Our Business Plan
In order to succeed a business needs to be organized. Our humble website is no different. You may be interested in learning about how I first launched this website and what I am planning for the future. Here are some of my preparations so please take a gander at our business plan if you are curious.
Executive Summary of my Business Plan
We are a personal finance website containing in-depth articles and blog posts about the topic of money. Our site is particularly focused on remote work that can be done online or from home.
However, we also branch out into other areas of finance such as money saving tips/deals and business advice. We are a free resource for people who want learn and ask questions about online work, discounts and the world of business.
Business Description
The idea of remote work has become a lot more popular in recent years for several different reasons. As a business person, I saw this as a great opportunity to create both a website and an educational tool. We could then help people learn how to make money remotely.
I will also sometimes add a dash of levity and humour to my writing in order to not make the content too tedious for the reader. We aim for each article to read sort of like it is a short academic course on a certain subject with interesting elements weaved in.
Products & Services
Our products are the articles and blog posts that we write. However, I also work as a freelance writer so I can offer this service on the site to anyone who wants to hire me for a freelance job.
Problems & Solutions
People generally seem to struggle quite a lot in regard to their personal finances. It’s often true whether this be:
These individuals often have few places to turn to when it comes finding affordable help. To combat this, we have tried our best to provide educational articles and information.
We offer this to our community and any newcomers who want to join. This financial help has and will hopefully continue to give support to those who need it.
Target Audience
Many internet users are interested in learning how they can make money online. This is true for those hoping to launch a start-up business or people simply wishing to find ways to earn a little extra money on the side in their spare time.
Globally, we aim to target any internet users who want to save or make money, on or offline. In this business plan, our typical customer can be any:
- age
- gender
- nationality
- occupation
- personality type
- race/ethnicity
- family life
- sexual orientation
- relationship status
- political views
- level of education
The website operates worldwide so we are not being held down by a single country. However, some of our content is centred towards a UK audience so we often focus on British visitors more than any other nation.
Young people tend to be more tech savvy and use the internet more than other age groups. For this reason, we mainly cater to people who are on the younger side. We also have ambitious and driven wannabe entrepreneurs in mind while writing.
Goals & Objectives
I started this business because I wanted to help teach people how to make money on the internet. Eventually, I want to transform this website into a business that can provide me and my family with a full time income. As an added bonus, I’ve found that I’ve also learned a lot about personal finance myself.
Money aside, my website is very rewarding as I feel like I am helping and teaching people who choose to visit. It has provided me with a simple way to communicate and have my voice heard all around the world. It’s great being able to interact with people who comment on my articles and help them out in any way I can.
A consistent goal of mine within this business plan is to always try to find ways in which I can be more productive. I am ultimately looking to be always improving my own work ethic.
Currently, my home page isn’t terrible. Although, it does look a bit dated when compared to competitor websites. For this reason, I would like to do a proper top-down redesign of the whole site along with a new web theme.
I would love to improve on my current earnings in the future. Hopefully, we can strive to make over £100,000 per year as many other successful personal finance websites have achieved.
Funding
For the most part, this website is very much self funded. I have used my own savings and also money earned from doing part time/freelance work in order to pay for the majority of business expenses.
I plan to monetize the site as much as possible. We can then use those earnings to keep the business going (hopefully profiting). The two main uses of funding are for both web hosting and domain name renewal through Name Cheap.
If we were to get additional funds, we would like to use some of that money to go towards advertising and maybe some stationary from Office Depot. We would also like to hire staff to deal with:
- writing
- marketing
- admin work
Competitor Analysis
There are quite a lot of personal finance websites and blogs out there. We have found that some of our most successful rivals have either invested lots of hours into their business or have simply been active longer (launching earlier) than us.
On top of this, many of these websites are able to hire large teams of staff. Whereas, I don’t do this (albeit taking on the occasional freelancer or guest contributor). Admittedly, there are newer blogs that are doing better than us, financially speaking.
We believe that we can forge a competitive advantage by focusing on honesty and quality above all else. We we are willing to offer lengthy and detailed information that will help visitors reach all of their financial goals.
