How Yvette grew her side hustle website into an automated income stream and a surprising cash bonus – detailed step-by-step
Imagine having the digital skills that lets you take an idea, build a website for it, then turn it into $300 per month in automated income (with some months hitting $1,200 a month).
And doing that in a niche you know nothing about and then selling your side hustle business for $15,000 just 2 years later?
That’s what this amazing mum has achieved and today you’ll hear step-by-step how she did it, including:
- How she came up with the idea and why she chose that idea (even though she knew nothing about the topic)
- How she built the site and what she did to get traffic to her website
- How she optimised and monetised the website to average $300/month (with some months hitting $1,200 a month).
- What the growth trajectory looks like of naturally built small content sites and what you can expect
- Plus, you’ll hear how she was able to sell her website for US $15,000 even though it was only making $300/month.
Click below to hear how Yvette did it so you can too.
Matt: Today’s Digital Investor Podcast is a case study on how to build a small, simple content website from scratch out of just ideas in your head and then sell it for $15,000 when it’s only making $300 a month.
To share this case study, we have a special repeat guest, Yvette, one of our top program graduates whom everyone in our community knows and loves. So, thank you for coming today to share your story.
Yvette retrained in digital skills to create her own online business
She uses different online strategies to generate income and now works from home…
Matt: I should mention Yvette is quite a legend in our community. How many times have you been on our podcast now?
Yvette: Five or six times.
Matt: You’re a mum of four. And you were often on our stage because you worked some crazy hours.
Yvette: Yes, I used to work from before sunrise till after sunset. It was a very physical job at the fruit markets in Sydney.
Matt: You changed your life, retrained in digital skills, and took to it like a duck to water.
But most importantly, if you’re reading this, what’s interesting about Yvette’s journey is that she tried every strategy that we teach here at eBusiness Institute. That includes:
- Building websites from scratch
- Buying and selling online businesses
- The digital agency strategy
She also recently sold one of her fun side hustle websites, so I’ve asked Yvette to come along and share her recent success with our community.
She started a small passion content website in a unique niche – here’s how it went…
Matt: Today, we will look at one of the sites Yvette started from scratch and recently sold for $15,000.
I want to look at how she got the idea for the site, and we’ll treat it as a case study. So, we’ll look at how she got the idea, built the site, created the content, monetised it, and improved it. Then we’ll look at the sale to see what she did to sell it for such a high price.
It’s a fantastic website, so thank you for sharing all the details of this little content site, Yvette. Let’s rock straight into it.
How Yvette came up with the idea for Pickleball Patty
Matt: First of all, I want to talk about how you came up with this idea?! It’s a unique sport and a typical standard content blog you’ve built here.
Yvette: At one of your closed-door Champions bootcamps, we were all attending the event virtually.
I’m sitting there listening to other Champions, who are talking about their different content sites and successes. While I’m watching the conference online, I’m just tapping away at keyword research, which I love doing.
I’ve been 32 years old three times now! 😉 So, I’m getting to the stage where I’m more of a mature age. I enjoy exercising, so I wanted to do something with a senior twist on exercise.
I thought, “Well, I understand what’s happening there.” And in everything I researched about seniors’ tennis or training, the word “pickleball” kept coming up.
At first, I thought it was a joke. I’d never heard of pickleball before. But this niche just kept popping up whenever I searched around seniors. So, I thought, “You know what? I need to see what this thing is; what is pickleball?”
It all started from there, basically from watching other Champions and thinking, “I can do this too”. And it all just started to snowball from there.
Matt: Perfect. And we had lots of fun on that topic with our coaching calls, didn’t we?
Yvette: We absolutely did.
How she got started with her new content site
Matt: You came up with this idea for your content website only two years ago. You’re seeing this trend taking off in America at the time. What were your next steps? How did you go from finding an interesting idea to getting started?
Step 1: Do lots of research
Yvette: The first thing I did was a Google search. And I followed Matt’s favourite saying, “Right-click -> Open tab.”
I opened everything I could find on pickleball. One of my favourite articles was from a big news company. Their headline was “Pickleball: The Fastest Growing Sport You’ve Never Heard Of.” And I thought, “Yep, that’s the one for me.”
