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Researched profile. Starter Story's AI research system compiled this page from 40 public sources — the founder didn't write it. Automated research can misread or misattribute a source, so treat figures as best-effort. How this works →
The Wayward Home logo

How The Wayward Home Grew

Blog and media brand covering van life, RVs, boats, and tiny homes

How did The Wayward Home grow?

Summary of the sourced claims below

Kristin Hanes started The Wayward Home in 2017 and initially relied on Facebook groups, Pinterest, referrals and email. She later learned SEO, and rankings improved so that Google became a major growth engine for the site's van-life, RV, boat and tiny-home content. The site also participates in the Amazon Associates program and offers a free van life starter kit and downloadable guide to draw in readers.

Channels

27 channels · grouped by how The Wayward Home grows

  • SEO

    · 9 mentions · 8 sources
    “Start a Profitable Blog The long game that changed my life. My van life blog earning through ads and affiliates takes a year-plus to build, but it can become the most passive income on this list — mine has earned six figures annually since 2019.”
    high
    Show 8 more quotes
    “Then she decided to prioritize SEO, taking courses to help her improve her website's rankings. Implementing SEO strategies and updating old posts, Kristin saw a significant increase in traffic, reaching 120,000 page views per month by May 2019.”
    medium
    “I know you have a story about really landing on the SEO side, rather than maybe starting with SEO in mind as your as your kind of growth pattern, like, we just want to hear all the details about the perks, the pitfalls, the ups, the downs, like, take us through those first couple years as you wer...”
    medium
    “I put my severance pay from KGO into course after course, until I finally took the course that changed my blogging career: Stupid Simple SEO by Mike Futia. I learned all about SEO and my articles started ranking on Google. Traffic skyrocketed in the summer of 2019, and I was able to hire my first...”
    high
    “With niche topics and strong SEO, blogs drive traffic, build trust, and convert readers into loyal customers or subscribers.”
    medium
    “SEO was another important pillar. At the time of the interview, Nicolas was treating blog growth as a major project. He had already written four long-form posts and wanted to outsource more than 30 additional articles to grow organic daily visitors from 1,000 to 3,000, and eventually to 5,000.”
    medium
    “KeepTheScore reached $10,000 in monthly gross revenue after its founder made search-focused pages the core of his marketing.”
    medium
    “The Wayward Home 是由记者 Kristin Hanes 于 2017 年创办的博客与媒体品牌，内容覆盖 van life、sailboat living、RVing、tiny homes 和 alternative living。网站发布房车生活、房车居住、船屋生活和小住宅相关指南，也整理旅途中赚钱的内容，并提供车辆与另类住宅的实用建议。”
    medium
    “The visible site signals are a blog, topic browsing, and downloadable van life resources. Visitors can browse topics covering Van Life, RV Living, Tiny Home, Boat Life, and Make Money, or read recent blog posts.”
    medium

  • Organic social media

    · 5 mentions · 5 sources
    “Welcome! The Wayward Home is a blog and media brand founded by journalist Kristin Hanes in 2017. It covers van life, sailboat living, RVing, and tiny homes ... This site publishes practical guides, gear reviews, and personal stories for people pursuing alternative living.”
    high
    Show 4 more quotes
    “And a lot of that was through my Facebook group sharing. The people would come to my site and sign up for the email list.”
    high
    “She decided to start a blog and share interview-based articles about nomads on social media platforms like Facebook and Pinterest.”
    medium
    “Courtney talks about how she leveraged social media connections to find and befriend fellow nomads online when she first started out.”
    medium
    “Van life and boat life are inherently watchable, and channel ad revenue plus sponsorships built many a nomad’s income. Even modest channels earn through the mid-roll ads long-form video allows.”
    medium

  • Email List Growth

    · 4 mentions · 4 sources
    “Kristin Hanes started The Wayward Home in 2017 and initially relied on Facebook groups, Pinterest, referrals and email. She later learned SEO, rankings improved, and Google became a major growth engine for the site's van-life, RV, boat and tiny-home content.”
    medium
    Show 3 more quotes
    “And he said, yeah, I live on my sailboat in Sausalito. I'm on your email list. I was like, what? ... And so I felt like my cover was blown. I was like, Oh no, he's going to tell all these rich people that I'm like this broke living out of my van.”
    medium
    “how she originally started an email newsletter that's been paying off dividends”
    medium
    “The site also offers a free van life starter kit, a free downloadable van life guide, and a resource list of van life essentials.”
    medium