Marketing Strategies
Most of our audience comes from search engines like Google. Furthermore, we ensure to make all our content keyword friendly in order to help this along.
Additionally, our website has multiple social media accounts. We post status updates every time we publish new articles as a way of bringing in web traffic from these platforms.
On every one of our web pages, we have sharing buttons so that visitors can spread content on social media platforms. Over time, we have found that other blogs and websites have naturally linked to pages on our website which gives us some more needed exposure.
Speaking of link building, I’ve found a couple more ways of doing this. These methods include leaving comments on rival web pages and also participating in guest blogging.
Commenting on another blogger’s article is a decent idea. You are often allowed to provide a link going to your website along with your comment. This way some of the traffic from this website is directed to ours.
I have personally contacted other bloggers via email in an effort to seal a guest blogging agreement. My email correspondences (including times when they have come to me) have actually helped us network with other website owners. From here, we can establish ongoing relationships for mutual benefit.
On each article published, we make sure to include plenty of internal links to other pages on the website. This helps ensure that our visitors stay on the site for as long as possible by clicking on other links of interest.
Having a ‘call-to-action’ in the conclusion part of our articles has also aided in this too. In the future, we hope to explore email marketing using a service like AWeber as another way of promoting the business.
Revenue Streams
We plan to monetize the website using several different methods. We currently only monetize through affiliate marketing, advertising (via banner ads or text links) and by promoting my freelance services. Furthermore, we have also thought about other monetization options such as:
- donation buttons
- creating online courses
- premium content/subscriptions
- sponsorship deals
- selling a ebook or merchandise through an online shop
Challenges
Our biggest problem is the less than desirable of web traffic we are receiving. In my research, I have found that one typically needs a lot more page views each month (than my current amount) in order to make the big bucks with a blog or website.
Apart from occasional help, it’s been tough handling the duties and responsibilities of running a website by myself. Not only do I write content, I’m also in charge of:
- editing
- monetization
- web design
- handling emails and comments
- administration
- promotion
- marketing
One big problem I have had is finding a balance between article quality and at the same time consistently publishing new content on a regular basis. I would love to be a perfectionist and make every post 100%.
At the same time, I know I have a schedule to stick to so I can’t waste time either. For the time being, I’ve had to find a compromise that tries to satisfy both myself and my readers.
At one point, I experimented with a forum/message board feature but it ended up being kind of a disaster. After a short time, the discussion board was being swamped with spam so I had to abandon the idea and take it down altogether. User generated content would have been a nice bonus but it wasn’t to be.
Monetization methods like affiliate marketing have been interesting. This mostly relies on my visitors making a purchase in order for the site to collect a commission.
However, my target audience is people who primarily want to make money rather than spend. It can be tricky to find the right product or service to promote in this case.
I have found it best to advertise products that a business would typically need to buy. I also promote educational items like books as people often need to learn new skills in order to make money in business.
Promoting the website on social media platforms has been pretty tough. There are a lot of businesses trying to get noticed on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. This makes it hard to get heard over all the noise.
I find it very challenging to make money with my website. Progress has been very gradual from where I started to where I am now. The biggest challenge for me has been trying to convince more people to visit my website. I find the right traffic in a large quantity is the key to making money.
The lion’s share of my web traffic is organic (through search engines). This has meant having to get to grips with Google and be able to understand what the algorithm likes and doesn’t like.
Progress & Milestones
There are a couple of posts I wrote that have really helped me make a name for myself. More specifically, these pieces revolve around captcha entry work and telephone call reviewing jobs.
In fact, these two articles were so popular that they both managed to rank on the first page of Google for a few different search terms. The exposure from this has helped make the rest of my website more well-known too. As things stand, we have a 8.8 out of 10 rating on the nibblr website tester.
As you can see, it’s vital to focus on all aspects of your company in your business plan. This can range from getting on with your day-to-day business operations to figuring out how you are going to shine a spotlight on your products and services.
As a entrepreneur, do you have a business plan and what does it contain? Why do you personally think it is important to write a business plan? Please don’t forget to share this with your friends and like it on social media. You can subscribe to our newsletter and comment below too. Thanks for reading!
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