Through her research, Yvette became an expert in the topic of Pickleball…
Yvette: So, I went through all my keyword research. For everything that I could find on pickleball, I just read, and read, and read.
This is back when AI writing wasn’t a thing. So, everything that I had to write was from me. I had to understand what I was reading. I’m a beginner and have yet to learn about this sport:
What do I want to know that I can tell other people? What do I need to explain to them?
What do I need to show my readers so that they can then say, “You know what? I’ve come here as a beginner, and here’s all the information I need.” This is a great way of providing information for someone in the same position as me.
Step 2: Write good-quality helpful content
Yvette: I read lots of information and then wrote about it. I love writing on Saturday afternoons. Every week, I’d write one or two articles. And if it were raining, I’d write three or four articles.
Whenever I wrote an article, I would also find images that suited what I had written about.
Matt: Perfect. So this is a side hustle, and you did it part-time. As you said, if it was raining and you were stuck at home, you would write a few extra articles.
So, you wrote the articles and didn’t bother to outsource. You just approached it from the perspective that you are the perfect custom avatar. You want to know about pickleball. You researched it and wrote the articles.
What was the typical kind of article that you would write?
Yvette: I broke it down into several sections.
1. Informational articles
Yvette: The first thing I thought people needed to know about was the rules of the game. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s not like tennis, where you might have a rough idea of the rules.
So, I talked about the rules and strategies of the game. I wrote a couple of dozen of these sorts of informational articles.
2. Review articles
Yvette: The next step was to start monetising the site. So, I started writing reviews on the:
- Paddles
- Nets
- Balls, etc
I kept it simple. If you’re going to play, you’ll need a paddle, a net, and a ball.
So, I started with that. Then, as traffic started to build and things started to grow, I added in equipment, shoes, etc.
But I always tried to keep the ratio 75% pure information and then 25% monetising it so that it didn’t look spammy.
I didn’t want my readers to think I just wanted to make money out of this. Of course, the aim was to make money, but the main goal was actually to:
- Attract readers to the site,
- Then, keep them returning to the site.
Matt: You’ve hit the nail on the head. That’s what good SEO is about, especially in this day and age of AI.
That’s why your site is particularly good. You’ve built it genuinely to help people and put yourself in the customer’s shoes. You were the customer.
The importance of a customer avatar for your content sites
…how Yvette fully embraced the ideal customer avatar for a pickleball site to understand her ideal audience…
Matt: At this stage, had you ever played a game of pickleball?
Yvette: I have never played and haven’t even seen a court. Every now and then, I’d wander into a sports shop, and they didn’t even stock paddles. I thought, “Fair enough, I’m not buying one unless I spot it in a store here.”
But I still didn’t want to buy one, so I was learning everything as I went. I thought, “Yes, I’m the main customer, but my sister Erin plays, too, and we play together”.
My customer avatar story was that I was looking for a sport or exercise for my elderly mum when I kept stumbling upon pickleball. So I had the whole story mapped out in my head, and we just kept building on it.
Matt: Okay, so this is your persona. You don’t actually have a sister who you played pickleball with?
Yvette: No, And my name’s not Patty either.
Matt: And what’s the name of the site you came up with?
Yvette: It was Pickleball Patty, and I was Patty.
Matt: You are Patty. And your sister was Erin.
She created a logo designed around her ideal customer avatar
Yvette: I had a little logo drawn up of a lady with blonde hair in a pigtail. The whole thing was done ‘tongue in cheek’. It was all a bit of fun, and I tried to put that humour and lightheartedness into all my writing.
What Yvette did to grow traffic on her site
Matt: So, this was a fun side hustle for you. And you wrote about it once or twice a week?
Yvette: As I mentioned, I started with one or two articles a week, but if it was raining, I would squeeze in more.
Of course, after a while, you can eventually run out of ideas! So, once I saw the traffic pick up nicely, I went back to just one article a week. It all depended on what was happening with the traffic at the time.