  • Facebook Community

    · 4 mentions · 3 sources
    “I did Facebook group sharing, I'd find like, you know, sailing Facebook groups, I'd find RVing groups and van life groups. And I would just share my articles to these groups. And that got me a lot of traffic in the beginning, actually, surprisingly”
    high
    Show 3 more quotes
    “Join The Wayward Home Facebook Group!”
    medium
    “Before I knew anything about SEO, I did all I could to get people over to my site. That included posting in Facebook groups ... All those efforts were enough to get me into Mediavine six months after starting The Wayward Home.”
    high
    “Build a Facebook Page Grow a niche Facebook page and Meta’s content monetization program pays you for the views your posts earn. It’s how I built one of my main income streams — my three pages reach tens of millions of views a month.”
    high

  • Press

    · 3 mentions · 3 sources
    “I think I have been lucky that I have been quoted in some articles by some bigger newspapers and publications. So I've had an article written about me like in Lonely Planet for example. I had a local TV station in San Francisco interview me. I was on a TV show in Portland.”
    high
    Show 2 more quotes
    “The Wayward Home In The News I’ve been featured on many news outlets so far, including magazines, newspapers and on TV. I’m also an accomplished freelance writer with articles published in Good Housekeeping, Marie Claire, SF Gate and more.”
    high
    “but for a van life blog website, that getting quoted in the lonely planet would be probably the, the, the best link you could probably have in terms of authority plus relevance, plus trust...Any of those travel sites or any major news media site, I think are all like really good, so I'm glad that...”
    medium

  • Leveraging existing platforms

    · 3 mentions · 3 sources
    “Sell Printables on Etsy Design planners, trackers, and templates once; Etsy sells the download forever.”
    medium
    Show 2 more quotes
    “The Wayward Home 参与 Amazon Services, LLC Associates program。”
    medium
    “The Wayward Home participates in the Amazon Associates program.”
    medium

  • Pinterest

    · 3 mentions · 2 sources
    “I did Pinterest. And so I started uploading, you know, pins, I took a Pinterest course. So I thought that was the way to go was to do social sharing. That's all I kind of knew about for the first six months.”
    high
    Show 2 more quotes
    “She decided to start a blog and share interview-based articles about nomads on social media platforms like Facebook and Pinterest.”
    medium
    “Before I knew anything about SEO, I did all I could to get people over to my site. That included ... taking Pinterest courses and posting on Pinterest ... All those efforts were enough to get me into Mediavine six months after starting The Wayward Home.”
    high

  • Online Community

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “a lot of that was through my Facebook group sharing. The people would come to my site and sign up for the email list.”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “She then eventually met some of these internet friends in person while traveling. Courtney explains how attending van life gatherings and events is one of the best ways to meet fellow wanderers. She discusses some popular events like Descend on Bend and the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous.”
    medium

  • Guest posts

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “I had friends at SF gate. And they were like, they saw what I was doing with the site. And they're like, Can I can we republish some of those. And so that got me a leg up, like in the first six months of the business is they republished them, they used canonical links, which I didn't know what th...”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “With connections at SF Gate, some of her early articles got republished on the site, bringing her some quality traffic and links.”
    medium

  • LinkedIn

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “or even on Instagram and the new threads, however that's going to turn out, but I'm on The Wayward Home over there. I have a Facebook page, The Wayward Home...”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “Running Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook for brands — scheduling, engagement, reporting. Every business needs it; few want to do it. Pros: recurring retainers; stackable clients.”
    medium

  • Influencer partnerships

    · 1 mention
    “Become an Amazon Influencer Recommend gear you actually use through Amazon’s influencer and affiliate programs. Nomads reviewing van gear have natural credibility.”
    medium

