I've been blogging since August of 2008, and loving it. Since I started blogging, I've heard something that never sat well with me:

In order to Make Money Online, you have to teach people to Make Money Online.

Is it just me, or do you see a problem with that concept too?

Well, as someone who teaches people to build online businesses by building Authority blogs, one of the things I've realized is that there's A LOT that can be done when it comes to blogging, OUTSIDE of niches like teaching people to make money, talking about social media or showing people how to blog (go figure).

In fact, when I realized how powerful blogging can be, I started to see how much easier it can be (in certain cases) to build a blog in less competitive niches that can accomplish great things, and build a massive business.

I then saw how EASY it can be (relatively speaking) to get into a smaller space online and build something massive.

Why You Should Blog About Something Else

When it comes to blogging, there are some key benefits to blogging about something non “internet marketty” (hey, I just coined a new term, lol)

Most “Non-Internet Marketty” people don't know how to market their blogs. In this world of teaching online business, the competition is stiff.

People study SEO, Traffic Generation, Social Media and all that jazz. Outside of the “Internet Marketty” niches, bloggers are less informed about that stuff. That makes it easy for you to come in and do it better than them.

What this means is pretty simple – If you can go into another niche and do some of the things you learn studying internet marketing, you'd be surprised at how quickly you can rise to the top (if you do it the right way).

Get my drift so far? Well keep reading . . .

My Decision To Prove It To Myself

One day, I was doing some keyword research and I was amazed at the lack of competition I saw for something I was passionate about – Biology. Yeah, there were lots of sites about biology, but no one was doing it the way I knew it could've been done.

Nobody was blogging about biology with personality.

Nobody was REALLY using Youtube to make awesome biology videos in a way that makes it fun.

The Blogs that were out there weren't even Optimized for SEO, but were getting a SIGNIFICANT Amount of traffic.

I had been studying how to build an authority blog, and I was able to do it about teaching people to make money. That's extremely competitive.

So, I decided that I needed to prove it to myself AND to my Audience

Why I Chose Biology

If you don't know it by now, I love biology. I studied biology in College, did a Master's degree in Neurobiology, taught Biology at the high school level, and now I teach at a University.

I LOVE BIOLOGY

Yes, you may call me a nerd, and I'll happily agree with you. Hey, being a nerd is fun, and I decided that if I was going to start a blog that would take a significant amount of energy, I wanted to do it about something I was Passionate about.

The Journey Began

So off I was to make my Biology Blog, and I was going to do it well. I installed WordPress, added a nice theme from Woothemes, and started adding content.

In installed the “All In One SEO Pack” plugin to make sure my blog was optimized for SEO.

When I first started, I made 3 to 5 videos per week, embedded them into blog posts and included the transcript. I did this because Google can't tell what's in your video. By including the content, I was giving Google all the info they need to get a good idea of what's on my blog.

Key Point: The more information you can give Google about what your blog is about, the better. That's the simple explanation of what SEO is all about.

How I Got Traffic

My traffic generation strategy was pretty simple – Create AWESOME content and then put it out there for people to find it

  • I posted my videos on Youtube. Youtube is the #2 search engine next to Google (who owns Youtube). By putting my videos there, I was putting up content that people was looking for in a place where they're very likely to look.
  • I linked back to my site in the description of all my videos. Sounds simple doesn't it? Yes, it is. With every video that I put up, that was one more place linking to my website. People watched the videos, saw the link, and click back to my site.
  • At the end of each video, I gave a call to action inviting people to visit my site to get more resources.
  • I embedded each video on my blog with the transcript. Content is king, and by having lots of it, I'm making the Google Beast happy. When Google is Happy with your site, you're happy with Google
  • There were a number of other biology blogs out there. After selecting a few of them, I contacted the owners to let them know about my site. I knew that many of them would love what I was doing and that they wouldn't mind sharing it with their audience. When they saw it, a number of them got very excited and decided to link back to me. Why? Because (as I said above), I created AWESOME content, and that content was link worthy.

That's pretty much it!