Matt: You showed me some nice screenshots of your site’s traffic stats, which tell the story well.
As you said to me in your email, “Page views were rambling along until March 2022 when I got a good rise in traffic to 100+ page views per day.”
Was that from posting one to two articles a week on the site?
Yvette: Yes. So, to start with, I needed to make sure this would work by consistently posting once a week.
Once it hit a hundred views a day, I posted more often, perhaps two to three times a week.
In saying that, every time Google did an update, the traffic would fall again. When that happened, I would think, “Okay, so I need to go back and try to change some of the wording on my original articles. Or I need to post more often for the next couple of months.”
Overall, traffic was sometimes a bit up and down with Google updates.
Matt: If you’re reading this and have been through a few Google updates, you know what Yvette (or Patty) is referring to here.
Increasing traffic isn’t always a straight line; it goes up and down. But the good thing is quality websites can bounce back.
That’s exactly what Yvette found throughout the life of this project. She had built such strong authority on her site, and Google recognises she’s being really helpful to people.
You were providing really helpful content.
1. Write helpful content
Matt: To summarise, what we teach at eBusiness Institute is what Yvette’s done. It’s a very simple content strategy. But what Yvette did was slightly different in that she wrote all the general content herself.
There is some really smart stuff that you also did, Yvette, later on that I want to cover here for the readers. So, realistically, the strategy is just posting content—one or two articles a week. That’s it. There’s nothing complex about that.
2. Monetise the content
Matt: Then you waited until it reached a hundred views a day and decided to monetise it.
How did you start to monetise it?
Yvette: The first way I monetised it was through Amazon. That’s the easiest option. You only need three sales in 180 days, so I easily achieved that.
Once I had Amazon chugging along, I could then start other methods.
How Yvette grew her income from $185 to over $1,200 by changing affiliate offers
1. She started with a simple Amazon Affiliate account
Matt: So, you had an Amazon affiliate account. And you just recommended products like pickleball bats, nets, and balls.
Do you remember what your first sales were?
Yvette: Oh, I think I made 20 cents.
Matt: What were the products?
Yvette: It would’ve been paddles.
Matt: And was that a big seller?
Yvette: Yes. And I did paddles for children, paddles for women, paddles for spin, paddles for whatever. I could think of the different types of paddles because there were exponentially many more different ones.
I mean, a ball is a ball is a ball. Whereas, for paddles, I could use a lot of different spins on that.
Matt: So, looking at this Amazon graph for six months, at this stage this was a brand new site. It’s not groundbreaking at this point. You made $185 in commissions here, which means proof of concept that this is working. It’s not just a side hustle or fun project.
But let’s look at this chart even further. What’s interesting is that Amazon said you made $4,700 in sales. And isn’t Amazon so generous? From those sales, they gave you $185 in commissions. So, what did you do at that point?
2. She then increased her website income by using higher-level affiliate companies
Yvette: I got smart, and I went to someone else.
Another company selling online was Pickleball Central. They started with a 10% commission, which I thought was so much better than Amazon giving me 4%.
Over the next six months, I was starting to put a bit through them, and they sent me an email saying, “Thanks for all your support. We’ll set you up to 15%.
So, now I’m earning a 15% commission from them. I still had Amazon on the site to some degree, but most of my affiliate links went to Pickleball Central.
Matt: To get the 15% commission at that point is pretty cool.
3. Affiliate sales grew over the Christmas period
Matt: If you’re a beginner, Amazon is an absolutely amazing place to start. It’s your proof of concept. The Amazon Affiliate commissions aren’t great, but they are automated. And it looks like you were making about $15 a month from Amazon, Yvette.
But what Yvette did was smart. You went to a much higher affiliate payer, and based on the screenshot here, you were then making an average of $280 a month.
Matt: You also found that sales jumped up over Christmas, which is very typical for affiliate sites. What was your commission over Christmas?
Yvette: I made between $1200 and $1400 over the Christmas period.
Matt: So, that’s where you can get a real boost with these tiny niche sites. And it’s seriously cool just from an idea like that in such a cute niche.
