month — accessed by CNN, Time, and The Washington Post — Zatko said he began asking about the prevalence of bot accounts on the platform in early 2021 and was told by Twitter’s head of site integrity that the company was not sure of the number of total bots on its platform.
He alleges that he came away from conversations with the integrity team with the understanding that the company “had no appetite to properly measure the prevalence of bots,” partly because if the actual number became public, it could harm the company’s value and reputation.
Musk, while backing out of the deal, had cited the “inaccurate number of bots” being disclosed to him as the deal breaker.
While the initial agreement did not mention any bot-related exemptions, Musk claims that the number of bots on any given platform could affect the user experience, and hence could bring down Twitter’s value in the longer run. After Musk stepped back from the deal, Twitter was quick to take the legal route by suing the billionaire, alleging that Musk is using bots as a pretext to get out of the deal, which he now regrets making following the recent market downturn, asking a court to force the deal on him. The case is set to go to trial in October.
Figures like the number of users on a platform are crucial to businesses that have most of their revenue come from advertising, and ad revenue depends on how many people can potentially see an ad. These figures are heavily unreliable throughout the industry due to manipulation and error.
According to the report by CNN, Twitter uses a measurement it calls monetizable daily active users (mDAUs) to report its user numbers to investors and advertisers. Other platforms simply count and report all their active users, a practice Twitter followed until 2019, Zatko alleged, after which it switched to mDAUs as its numbers took major hits following takedowns of major bot networks. With mDAUs, Twitter counts all users that could be shown an advertisement on Twitter — leaving all accounts that for some reason can’t (for instance because they’re known to be bots) in a separate bracket, as per Zatko.
Twitter has stood by the fact that less than five percent of its mDAUs are either fake or spam accounts. But Zatko’s disclosure argues that by reporting bots only as a percentage of mDAUs, instead of taking it as a percentage of the total number of accounts on the platform, Twitter makes the true scale of fake and spam accounts on the service very unclear, which Zatko alleges is deliberately misleading, as per the CNN report.
Zatko’s allegations could back up Musk’s central claim that the number of bots is much higher than Twitter claims.
As per CNN, by going public, Zatko says he believes he is doing the job he was hired to do. “Jack Dorsey reached out and asked me to come and perform a critical task at Twitter. I signed on to do it and believe I’m still performing that mission,” he was quoted in the CNN report.