I know what you're thinking – I'm making it sound too easy. Well, I'd try to make it sound more difficult, but I'm not sure how to. This is exactly what I did, and I truly believe that there are MANY other niches out there in which YOU could do the same.

Where My Traffic is today

In the last month, I've had 39,811 visits to my biology site by 29,306 unique visitors in 167 different countries. There have been 125,365 Pageviews to my site.

Now, I don't know about you, but that gets me excited. To think that little old me can sit in my office here in Michigan and reach people ALL OVER THE WORLD, helping them to do better in Biology is Awesome. So many students are struggling to become teachers, nurses, doctors and beyond, and I get to play a part in that process. I get to help them through their struggles. SO AWESOME.

Yeah, that was me getting excited.

So How Does My Site Make Money?

Yes, I do this because I'm passionate about Biology. Yes, I LOVE helping people and helping them accomplish their goals. However, YES – I'm building a business and a business isn't really a business unless it's making some Moolaahh (weird language for money).

When it comes to making money, I'm currently using two strategies:

Strategy #1 – Ebook sales. After I had been making videos for a while, I came to the realization that I was making videos based on notes that I wrote when I was in college.

Those notes were valuable, and if I packaged them as an Ebook, I could sell them and make some money.

So that's exactly what I did. I formatted my notes in a Word Processor, made them look nice, uploaded it to E-Junkie and sold it from my blog. That simple.

And I called it “Human Physiology For Regular People“.

I didn't invest a significant amount of time to market it. I simply included a link on my site and in the signature of my Mailing List email and that was it.

Sales of my eBook have ranged between $400 and $800 per month – not a huge amount yet, but when I actually start promoting it, I expect to see more.

Strategy #2 – Adsense. Yes, I said Adsense. This is something I started testing on the evening of January 26th, 2012. By the end of the night, I had made $5.23. I now, I know – that's not a lot. BUT, it was in my first few hours. That got me excited. These were the amounts I made over the next few days:

$8.29
$9.54
$10.53
$17.41
$25.88
$31.24

Do you notice something? Yep, it was increasing steadily. And now, the site is making anywhere between $30 and $50 per day, with the highest peak at $79.10 on March 29th. As you can see, it's now doing around $1000 per month, and with how it has been increasing, I can see it doing significantly more over the next few months.

What was amazing was that I hadn't done ANYTHING to the site since February. In other words, that money was 100% Passive.

So as of right now, it's making about $1,500 – $1,800 per month and I haven't touched it in a while. This is all based on the effort I put in last year to build an Authority Blog.

Did this make me happy? Heck yeah!

BUT, it also shows me something – I can do so much more, and make so much more. It also shows me that it's VERY possible to make money blogging about your passion, whether that has to do with making money, or something like teaching biology.

What I have Planned For The Future

As I've mentioned before, my site has been pretty dormant over the last few months. From what I know, adding more content is CRUCIAL to helping the site grow. So, I decided to hire writers for the site.

We now have a staff of 6 writers who are responsible for posting 1 new blog post every weekday, with more awesome content to help the site grow. More Awesome Content = More Traffic = Help More People = Make More Money = Happy Leslie

Also, I plan on Optimizing my blog to increase sales. If you go to my site right now, it's really hard to find where to buy my Study Guide. I need to make this easier. By doing so, more people will no about the study guide, which will naturally result in more people buying.

Lastly, I plan to work on developing more products (over time). This is something that will take time (because I have too much to work on right now), but I strongly believe that this will increase my bottom line significantly.

So, have you been thinking about blogging about your passion? My message to you is simple – DO IT!

About the Author Leslie Samuel


Leslie Samuel a business coach for high-performing entrepreneurs. As the host of the Leslie Samuel Show, he teaches how to build an online business. "Changing the world one post at a time” is the mission he strives towards. As a former university professor, he has a passion for education. He's the founder of Interactive Biology, a blog and YouTube channel dedicated to making biology fun for students and teachers. As the head of training for the Social Media Marketing Society, he helps social media marketers get the training they need to stay on the leading edge of social media.

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