4. Yvette then expanded her product range to higher priced items within the niche
Matt: You were getting successful at this point. That’s just off small products that aren’t really sold for very much money. What did you do then?
Yvette: I found a ball-shooting game that you can play by yourself. So, I wrote quite a few articles on how to practise this by yourself.
Out of those articles, I could then lead into one of these ball-shooting things (you can see how technical I am with this sport 😉 )
Matt: Yes, you don’t even know the name of the shooting thing!
Yvette: No, I don’t.
So, there were these cheap ones you could buy on Amazon. But there was also this guy who had designed a military-grade, stainless steel, bells and whistles thing for $2,500.
Matt: Is it in America?
Yvette: Yes, and it was per unit.
So, I wrote to him, saying, “I’m getting this many people per day coming to my site. I can put an article or two about you on the site. Are you happy to give me some money for it?” And he said, “All right, I’ll give you $100 for every one I sell.”
In the end, I sold four, so I got $400 for them.
Then he asked me if I could help him sell these in Australia. And I said, “Mate, by the time you get your currency conversion, that’s AUD $3,500-$4,000. Of course, I will help you.”
Matt: Good answer to that.
Yvette: So, that was another little on the side hustle to earn extra income. And both he and I benefited. It all goes round.
Matt: And it’s a learning curve.
So, at this point, it’s a straightforward content site model. It’s been made really well. You’ve:
- Posted good quality, solid articles.
- You’ve then tested it with Amazon to get some affiliate commissions.
- And then stepped it up with better affiliate offers.
You still kept Amazon on there because it’s a top-notch selling platform. You never know; someone might buy a pickleball bat off Amazon. But if they go ahead and buy something expensive like a computer, you still get a commission for that. That’s where you can win.
How else can you naturally grow a small, successful content site?
The additional tactics Yvette used to grow her niche content site even more…
Matt: I want to change gears and bring it back to the traffic strategy.
You started playing with some other interesting tactics, which I think our readers will find really helpful in niches like this.
Can you talk about the two things you did?
1. She added a Pinterest channel that resonated with this niche audience
Matt: Your VA helped with another traffic strategy that worked quite well, which we’ve seen succeed on many affiliate sites. What was she doing for you?
Yvette: She took the articles I posted on my website and posted them on Pinterest. And look, I don’t use social media at all. I don’t like it. It’s not for me. But I thought, “Yes, I think Pinterest is the style that would suit this audience.”
Yvette: We were getting 1,500 views a month. I recently just had a look, and the person who purchased the site from me still has it on Pinterest, and they’re now getting 10,000 views a month.
Matt: Wow! It’s grown 10X in terms of views. A lot of us aren’t into social media, but it works really well with content sites now. Certain affiliate sites can benefit from this strategy.
Was it easy for you to implement with your VA?
Yvette: Yes, that’s what she does. I just told her the process, and she repeated it. She was posting about three times a week.
Matt: She was literally just cutting snippets from your written articles and sticking them on Pinterest with an image.
Yvette: Yes, that’s all there was to it.
Matt: She was your normal VA. Is she in the Philippines?
Yvette: Yes. And I used her with my Digital Agency, so this was just another task she had to handle for me.
Matt: That’s awesome, and it’s a pretty simple content-driving strategy.
2. Adding Real Expertise – Interview other experts in the Niche
Matt: Can you share the second thing you used for your site? We talk about this tactic all the time in Champions.
This is important because you (aka Patty) have never played pickleball or held a paddle. So, how did you fill that gap?
Yvette: So, I went onto the Upwork platform and thought, “Alright, I could get someone to write for me”. Then, I came across a pickleball expert.
Matt: Presumably, someone who had played the game of pickleball for real?
Yvette: That’s right.
When I was looking for a writer on Upwork, I listed my interests and such. Someone reached out and said, “Hey, I’m interested in pickleball.” I asked, “What’s your story?”
She said she was a divorced woman who had moved house and bought a property with a rundown pickleball (or tennis) court in her backyard. So, the local community came to her house on a Wednesday as a community thing and used her court in her backyard.
Then, the local news crew came out and told a story about the local community using her house to play pickleball. So, she had the video of this news story. It was such a great story.