  • Product Hunt

    · 1 mention
    “Its first users came from launches on Product Hunt and Hacker News.”
    medium

  • Hacker News

    · 1 mention
    “Its first users came from launches on Product Hunt and Hacker News.”
    medium

  • Weekly newsletter

    · 1 mention
    “By continuing to publish failure interviews, building Startup Cemetery, and running a weekly newsletter, Failory gave readers reasons to come back.”
    medium

  • Content marketing

    · 1 mention
    “So I started experimenting with that. And some of these keywords only have a volume of 50 or 20, like low. But what I found is since nobody's writing about them yet, they attract tons of other keywords. ... And so that strategy has worked well for me, both with the affiliate. Type articles and fo...”
    high

  • Brand partnerships

    · 1 mention
    “If you see ads on my site, that is the main way it makes money! Also affiliate links, sponsorships and my own products.”
    high

  • Advertising on social media

    · 1 mention
    “Facebook ads have performed well for me in the past so I may try to implement this strategy again, especially if I create more products designed for the van life community to offset my advertising costs.”
    high

  • Backlinks

    · 1 mention
    “Some bigger like vehicle review sites have linked to me. A couple, I think like a magazine Esquire or something linked to me. I don't even, I can't even. Find the link, but it's in my H refs database. So some, I don't really actively do it, but I am getting linked to just from putting out good co...”
    high

  • Word of mouth

    · 1 mention
    “I focus more on creating that content and maybe someone wants to link to me. And I have seen that happen. Some bigger like vehicle review sites have linked to me a couple. I think like a magazine, Esquire or something linked to me.”
    high

  • Email marketing

    · 1 mention
    “Having an email list is one of my prized possessions over at The Wayward Home... I treat my email subscribers as friends, sharing personal updates, asking how they are doing, and providing relevant and interesting content. I try to email my list at least once per week, and I have a couple of auto...”
    high

  • Affiliate program

    · 1 mention
    “If you see ads on my site, that is the main way it makes money! Also affiliate links, sponsorships and my own products.”
    high

  • Referral Program

    · 1 mention
    “When I launched my first product, Niche Sites Made Easy ... I did a pre-launch sale to my email list ... Over 50 people pre-purchased my course at the founder's rate of $97, resulting in $5,000 in sales in just one week! My people came through, supporting my new business idea.”
    high

  • Webinars

    · 1 mention
    “Guest posting helped with SEO, while advertising did not produce major results.”
    medium

  • Interview Blog Content

    · 1 mention
    “I started writing articles where I was interviewing nomads. I was like, yeah, I was a journalist, I know how to interview people. I know how to share stories. And so that's the kind of article I was writing was just interview based articles.”
    high

  • Radio Advertising

    · 1 mention
    “Van life and boat life are inherently watchable, and channel ad revenue plus sponsorships built many a nomad’s income.”
    medium

  • I’m offering this for free

    · 1 mention
    “官网提供免费 van life 入门资料和可下载指南，同时列出 60+ Van Life Essentials 清单。值得借鉴的是先用免费 van life 指南承接兴趣人群，再用博客文章、主题分类和清单持续组织内容，让同一主题有多个阅读入口。”
    medium

  • Podcasting

    · 1 mention
    “PODCASTS: The MindUnset Podcast: Strong Women, Strong Coffee with Kristin Hanes Fire Drill: Digital Nomading on a Sailboat Tiny House Lifestyle: How to Prepare for Boondocking and the Off-Grid Life ... The Newsworthy: Van Life Takes Off”
    medium

How 3,017 businesses grow

Of businesses with mapped growth channels, the share using each — The Wayward Home’s highlighted.
  • Referral/Word-of-mouth
    67% ◀
  • Social media
    63% ◀
  • Search/SEO
    58% ◀
  • Email
    48% ◀
  • Community
    37% ◀
  • Content/Inbound
    35% ◀
  • Partnerships
    33% ◀
  • Events
    25% ◀
  • Paid ads
    24% ◀
  • Outbound/Sales
    19%
  • Press/PR
    18% ◀
  • Marketplaces/App stores
    11% ◀
  • Podcasting
    4% ◀
  • Building in public
    3%
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