This lady is also a writer, so she wrote me this beautiful story about what happened in her life because of pickleball and all the rest of it. I paid her $20 for this story and thought, “Well, I might be onto something here!”
How do you hire writers on Upwork who are experts in your niche?
Yvette: I then did a general job on Upwork, asking who’s played pickleball. For $20, I’ll publish your story and link back to you so that it helps you, too (i.e., your site, Facebook, socials, whatever).
I had a few people respond. And one particular person said, “If I write about my mum playing pickleball as well, will you pay me twice?” I said, “Okay”. So, I then had Jonathan’s story and Jonathan’s mum’s.
I ended up with stories from about a dozen people worldwide. It wasn’t just America, but people from around the world who played pickleball. I just published their stories.
Matt: Well done. This makes it so easy to create content because you don’t have to be the expert. You paid someone else to do it. It’s legitimate, real, and helpful content for your readers.
Plus, they send in their real photos. In this day and age of AI, putting real content and images onto your site is awesome.
So, if you’re reading this and thinking, “How can I expand my content?” Just do what Yvette’s done: jump on Upwork. We teach this here at eBusiness Institute. It’s a simple strategy where you pay other people to write for you. You’d be amazed at how cost-effective it is, too.
Experts don’t necessarily want to be paid heaps; they just want the backlink. Sometimes, you can get it done for free, particularly in passion niches. But it’s smart to offer $20 on Upwork because it’s a no-brainer for everyone. There’s no stress on anyone’s part. It’s just an easy way to do it, so I love that. Well done.
How a $600 site made Yvette over $6,000 in income
$how me the Pickleball money!
Matt: You’ve broken down how much the site cost you over the two years.
Yvette: For the 2 years, it cost me about $600, broken down as:
- Domain: $30 + 1 renewal = $60
- Hosting: Was shared with other websites I own = $48
- VA: Pinterest posting included with other duties = $400
Matt: Okay, but you haven’t factored in your time, Yvette (Patty). This was a passion project.
Yvette: Well, it was a nice way to spend my Saturday afternoons!
Matt: So, it cost you around $600. What were your total commissions over those two years?
Yvette: My total commissions during the two years totalled $6,135.
Matt: So, you made over $6,000 in commissions from a $600 investment in a side hustle. That’s the net amount, which is pretty cool. Not bad for a side hustle.
Why Yvette decided to sell the website
Have you ever wondered why people want to sell genuine, good quality websites?…
Matt: Let’s talk about the sale now. You’ve earned $6,000 in commissions, and the website is now running on autopilot. But it’s a really good site, so why did you decide to sell it?
Yvette: Life became very chaotic for me, so I needed to get rid of things that weren’t important at the time.
The popularity of pickleball was growing rapidly. Not only was my website traffic increasing, but in America, pickleball was gaining traction. They were replacing tennis courts with pickleball courts everywhere.
I had owned the pickleball site for two years and decided it was time to sell it, given its rising popularity.
Matt: Yvette, thank you for sharing that. I want people to understand that people sell perfectly good websites for all sorts of reasons. At the end of the day, the reason doesn’t matter. What matters is what you are going to do.
If you’re thinking of buying, don’t be alarmed that someone is selling a perfectly good web asset and wonder why they are doing that. There are legitimate reasons for selling. People just want to move on.
It’s similar to people getting bored with their properties and wanting to move on. It happens all the time. So, it’s the same with websites; there could be a lot happening. You may have other business interests (including online business), and this website might not be a significant part of your portfolio, so you just sold it.
How the website was sold for over US$15,000!
Matt: How were you able to secure such a high price for your website sale? I know you used professional broker services from one of our cherished Champion graduates, Joe Burrill. So, how did you decide to sell?
Yvette: Firstly, Joe Burrill is a legend for selling websites for top dollar.
Matt: Yes, he has risen through the ranks at eBusiness Institute and is one of our top graduates. He is constantly talked about and is one of the highest-ranked website brokers on the Flippa platform. He is very good at selling websites and has been taught by the best in the business.
Yvette: Absolutely, and I knew his pedigree, so I knew I needed to go to him.
The benefits of using a professional broker to sell your website
Matt: Did going through a broker like Joe make the process of selling your website easy? Besides putting in a legendary effort, what was your experience like?
Yvette: He sent me a questionnaire to fill out, requesting more detailed information than I initially provided.
While I approached it as a seller trying to get rid of something, he approached it as a potential buyer wanting to know everything before making a purchase.
Dealing with him prompted me to think from a different perspective and provide the necessary information.
The detailed information we provided made it easy for potential buyers to trust the quality of the item. Joe’s reputation also added to the trust factor.
It was a smooth and effortless process overall, taking only a couple of hours to complete the questionnaire and do some fine-tuning. After that, it was all in his hands. I believe that if I’m paying for a service, it’s the provider’s responsibility to make it work without my direct involvement.
Matt: Awesome.
I’m going to read what you said to me in your email. You said this is what it’s like working with a professional like Joe.
“I chatted with Joe on a Zoom call and then filled in his questionnaire. A few screenshots later, my website was ready to be listed on Flippa for auction. Joe is a consummate professional.”
Joe sold the site for 50x multiple within 7 days!
Matt: Well done, Joe, for such an exceptional result because you actually sold it. How long did it take to sell?
Yvette: I remember the auction lasted about five to seven days. Joe usually starts the bidding with a $1 reserve, which makes me put all my faith in him to start it at a dollar. He provided me with his valuation, which I agreed with.
Matt: Well, a site of that calibre is high-quality and should sell for around 30 times the profit. So, what did Joe initially value it at?
Yvette: $9,000-$10,000.
Matt: And then what did it end up selling for?
Yvette: $15,000.
Matt: All right! Well done.
Yvette: The price just kept increasing. I remember there were 118 or 138 bidders in the end.
Matt: Yes, there was so much interest in it. It is such a good-quality asset. It’s very legitimately built, and it’s a solid asset that’s worth that sort of money.
Yvette: There were people bidding in $50 increments. They weren’t big increments, but it just kept ticking.
In the end, two people were interested, which is the best type of auction. And it just kept going up and up and up.
And if I can, I’d like to read what Joe wrote. He said, “I’m very pleased that the auction just ended with the highest bid being $14,800. So $15,000. This is well beyond our expectations. I’m curious to know how you feel about it?“
I wrote back and said, “I feel good!!” And I wanted to attach the James Brown gif with him doing the splits! But that was precisely how I felt.
That’s how Yvette was able to turn a simple content site into a highly profitable sale…
Matt: Wow, Yvette, that’s an amazing story. You must be really happy. It’s cool and inspirational for everyone to hear, especially in this day and age of AI and all the changes happening in the search results.
You built a site from scratch, just like we’ve always done, and sold it two years later for $15,000. It was a simple content site, as you said, nothing fancy. You’d never even played the sport.
You started with the standard Amazon affiliate stuff and then moved on to higher-level affiliate offers. There’s nothing complex about the strategy at all. It all works seamlessly. Now, you’ve had a really nice win, and you’ve been able to inspire a whole heap within our community.
Yvette: It was a good win. I was able to buy a nice outdoor setting with the money.
As far as running the site, the only challenge I faced was consistency in writing. Sometimes, I wrote 300 words, sometimes a thousand. It all depended on the topic.
I wrote about simple things like court colours. Surprisingly, these simple, low-traffic keywords were some of the most popular pages people visited.
Matt: Yes, those low-competition ones are awesome.
Yvette: So, it’s simple things like that. There was nothing difficult about this at all.
Matt: And that’s what drove the site. Well, that is just so awesome. So a big thank you.
Do you want to learn more about how Yvette built and sold her content site?
Matt: If you are reading this and have never done our masterclass, now’s the time. Yvette is actually featured in there with her daughter, Jasmine.
But make sure if you’re new to this and want to learn how it all works, you go in and do our free masterclass. You’ll see how we buy and build these sorts of content sites and how we sell them. You’ve just heard from Yvette how she’s doing it here.
